Mortal Faults

35

Reynolds’ house was a massive modernistic pile. Twenty-foot ceilings soared over marble floors. Walls of glass let in the abundant California sun.

“Nice place,” Abby observed. “I’m surprised your boss can afford it on a public servant’s salary.”

Stenzel caught the implication. “If you’d done your homework, you’d know that Mrs. Reynolds is quite well off.”

“The boy from the barrio married money? I didn’t catch that detail on his Web site. Maybe it doesn’t go so well with his rags to riches story.”

“The congressman and his wife have a wonderful marriage. They recently celebrated their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary.”

“So I guess she didn’t hold his indiscretions against him? Or more likely, she never found out.”

“I find you tiresome, Ms. Sinclair.”

“Yeah, I’m a real pain in the ass.”

They passed a game room and a small but well-equipped gym. He led her through a solarium and into the backyard. The yard wasn’t huge, most of the property having been taken up by the house, and the square footage available for Reynolds’ guests was further diminished by a swimming pool that simulated a tropical lagoon, complete with waterfall. The guests were crowded around the pool, doing their best not to fall in while they picked at plates of food. Abby was reminded that she hadn’t eaten today.

A knot of visitors had formed around a well-dressed lady of Reynolds’ age, recognizable from her photos on the Web site and in the L.A. Times article. Nora, his wife. Nearby, Reynolds’ assistant-his constituent services coordinator, Rebecca, or as Abby called her, Moneypenny-was chatting with an earnest man who seemed in need of a favor from the congressman. Rebecca seemed a little overdressed for a summer day; she was showing hardly any skin at all.

Stenzel proceeded to the far end of the yard. There the crowd parted to reveal His Excellency in front of a monstrous gas-powered grill. He wasn’t actually flipping or serving burgers, and Abby was a little disappointed about that.

Reynolds was in his element, surrounded by well-wishers, the center of attention, radiating authority, accepting the adulation of the wealthy and influential. Then his gaze flickered in Abby’s direction, registering her presence, and something in his eyes told her it was a pose. Reynolds was scared. His hold on power was threatened, and he could see it slipping away. Beneath the facade of self-assurance she read fear, desperation, vulnerability.

That was good. She could work with that.

“I was wondering if you would actually be here,” he said quietly as Abby moved alongside him.

She smiled. “No, you weren’t.”

Reynolds glanced at Stenzel. “Take her to my office. I’ll be inside in a minute.”

Stenzel ushered her away. “Hold on a sec,” Abby said. She grabbed a plate and loaded it with chicken and potato salad, then found some plastic cutlery and paper napkins. What the hell, the food was free and she was hungry. Plate in hand, she followed Stenzel past a garden of hydrangeas, sea grasses, and bird-of-paradise, and back inside the house. Down a short hallway was a small office with oak shelving and paneled walls. It occurred to Abby that being out of public view was perhaps not the best idea, under the circumstances.

“By the way, your rent-a-cops will remember me,” she told Stenzel. “If for some reason I don’t leave this party, there’ll be an investigation, and you’ll be the first one questioned.”

“Are you always so dramatic?”

“Most of the time.”

“If you’re worried about your safety, I’d advise you to walk away from this situation right now.”

“Sorry, Kip. No can do.”

“I’ve given you fair warning.”

“You’ve been more than fair,” Abby agreed.

“Then I won’t consider myself responsible when they zip you up in a body bag.”

There had to be a great comeback to that, but offhand Abby couldn’t think of one.

Fortunately she didn’t have to. Reynolds stepped through the doorway, shutting the door behind him.

Abby took a seat and started on a chicken wing. “Nice little get-together,” she said. “Few hundred of your closest friends?”

“My biggest contributors. Which amounts to the same thing.”

“Somehow I find that sad.”

“You know what Harry Truman said. If you want a friend in Washington, buy a dog.”

“That’s the second Truman anecdote I’ve heard from you. Are you just wild about Harry?”

“All politicians admire Truman,” Reynolds said as he rounded his desk and sat in a plush leather chair. “You know why?”

“Enlighten me.”

“We like him because he was always underestimated. The party bosses thought they could control him. The pollsters thought he couldn’t win in ’48. He was dismissed as a mediocrity. And now he’s an icon.”

“So he gives hope to all the other mediocrities in politics?”

“That’s a cheap shot, Sinclair. I’m starting to lose my respect for you.”

“You had never mine to begin with.”

“What is it you wanted to say?”

Abby looked up from her lunch and focused her stare on Stenzel. “Privacy, please?”

He started to protest, but Reynolds cut him off. “Wait outside, Kip. Tell the folks I’ll rejoin them in a minute.”

Stenzel opened the door, then turned back. “She’s not wearing a wire. I had security check her twice.” So that was the reason for the do-over.

Reynolds nodded, and Stenzel was gone, the door closing after him. With his campaign manager out of the way, Reynolds seemed more relaxed. He rose and moved to a liquor cabinet. “Drink?” he asked, sounding almost cordial.

“If you can make a New Year’s Rockin’ Eve, I won’t turn it down.”

“What the hell is that?”

“My own invention. Splash of rum, splash of gin, splash of vodka, splash of tequila, splash of rye, and a soupcon of carrot juice.”

“Sounds god-awful.”

“It really is.”

Reynolds poured himself a Scotch, fixing nothing for her. She contented herself with the chicken. It was a little overcooked, but you couldn’t beat the price.

“Tell me what this is all about,” Reynolds said as he resumed his seat.

“First of all, there was an attempt on Andrea Lowry’s life yesterday afternoon.”

He gave her his best poker face. “I don’t know what you’re talking about or how it could possibly have anything to do with me.”

“Right. Then let me make it clearer.” She dabbed her mouth with a napkin. “Andrea used to be known as Bethany Willett. You and she had an affair. It didn’t end well.”

“I’ve never known anyone by that name.”

“Give it a rest, Jack. Andrea and I have become pals. She opened up to me, told me the whole story. All the sordid details, like your floating love nest, The Mariner. She told me how you would have your intimate moments below deck, then share a nightcap under the stars.”

“This is all bullshit. If the woman said any of this, she’s delusional.”

“She’s not delusional, and you know it. This has been your nightmare for the last twenty years. Your past coming back to hurt you. A couple of months ago, it finally happened. The woman you knew as Bethany started showing up at your campaign events. You didn’t know what she was up to. Maybe she was planning to go public. Maybe she was thinking of blackmailing you. Maybe she wanted to assassinate you. You were terrified, but you couldn’t raise your concerns with the police, not without risking the exposure of your relationship. And exposure would kill your career, which means almost as much to you as life itself. Hell, maybe more.”

Reynolds was doing his best to look bored. “Let’s not get carried away. The electorate isn’t so squeamish about infidelity anymore. We’ve come a long way from Gary Hart and Donna Rice noodling each other on the good ship Monkey Business. These days, in some circles a little extramarital activity may even be seen as a plus.”

“How about two dead babies? Are they a plus? Especially when they’re your flesh and blood, and your mistress shot them to death before shooting herself? And then there’s the part about how you kindly arranged to put Bethany in the nuthouse so she couldn’t talk about it. This is not the sort of thing that looks good on the resume of an Orange County family man and former crusading D.A.”

“You’re making a lot of wild allegations-”

“Cut the crap. You were scared out of your gourd, so you tried to find Bethany. I’m guessing you put Stenzel on the job. He called the hospital where Bethany had been treated, but he couldn’t get any info. At least I assume it was Stenzel who called. I don’t think you’d be ballsy enough to call them yourself.”

“Get to the point.”

“Point is, you had no luck tracking her down. How could you? She was living under a new name. You got desperate, so you brought me in. You figured I might succeed where your flunky had, well, flunked. And I did. But I wouldn’t give you her new name or her whereabouts. Somehow you found her, anyway.”

“Who says I found her?”

“The jacketed hollowpoints that were dug out of her wall. I’m really not wearing a wire, Jack. This conversation will go a whole lot faster if you decide to be straight with me.”

Reynolds stood up, Scotch in hand. He hadn’t touched it before, but now he took a good swallow.

“You told me she had a schedule of my events,” he said as he started pacing behind the desk.

“So?”

“We mail those out.”

Abby got it. “Mailing list. Shit.” She cursed herself for being dumb. Dumbness was the one unforgivable crime in her line of work, the original sin.

Having polished off the chicken, she assuaged her guilt with a forkful of potato salad.

“Okay,” she said, her mouth full, “so you knew where she was, and you sent in the stormtroopers. You didn’t know what she had in mind, and the only way to be sure she wouldn’t do something crazy was to have her killed.”

Reynolds gulped more Scotch. “The woman is crazy. Unpredictable. I had to be proactive.”

“Well, the best laid plans of mice and men, et cetera. Andrea, nee Bethany, is very much alive. And the police have taken an interest in her.”

She used the word police advisedly. She had decided not to mention the involvement of the FBI. As a Washington insider, Reynolds might have contacts in the Bureau. It was best to let him think that only the local authorities were on the case.

“I’m sure she wants nothing to do with law enforcement,” Reynolds said, though he didn’t sound sure at all.

“You’re right. But my guess is, they’re looking into her past. They’ll find out that her credit history goes back only eight years. Then they’ll question her. And she’ll talk. She’ll have to talk.”

She paused to let the comment sink in. Reynolds drained his glass and poured another.

“She’ll talk,” Abby went on, “unless you silence her first. But here’s the rub-you can’t get near her. Police protection, you know. That’s the thing about a failed hit, Jack. It’s twice as hard to get to the victim a second time. So it looks like you’re royally fucked. Unless you let me help you.”

“You can’t help me,” Reynolds said.

“Yes, I can. Andrea trusts me. I can take advantage of that fact for our mutual benefit, as I told you last night.”

“By handing her over to me?”

“Exactly.”

“Yesterday you quit on me because I didn’t meet your high ethical standards. Now all of a sudden you’re willing to deliver the woman?”

“Ethics is a luxury I can no longer afford.”

“And why is that?”

“I need to get out of town. For a long time. Maybe for good. And I need to do it fast.”

“Sounds like you’re in trouble.”

She looked down at her plate. Her voice was low. “I am.”

“What a shame. Care to tell me about it?”

“Maybe you’ve heard what happened to Dylan Garrick.”

“I may have read something about it in the newspaper.” Reynolds narrowed his eyes. “Are you telling me you’re the one who offed him?”

“Me? I’m just a simple Arizona girl making her way in the big city. But I was seen with him.”

“You mean you tracked him down?”

“It’s what I do.”

“So you did kill him.”

“Haven’t said that.” Abby set down her plate and got up, facing him. “Whatever I may or may not have done, people are going to suspect the worst, and I’m not going to have any way of proving them wrong.”

A moment passed while Reynolds stood motionless. Then he lifted his glass and took a slow, thoughtful sip. “All right, maybe I can believe you need to go on the run.”

“And to do that, I need a sudden infusion of cash, courtesy of you. I need money, you need Andrea. We can work together and solve both our problems.”

“If the police are watching Andrea, how can you possibly deliver her to me?”

“She trusts me, like I said.”

“So what?”

“I can get her to leave the house and ditch her police escort. Once she does, she’ll be all yours.”

“You’re bullshitting.”

“No, I’m not, Jack. I can get her away from the police. And I can do it tonight.”

He considered the idea. “Once I’ve got her, you get paid? Is that it?”

“I get paid up front.”

“How much?”

“Fifty thousand dollars. In cash, obviously. I’m afraid I can’t take a personal check.”

“I don’t have fifty grand in cash here in the house.”

“But you can get it.”

“It’s Saturday afternoon. My bank is already closed.”

“Make the manager open up.”

“You think I keep fifty thousand dollars in my checking account?”

“It’s your rich wife’s account, more likely, but I’m sure you have privileges. Or maybe you can borrow it from your campaign fund. Cut yourself a check and run one less billboard ad. Or take out a loan and say it’s for the campaign. I don’t care, as long as you have it by six o’clock tonight.”

“What if I pay you the fifty and then you renege on the deal?”

“I’ll have Andrea close by. The way I’ll work it, you’ll know you’ve got her before I take off. You’ll have her, and you won’t be able to touch me. It’s not as complicated as it sounds.”

“Let’s say we were to have this meeting at six. Where would it be?”

“Brayton Hotel, just like before. Only in the lobby this time. Oh, and Jack-I want you to make the drop-off. Not Kip or some other low-level player. I want you to get your hands dirty, just like me.”

“How do I know you’re not setting me up? This could be some kind of sting.”

“Do I strike you as the type who works hand in glove with the police?”

“No. But I wouldn’t have seen you as the type to sell out Bethany, either. It’s pretty cold, Sinclair. You really expect me to believe you’re capable of it?”

“Brass ovaries, remember? You don’t survive in my line of work unless you’re willing to pull the trigger.”

“Like you did on Garrick?”

“No comment, Mr. Congressman.”

Reynolds studied her. “Okay. We have a deal.” He showed her an archly cynical smile. “You know, you’re a lot smarter than I thought you were.”

“Am I? Funny. You’re exactly as smart as I thought you were.” Abby picked up her plate and dumped it in a wastebasket. She headed for the door. “Thanks for the chow. Tell Stenzel I’ll let myself out.”