Damage Control (14 page)

Chapter Thirty-six

“…at a reception before the White House Correspondents' dinner. Big deal, right? Talking to Laraine Keesh, who I've known for, what, twenty years anyway. And we haven't been talking more than thirty seconds before I notice her looking over my left shoulder to see if she can spot someone more important than me to talk to. Twenty years! I mean, I don't know what it is. Like Washington has turned into some kind of giant frat party. What is it? Do you know what it is?”

Matt Crisscut's voice, coming from our living room. I heard it as I slipped, quietly as a water moccasin, into our kitchen through the back door after getting home from Theo's. Matt didn't sound slurred yet, but the bad grammar—“who” instead of “whom” and “me” instead of “I”—told me he wasn't completely sober, either. Glanced at my watch. Not even nine yet. Rafe had a long night ahead of him.

No sense trying for discreet, so I just made a grand entrance. Matt jumped up like I was his mom. Or long lost sister, anyway. Rafe rose a bit more sedately. Hugs, air kisses, squealed greetings, followed by the disclaimers I knew were expected of me.

“No, don't be silly, I don't need a drink. And ‘adjourn to the basement'? Don't even think about it. You two stay right where you are. I have tons to do upstairs.”

Exit Josie. Clean getaway. Up to our bedroom. Skirt, blouse, and pumps off; jeans, tee, and ballet slippers on. Fired up the iPad. Checked
Impolitic
. Nothing.
Daily Boot
. Nothing.
Inquisitor
. Nothing.
RealClearPolitics
. Nothing.

A snatch of Matt wafted upstairs as his voice got a little loud.

“…like one of those high schools in the movies where most of the kids are okay but there's this in-crowd of seven bitchy cheerleaders and a dozen inflated-ego jocks, and they poison the atmosphere for everyone. That's what Washington has become. That's what Washington is right now.”

Okay. I guess. He was talking about me, of course. Not me personally, but all the twenty-somethings and thirty-somethings who'd come to Washington with calculation in our souls instead of stars in our eyes and let the serpent into paradise. Maybe he was onto something. Or not. Couldn't fuss with that now.

Checked
Rotunda.
Nothing. Checked
my e-mails. Spam. Checked my phone. No messages, no texts. What next? Stream
House of Cards
? Or
Veep
, even?

I sighed. No. No way to put off thinking through the Theo-chat. Propped two pillows vertically against the headboard of our bed, leaned against them as I scooched onto the bed, and started parsing what I'd picked up.

Or would have started parsing it if a distracting question right out of left field hadn't popped into my head.

What would I have done if Theo had come on to me?
Said no, that's what.
You sure about that, Josie?
Yes. Never gonna cheat on Rafe again. And I'm for sure never gonna get Rafe and myself mixed up in a big mess because I can't keep my Spanx on in mixed company.

Now, dammit, girl,
focus
.

Josie, you're a moral infant
.

FOCUS!

I focused. Finally.

Theo had moved Heaven and Earth to convince me that Rafe just didn't have the skill set to have killed Jerzy. Really wanted to buy that, because I had a lot of trouble seeing Rafe as morally depraved enough to shoot a man from behind over adultery. Yeah, honor, unwritten law, man rules, I get all that. But what's honor got to do with bushwhacking a cad from almost a different zip code? Not exactly pistols at ten paces, is it? I didn't just love Rafe, I looked up to him, admired him. I wanted him to keep on being my hero.

The more I flipped the Theo coin, though, the plainer it was that it had two sides. What the alibi and Theo's gunsmithing demonstration and the other Theo stuff proved was that Rafe couldn't have killed Jerzy
without Theo
. So if the cops ever finished their eternal forensic audit of our accounts and failed to trace a huge chunk of our money into Theo's pockets, everything would be just peachy. But what if the audit showed Rafe
had
somehow paid Theo off? That would put my frivolous, thoughtless little fling in a whole different light, wouldn't it?

All of a sudden, I found myself in a Mirror Meeting. At Sigma Tau Delta, my sorority, a Mirror Meeting meant going into a quiet room with two or three sisters and taking a good, hard look at yourself; at where you were letting the sorority down and not pulling your weight and not living up to the ideals and all that stuff. With my head nestling back in the top pillow, trying to find a soft spot that was just right, I started that self-examination.

You messed up, girl. You flat messed up.
True.

Right then I started missing Papa something fierce, like I hadn't in years. It had all happened so fast, that summer I turned twelve. Everything seemed fine, mostly, Papa just a little tired. Then he goes to the doctor and they run some tests. A week later he's in the hospital. Two months after that a priest is sprinkling holy water on his rosewood coffin. Pancreatic cancer. So fast. No time to get used to the idea.

All at once, right on the verge of my first period, the closest thing I have to an adult male in my life is Uncle D. A charming rogue, a brawler with blood on his bruised knuckles and the occasional broken nose, a hustler who'd show you a forty-five if fast talk and finesse didn't get the job done, a can-do Louisiana pol who viewed bribes as incidental sweeteners and payoffs as business as usual, an authentic scoundrel, true to himself, who'd smiled through the prison term when his chickens finally came home to roost.

A lovable rogue, but a bad dude all the same. A dangerous man, physically and morally. Can't you just imagine Freud getting his teeth into that one? “Father-substitute with no super-ego on the eve of pubescence? Nurse, hold my calls for the rest of the afternoon.”

A little tear rolled down my right cheek, and I just let it go all the way to my jaw until it dropped off. I wanted Papa to show up magically and chew me out a little and then reassure me:
Josie, you're better than that. You're not a moral infant. You're a moral adolescent. You have a big heart and there's not a mean bone in your body. But you're impulsive and sensual. You go with what feels good right now and you don't think about the consequences. You messed up, for sure. You're better than that, though.

I guess I could blame the bad-boy thing on Papa. Or on Sandy Jane or Nappy Lejeune or Charles Darwin or Sigmund Freud. But I think I'd better just blame it on Josie Kendall. Twenty-seven is about time to grow up.

Went ahead and had my cry. Nothing special. Just sort of wrung out the self-pity, kicked myself in the butt, and decided that I'd do whatever I had to in order to straighten things out.

And just like that, everything seemed real clear in my head. Real calm. Doubts all gone. Right then and there I knew that Rafe hadn't killed Jerzy over my affair.
Knew
it. No logic, no analysis, no assessment of probabilities, no mental spreadsheet, no decision-tree. I was just sure as I could be—“apo
dic
tically
certain
,” as Uncle D might have put it if he were Dixie-pontificating in undiluted Henry Clay mode—that Rafe hadn't killed Jerzy for sleeping with me.

Okay. Felt a lot better. Still a big problem to deal with, but I was past the really hard part now. I'd call Uncle D tomorrow to debrief him, talk it over with Rafe, and go on from there. I was actually humming as I bounced out of bed.

The phone rang. Still humming, I answered it.

“Josie, this is your Mama. I'm here with Uncle Darius. We just got in from Denver.”

We? WTF?

“Oh, Mama, hi. Listen, I was gonna call Uncle D tomorrow to see what he found out, and I was thinking we could talk then.”

“We need to talk now.”

“Well, okay, if you feel it's important.” Chewed my lip, wondering how long I had before I'd have to drive Matt home—because neither he nor Rafe figured to be up to that chore. “How much time do you think we'll need on the phone?”

“Five more seconds. We're at Reagan National Airport. We need you to come get us. ASAP.”

Chapter Thirty-seven

Dropping Matt at home sort of on the way complicated ASAP, but I got to Reagan National well before they had any right to expect me. All set to give the both of them a royal chewing out for just showing up out of the blue. But then, in my Fusion's bright dome light, I got a good view of Uncle D.

He looked like death warmed over. Mouse under his right eye. Stitches in his upper lip and the point of his chin. Big bandage on his forehead, right underneath where that scraggly hair that he wears over his neck starts. Overall skin tone kind of gray. He's a big guy—well over six feet and weighs close to two-fifty—and that made it seem worse. I noticed a featherweight cotton hospital pajama-top sort of peeking out from underneath the tie-less tan dress shirt he was wearing.

“Uncle D, what in the world—?”

“Later,” Mama snapped. “We need you to get us to your place pronto. We'll talk there.”

I managed that without too much trouble. Rafe, God bless him, doesn't get drunk often and when he does he's a neat and gentlemanly drunk—no getting sick on the kitchen floor or anything like that. He had gotten himself to bed by the time I got home with my unexpected company, so that took care of one complication. By around ten forty-five I had the four of us—me, Mama, Uncle D, and Jim Beam—installed around the glass-topped table on our deck.

“Denver Health Medical Center called me last night to tell me that Darius was in the emergency room.” Mama had battleship-gray hair now, pulled back into a bun, and it bounced a little bit as she spoke. “I flew out there as fast as I could, praying just as hard as I know how all the way. Had to connect through Dallas, and that wasn't any picnic. Not something I would have done for anyone but kin. After Darius and I talked, I decided we'd better get face-to-face with you in a big hurry. So here we are.”

“What in the world happened?” I asked.

“The chair recognizes Darius Zachary Taylor Barry,” Mama said.

“Well, I did a little poking around, just like you asked me to. Turned up something interesting. It seems—”

“I meant the stitches and the bruises,” I said.

“First things first,” Uncle D said, sounding just a mite cross. “You see, that first part was easy. That conference was just crawling with folks who'll never send fan mail to Sanford Dierdorf. They say ‘crony capitalist' a lot when they hear his name. They have lots of stories about him.”

“Maybe you could tell us one.” That would be Mama in no-nonsense mode.

“Well, it seems that the
po
-lice came to Mr. Dierdorf not too long ago because they'd found a firearm registered to him on the body of that fella got his brains blown out while he was strolling with you.”

“You don't say.”

“Dierdorf is just as breezy as you please about it. Says someone must be fiddling with serial numbers, because he carries his weapon whenever he legally can and he has it right now and here it is, take a look at it if you want. Well, turns out the weapon he showed those jack-booted fascists with badges had a different serial number than the weapon he'd been registered as buying and licensed to carry.” Clearly enjoying himself despite the discomfort of his injuries and the numbing effect of whatever painkiller he was taking, Uncle D leaned back and sipped whiskey. “Even more curious, the weapon he produced was bought by someone else, many states east of Colorado.”

“Holy sh—”

“You watch your mouth, young lady. Remember whom you're talking to.”

“Sorry, Mama.”

“So Dierdorf says the gun must have been switched somehow without his knowledge and he just hadn't noticed the trade. The jack-booted fascists are not overwhelmed by the plausibility of this speculation, but Dierdorf says that's my story and I'm sticking to it and you can talk to my lawyer if you don't like it. Or words to that effect.”

I caught myself in time to say, “My word,” instead of the first exclamation that came to mind.

“I heard this account, or something awful close to it, from three different gentlemen,” Uncle D said. “And two of them weren't drunk.”

“So looking at it from this Dierdorf cat's point of view,” Mama said, “you can understand him wanting to get his hands on the file y'all had on what's-his-name, the decedent.”

About now I expected Mama to pull out one of her mango-flavored Phillies Blunts and ask me to help her with it. They weren't exactly my cup of tea even before I quit smoking—nothing like as smooth as Rafe's Monte Cristos—but Mama doesn't smoke unless she's with other people who are also smoking. So, you know, filial duty, solidarity, all that stuff, I would share one with her, like Rafe had mentioned. When she didn't do it now, I figured Uncle D had been ordered off tobacco and Mama was abstaining so as not to rub his face in it. That's Mama.

“Okay, Uncle D,” I said. “That dope about the handgun is serious stuff and I can't tell you how grateful I am that you dug it up for me. Now, tell me about how you got beaten up—and
don't
say you got up to relieve yourself in the middle of the night and walked into the bathroom door, 'cause I've heard that one before.”

“Well, it was my own fault. In a way. You see, when I found it prudent to drop a name here and there while I was feeling these chatty gentlemen out, I would stick with one of my old favorites, Patti SuAn.”

I groaned inside. ‘Patti SuAn' is an anagram for ‘Pantsuit.' Back before he went away, Uncle D actually managed to convince a reporter that it was the Secret Service codename for—well, you go ahead and figure it out. He ginned up a memo supposedly written by the President's chief of staff about something-or-other involving Patti SuAn, and then ‘leaked' it to the reporter. By the grace of God it didn't go anywhere, but he's always been way too proud of it anyway.

“Uncle D, please tell me you didn't put out some cock-and-bull—”

“No, I didn't.” His eyes twinkled for just a second. “That isn't my point.”

“Get to what is your point,” Mama said.

“I fouled up one time. Somehow let your actual name slip out. I'm awful sorry, honey. Can't think how I made a mistake like that. Guess I've lost a step.”

“What happened?”

“Well, I let your name out around eleven o'clock Thursday morning. You know how conferences are. Word gets around real fast. By two o'clock Thursday afternoon I found myself in the company of a guy who wanted to chat with me about you. At length. A little rude about it, even for a Yankee. I realized what I'd done, so I begged off.”

“And he insisted?”

“Not in the middle of the afternoon in the Denver Marriott City Center's bar, he didn't. But later that night, he or someone who smelled a lot like him, broke into my hotel room in a very insistent mood. Twenty-five years ago I could have mopped the floor up with him, but I'm afraid he got in more licks than I did.”

I gulped.
Is this one on me too
?

“Uncle D, I don't want you to take this question the wrong way, because I realize the fix you were in—”

“Oh, you want to know how much I told him.” Uncle Darius chuckled. “Can't blame you for that. Fact is, though, I didn't tell him a blessed thing.”

Didn't see how that could possibly be true, but I couldn't think of any decent way to say so. Lucky for me, Uncle D just kept on talking.

“You see, at the time this happened I was entertaining a young lady from Denver's adult entertainment sector. The guy who came after me made the mistake of breaking in before this sweetheart had been properly compensated. Real spitfire. Plus, she had a pig-sticker that Jim Bowie himself would have admired. She sprang into action in time to chase this gent off before he'd done any permanent damage.”

“Well, thank the Lord for that.”

“Amen,” Mama said. Then she turned toward me. “I take it you understand now why we had to get to you right away about this—and why we didn't feel comfortable doing it on the phone.”

“I do understand, Mama, and I am properly grateful.”

“Now, seems to me we have to assume that this Dierdorf has a strong and unhealthy interest in you, just like Darius said. So we need to decide what we're going to do about that.”

“Go to the authorities, for example,” Uncle D said. “Or the jack-booted fascists, as I sometimes call them.”

“I've already given the FBI a hint about him, but that was general. I don't feel right telling them that I'm a Dierdorf target until Rafe is cleared.”

“I can see that,” Mama said. “That Rafe of yours is a good man, and whether he did it or didn't do it, I don't want to see him fry for it.”

“For sure.” I thought that would be a more constructive response than telling Mama that her capital punishment metaphors are a bit out of date. “Unfortunately, I'm fresh out of ideas about anything else to do except keep my eyes open.”

“I do have one idea,” Uncle D said, after draining his glass.

Red flags. Alarm bells
.

“What's that?”

“You make friends in prison, if you know how to do it. The friends you make have made friends in other places, and those friends have made friends. Know what I mean?”

“I'm afraid I do.”

“Now, some of the friends I made have called me to see if I could help them out with this or that, and in several cases I have been able to do so. I'm betting that there's someone crooked who knows things about Dierdorf which no one at this table knows. I'm thinking you have a name or two in that category that you haven't shared with me yet.”

“True.”

I could feel myself blushing. Uncle Darius didn't have to spell it out for me. If I'd trust him with a name, he'd start going through his big-house alumni contact list and see if he could find someone who knew someone who knew someone who'd arrange an introduction. I looked Uncle D right in the eye.

“Danny Klimchock.”