President's assassin

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Margaret Barnes sat quietly in a state of mild shock. In a few seconds, either she would go hysterical or fall headlong into a pit of incoherent despair. As a general rule in these situations, you have about three minutes to coax a subject into a chatty mood, or they aren't going to talk. Period.

I looked at Jennie, and we both knew what we had to do; further, we both knew who had to do what. I had no enthusiasm for this, but by temperaments and alpha factors, I was the obvious choice.

"Are you listening, Mrs. Barnes?" I leaned forward and informed her bluntly, "Your son murdered sixteen people."

She stared off into space, and appeared not to comprehend. I raised my voice and said, "The Belknap murder was an inside job-Jason was on his security team, he had the insight, and his footprints were placed at the scene at the time the crime occurred. We also have hard evidence showing Jason's access to the specialty munitions used to murder both the presidential spokesman and Justice Fineberg."

I paused to let this half-lie sink in, then threw in another half-lie. "We have evidence, we have opportunity, and at least the skeleton of a motive. In fact, Jason left a note announcing his intention to go on a killing spree." With a touch of theatrics, I paused, then added, "And lest I forget-he also intends to assassinate the President."

Margaret Barnes was starting to lose it. She appeared unfocused and woozy, and was gasping for breath. Jennie stood up. She walked over to Mrs. Barnes, knelt beside her chair, and said, "Can I get you something, Margaret? Water? Anything?"

She did not reply.

I said, "For Godsakes, you gave us the connection to Phillip Fineberg. But to tie this together we need to know more… and you're going to tell us more. Now."

She mumbled, "But… you lied, and I… you deceived me about-"

"No-we did not lie."

"Yes, you-"

"We identified ourselves as federal officers pursuing an official investigation." Following an instinct, I bluffed and said, "Knowing that, you still lied about the circumstances regarding your crippling. We can and will investigate your story, but we already know what we'll find, don't we, Mrs. Barnes? You lied to us-on tape." She gawked at the recorder as I informed her, "That's a prosecutable federal crime, if you're interested."

Jennie insisted, very softly, "It's true, Margaret. You did volunteer the information. And you weren't truthful, were you?"

"But, I… but, Jason couldn't… I mean- I think I'd like to speak to my-"

Before the L-word could slip out of her lips, I raised my voice and said, "In a few hours, your son will murder again. If you withhold information that could help us stop him, I will arrest you for willful complicity in murder, for obstructing an investigation, and for willful concealment. I'll drag you out of this house in cuffs, and I'll put you in jail."

Mrs. Barnes turned her head and looked at Jennie. Jennie said, "Margaret… I'm sorry. I'm afraid we'd be left with no choice."

I said, "On tape, we already have you lying to federal officers. You'll be convicted. You'll go to prison, probably until you die."

In a way I was telling the truth, because any lie to a federal officer-even absent a Miranda warning-is a punishable offense. But as a lawyer, I was well aware that juries don't really expect mothers to rat out their own kids. So this mild exaggeration was obviously not intended to be interpreted too literally.

But what mattered was not what I knew, what mattered was what she knew, and, judge's wife or not, apparently she didn't know enough. Tears were spilling down her cheeks, and she appeared to be on the verge of a complete meltdown. But she still wasn't talking, which was annoying and frustrating. You have to push the right button, and I still hadn't found it. I searched my mind for the soft spot and wasn't coming up with it.

Jennie raised an eyebrow at me and mentioned to Mrs. Barnes, somewhat sorrowfully, "This is terrible, Margaret. Your family, and your reputation will be ruined."

I got it.

Jennie got off her knees and sat on the arm of Margaret's chair. I walked toward Margaret and leaned over, getting three inches from her face. "But hey, Mrs. Barnes-imagine if your boy actually kills the President. Think about it-the President of the United States. You'll become overnight sensations. You'll be the modern equivalent of Mrs. John Wilkes Booth."

"No… it's not-"

"Wow-I mean, wow! What will that do for the glorious and esteemed Barnes name?" But in the event she couldn't piece it together in her muddled mental state, I spelled it out for her. "The Barnes name in all the history books, beside Sirhan Sirhan, Lee Harvey Oswald, and that loony Hinckley. There'll be books about you, your family, reporters crawling through everything, biopics of how you raised a sociopath, probably a Broadway play some instant TV movies… Hey, who do you think they'll get to play you, Mrs. Barnes?"

"Stop it, Sean." Jennie looked at me and said, "Can't you see this is a huge shock for Margaret?"

"You're right. What was I thinking? Poor, poor Margaret Barnes. Why was I concerned about the wives, parents, and children of the sixteen people her son murdered today? How about Mr. Larry Elwood, Terrence Belknap's driver, who we found this morning, barbecued to a crisp, after Jason put a few slugs in his skull." Pause. "Or Agent June Lacy, one of Jason's partners, who would've been married next week-except Jason, this morning, put a bullet through her throat."

Margaret Barnes was shrinking into her seat. On her face you could see guilt, and in that guilt you could see that Jason's actions made sense to her, that something inside this family either had created or at least corrupted a human vessel capable of every wicked deed I had just described.

Jennie laid a hand on Mrs. Barnes's shoulder. She said, "Margaret, we need to find Jason." She confided, "By morning, he'll be the target of the largest manhunt in American history. We're the only hope of taking him alive."

I said to Jennie, "I hope she doesn't talk. Let them shoot the bastard."

"Sit down, Sean," Jennie ordered. "Just… sit down, and shut your mouth."

I sat.

Margaret Barnes was looking around the room, wide-eyed, and if she had a gun, a noose, and limbs that worked, I had not one doubt she would climb up onto a stool, slip the noose around her neck, and swallow a bullet herself. Actually, after what I'd just done to this poor lady, I felt ashamed enough to join her. Jennie said, "The human mind is a brittle thing, Margaret. We know Jason struggled to live a decent life… an honorable life. We also know he was fleeing something, some monster." She added, "Apparently, he did not run far enough."

Margaret Barnes looked at her, a little shocked by this insight. A good interrogator has to find common ground with the subject, of course. And the parent of a killer bears a special shame, and the mind of that parent searches for excuses, for solace, even absolution. Jennie said, "I don't blame you. Nobody should blame you. You shouldn't blame yourself."

"But you can't… It's not his fault."

"Whose fault is it, Margaret?"

She did not reply

"Margaret, help us understand."

Mrs. Barnes sipped from her sherry, and from her expression I wasn't sure she could piece it all together. She said, "He… his childhood…"

"Being robbed of his mother?"

"Yes. And my husband, he was very… he was quite strong-willed. And headstrong."

Jennie said, "I know this is difficult, Margaret. But Calhoun's dead. He can never hurt you again." She reached forward and she turned off the tape recorder. She said, "Whatever you tell us stays between us. I promise."

I knew why she did it, but turning off the recorder was, I thought, a bad move. But also, I realized in that instant that Jennie had picked up something I had missed entirely. Actually, she had picked up a lot I had missed, and I was curious to see what. Mrs. Barnes looked up at her. Jennie said, "It's going to come out. It can't stay hidden any longer. For your sake… for Jason's sake, tell us."

After a moment, Mrs. Barnes blubbered, "You can't imagine."

"Yes, well… I don't want to imagine. I need you to describe it. You'll feel better by telling us."

For a long moment, Margaret Barnes stared into Jennie's face, but it was not clear she understood a word. Jennie prompted, "Start with how he really broke your back."

With a distressed expression she recoiled back into her seat. "I don't want to talk about that."

"Yes… yes, you do. You've always wanted to talk about it. Haven't you?" She added, "For Jason. You owe him this."

In the past two minutes Margaret Barnes had learned her son was a homicidal maniac, that the two agents in her home had come to destroy her soul, that she was about to become the most shamed mother in the country, and possibly that she would spend the remainder of her years in prison. Interrogations are a tricky business, and every experienced interrogator will tell you there is a moment, not a crescendo necessarily, but a turning point after which the subject either blurts out everything or the lawyers take over. In fact, she looked at Jennie and asked, "Shouldn't I call my lawyer?"

Jennie glanced at me. I stood up and said,"Sure, Mrs. Barnes." To Jennie I said, "Hand me your cuffs." To Mrs. Barnes I ordered, "Put out your hands. After we've booked you, you can call your attorney from the holding cell of the nearest police station."

Margaret Barnes stared at the cuffs in my hand for a very long time. Basically, a hardened criminal has been through the wringer a few times, and knows better than to talk to coppers under any circumstances. But ordinary people don't appreciate how the odds are stacked against them; they think they can bluff and outsmart cops, they think they can get away with a medley of half-truths and half-lies, and as first-timers, they still believe they have their untainted reputations to protect.

Some combination of all these thoughts went through Margaret Barnes's mind, and eventually she said, "All right. He… I mean, Calhoun… he beat me… and he threw me down the stairs. He was in a rage that night. He'd been… well, he'd been drinking… but he wasn't…" She stared at me and, as though to underscore the one irrelevant truth she'd told, insisted scornfully, "He wasn't drunk."

Jennie said, "And afterward-together-you fabricated the car accident to conceal the truth."

Mrs. Barnes nodded.

Jennie said, "He threatened you, didn't he? He said it would ruin both your lives, and Jason's."

Again, she nodded. "I never lost consciousness. He… he hovered over me, and… and I couldn't move my body… and, so we both knew I was badly hurt and…" She tried to stifle a heavy sob. "He threatened to kill me, Jennifer. And he would- believe me, I had not a doubt he would. He… he could be brutishly violent."

Jennie allowed a moment to pass. She said, "I understand your decision, Margaret. I believe he might have killed you, and I'm sure he would've looked for a way to cover that up. But afterward… well, afterward, he controlled you, when you could go out, what you could do, when you could use the toilet, your feeding, your entertainment, and-"

She was nodding furiously. "I felt like… like an animal."

"He was a cruel man, wasn't he?"

"Beyond your imagination. He left the house every day, the good family man, the federal judge… you have no idea how normal… how charming he could be outside this house… how admired… how misjudged. But inside…"

"I do understand, Margaret. Calhoun was sick. He was addicted to control. He needed his partner to depend on him. He needed his wife to be subservient, and it may have been an accident, but probably he was satisfied when you ended up crippled and became absolutely dependent on him." Mrs. Barnes was still nodding as Jennie spoke, and Jennie paused and with exquisite timing suggested, "And from Jason, from his son, he also demanded absolute obedience, didn't he?"

Tears were now streaming down Margaret's face and she was intermittently sobbing and drawing short breaths. The first dark secret was out, and it was like plucking the cork on a dusty bottle of champagne.

"I… my son and I… we have no relationship. We haven't.. well, we haven't spoken in years."

"We'll get to that. Tell me about your family."

And for the next ten minutes, Margaret related what it had been like to be a wife, to be a mother, and to be a son in the house of Calhoun Barnes, a greater monster than we had even imagined. Margaret Barnes, as Jennie said, did want to get it out, and it came like a torrent, a sobbing collection of endless nightmares for her, and for her son.

As I listened, I was struck that Jennie had also been surprisingly prescient back at Jason's townhouse; Calhoun had been a terrorizing, overbearing bully who whipped and beat his son to a pulp for the tiniest infractions, who demanded and enforced perfection in matters and habits large and small. The things that could trigger Calhoun's volcanic fury ranged from the trivial to the arbitrary. Little Jason once bought a turtle from a school classmate; Calhoun discovered the turtle, thrashed Jason with a belt, crushed the turtle under his foot, then forced Jason to clean up the squashed mess and, afterward, to wash his hands one hundred times. Adolescent Jason got into a schoolyard fight, which was fine, but he lost, which was not, and Calhoun thrashed him so badly he missed three days of school. And so forth, and so on.

Because the mother was equally terrorized, and because she was bedridden, and then handicapped, young Jason was forced to confront his monster alone, unprotected and vulnerable. But I think not even Jennie had anticipated the unremitting ferocity the father unleashed on his son. Margaret eventually commented, "But you know the oddest thing? Jason actually looked up to his father. He admired him, and he obeyed him, and wanted always to please him. The two of them were.. unnaturally close. Jason idolized his father." She took a deep breath. "I did not lie about that." She inquired of her confessor, "Don't you find that peculiar?"

"I find it normal, Margaret. We see it sometimes in hostage situations. There's even a term for it-the Stockholm syndrome. The combination of applied terror and victim helplessness creates mental dependency, and, perversely, even affection and loyalty. For a young boy, trapped in the home of such an abusively dictatorial man, I'd be surprised to hear otherwise."

"I… yes, I could see how that explains it." In fact, she might-in her own way she probably had succumbed to the same bewitching phenomenon.

Jennie asked, "Did Jason ever learn the truth about your injury?"

"No. We… I kept it from him. I thought… a child… a son.. should not have to bear such a terrible truth. Don't you think that's so?"

Jennie glanced at me, pointed at Margaret's glass, and I got her another refill. I was tempted to tell Margaret that whatever her intentions, she had made a serious, even fatal miscalculation. In truth, she had made many mistakes, starting with her marriage, but mistakes compound, and some are worse than others, and cumulatively they become a disaster. Had the boy understood his father's barbaric nature, he might have learned to despise, rather than admire and obey, the beast dominating his life.

In fact, the hour was very late, and I was tired and becoming increasingly impatient to learn exactly what had triggered Jason's rage-but Jennie continued her pursuit, methodically and patiently Margaret's marriage to Calhoun had been a carnival of smoke and broken mirrors, and I was sure she had entertained strong visceral feelings, but she had never intellectualized or verbalized the causes and effects to others, or probably even to herself. Or perhaps she had, but with only the knowledge of how it had destroyed her life. Now she knew how it had destroyed her child's also, and she needed to rationalize the adjusted causes and effects.

For the next few minutes, alternating between a whispery intensity and hurt chokes and sobs, she detailed how Calhoun had estranged her from Jason, isolating him and isolating her. Daddy taught his boy to admire strength; Mommy was crippled, Mommy was weak, Mommy deserved contempt. Also, Mommy was physically incapable of caring for and protecting him, magnifying Jason's emotional enslavement to his father and his alienation from his mother. It struck me that young Jason might also have felt a sense of betrayal. Margaret had failed in nearly every sense, both practical and emotional, to be his mother, and a child is concerned not with cause but with effect.

Even I could understand that no child would emerge from such a malevolent and viciously manipulated environment healthy in mind, conscience, and soul. Jason's head was probably a shopping cart of pathologies, Oedipal guilts, and sexual confusion. No wonder the guy wasn't married yet. But Margaret finally paused to catch a breath, and Jennie, the good cop, asked her, "Another sherry?"

"Uh… if you'd be so kind."

Jennie handed me Margaret's glass. Being the bad cop carries its heavy burdens. I felt really bad about getting a witness liquored up and loose-lipped, but in murder investigations you do what works. As I got up, Jennie suggested to Margaret, "Now I think it's time to figure out what happened, why Jason has taken the course he's on."

Margaret thought a moment, then said, "I think… I suppose, his father."

"This was somehow related to the firm your husband and Phillip Fineberg started?"

"Oh… I believe most certainly it was."

"Can you explain what happened?"

Margaret waited for me to bring her the refill, then started, "As I mentioned, the fit between Calhoun and Phillip was never good or particularly healthy. Theirs was a partnership of convenience, at best. I think that with success and wealth, they needed each other less and disliked each other more."

"That's how it usually works," Jennie commented.

"Actually, I think Calhoun and Phillip were consummately jealous of each other." She paused for a moment before she added, "They grew to really hate one another."

"How long were they together?"

"Fifteen years. The last four or five were misery for them both. Calhoun complained viciously about Phillip. And I knew Phillip thoroughly despised Calhoun as well. And of course, by the seventies, the opportunities in this city toward Jews had changed greatly. Phillip knew it, and so did Calhoun."

"Was there a blow-up?"

"Oh, nothing so reckless. They were both smart men, and quite greedy. They knew to manage their situation discreetly. Richmond is a small city, after all. They would invite unwanted scrutiny, and their legal competitors would have eaten them alive." She paused a moment, then said, "Phillip finally ended it."

"How?"

"In a most interesting manner. One day, he just never came back to work."

"He… what? He just quit?"

"In a manner of speaking. He accepted a position at Yale Law, teaching, I think, tort law. Calhoun learned afterward that, behind his back, Phillip had discussed partnerships with several of those large northern firms. That proved to be fruitless. Phillip's lack of courtroom experience completely disqualified him, and he wasn't willing to again start at the bottom. In the end, I'm sure he concluded, teaching was the only respectable escape. The pay was stingy, but with the money he had made at the firm, he could live quite comfortably."

"And he of course blamed this on Calhoun."

"Well, I'm sure he did." She nodded. "Rightly so, I suppose. Though I also think Phillip would have been a miserable litigator. The man was gifted with a gloriously brilliant mind-but had no tact or charm, or even the ability to manufacture charm, the trick Calhoun so readily mastered. To be frank, both were disgustingly arrogant men, but Calhoun could hide it."

I suggested, "But there's more, isn't there?"

"Between those two, there was always more, Mr. Drummond." She sipped from her sherry and said, "Do you believe that these two very smart lawyers failed to create an agreement for what would happen in the event their firm dissolved? Both men kept all their money invested in the firm, withdrawing what was needed for their personal expenses, and left the remainder sheltered from taxes. This was another of Phillip's brilliant ideas. Don't you find that ironic?"

She looked at Jennie and me to be sure we understood. "So Calhoun simply decided to keep all the money."

"And how did Phillip respond?" Jennie asked.

"In the way all lawyers respond."

"He sued."

"With great outrage. The matter was handled in a claims court here. Phillip represented himself, which was, I think, very naive on his part. But as I said, he had a very large ego, and I think he had always felt he could do better than Calhoun in court, if only given the chance. Of course, Calhoun tore him apart. He showed that Phillip had never taken a case to court and described him as nothing but a glorified clerk."

I commented, "That's why they always say lawyers should never represent themselves."

But she wasn't interested in my insights; she looked at Jennie and said, "Afterward, Phillip swore Calhoun had arranged to have the case handled by a judge he was friendly with. He also insisted that Calhoun had blocked him from getting access to the firm's records, and the founding document Calhoun showed the court had been doctored to indicate Phillip was never a full partner."

"He got nothing?" I asked.

"Oh… not nothing, Mr. Drummond. He asked for four million. He walked away with thirty thousand."

"And about the judge being a friend of Calhoun's-was he?"

"Well… I don't know that they were friends, exactly. They attended the same private school together, and were members of the same country club, and the same church." With a bemused half-smile she concluded, "I suppose they were… acquainted."

Jennie asked, "And what was Fineberg's response?"

"As a civil case, there was no appeal. But anyway, I think he concluded the game was rigged against him in this city. He left bitter, and we never heard from him again."

"And the firm?"

"For about six months, Calhoun tried going it alone. But without its legal mastermind, he began to lose large cases, and-"

"And he arranged a judgeship," I said.

"Yes, Mr. Drummond. And frankly, it better suited his natural talents and temperament. It was said that he ran the tightest courtroom in the Commonwealth. My husband worshipped law and order, as you might imagine. Felons did not get mercy before his bar."

"I'll bet" In fact, it was all beginning to make sense. But we needed to move this along, and I said, "So the years passed, and eventually Calhoun was notified he was under consideration for the Supreme Court. What happened?"

Of course, Jennie and I had already figured out what happened: Phillip Fineberg got his long-awaited revenge. Still, it was important to understand who else was involved, and how. In general terms, we now had a partial understanding of how one victim was connected to Jason Barnes. We needed to advance that understanding, and we needed to establish connections to the others, to piece together how a family spat became mass murder.

After a moment, Margaret said, "About seven months ago, Calhoun was asked to visit the Justice Department, where he met with a smart young lawyer from the White House and several senior Justice people. They notified him he was on the President's final list. It had come down to two final candidates; the President wanted a trial judge with a strict law-and-order pedigree, and Calhoun had the inside edge. They had reached the point of no return, the lawyer advised him. So he asked two questions-was there anything in Calhoun's background they should be aware of, and was he willing to expose himself to the scrutiny involved in these matters."

Jennie commented, "Was this notification a surprise for Calhoun?"

The sherry had gone to her head, and she giggled. "Goodness, no

… he had plotted this moment for years. His father's failure to make the court was, I think, a burden his whole life. And when Phillip was brought onto the court ten years ago, it was, for Calhoun, as though he had been electrocuted. As I said, the two men were bitterly competitive."

I got up and took her glass, which was again empty, and went to retrieve another refill. Margaret looked exhausted and tipsy, and her speech was becoming slurred. Jennie asked her, "And what happened?"

"Apparently the White House circulated the list of candidates with the serving justices."

"I would've thought that was done earlier in the process," I commented.

"I would guess, Mr. Drummond, that it was done earlier."

Of course. Fineberg probably waved off on Calhoun's name in the early rounds, allowing him to become a finalist, allowing him to think the high court was within reach, and allowing his name to surface publicly. These two guys had long memories, and they played for keeps. The public humiliation of a federal judge is relevant only to his own jurisdiction, whereas a finalist for the Sacred Tribunal dances on the largest stage, and the fall from grace would be from an even loftier height. In fact, I wondered if it was Fineberg who found a way to introduce Barnes for consideration to the court in the first place. Margaret suggested she thought this was the case and added, "Phillip plotted his moment brilliantly. He began feeding damaging tales and insinuations about Calhoun, providing leads to the background investigators. Calhoun was recalled to Washington several times to offer his side of things."

"What kind of things?" Jennie asked.

"That as a lawyer, Calhoun had bribed some judges. That as a city magistrate he had done a few favors for the governor-a quid pro quo arrangement-in return for which the governor would assure Calhoun's elevation to the federal bench."

"Was there any truth to the charges?" Jennie asked.

"I… well, Calhoun insisted to me they were all blatant fabrications."

"But they weren't, were they?"

"No." She looked at Jennie. "I knew they were true. Calhoun, as I said, was very ambitious and calculating."

"And controlling," Jennie commented.

"Yes, and meticulous. It was not his way to leave things to chance."

Before anyone could come up with another adjective, I asked Margaret, "When did your husband learn Fineberg was behind this?"

"He knew-at least, he suspected Phillip immediately. And that truly infuriated him. But Calhoun was nothing if not willful. He was sure he could bull and lie his way through." She looked at us and added, "Unfortunately for Calhoun, Phillip proved smarter than him."

"How?" I asked.

She looked at me. "How do you think, Mr. Drummond?"

I considered it. "He kept evidence from their partnership. Nothing implicating him-but something that proved Calhoun had violated the law."

"Very good. Phillip had three canceled checks, signed by Calhoun. All for very large sums, all to judges involved in important cases Calhoun took to trial."

Jennie gave me a funny look, then asked Mrs. Barnes, "He gave those checks to the Justice Department?"

"It was my understanding that he gave them to people in your Bureau who were performing the investigation on Calhoun's suitability. Your Director then carried everything over to the White House."

There was no need to ask what happened at the White House. She could only offer conjecture where we needed facts. But neither was it hard to piece together. Townsend took the disclosures to the President's legal counsel, together they took it to Terrence Belknap, the White House Chief of Staff, who accompanied them to see the President.

They stood around in the Oval Office and stared at those canceled checks and they realized Calhoun Barnes also needed to be canceled. At some point on the merry-go-round, Merrill Benedict, the White House spokesman, probably was instructed to quash the leaked reports about Barnes being a leading candidate, and perhaps to salt the ground with a few hints about Barnes's past, present, and maybe, about his future.

Margaret Barnes looked at me and held out her glass. I retrieved it and returned to the bar. Over my shoulder I asked her, "How did your husband learn his candidacy was in trouble?"

"He was recalled to Washington again, to meet with the Attorney General himself, Not only was Calhoun's nomination scratched, he was told he would also be charged. A task force had been created to investigate, though the evidence was already sufficient to ask Calhoun to resign from the federal bench immediately."

"And did he?"

"No… he… well, he was shocked and very upset. He asked to be allowed to think about it overnight, and was granted that wish."

Jennie suggested, "He then came home and he told you about all this?" Mrs. Barnes nodded, and Jennie asked, "What did you do, Margaret?"

After a long hesitation, she said, "Well… he was, as I said, upset… crushed, actually. I… I allowed him to vent. He cried.. like a little child… he kept bawling. I told him I was heartbroken for him, that this was so unfair, that Phillip was a mean and spiteful bastard." She hesitated a moment, staring off into space. "I told him we'd get through this, and to go to bed. He… he said he wanted a nightcap, here… in the study, to think this out. I wish now… well, I wish I had talked him out of it." She stared at Jennie. She pointed up at a beamed rafter, and then at a short stool on rollers beside the bookshelf. "Right here… in this very room."

It was amazing, I thought, how good Jennie was at this, how falsely sensitive, and how blithely intuitive. I was aware that profilers are trained not only in developing sketches of killers but they are also masters of the art of interrogation. Yet, as in art and war, good training and practice only get you so far. Truly, Special Agent Margold was a prodigy. She placed a hand on Margaret Barnes's shoulder and said, not all that softly, "You're lying."

Margaret recoiled." I… I don't understand what you mean?"

Jennie said, "You did not tell Calhoun it would be okay. You told Calhoun he had destroyed everything. You told him his career was over, ruined, that he had dishonored himself, and this family. And you suggested there was only one way out-only one way to short-circuit an investigation… one simple way to avoid the utter shame and disgrace that would follow. You planted the seed in his head, and you prayed he would do it. Didn't you?"

Margaret stared at Jennie a moment, a bit surprised and a lot shocked that her pal, the good cop, had suddenly become a bad cop and was not really her pal at all. She shook her head in denial. "No… I did not… I wouldn't-"

"In fact," Jennie continued, more harshly, "there was one thing you didn't tell him. You didn't describe how Phillip learned of his bribes, or where Phillip got those canceled checks"

Margaret Barnes was now staring into her sherry glass. Clearly Jennie Margold had penetrated a great deal further into this family's maelstrom of hatreds and treachery than she was meant to go.

After a moment, Jennie insisted, "You told us Phillip lost his case against Calhoun because he lacked access to the firm records. But aside from that, surely Calhoun was too sly to bribe judges with traceable checks from his firm's account. He would've used your private account. Copies of those checks are in the Bureau's possession-would you like me to make a call to verify which account they were drawn from? Perhaps you'd rather have me access your phone records during that month, to see if you and Phillip were in contact?"

Margaret wasn't going to confirm this charge, but neither did she try to deny it. Though, in fact, it didn't matter. We needed neither her confirmation nor her disavowal, and suggesting suicide to her husband-no matter how exquisitely timed-is not even a misdemeanor, much less a crime.

She continued to stare at Jennie, and in some weird way I thought Margaret Barnes was glad that we knew the whole truth. Her husband had crippled her, destroyed her life, alienated and corrupted her child, and in the end she had turned out not to be the numbingly passive lamb she appeared.

I looked at my watch. It was after two. I said, "Mrs. Barnes, when was the last time you heard from your son?"

"Not in years."

"Do you know where he is?"

"No, I do not."

"Can you give us the names of any of Calhoun's close friends, anybody who might know?"

"I don't know his close friends."

"If you hear from him, will you call?"

"Certainly" She was lying, of course,

I looked at Jennie. "Any more questions?"

"No."

We both stood. I asked Mrs. Barnes, "Do you need assistance getting to your bedroom?"

"No, I… I believe I will just sit here awhile."

We bid her good night, and left her cradling her sherry in the room where her former husband stored his greatest feats, and where she stored her greatest memory.