The Politician (41 page)

“I’ve had it,” she said, flushing with anger. “I’ve really had it.”

After Cheri told me what happened, I went with her to Rielle’s side of the house. We found her in her bedroom, where several candles were lit and she was chanting some incantations to the baby. Cheri said, “Are you going to clean up the mess in the kitchen?”

No answer from Rielle.

“Do you expect me to clean it up?”

No answer from Rielle.

I thought Cheri was going to explode as she told Rielle that she was a capable adult and responsible for cleaning up her own messes. Rielle then held up her hand, like a cop stopping traffic, and said, “I’m not talking to you.” Then she added, “You know, Cheri, you’re not very smart, but you are perceptive.”

I got Cheri out of there before things deteriorated even further, but there was nothing I could do to change her mind about what was going to happen next. She said that either Fred Baron was going to move Rielle out of the house “or I’ll move her out.” That day, Fred invited us to visit him in Dallas to talk things over.

L
eaving Rielle alone in the great big house in Montecito, we took the kids to Illinois to be with Cheri’s parents. After telling them only that we were trying to get our lives back to normal and needed their help with the kids, we flew to see Fred in Dallas. We landed at Love Field and got to his house in a town car he had sent to deliver us.

Fred lived in a compound carved out of about a dozen acres, including an artificial lake, within minutes of the airport. The house he built just for
his domestic staff would have been one of the most impressive mansions in Chapel Hill. His own home resembled a grand château in France. (It was where he hosted his famous Christmas parties, where as many as one thousand guests would take in entertainment from the likes of the Doobie Brothers and Three Dog Night.) Determined to give us a tour, he showed us the enormous reception area by the front door, big first-floor rooms for public events, and a private library where he kept a valuable oil portrait of George Washington.

Someone else would have shown us around the house with the sense that he was flexing his muscles a bit, impressing us with his wealth and power. Fred just seemed thrilled by life, amazed that he was as rich as he was, and excited to show us how he lived (you couldn’t help but like Fred). When we finally sat down to talk, we were joined by his wife, Lisa Blue, who was a lawyer and held a doctorate in psychology. Cheri kicked off her shoes and put her feet on the coffee table to show that she was not at all intimidated. Together, we then made three demands:

1. We wanted to know why John Edwards hadn’t yet told the truth.

2. We wanted to separate from Rielle and her child.

3. We wanted a long-term plan for our future and a commitment to see it through. Specifically, we wanted to know if Edwards was going to establish the antipoverty foundation that was supposed to supply me with a long-term job and health insurance.

Fred said he understood our worries but that we should have confidence in him and the senator. Although I had tried to tell him the truth, he still believed I was the father of Rielle’s baby, and he expected that Edwards would be a big player in the next administration. “Hold on until August,” he said, referring to the Democratic National Convention. Lisa and Fred both said they felt (and Lisa is a trained psychologist) that Elizabeth was a threat to us, our kids, and herself. Repeating an argument he had begun to make with me several weeks before, Fred also said we had no special ties to
Chapel Hill and could settle anywhere in the country. He said we should finish the house, sell it, and start a new life far from the prying eyes of the press. Fred soon wired several hundred thousand dollars to our builder to help with all our expenses. He offered this as a gift.

Talk as they might, Lisa and Fred couldn’t persuade us that we should stick it out with Rielle in Santa Barbara until August, when somehow everything would be resolved. We knew John and Elizabeth Edwards better than they did. We also knew the truth. Empowered by what we knew, I insisted that John Edwards call me and that we meet, face-to-face, as soon as possible.

Uh, hey, stranger! It’s John. I hope you are doing well . . . Just calling ’cause I miss you. I haven’t talked to you in a while. I wanted to see how you are doing. Umm, you can call me back on this phone . . . Anyway, hope you are doing well. I miss talking to you, Andrew. We’ll see you, pal.

The message was recorded on my cell phone account on May 21, 2008. The tone was contrite, and it came as a signal that Edwards was ready at last to deal with me. For months the senator had neglected not just me, but others, and he’d used as an excuse the claim that he was carefully deliberating over whom to endorse for the party’s nomination. It was a ridiculous claim, but still he used it to manipulate people who had been very good to him, including Bunny Mellon, who had sent word that she wanted to visit with him. Bunny needed his support, because her bedridden daughter, Eliza, was deteriorating rapidly. When she died in mid-May, the senator skipped the funeral, saying he was still considering his endorsement. As far as I knew, the only thing Bunny had ever asked of him—in return for more than $6 million—was that he sit on one side of her at that funeral while Caroline Kennedy sat on the other. Caroline fulfilled her wish. John Edwards did not.

Truer to his promises and responsibilities, Fred Baron located a house
for Rielle and arranged to have her moved into it in early June. Cheri went out to run errands on the day she left. The kids and I actually helped her pack and took pictures with her as she said good-bye. Although no one said it, I knew that I would never see Rielle again or speak to her on the phone. She did not say thank you.

Fred also kept hounding the senator until he at last agreed to meet me face-to-face, so that I could tell him how I felt and press him to make things right. I was furious about how my family and I were being treated. Cheri and I sensed that the senator was telling Mrs. Edwards tales about me and that she was getting more upset. On Father’s Day, June 15, Cheri got an e-mail that appeared to come from Heather North, the nanny at the Edwards house. It read:

Has Rielle had Andrew’s baby yet? She is such a scum. I can’t believe she slept with Andrew the first night she met him. Has she really been around since August 2006? You must be sick of her. I am so sorry. She flirted with Jed that first night too, even when I was right there. :( . . . I am so sorry about the rumors that Andrew has had lots of affairs like this one . . . What a bad time this must be for you.

Although it arrived with Heather’s return address, nothing in this e-mail sounded like her, and Cheri called her as soon as it arrived. Heather answered, sounding very happy that we had called, and explained that she was out on a boat.

“Then you didn’t send me an e-mail?” asked Cheri.

“No, why do you ask?”

It took less than thirty seconds for the two women to agree that Elizabeth Edwards was the only person who could have had access to Heather’s e-mail account and the interest in sending the e-mail in question. The tone of the message and a word like “scum” were so out of character for Heather—but consistent with the attitudes of Mrs. Edwards—and only reinforced the suspicion
that she was the source. The incident bothered Heather, because of the invasion of her account, but made us feel sorry for Elizabeth Edwards. She had cancer. She and her husband had just finished a grueling and failed campaign for president. And I believe that deep in her heart, she knew her husband was the father of Rielle Hunter’s baby and that her campaign against me was unfair and dishonest.

When Edwards finally set a date to meet me for a discussion that I intended to use to force an end to his deception, he insisted I come alone and asked that we meet in a restaurant. I agreed to leave Cheri home but demanded we get together in private. There was no way we could settle this in a public place. He agreed, and we settled on a date, Wednesday, June 18, and a place: the River Inn in the Georgetown district of Washington, D.C. I bought a plane ticket and was ready to depart on June 17 when Edwards sent word that he needed to delay our meeting for a day in order to attend the funeral of
Meet the Press
host Tim Russert, who had died unexpectedly. Despite the cost and inconvenience, I rescheduled my flight and arrived in D.C. on Thursday morning. (Only later would I learn that Edwards never went to the funeral.) Pam Marple, the attorney who wrote the statement declaring that I was Rielle Hunter’s lover, picked me up at the airport and drove me to the hotel, where I sat in the lobby.

The plan called for the senator to ring my cell phone and tell me the room number where I was to find him. Ninety minutes after the appointed time, I started leaving messages on Fred’s phone. When he called me back, he said, “He is about to call you. Calm down. Let’s get this taken care of.”

I called Cheri and told her it was finally about to happen. While I was talking to her, I saw one of the senator’s latest body men, Matthew Nelson, walk out of the elevator. “Hey, Cheri, I gotta go,” I said, and got up to speak to him. He was shocked to see me but tried to act nonchalant.

“What are you doing here?”

I told him I was visiting some friends and then asked him why he was in town. Matthew said he was there with the senator, who had just filled in for Obama at an event and gotten a five-minute standing ovation for his
speech. He said Edwards believed he was going to get “V.P.” (This was not idle speculation. Tim Toben had relayed to me Edwards’s inside knowledge of polls that showed he would help Obama capture more votes in key states like Ohio and Pennsylvania than any other running mate.)

Just then my cell phone rang. I answered to hear Edwards’s familiar voice asking me to come upstairs. I said okay and then dialed Cheri for encouragement. She said, “Try to stay calm. And whatever you do, don’t hit him!”

On the elevator ride up I seethed and I thought about how only a consummate actor, or a psychologically disturbed human being, could have greeted me so cheerfully knowing what was about to happen. On the fifth floor I got out of the elevator and turned right to find the suite where he was waiting. I knocked and he answered with a Cheshire-cat grin and said how glad he was to see me. I responded that I wished I could say the same.

He led me into the suite and sat down with his legs folded up on the chair in a very casual way and acted like he was shocked to see me upset. He tried to talk about how he had just given an incredible speech and was certain to be picked to run as vice president. I cut him off, saying I had run into Matthew downstairs. For a moment he seemed troubled by this but then said he didn’t care because Matthew was loyal to him, not Elizabeth.

He said he didn’t know why I had come to see him and suggested I start the conversation. I began by asking why the “fuck” he hadn’t called me in three months. I criticized him for missing Eliza’s funeral and failing to call people whom he had promised to contact on my behalf.

After trying to minimize my complaints, he then tried to soothe my feelings. He asked why I was upset and told me he loved me. He insisted that our relationship was unchanged and that he hadn’t been in touch with anyone because he was depressed about the election.

I exploded. I asked how many people did the shit for him that my family had done. I told him he owed us a call. And that it was inexcusable that he had skipped Eliza’s funeral. Bunny truly loved him, had given him millions of dollars and never asked anything else from him in return.

Backpedaling, he said that Bunny had assured him that she was not upset about the funeral. I corrected him, saying that Bunny was too dignified to complain, or say how much he had hurt her.

I hit a nerve. He put up his hands and talked about how we had been friends for years, had been through so much together, and that nothing had changed between us for him. He then used one of his old tricks, blaming someone else for his problems and trying to bond with me over marital problems. He said he knew Cheri was upset with me and that he understood what it felt like because Elizabeth was being hard on him.

Exasperated, I looked at him with fury in my eyes and said, “Jesus Christ.”

He told me that Elizabeth screamed all the time about me to him, and that he actually defended me. Edwards said that his wife believed that I had ruined the presidential campaign and their reputation. I told him of course she thinks that—he told her all that. He insisted, “I am going through hell.”

He was veering way off the main topic I wanted to discuss and I tried to bring him back in line by recalling that he had abandoned me, and my family. He denied this and said he wasn’t the kind of person to abandon someone he cared deeply about.

“Not that kind of person? Not that kind of person?” I then started to name people he had betrayed or abandoned without cause, including Elizabeth, Julianna Smoot, Josh Stein, David Axelrod, Bunny Mellon, John Kerry, Josh Brumberger, and others. Before I could finish, he lost his cool. He jumped up and slammed his fist down on the table. “No one fucking talks to me like that. No one.” When he ripped into Cheri, accusing her of talking to the press and others about Rielle and the baby, I shouted, “Bullshit!” right in his face.