A contingent of the hotel security had reacted swiftly to the alarm initiated by Carol’s call and was already on the scene. Several were busy roping off the area with yellow caution tape stretched between palm trees. A large African-Bahamian man dressed in a dark suit stepped from the shadows and intercepted the women.
“I’m sorry,” he said, blocking their path as well as their view. “There’s been an accident.”
“We’re staying with the victims,” Stephanie blurted. She tried to see around the sizable man.
“I’m sorry, but it is still best you remain here,” the man said. “Ambulances are on the way.”
“Ambulances?” Stephanie questioned, desperately maintaining her ray of hope.
“And the police,” the man added.
“Are they all right?” Stephanie hesitantly asked. “Are they still alive? We have to see them!”
“Ma’am,” the man said gently. “They fell from the thirty-second floor. It’s not a pretty sight.”
Ambulances had come to remove the bodies. The police arrived as well and conducted a preliminary investigation. They found the syringe, and it initially caused an excitement until Stephanie explained it was medication prescribed by a local doctor. This was confirmed by both Dr. Nawaz and Dr. Newhouse, who arrived soon after the tragedy. The police had accompanied the women and the doctors back up to the Poseidon Suite to check the balcony and the balustrade. The Chief Inspector then confiscated the women’s passports and told them they would be required to remain in the Bahamas until an inquest had been held. He also had the Poseidon Suite and Stephanie’s suite sealed for further investigation.
The hotel night manager had been a paragon of composure, efficiency, and empathy. Immediately and without question, he had transferred the women to a suite in the Royal Towers’ east wing, where they were now sitting. He also provided them with all sorts of personal care products to ease their short-term inability to use their own. Dr. Nawaz and Dr. Newhouse had remained for a time. Dr. Newhouse had provided a sedative for the women, which they could use if they so chose. Neither did. The small plastic container sat untouched on the coffee table between them.
Stephanie had been mulling over and over in her mind the entire affair, from the rainy night in Washington until the tragedy that morning. With hindsight, she had trouble believing that she and Daniel could have allowed themselves to be drawn into such a foolhardy business. Even stranger was their inability to recognize their folly, despite multiple setbacks that should have been hints that their decision-making was terribly flawed. They had truly confused ends and means. The fact that she had on occasion questioned what they were doing was scant comfort, because she had never acted on her intuitions.
Finally, Stephanie took her feet off the coffee table and sat up. She had exhausted her ability to introspect. With her fingers entwined, she stretched out her arms. She was stiff from inaction. After running her fingers through her hair and taking a deep breath, which she let out forcibly, she looked at Carol.
“You must be exhausted,” Stephanie said. “At least I got a few hours of sleep.”
“As strange as it may sound, I’m not,” Carol said. Following Stephanie’s lead, she too stretched. “I feel like I’ve had ten cups of coffee. I can’t stop thinking about how ridiculous this whole episode has been, from the night of that fateful meeting in my car until this current catastrophe.”
“You were against it?” Stephanie asked.
“Of course! I tried to talk Ashley out of it from the start.”
“I’m surprised.”
“Why?”
Stephanie shrugged. “I don’t know exactly, but I guess it’s because it means you and I felt similarly. I was against it too. I tried to talk Daniel out of it as well but unfortunately not stridently enough.”
“Apparently, we both were fated to be a Cassandra of sorts,” Carol said. “I suppose that is metaphysically apropos, since the whole affair has turned out to be a Greek tragedy.”
“How so?”
Carol gave a short, exhausted laugh. “Don’t mind me. I was a literature major in college, and sometimes I get carried away with my metaphors.”
“I’m interested,” Stephanie said. “How was it a Greek tragedy?”
Carol was silent for a moment, organizing her thoughts. “It’s because of the characters of the protagonists,” she said. “It’s the story of two titans, in their own separate arenas yet strangely similar in their hubris, who had achieved greatness but suffered tragic faults. Senator Butler’s was a love of power, which had evolved from a means to an end to an end in and of itself. Dr. Lowell’s, I’d guess, was a desire for financial recognition and celebrity status appropriate in his mind to his intellect and contribution. When these two men collided by conspiring to use each other for their own purposes, their tragic faults literally brought them down.”
Stephanie stared at Carol. She’d always thought of the self-contained woman as a colorless, rather dull, quintessential subordinate. Suddenly she felt differently and by comparison distinctly less intelligent and less educated than she had earlier. “What does it mean to be a Cassandra?”
“In Greek mythology, Cassandra was endowed with the gift of prophecy but fated not to be believed.”
“Interesting,” Stephanie said lamely. “At one point, I teased Daniel about being similar to Ashley.”
“In some respects, they were, at least in respect to their egos. But tell me, what was Dr. Lowell’s response to your teasing?”
“Anger.”
“I’m not surprised. Senator Butler’s response would have been the same if I had had the courage to say anything equivalent. Actually I believe they admired, despised, and were jealous of each other all at the same time. They were competitors in a distorted masculine sort of way.”
“Maybe so,” Stephanie said, as she mulled the idea. She wasn’t immediately convinced Daniel had admired much about Ashley Butler, but she recognized that her contemplative abilities were hardly at their sharpest. “Are you hungry?” she asked, to change the subject.
Carol shook her head. “Not in the slightest.”
“Nor am I,” Stephanie said. She was exhausted, but she knew she couldn’t sleep. What she wanted was human contact and conversation to keep her mind from going over and over the same issues. “What are you going to do when we can finally leave the Bahamas after the inquest?”
“I’m not sure there will be an inquest, or if there is, it will be quick, pro forma, and behind closed doors.”
“Oh? Why do you say that?”
“Ashley Butler was a senior U.S. Senator in a Congress with a slim majority. The United States government is going to be immediately and aggressively involved at a high level. I think this will all be resolved very, very quickly, because it will be in everybody’s interest. I even believe there will be powerful impetus to keep the affair from the media, if at all possible.”
“My word!” Stephanie muttered, as she pondered such a scenario. The idea had not occurred to her. In fact, in her mind’s eye she had already seen the headlines in The Boston Globe as the final coup de grace for CURE. Yet she had not considered the political ramifications due to Ashley’s notoriety.
“As for me,” Carol said, “I’m going to head home and arrange to see the governor. He’ll be making an appointment to Senator Butler’s seat, and I’ll make the case that I am the most qualified and should be selected. If that doesn’t happen or even if it does, I’ll start making the arrangements to run for the seat in the next election.”
“What do you think will happen to Senate Bill 1103?”
“Without Senator Butler, it will probably just languish,” Carol said. “Your worry should reside across the aisle, where the hard right Republicans might pick up the banner.”