Guilt by Association (43 page)

“Is he expecting you, Miss Evans?” a striking African-American receptionist asked with a polite smile.

“I believe he is.”

“Just a moment, please,” the woman said, reaching for the telephone.

The one thing they had each insisted on was discretion. Public knowledge of their relationship would have ruined them both.
Janice suspected that Randy Neuburg and Mary Catherine O’Malley knew what was going on, but if they did, it went no further than that. As far as the rest of the world was concerned, she was just another newswoman covering a story.

“I have an idea I’d like to pursue,” she said to her producer on the fifteenth of October. “I think Robert Willmont is going to be our next President, and I’d like to do an in-depth segment on him. You know, give the public an advance peek inside the man.”

“What makes you think he’s even going to run?”

“Come on,” she admonished. “I’ve been on his trail for ten years. I know his organization. They’re gearing up.”

“Well,” the producer said, unconvinced, “we’ll see.”

On October 25, he stopped by her office. “That idea you had about Robert Willmont,” he said. “It’s a go.”

Janice hid a smug grin. “Do I get a free hand?”

“If it’s quality.”

“Have I ever given you anything but?”

“No,” the producer had to admit. “You haven’t.”

It was true. Janice had an uncanny nose for news and a discriminating eye. Her results were frequently fascinating, occasionally explosive, but always in good taste.

“The senator will see you now, Miss Evans,” the receptionist said cordially, turning from the telephone.

“Hi there, beautiful,” Robert beamed as soon as they were alone. “How’s New York?”

“Getting chilly.”

“Well, if you lock that door, I’ll do what I can to warm you up. God, I’ve missed you. Randy’s had me living like a monk for months.”

Janice chuckled. “If the press could hear you now.”

Robert sighed. “I liked it better when the press knew its place. Or at least when reporters recognized that a man’s sex life has nothing to do with his ability to run the country.”

Sex for Robert, while admittedly more pleasurable, was as fundamental as feeding or relieving himself. When he was hungry,
he ate, and he wasn’t particular what food was put before him. When his bladder was full, he emptied it, and it didn’t matter whose bathroom he used. And when his libido swelled, he thought nothing of turning to whatever acolyte was at hand. And there were always many. Even the reality of
AIDS failed to curtail Robert’s appetite. The past few months under Randy’s watchful eye had been pure hell.

“Well, if you’re in real need,” Janice said, “I’ll be home later on tonight.”

She had kept her Cow Hollow flat, well aware that, in the media business, nothing was permanent.

“Unfortunately,” the senator replied with a grimace, “so will I.”

“In that case …” Janice reached back and snapped the lock on the office door.

Randy perched on the corner of Mary Catherine’s desk and glanced at his wristwatch. “What time did she come in?”

“About eleven,” the administrative assistant replied. “They skipped lunch.”

“Jeez, it’s two-thirty,” Randy groaned. “You’d think he’d have more sense. Going at it in his office, for God’s sake, where anyone can breeze right in.”

“They locked the door.”

“Doesn’t he have an appointment or something this afternoon?”

Mary Catherine shook her head. “
Time
was supposed to be here at three, but the photographer got stuck in Chicago, so they rescheduled for tomorrow.”

“How much longer, do you think? The
Chronicle
wants a comment on the Yugoslavia sanctions, and ABC wants a statement on the bombing in Beirut.”

“Considering how long you’ve had him on the straight and narrow”—Mary Catherine shrugged—”another hour or two.”

“And it’s only November,” sighed Randy.

K
aren stepped out of the Jacuzzi that Ted had installed in the master bath as part of remodeling the St. Francis Wood house and began to towel herself dry. She normally used the tub in the evenings, to relax before going to bed, but had chosen to take advantage of it this morning.

On Natalie’s advice, she had thought long and hard about the unique opportunity that fate had given her. Once she calmed down,
she could see that the psychiatrist was right— murdering Robert Willmont might provide a momentary pleasure, even a genuine sense of satisfaction, but not much else, and she had no intention of settling for that.

“What will you do?” Ted asked.

“I don’t know,” she replied honestly. “I don’t know what I
can
do.”

But she knew she would do something. The feelings she had buried for so long could no longer be denied.

It was ironic to think she might have heard or read his name many times, might even have seen a newspaper photograph of him,
and it would have meant nothing to her. It wasn’t so unreasonable—she hadn’t been looking for him. Rather, she had stuffed the image of him down inside of her where, over time, he became less and less of a man and more and more of a
monster. It was one of the techniques she had developed to cope with the guilt and the shame and the loss.

As much as she had hoped, during the long years of recuperating, reevaluating and refocusing, that he would come to some agonizing end, as all monsters should, she now came to realize that what she really wanted, even more than his destruction, was vindication for herself. She wanted the whole world to know exactly what he was—underneath the slick facade, behind the dazzling aquamarine eyes—and she knew that nothing less than exposing him in some horribly humiliating way would satisfy her.

Her plan was ridiculously simple. She would seek him out, in a public forum, where there were bound to be members of the media interested in a juicy story. They would be able to tell, the moment they saw the shock on his face when she confronted him,
that she was speaking the truth. He might live, but he would be politically ruined. And he would never be President of the United States.

The forum she picked was an early-December ceremony in Golden Gate Park where the senator was scheduled to preside at the groundbreaking for the Natural History Museum’s new Drayton Pavilion. In addition to social and political VIPs, the press would be there in full force, hoping to persuade the candidate to make a few off-the-cuff comments that would play well on the evening news. It was a perfect setting.

Karen tucked her towel around her and leaned over the sink to brush her teeth, but the terry cloth slipped and dropped to the floor. She stared at herself in the mirror. In two months, she would be fifty years old, half a century, and she was pleased to note that she had not yet succumbed to middle-age sag. Her figure had retained its slenderness and regular exercise kept her muscles toned. Once clothed, the disfiguring scars could not be seen. Her skin was still good and a trip to the beauty salon every six weeks removed the gray in her dark hair. With just a modicum of makeup, she knew she could pass for thirty-five.

She slipped into a winter-white turtleneck, matching stirrup pants, and a red-white-and-black tweed raw silk jacket. Win
ter-white pumps and a pair of Felicity’s chunky gold earrings and matching bracelet finished the outfit. She brushed her hair off her face, catching the shoulder-length curls with a black velvet bow at the nape of her neck.

The ceremony was scheduled for two o’clock. Just after noon, Karen drove her Volvo wagon into Golden Gate Park and down John F. Kennedy Drive, stopping a block and a half from the museum. Traffic-control barricades had already been put in place, personnel in mobile television vans were setting up their equipment, and the area was beginning to fill with curious onlookers who sensed the makings of a media event.

It was one of those magnificent winter days for which San Francisco had long been famous—sunny, windless, and sixty-five degrees.
Karen melted into the crowd that milled around the area and waited.

At five minutes before two, a pair of motorcycles with lights flashing led a convoy of limousines into the parking lot that flanked the main concourse and fronted the five museums that shared this section of the park.

The crowd, which had swelled to over a thousand, pushed forward, taking Karen along with it. She was perhaps twenty feet away when he stepped out of the second limousine, and in the first instant of actually seeing him, she thought she might faint.
It was only the people pressing against her for a glimpse of the candidate that kept her upright.

The other limousines were emptying now and the party of some thirty dignitaries, surrounded by reporters, television cameramen and still photographers, was making its way to the bandstand at the far end of the concourse.

The new mayor was there, along with several members of the board of supervisors and a fair selection of the city’s most prominent personalities, but Karen didn’t recognize anyone. She barely even looked at them, so focused was she on the self-assured man with the memorable eyes.

She paid no attention to the overblown speeches that honored the Drayton dynasty. She simply waited for the right moment,
the brief lull that was bound to come, when she would
step forward and face him. She had it all very carefully rehearsed—every word, every move.

“Hello, Bob,” she would say, planting herself in his path. “You remember me, don’t you—and what you did to me? Of course you do. I can see it in your eyes, and now so will the rest of the world. They’re known as the Drayton eyes, aren’t they? Well,
the Draytons should have gouged them out the day you were born. You raped me, you beat me, and you left me for dead all those years ago, without so much as a second thought. And now you think the people of this country should elect you President of the United States?”

The moment came and almost went before she recognized it. The speeches were over, the group of dignitaries was moving away from the bandstand toward the museum for the symbolic shovel of dirt. As expected, reporters were shouting out their questions.

“What do you think about the Sununu resignation?” one called.

“Come now, Dave,” the senator admonished the newsman. “We’re here today for something that has nothing to do with politics.”

“Everything you do between now and next November has to do with politics, Senator,” the newsman replied.

The candidate grinned. “In that case, Mr. Sununu was merely the first of the rats to desert a sinking ship.”

“How about the Keating verdict?” another asked.

“If they put him in jail and destroyed the key, it wouldn’t make up for what he’s done,” Robert replied.

“And the Kennedy Smith trial?”

“No comment.”

“Thank you, ladies and gentlemen,” a redheaded man who looked like a dwarf beside the candidate said smoothly. “The senator would now like to get back to the purpose at hand, the groundbreaking for the Drayton Pavilion.”

He put his hand on Robert Willmont’s arm to guide him through the crowd. But Karen Doniger stood in the way. She stared up at the monster who had invaded her dreams for so many years and opened her mouth to say the words that
would damn him to eternity. But he looked right at her, from less than two feet away, with a polite smile that held not so much as a flicker of recognition.

She had taken him by surprise, leaving him no time to prepare. He could not possibly have been that good an actor—he didn’t know who she was.

In the seconds it took for that to register on her, he moved on past, the crowd surging after him. Stunned, she dug her heels into the grass and stayed where she was. The moment was gone, she would have to find another.

Karen turned and hurried away, not looking back and not pausing until she reached her car. With shaking hands, she unlocked the door and scrambled behind the wheel, started up the engine and sped off, coming out of the park onto the Great Highway,
which ran along the Pacific Ocean.

She parked the car and, kicking off her shoes, walked along the beach. It was low tide and the soggy sand curled beneath her weight. She went down to the water’s edge and stood there, staring out into the depths, as the frigid foam lapped around her feet and sucked the coarse brown granules from beneath her stockinged toes.

Finally, she went back up the beach and dropped down on the dry sand. Her head was spinning. It was inconceivable to her that the horror which had etched itself like acid into her very core meant so little to him that he wouldn’t even remember her—that the most catastrophic episode of her life was nothing more than a minor encounter he had long since forgotten. Of all the scenarios she had conceived, this had not been among them.

She didn’t know how long she sat there, watching the gentle waves flow and ebb, letting the sea spray drizzle over her, before she began to laugh. Hugging her knees to her chest, she threw back her head and laughed, peal after peal swallowed up by the pounding surf.

A whole new perspective engulfed her, and with it came the realization that, to a large extent, she had created her own hell.
She had allowed the monster to torment and terrify her for almost thirty years. But today, she had stood two feet away
from that monster—and seen that he was in fact nothing more and nothing less than a man. She had looked into the aquamarine eyes of a
man,
a man she knew she would never again have cause to fear.

Slipping her shoes back on, Karen got up and walked slowly back to the Volvo. There would be another opportunity for her to expose Robert Willmont for what he was, of that she was sure. She would just have to think of a different approach, now that it was clear he did not remember her.

There was no hurry. There was still plenty of time.

N
o one’s going to stop us now,” Randy exclaimed the morning after Super Tuesday. The Willmont candidacy had taken half of the dozen primaries with at least fifty-three percent of the vote.

Robert grinned. “We’re looking good, my boy. We’re definitely looking good.”

“Jeez, we even took forty-two percent of Texas.”