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…”