Favors and Lies (2 page)

“I told you what I want.”

“Whatever she is paying, I'll pay more.”

“It's not about the money . . . well, not entirely. Besides, whatever she pays me is your money anyway.”

“You motherfucker,” the judge quietly hissed. The veins in his neck bulged.

“Certainly all those years of schooling must have linguistically prepared you better than that.”

The judge took a sip of his drink, his hands shaking slightly. Dan stole a glance of the room as the judge's eyes dipped beneath the edge of the upturned glass.

The judge returned his glass to the table but didn't release his grip. “You are aware that blackmail is illegal.”

“I'm asking for your cooperation. I'm not asking for money. Though, now that you have offered money, it wouldn't be blackmail if I accepted.”

“You won't get away with this. You don't become a DC Circuit judge without friends. You don't serve on a court that has bred more Supreme Court Justices than any other without knowing people.”

“Don't let pride get the better of you. You're not the first person I've made a deal with. You won't be the last. Not in this city.”

Dan let the statement sink in before he continued.

“You have one week to sign the papers and file them with the court. If I don't hear from your wife by then, I will release the story to the press and to certain people at the Justice Department who may not share your enthusiasm for unmitigated power. Certain people who believe the oath they took means something. I should also mention if something should happen to your wife between now and the filing of the papers, the photos and taped testimony from your wife and children will go public. If your wife mysteriously changes her mind in the next, say, month or so, the photos and her testimony still go public.”

“How do I know you won't go public after I sign the papers?”

“You don't.” Dan paused. “Are you familiar with the Lady Justice Statue, the one with a woman holding a set of scales?”

“I
am
a judge.”

“I appreciate that sentiment, but given your non-judicial behavior on other fronts, I didn't want to take anything for granted.”

“Your point?” Judge McMichael grunted.

“The Lady Justice Statue depicts your current situation. On the one hand you have the possibility of me going public if I don't hear from your wife by next week. The weight of this possibility is driving down one side of the scale in Lady Justice's hand. On the other side of the scale is the possibility I will go public with your information regardless of what you do. I would consider this side of the scale far lighter than the other.”

The judge glanced quickly at the front door of the bar. “I can't do it in a week. I need more time for my attorney to review the documents before they are filed.”

“Judge McMichael, a man of your talents can have this done before you get up from your seat.”

The judge finished his drink and he set the glass on the table with a thud. “Anything else?”

“One thing.” Dan pulled out the last photo in the folder. “I recognize the woman in this photo so I'm sure you do as well, particularly given the lack of clothing. Nice socks, by the way. And your partner's knee-high red fishnets are very naughty. So before you do anything rash, remember it's more than just you and your ego at stake.”

The judge brooded, his anger visible in his eyes, the corner of his lips quivering.

Dan continued. “I'm offering you the path of least resistance. I suggest you take it.” Dan took another look around the room and waved at the two men at the bar who waved back in a look of inebriated recognition before turning towards one another and resuming their conversation. The rest of the bar's occupants were still in their respective places. All systems checked. Nothing out of the ordinary.

Dan readied to stand and added another condition. “And if something happens to me in the near future, before or after the documents get filed with the court, the photos and taped testimony go to the press. I have a secure website with some unique programming. If I don't log on in pre-determined increments, well, you get the picture. And so will everyone else.”

“Are we done?”

“Follow the rules and you will never see me again.” Dan stood. He gestured towards the folder on the table. “You can keep those copies for your records.”

—

When Dan left the table the judge frantically removed his cell phone from his pocket and made a call to the off-duty police officer posted in the lobby upstairs. Then he waved over the waitress and ordered another drink. A double.

The judge was still in his seat when the plainclothes policeman briskly crossed the floor of the bar minutes later.

“Did you find him?” the judge asked.

“Nothing.”

“How long did it take you to get to the back alley?”

“Thirty seconds. Ten to get outside. Another twenty to run halfway around the block. Plus the few seconds it took to take the call.”

“Wonderful.”

“How would you like to proceed? I didn't call it in, per your instructions.”

“Let it go for now,” the judge said. “Check those two guys at the bar and see if they know the man who was just here. I doubt they do. I'll let you know if I need anything else.”

“Yes, sir.”

The officer spoke briefly with the two men at the bar and then shook his head in the direction of the judge. The judge raised a hand and dipped his head. The officer nodded and left. The judge removed the digital voice recorder from the inside pocket of his jacket. He pressed play, listened for a moment, and then hit delete.

—

Dan took a shortcut through the backdoor of the Aroma Indian restaurant, which shared the alley with the Hay Adams Hotel. He weaved through the restaurant full of patrons and exited out the front door past a confused maître d'. He took his first taxi to Georgetown, and his second cab to DuPont Circle. He shed his tie in the first cab and shoved it under the driver's seat with the toe of his shoe.

In the one-stall bathroom at the Cosi on New Hampshire Avenue, he took off his wig and glasses and threw them in the trash. He removed the blue-tinted nonprescription novelty contact lenses, revealing his natural dark green irises, and flushed the lenses down the toilet. He tussled his matted brown hair with water from the sink and washed the layer of cyanoacrylate—a medical glue—off his fingertips with soap and water.

The stubble on his face was real and he would keep it until the morning. The wrinkles on his forehead were also real and growing in number and in depth, skin aged by a mix of laughter, worry, and sun. He remembered his thirty-ninth birthday party, in all its glamour, celebrated in the bars nearby. He remembered the hangover even more succinctly. Forty, and premature death if he continued down his current career path, was right around the corner. But so far, genetics still allowed him to flash his ID for a beer on occasion. He held firm to his college build—six foot one, one hundred and ninety pounds. The looks wouldn't last forever. Genetics always lost to Father Time. Everything did.

He completed his after-a-job reflection on life and exited the bathroom, holding the door for a college student listening to music on headphones, his nose buried in the latest edition of
The City P
a
per
.

Outside, Dan walked through DuPont Circle proper and watched the freak show. Druggies and yuppies, straight and gay, lovers and professionals, mingled on common ground from all angles of society's spectrum. He stopped near a chess match on a park bench long enough to determine who was going to win and then continued to the north entrance of the DuPont metro station. Two trains and an hour later, he was on the other side of the Potomac, within walking distance of home.

—

Dan was asleep on his three-piece sectional sofa, his right hand resting on the waistband of his favorite boxers. On the table, a trio of empty red Chinese carryout boxes rested among a stack of unread magazines and a wad of grease-stained napkins.

Once a week he slept on the sofa. For the white picket-fence, husband-and-wife segment of society, sleeping on the sofa was a sign of immaturity, laziness, or a marital spat. For a college student or binge drinker consumed by the suppressant of his favorite indulgence, it simply meant a move to better sleeping arrangements was physically out of the question. But when you grow up in a thousand beds in a thousand locations, sleep was an opportunity not defined by where the activity took place.

But even for a man with unusual work hours, a phone call at two in the morning rarely proved a good omen. Dan flailed his outstretched hand without looking until it found the cordless phone in its cradle.

“Yeah,” he answered, his throat dry, raspy.

“Dan, it's Vicky.”

He knew something was wrong with the utterance of the first syllable.

“Conner isn't breathing,” she said, voice cracking.

Dan bolted upright and shook his head.

“Where?”

“He isn't breathing. His eyes have rolled back. He's covered in sweat,” she said, the full emotions kept in abeyance on the other end of the phone bursting their containment.

“Where are you?”

“Home. Oh God, I think he's dying . . .”

Dan's stomach turned as his sister-in-law crumbled into incoherence.

“Call 911. I'm on my way.”

Dan grabbed the jeans off the floor near the sofa, jammed on the running shoes by the door, and swiped his keys off the counter.

—

Dan exited Old Town Alexandria going north, hitting the GW Parkway at ninety. He felt himself up for his cell phone, which he had left behind, and then focused on driving. He didn't touch the brakes for the next eleven minutes, cursing through moments of panic. The ride was a blur. A blur of memories, a blur of emotions, a blur of headlights and streetlamps. Snapshots of his nephew coursed through his mind.
Conner. Dear God.
A special kid in many regards, although at nineteen he was no longer a child. In Dan's mind, part of him always would be.

Dan took the ramp onto the Roosevelt Bridge and punched it, the ripples in the water of the Potomac eighty feet below. The car hit sixty on the Rock Creek Parkway and dropped to twice the speed limit on the leafy, well-heeled streets of Northwest Washington. The car zoomed past large brick homes with manicured lawns and an assortment of high-priced imports in the driveways.

Dan hit the brakes in front of his sister-in-law's house and his car came to a screeching halt, the front tires on the lawn. He left the car door open and sprinted for the front porch. He screamed his sister-in-law's name loud enough for the neighbors to hear, tried the front doorknob, and began banging on the large door knocker while fumbling for the extra key he kept on his key chain. He smashed his palm into the buzzer as he slid the key into the lock with his other hand.

He pushed the door open and the darkness of the house was outweighed by its silence. Chills ran up Dan's spine, his body wet with perspiration. He moved through the foyer, feeling the wall for the light switch. He turned into the living room and banged into the side of the doorway as he made his way to the kitchen in the back of the house.

“Vicky!” he yelled again.

He continued through the kitchen, into the dining room, and completed the lap around the first floor of the house, turning on lights as he went. He paused.
The bedroom in the basement!

He ran back to the kitchen, light now shining from beyond the large island with its hanging cookware. He flung open another door and took the steps to the basement three at a time, losing and regaining his balance as he hit the landing. He turned on more lights as he scanned the room. The basement was as he remembered it.
How long had it been? Two months? Maybe three?
The foosball table was in the corner. The large-screen TV was against the far wall. Two empty leather chairs were parked in front the TV. He scanned the floor and saw nothing but beige Berber carpeting.

His head swiveled left to right as he made his way to his nephew's old bedroom in the corner. The door was shut and Dan inexplicably stopped for a split second as if preparing himself for what he was going to find on the other side. He took a breath, held it, and pushed his way in.

His anxiety passed with a flick of the lights. Nothing. The bed in the corner was made and unoccupied. The closet with its large sliding doors was open and empty, less for an old set of golf clubs and a small pile of out-of-fashion clothes balled up in the corner.

“Bathroom,” Dan said to himself, leaving the bedroom with another burst of energy. He yelled his sister-in-law's name again.

He crossed the large, open family room and passed the small kitchenette in the corner where his nephew microwaved pizza and drank beer without his mother's consent. The bathroom door was open and Dan poked his head in long enough to see the empty tub, the shower curtain pulled to the side, a towel hanging in the middle of the rod.

He threw the door open to the laundry room. The light from behind him sent his own shadow against the wall. Dan blinked to straighten his mind. He yelled out his nephew's name and waved his hand in the air, feeling for the chain to the light bulb hanging from the ceiling of the unfinished room. With a tug of the short chain, the room proved empty.

Dan raced up two flights of stairs and continued his frantic search through the four bedrooms on the top floor. In the walk-in closet in the master bedroom Dan froze in his tracks. The body of his sister-in-law in her nightgown, feet off the ground, face contorted and blue from the belt around her neck, brought a mouthful of greasy Kung Pao Chicken up from the depths of his stomach.

—

Dan sat on the hood of his car in the driveway, staring up intermittently at the stars above. He ran his hands through his brown hair and let the tears dry on his face in the cool autumn air. The flashing lights of the ambulance were mercifully extinguished once the death had been officially declared. A well-dressed Asian detective from the Washington Metropolitan Police made his way from the open front door of the house to Dan's position on his car.

The detective extended his hand and Dan returned the greeting with a firm grip. “Detective Nick Nguyen. District 2.”

“Detective. Dan Lord.”

The police detective measured Dan's exterior—his hair, eyes, weight. “You look familiar. Have we met?”

“It's possible. DC is a small city in the who-knows-who business.” Dan leaned back slightly and casually sized up the detective: five foot eight on a good day, a hundred and sixty pounds when draped in a rain-soaked winter jacket. Meticulously combed jet-black hair. A perfect crease ran vertically down his trousers.

“I hear you were the one who found the body,” Detective Nguyen said.

“That's right,” Dan answered. “Not the body I was looking for, but I found the body.”

“You want to run that by me again?”

“I told everything to the first officer on the scene. The name on the badge was Lawson.”

The detective raised his notebook and scribbled on an open page. “How about giving me the rundown? From the beginning.”

“You going to pay attention or am I going to have to repeat this a few more times?”

Detective Nguyen looked at Dan and nodded slowly. “I'm sorry for your loss.”

Dan nodded back, a gesture he meant as both an acknowledgement of the detective's condolences and a temporary truce. “I got a call at a little after two from my sister-in-law. I arrived on the scene about twenty-five minutes later.”

“And your sister-in-law is the deceased?”

“That's right. Her name is Vicky Lord. My brother passed away five years ago October.”

The detective raised his notebook again and filled in two more lines in nearly incomprehensible chicken scratch. “Exactly what time did your sister-in-law call?”

“A little after two. I was asleep. When I reached my car the clock read 2:13, so she called a few minutes before that.”

“And what was the conversation?”

“She said my nephew wasn't breathing. That she thought he was dying.”

“Your nephew?”

“That's right. His name is Conner Lord.”

“Did your sister-in-law call the police or 911 before she called you?”

“I assume she did. She wasn't stupid. I also told her to call as I hung up. I assumed the police and EMTs would be here when I arrived. They were not.”

“Where do you live?”

“Alexandria.”

“That's quite a drive for twenty minutes, assuming it took you a couple of minutes to get dressed, out the door, and to your car.”

“You planning to give me a speeding ticket?”

“Did you call anyone on the drive?”

“No. I ran out without my cell phone . . . or wallet.”

The detective glanced at Dan's attire and noted the thin gray t-shirt, woefully insufficient for the current temperature. The detective's eyes dropped further to the sockless skin peeking out from the gap between Dan's jeans and the top of his shoes.

Dan continued. “I used my key to enter the house, turned on the lights as I went room to room, and called 911 when I found Vicky. Obviously, the chain of events is a little unusual.”

“And then?”

“I took down the body, checked for vitals and performed CPR until the paramedics arrived on scene. The police took another twenty minutes to arrive.”

The barb did not go unnoticed.

Detective Nguyen ran through the story once more from beginning to end. “That's your statement?”

“That's my statement,” Dan confirmed.

The detective scribbled again in his notebook.

“How much longer will you guys be?” Dan asked, wringing his hands. He wanted a cigarette. Three years of sometimes painful abstinence and the cravings still haunted him.

“Not sure. All indications are that it was a suicide. There's no crime scene to speak of. Everything looks in place.”

“In place? Were you listening?”

“Yes, I was. Were you?”

The stare down in the driveway lasted several uncomfortable seconds.

“What exactly
aren't
you saying?” the detective asked.

“There are two things that bother me. Obviously, my sister-in-law believed her son was dead, or dying, in the house, or she felt compelled to have me believe that.”

“Did your sister-in-law have a history of mental illness?”

“No. She is, or was, pretty straight-laced. After my brother died, I know she took Prozac for a while. But, hell, I think we all should have.”

“A lot of people are on Prozac. There have been studies linking a higher rate of suicide with those taking the drug.”

“I saw that
20/20
episode. My sister-in-law is also a devout Catholic, meaning suicide is at the bottom of her list of things to experience. And she has never called me in the middle of the night before. Ever.”

“It is possible she planned to kill herself and wanted you to find her body.”

“Then why tell me that my nephew's body is in the house, in the throes of death? Why the wild goose chase?”

“Buy some time, maybe.”

“Doesn't make sense. My nephew doesn't live here. He goes to American University. Stays in a dorm. Drops by to see his mom and have dinner once a week. On occasion he drops by on the weekend.”

“And you're sure your sister-in-law said he was in the house?”

“Yes.”

“I guess we're going to have to take your word on that.”