Acts of Mercy (21 page)

You’re not supposed to understand.

Mrs Augustine...

No. I’ve said too much already; I’m talking too much. I suppose it’s because you inspire confidence. You always have.

Are you sure you don’t want to discuss it?

I can’t discuss it. Don’t press me, Elizabeth. Please.

All right, Mrs. Augustine.

You’ll find out soon enough—part of it, anyway. Everyone will find out soon enough.

At dusk Saturday night, after a quiet and somewhat mechanical dinner with Claire, Augustine sat out on one of the iron-filigree patio chairs, worrying the bit of a billiard briar and waiting for Justice.

When he and Harper and the bodyguards had returned from their ride at four-thirty, Christopher had approached him outside the stable, looking worried, and asked to speak with him. But he himself had been abstracted and weary of Maxwell’s querulous complaints and questions, and he had only wanted to get away quickly to the manor house for a shower and a drink. So he had told Justice he would see him here tonight and then left him there with Maxwell.

He would keep this meeting as brief as possible, Augustine thought. Because it seemed obvious to him what was on Justice’s mind, and discussing it endlessly served no constructive purpose. He had already concluded what must be done, while sitting in his study this morning and watching the toy train board, and he was not about to invite painful dialogue by confiding what it was to anyone. Not Justice, not Harper, not any of his other aides. Not even Claire (although he knew she intuited exactly what his decision was). They would all find out at the press conference tomorrow.

Augustine leaned back in the chair and watched a faint breeze ripple the water in the swimming pool. This was the best time of night in the mountains, he thought. Quiet except for the steady fiddling hum of crickets, the air clean and sharp and piney, the sky just turning a glossy purpleblack, the pale face of a full moon hanging above the tops of the trees on the western ridge. But it wasn’t the same as it once was; there was something missing, something lost and irreplaceable. As there was with trains. Trains still ran across the country, you still saw them, you could still ride on them, but the spirit of railroading had been taken away ...

Justice appeared then, walking rapidly through the garden on the far side of the patio. Augustine watched him come up onto the flagstones and cross past the diving board. There was the same nervous anxiety in his face and in his manner that Augustine had noticed peripherally at the stable earlier.

“Good evening, Mr. President,” he said.

“Christopher. Sit down if you like.”

“Thank you, sir.” Justice took another patio chair to Augustine’s left and placed his hands on his knees.

Augustine said, “Am I correct in assuming you want to talk about Briggs and the attorney general?”

“Yes sir.”

“Well, before you ask, there has been no word as yet on either of them. I don’t understand why Briggs, at least, hasn’t been found by now—unless he had made prior arrangements to take yesterday off and to go away for the weekend. That would explain it. In any case, taking everything into account, the fact that he has not been found is best for all concerned.”

Justice nodded.

“Did Mr. Harper tell you I’ve called a press conference for tomorrow morning?”

“No sir. Press conference?”

“Yes. And please don’t ask me why or what statement I intend to make.”

“Just as you say, Mr. President.” With reluctance.

Augustine softened his voice. “I dislike being brusque with you, Christopher. I don’t have to tell you that I appreciate all you’ve done for me, and your concern, and your support; I think you know how grateful I am. It’s just that this is a very difficult time and I don’t feel in the least comradely.”

“I understand, sir.”

“Good. Now then—do you have anything specific to discuss? If not, I—”

“There is something specific, yes sir.”

“What is it?”

Justice moved uneasily in his chair; night shadows gave his face a brooding cast. “I don’t know how to say it, sir. It’s ... well, it’s incredible.”

“Incredible?”

“Mr. President,” Justice said, and stopped, and then blurted, “Mr. President, I think Mr. Briggs and Mr. Wexford may have been murdered.”

“What?”

“I’m sorry, sir, I think they were deliberately and coldbloodedly killed by someone who wanted us to believe their deaths were accidents, someone with an unstable mind—”

Astonishment and utter disbelief. Augustine came convulsively to his feet, stood over Justice. “A homicidal maniac? For God’s sake, are you trying to tell me there’s a homicidal maniac among the people on my staff?”

“That’s what I suspect, sir.”

“It’s monstrous!”

Miserably Justice nodded.

“What proof do you have?”

“None, sir.”

“None? You mean you have no evidence at all?”

“No sir. It’s just a feeling, an intuition—”

“Christ Almighty, Christopher!”

“Two men have died in two days, Mr. President,” Justice said, “that’s just too much coincidence; I’ve been a policeman a long time and I’ve learned to trust my Instincts—”

“Instincts!” The astonishment was gone now; only the unbelief remained. “Do these instincts tell you who it could be?”

“No sir.”

“Or why even a lunatic would murder two men?”

Justice shook his head. “I could be wrong, sir, I know that. But I don’t think I am. And I’m afraid something might happen here at The Hollows, that someone else’s life may be in danger.”

“Whose life?”

“I don’t know. But ... it could even be yours, sir.” Augustine stared down at him. He had always considered Justice to be the prototype police officer: cool, disciplined, precise to a fault, incapable of wild or unreasonable speculation. But it seemed the strain of the past few days had affected him much more severely than could have been imagined; had filled him with irrational paranoid fantasies. Two murders made to look like accidents, one of the people Augustine had worked closely with for three and a half years a deranged psychopath—preposterous! A potential third murder, another person’s life in jeopardy, his
own
life in jeopardy—unthinkable!

He sat down carefully and said to Justice, “Have you told anyone else about this?”

“No sir.”

“I see. Well you’d best not. I’ll handle it.”

Justice’s eyes were imploring. “You do believe me, don’t you, Mr. President? About the potential danger, I mean.”

“I believe that you believe.”

“What should we do?”

“What do you suggest we do?”

“Tighten security, first of all. Beyond that ... I’m not sure, sir.”

“I’ll know,” Augustine said gently. “After I’ve given it some thought I’ll know just what to do.”

“We don’t have much time, sir. I’m sure of that.”

Augustine looked away. So am I, Christopher, he thought. We don’t have much time left at all.

The conference room, adjacent to the President’s study in the manor house, was a large, oblong enclosure with a stone fireplace at one end. On Sunday morning a podium was set at the other end, and in place of the broad circular conference table which normally sat in the center of the room were several centered rows of folding chairs for the press. Another row of chairs reserved for the staff was arranged along the west side wall, facing the press rows.

Justice sat near the far end of the staff row and looked at the thirty or more reporters who crowded the room. Most of them were from the wire services, the television networks, and California’s large daily newspapers; they stood or sat now in small groups, talking among themselves, waiting as Justice was—It was just ten o’clock—for the announcement that the President was ready to begin.

Their voices were muted and interrogative, creating a low rumble of noise that seemed to reverberate off the redwood walls and the high, beamed ceiling. Justice knew they were asking each other the same questions he had asked himself during the night. Why had the President called this press conference, the first at The Hollows in nearly two years? Was he going to make general statements of no particular news interest, or was he going to drop some sort of bombshell?

He turned his head, glanced over at the study door; it remained closed. Three seats to his left, Maxwell Harper was also looking at the door, looking at it and rubbing his hands back and forth along his trouser legs. There was an air of nervous expectancy about him that Justice had never seen before.

Justice’s face was damp under the hot room lights; he used the sleeve of his jacket to wipe it dry, to dislodge grains of mucus that clung to his eye corners. Tension and lack of sleep had made him logy. He had spent most of last night patrolling the grounds, maintaining a personal vigil that yielded nothing out of the ordinary—and worrying, worrying, because it had become obvious as time passed and there was no tightening of security that the President had not believed him after all.

Augustine had only been patronizing him on the patio, not in an unkind way but patronizing him nonetheless, as if he thought Justice were suffering from hallucinations. Justice could understand his skepticism—without substantiating proof he might have been skeptical himself if their roles had been reversed—but the fact remained that nothing was being done. The responsibility for the safety of the President and those close to him still rested solely on his shoulders.

He had considered going to the First Lady, telling her of his fears as he had told the President. But if she didn’t share those suspicions, if he had misread her motives in calling Director Saunders here to The Hollows, he would only succeed in alarming and even alienating her. Still, he desperately needed an ally, and if there was one person who could persuade the President to take action, it was Mrs. Augustine. Maybe—

The study door opened in that moment and Frank Tanaguchi stepped through and over to the podium. The babble of voices subsided instantly. “If you’ll all take your places, please,” Tanaguchi said, “the President is about ready to begin.”

Those reporters still standing took chairs. When they were all seated, Tanaguchi returned to the study for half a minute, then came out a second time and claimed a chair for himself. The room was completely silent now—an anticipatory, almost eager hush.

It was another sixty seconds before the President appeared; the First Lady was at his side. He wore a suit and tie, as he seldom did at The Hollows, and carried a small sheaf of notes. To Justice, his presence seemed a commanding one; but when he put the notes down on the podium and gripped its edges, his hands might have been trembling a little. Mrs. Augustine stepped behind him to his right, and although there was a chair behind her she did not sit down. She folded her hands at her waist and her eyes did not once leave the President. Her expression was unreadable.

Augustine cleared his throat. “Thank you all for coming, ladies and gentlemen,” he said in clear, strong tones. “I won’t keep you long because the statement I have to make is brief and I will take no questions at this time. When I return to Washington later this week I will call a major press conference at which I will respond to all questions pertaining to the statement I am about to make, and to other matters as well. Please bear with me on this.”

As a body the reporters seemed to lean forward.

The President cleared his throat again. “It is my belief,” he said then, “that I have been a good President, that in some ways I have taken the office beyond politics and instilled in it a frank humanism generally lacking in previous administrations. It seems, however, that many of you and many of your colleagues, as well as the opposition party, certain members of my own party, and a large segment of the country-at-large do not concur with these personal beliefs. So be it. I make no apologies, I offer no excuses for anything I have done or said during my term in office. But neither do I wish to endure the continued disfavor of the evident majority of my fellow American; neither do I wish to foment divisiveness by pursuing at length the paths of endeavor which my heart and my love for this nation have told me were the right ones.”

Surprise and excitement rippled through the crowd. Justice’s chest felt tight, as if a hand had bunched all the muscles there into a ligature. He was aware of Harper sitting on the edge of his chair, hands fisted whitely on his knees; aware of the tense expressions on the faces of the other aides. Behind the President, the First Lady still stood immobile and emotionless.

Augustine raised his eyes from his notes, and as if reciting from painful memory he said, “That being the case, ladies and gentlemen, after long and prayerful consideration I have decided to withdraw my name as a candidate for reelection to the presidency. Under no circumstances will I seek or accept my party’s nomination at the forthcoming convention in Saint Louis. I intend during the final seven months of my administration to devote all my time and all my energies to the execution of the duties of my office, with particular reference to domestic affairs ...”