Premeditated Murder (10 page)

SEVEN

Ferguson Confirmed as Vice President

In what can safely be described as the first positive news in nearly a month for President James Graham's embattled administration, Congress today overwhelmingly approved his choice of retired Colonel Matthew Ferguson as Vice President by a resounding majority in both the Senate and the House of Representatives.

     Ferguson was named to replace former Vice President Wilton Quarters, who resigned last month amid a growing scandal.

     Quarters had been credited by many for ensuring Graham's victory in the general election two years ago as a result of statements he made in the last week of the campaign, charging that Graham's opponent was part of a corporate group that owned and operated a company that makes pornographic movies. It is widely believed that the flurry of publicity generated by the charges moved conservative voters to vote for Graham, especially in South Carolina and Tennessee, states which gave Graham enough electoral votes to win an extremely close election.

     Three weeks ago, however, two apparently unrelated stories came to light which forced Quarters, a self-styled champion of conservative morals, to resign. First, copies of internal memos from Quarters's campaign surfaced, indicating that Quarters knew that the report he had used to discredit Graham's opponent was false at the time he made the damaging charges. And at about the same time, evidence was uncovered indicating that Quarters, while a member of the House of Representatives, owned stock in a conglomerate which owned a production company which itself made pornographic videos.

     A criminal investigation against Quarters is ongoing.

(
Boston Post
, September 10, page 1)

March 3—Washington, D.C.

MATT'S MEETING WITH HIS CHIEF OF STAFF WAS winding down. That was good news, because he had promised Sammy that he would watch the latest Brad Pitt movie with her tonight. The First Lady had a thing about Brad Pitt.

“Have you come to a decision regarding the situation in the Philippines, Mr. President?”

Vernon Browning was following up on a meeting that had been held last week regarding counterterrorism options. There had been increasing signs that key terrorists had been active in the island country, and although Matt was eager to do something, he was struggling to find the right course.

“I'd like to get more details on the two scenarios for increased use of Special Operations,” he replied. “We don't have anywhere near enough intelligence to make any significant or overt move.”

“Very good, sir,” Browning said, gathering his notes and standing to go. “If there's nothing else …”

“Actually, Vernon, there is one more thing,” Matt said, walking over to his desk and picking up the laptop computer lying there.

How Matt had come into possession of the computer was the latest in the almost countless bizarre and tragic events surrounding his improbable route to the Oval Office.

President Graham had been blunt when he asked Matt to be Vice President. The President was in a ter-ribly weak political position. The manner in which Graham had won the presidential election had completely polarized an already historically acrimonious Congress. Worse still, two years after Graham's election, his party lost its majority in both the Senate and the House.

Graham had to announce his choice for the new Vice President quickly if he was to have any chance of weathering the political firestorm that had been generated by the Quarters scandal. By acting fast, Graham hoped to deflect attention away from Quarters's past and toward the country's future, including the congressional confirmation hearings.

The problem was, of course, that Congress was so furious with the President that it was almost sure to reject whatever replacement Graham chose from his own party, if for no other reason than to humiliate him and prolong the political scandal.

Which made Matt the perfect choice—a recently retired war hero who not only boasted an outstanding career in the army but who had publicly eschewed professional politics, and who hadn't even claimed membership in Graham's party.

If the opposition failed to confirm Matt, suddenly they'd look like the bad guys—bureaucratic hacks who were more interested in playing politics than looking out for the good of the country.

As crazy as the whole thing seemed to Matt, he took comfort in the fact that despite the high-profile nature of the office, the Vice President had, literally, only two constitutional responsibilities: breaking tie votes in the Senate and becoming President if the sitting President died in office. Given the political landscape at the time, it was very unlikely that Matt would be called on to perform the first task, and given who the sitting President was, it was virtually certain that Matt would not be called on to perform the second.

James Graham had been a wrestling champion in college, and he was in the same shape when he was elected President at the age of forty-eight as he had been at the age of twenty-one. He ran three to four miles, five days a week, and he played an hour of full-court basketball on days he didn't run. In his first month in office, he announced that it was his goal to be the strongest President in history, and there was little doubt he had achieved it.

Until he collapsed, five minutes into his final basketball game, merely three months after Matt had become his Vice President.

Preliminary reports were that Graham had suffered a stroke. But it turned out that there was nothing wrong with the President's brain. Or just about any other part of him. He was a marvelous physical specimen—tall, strong, athletic—except for the undetectable defect in his heart, which had led to a massive, fatal aneurysm in a cardiac artery.

Among the seemingly millions of things that had been put into Matt's hands, either literally or figuratively, when President Graham had died, this laptop was probably the strangest. Two days after Graham's funeral, the former President's widow, Veronica, had made a special trip to hand Matt the computer in person, explaining that she had found it among her late husband's private effects. Veronica Graham thought that it might have had politically sensitive material on it, and decided that Matt should see it before she did anything with it.

Even though he had already felt completely overwhelmed by everything he had to assimilate to take on his new role, Matt felt a duty to attend to the request of the former President's widow. Several days ago he had begun reading the entire contents of the files stored on the computer.

About six hours into the ordeal, Matt was ready to resign the presidency.

It was that, or continue to endure the most boring series of reports he'd ever seen in his life. How could so many people have written so much about the five- to ten-year economic outlook for citrus growers? Five to ten
years
? The local weatherman could barely figure out whether it was going to rain the day after tomorrow.

He handed the computer to Browning and said, “Veronica Graham gave this to me.” A strange look passed over Browning's face. He probably thought Matt was going to give him another dozen things to do before tomorrow morning. “She said it was President Graham's personal property, and thought I should check to see if there was anything sensitive stored on it.”

Two dozen,
said Browning's face.

“But I didn't see anything except in one report on judicial nominations. There were a bunch of references to some memos that someone named Cullhane wrote that I wanted to read. I didn't even know who Cullhane was, but when I asked around, I found out he quit just days after the funeral.”

Browning swallowed in what might have been relief, took the laptop, and said, “Yes, Charley was on the speechwriting staff. I couldn't convince him to stay after President Graham died. He had some family problems …” His voice trailed off. “But I wasn't aware of any memos on federal judges. And he certainly wouldn't have been the person to write them.” The thin man shook his head. He was obviously puzzled. “Are you sure about this?”

“I'm not sure about anything,” Matt said, as Carlos entered the room with a knock and handed him a note that Sammy had called. “When you get a chance, take a look for yourself at the report and see what you think. Maybe you can figure it out. It's probably nothing,” he said, picking up the phone to call his wife back.

“Probably,” Browning agreed, smiling and heading for the door. But then he turned back. “Oh, Mr. President—speaking of judges. The judge in Michigan you were asking about. Evidently he had been suffering from depression. He was being treated, but apparently one night he just took an overdose of sleeping pills.”

Matt nodded. He had had his share of low moments, but it was hard to imagine things ever getting that bad. “Okay. Thanks, Vernon. See you tomorrow.”

“Good night, Mr. President.”

Detroit, Michigan

“I'M REALLY NOT SUPPOSED TO BE DOING THIS,” Becca said, as she pulled a thin file folder out of her oversize bag and put it on Lena's kitchen table where they were sharing take-out dinner from Babe's Deli. Then she laughed loudly. “I guess that's why I like doing it so much.”

Becca's energy level was somewhat legendary with Lena's family. Lena's grandfather, Yoki, who had met Becca when he was visiting from Kyoto last summer, said she was like a monkey in a hurricane. To Lena, she was just eccentric. But however you labeled her, Becca was funny, and loud, and her personal code of ethics—carefully follow the rules that make sense to you and completely ignore the rest—worked very well for Lena. Because it made no sense to Becca that low-level police reports were supposed to be super-secret. So for a Reuben sandwich on rye and unlimited Diet Coke, she was perfectly happy to show them to Lena.

Like the case file on the LeClerq break-in. Or non– break-in.

Sure enough, Officer Halsey's report, at least the part about the 911 call, was totally inconsistent with young Giselle's memory of their interview. In language which all cops must have learned in the academy, Halsey wrote: “Subject reported that at aproximately 0220 she came downstairs, where she found her grandfather, Philip Laclerk, on kitchen floor. She observed that he was in cardiac distress, and called 911. She performed CPR on Mr. Laclerk until an ambulince arrived and transported him to Sini Grace Hospital.”

Plenty of misspellings, but not a word about a reported break-in.

The only other things in the file were a hospital record, which included a bland and useless report from the paramedics about taking Mr. LeClerq to the hospital.

“This is it?” asked Lena, flipping through the few pages, as if she might have missed something. “The whole thing?”

Becca couldn't answer for a second because her mouth was full. “What's the matter? Isn't it the right one?”

“I guess so,” said Lena. “It's the right names and address. But just about everything else doesn't fit.”

“What do you mean?” Becca asked.

“Well, for one thing,” Lena said, finishing her drink, “Giselle said she didn't call 911. Her grandfather called about a break-in, and the phone was off the hook when Giselle found him on the kitchen floor.”

Becca took the file from Lena and flipped through it. “That's weird,” she said. “Was anything taken?”

“That's another thing that doesn't fit,” said Lena. “If there was a break-in, and Mr. LeClerq surprised them, they still had enough time to grab all kinds of things from the house. The man had rare coins all over the place. And the living room was full of expensive stuff. They didn't take any of that. According to Giselle's mother, all they took were some computer CDs. And the cops dusted for prints, but there's no report of that, either.” Lena took a bite of her salad.

“Oh, shit,” Becca suddenly exclaimed. “I forgot to tell you about the 911 tape! I looked for it, but it was gone. That's no big deal—they get reused and relabeled all the time. So I called the transcriber and got her to fax me a copy of the transcript. But then I found the original transcript in an envelope in another file. Here.” She dug around in her bag and handed Lena a three-page transcript and a manila envelope.

So Lena read the faxed transcript, and then opened the envelope and read the original of the transcript inside. Then she looked up at Becca. “You didn't tell anybody you were looking for this tape, did you?” Lena asked quietly.

Becca looked at her with disdain. “Really. Like anybody would care.”

Lena handed her the two transcripts. “One of these was tampered with,” she said. “Somebody would care.”

Washington, D.C.

MATT THOUGHT THAT SAMMY WAS ASLEEP, SO he was startled when she sat up in bed abruptly, turned on a search light that had been recently installed on her bedside table, and said firmly, “Okay, Colonel Tough Guy, it's talkin' time.”

Matt rolled over onto his back, but threw his arm over his eyes to shield them against the glare of a four-thousand-watt lightbulb. How did she always know? Probably some North Carolina hillbilly voodoo thing her grandmother taught her.
Tahkin' tahme.
God. “It's after one o'clock in the morning,” he said. “It can't possibly be talkin' time.” There was no reply. “And by the way, it's
President
Tough Guy now.” Silence. “I already told you I thought the movie was good.” Nothing. He was doomed.