"I see it in your face." He listened to me for half an hour as I told him everything, and I was so grateful for his patience. I knew he had to vote several times that day and that many people wanted slivers of his time.
"You're a good man," I said with feeling.
"And I have let you down. I asked you for a favor, which is something I almost never do, and the situation has ended in disgrace. "
"Did she do it?" he asked, and he had scarcely touched his grilled vegetables.
"I don't know," I replied.
"The evidence is incriminating." I cleared my throat.
"She says she didn't do it."
"Has she always told you the truth?"
"I thought so. But I've also been discovering of late that there are many important facets to her that she has not told me."
"Have you asked?"
"She's made it clear that some things aren't my business. And I shouldn't judge."
"If you're afraid of being judgmental, Kay, then you probably already are. And Lucy would sense this no matter what you say or don't say."
"I've never enjoyed being the one who criticizes and corrects her," I said, depressed.
"But her mother, Dorothy, who is my only sibling, is too male dependent and self-centered to deal with the reality of a daughter."
"And now Lucy is in trouble, and you are wondering how much of it is your fault."
"I'm not conscious of wondering that."
"We rarely are conscious of those primitive anxieties that creep out from under reason. And the only way to banish them is to rum on all the lights. Do you think you're strong enough to do that?"
"Yes."
"Let me remind you that if you ask, you also must be able to live with the answers."
"I know."
"Let's just suppose for a moment that Lucy's innocent," said Senator Lord.
"Then what?" I asked.
"If Lucy didn't violate security, obviously someone else did. My question is why?"
"My question is how," I said. He gestured for the waitress to bring coffee.
"What we really must determine is motive. And what would Lucy's motive be? What would anybody's motive be?" Money was the easy answer, but I did not think that was it and told him so.
"Money is power, Kay, and everything is about power. We fallen creatures can never get enough of it."
"Yes, the forbidden fruit."
"Of course. All crime stems from it," he said.
"Every day that tragic truth is carried in on a stretcher," I agreed.
"Which tells you what about the problem at hand?" He stirred sugar into his coffee.
"It tells me motive."
"Well, of course. Power, that's it. Please, what would you like me to do?" my old friend asked.
"Lucy will not be charged with any crime unless it is proven that she stole from ERF. But as we speak, her future is ruined-at least in terms of a career in law enforcement or any other one that might involve a background investigation."
"Have they proven that she was the one who got in at three in the morning?"
"They have as much proof as they need, Frank. And that's the problem.
I'm not certain how hard they'll work to clear her name, if she is innocent.
"If?"
"I'm trying to keep an open mind." I reached for my coffee and decided that the last thing I needed was more physical stimulation. My heart was racing and I could not keep my hands still.
"I can talk to the director," Lord said.
"All I want is someone behind the scenes making sure this thing is thoroughly investigated. With Lucy gone, they may not think it matters, especially since there is so much else to cope with. And she's just a college student, for God's sake. So why should they care?"
"I would hope the Bureau would care more than that," he said, his mouth grim.
"I understand bureaucracies. I've worked in them all my life."
"As have I."
"Then you must be clear on what I'm saying."
"I am."
"They want her in Richmond with me until next semester," I said.
"Then that is their verdict." He reached for his coffee again.
"Exactly. And that's easy for them, but what about my niece? She's only twenty-one years old. Her dream has just blown up mid flight What is she supposed to do? Go back to UVA after Christmas and pretend nothing went wrong?"
"Listen." He touched my arm with a tenderness that always made me wish he were my father.
"I will do what I can without the impropriety of meddling with an administrative problem. Trust me on that front?"
"I do."
"In the meantime, if you don't mind a little personal advice?" He motioned for the waitress as he glanced at his watch.
"Well, I'm late." He looked back at me.
"Your biggest problem is a domestic one."
"I disagree," I said with feeling.
"You can disagree all you like." He smiled at the waitress as she gave him the check.
"You're the closest thing to a mother Lucy has ever had. How are you going to help her through this?"
"I thought I was doing that today."
"And I thought you were doing this because you wanted to see me. Excuse me? " He motioned for the waitress.
"I don't think this is our check. We didn't have four entrees."
"Let me see. Oh, my. Oh, I sure am sorry. Senator Lord. It's the table there."
"In that case, make Senator Kennedy pay both tabs. His and mine." He handed her both bills.
"He won't object. He believes in tax and spend." The waitress was a big woman in a black dress and white apron, and hair stiffened into a black pageboy. She smiled and suddenly felt fine about her mistake.
"Yes, sir! I sure will tell the senator that."
"And you tell him to add on a generous tip, Missouri," he said as she walked off.
"You tell him I said so." Missouri Rivers wasn't a day younger than seventy, and since she'd left Raleigh decades ago on a northbound train, she had seen senators feast and fast, resign and get reelected, fall in love and fall from glory. She knew when to interrupt and get on with the business of serving food, and when to refill tea or simply disappear. She knew the secrets of the heart hidden so well in this lovely room, for the true measure of a human being is the way he treated people like her when no one was observing. She loved Senator Lord.
I knew that from the soft light in her eyes when she looked at him or heard his name.
"I'm just encouraging you to spend some time with Lucy," he continued.
"And don't get caught up in slaying other people's dragons, especially her dragons."
"I don't believe she can slay this dragon alone."
"My point is that Lucy doesn't need to know from you we had this conversation today. She doesn't need to know from you that I will pick up the phone on her behalf as soon as I return to my office. If anybody tells her anything, let it be me."
"Agreed," I said.
A little later I caught a taxi outside the Russell Building and found Benton Wesley where he said he would be at precisely two-fifteen. He was sitting on a bench in the amphitheater outside FBI headquarters, and though he seemed engrossed in a novel, he sensed me long before I was about to call his name.
A group taking a tour paid no attention to us as they walked past, and Wesley closed his book and slipped it into the pocket of his coat as he got up.
"How was your trip?" he asked.
"By the time I get to and from National, it takes as long to fly as it does to drive."
"You flew?" He held the door to the lobby for me.
"I'm letting Lucy use my car." He slipped off his sunglasses and got each of us a visitor's pass.
"You know the director of the crime labs, Jack Cartwright?"
"We've met."
"We're going to his office for a quick and dirty briefing," he said.
"Then there's a place I want to take you."
"Where might that be?"
"A place that's difficult to go to."
"Benton, if you're going to be cryptic, then I'll have no choice but to retaliate by speaking Latin."
"And you know how much I hate it when you do that." We inserted our visitor's passes into a turnstile and followed a long corridor to an elevator. Every time I came to headquarters I was reminded of how much I did not like the place. People rarely gave me eye contact or smiled, and it seemed everything and everyone hid behind various shades of white and gray. Endless corridors connected a labyrinth of laboratories that I could never find when left to my own devices, and worse, people who worked here did not seem to know how to get anywhere, either. Jack Cartwright had an office with a view, and sunlight filled his windows, reminding me of the splendid days I missed when I was working hard and worried.