The Kingmaker

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Katrina had no trouble tracking down Miss Janet Winters. The State Department’s personnel office gave her the forwarding address, which was in Rosslyn, Virginia, a ten-minute drive from my office.

Katrina wisely made the call to Janet, since the instant the poor woman heard a male voice identify himself as an attorney for Morrison, she’d probably invite us over so she could mow us down with a twelve-gauge shotgun. Incidentally, near the head of my list of ways I don’t want to die is being slain by the jilted paramour of a complete jerk-off.

Katrina sweet-talked her and wangled an invitation. It turned out Janet lived in a red-brick townhouse she shared with a few other professional women, a common enough arrangement in our capital’s anthropology, where young people nest together until they either find suitable mates or enough cash to hibernate alone.

We knocked, the door opened, and an extremely attractive woman in her early thirties stared at us. She took in my uniform, and that didn’t make her the least bit happy. Then her eyes fell on Katrina’s costume, which consisted of floppy camouflage pants and an OD halter top, obviously chosen for my benefit. I ordinarily like cheeky women. You can push it too far, though.

We ended up in a sparsely furnished living room that, like all collective nests, was a hodgepodge of jointly owned furniture assembled in one room. Where the male variety of these nests normally comprises a big-screen TV surrounded by three or four ratty old lounge chairs and a beer-stained rug, the female variant somehow manages to nearly always look tidy and tastefully decorated, despite the clashing striped and flowered and paisley couches and chairs. Women are so impractical that way.

Katrina sat on the striped couch, and I was starting to sit next to her when she quickly scooted her fanny over, exiling me to one of those flowered side chairs. She was shrewdly arranging the social setting for the best psychological effect, so she and Janet could have a confidential, chiquita-to-chiquita chat, which I believe to be much wimpier than a mano-a-mano, bareknuckled discussion.

Janet wore jeans and a sweatshirt with the words UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA curled around a picture of a snarling English bulldog. She had long honey blond hair, a classically pretty face, and a sleek, slender body. She struck me as the type you’d want to have an affair with. I’d want to have an affair with her. But we were here to find out if Bill did have an affair with her.

She began playing with the hem of her sweatshirt, betraying her anxiety, and Katrina gave her a warm smile and asked, “That shirt yours or in honor of a boyfriend?”

“Mine.”

“No kidding. What year did you graduate?”

“Nineteen ninety-two. I majored in political science.”

Katrina smiled sweetly. “Is that why you took the job at State?”

Janet stopped playing with the edge of her sweatshirt. “I wanted to be a Foreign Service officer, but I was having difficulty with the tests.”

“Hey, got that,” said Katrina, instantly sympathetic. “I worked at State, downstairs in Translations, trying to scramble up cash for law school. I had lots of friends trying to do what you did, though. It’s a bitch of a test, isn’t it? I knew one friend, took it six times and never passed. And I mean, that woman was smart as hell.”

Janet shook her head. “You want irony? I took it twice and failed. The third time was just before this thing with Bill. I was notified afterward that I passed, except I lost my security clearance and was disqualified.”

Katrina, her new buddy, shifted to a distressed frown. “Wow, that sucks. What are you doing now?”

“I’m a paralegal in a small firm downtown. Not exactly what I hoped to do with my life.”

“You must be royally pissed at Morrison, huh?”

“I’d hate to be in the same room with her. I’d probably strangle her.”

Katrina shot me a quick sideways glance. “Her? Uh, I thought her husband was behind it.”

Janet broke into a throaty chuckle. “Him? He’s just spineless. She hired the lawyer and detectives who sabotaged my life. I mean, okay, I was having an affair with her husband. I’m not proud of it. He was miserable in that marriage, though. She made his life hell.”

Katrina nodded sympathetically, like, Well of course he was miserable. Married to Mary, with her money, looks, and class, who wouldn’t be? Poor, poor Bill.

“How’d she find out about you?”

“He sent some gifts over to my apartment… some lingerie, some jewelry. And do you believe this?… the idiot charged it. She saw the receipts and hired a detective to track me down. Then Bill came into work one morning and asked me into his office. He looked like hell, like he hadn’t slept all night. He said he had to fire me. She ordered it.”

“And what did you do?”

“I said, no way. Transfer me, but don’t fire me. I knew I’d done well on the exam the last time. It would ruin me.”

“And he said… what?”

A harsh chuckle erupted from the back of Janet’s throat. “He offered me money. I told him to stuff that money up his wife’s ass. He’d told me dozens of times he loved me. Why was he letting that shrew ruin his life? Our lives? You know what he said?”

“What?”

“For the children. That old line. It was bullshit. He was a miserable father. He ignored those kids. They were so much like her, he hated being around them.”

“Then what happened?”

“I protested the firing. There was a hearing, and those high-priced lawyers and detectives had testimonies from the first guy I ever slept with to every affair I ever had. Look, I’m no nun, but I don’t go around throwing myself at married men, either. They made me sound like pathetic trailer-park trash.”

Katrina was again nodding in her sympathetic way, like, Aren’t men just the biggest cads? What in the hell was God thinking when he gave them such a big role in reproduction? She said, “Hey, I have to tell you. Bill doesn’t come off sounding very good.”

“Well, yeah, he was spineless… but I don’t blame him. That wife of his is like Lucrezia Borgia. You have no idea.”

Uncomfortable hearing Mary described in such thorny terms, I swiftly said, “So you didn’t think Bill was an honorable person?”

She shot me a noxious look. “I didn’t say that.”

“No?”

“This whole thing in the news is hogwash. Somebody’s made a terrible mistake.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, really.”

I scratched my jaw inquisitively. “What were his duties in that office? He says he was Martin’s right hand. Was that true?”

“Was it true? The guy was at the office every morning at six and didn’t usually go home till ten or eleven at night. Martin showered work on him.”

Katrina and I exchanged another glance. This had suddenly become much more interesting. “Give me some examples of the kinds of things he did for Martin.”

“You name it, he did it. He wrote nearly all of Martin’s memorandums and policy recommendations and messages. I typed them, so I know. He represented Martin at meetings with State, or with the White House, or with the CIA. A lot of Martin’s work depended on intelligence, and Bill collected it, summarized it, and kept it flowing.”

“No kidding? Martin said Morrison was a low-level flunky with a puffed-up title.”

She violently shook her head. “What a lie! He depended on Bill for everything. Not that I’m surprised Martin denies it.”

“No?”

“His ego’s bigger than his nose. He thinks he’s the new Kissinger. Well, he’s not nearly as bright as he thinks he is. He knew nothing about Washington. Bill kept him from being fired. He made him look good.”

I looked at Katrina and she was gazing back at me with an expression I couldn’t quite fathom.

Katrina said to Janet, “I can’t thank you enough. If something evidentiary from those years turns up, we may need you to testify. Would you be willing?”

“Of course. I hope his wife is there. I’ve waited a long time to tell her what I think of her.”

On that note, we bid our farewells and departed. In the car I turned to Katrina. “Well?”

She looked away. “Mary has a hard touch.”

“Yeah, well, what would you do if you caught your mate cheating with his secretary?”

“It’s irrelevant. Wouldn’t happen.”

“How come you’re so confident?”

“I’m fantastic in bed. My men don’t wander.”

“Well, then, notionally speaking… say your husband was cheating?”

“Remember John Bobbitt?”

“Could any man forget him?”

“Of course, I wouldn’t toss it in a field where they could find and reattach it. I’d put it in the garbage disposal and grind it into mush.”

“Wouldn’t a simple divorce suffice? Less wear and tear on your disposal.”

“Well, afterward, I suppose. He’d be worthless. Why keep a dickless man?”

And Mary has a hard touch? I finally said, “Put her on the witness list, but she’s a last resort.”

Katrina stared out the windshield. “Of course. They’d tear her to pieces on the stand.”

They would indeed, which meant all we had so far was one character witness of questionable reliability and infinite vulnerability.