When they made love again after the second incarnation of their relationship Brad thought the sex was still pretty good. Then Bridget started making excuses for avoiding his bed. This, she finally confessed as they approached their second breakup, was because she was sleeping with an artist who lived in Chelsea. Bridget claimed that she was cheating because of her fear of commitment.
The third time they started seeing each other the sex had come to feel like an obligation.
Being with Ginny had helped Brad see that he’d been fooling himself about his feelings for Bridget during most of their relationship, and he was finally able to accept the fact that he’d been obsessed with a Bridget who had never really existed. He was lucky that Bridget had called off their wedding, which would have been the start of a marriage that was doomed to failure.
While spacing out during an assessment of a tax-avoidance scheme a partner had dreamed up for a wealthy client, Brad decided that the major difference between Ginny and Bridget was that Bridget was self-absorbed while Ginny was just plain nice. He arrived at this conclusion at 2:13 in the afternoon and was about to return to the tax code when an annoying clang signaled the arrival of e-mail on his computer. Brad brought up the message and smiled when he saw it was from Ginny. The message read: COFFEE NOW! OUR FAVORITE PLACE.
Brad found Ginny in the rear of the coffee shop at Broadway and Washington where they’d gotten together after his first meeting with Clarence Little. She was sipping a caffe latte, and Brad waved to her as he started toward the counter to order. Ginny smiled and pointed at the cup of black coffee she’d bought for him. Brad tried to remember if Bridget had ever done something so inconsequential yet so considerate during all of the time they’d been together and came up blank.
“I was beginning to think I’d never see you again with the hours I’m putting in,” Brad said when he arrived at the table.
“This too shall pass. Tuchman will find another associate to torture, and she’ll lose interest in you. Just hang in there.”
“I’m beginning to wonder if it’s worth it. I’d start hunting for another job but I don’t have time with my workload. So, do you have a reason for this secret rendezvous or do you just miss me?”
“I do miss you but that’s not the only reason I dragged you to our favorite caffeine salon. Guess what I discovered?”
“This doesn’t have anything to do with Clarence, does it?” Brad asked, alarmed.
“It does, but don’t worry. I figured a lot of it out online. And I didn’t use a computer at the office.”
“Figured what out?”
“What happened to the teenage client Farrington was rumored to have been sleeping with. You know what the Portland Clarion is, right?”
“The alternative newspaper?”
Ginny nodded. “When Farrington ran for governor the Clarion printed an article about the rumors of sexual impropriety. The client’s name was Rhonda Pulaski, and she was injured in a skiing accident on Mount Hood. Farrington sued the ski lodge operator, claiming they’d incorrectly marked a trail that Pulaski wasn’t skilled enough to ski down. The case was settled out of court for a sum in the high six figures.
“The day he received the check for the settlement Farrington rented a Town Car and picked up Pulaski at her high school. On the way, he showed the check to the chauffeur, Tim Houston, and bragged about the settlement. Houston told the paper that Farrington had been drinking and brought a bottle of champagne to Pulaski’s school. Houston thought that was really inappropriate.
“Instead of taking Pulaski straight home, Farrington had the chauffeur cruise around. There was an opaque window between the backseat and the driver’s seat, so Houston couldn’t see what happened between Pulaski and Farrington, but he claims to have heard them having sex.”
“What did Pulaski say?”
“Her parents wouldn’t let the police or the paper talk to her, and no charges were brought. Farrington threatened to sue the newspaper. The Clarion runs on a shoestring and defending a lawsuit would have bankrupted it, so they printed a retraction. I called the paper. The reporter who wrote the piece isn’t there anymore, but Frieda Bancroft, the editor, is still around. I wanted to talk to Houston, but she said he disappeared. No one knows where he is.”
“What about Pulaski?”
Ginny lowered her voice and leaned forward. “Are you ready for this? She’s dead. The victim of a hit-and-run driver who was never found. The car was though. It had been stolen. The cops think the thief was joyriding, but the car had been thoroughly cleaned so there were no prints, hairs, fibers, nothing to use to trace the driver. So Pulaski is dead and the only other witness is gone, maybe permanently.”
“I get less interested in pursuing this every minute,” Brad said nervously.
“Don’t be a sissy.”
“You’re confusing cowardice and prudence. If we’re right, Farrington is responsible for the deaths of three teenage girls and a chauffeur. I don’t want to add two associates to his total.”
“Farrington doesn’t even know we exist.”
“Yet. If we keep poking around, eventually we’ll appear on his radar.”
“Brad, this is too important to drop. Do you really want a murderer running America? If he’s responsible for all these killings we have to do something. Once we go to the authorities Farrington won’t have any reason to come after us. We’ll turn over everything we know to the police. We’re not witnesses. Killing us wouldn’t help his defense.”
“You forget revenge, which has always been a pretty strong motive for murder.”
“Farrington is too busy to bother with us. We’re the smallest of fry. He’s already worrying about the independent counsel’s investigation of the Walsh murder. If he has to worry about the Erickson and Pulaski cases he won’t have time to think about us.”
“You’re probably right, but do you want to take a chance that you’re wrong when the consequences could be that we end up dead?”
“As I see it, the only thing we’re going to do is try to find Laurie Erickson’s mother. If she doesn’t talk to us, that’s that. If she implicates Farrington, we go to the cops or the FBI and they’ll take it from there.”
“We aren’t doing anything. I told you I’d talk to Mrs. Erickson myself so you wouldn’t get in trouble with Tuchman.”
“Then you’ll do it?”
Brad nodded. “You’re right about how important this is. But talking to Erickson is all we’re going to do, right? After that we forget about the Clarence Little case, agreed?”
Brad stuck out his hand, and Ginny shook it. Brad held on and looked her in the eye. Ginny looked back and didn’t blink. Brad still thought she was lying.
Chapter Thirty-one
Unlike an incoming attorney general of the United States who starts his tenure with an existing office, staff, and equipment, an independent counsel starts with nothing but the piece of paper appointing him. On an independent counsel’s first day on the job he does not have computers or telephones or desks on which to put them. He has to locate and lease office space then fill it with furniture, equipment, investigators, books, and lawyers. This explained why Keith Evans was using a room in an inexpensive motel on the outskirts of Washington, D.C., to conduct his interview with Irving Lasker, the head of the Secret Service detail that guarded President Farrington at the farmhouse in Virginia.
Lasker was a wiry, stern-looking, middle-aged man with tight skin, sunken cheeks, and bright blue eyes that Evans half-believed could beam death rays. From his crew cut and the way he held himself, Evans guessed the Secret Service agent was ex-military.
Lasker sat stiff backed on a chair with gold casters that was upholstered in imitation red leather. Evans sat on a similar chair. The two men were separated by a round wooden table over which hung a cheap brass light fixture. Cars sped by on a freeway through the window on Keith’s left. To his right were a queen-size bed and an armoire containing a television that showed in-room movies. The room was dark and depressing and smelled of cleaning fluid.