Absolute Power

Chapter Six

Luther sat at the small conference room table in the very plainly furnished room. The chairs and table were old and carried a thousand scrapes. The rug was just as ancient and not very clean. A card holder was the only thing on the table other than his file. He picked up one of the cards and thumbed it. “Legal Services, Inc.” These people weren’t the best in the business; they were far from the halls of power downtown. Graduates of third-rate law schools with no shot at the traditional firm practice, they eked out their professional existence hoping for some luck down the road. But their dreams of big offices, big clients and, most important, big money faded a little more with the passage of each year. But Luther did not require the best. He only required somebody with a law degree and the right forms.

“Everything is in order, Mr. Whitney.” The kid looked about twenty-five, still full of hope and energy. This place was not his final destination. He still clearly believed that. The tired, pinched, flabby face of the older man behind him held out no such hope. “This is Jerry Burns, the managing attorney, he’ll be the other witness to your will. We have a self-proving affidavit, so we won’t have to appear in court as to whether or not we witnessed your will.” A stern-looking, forty-something woman appeared with her pen and notary seal. “Phyllis here is our notary, Mr. Whitney.” They all sat down. “Would you like me to read the terms of your will out to you?”

Jerry Burns had been sitting at the table looking bored to death, staring into space, dreaming of all the other places he would rather be. Jerry Burns, managing attorney. He looked like he would rather be shoveling cow manure on some farm in the Midwest. Now he glanced at his young colleague with disdain.

“I’ve read it,” Luther replied.

“Fine,” said Jerry Burns. “Why don’t we get started?”

Fifteen minutes later Luther emerged from Legal Services, Inc., with two original copies of his last will and testament tucked in his coat pocket.

Fucking lawyers, couldn’t piss, shit or die without them. That was because lawyers made all the laws. They had the rest of them by the balls. Then he thought of Jack and smiled. Jack was not like that. Jack was different. Then he thought of his daughter and his smile faded. Kate was not like that either. But then Kate hated him.

He stopped at a camera shop and purchased a Polaroid OneStep camera and a pack of film. He didn’t plan to let anyone else develop the pictures he was going to be taking. He arrived back at the hotel. An hour later he had taken a total of ten photos. These were wrapped in paper and placed in a manila folder that was then secreted far down into his backpack.

He sat down and looked out the window. It was almost an hour before he finally moved, sliding over and then collapsing onto the bed. Some tough guy he was. Not so indifferent that he could not flinch at death, not be horrified by an event that had ripped the life out of someone who should’ve lived a lot longer. And on top of it all was the fact that the President of the United States was involved in all of it. A man Luther had respected, had voted for. A man who held the country’s highest office had almost murdered a woman with his own drunken hands. If he had seen his closest relative bludgeon someone in cold blood, Luther would not have been any more sickened or shocked. It was as though Luther himself had been invaded, as though those murderous hands had been around his throat.

But something else gripped at him; something he could not confront. He turned his face to the pillow, closed his eyes in a futile effort to sleep.

“It’s great, Jenn.” Jack looked at the brick and stone mansion that stretched more than two hundred feet from end to end and had more rooms than a college dorm, and wondered why they were even there. The winding driveway ended in a four-car garage behind the massive structure. The lawns were groomed so perfectly that Jack felt he was staring at an enormous jade pool. The rear grounds were triple-terraced, with each terrace sporting its own pool. It had the standard accoutrements of the very wealthy: tennis courts and stables, and twenty acres — a veritable land empire by northern Virginia standards — on which to roam.

The Realtor waited by the front door, her late-model Mercedes parked by the large stone fountain covered with fistsize roses carved out of granite. Commission dollars were being swiftly calculated and recalculated. Weren’t they a terrific young couple? She had said that enough to where Jack’s temples throbbed.

Jennifer Baldwin took his arm and two hours later their tour was finished. Jack walked over to the edge of the broad lawn and admired the thick woods, where an eclectic grouping of elm, spruce, maple, pine and oak jostled for dominance. The leaves were beginning to turn and Jack observed the beginnings of reds, yellows and oranges dance across the face of the property they were considering.

“So how much?” He felt he was entitled to ask that question. But this had to be out of their ballpark. His ballpark anyway. He had to admit it was convenient. Only forty-five rush-hour minutes from his office. But they couldn’t touch this place. He looked expectantly at his fiancée.

She looked nervous, played with her hair. “Three million eight.”

Jack’s face went gray. “Three million eight hundred thousand? Dollars?”

“Jack, it’s worth three times that.”

“Then why the hell are they selling it for three million eight? We can’t afford it, Jenn. Forget it.”

She answered him by rolling her eyes. She waved reassuringly to the Realtor, who sat in her car writing up the contract.

“Jenn, I make a hundred twenty thou a year. You make about the same, maybe a little more.”

“When you make partner—”

“Right. My salary goes up, but not enough for this. We can’t make the mortgage payments. I thought we were moving into your place, anyway.”

“It’s not right for a married couple.”

“Not right? It’s a friggin’ palace.” He walked over to a forest-green-painted garden bench and sat down.

She planted herself in front of him, arms crossed, a determined look on her face. Her summer tan was starting to fade. She wore a creamy brown fedora from under which her long hair tumbled across her shoulders. Her pants were perfectly tailored to her elegantly slender form. Polished leather boots encased her feet and disappeared under the pant legs.

“We won’t be carrying a mortgage, Jack.”

He looked up at her. “Really? What, are they giving us the place because we’re such a terrific young couple?”

She hesitated, then said, “Daddy is paying cash for it, and we’re going to pay him back.”

Jack had been waiting for that one.

“Pay him back? How the hell are we going to pay him back, Jenn?”

“He’s suggested a very liberal repayment plan, which takes into account future earnings expectations. For godsakes, Jack, I could pay for this place out of accumulated interest on one of my trusts, but I knew you’d object to that.” She sat down next to him. “I thought if we did it this way, you’d feel better about the whole thing. I know how you are about the Baldwin money. We will have to pay Daddy back. It’s not a gift. It’s a loan with interest. I’m going to sell my place. I’ll net about eight from that. You’re going to have to come up with some money too. This is not a free ride.” She playfully stuck a long finger into his chest, driving home her point. She looked back at the house. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it, Jack? We’ll be so happy here. We were meant to live here.”

Jack looked over at the front of the house but without really seeing it. All he saw was Kate Whitney, in every window of the monolith.

Jennifer squeezed his arm, leaned against him. Jack’s headache moved into the panic zone. His mind was refusing to function. His throat went dry and his limbs felt stiff. He gently disengaged his arm from his fiancée’s, got up and walked quietly back to the car.

Jennifer sat there for several moments, disbelief chief among the emotions registering across her face, and then angrily followed him.

The Realtor, who had intently watched the exchange between the two while seated in her Mercedes, stopped writing up the contract, her mouth pursed in displeasure.

It was early morning when Luther emerged from the small hotel hidden in the cluttered residential neighborhoods of Northwest Washington. He hailed a cab to the Metro Center subway, asking the driver to take a circuitous route on the presumption of seeing various D.C. landmarks. The request did not surprise the cabbie and he automatically went through the motions to be replicated a thousand times before the tourist season was officially over, if it was ever truly over for the town.

The skies threatened rain but you never knew. The unpredictable weather systems swirled and whipped across the region either missing the city or falling hard on it before sliding into the Atlantic. Luther looked up at the darkness, which the newly risen sun could not penetrate.

Would he even be alive six months from now? Maybe not. They could conceivably find him, despite his precautions. But he planned to enjoy the time he had left.

The Metro took him to Washington National Airport, where he took a shuttle bus across to the Main Terminal. He had prechecked his luggage onto the American Airlines flight that would take him to Dallas/Fort Worth, where he would change airlines and then head to Miami. He would stay there overnight and then another plane would drop him in Puerto Rico and then a final flight would deposit him in Barbados. Everything was paid for in cash; his passport proclaimed him to be Arthur Lanis, age sixty-five, from Michigan. He had a half-dozen such identifying documents, all professionally crafted and official-looking and all absolutely phony. The passport was good for eight more years and showed him to be well-traveled.

He settled into the waiting area and pretended to scan a newspaper. The place was crowded and noisy, a typical weekday for the busy airport. Occasionally Luther’s eyes would rise over the paper to see if anyone was paying more than casual attention to him, but nothing registered. And he had been doing this long enough that something would have clicked if he had anything to worry about. His flight was called, his boarding pass was handed over and he trudged down the ramp to the slender projectile that within three hours would deposit him in the heart of Texas.

The Dallas/Fort Worth run was a busy one for American, but surprisingly he had an empty seat next to him. He took his coat off and laid it across the seat daring anyone to trespass. He settled himself in and looked out the window.

As they began to taxi to the takeoff runway, he could make out the tip of the Washington Monument over the thick, swirling mist of the clammy morning. Barely a mile from that point his daughter would be getting up shortly to go to work while her father was ascending into the clouds to begin a new life somewhat ahead of schedule and not exactly easy in his mind.

As the plane accelerated through the air, he looked at the terrain far below, noted the snaking of the Potomac until it was left behind. His thoughts went briefly to his long-dead wife and then back to his very much alive daughter.

He glanced up at the smiling, efficient face of the flight attendant and ordered coffee and a minute later accepted the simple breakfast handed to him. He drank down the steaming liquid and then reached over and touched the surface of the window with its queer streaks and scratches. Wiping his glasses clean, he noted that his eyes were watering freely. He looked around quickly; most passengers were finishing up their breakfast or reclining for a short nap before they landed.

He pushed his tray up, undid his seat belt and made his way to the lavatory. He looked at himself in the mirror. The eyes were swollen, red-blotched. The bags hung heavy, he had perceptibly aged in the last thirty-six hours.

He ran water over his face, let the droplets gather around his mouth and then splashed on some more. He wiped his eyes again. They were painful. He leaned against the tiny basin, tried to get his twitching muscles under control.

Despite all his willpower, his mind wandered back to that room where he had seen a woman savagely beaten. The President of the United States was a drunk, an adulterer and a woman beater. He smiled to the press, kissed babies and flirted with enchanted old women, held important meetings, flew around the world as his country’s leader, and he was a fucking asshole who screwed married women, then beat them up and then got them killed.

What a package.

It was more knowledge than one person should be carrying around.

Luther felt very alone. And very mad.

And the sorry thing was the bastard was going to get away with it.

Luther kept telling himself if he were thirty years younger he would take this battle on. But he wasn’t. His nerves were still stronger than most, but, like river rock, they had eroded over the years; they were not what they were. At his age battles became someone else’s to fight, and win or lose. His time had finally come. He wasn’t up to it. Even he had to understand that, to accept that reality.

Luther looked at himself in the tiny mirror again. A sob swelled in his throat before it reached the surface and filled the small room.

But no excuse would justify what he had not done. He had not opened that mirrored door. He had not flung that man off Christine Sullivan. He could have prevented the woman’s death, that was the simple truth. She would still be alive if he had acted. He had traded his freedom, perhaps his life, for another’s. For someone who could have used his help, who was fighting for her very life while Luther just watched. A human being who had barely lived a third of Luther’s years. It had been a cowardly act, and that fact gripped him like some savage anaconda, threatening to explode every organ in his body.

He bent low over the sink as his legs began to fail him. He was grateful for the collapse. He could not look at his reflection anymore. As choppy air buffeted the plane he was sick to his stomach.

A few minutes elapsed and he wet a paper towel with cold water and wiped it across his face and the back of his neck. He finally managed to stumble back to his seat. As the plane thundered on his guilt grew with each passing mile.

The phone was ringing. Kate looked at the clock. Eleven o’clock. Normally she would screen her calls. But something made her hand dart out and pick it up before the machine engaged.

“Hello.”

“Why aren’t you still at work?”

“Jack?”

“How’s your ankle?”

“Do you realize what time it is?”

“Just checking on my patient. Doctors never sleep.”

“Your patient is fine. Thanks for the worry.” She smiled in spite of herself.

“Butterscotch cone, that prescription has never failed me.”

“Oh, so there were other patients?”

“I’ve been advised by my attorney not to answer that question.”

“Smart counsel.”

Jack could visualize her sitting there, one finger playing with the ends of her hair, the same way she had done when they studied together; he laboring through securities regulations, she through French.

“Your hair curls enough at the ends without you helping it.”

She pulled her finger back, smiled, then frowned. That statement had brought a lot of memories back, not all good ones.

“It’s late, Jack. I’ve got court tomorrow.”

He stood up and paced with the cordless, thinking rapidly. Anything to hold her on the phone for a few more seconds. He felt guilty, as though he were sneaking around. He involuntarily looked over his shoulder. There was no one there, at least no one he could see.

“I’m sorry I called late.”

“Okay.”

“And I’m sorry I hurt your ankle.”

“You already apologized for that.”

“Yeah. So, how are you? I mean except for your ankle?”

“Jack, I really need to get some sleep.”

He was hoping she would say that.

“Well tell me over lunch.”

“I told you I’ve got court.”

“After court.”

“Jack, I’m not sure that’s a good idea. In fact I’m pretty sure it’s a lousy idea.”

He wondered what she meant by that. Reading too much into her statements had always been a bad habit of his.

“Jesus, Kate. It’s just lunch. I’m not asking you to marry me.” He laughed, but knew he’d already blown it.

Kate was no longer fiddling with her hair. She too stood up. Her reflections caught in the hallway mirror. She pulled at the neck of her nightgown. The frown lines were prominent on her forehead.

“I’m sorry,” he said quickly. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that. Look, it’ll be my treat. I have to spend all that money on something.” He was met with silence. In fact, he wasn’t sure if she were still on the line.

He had rehearsed this conversation for the last two hours. Every possible question, exchange, deviation. He’d be so smooth, she so understanding. They would hit it off so well. So far, absolutely nothing had gone according to plan. He fell back on his alternate plan. He decided to beg.

“Please, Kate. I’d really like to talk to you. Please.”

She sat back down, curled her legs under her, rubbed at her long toes. She took a deep breath. The years hadn’t changed her as much as she had thought. Was that good or bad? Right now she had no way to deal with that question.

“When and where?”

“Morton’s?”

“For lunch?”

He could see her incredulous face at the thought of the ultra-expensive restaurant. Wondering what type of world he now lived in. “Okay, how about the deli in Old Town near Founder’s Park around two? We’ll miss the lunchtime crowd.”

“Better. But I can’t promise. I’ll call if I can’t make it.”

He slowly let out his breath. “Thanks, Kate.”

He hung up the phone and collapsed on the couch. Now that his plan had worked, he wondered what the hell he was doing. What would he say? What would she say? He didn’t want to fight. He hadn’t been lying, he did just want to talk to her, and to see her. That was all. He kept telling himself that.

He went to the bathroom, plunged his head into a sink of cold water, grabbed a beer and went up to the rooftop pool and sat there in the darkness, watching the planes as they made their approach up the Potomac into National. The twin bright, red lights of the Washington Monument blinked consolingly at him. Eight stories down the streets were quiet except for the occasional police or ambulance siren.

Jack looked at the calm surface of the pool, put his foot in the now cool water and watched as it rippled across. He drank his beer, went downstairs and fell asleep in a chair in the living room, the TV droning in front of him. He did not hear the phone ring, no message was left. Almost one thousand miles away, Luther Whitney hung up the phone and smoked his first cigarette in over thirty years.

The Federal Express truck pulled slowly down the isolated country road, the driver scanning the rusty and leaning mailboxes for the correct address. He had never made a delivery out here. His truck seemed to ride ditch to ditch on the narrow road.

He pulled into the driveway of the last house and started to back out. He just happened to look over and saw the address on the small piece of wood beside the door. He shook his head and smiled. Sometimes it was just luck.

The house was small, and not very well kept up. The weathered aluminum window awnings, popular about twenty years before the driver had been born, sagged down, as if they were tired and just wanted to rest.

The elderly woman who answered the door was dressed in a pullover flowered dress, a thick sweater wrapped around her shoulders. Her thick red ankles told of poor circulation and probably a host of other ailments. She seemed surprised by the delivery, but readily signed for it.

The driver glanced at the signature on his pad: Edwina Broome. Then he got in his truck and left. She watched him leave before shutting the door.

The walkie-talkie crackled.

Fred Barnes had been doing this job for seven years now. Driving around the neighborhoods of the rich, seeing the big houses, manicured grounds, the occasional expensive car with its mannequinlike occupants coming down the perfect asphalt drive and through the massive gates. He had never been inside any of the homes he was paid to guard, and never expected to be.

He looked up at the imposing structure. Four to five million dollars, he surmised. More money than he could make in five lifetimes. Sometimes it just didn’t seem right.

He checked in on his walkie-talkie. He would take a look around the place. He didn’t exactly know what was going on. Only that the owner had called and requested a patrol car check.

The cold air in his face made Barnes think about a hot cup of coffee and a danish, to be followed by eight hours of sleep until he had to venture out again in his Saturn for yet another night of protecting the possessions of the wealthy. The pay wasn’t all that bad, although the benefits sucked. His wife worked full-time too, and with three kids, their combined incomes were barely enough. But then everybody had it tough He looked at the five-car garage in back, the pool and the tennis courts. Well, maybe not everybody.

As he rounded the corner, he saw the dangling rope and thoughts of coffee and a creamy danish disappeared. He crouched down, his hand flying to his sidearm. He grabbed his mike and reported in, his voice cracking embarrassingly. The real police would be here in minutes. He could wait for them or investigate himself. For eight singles an hour he decided to stay right where he was.

Barnes’s supervisor arrived first in the stark white station wagon with the company’s logo on the door panel. Thirty seconds later the first of five patrol cars pulled down the asphalt drive until they were stacked like a waiting train in front of the house.

The window was covered by two officers. It was probable that the perps had long since exited the premises, but assumptions were dangerous in the police business.

Four officers went to the front, two more covered the back. Working in pairs, the four policemen proceeded to make their way in. They noted that the front door was unlocked, the alarm off. They satisfied themselves with the downstairs and cautiously moved up the broad staircase, their ears and eyes straining for any trace of sound or movement.

By the time they reached the second-floor landing, the nostrils of the sergeant in charge told him that this would not be a routine burglary.

Four minutes later they stood in a circle around what had recently been a young, beautiful woman. The healthy coloring of each of the men had faded to dull white.

The sergeant, fiftyish and a father of three, looked at the open window. Thank God, he thought to himself; even with the outside air the atmosphere inside the room was stupefying. He looked once more at the corpse, then strode quickly to the window and sucked in deep gulps of the crisp air.

He had a daughter about that age. For a moment he imag ined her on that floor, her face a memory, her life brutally over. The matter was out of his bailiwick now, but he wished for one thing: he wished to be there when whoever had done this atrocious thing was caught.