*
S he did not know how long she had been lying on the uncovered mattress in this immense room, nothing to cover herself but the soiled damp sheet that clung to her naked flesh. She had no sense of time or space, perhaps because of the drugs, perhaps because the extended separation from the outside world, from the normal diurnal cycles of day and night, had so thoroughly eliminated her sense of time and place.
She knew she was no longer in the chapel. This room had no rose window, no windows at all, no source of light but the glaring fluorescent bulbs that hung directly overhead. Her face and hair were sticky with blood. The pattern had repeated itself over and over again-the bright lights, the sharp pain, the electric current rippling through her body, the physical punishment, the moments of calm interrupted by more agonizing pain. The draining. And the questions, the never-ending questions. She had told them everything she knew but they acted as if they did not believe her, as if she might actually lie to them. For what? For Colleen? She was beyond help. For Veronica? She, too, was long gone. And she had no idea where Amber was, or even if she was still alive. There was nothing she could tell them. And yet, the needle remained in her arm and the relentless questioning went on and on and on…
Her vision was a turbid fog, just like her brain, and since they all wore identical robes, she couldn’t be sure who it was when the door opened. The sound of his voice told her-it was the Sire. He stood beside the bed upon which she lay. She gazed at his long hair, his thin blood-red lips and the phlegmatic expression she had come to interpret as a smile of pleasure.
“I must know everything,” he said simply.
“I’ve told you everything.”
“What you have told me is useless.”
“I don’t know anything about Amber.”
“Never mind that. I found Amber on my own.”
“Is she here?”
“No. I couldn’t get her away. There were too many people around. I had to simply… eliminate the threat.”
“What does that mean?”
“What I need to know now is who else you have spoken to. Friends? Family? Your sister? My minions tell me she’s in town. Looking for you. What did you tell her, Beatrice?”
“Nothing. I promise you. Nothing!”
He leaned closer, letting her feel his heat, his breath, his intoxicating scent. Despite herself, she was aroused beyond anything she had ever imagined in her life; her need was so intense she would do anything.
“I can give you so much,” he said, whispering into her ear. “Make you feel like you’ve never felt before.”
“Oh please. Oh please yes please.” She squirmed on the table, her legs thrashing, her hips grinding. “Please. Give it to me. Give it to me!”
“Only when there are no more secrets. When there is nothing between us.”
“There is nothing!” she screamed, and even though her arm was hooked to the IV, she jerked forward, teeth gnashing, biting at him. “Please! I burn, master. I burn!”
“And if I give you what you want, what will you give me, my darling?”
She jerked back and forth on the table, growling like a feral beast. “Punish me, master.”
“Do you deserve to be punished?”
“I want to feel the hurt,” she gasped. “I need the hurt.”
“You must control yourself, my child.”
“Hurt me!” she screamed, an earsplitting cry that reverberated through the room. All at once he reared back his hand and hit her, his knuckles smashing against her face. A trickle of blood flowed from the corner of her lips. She thrust her tongue out and licked it up, rubbing it across her lips, savoring the taste. “I need more, master.” Her voice was low and guttural. “You know what I need.”
“Very well.” He leaned back, walking a finger across her barely covered chest, pinning her to the table not with his finger but with the intensity of his eyes. “I believe you are sincere. I will give you what you crave. Because you can still be of use to us. Soon we will perform the final rite of purification. And then, my dear-” He brushed the matted hair from her face. “-then we will have all of eternity before us.”
“I still can’t believe it,” Glancy said, pounding his fist on the conference table. “As long as I’ve been in politics, I’ve never been played like that. I might have believed it from anyone else, but not Shandy. Not in a million years.”
Ben tried to be sympathetic. “Just shows to go you. You can never really know a person.”
“But I did know her, Ben. I did. I just didn’t see this coming.”
“Well, it’s over now. We have to move on.” They were seated around a conference table in Ben’s borrowed law offices. After hours of being grilled by the police about the death of Amber Daily, Loving had dropped by to deliver an update, then left again to resume his investigation. Christina and Jones were present, though, as well as all the members-all the remaining members-of Glancy’s staff. Amanda Burton was fielding phone calls from the press, Marshall Bressler was on his cell trying to minimize the political damage, and Hazel was keyboarding a flurry of documents, some legal, some political. “What was in that letter Shandy gave you, anyway? Before court was in session.”
“The height of objurgation.” Glancy flung it across the table. “Her letter of resignation.”
“How decent of her,” Christina said. “Saved you the trouble of firing her.”
“And gave her an out in the event that she might be held in contempt of Congress for testifying against me,” Glancy said. “Not that any charges are likely to be brought now. The press are treating her like some heroic whistle-blower, not like the b-” He glanced up and caught Christina’s eye. “Okay, the unsavory person that she is. Amanda tells me that 60 Minutes and 20/20 are engaged in a bidding war to get her on as a guest.”
“I thought they weren’t allowed to pay for interviews,” Ben said.
“Oh, they won’t pay her anything directly. They’ll just… make a contribution to her elderly father’s pension fund or something. Maybe they’ll give her a free hour of prime-time TV to promote her new CD. That’s how they got Michael Jackson.” He snorted. “Next they’ll be offering to pay for the film rights to her life. Erin Brockovich, Part Two. Except without the cleavage.”
“Do you have anything we might use to impeach her testimony?” Ben inquired. He’d asked before, of course, but it never hurt to try again. “Judge Herndon knows Shandy took us by surprise. I think he’d let me call her back as part of the defense case, if we had a decent reason.”
“I hardly know anything about the girl. Contrary to the picture painted by Mr. Padolino, I am not a serial sex addict. And it isn’t because I’m such a pure soul-it’s because I know you cannot keep a secret in this town. I strayed once-only once-and of course the whole damn world knows about that now.”
“So Shandy-”
“I hired her in a rush the day this mess began. I never had a chance to socialize with her.”
“You’ve said some very complimentary things about her since. Talked about how she was taking care of you. You’re still saying you thought you knew her,” Christina pointed out.
“After the murder. When she was spying on us. I thought she was trustworthy.”
“And there was never anything… untoward?”
“When would I have had a chance? Yes, I do tend to hire attractive interns. It’s not because I want to sleep with them; it’s because it’s good politics. Even interns have a role, and a good intern can sometimes make the difference between a bill that passes and a bill that fails. We all are more persuaded by attractive people; it’s just human nature. Hiring young pretties isn’t sexist-it’s smart.”
“Glad you hadn’t figured that out yet when I came on board,” Marshall said, his hand covering his cell phone.
Glancy grinned. “And just for the record, I did not ask if she was wearing thong underwear. Why would I? I’m a senator, for God’s sake. You make one remark like that and you’re on the six o’clock news.” He bristled. “I don’t know what the big fuss is about those damn thongs, anyway. I never liked them. I much prefer-” He caught himself. “Well, never mind.”
“What about the others?” Christina asked. “The other interns and job applicants who testified.”
“Look, I’m not going to pretend I’ve never done a little flirting. I am a human being, and moreover, I’m a politician. If I can work a little charm on someone to get what I want, I will. There’s nothing wrong with that.”
“The incident with the zipper-”
“Didn’t happen. If my fly was open, which I doubt, it was an unfortunate accident, and I certainly didn’t do it for that woman’s benefit. Ask yourself this: if all these incidents are true, why didn’t anyone say anything about it at the time? We’ve got a Senate watchdog oversight committee, an Ethics Committee, and a hound-dog press. Any one of them would love to get their hands on a story like that. Plus it would guarantee the tattletale tubs of TV time and probably a job. Why would they remain silent?” He balled his fists and pressed them together. “This is just like what they did to Clarence Thomas. Not that he’s any great gem. But how is it all those women who were sexually harassed never said a word about it-until he was appearing on televised hearings?”
“So you think she’s lying about you just out of spite?”
“Spite? Hell, I think she’s on the payroll. It’s Paula Jones time, all over again. Give me enough money and I’ll say anything.”
“And who would want to bankroll Shandy’s lies?”
“Anyone who doesn’t want to see me on a national Democratic ticket. And believe me, there are a lot of them.”
“A right-wing conspiracy?” Christina said, arching an eyebrow.
He grimaced. “Count on Hillary to express something real in a way that makes it sound like a paranoid fantasy. I’m not talking about some secret society. I’m talking about rich Republicans, period. Even though there are more registered Democrats in this country than Republicans, the Republicans typically fund-raise more than three times as much money for national elections-and produce twice as many attack ads.”
“What about the Delia Collins incident?” Christina asked. “The one Representative MacReady told the jury about?”
“Never happened. I remember that woman-I met with her on several occasions. But I did not have sex with her. Not under anyone’s definition of the word.”
Christina stared at him, trying not to appear dubious. “You’re sure about that.”
He stared right back at her. “Believe me, Ms. McCall-if that woman had given me head on the floor of my office, I’d remember.”
“But you didn’t vote for the bill she wanted passed.”
“There never was any vote. I killed it in committee. Didn’t want to. I hate it when insurance companies play games to avoid giving treatment to people who need it. I would’ve loved to have helped that woman. But I have too many insurance companies making large contributions to my campaign coffers. There aren’t that many big businesses in my district, and most of them predictably support the Republicans. I can’t afford to alienate the insurance money. Sorry to be blunt about it, but that’s just the way it was.”
“And Delia Collins couldn’t change your mind?”
Glancy looked across the room at his administrative assistant, who was still whipping people into line over his cell phone. “Marshall Bressler couldn’t change my mind, and I’d do almost anything on earth for that man. He lobbied hard to get me to change my position. When he went through his auto accident, his insurance company didn’t pony up for half of the therapy he received, which they deemed either ‘optional’ or ‘nonmedical.’ If I hadn’t bankrolled his recovery, he might not have made it. So he was naturally sympathetic to this insurance reform bill. He’d mapped out an entire campaign detailing how we’d drum up enough popular support to replace the insurance money. ‘Let Delia Live’ was going to be the operation slogan. But it was just too risky. I couldn’t do it.” His head lowered, and when his voice returned, several moments later, it was considerably quieter than before. “I was greatly saddened a few months later to read that Delia Collins had died.”
“Well,” Ben said, trying to be consoling, “to be fair, most experimental or untested therapies don’t turn out to be worth much. Desperate people turn to desperate remedies.”
“I know. But still.”
Amanda Burton slammed down her phone. “Look, Kincaid, I’ve been trying to go easy on you, now that I know how sensitive you are and how easily intimidated you are by any woman with balls, but you’ve got to give me something.”
Ben blinked several times. “Could you… be more specific?”
“I need something to tell the press. They keep asking me for our take on the Shifty Shandy testimony. Who are we calling to launch our defense? What’s our story? They want to know. And I can’t give them satisfactory answers, because I don’t have any! I can’t tell them our story when I have no idea what it is!” She hunched across the table, poised on her fingertips, her blouse gaping. “I’m good, Todd. You know I am. But I can’t spin air!”
Ben tried to remain calm. “Tell them we have no comment at this time.”
“We might as well confess! The East Coast evening news cycle will start in twenty minutes. I can guarantee they’ll have more coverage of the Gospel According to Shandy. We need something to counter that.”
“As soon as we’ve made up our minds-”
“It will be too late!” She glared at her boss. “I’m not kidding here. If this goes unrefuted in the press, your career is over. I don’t care if you’re totally exonerated. I don’t care if the Pope himself declares you his next saint. Your career in politics will be extinguished.”
“Thank you for your concern,” Glancy said calmly. “I’m not sure, but I think everyone at the table understands your position.”
She turned toward Ben. “We’ve been paying that investigator of yours a fortune. What has he got for us?”
Ben coughed into his hand. “Well, none of this is verified as yet, but he believes that Veronica Cooper may have been involved with… um… how to say it? Involved with some occult figures.”
“Occult figures?” She was practically screaming. “What, like Casper the Friendly Ghost?”
Ben carefully scrutinized the grain of the tabletop. “No. More like… vampires.”
Amanda pressed the heel of her hand against the bridge of her nose. “You’re telling me Veronica Cooper was a vampire?”
“Of course we don’t mean to say that she really was a vampire,” Ben quickly added, hoping this sounded better to her than it did to him. “Just that she thought she was a vampire. Or… wanted to be a vampire. Or… something like that.”
“Loving is still working on it,” Christina added. “But one of Veronica’s friends-whom we believe was also involved in this group-has turned up dead. Strangled in her hospital bed.”
Amanda swore. “Fat lot of help she’s going to be.”
“The point is,” Ben said emphatically, “if someone felt the need to kill her, Loving must be onto something.”
“Yeah, he’s onto a bunch of crackpots. How do we know it has anything to do with this case? Listen to me, Kincaid-if you go into the courtroom with this vampire crap, they’ll laugh you all the way back to Oklahoma.”
“You’re out of line, Amanda,” Christina interjected. “Whether you appreciate it or not, Ben is handling this defense very well. Brilliantly, I’d say.”
“Look, Goldilocks, you may think your partner walks on water, but he’ll never be able to sell this vampire crock to a DC jury.”
“We weren’t planning to lead with the vampire crock. I mean-”
“What else have you got?”
“Well, numerous compurgators…”
“Character witnesses? You can’t lead with toady testimony!”
“We weren’t planning to lead with toad-I mean-”
“Then what were you planning to lead with?”
Christina cleared her throat. “Well, to tell you the truth, we haven’t decided.”
“What?” She clenched her fists again. “Todd, I begged you to hire DC counsel. I begged you.”
“Even if you had, they’d be telling you the same thing, if they had any sense.” Christina’s cheeks were flushing. “You should just tell the press ‘no comment,’ whether they like it or not. And let us get on with our work.”
“I know what you’re thinking, sweet cheeks,” Amanda said, drawing up to her full and considerable height. “I know what you’re all thinking. Amanda’s just a PR flak. A petty annoyance. Nothing to do with this case. But let me tell you something. I’ve got my finger on the pulse of the people. People just like the sixteen sequestered souls on your jury. If you don’t start listening to me-and if you don’t come up with something better than anything I’ve heard in here today-Senator Todd Glancy of Oklahoma is going to be convicted of murder in the first degree. That’s not a prediction. It’s a guarantee.”
“What the hell did you think you were doing!”
Lieutenant Albertson threw himself down into his desk chair. His office was not large, and with both Dr. Aljuwani and Loving’s considerable bulk in there, they were pressed close enough together to feel each other’s breath.
“He told me he was the girl’s father,” Dr. Aljuwani explained.
“Told me the same thing,” Loving said. “Even showed me his ID.”
Albertson tossed his hands up in the air. “Well let me give you a news flash. Three days ago, a DC traffic cop found a ’97 Jaguar coupe registered to Robert Daily on the side of I-349. It appeared to have been abandoned. Upon inspection, he found Robert Daily stuffed in the trunk. He’d been shot three times in the heart.”
“Jeez Louise.” Loving ran his fingers through his hair. “That’s how the creep got Daily’s wallet.”
“It gets worse. He appears to have been tortured-extensively-before he was killed.”
“The killer must’ve been trying to get information about Amber’s whereabouts,” Loving reasoned. “When he couldn’t get what he wanted from Daily, he killed him, stole his wallet, and masqueraded as his victim.”
“Given what forensics is telling me, he must’ve run into you only an hour or so after he finished killing Daily.”
Loving pounded his forehead. “I saw blood on his shirt. But he told me he’d scraped himself when he clocked me in the alley.”
“And you believed him?”
“I had no reason not to!” Loving rose out of his chair, frustrated by his own stupidity. “He was totally convincing. His eyes teared up every time he talked about Amber.” He paused, lowering himself back into his seat. “And I led him straight to her. Even left him alone with the poor girl.” Loving pounded his fist into his hand. “Damn! What an idiot I’ve been.”
“You’ll get no argument from me.”
“He could not have known,” Dr. Aljuwani said. “I, too, was convinced that this man was a despondent, loving father.”
“That doesn’t cut it with me,” Albertson shot back. “You’re an experienced private investigator, Loving. You should know better. Give me one reason I shouldn’t yank your license or charge you with aiding and abetting a homicide.”
Loving’s broad, square jaw was firmly set. “Because I’m going to find that man for you.”
“How are you going to do that? You know where he is?”
“No. But I know what he wants.” Loving’s focus seemed to turn inward, his forehead creased by determination. “Now that Amber is gone, there’s only one thing he could want. The same thing I want. The last surviving member of the Goth Girls Party of Four. Beatrice.” He paused. “If he doesn’t have her already.”
A few minutes later, the temperature in the conference room had fallen, because most of the players had left. Only Ben and Glancy remained, not counting the federal marshals outside.
Ben checked his watch. “You’re sure Marie understands I meant tonight?”
Glancy appeared calm and worry-free. “If Marie says she’ll be here, she’ll be here. She’s very dependable.” He smiled a little. “But she’s not opposed to making people wait a little. Just to remind them how much they need her. Women.” He shook his head. “Speaking of which.”
Ben looked up from the directed verdict motion he was revising. “What?”
“Why didn’t you stick up for Christina?”
Ben’s head tilted an inch to the side. “What are you talking about?”
“Just now. When Amanda lit into her.”
Ben waved a hand in the air. “Christina can take care of herself.”
“I’m sure she can. But she shouldn’t have to.”
“I… don’t get you.”
“You’re the senior partner in the firm, right? You should protect your associates.”
“From our clients?”
“Amanda is not your client, and the fact that she works for me hasn’t once stopped you from telling her where she can get off.”
“I’m not the smothering kind of boss. I’m not even really the boss.”
“But there’s more to it than that, Ben. Everyone here knows that you and Christina are involved.”
“You do?”
“We do. And moreover, I have to tell you there’s a general feeling that… well, that you’re not doing right by her.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
Glancy kicked his legs up on the table. “Well, as I understand it, Ben, Christina has faithfully put up with your other girlfriends, each of them chosen with immense stupidity, a former fiancée who put you off romance for something like a decade, as well as a host of other neuroses and commitment issues.”
Ben raised his hands. “Where are you getting all this?”
“I’m a senator, Ben. I have sources. And I’m telling you, just because we’re old friends, that it’s time you took the next step. Have you asked her to move in with you?”
Ben fidgeted with his legal pad. “Are you crazy? Do you know how small my place is?”
“Not as small as Christina’s, I’ll wager.”
“My mother would never approve.”
“When did you ever do anything your mother wanted? Besides, Christina told me she gets on with your mom very well. Better than you do, actually.”
“Plus I’m a lousy conversationalist, a poor cook, I work all the time, I’m messy, and… and… my cats would be insanely jealous.”
“Uh-huh.” He gave Ben a long look. “You’re afraid she might say no, aren’t you?”
Ben fell quiet for a moment. “Not really. Actually, she’s suggested it several times. I mean, not in so many words, but-”
“Then for God’s sake, man, what are you waiting for?”
Ben fell silent.
“Are you afraid it might damage your working relationship?”
“There’s nothing I could do that’s worse than the stuff she’s already put up with.”
“Then what is it?”
Ben didn’t answer him. He couldn’t. He didn’t have an answer to give. “There’s no rush.”
“You don’t know that. Hell, look at me. One day I’m being touted as a potential presidential candidate, the next I’m practically on death row. None of us knows what the future holds, or how much future we’ll have. But I know this-you and Christina are a good match. And you’re both well into your thirties. She’s been very patient with you, Ben. But if you mess around much longer, you could lose her.”
Ben’s shoulders sagged. “I couldn’t work if Christina left. I couldn’t function without her.”
“Have you told her that?”
“Told her what?”
“What you just said. Your somewhat neurotic way of admitting that you love her.”
“Have I-?” He stared at Glancy, wide-eyed. “Of course not. That would be… that would be…”
“Honest?”
Ben wrung his hands. “No. It would be… it’s just too… I don’t know. I’m not ready.”
Glancy looked at Ben for a long time, then sighed. “Well, I hope you get over that, Ben. I truly do. And soon. Because Christina is a wonderful woman, and very devoted to you. But she’s ready to move forward. And if you’re not-” He shook his head sadly. “She’s going to move on without you.”
“Thank you for coming,” Ben said as he pulled out a chair at the conference table for Marie Glancy. “I know how stressful this trial has been for you.”
“Do you? I wonder if that’s possible.” Ben thought he detected a grain of sadness in her eyes, but as always she was perfectly coiffed and attired, her makeup unsmudged. “But I’m ready to do whatever you ask. Where is Todd, anyway?”
“I asked him to step out. I wanted to talk to you alone.”
“Why?” Her brow furrowed. “What could you possibly want to say to me that Todd can’t hear?”
“I’m not saying he can’t hear it. He’ll learn soon enough. But it doesn’t have to be now.”
Ben saw her back stiffen, observed the hard lines creasing her face. “Marie, I know your husband has been unfaithful to you.”
Her chin lowered. “Am I supposed to act shocked? I knew about the Cooper affair long before that video broke.”
“But then why, in the courtroom-”
“Did I put on the big teary-eyed dog-and-pony show? Because that’s what people expect, Ben. They want to be entertained. They want drama.”
“But racing out of the courtroom-”
“Do you think I overdid it?”
“I didn’t think you were ‘doing it’ at all. Christina told me how she had to fight to get you back into the courtroom. Why would you want-”
“My people did extensive polling on the subject and everyone concurred that this was the best way to go.”
“So it was all an act? A performance?”
“Ben, my husband may be the senator, but I’m not exactly a silent partner. I visit the Russell Senate Building every day, even when Todd isn’t there. I know what’s going on. People talk to me. I have access. I knew about the hideaway, the underground tunnel system. I’ve got keys to every room in the building. I’m there so often the security guards sometimes don’t even bother to pat me down. Probably afraid I’ll slap them with some sort of harassment suit.” She paused. “What I’m trying to say is, my husband couldn’t have an affair without my knowing. My husband couldn’t pluck a nose hair without my knowing. So this great revelation was not exactly news to me.”
“What might be news,” Ben said quietly, “is that I know you’ve hired a private detective to follow your husband around. That you were having Todd tailed for something like six months before the murder.”
Marie settled back into her seat, her hands folded. “I had my reasons.”
“Planning a divorce?”
She removed her glasses and rubbed the bridge of her nose. Ben had noticed that she never wore the specs in court or at social functions, but always wore them at press conferences, interviews, or anywhere else she wanted to appear smart. A prop? he wondered. Or a distancing mechanism? “I have no intention of divorcing Todd.”
“Forgive and forget?”
Her lips thinned. “Divorce is not an option. It would destroy both-” She checked herself. “It wouldn’t be prudent.”
“Then why the detective?”
She peered at Ben with an expression he thought she must’ve practiced on Meet the Press. “I would think that was perfectly obvious. I don’t like surprises.”
“You must’ve suspected something was going on or you wouldn’t have hired the man in the first place.”
“Suspecting is one thing. Knowing is quite another. Having details is useful. Having photographs is even better.”
“But why go to the trouble of gathering information if you don’t intend to use it?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” She snapped the glasses back on with the heel of her hand. “I didn’t want to be perceived as some pathetic Hillary Clinton clone. ‘I was misinformed.’ Give me a break. If my husband decides to adopt a new cuddle-bunny, I want to know everything about it. I want to be ready when the news breaks. I want to be positioned.”
“Positioned?”
“Ready to deal. Ready to spin. Ready with my well-calculated coping strategy. These things can’t be concocted overnight, you know. It requires thought, planning. Polling. Brainstorming with consultants.”
Ben stared at her, uncomprehending. Or to be more accurate, he comprehended every word. He just couldn’t believe it. It was too strange, too foreign to his usual reasons for dealing with a client’s spouse. The woman wasn’t concerned that her husband was having an affair. She wasn’t even concerned about what it might do to his career. She was concerned about the possible ramifications on her public image.
“You have your own political ambitions.”
“People always say that because I won’t act like the typical token congressional Stepford spouse who lives only to serve her master’s political career. They want me to be Malibu Marie. Why should I? Why shouldn’t I think about myself? Women are allowed to be more than just a subservient spouse in almost every other field. When are politics going to catch up to the rest of the world?”
“Here’s the thing,” Ben said. “I want access to your detective’s records. Files, photos, movies. Whatever he’s got.”
“Are you kidding? I can assure you there’s nothing there that will make Todd look better to a jury.”
“Right now, there’s nothing short of bestiality photos that could make him look worse to the jury. I want to know what your man dug up on Veronica Cooper.”
“What makes you think he has anything?”
“He was on Todd for months. I’m betting he spent some time digging into Veronica’s background, her lifestyle, her recreational activities.”
“So that’s your defense strategy. You’re going to put the victim on trial.”
Ben squirmed. “It’s a possibility.”
“Do you think that could work? I mean-good or evil, the woman was still murdered.”
“In the eyes of the law, you’re correct. But in the eyes of a jury, who the victim was can make a huge difference. Up till now, the press has played her as a poor innocent, a naïve waif who went to Washington to serve her country and ended up being abused and debased by a depraved senator-despite a video that to me shows her to be anything but naïve and innocent. We need to turn that around. Loving tells me she was into some really weird stuff, and I’ve got at least one witness at an escort service who can give the jury some insight on Ms. Cooper’s secret life. But I need more. I’m hoping your detective can give that to me. If he does, it will do a lot more than tarnish the victim’s image. If we can prove she was all wrapped up with some bizarre vampire cult-”
“Reasonable doubt,” Marie whispered.
“Exactly. Parade in a coven of vampires, and suddenly the list of possible suspects gets a lot longer. Everyone has been assuming Todd was guilty because of the video, where the body was found, and because there were no other likely suspects. But if we can show she was involved with all sorts of dangerous characters-”
“That’s brilliant,” she said, slowly nodding her head. “I mean, it’s evil. Bogus. Lies and calumny.” She smiled. “But brilliant. I’m finally beginning to see why Todd hired you.”
“We aim to please.”
She laid her hand on Ben’s wrist. “You’re an experienced trial attorney, Ben. Tell me the truth. Are you going to get my husband off?”
“It’s impossible to say,” he replied, trying to resist his instinctive impulse to brush her hand away. “We haven’t put on our case. Juries are unpredictable. The evidence is massively stacked against Todd.” He paused. “But I think we have a shot. A small shot, perhaps. But a shot.”
She removed her hand. “That’s good to know.”
“Now, I don’t mean to give you false hope.”
“It’s not about hope,” she said, pushing herself out of the chair. “It’s about intel. I like to know what the contingencies are. So I can lay my plans accordingly.”
Loving and Shalimar stayed hidden in the shadows of an alley off one of the seediest streets in Georgetown, staring at a tall brownstone building across the darkened street.
“That’s the Playground?” Shalimar whispered.
“So my sources tell me.”
“The whole building?”
“Probably not. Someone’s private suite, I bet. Somewhere they can restrict access.”
“Then how are we going to get in?”
“I’m workin’ on it.” Loving had spent the entire day turning over every slimy rock in the city to get a lead on the place.
“I can’t believe my sister would be involved in-in anything like this.”
“Why? She hung out with vampires.”
“But I never-” She stopped short, biting a knuckle. “I imagined-pretended, perhaps-that she’d been taken against her will. Like white slavers or something. But from what you told me, she did it all by choice. She did it for fun.”
“Maybe up to a point,” Loving said. “But I’ve got a hunch her power of choice was removed. Otherwise you woulda heard from her.” He slowly pulled out of the shadows. “C’mon, Slayer. Let’s go find your sister.”
They crossed the street and approached the front door of the building. The front door was locked. Just to the right, he saw an intercom speaker. He pushed the button.
“Yes?” the electronic voice crackled.
“Umm… could you please open the door?”
“Are you a resident?”
“No. Visitor.”
“And who are you visiting?”
Loving looked at Shalimar. She shrugged. He tried, “The Playground.”
“Just a moment. I’ll transfer you.” As if he had asked for nothing out of the ordinary.
A few moments later, the speaker crackled to life again. The voice was different. “Yes?”
“We’re here for the Playground,” Loving said.
“Do you have an appointment?”
“No, we’re-” Looking for someone? Loving thought better of it. “New. This is our first time.”
“Are you cops? Or in any way associated with the law enforcement community?”
“Nah. We’re just… you know. Here for a good time. Into it.” Whatever it was.
“I’m sorry. I can’t let you in without an appointment or a referral. We have to enforce our rules to ensure-”
“The Sire sent us,” Loving said. And waited.
The air went dead for several seconds. Then: “Stand back, I’ll release the door.” He heard a sound something like the turning of an idled engine, then a few seconds later the dead bolt in the door retracted. “Come up to the top floor. The penthouse.”
“Will do.” He grabbed Shalimar’s arm and whispered: “We’re in!”
She did not move. “I don’t know about this.”
“Don’t be afraid,” Loving said, patting her arm reassuringly. “We’ll be together. Besides, whatever it is, it couldn’t possibly be worse than that vampire club.”
As it turned out, Loving was dead wrong.
“G lad to know they still care,” Glancy said as he gazed out the limo window at the crowd outside. The courthouse steps were filled to capacity, and the security forces were working overtime to hold the throngs behind the ropes.
“Like you thought they’d forget about this case?” Ben asked.
“You never know,” Glancy replied, smoothing the line of his trousers. “If a governor had been caught in the back of a cab with a transvestite last night, no one would remember this case existed.”
Ben knew the press could be fickle-he’d seen for himself how press coverage of a case would surge with a dramatic inciting incident, then predictably wane as time passed, spurting briefly when the trial began, then continuing its downward spiral. By the time it was over, sometimes the verdict didn’t even make the papers. But this case was something else again. Just looking into the eyes of the people on the courthouse steps informed him that this case was important to them, that it had become a part of their lives.
“This is the big day, at least to many spectators,” Ben said. “After all, they already pretty much knew what Padolino was going to say. They’ve got no clue what you’re going to say. They’re anxious to hear your story.”
“I thought you told me I wasn’t taking the stand today.”
“They don’t know that. Press conference this morning?”
“I don’t think so.”
“The press is dying to know what your defense will be.”
“Yes, but I’m not sure I’m quite ready to say the ‘v-word’ on national television. I need to practice in the mirror. Make sure I can keep a straight face.”
As before, the advance men had worked their magic-all the people most supportive of Senator Glancy were closest to the roped-off trail up the steps. Ben tried to hurry his client, but it was like dragging an elephant. He was an addict, powerless to prevent himself from shaking every outstretched hand, signing every autograph book.
“We know what they’re tryin’ to do to you,” a plus-sized Latino woman said, as she flung her arm around Glancy, hugging him so tightly it made the federal marshals tense. “You hang in there.”
“That’s my fervent intent, ma’am,” Glancy said, flashing that award-winning smile.
He flew up the steps, brushing his hands against theirs like Leno coming onstage for The Tonight Show, till he had almost reached the top of the steps. A middle-aged man in a flak jacket ducked under the rope and stood in front of him.
“You killed my daughter, you bloodsucker!” Darrin Cooper flew at Glancy and Ben with a wild walleyed look, but he never had a chance. One of the security cops and both federal marshals tackled him, knocking him to the hard stone steps. His jaw made an ugly brittle sound as it smashed onto the granite. Ben suspected Cooper was going to lose a few teeth over this attack.
“Ben, I think you need to reconsider.” Christina was behind him, whispering in his ear. “I understand why you didn’t want to prefer charges before. But neither you nor Glancy will be safe if this clown isn’t locked up. I mean, I know he seems pathetic, but even a pathetic loser could get lucky. Especially if he starts employing weapons.”
Ben nodded, but he knew he couldn’t do it. Neither Glancy nor his lawyer could be responsible for incarcerating the victim’s father, regardless of the situation. The PR fallout would be brutal.
The officials hauled Cooper to his feet and dragged him up the steps to a holding room. Glancy was unflappable; he went right on smiling and waving as if nothing had happened.
“Interesting choice of words, don’t you think?” Ben said.
Christina was puzzled. “I don’t follow you.”
“Cooper. Just now. Cooper always calls me a money-grubbing bastard, or some variation on the theme.” He paused. “But Glancy he called a ‘bloodsucker.’”
As soon as the woman opened the door to the penthouse apartment, Loving knew he was in the right place. And wished he weren’t.
The first thing he noticed was that she was wearing a dog collar cinched around her neck. She was also wearing a tight leather corset that left most of her buttocks exposed. It was only upon closer-and extremely unpleasant-inspection that Loving realized that she was a he. A somewhat pudgy, heavily made up, he.
Vampire drag. Jeez Louise, what next?
“Would you like me to show you around?” he/she said, and of course Loving didn’t, but he said that he did. “If you’re with the Sire, I, and my humble establishment, are at your complete disposal. You can call me Mina.” And so the tour began. Giggling, mincing, and occasionally attempting to be scary-which was even funnier than the mincing-their leather-clad tour guide strolled them through a maze of darkened rooms, some vacant, most not, all of them equipped with a different top-quality device for the infliction of pain.
“We do have some open rooms,” Mina explained. “And remember if you have the desire-and the cash-you can rent this place for the night. Have an exclusive. Just you and your friends.”
Loving was pretty sure he didn’t have any friends who would want to come here. And if they did, they were off his friends list.
The people they encountered, in the halls and the darkened rooms, were clad much like what he had seen in the vamp club and the Goth bar, when they were clad at all. Too often he had to avert his eyes-and resist the temptation to cover Shalimar’s-to avoid seeing something he didn’t ever want to see people doing to one another. In one room equipped with a vaulting horse, which they were able to view through a voyeuristic one-way mirror, Loving heard smacking sounds followed by cries of ecstatic pleasure.
“Spanking,” Loving whispered to Shalimar knowingly. “Some of these vamps are really into it.”
But when their tour guide turned up the lights slightly, they were able to view a spectacle for which neither of them was prepared. A woman, obese and naked, was strapped across the horse. An equally heavy and equally naked man stood behind her teasing her with a cat-o’-nine-tails, whipping her lightly, tickling her legs and breasts and stomach. She moaned in pleasure with each new slap of the leather against her exposed jiggling skin. And, to make it even more interesting, there were at least half a dozen other people in the room, just watching.
In the next room, they found a young woman, this one slender, and as far as Loving could tell quite attractive. She was wearing only black lacy panties and was handcuffed, her hands hoisted above her head and fastened to what looked like a large meat hook suspended from the ceiling. The man standing in the rear was caning her, striking her again and again, all up and down the back of her legs, while she let loose high-pitched whimpers of erotic delight. She writhed back and forth, which did amazing things to her suspended body, titillating not only her and her master-but the audience of spectators as well.
“My sister is not here,” Shalimar whispered. Loving noticed she was inhaling in deep quick gulps. “She would not have anything to do with this… disgusting place.”
Loving put his arm around her and gave her a squeeze. He just hoped she was right. For once, he didn’t want to find Beatrice. At least not here.
Ben had adjusted over the years to the fact that he was simply not, by anyone’s definition, flashy. Not that he would mind. To the contrary, he thought being flashy sounded rather fun. It just wasn’t in him. So he’d learned to content himself with being thorough, prepared, and good. If he couldn’t gain prosperity via flamboyance, then at least he could gain notoriety by winning.
Nonetheless, he couldn’t help but notice the contrast between Padolino’s announcement of his final prosecution witness, and his own announcement of his first defense witness. The former had triggered gasping and astonishment; the latter was met by, well, nothing. An absence of reaction. Boredom. Ben consoled himself that it wasn’t a reflection on his style as a litigator; it was simply that no one in the gallery knew who Sid Bartmann was.
That was about to change.
Interest in the witness increased, at least in the jury box, when the Virginia state troopers walked Bartmann into the courtroom. They removed his handcuffs but left the leg restraints chaining his two legs together. He was wearing his prison grays, which informed all the world that he was Prisoner XK-24637. His face was pale and pocked; his hair, what little he had left, was unwashed.
“Jesus,” Glancy muttered under his breath. “That’s my lead witness? He looks like the scum of the earth.”
“Yes,” Ben replied quietly. “He does.”
“Couldn’t you have… I don’t know. Dressed him up a little bit? Loaned him a bar of soap?”
“Yes,” Ben answered. “I could have.”
Ben wasted no time establishing that Bartmann had several prior offenses but that he had most recently been incarcerated during a raid (if you could call what Loving did a raid) on a club in Georgetown called Stigmata. He was arrested for possession of an illegal designer hallucinogen derived in part from OxyContin.
“You were a habitué-” Ben checked himself; what was he thinking? “-you were at Stigmata a lot, correct?”
“Oh yeah. Almost every night. I worked for the owner, Randy Lorenz.”
“And do you know where Mr. Lorenz is at this time?”
“In lockup. Bail was denied.”
“What exactly was your position at the club?”
“What, ya mean like my job title or somethin’? I don’t think I ever had one. I just did what the man told me. Randy snapped his fingers, I come runnin’.”
“And what was your rate of payment?”
“I don’t think I had one of them, neither. Basically, whenever Randy got a wad of cash, he threw some of it my way. Fortunately, he got a wad of cash like every night.”
“And that was because he was peddling a designer drug to a select group of women who were admitted to his apartment on the second level of the club above the dance floor, correct?”
Ben could see the man blinking, trying to understand. Must use short sentences and one- or two-syllable words, he reminded himself. “Randy had some chicks up to his place, yeah. Some of them were usin’. But the club itself was rakin’ in dough. It was very popular with… you know. A certain crowd.”
“And what crowd would that be?”
Bartmann coughed, a long grotesque grinding noise that sounded as if he were peeling off the lining of his lungs. “The Goth freaks.”
“Interesting. So you and the other… freaks… were using this designer drug?”
“Hell, no. I couldn’t afford the stuff. Rather have a tall cool one, myself.”
“But you were arrested in possession-”
“Randy gave me the package and I held it for him. He was my boss. I did what I was told.”
“Even holding on to illegal drugs.”
“Hell, I woulda held on to illegal turds if he’d asked me.” Judge Herndon glared at the witness but remained silent. “He was the man, you know? He took care of me and I took care of him. He was like the brother I never had.”
The brother he never had. Ben was reminded of Aristophanes: youth ages, immaturity is outgrown, ignorance can be educated, drunkenness sobered-but stupid lasts forever. He removed a photograph from his trial notebook and held it up. “Mr. Bartmann, have you ever seen this woman before?”
Bartmann looked at the photo with an expression that was positively repulsive. “Oh, hell, yeah. That’s Rapid Ronnie.”
Ben cleared his throat. “Rapid Ronnie?”
“Yeah.” He laughed so hard it became a sort of snort, a repetitive pig noise in the back of his throat. “She was fast. Fast like you’ve never seen fast.”
Ben felt the inevitable red blotches creeping up his neck. “Sir, are you talking about Veronica Cooper being fast… sexually?”
Bartmann touched his nose. “Got it in one!”
“And… how do you know this?”
“From personal experience.” He winked, and this was possibly even more grotesque than the lascivious expression that preceded it. “She was hot.”
“Are you suggesting that you had… intimate relations with Ms. Cooper?”
“Damn straight.”
“How many times?”
“More than you could count. When that girl wanted it, she wouldn’t take no for an answer.”
“And when would that be?”
“When she was high on the drug, mostly. Affects different people different ways. Her it made horny. Major horny. Upped her desire-and her pleasure. She couldn’t control herself. It was all she could do to wait long enough to get my pants off.”
“Did you have… someplace you went for these liaisons?”
“Nope. Right there in the apartment at the club. Most times everyone else was high and doing it, so we didn’t attract much attention. They were too busy with their own action to notice us.” He paused. “’Cept Randy. He liked to watch.”
Ben tried to envision the orgy Bartmann was describing-and then decided he’d rather not. “Were you the only person with whom Ms. Cooper had sexual relations?”
“Hell no. She’d do anyone when she was high. All she cared was that you were breathing and male.” He reflected a moment. “Come to think of it, some of the time she didn’t even care if her partner was male.”
“And I gather from the nickname that Miss Cooper tended to be… fast?”
“Like you wouldn’t believe. A male fantasy come true. No jawboning about foreplay. No screwin’ around waiting for her to get in the mood. She was always in the mood. Sometimes she got there before I did. She liked it fast and rough.”
“Rough?” Ben said, coughing.
“Very. Violent, almost. Kicking and slapping and spanking and biting.”
“Biting?”
“Oh yeah. That always turned her on. And not just some wimpy pecking, either-she wanted a good hard bite. The kind that mattered. I mean, when I pressed my teeth into her neck, she squealed like a pig.”
Out the corner of his eye, Ben saw the jury scrutinizing the man, trying to decide if they thought it was remotely credible that the beautiful young intern Padolino had painted as a virtual nun could have sex with this walking waste dump. Verdict: no.
“Mr. Bartmann, when was the last time you had sexual relations with Miss Cooper?”
“The night before she was killed.”
Almost as one, the jury members’ chins lowered.
“Within twenty-four hours of the time of death?”
“Less than ten, from what I hear. She was killed like around ten in the morning, right?”
“Something like that.”
He folded his arms across his chest, obviously proud of himself. “And I had her around midnight. So I’m saying it was ten hours.”
“The coroner found evidence of sexual activity…”
Bartmann jabbed a thumb to his chest. “I’m your man.”
Ben heard the rustling in the gallery, saw the jury shifting in their seats. He knew everyone was uncomfortable with this testimony, with the ugly and bizarre possibility that these allegations could be true. But there was something about the man-his brashness, his lack of shame, the impression that he lacked the smarts to exercise guile-that made his testimony strangely believable.
“And on the occasion of your last encounter, did you bite Ms. Cooper?”
He shrugged. “I don’t really remember, but it seems likely. I mean, she loved that move. Once I sunk some teeth into her, she just got all-”
“Thank you, sir,” Ben said, holding up his hands. “I think we get the idea.” But he still had to convince the jury that this walking talking pond scum had been with Veronica Cooper. He reached into his notebook and produced two documents. “Mr. Bartmann, my apologies, but I’m going to ask you to look at some photographs that were taken of Ms. Cooper postmortem.” He paused. “That means after she was dead.”
“Do I have to?”
“I’m afraid so. Here’s a photo of her right shoulder, the wound that killed her.” As he held it up, the jury winced. “She was cut with a large knife, but there was also evidence of a smaller, more subtle incision to her jugular vein made by some other instrument. Like maybe a tooth.”
“Objection,” Padolino said. “He’s just telling the man what he wants to hear. Leading.”
“I only offered that by way of example,” Ben said innocently.
“It’s not like we don’t all know where this is going,” Judge Herndon said. “Overruled.”
“I didn’t do it,” Bartmann said, cutting in before Ben could ask a question. “I would never hurt Veronica like that.”
“I believe you.” Ben held up the other photo. “This is an enlargement of a much less severe bite wound that was found on the victim’s left shoulder. The bite mark was barely visible when the coroner examined the body; this photo was taken under ultraviolet light.”
“Okay. So?”
“Mr. Bartmann…” Ben paused, trying to think how best to put this. “Say cheese.”
“Huh?”
“I want you to smile. Smile for the jury.”
Bartmann looked understandably confused, but after a moment’s hesitation, he shrugged and replied, “Whatever you say, counselor.” He turned to the jury and grinned.
All his center teeth were missing. Tops and bottoms. From the canines inward. Gone.
“Mr. Bartmann, how did you lose your teeth? Was there an accident?”
“No.” He looked down at his hands. “Least not the way you mean. Happened the last time I was in the joint. Cedars. Rough as hell. On my first day. The cell-block boss had two of his goons hold me down while another one knocked out my teeth. With a hammer.”
Ben heard a satisfying gasp from the gallery. “Were there no guards present?”
“Not present in the room. They were around. They knew what was happening.”
“Then-”
“They had what you might call a special relationship with the cell-block boss. They stayed out of his way, within reason, and he took care of them. Arranged for gifts to be delivered to their homes, their families. Very nice gifts.”
“But why would he want to knock out your front teeth?”
Bartmann looked back at Ben stonily. “That way, if someone shoves something in your mouth, you can’t bite down on it.”
Ben laid a hand on the podium, steadying himself. “Permission to publish the photo to the jury.”
“It’s already been entered into evidence,” Judge Herndon said. “You may proceed.”
Ben walked to the jury box and held it up so they could see the enlarged view of the deceased’s left shoulder. Two things were immediately clear. The first was that it bore a bite mark. And the second was that this most unusual bite mark was missing its center teeth.
“Why’s it always women gettin’ the rough stuff in here?” Loving asked Mina.
“It isn’t,” their indifferently gendered guide explained. “Although that is more common. I’ve got a man tied up in the next room if you’d like to see-”
“No thanks,” Loving said. “I get the picture. All your rooms have people beatin’ on one another.”
“Not necessarily. There are other forms of pleasure. We cater to all types here. We’re a nonjudgmental, equal opportunity pleasure service. You can find people into suffocation, mutilation-”
“Wait a minute. Suffocation?”
“It’s a well-known fact that near-death experiences heighten orgasm. Have you never heard of autoerotic asphyxiation? Not that it’s the only way to get there. Some of our clients apply jumper cables to their nipples, so they can give themselves an added charge at just the right moment. Some wrap up their testicles with leather cords. Some-”
“I think I got the general idea,” Loving said, cutting Mina off. “What about bloodsuckin’?”
“Ah. Some of my clients live for it. But there can be complications. Too much will make you sick. And even a little can-” Mina’s voice dropped to a whisper. “-give you diarrhea. Like, all day long. I hear it’s very erotic when taken to the extreme, or combined with sexual orgasm. But I guess you already know that.”
“What?”
Mina brushed a finger against the left side of Loving’s neck. “Looks like someone took a little nibble on you recently.”
Loving moved his hand to his neck, covering the impression. “Blast. I meant to cover that up.”
“Did you? You know what Freud said. There are no accidents.” Mina smiled-leered, actually. “You liked it, didn’t you?”
“No!” Loving glanced at Shalimar, whom he noticed was inching away. “I did not like it. Not a bit!”
“Right. That’s why you’re here tonight.” Mina leaned close to Shalimar and whispered, “Deep denial.”
Shalimar gave Loving a look he couldn’t read.
“So.” Mina fluttered obviously false eyelashes and eyed Loving mischievously. “See anything that interests you?”
“Uh, maybe. But I… I don’t have my partner.”
“This young lady seems perfectly suitable,” Mina said, motioning toward Shalimar. “Or if you’d prefer something more exotic-”
“No, it has to be the right girl. Otherwise it just doesn’t work for me. I need Beatrice.”
“And who would that lucky lady be?”
“You don’t know Beatrice?” Loving paused. “I thought everyone knew Beatrice.”
“Haven’t heard the name, but we don’t use names much around here. For obvious reasons.”
Loving showed Mina the picture Shalimar had given him, but it was no help.
“Is there anyone else I could talk to? Any membership lists I could review?”
“In our community?” Mina seemed appalled by the very suggestion. “I don’t know of anyone who would-or would want to-keep those kinds of records. It isn’t as if we take attendance. No one keeps track of who comes and who doesn’t. Except maybe the Church.”
Church? These people? “And that would be…?”
“You know. Surely you’ve been.”
Shalimar cleared her throat. “We’re, uh, new here.”
“But the Church is everywhere, all across the nation.” Mina seemed flabbergasted. “Do you really not know? The Temple of the Vampire.”
Loving shook his head. It just got weirder and weirder. “There’s a church called the Temple of the Vampire?”
“Absolutely. It’s a bona fide, national, federally registered church. Protected by the First Amendment. Tax exempt. But let’s not talk about that now. You must’ve come here for a reason. What kind of pleasure suite can I arrange for you?”
“Nothin’ just now,” Loving said, guiding Shalimar away. He wondered if he could find his way out of this maze by himself. “I’m not in the mood for pleasure anymore. For some reason, I’m suddenly feelin’ very religious.”
“Y our honor, the defense calls his wife, Marie Glancy, to the stand.”
Now that was more like it, Ben thought, as he heard an appreciable murmur rising from the gallery and saw one of the reporters run to the back doors, crack them open, and wave for his fifth-estate buddies to come inside. Everyone knew who Marie Glancy was. And everyone, whether they believed her to be a tragic victim taken advantage of by a wayward husband or a shrewd politico with her own agenda, wanted to hear what she had to say.
Ben wasted as little time as possible on the introductory material. The jury already knew who she was, either liked her or didn’t, and was well aware of her relevance to the case. He wondered how many minds in the courtroom were comparing the petite, somewhat plain figure in the witness stand to the video’s lusty feral child in the lacy undergarments.
“How long have you and your husband been married?”
“Almost sixteen years now. We wed when we were in college. We were very much in love.”
“And you went to law school-”
“At the University of Oklahoma.” She glanced up at Ben. “As did several other distinguished members of the bar.”
Ben had to hand it to her. She was doing a great job of staying cool, but not cold. Calm, but not unemotional. She was even allowing herself a little wry humor, though nothing that might seem sarcastic or flippant. She was dressed professionally but neither too richly nor too austerely. The woman knew her audience.
“And you graduated? Got your juris doctorate?”
“Yes. But I never practiced. Todd took over his father’s oil business, then went to the DA’s office, then onward and upward into politics.”
“And you?”
“I was his wife. I did what was necessary to make his career possible.”
Fair enough. And said in a way that made her point without seeming martyrish. For perhaps the first moment ever, Ben began to think this just might possibly work.
“Mrs. Glancy,” Ben continued, “much of the prosecution case has centered on allegations that your husband had an… an-” Dammit, he had practiced this three times just to make sure he didn’t stutter. “-an extramarital affair. Did you ever suspect that your husband was… doing anything like that?”
“Oh, I did a lot more than suspect.” She folded her hands in her lap and directed her attention to the jury. “I knew all about it.”
That raised more than one eyebrow in the jury box. “You knew about the affair with Veronica Cooper?”
“Absolutely.”
“For how long?”
“Virtually from the moment it started. For that matter, I think I knew it was going to happen before Todd did.”
“You seem to have taken it well.”
“No,” she replied, for the first time allowing her lips to turn slightly downward. “I didn’t take it well at all. Not then and not now. But I know my husband. Like many great men throughout history, he has had… appetites to match his ambition. And tastes that were, well, somewhat outside the norm. I knew I couldn’t satisfy him. I don’t think any one woman could, at least not so long as he had options.”
“When you learned of the affair, did you attempt to end it?”
“Not then, no. What would be the point? He would be angry and would only move on to someone else.” Back at counsel table, Ben noted a concerned expression on Christina’s face. Was this testimony supposed to be helping them? “I couldn’t stop my husband from straying. So I resolved to simply remain informed of the situation. I couldn’t prevent my husband from philandering. But I could certainly prevent myself from being left in the dark.”
“So what steps did you take?”
“I hired a private detective.” A definite stir in the courtroom. Even Judge Herndon appeared extremely attentive.
“To follow your husband?”
“No. With all the security at the Capitol, that would be next to impossible. Plus there’s a good chance he’d spot the tail, and then the game would be up.” She turned, crossed, then recrossed her legs. “I hired the man to follow Veronica Cooper.”
Point made, Ben thought, and convincingly done, too. The foundation for his next witness was laid. Now he could proceed with Marie.
“Mrs. Glancy, another great linchpin of the prosecution case has been a certain videotape. I believe you were in the courtroom when it was played. It appeared to portray-”
Marie held up her hand. “I know the one you’re talking about. I don’t need a description.”
Several of the jurors almost laughed. She was handling this very well.
“Before it aired on C-SPAN, did you have any prior knowledge of the video?”
“Yes.”
Jurors’ necks craned. A few lips parted.
“You did?” He paused. “Did your detective-?”
“Make the video? Absolutely not. He took notes, not pictures. But he did find out about the video, and he told me immediately. You see, on this point, the distinguished junior senator from Oklahoma was right-and this may be the first time that’s happened in his entire career.” A full-fledged round of laughter. She was charming them, absolutely winning them over. “Veronica Cooper made the videotape herself. She set up the camcorder, hid it, and made copies of the tape afterward.”
“Objection,” Padolino said, rising to his feet. “Since Ms. Glancy is relating what was told to her by this alleged detective, this is hearsay.”
“That’s not entirely true,” Marie said, before Ben had a chance to respond.
“Ma’am,” Judge Herndon said, “you should allow counsel to handle the objections.”
“Why? I’m a lawyer, too.” More laughter, even louder than before. “It’s true that I got a report from my detective. But less than twenty-four hours later, I had personal knowledge of the tape. Because I saw it. In Veronica Cooper’s grubby little hands.”
“She came to you?” Ben asked.
“No. It’s not my style to wait for the inevitable, especially when it could be so potentially dangerous. I went to her apartment and confronted her.”
“Why would you do that?”
“It was pretty obvious that she made that video for a reason, and it wasn’t just so she could spend nostalgic evenings remembering how fabulous my husband had been. My mission was damage control. Find out what she wanted and get it to her before she did something stupid-and irreversible.”
“Wouldn’t it have been smarter to tell your husband? Let him handle this?”
“Absolutely not. Todd is an intelligent man and an excellent politician, but that in itself can be very limiting. No telling how he might react. And quite frankly, there are some things a U.S. senator simply cannot do-but a wife can.”
Ben nodded, slowly scanning the eyes of the jurors. Even those he thought had been most hostile to her at the outset were beginning to melt. That was good. Very good.
“What was it Ms. Cooper wanted?”
“Oh, I’m sure you’ve already guessed. She needed money, of course. Lots of it. Apparently she had quite an active nightlife-I guess the previous witness gave you some idea of that-and she was using this designer drug that was very expensive. She’d gotten herself deeply into debt, with the kind of people who don’t take IOUs. She wanted to leave town, but her meager intern’s salary wouldn’t permit it. She basically had two options: prostitution, or blackmail.”
“And she chose blackmail.”
“Exactly, although I’m not sure she’d ruled the other out altogether, if the blackmail didn’t work. It’s pretty clear at this point that she was… not exactly inhibited when it came to having sex.”
“Nonresponsive,” Padolino said. “Move to strike.”
“As you wish,” Judge Herndon said. “The jury will disregard the witness’s last statement.”
“Did she make a specific request?”
“She did. She told me she wanted a quarter of a million dollars, in cash, by the end of the week. And if I didn’t comply, she would release the tape to the press and destroy my husband’s career.”
“What was your response?”
“Well, I wanted to tell her to go-” She stopped herself. “Jump in a lake.” More scattered laughter. “But I couldn’t. She had the goods, and if anything her request was fairly modest.”
“So you considered her offer?”
“I had no choice. I tried to read her the riot act and threaten and scare her, but she wasn’t budging. She said she’d already sent a copy of the tape in a sealed envelope to a reporter friend of hers, and if anything happened to her he was under instructions to open the envelope. Which, I assume, is how the damn thing got out. Anyway, bottom line, a quarter of a mil wasn’t that much to salvage the career of a man who was being touted as a potential vice presidential or even presidential candidate. I suspect the Democratic National Committee would’ve put that up in a heartbeat.”
Padolino rose again. “Your honor…”
“I’m sorry,” Marie said quickly. “I’ll take that one back myself. Anyway, money wasn’t the issue. Trust was the issue. I knew she’d made copies of the tape. How did I know she wouldn’t come back for more money later? Addicts always need money and are often willing to do anything to get it. For that matter, how did I know this little minx wouldn’t take the money and then leak the tape anyway? I’d learned enough about her to be cautious.”
“So what did you do?”
“I gave her my Evelyn look.”
“Excuse me?”
She smiled. “My Evelyn look. Evelyn was my mother. And when she got angry, or she had a point to make, she had a look that told you in no uncertain terms that she was not a woman with whom you wanted to be messing around. So I gave this tramp my Evelyn look.” She sampled the expression for the jury, who appeared to be suitably impressed. “I told her that she might have some damn tape, but I knew more about her than her own mother, and I could do a lot worse to her than she could ever dream about doing to me or Todd.” She took a deep breath, then smiled. “I thought she got the message, so we set a time for the exchange. My money in exchange for her tape and all the copies, and a promise to quit her job and have nothing further to do with my husband.”
“Did you tell your husband what you had done?”
“Of course. If I hadn’t, the woman might’ve tried to get money out of both of us. But it was important that he stay out of it. Private citizens can pay blackmail without breaking the law. But a politician can’t-that’s called hush money.” She smiled. “You’ll find that in the encyclopedia under Nixon, Richard M. You have to remember, I was doing a lot more here than saving my husband’s political career. I was saving our lives, our futures. Regardless of what Todd may or may not have done, I believe in the sanctity of marriage, of the importance of the family unit. And I was determined to see that this woman didn’t destroy mine.”
Ben nodded slowly, giving everyone time to absorb her answer. “And did you in fact consummate the deal with Ms. Cooper?”
“Yes. I’d rounded up the cash and was all ready to go. Todd asked me to wait until he could talk to her, but I knew that was inane-no amount of charisma was going to persuade this cheap bit of-you know. Anyway, I paid her, but apparently she decided to two-time me, because the next day the video broke. I wanted to confront her, but when I tried to contact her at her apartment, she had disappeared. And then I learned the truth. She was dead.”
“Do you have any idea what happened to Veronica Cooper? Who killed her?”
“No. Unfortunately, I’d called my detective off after she agreed not to see Todd anymore, so I didn’t have anyone trailing her. But here’s my point.” She tilted her head toward the prosecution table. “These people keep saying Todd had a motive to silence Veronica Cooper. It isn’t true. In the first place, Todd may have trouble keeping his zipper zipped, but he’s not a murderer. No way, no how-it just isn’t in him. He couldn’t kill someone if his life depended on it. But it doesn’t matter, because his life didn’t depend on it. The situation had been handled. Cooper’s silence had been bought. And after the reporter leaked the tape-something I personally don’t think Veronica Cooper meant to happen-she could do him no more harm. There was no reason to kill her.”
“Thank you,” Ben said. He turned to Padolino. “Your witness.”
“Are we really going into this place?” Shalimar asked, as they stared at the dark gabled Victorian-style brownstone on the other side of the dark, rainy Georgetown street. “We don’t have a warrant. Isn’t this kind of… breaking-and-enterish?”
“I don’t have enough to get a warrant. But if Beatrice is in there-”
“Right, right.” She shuddered. “Just looking at it gives me the wiggins.”
“Hey, I’m lookin’ forward to this. After all the places we’ve been so far, it’ll be a relief to be inside a church.”
“It’s a vampire church, Loving.”
“I don’t care if it’s the Church of the Zombie-Eaters-of-the-Dead. It’s still gotta be better than the other places I’ve been.”
Once again, Loving was very wrong.
The room at the front of the building was small, Loving thought, but it was without doubt a church. It had all the hallmarks: a high steepled ceiling, pews, an altar, an altar rail, and an organ. But there were significant distinctions, too. Instead of electrical lighting, ornate gold candelabra provided the principal illumination. The altar rail was lined with golden goblets, stained-glass pentagrams, and similar gimcracks Loving suspected were more for show than use. The woodwork as well as the stained-glass window behind the altar incorporated bones, skulls, cups spilling with blood, and the ankh-which Loving now recognized as the shape Lucille had drawn in the air for him. Shalimar explained that it was the Egyptian symbol for immortality and had become the vampire’s logo. Of course, Loving rationalized, the Catholic Church he’d grown up in had talked a lot about drinking blood and, for that matter, eating flesh. But somehow he sensed this was very different.
No one was in sight, but the fact that the candles were lit suggested that someone was not far away. Loving tiptoed forward. “Did you see this?” He pulled a black hardbound book out of the cradle on the back of the pew before him. The gold embossed lettering on the cover read: THE VAMPIRE BIBLE. The title page explained that it contained “the underlying pagan and mystical lore derived from our forebears, with selections from Sherpu Kishpu and sacred mystical works.”
“What exactly do the parishioners here believe?” Shalimar whispered.
“Funny you should ask.” He pulled out a service bulletin he found underneath one of the pews. It was dated the previous Saturday-apparently that was their Sabbath day. “‘The Church is an exclusive society dating back to the time of the Annunaki-Those Who From the Dark Heavens Came. Our Brotherhood is composed of those genetically drawn by the ancient mysteries, those born to the Blood, or those who have heard and heeded the Call of the Night. Our mission is to find our Brethren, the Lost Children of the Blood, and to convert them to the ancient ways before the time of the Final Harvest is upon us. We, the descendants of the ancient priesthood of Ur, call upon the Undead Gods, the ancient Sumerian vampire dragon goddess, Tiamat, and the way of the Magick, to protect and defend us as we find the pathway into the Master Adepti-the Inner Circle.’”
“This is the place,” Shalimar murmured. “And the Final Harvest? You don’t suppose-”
“Let’s hope not.” Loving pulled out another document he’d found behind the altar. “Wanna hear the Vampiric Creed?”
“Actually, no. Federally registered or not, I don’t believe this place would keep membership rolls any more than the S-and-M palace did. And I don’t believe my sister has become a nun in the Temple of the Vampire.”
Certainly not a nun, Loving thought silently. But he wondered about some other disturbing possibilities. “Shalimar, I’m gonna take another look around and-”
He froze. Footsteps. Just outside the front door.
He and Shalimar ducked behind a pew.
A few moments later they heard the heavy front wooden doors open. Two people came inside, talking animatedly. Loving could make out one of their voices.
“Then tonight will be the night?”
Deep Throat. Back at the Reflecting Pool. The informant who got him started on this crazy quest.
“Yes,” his companion replied. “Are you certain you have no doubts, my brother?”
“Oh, yes, yes.” Deep Throat seemed nervous, just as he had when Loving talked to him at the Reflecting Pool. “That was only temporary. I know we’re doing the right thing. The Inner Circle must be protected at all costs.”
At least that’s what he’s telling you, Loving mused. Not what he told me.
“Are we the last to arrive?” Deep Throat asked.
“Yes. The preparations have been made. We cannot afford to delay any longer. We must deal with her immediately.”
“As you say, Sire.”
The two figures moved down the center nave of the sanctuary. Behind the altar, they unlocked and then passed through a door recessed in the back wall.
Loving and Shalimar looked at each other. It wasn’t necessary to speak the words; they both knew what the other was thinking. They were getting ready to deal with Beatrice.
“I’m goin’ in there,” Loving said.
Shalimar grabbed his arm. “You heard what he said. There are others.”
“Doesn’t matter. I’m goin’ in.”
“That’s crazy. We’ll call the police.”
“And tell them what, exactly? Even if they take us seriously, which I doubt, they might not be in time.” To save your sister, he left unspoken.
Shalimar squared her jaw. “Then I’m coming with you.”
“No, you’re not.”
“Don’t treat me like-”
“Listen to me. We need to make sure someone’s alive to go to the police. And if I go missin’, you’ll have somethin’ to tell them they’ll have to listen to.”
“But-”
“It’s for the best, Shalimar. You wait outside. If I’m not back in an hour, call the cops and tell them I’ve been abducted by a satanic cult. That should get their attention.”
“But-”
“You heard me,” Loving said firmly. “And you know I’m right. So please-wait outside. I’m countin’ on you. You’ve got my back.”
Shalimar’s eyes blazed. “You’re just saying this because you know it’s dangerous. You’re trying to keep me from being hurt. But you’re going to need help and-”
“I’m sayin’ this because I’m not as dumb as I look. It’s a good plan. So do it already.”
Her lips were pressed tightly together. Loving could see she didn’t like it.
She laid both hands on his shoulders. “Take care of yourself in there,” she said, barely above a whisper.
“That’s a promise.” He started toward the rear door. “See you outside, Buffy.”
Her eyes blazed. “Don’t call me Buffy!”
“First of all, Ms. Glancy,” Padolino began, “let’s set the record straight. All this business about your detective and allegedly offering to bribe the deceased-you didn’t tell the police any of this, did you?”
“Todd and I were advised by counsel that we had the right to remain silent and that it would be smart to do so.”
“The defendant has a right to remain silent, ma’am, but the defendant’s spouse-”
“Is protected by the husband-wife confidentiality rule, as you and I both know, so let’s not pretend otherwise.”
“That law does not-”
“That law exists to protect marriages-the same thing I was doing.”
Ben could see the wheels turning in Padolino’s head as he struggled to find an opening. If he’d ever imagined this was going to be an easy cross, he knew better now.
“Blackmail,” he said finally, “is a crime.”
“Yes, but being blackmailed isn’t. We were the victims, not the perpetrators.”
“Failure to report a crime-”
“Honestly, climb off your high horse and come back to earth.” She allowed herself to show some mild irritation-just enough, Ben thought. “People being blackmailed never go to the police. If the blackmailers thought there was any chance of it, they wouldn’t blackmail them in the first place.”
“So instead, according to your testimony, you aided and abetted a criminal act.”
“I gave money to a pathetic drug-addicted, brain-addled nymphomaniac who was threatening to bring down one of the best senators this country has ever had just so she could get her next fix. Was that such a horrible thing?”
Ben leaned in close to Christina. “I think she’s magnificent,” he whispered. “You agree?”
“Big-time,” she whispered back. “Just don’t fall in love. I’ve got a few Evelyn looks of my own.”
“According to your testimony,” Padolino continued, “you told the deceased you could ‘do a lot worse to her than she could do to you.’ That, I think, could be interpreted as a threat.”
“A threat designed to save my husband and marriage.”
“Making threats is also against the law.”
“Oh, fine.” She held out her wrists. “Cuff me. Take me away.”
Several of the jurors had to cover their mouths.
“Your sarcasm is not appreciated, Ms. Glancy. This is a serious matter.”
“No, it isn’t. I mean, murder is a serious crime, but Todd didn’t do it, and you’d know that if you hadn’t done such a slipshod investigation and settled for arresting the most obvious and available suspect.”
“Your honor!” Padolino said angrily. “I ask the court to strike that remark and admonish the witness.”
Judge Herndon tilted his head to one side. “The court is inclined to think you pretty much asked for it.”
Now several of the jurors were laughing, not even bothering to cover their mouths. Ben could sense Padolino’s desperation. He needed to score a point-and fast.
“You mentioned that you had the money ready to pay off Ms. Cooper.”
“I did pay her off.”
“I assume that money came from a bank account.”
“You would be correct.”
“That’s the funny thing. You see, back when we were doing our slipshod investigation, I went to the trouble of subpoenaing your bank account records. Both yours and your husband’s. We were obviously interested to know if you had made any large withdrawals-or deposits-on or about the time of the murder. As a matter of fact, I have those statements right here.”
Back at the prosecution table, some poor legal assistant was riffling through her files, trying to make good on her boss’s promise. After an admirably brief wait, she produced the statements in question.
“I don’t have to go over them now,” Padolino explained, “because I’ve been over them many many times before. And I know for a fact, Ms. Glancy, that there are no major withdrawals. Certainly nothing in the nature of a quarter of a million dollars.” He slid the statements defiantly under her nose.
“Wrong bank,” she said, without even looking.
“Excuse me?”
“Wrong bank, Mr. Prosecutor. These are our domestic personal accounts. The money I withdrew came from an offshore account held at a bank on Grand Cayman Island.”
“I find that difficult to-”
“The account number is 00945623819. If you call, they will confirm the existence of the account. They won’t give you any information about it without permission from Todd or me, but I will grant you that for the limited purpose of checking withdrawals at or around the time of Veronica Cooper’s death.” She paused. “I think you’ll find a rather large one.”
“But-but-” Padolino was sputtering now, never a good sign. “Why would a U.S. senator have an offshore bank account?”
“Objection,” Ben said dutifully. “Not relevant to the charge at bar.”
Judge Herndon considered for a moment. “Although the existence of the account is relevant, it is true that the reasons for having it in the first place may not be.” He inhaled deeply. “But I think I’ll allow it.”
You mean, you just want to hear the poor woman try to explain it to this jury of lower-middle-class taxpayers, Ben thought.
“I haven’t really been involved in the creation of the bank accounts for this family,” Marie said coolly. “But I believe these offshore accounts may have certain tax advantages.”
“More like a tax dodge, isn’t it?”
Marie drew herself up and looked squarely at him, without a hint of embarrassment. “Mr. Padolino, I understood your goal here to be prosecuting someone you genuinely believed to be guilty of murder, not generally slandering someone just for the pleasure of doing so. I’ve allowed you to confirm the existence of the account and the withdrawal. I think that puts an end to the inquiry.”
It wasn’t often in his career that Ben had seen a witness so thoroughly take command of a cross-examination, much less effectively overrule the judge without anyone in the courtroom daring to saying a word about it. He stopped wondering if she might conceivably have political ambitions, and started wondering how long it would be before she was sitting in the Oval Office.
Beads of sweat dripped down the sides of the prosecutor’s face, always pleasurable for a defense attorney to observe. At the same time, Ben knew that when smart men became desperate, they did desperate things. And that certainly proved to be the case.
“Ms. Glancy, you mentioned before that your husband had unusual tastes. I gathered from the context that you were describing his sexual predilections. Would you please explain exactly what you meant?”
Glancy leaned toward Ben. “You’ve got to stop this,” he whispered, but it was unnecessary, because Ben was already on his feet.
“Objection!” Ben said emphatically. “Not relevant.”
The judge disagreed. “I think she opened the door to this. Overruled.”
“Your honor,” Ben insisted, “this is obviously just a prosecutorial ploy to salvage his case by slandering the defendant. There is-”
“I’ve ruled, counsel.”
“Your honor, this is the defendant’s wife!”
“And I said I’ve ruled, Mr. Kincaid!” Herndon rose slightly out of his seat. “That’s my nice way of saying sit down and shut up.”
Ben reluctantly did as he was told.
“So,” Padolino continued, “could you please describe these unusual tastes? And don’t spare us the details.”
For the first time, the jury could see Marie hesitating, gathering her thoughts.
“Damn,” Christina whispered into Ben’s ear. “Why did she have to bring this up in the first place?”
A very good question, Ben thought. It certainly wasn’t in her testimony when they had rehearsed it the night before.
“Well,” she said, drawing in her breath, “you’ve seen the video.”
“We certainly have. Your point?”
“Todd,” she said, sighing heavily. “Todd is very into the whole subjugation-domination thing. He likes-well, you can see it in his whole life, everything he’s ever done. He wants to be in power. He wants to be in control.”
“Like in the video, when he forced himself on Veronica Cooper?”
“Oh, I think that was more playacting than anything else. They were both willing participants. But it was playacting Todd liked.” Her eyes moved downward. “Unfortunately… I didn’t.”
Glancy squeezed Ben’s arm. “You’ve got to shut this down,” he hissed. “Isn’t there any way?”
“I already gave it everything I had,” Ben replied. “More objections now would only remind the jury how badly we want to keep this out.”
Padolino resumed. “Would this subjugation fetish involve… certain positions?”
“Obviously. The woman in any position of powerlessness. Restrained. Bent over a chair.”
“Would it involve violence?”
“Objection!” Ben shouted, genuinely outraged. “This has gone far beyond all reasonable claims of relevance. This is nothing less than a prurient intrusion into a public figure’s private sex life.”
“It’s a character issue,” Padolino answered.
“Well, isn’t that what they always say,” Ben shot back.
“It goes to the likeliness of the affair, or affairs. Which goes directly to motive. And the propensity for sexual violence-well, the relevance of that is obvious.”
“I’ll allow it,” Herndon said. He didn’t even have to think about it. And as painful as it was, Ben knew his decision was correct.
“Pain was-is-a turn-on for Todd,” Marie continued. “But it’s more than that. It’s not just the pain, it’s the… debasement. The sense that he’s reducing the woman to a piece of meat. A plaything. Something that exists only for his pleasure. That’s what he gets off on. I wouldn’t let him do that to me. So he found other women who would.”
“Like an employee who thought she had to please her boss?” Padolino asked.
Marie scoffed. “Like a desperate drug addict who liked sex and lacked the strength to say no.”
Padolino had the sense to know this was as good as it was going to get. He ended on a high note and sat down. Ben declined to redirect.
“What the hell was that?” Ben whispered to Christina. “Her testimony was going brilliantly. Even the cross was going brilliantly. And then, at the very end, she tanks. Destroys her husband’s reputation.”
“Nothing she said proved Todd was a murderer,” Christina noted. “She cast serious doubt on the prosecutor’s theory of motive.”
“Who cares? She made him look so ugly, so perverted, I’ll never be able to generate any sympathy for him in closing. I couldn’t rehabilitate Mother Teresa after testimony like that.” He wiped his hand across his brow. “And it wasn’t necessary. Why would she do that? Why would she do that to him?”
Christina watched Marie carefully as she walked coolly down the nave and out of the courtroom. “A woman scorned,” she said succinctly. “Hell hath no greater fury.”
Peering over the balcony, almost all Loving could see on the inlaid tile floor on the level beneath him was the five-sided star enclosed in a circle-a huge pentagram in the center of the darkened room. The twelve figures surrounding the circle were wearing brown hooded cloaks, like monastic friars of an ancient order, all participating in an uncanny ritual. In the center was a large stone block-the altar, no doubt. A sheet was draped over the top of the altar, but Loving could tell there was something, or someone, under the sheet. Much as he wanted to find Beatrice, he hoped it wasn’t her, because the entire time he’d been in here he’d never once detected the slightest movement under the sheet.
After Loving passed through the rear door of the chapel and a long corridor, he found himself on this balcony. A spiral staircase led to the lower floor, but he decided to stay here where he had a better view, and it would be more difficult for the hoods below to spot him. The low lighting cut both ways: it made it harder for him to detect what was going on down there, but it also made it harder for them to see him watching-which was good, because he was fairly certain they would not be pleased.
The men had been chanting for almost ten minutes. He suspected it was Latin, but he couldn’t really be sure-he hadn’t gone to college and they hadn’t covered this in the truck-driving class he’d taken at the Tulsa Vo-Tech Center. At long last, they fell silent. One man stepped forward, entered the pentagram, and laid his hands upon whatever was under the sheet.
“Let us pray.”
As one, the rest of the men did not bow their heads, but instead raised them, pressing their hands together and lifting them above their hoods.
“Oh, blessed Tiamat, Guardian of the Darkness, hear our plea. Help us to find the Lost Children of the Blood.”
As one, the rest of the assemblage chanted, “Goddess, hear our prayer.”
“Help us find the path to immortality and reclaim the spirit of our ancestors, the Nephilim of the Annunaki.”
“Goddess, hear our prayer.”
“Lead us not unto the wicked ways of the pretender, the Killer of the Spirit, the cursed Nazarene, the Perverter of Souls.”
“Goddess, hear our prayer.”
“Please accept our sacrifice-”
Loving’s head jerked up.
“-as a token of our fealty, our unyielding devotion to your psychic strength. Hear me, the Sire of the Circle, and all your servants in the Inner Circle as we ask your blessing. Offer unto us your greater glory and our nourishment.”
“Goddess, hear our prayer.”
The room fell deadly silent. The leader-the Sire-reached up and removed the cowl from his head.
Just as Loving had thought. It was Daily-or rather, the man who pretended to be Daily. The man who killed Daily, and Amber. He was the Sire!
His spine tingling, Loving watched as the man slowly drew back the sheet from the sacrifice upon the table. It was a woman, very young, blond, and medium weight. Even with her face silent and ashen, Loving recognized her from the picture Shalimar had shown him. It was Beatrice.
She was not moving, hadn’t moved since the ceremony had begun, which meant she was either sleeping, drugged-or worse.
There were too many of them for Loving to try a frontal assault. Even assuming he was the best fighter in the room, he was massively outnumbered. A failed attempt could leave him dead, or Beatrice, or both. The smartest thing would be to get back outside, call in the cops, then create some kind of disturbance-something to interrupt the ceremony and prevent them from sacrificing Beatrice before the police arrived.
He turned and started for the door-
Someone was standing in his way.
The cultist obstructing his passage was wearing a brown hood, but it did not entirely conceal his face. Even in the darkness, his visage was hideous. Gold fangs descended from his mouth. His eyes glowed red. His face was scarred, apparently by design.
“Why are you here?” the voice within the cowl hissed. “You are not of the Circle.”
Loving bolted. His best hope now was to outrun them. But just as he was hitting his stride, someone tripped him, causing him to tumble to the floor. He pulled himself up as quickly as he could, but by that time he was surrounded.
“Look,” Loving said, “I can explain. I was lookin’ for the Presbyterian church and I got lost and-”
He never got to finish his sentence. He heard the whistle of something swinging around in the darkness, something solid, moving fast. For an instant he felt the impact upon the back of his skull. And then the world was consumed by blackness.
N o one who hasn’t done it can understand what it is to try a case, Ben thought as he wiped the sleep out of his eyes and tried to focus on the witness outline he held in his hands. Civil or criminal, it was all the same, at least from one standpoint-the enormous all-consuming immersive nature of the experience. Once the trial began, the rest of the world disappeared. There were no more lunches with friends, no phone calls to Mom, no trips to the local cineplex. During a trial, Ben usually existed on four hours of sleep a night, and he sometimes suspected Christina never slept at all. Despite the pressure, the exhaustion, and the sleep deprivation, he had to keep himself in peak condition and clearheaded. The key to success was to always remain one step ahead-not only planning his case but also anticipating its flaws and preparing for the responses of his opponents. It was a daunting, hellishly difficult task. Even still, he had often thought that trial practice wouldn’t be so bad if you could just eliminate one element.
Clients.
“Congratulations, Kincaid. You’ve really screwed things up now.”
Amanda, naturally. He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Have I? I thought yesterday went rather well.”
“Shows what you know. You’ve fucked us royally, and we’re going to sit down right now and figure out how to fix it.”
Ben pushed away from the table. There was no point in explaining to this woman that he had gotten up three hours before court began so he could prepare his defense, not so he could talk about its PR ramifications.
“We did a lot of overnight polling, after the evening news reports. The results were not good.”
“I thought Marie did the prosecution serious damage on motive, and also gave us back a feasible alibi. Our jury has a lot more reasonable doubt running through their brains now than they had before.”
“I wasn’t polling the jury,” Amanda said curtly. “I was polling the voters. The men and women who put Todd Glancy into office.”
“I’m not concerned about them.”
“I know. That’s the problem.”
Ben felt his neck stiffening. “If we lose this trial, what your voters think isn’t going to matter anymore.”
“What do you mean, if we lose. You’ve been hired to win, you schmuck. And we expect you to deliver. My job is to make sure Todd still has a career after the trial. And that’s not going to happen if you keep painting him as some depraved sex pervert!”
“That part wasn’t my idea. Marie put that in on her own.”
“You should’ve stopped it.”
“I tried.”
“Don’t give me try!” The woman was almost shouting. “This isn’t the 4-H Club, farm boy. I don’t care about try. I care about results. That testimony should never have come in.”
“I agree. But it did, so now we have to live with it.”
She sat on the edge of the table, flipped her hair back, and extended her chest. “We’re going to do a lot more than that. We’re going to make sure nothing like that ever happens again.”
“And how exactly are we going to do that?”
“Easy. I want you to kill the private investigator.”
Ben assumed that by kill she meant “don’t call him to the stand,” but given who was speaking, he wondered if he should check. “You must be kidding.”
“I’m not. If you put him on the stand, Padolino will spend all of cross quizzing him on everything he knows about Todd’s sexual practices and preferences.”
“Very likely.”
“And given that he was apparently following that bimbo intern around for months, he’s probably going to have a lot to tell.”
“That’s the price we pay to get his testimony about Veronica Cooper.”
She shook her head emphatically. “The price is too high.”
Ben was just as resolute. “We have no choice.”
“Of course we do. And I just made it.”
Ben’s face crinkled together like aluminum foil. “Do you want to destroy Todd’s case? We have to use the investigator.”
“We should just go with Todd.”
“Just go with the defendant? His own self-serving testimony? When we have someone who can corroborate it? You’re out of your blinking mind!”
Amanda leaned in so close Ben could feel the darts of her blouse pressing against his shirt. “I can assure you I’m perfectly sane. I can also assure you that I know what’s best for Todd, and if you don’t listen to me, I’ll string you up feetfirst from the Washington Monument.”
“Lady, how can I say this nicely? Buzz off.” He returned his attention to his outline.
She grabbed his collar. “Don’t you turn away from me. Don’t you dare turn away from me! I’ve taken down bigger men than you, Okie. Much bigger. All it would take is a few phone calls and you’ll never practice law again!”
“Amanda?”
Both heads whipped around to see Marshall Bressler wheeling himself into the room. He was holding a bottle of blue-colored pills. “Anyone got a bottle of water? I’m a wreck without my morning medication.” He looked up. “Oh. Is this a bad time?”
“Depends on your definition of a bad time,” Ben said, removing Amanda’s hands. “I think Amanda was about to commit her first murder. That we know of, anyway.”
Amanda clenched her fists and made a sonorous growling noise. “You are so… infuriating!” She whipped around to face Marshall. “This man is trying to destroy everything I’ve worked so hard for!”
Marshall raised an eyebrow. “Shouldn’t that be what we’ve worked so hard for?”
“He insists on calling that damn detective.”
“Did you read his report?” Marshall asked. “I think it’s safe to say his testimony will end the media portrayal of Veronica as an angelic innocent.”
“What the hell do you know about the media!” She looked as if she were about to pull her hair out by the roots. “All the media will report is the talk about sex. And Padolino will make sure there’s lots of it. Enough to fill the front three sections of the Post. Did you see the poll results I e-mailed to you?”
Marshall waved a hand in the air. “You know I never look at e-mail, and you should never put anything important in one. Republican eyes are everywhere.”
“Paranoid much?” Ben asked.
“Yeah, that’s what they were saying back in ’04, and then we found out the Republican staff members of the Judiciary Committee had been hacking into our restricted e-mail messages for more than a year, sometimes even leaking them to right-wing pundits. Remember that story?”
Ben frowned. He did.
“These poll results are irrelevant,” Ben said. “Any negative fallout is irrelevant, as I’ve been trying to explain to Amanda. It’s an unfortunate consequence of what we have to do to make sure our favorite politician doesn’t get a lethal injection.”
Marshall tilted his head to one side. “I’m not sure trashing Veronica will do it.”
“It won’t hurt.”
“What we really need,” Marshall continued, “is to give the jury an alternate suspect.”
Both Ben and Amanda stared at him.
“Reasonable doubt is fine, but once Padolino starts talking his trash in closing, he’ll wash all their doubts away. We need more. We need doubt plus a bogeyman. A good one. That might do the trick.”
Ben laid his pencil to rest. “Did you have anyone in particular in mind?”
“Does it matter? Just pick someone.”
“Okay. I pick Amanda.”
She shot invisible poison daggers at him.
“I’m serious, Ben,” Marshall said.
“I am, too. And if we had a viable potential suspect, I’d be the first to put the theory before the jury. But I won’t pick someone at random and trump something up.”
“It could work.”
Ben shook his head. “You’ve been watching too much television.”
“At least give it some thought. How about the junior senator from Oklahoma? He had plenty of motive to want Todd out of the way.”
“I won’t do it,” Ben said emphatically. “Given the way this case is being covered, even the slightest courtroom accusation could destroy someone’s life. It’s a totally unethical tactic.”
Marshall pursed his lips. “You’re sure about this. No Mister X?”
“Not unless it’s a Mister X whom I really believe might’ve done the deed.”
Marshall nodded slowly, then pivoted his chair around and wheeled himself toward the doorway. “Then let’s hope one turns up.”
“Psst!”
Christina looked up and saw Padolino leaning out the hallway door of his office, motioning. “Can you come in for a moment?”
“Ooo-kay.” She stepped inside. He slammed the door quickly behind her. “Is there some reason for the secrecy?”
“Well… I thought it best we not be seen talking together. You know, before the trial is over. Wouldn’t want people to get the wrong idea.”
“That you’re conspiring with the enemy?”
“Something like that. And I didn’t want to get you in trouble with your boss.”
“I don’t think you have to worry about that.” Christina stared at him, at the way he was twitching his fingers, pacing back and forth. He never acted this nervous in the courtroom-or for that matter when he was speaking on national television. “What can I do for you?”
“I was just wondering…” He fidgeted with the edge of his desk. “I wondered if maybe, you know, when this case is over you and I could, like… get a drink together. Or something. I know your boss doesn’t drink. Do you?”
“Absolutely,” she answered. “I’m a fiend for club soda. Are you serious?”
“What? Did I do something wrong? Do I not seem serious? I just thought, maybe, you know, you and I-”
“Is this some sort of psych-out plan? Some dastardly plot to weaken the defense by making advances to opposing counsel?”
“No! Not at all.” He pressed his hands together. “I’ve just been, you know, watching you. I mean, not in a bad way. Just during the case and all. And I thought maybe you and I should get to know each other better.”
Christina’s eyes narrowed. She didn’t know whether to believe the man or not. And it didn’t much matter, in any case. “Thanks for the offer, but I don’t think my boss-who by the way is actually my partner-would appreciate it.”
“But I already asked him.”
Christina froze. “What?”
“I asked him. If it would be all right if I asked you out. I mean, for all I knew there could be something going on between the two of you. Some of my staff thought there was. So I did the honorable thing. I asked him.”
“And he said…”
“He told me to go right ahead. Do whatever I wanted to do.”
“Is that a fact.” Christina turned, careful to keep her face from registering emotion. “Well, in that case-”
The door swung open so fast it almost hit her in the face. Steve Melanfield came barreling through. “Paul! Great news. We-” He saw Christina and stopped. “Oh. Hello.”
“Back at you,” Christina said. “What’s the good news?”
He looked at her, then back at Padolino, then back at her. “What the hell. I suppose it doesn’t matter. Everyone will know soon. My people in Oklahoma City tell me it’s at least ninety percent certain we’re going to have a new senator.”
“Excuse me?” Christina said. “We haven’t lost this case yet.”
He shrugged. “Win or lose, the governor has had it. He’s going to call for Glancy’s resignation. ’Course, Glancy could refuse, but given all that’s been revealed, it puts him in a pretty tough spot.”
“And if Glancy resigns?”
“The governor gets to pick someone to fill out the remainder of his term.”
“And who do you suppose that will be?”
“Don’t know, don’t care. But I know this-the governor owes Kodiak Oil big time. He’ll make sure we’re taken care of. He won’t pick anyone hostile to me.”
“Or me,” said another voice from the hallway. This time it was Oklahoma’s junior senator, Brad Tidwell, and he appeared just as jubilant as Melanfield. “And since I’ll become the senior senator, I think I can arrange to assume most or all of Glancy’s former committee assignments.” He squeezed Melanfield tightly on the shoulder. “Steve, I think this is the start of a beautiful friendship. Alaska or bust!”
“You people are making me sick,” Christina said. “Have you totally forgotten why we’re here? This isn’t some campaign-headquarters smoke-filled room. It’s a courtroom. A man is on trial for his life.”
Tidwell was not impressed. “We’re all on trial for our lives, lady. From the moment we declare our candidacy to the day we die. Todd knows that as well as I do. But he screwed up. Now he’s paying for it.” He shrugged, then let loose another grin. “No reason why others shouldn’t profit from his mistake.”
Christina started for the door. “You’re disgusting.”
Padolino held out his hand. “Christina-about my…”
“Forget it.” She pushed Tidwell out of her way. “Buy these two jackals a drink. While you’re at it, buy them a conscience.” She slammed the door behind her.
When Loving awoke, his head was throbbing and he felt as if he was being tortured. It took a few more moments of consciousness to gather his senses sufficiently to comprehend the reason-he was being tortured.
He was strung up, literally, his hands tied together with wire, dangling from the ceiling. His feet did not quite touch the floor. He’d been stripped bare to the waist. Am I hanging from a meat hook, he wondered, like that woman back at the S &M palace? Didn’t really matter, not while his arms felt as if they were being ripped out of their sockets. Regardless of what he was hanging from, it hurt like hell.
“Ah, Loving, we’re awake, are we? That’s good. I was becoming anxious.”
Loving didn’t have to adjust his vision to know who was speaking to him. “Look who’s here. Amber’s alleged daddy. Also known as the Sire.”
He smiled thinly. “How smart you are. I suspected you’d find us, eventually. So I made preparations.” From a rack on the wall, he took the end of a long large fire hose into both hands, then turned the spigot. Water spewed out-slamming into Loving’s chest.
“Ahhhh!” Loving felt the harsh blast tearing at him, knocking him backward, putting even more strain on his aching arms. “Stoooop!”
The Sire turned off the water. “Since you asked nicely. I just wanted you to get nice and wet. Water is such a good conductor.”
“You killed Amber,” Loving said, gasping. It was difficult to breathe while hanging like this. Almost impossible to speak. “And you killed Colleen and Veronica Cooper, too.”
“To the contrary, I never kill anyone.” He smiled through thin, blood-red lips. “I merely release them from their bodies. But they still live. They become a part of me. A part of my immortal essence.”
Loving could taste blood in his mouth. He spat it out. “Have you killed Beatrice?”
“And why would I do that?”
“I saw you in there! Your sick little ceremony.”
The Sire stepped closer-though not near enough for Loving to wrap his legs around his throat. “You misapprehend the nature of our ceremony. We never intended to kill her, at least not there. What purpose would that serve?” He smiled. “We ate her. We took turns, sucking her dry.”
Despite his pain, Loving felt his temper rising. “She’s still alive?”
“For now. Until she outlives her usefulness to us.” He waited until Loving looked him in the eyes before he continued. “What have you told the police about me? Or that attorney you work for?”
“Nothing.”
“You’re lying.”
“Okay, everythin’. They know all about your sick little church. You’d better get the hell out of here.”
“Again, you’re lying.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes,” he sighed. “I’m sure. How much do you know about my little church?”
“Everything there is to know. Everything those girls knew, and then some. Enough to put you behind bars for the rest of your life.”
The Sire pondered. “You could be telling the truth. But I don’t think so. Let me ask again. What do you know about my church?”
“You run a church? Damn. I thought this was an IHOP.”
The Sire frowned. “I can see this is going to be useless. You require persuasion.”
“Listen, creep, you can shoot me with your little hose all night long. It won’t make any difference.”
“I suspect it would, after a few days. But I don’t have a few days. Dr. Usher?”
Loving heard a door creak somewhere in the darkness. A figure emerged. He was wearing a white coat, like a surgeon, but that didn’t prevent Loving from recognizing him.
It was Deep Throat. And he was carrying a little black bag.
“Dr. Usher did a residency in surgery. Did you know?”
Loving felt a cold chill envelop his body.
“I think you should start with the scalpel, Doctor. What do you think?”
“As you wish, Sire.” His expression was flat, almost blank. He was like an automaton, a slave with no choice but to do his master’s bidding.
“Very well. You may begin.”
“Look,” Loving said, “I don’t know what you’re thinkin’, but I’m not gonna-”
In the blink of an eye Deep Throat-or Dr. Usher-lunged forward, scalpel extended. The blade entered the soft part of Loving’s abdomen, just above the waist, just below the kidneys.
Loving screamed.
As soon as Ben entered the courtroom, he saw that his next witness was already present, which alleviated one potential worry. On the other hand, his witness was talking to Shawn MacReady, the congressman from Arkansas and former witness for the prosecution, which tended to create additional worries.
Ben approached them. “All ready to go?”
His witness was a tall, exceedingly thin man, almost gaunt in appearance, but with a sinewy strength to him. John Carradine in his prime. Not someone Ben would want to arm wrestle. “I think so. If you’re sure you want to do this.”
“I’m sure.” He shifted his gaze to MacReady. “Anything I can do for you?”
“No. I was just discussing the possibility of employing your witness. I’ve had a few security concerns of late. Thought he might be able to help.” He paused. “For that matter, from what I hear, you’ve had a few security concerns yourself, Kincaid.”
“You could say that. Guard out front told me Darrin Cooper tried to get into the courtroom again today. Fortunately they stopped him.”
The bailiff brought the court into session and a few moments later, the judge and jury were back in place. Ben called his next witness.
“The defense calls Max Capshaw.”
The tall man shuffled when he walked, with a slight hunch to his shoulders. He was wearing a suit that could be described as ill fitting at best: Ben guessed that it was borrowed and that he didn’t normally work with a Windsor knot pressed against his neck.
Ben wasted no time establishing that Capshaw was a licensed private detective in the District of Columbia and that he was the man Marie Glancy had hired to follow Veronica Cooper. With great detail and considerable verve, Capshaw told the jury everything he had witnessed over the course of six months tailing the woman. Todd Glancy barely figured in the narrative, and when he did, Capshaw glossed over it quickly. What he spent his time on was Veronica Cooper’s nightlife. Amber and Colleen and Beatrice. Stigmata. The Chosen. Even Circle Thirteen. Veronica’s addiction to the designer drug. And her addiction to sex. Lots and lots of sex. Not just with Todd Glancy-not even primarily with Todd Glancy. With all kinds of men. And women. As Capshaw described her sexual encounters, they seemed so patternless and indiscriminate that the jury was left wondering if she had even been aware of what she was doing or who she was doing it with. Padolino objected repeatedly, but Herndon consistently overruled him, reminding Padolino that only yesterday he had been allowed to delve into the parties’ sex lives with great abandon. Sauce for the goose.
“During the time that you observed Ms. Cooper, how often would you say that she engaged in sexual relations?” Ben asked.
Capshaw screwed up his face. “Jeez, I don’t know. Some nights she did it three, four times, with that many different guys. Some nights in that upstairs orgy apartment she went from one person to the next, one right after the other. Never even went out for a smoke.” He shook his head. “I’ve never seen a girl with energy like that. ’Course a lot of that was being fueled by the drug.”
“So it would be fair to say that Ms. Cooper engaged in sexual activity on a regular basis with a wide variety of sexual partners.”
“Definitely. Hell, I was telling my friend last night-the big surprise isn’t that the senator got caught having sex with that chick. The surprise is that he didn’t catch something worse.”
Thank you so much, Ben thought, moving quickly to his next question.
“And you’re certain she was a member of this… Circle Thirteen? The vampire club. And the Inner Circle.”
“You betcha. I saw her there, back at that so-called church where they hold all their ceremonies. I watched the whole thing with night-vision binoculars through this rose window. She was wearing robes and chanting and the whole sick nine yards. They even slaughtered a chicken and splattered its blood all over the floor. Disgusting.”
“And Ms. Cooper participated in these black magic exercises?”
Capshaw chuckled. “Well, she wasn’t Wendy the Good Witch, that’s for damn sure.”
Ben searched for the right words. “And did you ever see Ms. Cooper physically engaged with one of these… vampires?”
“Engaged? I watched one bite her in the neck.”
Ben stared at him. “You mean… for real?”
“Hell yes. Some of those guys actually have their teeth filed to a sharp point so they can do that sick stuff. You remember the Bartmann guy saying how he turned her on? And he didn’t even have all his teeth. Now imagine her with one of these dudes with the big sharpened canines. I’m tellin’ ya, she was creamin’. Er, you know-very excited. In a sexual sort of way.”
“I think we get the picture, sir.” Ben returned to the enlargements from the coroner’s report he had used before. “Earlier we heard Dr. Bukowsky admit under cross-examination that there was a wound to Ms. Cooper’s jugular vein too small to have been made by a knife.” He held up the enlargement and pointed. “You’ve seen these men, sir, and you’ve seen how they interacted with Ms. Cooper. I know you’re not a coroner, but do you think it’s possible this puncture wound was made by… a fang?”
“Objection!” Padolino cried. “The witness has no medical expertise. This whole line of questioning is becoming ridiculous. Counsel is turning the trial into a Hammer horror show.”
“I’ll allow it,” Herndon said firmly. “Overruled.”
“It’s more than possible,” Capshaw said, not missing a beat. “It would’ve been easy. Some of those guys had fangs so long and sharp they could rip your whole head off.”
“Based upon your observations, sir, would you say these people with whom Ms. Cooper consorted could be described as dangerous?”
“I’d say that anyone who has their teeth sharpened so they can bite someone in the neck is by definition dangerous,” he replied. “And you mix in the drugs and the booze and the loose sex-well, I’ve heard of living on the edge, but this chick was practically dangling over the precipice. God forbid she ever did anything to make one of those guys mad. Any of them could’ve gotten to her. Anything could’ve happened to her. Anything at all.”
“Well, that was all very thrilling,” Padolino said, as he strolled to the podium to cross-examine. “Almost like watching the late late show, complete with ghouls and goblins and vampires. But Veronica Cooper wasn’t killed by a vampire or his fangs, was she? She was killed by a big thick knife. I don’t believe you’re refuting the coroner’s testimony on that point, are you, Dr. Capshaw?”
Capshaw gave him a wry look. “No, I’m not disputing that the girl was killed by a knife.” Padolino started to move on, but Capshaw cut him off. “The question is, who was holding the knife. And from what I saw of the girl’s lifestyle, the possible suspects range somewhere in the four-digit numbers.”
“Move to strike,” Padolino said angrily. “Mr. Capshaw, did you in fact see anyone kill Ms. Cooper?”
“No, obviously not. Mrs. Glancy ended my employment a few days before Cooper was killed.”
“Did you ever see any of these-” He made a show of suppressing his smirk. “-vampires hurt Ms. Cooper?”
“Not as such. Not in a way she didn’t like, anyhow.”
“Did you ever see any of these people threaten Ms. Cooper?”
“No.”
“Do you even know of any reason any of them would have to kill her? Sounds like they were all one big happy coven.”
“Well, it’s possible that-”
“Excuse me, sir, but I don’t want to hear about possibilities. I asked if you know-note the word-know of any reason these people would have to kill Veronica Cooper.”
“No.”
“And to your knowledge, did any of these vampires have access to the hallways of the U.S. Senate?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Then I submit, sir, that your thousands of mythical unnamed suspects are a smokescreen. There’s only one person who had a motive to kill Ms. Cooper, much less had access to her or the place where her body was found.”
“Is it time for closing arguments?” Ben said, rising to his feet. “’Cause I had some more witnesses I wanted to call first.”
Judge Herndon suppressed a smile. “Mr. Padolino, you’re up here to ask questions, not to make speeches.”
“My apologies, your honor. I just don’t want to see the jury misled by all this nonsensical-” The judge gave him a sharp look. “Right, right. Questions.” He returned his attention to the witness. “Sir, you’ve talked a great deal about Ms. Cooper’s other alleged sexual partners. But you’ve said next to nothing about the one we’re all certain of, whom we saw in living color. Did you ever observe Ms. Cooper with the defendant?”
“Yes,” he said succinctly.
“How often?”
“About once a week. Occasionally twice.”
“Really. You’ve described Ms. Cooper as having such tremendous sexual appetites. I’m surprised it wasn’t more often.”
“Well, the senator is a busy man. Interns have more time on their hands.”
“Marie Glancy told us you witnessed Ms. Cooper setting up the camera to make the videotape. So you must know for a fact that sexual relations did in fact occur.”
He blew out his cheeks. “Right.”
“And how exactly was it you saw her set up the camera?”
Capshaw tugged at his tie. “Her apartment was on the ground floor. There was a bedroom window. She pulled the shades, but they were made of that thin, gauzy stuff and… well, if you get close enough to it, you can see through it pretty good.”
“So you invaded her privacy?”
“That’s more or less my job description, sir.”
“And you trespassed. Do you know I could have your license yanked for that?”
“I believe you’ve already tried, right?” Capshaw gave the prosecutor a sharp look. “But I’m sure that attempt to discredit me and destroy my livelihood had nothing to do with wanting to squelch my testimony in this case. You were just doing your duty as a public servant.”
Ben and Christina exchanged a probing look. Ben hadn’t known about this. He was beginning to understand why Capshaw was being such a strong witness for them-and was doing his best not to give Padolino an inch.
“So you had a close-up view of our senator in action, so to speak. Could you tell us a little something about his sexual preferences?”
“I don’t see that there’s any cause for that.”
“Oh come on now, sir. The defendant’s wife talked about it.” And opened the door to this tacky field of inquiry, Ben thought. “Why should you have any reluctance?”
“Mrs. Glancy told it pretty much the way it was,” Capshaw said, frowning. “He likes to be in control. He likes to dominate.”
“So describe some of his favored positions.”
Capshaw looked up at the judge, but saw no relief from that quarter. “It was mostly playacting. More often than not, he’d try to subdue her. Put her in a position of powerlessness. He had one deal where he’d bend her over a desk or table, facedown, then stretch out her arms and tie them in place with ropes or socks or whatever was available. And then… you know. Take her from behind. Call her dirty names. Insult her. Sometimes he’d handcuff her to the bed. Slap her around a bit, make her scream till he got aroused. Stuff like that.”
“Such a wide variety of experiences you seem to have observed. Tell us, Mr. Capshaw. Did Senator Glancy to your knowledge have affairs with any women other than Ms. Cooper?”
“Objection,” Ben said quickly. “Relevance.”
“Overruled. The witness will answer.”
“But this can’t possibly relate to the relationship between the defendant and-”
“I’ve overruled you,” Judge Herndon said harshly. “The witness will answer the question.”
Capshaw’s eyes lowered. “Yes. He did.”
A heavy silence blanketed the courtroom.
“How many others?”
“I’m aware of three.”
Next to Ben, Glancy’s chin fell. Behind him, Marie Glancy tried to make herself invisible.
“Three? Well, I suppose you were only on the case for six months, and you spent most of that time tailing Ms. Cooper.” Capshaw gave him a cold look. “How often did he see these three other women?”
“One of them only once. The other two, about once a week. They met at hotels, mostly.”
“Once a week. Just like Ms. Cooper. My goodness, when you add all these women up, you wonder how the man had time to attend any committee meetings at all.” No one laughed, but Ben would’ve rather they had. At least it would’ve broken the pallor cast by this ugly tidbit of information. “And were these other women young?”
“Yeah. All of them. Young, thin, pretty. Blond. He really liked the blondes.”
“So I gather.” Padolino drew himself up and faced the jury. “So we’re not just talking about a philandering husband. We’re talking about a sex addict!”
Ben jumped to his feet, but the judge was already pounding his gavel, trying to quiet the crowd. “Mr. Padolino, you have been warned!”
Padolino didn’t stop. “And we’re supposed to believe that this sex addict was going to pay one of his many lovers a quarter of a million dollars? When it would be so much easier just to kill her and stuff her in his hideaway?”
“Mr. Padolino!” Judge Herndon shouted, even louder than Ben objected, but it didn’t matter. The courtroom was out of control. Reporters were racing out the doors, hoping to be the first to file the story. Calls would be made, trying to track down the other lovers and book them on the earliest possible nighttime talk show. The National Enquirer would make them all millionaires.
But at the moment, Ben’s main concern was the broken man sitting beside him. “All right then,” Glancy whispered, sounding as if he were on the verge of tears. “So maybe I’m not going to be on the national ticket.” He clutched at Ben’s arm. “Just don’t let them kill me, Ben. I did not kill that woman-Miss Cooper. And I don’t want to die for a crime I didn’t commit.”
Ben squeezed his hand and tried to sound reassuring. But as he looked around the courtroom, at the frenzy in the gallery, the anger behind the bench, and worst of all, the faces of the jurors, he knew that every one of them would probably not object if a posse rode into the courtroom and hung Glancy from the nearest tree.
Their only possible course of action now was to put Glancy on the stand, to let him tell his story for himself. But given what had been done to his reputation in the courtroom this day, Ben doubted very seriously that it would be enough.
Loving had experienced a lot of pain in his life, but never anything like this. Every inch of his wet flesh was on fire. Deep Throat had not only jabbed him with the knife, he’d turned the blade, twisting it back and forth, cutting Loving inside and out. He was not content merely to cause injury. He wanted to create pain. And he was doing a very good job.
“Ready to talk yet?”
Loving tried to respond, but the agony was too intense. He had to hold it together, had to keep going until he had a chance to escape. But how could he possibly escape when he was strung up like a slab of meat in the back room of a vampire church?
“I want to know everything you’ve told the police. Or your Mr. Kincaid.” The Sire pushed himself into Loving’s face. “Answer me!”
Loving glared at him. “I would say ‘Go to hell,’ except you might consider that home sweet home.”
The Sire snarled. “Hurt him again.”
Deep Throat jabbed Loving again with the knife, reentering the same wound. Loving tried to keep silent, but it was impossible. It was too excruciating. He let out a ferocious scream.
“Don’t taunt him,” Deep Throat whispered into Loving’s ear. “You have no idea how dangerous he is. How crazy. There’s nothing he won’t do.”
Loving was breathing heavily. Lightbulbs were flashing before his eyes. His heart was thumping out of control. This must be what it was like to be crucified, he thought. Having your body torn, stretched, until your heart gave out or you finally died of suffocation. Strong as he was, he knew he couldn’t take this much longer. Already he was fading…
“Oh no, my investigating friend, we can’t have you dozing off. We need something to stimulate you. Here-I think you’ll get a charge out of this.”
All at once, Loving’s entire body felt as if it had been ignited. He cried out, bellowing nonstop, writhing this way and that.
The Sire had a two-pronged electric cattle prod pressed up against him, right on the knife wound. Worse, Loving was still wet from the hose and he wasn’t grounded, so the electrical shock waves radiated all over him, crashing down his spine, sending his brain into sensory overload.
“Still not feeling talkative? Let’s try it again.”
He jabbed Loving again, this time actually pressing the prod inside the knife wound. Loving felt as if he were being rent apart, torn from the inside out. There was no way he could endure this pain-no one could. His heart, already racing, accelerated even more. He began breathing in short quick gasps, never getting enough.
“Please stop.” Loving could barely see him-tears and pain were blurring his vision-but he recognized the voice of Deep Throat talking to his master. “He can’t take much more of this,” Usher said.
“He knows how to make it stop.”
“I’m telling you-if you keep this up, he’ll die!”
“Then let him die!” the Sire screamed. “I’m ready for my midnight snack!” He thrust the prod forward again and held it, letting the electricity ripple across Loving’s body, over and over again. Loving tried to hold it together, tried to stay awake, because he very much feared that if he passed out he’d never wake. But it was impossible. The pain ate at him, his heart, every nerve ending in his body. The room seemed to swirl. He felt dizzy, then nauseous, until at last the deep swell of a black tidal wave overwhelmed him and he felt nothing at all.
“What happened?” the Sire bellowed, staring at the inanimate limp body dangling from the ceiling. “What’s going on?”
“I told you to stop!” Usher shoved him aside and pressed his ear to the man’s chest. “Damn.”
“What is it? What are you saying?”
“Listen for yourself.” He pushed the Sire’s head to the man’s chest. “Hear anything? No. Want to guess why?”
“I-what are you saying?”
“I’m saying you can cut Loving loose now.” He threw his scalpel down in disgust. “He had a cardiac seizure. He’s dead.”
B en had almost stepped into the elevator before he noticed the other occupant. Judge Herndon, wearing an overcoat instead of the usual black robe, smiled and said, “Going my way?” in an eerily reminiscent voice. Perhaps he was a Twilight Zone buff, too.
“If you don’t mind.”
“I don’t mind.”
“I mean, I wouldn’t want to do anything, you know, improper.”
The corners of Herndon’s lips turned upward. “I suspect we can ride to the top floor without invoking Mr. Padolino’s ire. Even if these are the slowest elevators in all humanity.”
Ben stepped inside.
“Turning out to be an entertaining little case, isn’t it?”
Ben’s lips parted wordlessly. Was the judge actually wanting to chitchat about the trial?
“I mean, I knew it was going to be sensational. But I haven’t had many that have been as lively. So many twists and turns. Got to hand it to you, Mr. Kincaid. After twenty-two years on the bench, you’ve made it fun to be a judge again.”
Ben watched as the elevator doors slowly closed.
“Did have one concern, though.”
“Look, if it’s about the vampire thing-”
Herndon made a noise that sounded like pshaw. Ben had seen that in books, but he wasn’t sure he’d ever actually heard anyone say it before. “I’ve lived in this town since the day I was born. I’ve seen a lot weirder shit than that.”
Ben’s eyes ballooned.
“No, I was thinking more about your whole approach to the case. The jury. I know I made some remarks at the outset of the case that might conceivably be construed as disparaging to you and the land you hail from, and I apologize for that. Like to spin the new kids around a little. But you’ve proven you can handle yourself in the courtroom. One of the best I’ve seen, to tell the truth. I mean, I’ve had any number of fancy orators-which you’re not, by the way. But when you speak, people get the feeling you really believe what you’re saying. I can’t tell you how rare that is. Can’t be taught-you’ve either got it or you don’t. I can’t imagine how you’ve managed to have a successful law practice and still hang on to that.”
A look at our accounting books might answer that question for you, Ben thought.
“Here’s the thing, though,” the judge continued. “When you’re doing your cross, when you talk to the jury, you’re pretty matter-of-fact. No high drama, no flamboyance. You’re just organized and prepared and make a lot of sense. You don’t appeal to people’s emotions; you appeal to their intelligence.”
Ben watched as the floor buttons lit, one after the other. This really was the slowest elevator in all creation. “Is that bad?”
Herndon shrugged. “I’ve been out to your part of the world a time or two. Just visiting. Liked what I saw. No matter what the scientists say, people are different, and people in different places learn to behave differently, and I like the folks down your way. They’re friendlier. They say hello to people they pass on the street. Cashiers say ‘have a nice day’ like they really mean it. They remember what courtesy is. And people haven’t gotten so wound up with all the newfangled flaky ideas floating around that they’ve forgotten what common sense is.”
“I sense a but coming.”
He chuckled. “But remember, Toto-you’re not in Kansas anymore.”
“Oklahoma.”
“Close enough. My point is, a DC jury is a very different animal. You’re in Homicide Heaven now. This is the land of people wiring themselves with walkies-talkies and pretending they’re going to blow up the Washington Monument.”
“So you’re advising me… to avoid common sense?”
“I’m not advising you of anything. That would be grossly improper. I’m just giving you a geography lesson.” The bell dinged, and the doors finally opened. “See you in court, Mr. Kincaid.”
Sure, Ben thought, nodding. And have a nice day.
It was decided, then. Christina was doing the most important direct examination of them all-the defendant, Senator Todd Glancy.
Predictably, since she and Ben had finalized the decision last night, she hadn’t been able to sleep at all. It was not possible to overestimate the importance of this testimony; they had no choice now but to put him on, and they had no chance of winning if it didn’t go well. But it made sense for Christina to handle it. First of all, they knew the judge and jury had been appalled by all the talk of sex, weird sex, and violence against women. If Christina acted as if she was Glancy’s friend and supporter, if she showed that she, a woman, trusted him and believed him and even liked him, that could help assuage some of the jurors’ ill feelings toward him. Moreover, it was certain that Padolino would want to ask Glancy about each and every sexual allegation in detail, now that he was being accused of being some sort of twisted hybrid of JFK and the Terminator. He’d probably cross more about the sex than the murder; it was his strongest punch going into the final round. But if it was a woman asking the questions and objecting, it was just possible he might tone down some of the most lurid, most inflammatory language and accusations.
Worth a try, anyway.
As Christina entered the courtroom, she was shocked to see Shandy Craig, the turncoat intern, sitting behind the prosecution table. She was seated beside Lieutenant Albertson, the detective who had first investigated the murder. They seemed to be getting along famously.
Christina planned to pass by her without comment, but when their eyes met, and Shandy gave her a sort of sneering turn of the lips, Christina couldn’t restrain herself. “I’m surprised you have the wherewithal to show your face in this courtroom.”
Shandy took it in stride. “All I did was tell the truth. Only a lawyer would think there was something wrong with that.”
“Don’t try to cast yourself as some crusader,” Christina snapped. “You lied. You spied. You pretended to be something you weren’t. A friend.”
“And a good thing I did,” Shandy said defiantly. “If I hadn’t, your client might’ve gotten away with murder.”
“My client is not a murderer. And you have no basis for being proud about sneaking around a man’s office, sniffing for evidence to use against him, while pretending to be a confidante.”
“That’s a bit of an exaggeration,” Albertson said, cutting in. He was just as rude to her as he’d been the day the body was discovered. “The DA knew all about this plan-and approved it. For that matter, so did I.”
Christina hesitated for a moment. Albertson was in on this little sting? Now that she noticed, he and Shandy did appear to be sitting rather close together. Unusually close together.
Well, she had no time for that. She pulled out her files and outlines, the courtroom began to fill, and she took note of all the familiar faces. Almost everyone who had testified, anyone who had been a part of this case, was present. All the senator’s staff. His wife. Several other congressmen, including the not-for-long junior senator from Oklahoma and Arkansas’s MacReady. Even Darrin Cooper, the victim’s father, was present, sitting in the back row, although she noticed one of the several security officers on guard was standing very close beside him. She only hoped they’d stripped him down to his shorts the way they did Ben.
It seemed everyone wanted to hear Senator Glancy testify. What could he possibly say in light of the horrific charges that had been leveled against him?
Glancy was escorted into the courtroom and Ben followed close behind. “Ready to go, slugger?” he said, laying a hand on Christina’s shoulder.
“As I’ll ever be.” Christina took several deep breaths, trying to steady herself, as she watched the bailiff enter through the rear door and call the court to order.
Let the games begin.
“Senator Glancy, we’ve all seen the video and we’ve heard the testimony of various witnesses. Were you in fact having an affair with Veronica Cooper?”
“Yes,” he answered. He looked at the jurors levelly, composed, soft-spoken. Earnest, but not so much so that he seemed to be trying too hard. Like his wife, Christina observed, he knew how to handle himself, how to communicate to an audience. Which was only to be expected from a politician of his experience, she supposed. “If you can call it that. We had sex on several occasions. I thought I was the only one; I didn’t know about all these other men, or her involvement with these clubs and… vampires, or whatever they are. And I certainly did not know about her drug addiction.”
“What are your feelings now about your relationship with Ms. Cooper?”
“I deeply regret it. And I want to publicly apologize, not only to the people in this room but to all my constituents, for my conduct. What I did was wrong, inexcusable. I made a terrible mistake. And I am sorry.”
Padolino rose to his feet. “Move to strike the witness’s apology, if that’s what it was. Irrelevant.”
“Sustained,” Herndon replied.
“Would you have acted differently if you had known about her addiction?”
“Of course. I would never have engaged in a relationship with someone who might not be in her right mind. I would’ve tried to get her some help.” He heard some audible scoffing from the prosecution table. “You know, these people have tried to portray me as some sort of predator, someone who wanted to hurt Veronica. Nothing could be further from the truth. I was trying to help her. Several of the other applicants for her job were more qualified, but I knew that Veronica had a troubled past, a bad childhood, an absentee father. Dirt poor, raised in one of the worst neighborhoods imaginable. I was trying to help her, to give her a chance to better herself. I didn’t plan the intimate relationship. It developed over time. We worked a lot together, spent many long hours together… and it just happened.” He paused. “She was obviously not a virgin when the affair began, and it in no way affected our work. And I might add, what we did was entirely consensual. In fact, she was the initial instigator. Even in that video, awful as it is, I think you can see that she was ready and willing to have sex.”
That’s enough of that, Christina thought. Move on.
“I don’t want to sound self-righteous,” Glancy continued, still maintaining his cool, measured tone, “but this really is a case of no good turn going unpunished. If I had forsaken Veronica for one of those spoiled rich kids that usually get these positions, none of this would ever have happened.”
Christina tried the Ben trick-watching the jury out the corner of her eye. Were they buying any of this? Too soon to tell.
“The detective who previously testified indicated that in the months preceding Veronica Cooper’s death, you had romantic liaisons with other women as well.”
“And in most of those cases, he’s wrong.” Glancy raised his chin, adding a bit of strength to his demeanor. “That’s so typical of a detective. Anytime they see a man and a woman enter a room together alone, they assume there’s going to be hanky-panky. I find his assumptions sexist and offensive, particularly in this day and age. I notice he didn’t claim to have seen anything through a window, even though he appears to be a career Peeping Tom. What he saw, for the most part, was business meetings. I am a workaholic-anyone who knows me can tell you that-and I often work late into the night. Sometimes that work involves meeting people, and sometimes those people are women. Is that a surprise when there are so many female professionals in DC these days? Sometimes those meetings are in hotels, especially when the guests are out-of-towners, but we’re talking about places like the Watergate, not Motel 6. I mean, honestly-if I wanted to have an affair with someone, would I go to a hotel? In this town? Of course not. Everyone here knows me on sight. I never did that with Veronica and I would never do it with anyone else.”
“I noticed you said most of the detective’s accusations were untrue,” Christina said, anticipating Padolino’s cross. “Was there an exception?”
“One, yes.” He lowered his head and seemed supremely ashamed. “A one-night stand. With another Senate employee. I am not going to give her name for obvious reasons. But I have told my wife about it. We’ve discussed it and come to terms with it. I’ve agreed to get some help. As soon as this trial is over-if I’m able-I plan to obtain counseling for sex addiction. Or maybe it’s power addiction, I don’t know. Whatever it is, I understand that I have a problem, and with my wife’s help I’m going to overcome it.” He raised his hands. “And that’s the way it should be. This is a family matter. It’s private, or should be, even when it involves public figures. It’s really nobody else’s business.”
Christina paused, letting the jury soak that in. She knew he wouldn’t change any minds in the press gallery, but it was just possible he might speak to one of the jurors-especially any who might’ve had an affair themselves, or who’d had a secret revealed they’d just as soon had stayed private.
“I appreciate what you’re saying, Senator. But I’m afraid there is one other matter I have to ask you about. One other woman. One of the prosecution witnesses, Steve Melanfield, the lobbyist who admitted he was a political opponent of yours, claims to have seen you engaged in a sexual act with a woman named Delia Collins.”
“Absolutely untrue,” Glancy said defiantly. “I met with Ms. Collins on many occasions. My heart bled for her. She had a terminal illness, but she just couldn’t accept her fate. She was chasing after all these quack miracle cures-you can’t believe how many leeches there are taking advantage of people who have been diagnosed with terminal illnesses. She wanted her insurance company to pay for these treatments. I understood where she was coming from, but if an insurance company gave in to that once, they’d soon have a landslide of similar claims. Everyone’s premiums would go up. The companies might well go bankrupt.”
“To be specific,” Christina said, drawing him out of politics and back to the case, “Mr. Melanfield testified that he saw you in your office receiving sexual favors from Ms. Collins.”
“He’s wrong,” Glancy replied. “And as I recall, he admitted he never saw my face. I don’t know what he saw or indeed if he saw anything at all. But I know this-it wasn’t me.” He stopped, lowering his eyes. “I would never have taken advantage of that dear, strong woman. I was devastated a few months later when I read that she had succumbed to her illness.”
Well, they had pretty well covered sex, Christina thought. Now could they possibly talk about the murder?
“Senator Glancy, your wife has testified that when she learned of the existence of the videotape, she gathered funds for the purpose of paying off Ms. Cooper. And she also says she told you about her plan. Is this true?”
“It is. But I disagreed with her actions. I didn’t want to pay the woman a cent.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t think it’s appropriate to pay blackmail, especially when you’re an elected official. Or married to one. It only encourages more of the same. And it seems clear now that Veronica intended to blow the money on drugs. With all due respect to my dear wife, paying Veronica off was a mistake.”
“Did you attempt to prevent your wife from making the payoff?”
Glancy smiled a little. “Christina, I don’t have the power to prevent my wife from doing anything. I’m not sure there’s anyone on earth who does. But I took actions of my own.”
“And what would that be?”
“I called Veronica. Made an appointment to meet her at the Senate the next day. The day she was killed.”
Now that got a reaction from the jury. Christina wasn’t sure if they believed him, but at least they were listening.
“Did she agree to meet with you?”
“She did. That’s why I made the notation in the Gutenberg-my day planner. That’s why she was at the Senate that day, even though she didn’t come in for work. And that’s why I left the Health Committee meeting.”
“Then you admit that you met her that day.”
“I admit that I tried. But I didn’t set up any rendezvous in my hideaway. That would be stupid. I arranged to meet her in the Senate Dining Room. A public place, but one where reporters are not allowed and the staff can be counted on to be discreet. I left by the backstairs door, true, but I turned right, not left, and made my way to the dining room, not to the basement. I don’t know who Shandy saw or heard when she was doing her Mata Hari routine, but it wasn’t me. I was in the dining room wondering why Veronica hadn’t shown up.”
“She never arrived?”
“Never. After a while, I returned to the committee meeting, but when it broke for lunch I went back to the dining room, just in case she came late. Stayed there for a long time-you remember. That was when I first met you. I finally returned to my office, and that was when I learned to my horror that Veronica was dead.”
Christina closed her notebook. That about covered it. Just one more very important question to ask. “Senator Glancy, did you kill Veronica Cooper?”
“Absolutely not. I would never do that. Never. Not to her or anyone else.”
“Thank you, sir,” Christina said. That had gone well, she thought. But of course, the hard part was yet to come.
She looked across the courtroom to the prosecution table. “Pass the witness.”
“Wha-wha-where am I?”
Slowly the opaque haze lifted from his head, his eyes. Everything throbbed, every part of him. The light hurt his eyes, so he closed them. He had no idea where he was or what had happened. All he knew for sure was that he was alive. And very surprised to be.
“Take it easy. You’re still weak. You need rest.”
Loving forced his eyes open again. Deep Throat? They were still in that musty basement room. But he wasn’t hanging from the ceiling anymore. He was lying on the hard concrete floor. And he was alive!
“You really did start to go into seizure. Too much electricity will do that.”
“The-the Sire-”
“He left when I told him you were dead. Fortunately, he didn’t have the training or experience to detect your heartbeat, especially when it was so faint. As soon as he was gone, I shot you up with epinephrine to stimulate your heart. Treated the knife wound, too. But you need to take it easy. You’ve been through a lot, and too much activity after a dose of epinephrine could throw you into seizure all over again.”
Loving had no problem following the command to stay put. He felt much too puny to move. “Why did you do all this for me?”
“Look, I’m sorry I got you involved in the first place. It’s just-I didn’t know what else to do. You may have noticed-he’s crazy.”
“And the rest of your little club?”
“Don’t be a smart-ass. I may be intrigued by the vampire mythology. I even think the bloodsucking ritual is a turn-on, but I draw the line at murder. And what he’s got going on in the narthex-that’s inhuman. This whole operation-” He shook his head fiercely. “I never wanted to go after those girls-I never wanted any part of it. The Sire lost control and now everyone in the Inner Circle is paying the price.”
“But-”
“Shh. Just try to rest. The others have already left. As soon as the Sire leaves, I’ll smuggle you out of here. Get you back to your people at the law firm. A big tough guy like you should heal up in no time.”
“And you?”
“I think-I think I’m going to leave town. Start somewhere else. It’s obvious to me now-no one can take down the Sire. Not me, not you. He really is immortal. Indestructible. The best I can hope for is to go somewhere far away, somewhere safe, someplace he can never hurt me, and then-”
He froze in midsentence. His entire body stiffened. At first, Loving thought he was going to scream, but when the sound actually came out, it was quieter, more like a strange, hollow rattle.
A death rattle.
His body tumbled forward, and there was nothing Loving could do to avoid it. It fell sideways across his abdomen, knocking the air out of his chest, leaving him gasping for breath.
A scalpel was sticking out of the back of his neck.
In the distance, Loving saw a pair of piercing eyes hovering above him.
“So glad to see you’re still alive, Mr. Loving.” The Sire began to laugh, loud and horribly, hysterically, his dark, deep laughter echoing through the tiny subterranean room. “Now I’ll have the pleasure of killing you myself. After I’ve learned what I want to know. After I’ve sucked you dry.”
“Well now, that was a sweet little story you told,” Padolino said, as he strode across the courtroom toward Senator Glancy. “Touching, especially the part about your close relationship with your wife. I felt my eyes getting itchy.”
Glancy remained phlegmatic. “Was that a question? If it was, I didn’t understand it.”
“So now you admit that you were planning to meet Veronica Cooper on the day she died, at about the same time she died, and that you entered the rear stairway that led to your hideaway at just that time. But we’re supposed to believe you didn’t kill her?”
“That’s right. I didn’t.”
“Must’ve been someone else. Someone who intercepted her on her way to the cafeteria.”
“I really have no idea. I can’t imagine who would want to kill her.”
“Then we agree on that point, Senator. No one had any reason to kill her. Except you.”
Christina started to rise, but Glancy was already answering. “I disagree with that statement. I had no motive at all. As my wife said, she had the situation under control. Sure, I wanted to meet with her, to see if we couldn’t come up with some better solution than blackmail payments. I could see she had problems, possibly mental problems, and I knew that video was going to make it impossible for her to work again in DC. I wanted to see if I could help her make a fresh start, find her another job, maybe something in Oklahoma. I have a lot of friends back home. It wouldn’t be hard.”
“How altruistic of you.”
“And even if that didn’t work-Marie had given her the money she wanted. Either way, I had no motive to kill her.”
“Assuming we believe everything you’ve told us. Which I for one don’t.”
Christina gave Ben the eye. Padolino was making a lot of nonquestion smart remarks. She could object, but she had a hunch that Padolino’s sudden resort to arrogance and sarcasm would turn the jury off, which could only work to Todd’s favor. Give the man enough rope…
“Even if I were going to kill her,” Glancy continued, “which I would never, ever do, I certainly wouldn’t do it at the U.S. Senate. That’s just stupid. And leave the corpse in my own hideaway? That’s beyond stupid. That’s idiotic.”
“So you want us to believe you would never, ever do that, right?”
“Right.” Glancy allowed himself a small smile. “Hell, if I really were stupid enough to kill someone at the U.S. Senate, I wouldn’t leave the corpse in my hideaway.” He paused. “I’d take it to some Republican’s hideaway.”
Grim as the subject was, that actually got a few chuckles. More important, Christina thought, he’d made his point.
“This all assumes that the murder was carefully planned in advance. But I think it’s more likely that you got angry when your attempt to charm her out of her blackmail money failed, lost control, killed her, didn’t know what to do with the body, and left her there till you had time to come up with something better.”
“Wrong. All of it. And just for the record, Mr. Padolino, I never lose control.”
Wrong thing to say. “Yes, we’ve heard all about how you like to stay in control. How you like to dominate. Especially when you’re with your many, many women.”
Aw, swell, Christina thought, priming herself to object. Here we go.
“There were two,” Glancy said emphatically. “I told you that. No one has proven anything different.”
“And what about the handcuffs? Ropes? Is that part of how you like to stay in control?”
Christina rose to object, but Glancy literally waved her down. “Let me say once and for all that I am sick and tired of your use of this courtroom to engage in slanderous statements that don’t relate to the murder in any way, shape, or form.” He was becoming a little heated, but Christina thought-hoped-that he was okay. “I have admitted that I made mistakes, that I had affairs with two women. What possible business of yours is it how we like to go about it? I know it has been fashionable in the press to pry into politicians’ sex lives under the veil of a ‘character issue.’ Are we now going to start doing that in the courtroom? If you made these statements anywhere else, I could sue you for slander, and I for one do not see why courtroom immunity should extend to a prosecutor making gratuitous sexual innuendos that don’t relate to the case at bar.”
“Lovely little speech,” Padolino said, clapping. “Very dramatic. Move to strike.”
To everyone’s surprise, Judge Herndon hesitated. “No,” he said finally, “I think I’m going to let that stand. It was irrelevant, but then so was your question. I think I’d like to see that remain in the record. Maybe, with luck, one of the reporters in the room will print it. Or perhaps even give it some thought.”
Padolino was furious. Christina could see him scanning his outline, looking for another dramatic topic. “Exactly how many times have you lied to the public now, Senator?”
“I’m not aware of any.”
“You lied about your affair.”
“At no time did I lie about any affair. I was silent on the matter. There’s a big difference.”
“I believe that’s what, in my church, we call a sin of omission.”
“Call it what you like. It wasn’t a lie. I didn’t lie before and I’m not lying now.” He turned to face the jury. “You have my word on that. I will not lie to you.”
“You expect us to trust you?” Padolino said indignantly. “Your own wife, the woman who knows you best in all the world, doesn’t trust you.”
“I beg to differ.”
“She hired a private detective to follow your floozies around, Senator. Trusting wives don’t do that.”
For the first time, Glancy was silent for several moments. “When the issue arose between us, I admitted what I had done immediately. I did not lie to her about it.”
“Really. And did you tell her about the other girl as well?”
Christina’s ears pricked up. Not because of the accusation, but because savvy Mr. Padolino had used the word girl. Not the more politically correct woman.
“What girl?”
“The other one. The Senate employee with whom you’ve admitted having an affair.”
Glancy thought a long time before answering. “No.”
Padolino smiled, triumphant at last. He returned to his table, picked up a small manila folder, then returned to the podium.
“I’m worried,” Christina whispered to Ben.
“Why? What’s in the folder?”
“I don’t know. That’s why I’m worried.”
“Senator Glancy,” Padolino said, breaking the silence, “what was the name of the other woman with whom you had a sexual liaison?”
He exhaled heavily. “I said before, I see no purpose in dragging someone else through-”
“I’m afraid you have no choice, sir. You must answer my question.”
“I won’t.”
“You’re under oath.”
“To tell the truth. And I have. But that doesn’t extend to the unnecessary tarnishing of the reputation of an innocent person.”
Padolino pressed his hand against his heart. “Once again, Senator, I am moved by your breathtaking nobility. But in fact, you have another reason for wanting to keep her identity unknown, don’t you?”
“This is despicable,” Glancy said, increasingly angry. “You’re using my silence to imply things that aren’t there.”
“Who’s your other lover, Senator Glancy?”
“I’ve told you, I refuse to answer the question.”
“Are you pleading the Fifth?”
“No. This isn’t about self-incrimination. This is about protecting others.”
“Let’s all remember that he said that.”
Judge Herndon cut in. “Mr. Prosecutor, if you so request, the court can order the witness to answer or be held in contempt of court.”
“Thank you, your honor, but that won’t be necessary.” He reached inside his folder and withdrew one sheet of paper. “Senator Glancy, would your lover’s name by any chance be Tiffany Dell?”
Glancy didn’t answer, but even he couldn’t prevent his eyes from widening, his lips from parting.
Where have I heard that name before? Christina asked herself. Somewhere around here…
And then she remembered. And realized how bad this really was.
“Thank you for that visual confirmation, sir. Not that I had any doubt. You see, I’ve spoken to Miss Dell. And she told me all about it.”
“Objection!” Christina said, rising to her feet. She didn’t care what Glancy thought; it was time to intervene. “We’ve had no notice of this witness. She is not on the prosecution’s list.”
“We do not plan to call her,” Padolino replied. “She only came to us late last night, after she read an account in the Post of Mr. Capshaw’s testimony about the senator’s other lovers.”
“Whether she’s taking the stand or not, he’s using her testimony. We should’ve been told.”
“Certainly, if she had anything exculpatory to say, we would’ve notified the defense immediately. But that wasn’t the case. Far from it.”
“Your honor,” Christina insisted, “this is inexcusable. It’s trial by ambush!”
Judge Herndon leaned across the bench, gavel pointed, a somber expression on his face. “Mr. Padolino, do you give me your word as an officer of the court that you knew nothing of this informant before last night?”
“Absolutely, your honor.”
“And will you make her and any of her records or documents available to the defense should they wish it?”
“We will. She’s in the building now, sir.”
He fell back into his chair. “Very well. I’ll allow it. But you’re on a short leash, Mr. Prosecutor.”
“Understood, sir.”
Christina cut in. “Your honor, I must-”
“I said I’d allow it, counsel!” He slammed his gavel. “The cross-examination will continue.”
Padolino turned his gaze back to Glancy, the expression on his face so smug Christina wanted to scrape it off with a pizza knife. “Senator, knowing your strong feelings about truth telling, you’re not going to deny that you know Miss Dell, are you?”
“No,” he said quietly.
“And you won’t deny that you had an affair with her, either, will you?”
“If she’s already admitted it publicly, I suppose there’s no point.”
“Glad you’re being so reasonable. Let me ask you, Senator-how old is she?”
Glancy hesitated. “I… don’t know. She’s young, if that’s what you’re getting at.”
“Well, of course, she’s young. You only interview, hire, and sleep with women who are young.”
“Objection!” Christina shouted.
“Short leash, Mr. Padolino,” Judge Herndon said, a fierce tone in his voice. “Very short leash.”
“Right, right,” Padolino said, holding up his hands. “My apologies. What I want to know, Senator, is her age.”
“I don’t know her age.”
“Don’t you? You sponsored her. Because she’s not exactly a congressional staffer, as you led the jury to believe. She’s a congressional page. A high school student.” He paused. “She’s seventeen.”
Christina’s eyes closed. Just as she feared. It was the same Tiffany whom Glancy had sent to meet Ben and Christina when they first came to the Senate.
The stir in the courtroom was almost deafening. Judge Herndon slammed his gavel, but it still took several moments to restore any semblance of order.
“Senator, why did you sponsor Miss Dell?”
Glancy took a deep breath. “She’s a bright, ambitious young woman who was raised in a very poor undereducated family in rural Oklahoma. As with Ms. Cooper, I was trying to do her a favor.”
“Do her a favor? Or do yourself a favor? What did you promise this bright, ambitious girl if she would submit to your disgusting advances?”
“I never did anything of the sort. This is all untrue!”
“I don’t think so, Senator. She was a minor and you knew it. You knew it when you sponsored her and you knew it when you took her to bed.”
“I object!” Christina bellowed.
“Sustained!” Herndon said, equally loudly. “Consider yourself fined, Mr. Padolino. One more outburst like that and you’ll be spending the night in jail.”
Padolino plowed ahead just the same. “You didn’t suppress her name because you were trying to protect Miss Dell. You were trying to protect yourself. From a rape charge!”
“That’s not true!” Glancy insisted. “It was entirely consensual.”
“It was statutory rape, at the very least,” Padolino continued. “And I wonder if it wasn’t more than that.”
“Again I must object!” Christina said. “This is pure character assassination. It has nothing to do with the murder.”
“Oh, I’m getting to that,” Padolino said, in a way that sent chills down Christina’s spine. “I’m just laying the foundation here. There’s much more yet to come.”
“Then get to it,” Judge Herndon said. “I’ve had about as much of this as I’m going to take.”
“Senator Glancy,” Padolino said, “do you recall the intimate evening you spent with Miss Dell?”
Glancy’s whole demeanor, his very presence, had changed. He looked rumpled, confused, uncomfortable. His face was red. Sweat dripped down the side of his face. “Of course I do.”
“That’s good. Do you remember the part when you bit her on the neck?”
One of the female jurors gasped. They all looked horrified.
“I didn’t do anything I thought would be… unpleasurable to her.”
“Indeed. Do you remember when you cut her?”
And that was when Christina knew. Knew for certain. That was when it became hopeless.
“Again,” Glancy said, suddenly looking old, desperate, lecherous, and totally untrustworthy, “it’s none of your business what goes on between consenting adults.”
“But she’s not quite an adult, is she?”
“I didn’t do anything she didn’t like!”
“Anything she didn’t like? Or anything you didn’t like?”
Glancy’s face was so tight, so flushed, he looked as if he might explode. “She… was enjoying it!”
“No, sir. You were enjoying it. It was your fetish. Always being in control. She told me she asked you to stop repeatedly. But you wouldn’t.” The buzz in the courtroom rose, but Padolino continued. “She said you cut her neck, and she cried out for you to stop, but you wouldn’t. She said it was as if you lost all reason, as if you became some sort of monster!”
“Objection!” Christina shouted. “Is counsel testifying now or just repeating hearsay from his ambush witness?”
Padolino ignored her. “Tiffany said you cut her, and you wouldn’t stop, and she believed that if she hadn’t been strong enough to stop you, you would’ve killed her!”
Christina objected, and Glancy denied, but they were both drowned out by the tumult that swept across the courtroom. It took much gavel pounding before Judge Herndon restored any semblance of order.
“Just answer this for the jury,” Padolino said, “and answer truthfully, sir, because I have photographs that were taken by Miss Dell the very night it happened. Do you deny that you cut your young lover on the neck? With a knife?”
The wait seemed interminable. But at last they got their answer.
“No,” Glancy said quietly. “I don’t deny it.”
And then it was over. Not the cross-that went on for another half hour, and then Christina attempted to redirect, for all the good it did. And they would interview Tiffany Dell and try to find some holes in her story. But that had nothing to do with the trial. The trial, as Christina knew all too well, was over. She had no doubts now about whether the jury would convict. She only wondered if they would do her the courtesy of deliberating.
The Sire was dancing around the dead body of his former underling, clapping his hands and shouting in tones that bordered between elation and hysteria. “You thought you could escape the Inner Circle? You thought you could escape my wrath? You fool! Thus to all traitors. Thus to all who challenge the Brotherhood of Miatas. I am the Sire! I cannot be defeated!”
He’s insane, Loving thought, as he lay helplessly on the floor. Totally over the edge. He knew it was only a matter of time before the Sire killed him. And in his current condition, he was unable to stop it. Even if he managed to pull himself up, he could never move fast enough to elude that drooling psychopath.
“You thought you could defeat me, didn’t you?” He jerked the scalpel out of Deep Throat’s neck and pressed it against Loving’s throat. “You thought you could take what was mine. Mine! You thought you could steal from me! No one takes what is mine, my sad pathetic friend. I am an immortal! I am a god among men.”
“Fine,” Loving managed to spit out. “Kill me. But let Beatrice go. There’s no reason why you have to kill her.”
The Sire shook his head, giving Loving a pitying expression. “How little you understand. After all this time.”
Loving felt his gorge rising in his stomach. He had failed-totally and utterly failed. He couldn’t save Beatrice. He couldn’t even save himself.
“How does it feel to be helpless, my strapping friend? How does it feel to know that your time on this planet is about to come to an end? That I’m going to add your petty life to my collection of souls. That I will drink your blood for my breakfast?”
Loving desperately wanted to tell him what he thought, but he knew that wouldn’t be wise.
“Still silent? Very well. Prepare yourself. Say a prayer, if you think it will do you any good.” He held up the scalpel; it glistened in the overhead light. “I’m going to cut your throat now. And drink from you like a fountain. Like a fountain!” He crouched down beside Loving. “I’m going to cut you like-”
“I don’t think so. Say cheese, Dracula.”
“What?” The Sire whirled around in the direction of the voice, but before he could complete the turn the room was split by the sound of a projectile whistling through the air. It thudded into the center of the Sire’s chest. He screamed, then collapsed.
His hands were clutching the bolt of a crossbow.
“Nice shot, if I do say so myself. Kind of disappointed he didn’t turn into dust, though.”
Loving leaned forward, struggling to see. “Shalimar!”
She walked beside him, beaming. “Yup. Your friendly neighborhood vampire hunter.”
Loving did his best to appear cross. “I told you to stay outside.”
“Yeah. Good thing I didn’t listen, huh?” She crouched beside him. “How are you?”
Loving grunted and stretched out his arm. “Help me up.” He felt extremely woozy, but he was determined to stay at his feet. “The Sire. Is he dead?”
“Nah. Hurting real bad, I hope, but not dead. See? Eyes still open.”
Loving bent over the Sire, who was writhing on the floor, trying unsuccessfully to remove the bolt. Loving desperately wanted to kill the fiend on the spot, but he knew that wouldn’t be smart, however pleasurable.
He grabbed the end of the crossbow and gave it a twist. The Sire screeched like a banshee. “Not so fun when the sharp instrument is inside you, huh? You’re bleedin’ big-time. The human body only contains eight pints of blood, as I ’spect you know, bein’ an expert on the subject. So if you don’t tell me what I want to know, immediately, not only am I not gonna call an ambulance, but I’m going to leave you here to die slowly. Then I’m going to let all your henchvamps come in and lap up your blood. And then-” He leaned closer so the Sire could feel his breath. “Then I’m going to take your body to the Playground and put it in the room reserved for necrophiliacs. For the first time in your miserable existence, you’ll be bringin’ some joy into someone else’s life.” He paused, giving the man a look that made it clear he was not bluffing. “One chance. Only. Where’s Beatrice?”
The Sire raised a shaky hand and pointed up the stairs. Then he jerked his hand to the left.
“You’d better be tellin’ the truth, or I’ll prove to everyone in the Inner Circle that you’re not immortal. Come on, Shalimar.”
Shalimar raced upstairs and across the hall, then through the far left door. Loving hobbled behind as best he could. She threw open the door.
“Oh my God.”
It was like a wing of a hospital ward, one bed after the next, all of them alike, all of them occupied. By young girls.
“Beatrice!”
Shalimar spotted her long before Loving did. She raced to her sister’s side. Loving followed as quickly as possible.
She looked much as she had when he’d seen her earlier, in the Inner Circle ceremony-pale, weak, motionless. But now her eyes were open, and they reacted to the sound of her sister’s voice.
“Beatrice! Oh my God. Beatrice!”
Shalimar leaned across the bed and hugged her sister tightly, tears streaming from her eyes. Loving sat on the edge of the bed, tired, hurting, but so so glad. They’d found her. She wasn’t dead. She was-
Loving spotted the IV needle in her arm. Beside the bed was a bottle filled with a red fluid.
Her blood.
And as he scanned the room, he saw that on every bed, every girl had an IV needle in her arm, and a half-filled bottle beside her.
Oh my God, Loving thought. This was too much. Too much.
“Call the ambulance,” he whispered, the best he could manage. “Call the police. Ask for Lieutenant Albertson.”
And then he closed his eyes and tried to make the rest of the world go away.
Oh my God. Oh my dear God.