The Nominee

Twenty-Five

Seven years earlier

THE LAST LINES OF light were fading from the early autumn sky as Robert Fitzgerald wheeled his Mercedes through the suburban Chestnut Hill neighborhood of stone fences and sprawling estates and slowly came around a gradual bend on Willow Way. And there in the dusky dark he saw a veritable city of satellite trucks parked happenstance on the side of the road, idling police cars, and television news crews doing stand-ups in the pointed glow of powerful lamps.

A State Police trooper standing in the middle of the lane waved a flashlight at Fitzgerald’s car and hollered, “Keep it moving.”

Fitzgerald pulled up to him, rolled down his window, and said, “I’m trying to get inside.”

“No visitors,” the trooper replied, barely giving Fitzgerald the dignity of a look. “Get your car out of here before I have it towed.”

Fitzgerald put the Mercedes into park, which caused the trooper, a twenty-five-year veteran, to cast him a long glance. “The family requested my company,” he said.

It was the governor’s house — Governor Bertram J. Randolph. Randolph had been shot and killed that morning in a blaze of gunfire at a Roxbury School in what the television anchormen were saying was the first assassination of an elected official in the state’s history. The student who shot him also killed his State Police bodyguard before turning the gun on himself.

“What’s your name?”

“Robert Fitzgerald of theRecord.”

The trooper regarded him for a moment in the dimming light and said simply, “Yes, of course. I read you all the time. Stay here a moment.” With that, he walked over to his cruiser, which sat idling at the entrance to the grand, circular drive. A couple of television news producers and reporters inched toward Fitzgerald’s car to get a glimpse of who he was, and whether he might be worth corralling for an interview.

The trooper returned a moment later with a clipboard in his hand. He scanned down a list, made a checkmark, and said, “Yes, they’re expecting you, Mr. Fitzgerald. I’ll move my car and you can proceed right in.”

Fitzgerald drove through the opening in the eight-foot-high privet that sheltered the sprawling Bavarian-style house from the usually quiet street. He pulled past a gurgling fountain complete with a statue of Neptune, the god of the sea. The checkerboard-patterned driveway of red-and-white bricks was lined with freshly planted yellow and burgundy chrysanthemums. He had been here dozens of times before, whether to shoot a game of pool with the governor or for grand parties with Hollywood starlets, and still he was stunned at the graceful opulence that defined the lives of the truly, spectacularly rich.

A young butler in a navy blazer and khaki pants, no more than forty years old, greeted him solemnly at the door and beckoned him into the front hallway. “The District Attorney has asked me to show you to the study,” he said, clasping his hands together.

Fitzgerald glanced around, surprised at the quiet and the lack of people. Ahead of him flowed a wide marble hallway. A grand, red-carpeted stairway rose to his right. A set of double doors to the left led to the living room, and beyond that, to the dining room, and then the kitchen. A matching set of double doors to his immediate right led to the formal salon, then to the library. All the lights were off in all the rooms, creating an eerie sense of emptiness fitting for the day.

Fitzgerald was about to follow the butler up the staircase when a lonely figure appeared at the other end of the hallway. “Robert?” a woman’s voice called out. “Is that you?”

Fitzgerald strode toward the governor’s wife, and she to him, and they embraced in the silence of the hall.

“My God, Lillian, I am so incredibly sorry for your loss,” he said, his words formal but his tone comforting, familiar.

She began sobbing on his shoulder, convulsing in his arms. “He was my entire life, Robert. He’ll always be my entire life.” She pulled back and looked at Fitzgerald with her teary eyes and cried out, “What am I supposed to do now?”

He held her tighter. After a moment, she pulled away again, still within his grasp, and said, “And Robert, he loved you. He respected you so.”

Fitzgerald wiped a tear of his own from the edge of each of his eyes and regarded the woman before him. Lillian Randolph was small and slender, probably sixty-five years old, with perfectly coifed gray hair, a well-preserved face that exuded wealth, and a surprisingly plainspoken way about her.

She said to him, “My Lance is such a hero. God is this going to affect him.”

At her mention of her son, the butler, who was standing inconspicuously a few feet away, stepped forward and said, “Excuse me, Mrs. Randolph, but the district attorney is waiting for Mr. Fitzgerald in the study.” Fitzgerald embraced Lillian one more time, and was led up the stairs.

As they walked down the carpeted hallway, Fitzgerald heard the low rumble of muffled conversation in the distance — a sound that became louder with each step. Finally, the young man walking just ahead of him stopped at a closed door, knocked softly, and poked his head inside. A moment later, he moved aside and waved Fitzgerald in.

Fitzgerald walked into the dimly lit study and looked around at the three men in the room. All of them stood up, took a step toward the distinguished reporter, and shook his hand, exchanging niceties and condolences in the process. A cloud of cigar smoke drifted through the air.

Straight ahead, a pair of French doors was pulled open to reveal a small balcony outside. From experience, Fitzgerald knew that the balcony, in turn, overlooked a stone swimming pool, a clay tennis court, and beyond that, a lawn that rolled down a gentle hill toward a stable.

Black-and green-shaded lamps cast hazy light around the room. Two walls were made up of full-length bookcases, complete with rolling ladders that reached the soaring ceilings. The other two walls were paneled by cherry wood.

“Robert, sit down, please,” said Jeb Forman, pointing the lit end of his cigar at him. Fitzgerald looked at Forman a moment. He appeared out of place in the room, dressed, as he was, in a pair of faded jeans and an old black tee shirt that said, “Bacardi” across the front. His shaggy hair looked like it hadn’t had the benefit of a pair of scissors in what had to have been months. He was young, and his brashness sometimes approached condescension.

Forman was Bertram Randolph’s lead political strategist, creator of so many of the successful television advertisements that contributed to the governor’s overwhelming popularity.

Fitzgerald sat in one of the matching wing chairs, such that the four men all formed a perfect square, an ottoman in front of each, a side table separating them. Forman was to Fitzgerald’s left, Benjamin Bank, Randolph’s chief of staff, was to his right, and Lance Randolph sat straight across.

“We’re devastated, obviously,” Forman said, though he didn’t sound it. He took a long puff on his cigar, allowed the smoke to drift aimlessly from his mouth, and leaned toward Fitzgerald. “We’ve lost a great man. Now it’s a question of what else we’re about to lose.”

As Forman spoke these last words, his eyes flitted to the other two, who sat silently looking back at him.

Fitzgerald, still wearing his gray suit jacket, asked in his deep voice, “Meaning?”

Forman replied, “Meaning politics has become a pretty vicious undertaking in this particular state. Meaning somebody somewhere is going to start spreading sleazy innuendo and false rumors about Lance being the only survivor in today’s rampage.”

He stopped to take another drag on his fat cigar, blew the smoke into the middle of the square, and added, “You’re an old family friend, Robert. You knew the old man before he was the old man. I think it might be in Lance’s best interests to describe to you what happened today and you might see fit to make a story of it.”

Fitzgerald shot a glance across to Randolph, who stared at the floor in front of his chair. The reporter had to admit to himself that the questions had already entered his mind: How did Lance survive? What did he do to help his old man? Did he flee?

Bank, a nervous little man with a thin voice, cleared his throat and said, “And the bottom line, Robert, is that you’re read, and you’re believed. If you explain what happened in a bylined story, then it will never be an issue again.”

Fitzgerald leaned back in his chair and said, “Well, I’d be interested in hearing what did happen out there today.” He looked from one to the other to the other. Only Forman met his gaze.

Forman said, “Lance, go ahead, tell Mr. Fitzgerald.” He spoke to him in that kind of weary tone that an impatient older sister might use to her little brother.

Lance Randolph shifted in his chair, stared at his hands clasped on top of his right thigh, and said in a low voice, “It was awful.”

He looked up at Fitzgerald with his big, deep-set eyes. He was wearing an open-collared blue shirt, a pair of khakis and loafers without socks. Half his face was side-lit by the dull lamp, the other half lost in the gauzy shadows of the room. He had watched his father die at the hand of a gunman that very morning, and now he sat before the city’s preeminent political reporter, hoping to salvage his reputation, to tamp down any questions before they ignited into political flames.

Randolph was thirty-six years old, and to Fitzgerald, he looked every day that young, with his stylish blond hair, the perfect lines just beginning to groove his pleasant face, and the constantly optimistic tone of his voice — tonight aside. Behind him, Fitzgerald saw a nearly full moon suspended in the opening of the French doors.

Fitzgerald reached into the breast pocket of his suit and pulled out a small reporter’s notebook, paged it open, and looked back at Randolph.

Randolph said, “He did the school event, no hitches. Just your basic speech, in and out, everyone cheering, music playing, the whole thing. Outside, we met the construction workers. My dad worked the line, shaking everyone’s hand, joking. You know his drill.”

He stopped for a moment, hung his head, and laughed a shallow laugh. “He said to the last guy, ‘I want you to meet my son, the future governor.’ He had just started introducing me around that way, even though I warned him to cut the bullshit.”

Forman, waving his cigar in the air, impatiently cut in. “The point, Lance. The point.”

Randolph shot him a cold look, then returned an easier gaze to Fitzgerald.

“So we come to the end of the line and there’s this dirt area between us and the street, marked off by a couple of construction trailers. They just hadn’t cleaned it up yet. I said to my dad, ‘Let’s go back through the building.’ But he’s still in political mode, and he says to me, ‘You afraid of getting your wingtips dirty?’

“So we walked around the trailer and onto the hard-packed dirt. It was maybe twenty yards to the street, probably less. Trooper Gowan, dad’s bodyguard, walked ahead of us to open the car door. My father was telling me about a fundraising trip he was planning to California. More and more, he was thinking of running for the Senate—”

“The point, Lance,” Forman interjected, his words soaked with frustration. “Robert is waiting for the point.”

Fitzgerald said coolly, “Take your time, Lance.”

Randolph cleared his throat. Someone knocked softly on the door. Before anyone could respond, the young butler came in carrying a tray with a decanter of port and four crystal glasses. He set them quietly down on a sideboard and walked out of the room. Bank immediately lifted himself up, ambled over to the table and began filling the glasses, delivering them in pairs to the rest of the group. By now, Fitzgerald noticed, the moon had risen out of view.

Randolph said, his voice becoming almost trancelike, “And as we’re walking I see this kid in a flowing white coat, like a lab coat, come walking around the far corner of the building. He calls out to my father. He says, ‘Hey, governor.’ And what does my old man do? He’s a politician. He loves people. So of course, he starts heading right over to him. I’m standing in the middle of the dirt patch. Gowan’s over by the car, the kid is standing near the building, and my old man is approaching him.”

Randolph paused, swallowed hard, and continued, his voice so low now that Fitzgerald had to lean forward to hear. “The kid pulls out a gun. He took it right out of the inside of his coat, a stout little semiautomatic. My father stopped in his tracks. I don’t know what was going on in his mind. I’m behind him, and I scream, ‘Drop it! Drop it.’ I look over at Gowan, who’s reaching for his sidearm, but it’s too late. The kid fires at him and he crumples to the ground.”

He stopped and stared at his shoes, at the maroon and navy patterns along the border of the rich Oriental rug. His body began quivering slightly and he brought his hands up to his face.

Forman said, sternly, “Lance, finish the story.”

Randolph let his palms drift from his cheeks to the back of his neck. He looked up slightly toward Forman and said, “Go fuck yourself, Jeb.” His voice came out like that of a small child.

Forman’s face reddened. He slammed his closed fist against the chair’s arm. “Lance, we have a state in turmoil. We need you to be clear and cogent and to tell your story.”

Bank leaned back in his chair, sipped absently on his port, and gazed out the open doors. Randolph stared again at Fitzgerald who, when he began talking, stared at nothing at all.

“Then he aims at my father. He had the gun down here”—he made a motion with his arms like he was cradling a weapon down around his chest—“and he fires. He kept pulling the trigger. I was about five, maybe eight yards away. I lost my mind. I didn’t know what I was doing. I could barely hear the shots. I just raced toward my father.

“The bullets must have still been flying. I didn’t hear them. But I saw this kid still holding the gun. When I got to my dad, he was covering his face with his hands, staggering to the side and ready to fall down. I pushed him to the ground and dove on top of him. I could feel his blood oozing out of his chest and onto my clothes. I could hear his last breath leave him. I could see his eyes go vacant.

“I looked up and this kid is still standing over us. He’s staring at me, so serene. He presses his finger against the trigger and nothing comes out. So he reaches into his pocket and pulls out another clip. And he says to me, his voice calm as mine is right now, ‘This is your lucky day.’ And he takes the barrel of the gun and puts it up against the roof of his mouth and blows his head off.”

Randolph began quaking more than quivering, staring again at the floor. He looked up at Fitzgerald one more time and said, “I tried to save my dad. I swear to God, I tried to save him.” Then he bowed his head and the tears flowed down his young cheeks.

Jeb Forman took a final draw on his cigar, stubbed it out in an ornate jade ashtray, and exhaled hard. He looked at Fitzgerald and said triumphantly, dramatically, “He tried to save his father. I’ll repeat that for everyone out there who’s trying to figure out how he was the only one who survived.” He paused, then presented each word as if they were individually wrapped: “He tried to save his father.”

Fitzgerald wrote a couple more sentences in his notebook. Bank drained his second port. Randolph sat convulsing in tears. And Forman slapped his knees against his thighs and said, “Well, I think that’s called a wrap.”

“Hold on,” Fitzgerald replied, his voice low and firm. “Lance, I’ve got a couple of questions I need you to answer.”

Randolph peered up through his hands. Fitzgerald asked, “You were standing right behind your father when the shooting began, right? Wouldn’t any errant shots have struck you? Did you feel bullets graze your clothes?”

Randolph shook his head and replied, “No. I guess this kid was accurate.”

Fitzgerald nodded and bit his bottom lip. He paged back through his notebook as the room fell dead quiet.

“Here’s what bothers me,” he finally said, looking across at Randolph. “The cops told me earlier today that this assassin didn’t even empty one full clip. He still had a couple of bullets left in the clip in his gun, and there weren’t any empties on the ground. Now you’re telling me something completely different, but the physical evidence would say that you’re wrong.”

Randolph, suddenly wide-eyed, stared searchingly at Forman, who rested his chin on his palm and looked straight ahead, deep in thought.

“Maybe I saw it wrong,” Randolph said, visibly frazzled, shaking his head while he spoke. “I thought I saw what I saw, but you have to remember, I’m on the ground. I’ve got my father gasping beneath me. I’m looking up at an odd angle. Maybe he was doing something else.”

“You said you heard your father draw his last breath before the kid changed his clip.”

Randolph looked again at Forman, who was now staring at the floor.

Forman broke the silence. “Look, Robert. A state trooper was dead. The guy’s father lies dying from thirteen fucking bullets that tore through every conceivable part of his body. He looks up and the kid is still holding a semiautomatic rifle pointed at his fucking face.

“So maybe he didn’t perfectly catalogue everything in his brain to relay toThe Boston Record in hopes that the entire nation has the clearest, most accurate image of what happened on that fucking dirt patch in Roxbury today. Maybe he’s just human. Maybe you ought to cut him a little slack.”

Fitzgerald glared back at Forman and replied, “I understand, but I’ll decide the questions I ask here.”

There was a long pause. Forman asked in a condescending tone, “Well then, Robert, do you have any more questions, or are we all done here?”

Fitzgerald sat in his chair, hunched forward, looking down at the words scratched onto the pages of his notebook but really seeing nothing at all. He thought of his best friend in life, his closest confidante, the governor, gunned down in a hail of bullets by some punk kid who confused television drama with daily reality. He thought of the widow downstairs, a beautiful, generous woman whose regal life of privilege was suddenly stripped of its entire purpose. He thought of the young man across from him, thrown into a situation that no normal person could ever comprehend.

What really happened out there today, he wondered.

He slowly folded up his notebook, slipped it into his breast pocket, and shot Forman a cold look. Then he gazed across at Randolph and said, “I’m all set, Lance.” With that, he pulled himself up and walked silently out the door.