Hillary

Chapter Twenty-Six

Hillary Constable stared at Bobby Hart in wild-eyed disbelief.

“Where did you come from you? How did you get here?”

“What’s the matter, Hillary? I thought you would be glad to see me. Didn’t I do everything you asked, try to find out who killed your husband before-what was it? Yes, I remember: before all the rumors started and the country tore itself apart? Didn’t I find out everything you wanted to know about how much of Robert Constable’s involvement with The Four Sisters could be traced back to you?”

In the dim light of the desk lamp each movement cast a shadow on the wall, creating the illusion that they were on a stage playing to an audience they could not see.

“When I asked you to do that, I didn’t know you were the one who had had him killed!”

Hart had been sitting in that darkened room for a long time, waiting for her to come in, waiting to confront her with what he knew. He had been thinking about what he was going to say to her, what she was going to say to him, from the moment he had gotten on the private plane from France. He thought he was ready for anything, but when he heard this he could barely restrain himself.

“I was the one who had him killed! You miserable… Who the hell do you think you are? Your husband was a liar and a cheat, and the biggest thief who ever held the office, but you-you’re worse. I know all about you; I know all about you both. The Four Sisters didn’t come to your husband, he went to them. He started it, he demanded money, tens of millions, and you knew all about it, didn’t you? You knew what would happen if someone got hold of that story; you knew what would happen if he talked to Quentin Burdick. That’s why you did it-why you had your husband killed-to protect yourself!”

“That’s a damn lie!” she screamed back. “I’m going to put an end to this right now.” She picked up the phone, but Hart caught her by the wrist and forced the receiver back.

“You’re not going to do anything.”

“And just how are you going to stop me?”

“With this, if I have to.”

He pulled his jacket to the side, revealing a pistol tucked into his belt. He saw the smirk start onto her lips, the arrogant dismissal of what, despite the gun, she thought an empty threat.

“You think I won’t-after what you’ve done to me? You think I don’t know how? I remembered well enough when I had to shoot the son-of-a-bitch who murdered Austin Pearce. Trust me, I’ll use it if I have to.”

The smirk vanished, replaced with uncertainty if not yet fear.

“Why are you here? What do you want? What do you hope to prove? Everyone knows what happened, why you had Robert killed. You think that because you somehow got back into the country, all you have to do is hold a press conference and announce that you’re innocent?”

“You’ve already done that for me today, in the Rose Garden, you and Russell, when you denied knowing anything about The Four Sisters. Weren’t you a little worried when you did that? Didn’t you wonder how much Philip Carlyle really knew?”

“You weren’t there. How do you know the name of the reporter?”

Hart smiled at her in a way that made her mouth go dry.

“We were for a while both guests at the home of Jean Valette.”

Darkness swept across her eyes and for a moment she thought she was about to faint. She took a deep breath and dropped into the chair.

“At the home of Jean Valette,” she repeated in a lifeless monotone. “I didn’t… What you said I did-I didn’t have anything to do with Robert’s murder. I really thought-when I saw the evidence, the records of payment-I thought what they said about you was true. But, Jean Valette-why would you, why would that reporter…?”

Hart had seen too many of the different faces of Hillary Constable, too many masks put on for effect, to believe any of them authentic, especially one as convenient as this, the practiced look of a woman misunderstood.

“You really believed, when you saw the evidence…? Of course you did. There were only two people who had something to gain by the president’s death: Irwin Russell and you. The Four Sisters story would have forced the president to resign. And you-what chance would you have had to run for anything after a scandal like that? But instead, Robert Constable dies, Russell becomes president, and you become-what?-president-in-waiting? You told me you were going to run against Russell. Why didn’t you? Nothing could stop you. That’s what you said. But there was something, wasn’t there? Russell knew about The Four Sisters, because he had done the same thing as Frank Morris. Except that Russell didn’t have a conscience, he wasn’t any danger to the great Robert Constable. Unlike Frank Morris, he didn’t have to be killed.”

“You’re guessing. You could never prove anything like that.”

“You didn’t have your husband killed?”

“No, I swear. I-”

“Then Russell did.”

“I can’t believe that he would-”

“More likely, you were both in it together. Atwood arranged everything, didn’t he? And, as you told me yourself, Atwood always did what you asked him to do. He tried to frame me for it. He tried to have me killed. He had Austin Pearce murdered. Which one of you asked him to do that?”

She did not answer, and Hart became more agitated and impatient. His eyes were cold, determined, and lethal.

“When did you decide to do this? When did you decide to set me up?”

“I didn’t!” she protested.

His hand moved toward the gun.

“All right, it’s true: I wanted you to find out how much of what Robert had done with The Four Sisters could be traced back, how much I might have to explain. And there is something else. I was afraid. I thought Robert was killed to stop him from talking to Burdick. I thought someone connected with The Four Sisters must have done it.” With a plaintive glance she asked, “Isn’t that what you thought: that The Four Sisters was behind everything?”

“It’s what you wanted me to believe, part of the way you used me. And it almost worked. I was going to kill Jean Valette if I had to. But you made a mistake when you had Atwood try to implicate me. Atwood works for you.”

“Atwood works for Russell!” she shot back. “Russell is now the president, or have you forgotten that little fact?”

“He won’t be for too much longer,” said Hart, subjecting her to a scrutiny so close she felt a shudder run up her spine. “And you won’t be taking his place.”

“Why do you say that? What is it you think you know?”

He just looked at her, a grim smile on his face.

“You were staying at Jean Valette’s?” she asked, trying to draw him out. “When everyone was looking for you, when you were supposedly on the run somewhere in Paris, that’s where you were, at the chateau?”

“He said you both had visited. Yes, I was there for a while, and so was the chief of detectives of the Surete. We were joined by that New York reporter, Philip Carlyle, and things got quite interesting. You should have been there. I would have liked to have seen your reaction when Jean Valette began to tell him about how the president of the United States extorted tens of millions of dollars from companies he owned, and how both you and Irwin Russell knew all about it. But that was just the beginning. Before Carlyle left, Jean Valette gave him all the documentation needed to prove every charge: bank records, wire transfers, numbered accounts-every penny The Four Sisters was forced to give you and your husband. That’s why Carlyle asked you what he did this afternoon: so that when his story runs on the front page of this morning’s paper he can print your categorical denial, or rather, given all the evidence he has, your categorical lie! You’re not going to be confirmed as vice president and you’re not going to run for president. You’re going to be indicted as a co-conspirator for fraud and, unless I miss my guess, for murder.”

There was a sharp knock on the door.

“Are you all right, Mrs. Constable?” asked a Secret Service agent. “We thought we heard voices.”

Hart warned her with his eyes. She went to the door and opened it just a crack.

“No, I’m fine. I had the radio on.”

She turned around, but Hart was gone. Breathing hard, she braced herself against the desk. Then she picked up the telephone and called the White House.

“I need to speak to the president!”

The voice at the other end told her that the president had retired for the night and left instructions not to be disturbed. She slammed her hand hard on the desk and shouted:

“I don’t care about his instructions! Wake him up, goddamn it! Tell him it’s urgent!”

While Hillary Constable waited impatiently for Irwin Russell to come to the phone, Bobby Hart made his way through the shadows of the leafy back yard and out to the end of the street where Charlie Finnegan was waiting in his car.

“What did she say?” asked Finnegan as they drove down the block.

“Just what you’d expect: that she didn’t do it, that she thought I did, that she had thought at first that The Four Sisters was behind it. She did admit that she knew something about what Constable had been doing and that she was worried about how much she might have to explain. That’s why she asked me to look into it. What she can’t explain is Atwood. She tried to blame it on Russell, said Atwood works for him.”

Folding his arms, Hart leaned against the passenger side door and shook his head, discouraged, as it seemed, by what had happened.

“I’m such a fool sometimes. I thought that the shock of seeing me would be enough, that she’d just confess, that she’d tell me everything. She’s probably never told the truth about anything in her life, and I thought she’d tell the truth to me!”

“You didn’t really think that,” protested Finnegan with a cynical laugh. “You might have hoped she would, but you knew better than that. If she went to trial and got convicted, she’d insist with her dying breath that she was innocent. Her life means nothing if she ever admitted to what they really were. And as long as she doesn’t admit it, or even if she admits some of it and explains the rest away, there will always be people who believe in her, who believe in them. So long as there is a mystery about who really had her husband killed, she’ll always be remembered, she’ll always be important. Isn’t that the reason everyone wants to become famous, so they’ll never be forgotten?”

Hart was not listening. He was too caught up in what he knew he had to do.

“She did it, she and Russell both. I’m certain of it. The only problem is I can’t prove it.”

“You may not have to. Atwood may prove it for us. In just a few hours, all the pressure is going to be on him.” He nodded toward the lights of the White House looming in the distance. “You know she had to be on the phone the moment you were gone, telling Russell what you told her, trying to figure out what they can do to save themselves. I don’t imagine either one of them is going to be getting any sleep tonight.”

They drove to Finnegan’s apartment just off Dupont Circle. A pre-war building in which most of the tenants worked for various foreign missions, it gave Finnegan a place to get away from people who worked on the Hill, a place where he could pass almost unnoticed among the others who lived there. He had insisted Hart stay with him until it was safe for him to go home.

“Laura okay?” he asked. He tossed his jacket on a chair in the kitchen, opened the refrigerator, and looked over his shoulder. “Beer?”

“Sure. Thanks. And yes, Laura is okay, though a little angry with me right now.”

Finnegan snapped the caps off both bottles and put one on the table in front of Hart.

“She wanted to stay, didn’t she?” Finnegan plopped down on the chair opposite. “Good thing she didn’t. God knows what’s going to happen now. She’s home in Santa Barbara? Good. You’ll see her in a few days.”

A bright, fearless smile cut across Finnegan’s mouth.

“The Senate is full of guys married to women more qualified than they are to hold the office. But you and I, my friend, are the only two ready to admit it.” He laughed quietly and took a drink. “Now, tell me something more about what happened over there. I know about Austin; I know about the rest of it. Tell me about Jean Valette.”

Hart leaned his elbow on the table and bent his head forward. He was not sure where to begin, or whether there was anything he could say to describe what Jean Valette was like. He was not even sure he could describe the effect Jean Valette had had on him.

“He’s either the most intelligent, the most profoundly intelligent, man I’ve ever met or the craziest. When you’re with him, everything he says makes sense. He held me, for hours at a time, mesmerized by the astonishing things he said. He seemed to have all of history in his mind. Not just dates and places, battles, wars, things like that, but how they were all connected to each other and what they meant. When we look at history, we look back; he starts at some point in the past and looks forward. That’s the difference, I think: he seems to put himself back in time, to see things the way they were seen at the time. It was not like anything I’ve ever heard. but then, later, when I was alone and thought about what he had said, when I was not under the force of the magnetism he has-eyes that I swear could make you believe anything-then I was not so certain that it was not all lunacy, a madman’s description of the world.”

Finnegan pushed back until the front legs of the chair were off the floor. With his tousled reddish hair, he looked more like a graduate student having a beer late at night at some Ann Arbor tavern than a member of the United States Senate. But for all his youthful appearance, there was a serious dedication, an intense earnestness, a power of concentration that few others in the Senate, whatever their age, could duplicate. Others could talk endlessly on the Senate floor, their colleagues half asleep; Finnegan, with an instinct for the heart of the matter, never spoke to anything but the point.

“He said he knew all this would happen? Not that Constable would be murdered, but that Constable, and the others, would one way or the other all be destroyed?”

With so many other things on his mind Hart had forgotten that he had mentioned this.

“You told me yesterday, on the ride from the airport. But there’s a question, isn’t there?” The two front legs of the chair hit the linoleum floor with a clatter as he bounced forward. “If he knew that, if he was so certain that once Constable, and poor Frank Morris, and that fool Russell, became involved, grabbed millions for themselves, they would end up killing one another, why did he do it? It’s no answer to say because it was the only way some of the companies he controls-that The Four Sisters controls-could do business here. He knows this will destroy them. He doesn’t really need more business, does he? He’s one of the world’s richest men.” Finnegan’s eyebrows shot up. “And from the way you describe him…well, would you say he was someone driven by the need for money, this strange recluse with that diminishing library of his? There’s only one conclusion you can draw from this, isn’t there? For whatever reason, Jean Valette wanted them to destroy themselves. Listen, if someone tells you they’re suicidal and then asks if they can borrow your gun…well, you get the idea.”

Hart remembered the remarkable expression on the face of Jean Valette as they sat together, surrounded by towering banks of empty shelves, and the sense of something electric in the air as he began to tell him about the book he had written, and how, if he was not careful, what he had learned about the future might truly drive him mad.

“Jean Valette isn’t much interested in what happens to individuals. He thinks there is too much at stake for that. And there is something else,” said Hart with a deeply troubled expression. “The fact that no one else seems to think there is any crisis only makes him more certain that there is.”

Finnegan glanced at his watch.

“It’s late. Better try to get a few hours sleep. We’ve got a lot to do in the morning.”

Nodding in agreement, Hart started to get up, but then stopped and shot a quizzical glance at Finnegan.

“What about the Secret Service agent, the one who was there the night Constable was murdered, the one I met when I had that meeting with Atwood at the Watergate? Richard Bauman-what were you able to find out?”

Finnegan pushed his chair close against the table and emptied what was left of his beer into the sink.

“All anyone knows is that he quit, and then disappeared. No one has seen him; no one knows where he went. No one knows for sure if he is still alive.”

“I thought he might know something,” said Hart. “When I met him that night he seemed genuinely distraught, kept blaming himself for what happened, for helping the killer get away.”

“Get some sleep,” said Finnegan as he walked him to the door of the second bedroom. “In a couple of hours the papers hit the streets and this whole town is going to blow up.”

It was a figure of speech, of course, not meant to be taken literally, but in places like the White House and the various offices on Capitol Hill it was a fair description of the reaction to the story Philip Carlyle had written under the kind of banner headline used only for a domestic crisis or war. Carlyle had everything: dates and places where meetings had taken place, records of each transaction by which the Constables, along with Irwin Russell and the late Frank Morris, had enriched themselves and violated the public trust. It was all there, every seedy detail in an epic tawdry tale of narrow-minded greed and corruption. But that was only half the story. Bribery and extortion had been the prelude to murder.

Instead of starting with the murder of Robert Constable in a New York hotel room, Carlyle started with the two murders in France. Why were Austin Pearce, the former secretary of the treasury, and Aaron Wolfe, head of the political section at the embassy in Paris, killed by two American intelligence agents stationed at that same embassy? Carlyle reported that the chief of detectives of the Surete was convinced that it was to stop them from revealing what they had learned from Bobby Hart about who was really responsible for the assassination of Robert Constable.

“‘It clearly was not Senator Hart,’ insists Inspector Dumont. ‘He came here looking for the connection with The Four Sisters. The two killers were not working for him. He was downstairs talking to the landlady when the shooting started. He ran upstairs, tried to save Mr. Pearce, and was almost killed himself. He shot the assailant, wounded him in the shoulder, and forced him to flee. Hart did not kill anyone, but someone in your government is trying to kill him.’”

By nine o’clock those who had not yet read the story were rushing out to buy a paper so they could. It was all anyone could talk about. Nothing got done. Everyone was on the phone, trying to find out what others thought, or huddled together in small groups in the corridors trying to figure out what was going to happen next, whether Russell would resign or be impeached. That was the only choice he seemed to have. The White House went silent. There was no comment from the president and no indication when there might be one. At Hillary Constable’s house, no one would answer the door. At eleven o’clock it was announced that Senator Finnegan of Michigan would hold a press conference at noon. He had new evidence about the murder of Robert Constable.

The hallway outside Finnegan’s office became impassable, cameras, television lights, and, as it seemed, every reporter in Washington, crowded together, waiting for Charlie Finnegan to step through the door and tell them what he knew. The air was thick with anxiety, suspense, and something close to panic. The country was at a crossroads and no one could know which direction it would take. One president had been murdered; his successor was about to be forced from office. The woman who was about to become vice president, the woman who would have succeeded Russell, was guilty of the same crimes as her husband. Charlie Finnegan took it all in stride. His opening remark was a bombshell.

“The murder of President Robert Constable was organized and arranged by the head of the Secret Service, Clarence Atwood. Mr. Atwood did not act alone. He was taking orders from either Irwin Russell or Hillary Constable or more probably both. As you know from today’s report, Robert Constable and his wife, along with Irwin Russell and former congressman Frank Morris, all took part in a scheme of bribery and corruption. Quentin Burdick, a reporter you all knew and respected, discovered this. He had an interview scheduled with the president. That interview never took place; the president was killed the night before. He was killed out of fear that he might talk, that he might try to blame everything on the others. That would have ruined everything, not just the president’s own reputation, but the political ambitions of his wife as well as the vice president’s career. They would all have gone to jail.”

As soon as Finnegan finished, the questions started, one on top of the other. Finnegan held up both hands, quieting the crowd, and then slowly, methodically, called on each reporter who raised a hand.

“How do you know? What evidence do you have that Clarence Atwood arranged the murder? What-?”

“Murders,” corrected Finnegan. “Robert Constable was not the only person he had killed. There was Frank Morris, then Quentin Burdick, and then the two in France: Aaron Wolfe and Austin Pearce.”

“But what evidence do you have?”

“First, he lied when he told Senator Hart that an investigation had started into the death of the president, and that both the FBI and the CIA were involved. Second, he knew that Senator Hart had started an investigation of his own, trying to find out who was behind the murder of Robert Constable. He knew it because Hillary Constable told him what Hart was doing, and because Atwood met with Hart to discuss it. Atwood framed Hart for the murder, fabricated evidence, because he had to discredit anything Hart might say about what he found.” Finnegan leaned closer toward the battery of microphones. “He framed Hart because then they could have him killed, shut him up forever, and claim, like they did with that paid assassin of theirs in New York, that he was trying to get away.”

“But Hart was trying to get away,” protested another reporter. “If he’s innocent, if Atwood did it, why is Bobby Hart still running?”

A cheerful grin broke unexpectedly across Charlie Finnegan’s slightly freckled mouth.

“That’s a damn good question. Why don’t we ask him?”

And with that, he reached behind him, opened the door to his office, and Bobby Hart stepped out in front of the cameras and an audience of reporters that for half a second was rendered speechless.

When it was over, after he had recounted most of what had happened and what he had learned, after he had patiently answered their questions, Hart went to his own office, where he found an exuberant and exhausted David Allen.

“We had a few defections,” said Allen in a wry, understated way. “But it’s always good to find out who you can trust.”

“A few?” asked Hart, as his eyebrows danced higher. He dropped into a chair on the other side of Allen’s perpetually cluttered desk. “There’s hardly anyone here.”

Allen’s look mimicked Hart’s own.

“Any minute now the calls will start coming in, all of them telling me how sorry they are, how stupid they were, that they never really believed you did anything like everyone else seemed to think you did. What do you want me to do?”

“Let them come back. There was a point I almost thought I must be guilty.”

Hart’s secretary, one of the few members of the staff who had not doubted his innocence, came rushing in, her hand trembling as she handed him a slip of paper.

“It’s Mr. Atwood. He says you need to call him right away. That’s his number. He sounded strange, unbalanced; desperate, I think.”

Hart took the number and went alone into his own office. He could feel the anger rising up inside him, rage at what Atwood had done, not just to him, but to Laura too. Why was he calling now? To ask forgiveness, to offer explanations, to try to make some kind of deal?

The voice at the other end answered on the second ring. The one-word greeting, that single “hello,” had the weak, lifeless quality of a man in mourning. “Oh, it’s you,” he added when Hart identified himself. Then there was nothing, a dead silence.

“You called me,” said Hart finally. “What is it you want?”

At first Hart thought that Atwood had started to cough, but then he realized that it was laughter, the bitter laughter of an angry, broken man.

“You think you have it all figured out, don’t you? You think you know what happened and why. Let me tell you something, Senator: you don’t have the first clue!”

Hart was not impressed.

“I’m really not worried, Atwood. It will all come out at your trial.”

“Trial? Is that what you think is going to happen?” There was another long silence, and then he added: “You want to know what is going to happen? Listen to this.”

There was a sudden, violent roar, an obscene, mind-numbing noise, and then there was no sound at all. Hart jumped out of his chair and ran to Allen’s office.

“Call the police. Clarence Atwood has just shot himself.”