Gone, but not forgotten

Chapter Seventeen.

On Sunday afternoon Raymond Colby stood in front of the fireplace in his den waiting for the lawyer from Portland to arrive. A servant had built a fire. Colby held his hands out to catch the heat and dispel a chill that had very little to do with the icy rain that was keeping his neighbors off the streets of Georgetown.

The front door opened and closed. That would be Wayne Turner with Betsy Tannenbaum. Colby straightened his suit coat. What did Tannenbaum want?

That was really the question. Was she someone with whom he could reason?

Did she have a price? Turner didn't think Lake's attorney knew everything, but she knew enough to ruin his chance of being confirmed.

Perhaps she would come over to their side once she knew the facts. After all, going public would not only destroy Raymond Colby, it would destroy her client.

The door to the den opened and Wayne Turner stood aside. Colby sized up his visitors Betsy Tannenbaum was attractive, but Colby could see she was not a woman who traded on her looks. She was dressed in a severe black suit with a cream-colored blouse. All business, a little nervous, he guessed, feeling somewhat out of her league, yet willing to confront a powerful man on his own turf.

Colby smiled and held out his hand. Her handshake was firm. She was not afraid to look Colby in the eye or to look him over much the way he had scrutinized her.

"How was your flight?" Colby asked.

"Fine." Betsy looked around the cozy room. There were three high-backed armchairs drawn up in front of the fireplace. Colby motioned toward them.

"Can I get you something to take off the chill?"

"A cup of coffee, please."

"Nothing stronger?"

"No, thank you."

Betsy took the chair closest to the window. Colby sat in the center chair. Wayne Turner poured coffee from a silver urn a servant had set up on an antique, walnut side table. Betsy stared into the fire. She had barely noticed the weather on the ride from the airport. Now that she was inside, she shivered in a delayed reaction to the tension of the preceding hours. Wayne Turner handed Betsy a delicate china cup and saucer covered with finely drawn roses. The flowers were a pale pink and the stems a tracery of gold.

"How can I help you, Mrs. Tannenbaum'@"

"I know what you did ten years ago in Hunter's Point, Senator. I want to know why."

"And what did I do?"

"You corrupted the Hunter's Point task force, you destroyed police files, and you engineered a cover-up to protect a monstrous serial killer who revels in torturing women."

Colby nodded sadly. "Part of what you say is true, but not all of it. No one on the task force was corrupt."

"I know about the payoffs," Betsy answered curtly.

"What do you think you know?"

Betsy flushed. She had been spurred on by the coincidences, the improbabilities, to the only possible solution, but she did not want to sound like she was bragging.

On the other hand, letting Colby know how she figured it out would make him see that she could not be fooled.

"I know that a senator's term is six years," Betsy answered, "and that you are in the middle of your second term. That means you've been a United States senator for nine years. Nine years ago, Frank Grimsbo left a low paying job on an obscure, small city police force to assume a high-paying jot) at Marlin Steel, your old company. Nine years ago, John O'Malley, the police chief of that police force, retired to Florida.

Wayne Turner, another member of the rose killer task force, is your administrative assistant. I asked myself how three members of the same small city police force could suddenly do so well, and why they would all do so well the year you decided to run for the United States Senate.

The answer was obvious. They had been paid off to keep a secret and for destroying the files of the rose killer investigation."

Colby nodded. "Excellent deductions, but only partly correct. There were rewards, but no bribes. Frank Grimsbo earned his position as head of security after I helped him get a jot) on the security force. Chief O'Malley had a heart attack and was forced to retire. I'm a very wealthy man. Wayne told me John was having financial problems and I helped him out. And Wayne was working his way through law school when the kidnappings and murders occurred. He graduated two years later and I helped him get a jot) in Washington, but it was not on my staff. Wayne didn't come on board until a year before my first term ended. By then he had established an excellent reputation on the Hill. When Larry Merrill, my a.a., went back into law practice in Manhattan, I asked Wayne if he would take his place. So, you see, the explanations for these events are less sinister than you supposed."

"But I'm right about the records."

"Chief O'Malley took care of that."

"And the pardon?"

Colby looked very old all of a sudden.

"Everyone has something in their life they wish they could undo. I think about Hunter's Point all the time, but I can't see how it could have ended differently."

"How could you have done it, Senator? The man's not human. You had to know he would do this again, somewhere, sometime."

Colby turned his face toward her, but he was not seeing Betsy. He looked completely lost, like a man who has just been told that he has an incurable illness.

"We knew, God forgive us. We knew, but we had no choice."

Part Five.