Capitol Murder (29 page)

“It’s not just that.” She began fidgeting with her well-shaped fingernails, which Ben could
only take as a good sign. “I thought he had sort of an Oklahoma accent.”

Ben wasn’t giving any ground. “And what exactly would that be? Like how I talk?”

“Well . . . I don’t really hear it in your voice.”

“Why not? I’ve lived in Oklahoma almost my entire life.” Of course, he was educated at a
private school in a big city, but for that matter so was Todd Glancy.

“No, it was more like the senator talks. Kinda slow and . . . you know. Drawn out. Lots of
extra syllables.”

“Give me an example.”

Shandy glanced toward Padolino, obviously hoping he could bail her out, but there was nothing
he could do. “Well . . . like when he said ‘forever.’ It was more like he was saying,
‘Fuhr-eve-uhhhh.’”

“And that’s supposed to be Oklahoma? It sounds more like
Gone With the Wind
.”

“Your honor,” Padolino said. “He’s badgering this poor girl.”

Herndon shook his head. “They don’t call it cross-examination because it’s supposed to be fun.
You may continue, Mr. Kincaid.”

“It would be fair to assume that anyone engaged in an intimate encounter might speak slowly
and dramatically, don’t you think?”

“Well . . .”

“And you said you could barely hear the voices. The fact is, you couldn’t positively identify
either of the two people involved. Not then and not now.”

“But I’m sure it was Senator Glancy and that poor girl. Why do you think I followed him in the
first place?”

“Good question. Why did you?”

“Because I knew Veronica Cooper was in the building.”

Now Ben was confused. “I thought you said—”

“I said Senator Glancy told me she hadn’t come in that day. But he was lying. I’d asked the
front desk clerk about her when I entered the building and he told me she was there. Well, that’s
no surprise—we all know she was there now. But why would Senator Glancy lie about it? Unless
maybe he was planning to meet her in secret.”

“Move to strike,” Ben said. “Supposition without foundation.”

Herndon inhaled heavily, then said, “Sustained.” Which was surely his way of saying that
although Ben was technically correct, he couldn’t see that it made much difference.

“You use the word
lie
in pretty cavalier fashion, ma’am. Is it possible that Senator
Glancy didn’t know she was in the building? That she didn’t report in to his office?” That was
what Glancy had told Ben.

“Then why would she come?” Shandy asked, exasperated. “She couldn’t work for him if he didn’t
know she was there.” Her voice dropped a notch. “And she couldn’t blackmail him or have sex with
him, either.”

“Your honor!” Ben protested, but the judge was already on it.

“Miss Craig, you know what is and is not permitted on the witness stand. You will confine your
testimony to what you have seen and heard.”

“Yes, your honor.”

“I won’t tolerate any more such remarks, particularly not with testimony of this importance.
Do that again and I’ll have you removed from the courtroom.”

“Yes, your honor. Sorry.”

Herndon leaned back, obviously still angry. But there wasn’t much he could do to such a
contrite witness. “The jury will disregard the witness’s last statement. You may proceed, Mr.
Kincaid.”

Ben tried to salvage what little he could. “You keep saying you ‘followed’ Senator Glancy. But
that isn’t really accurate, is it?”

“I don’t understand.”

“Well, you said yourself that you didn’t see him leave. You only guessed what door he exited
through. You can’t ‘follow’ someone if you don’t actually know where they are.”

“I thought I knew. And I proved I was right when I found him.”

“Found
someone
,” Ben insisted, but even to himself he was sounding increasingly
desperate. “All you can say for sure is that Senator Glancy left and you found someone in his
hideaway. If he in fact just went to the men’s room, you weren’t
following
anyone,
right? You
discovered
someone.”

“I don’t think that’s what happened,” she said sullenly.

Ben decided to let it drop. He’d made his point, and she was never going to agree with him.
“Miss Craig, why didn’t you say anything about this when it happened?”

“I did.”

Ben did a double take. “Miss Craig, I’ve probably seen you almost every day for the last five
months, and you never once—”

“I’m not talking about you. Why would I tell you? You work for—” She looked at Senator Glancy
with such contempt it was palpable. “—him. I went to the police.”

Ben turned slowly toward Padolino. “You told the police all this? Months ago?”

“Yes,” she said.

“But you continued to work for Senator Glancy.”

“They asked me to. Just in case I might see or hear something incriminating.”

“You were—you—” He looked back at Christina, searching for help. He’d never encountered
anything like this in his entire career. “You were an undercover mole in the senator’s
office?”

“If you want to put it that way.”

Ben looked at her harshly. “Miss Craig, did the police—or anyone in the prosecutor’s
office—instruct you to withhold what you knew from me?”

“Absolutely not. They said I didn’t have to volunteer anything. But they told me that if you
asked, I had to tell what I knew.” She paused, her eyebrows rising. “As it turned out, you never
asked. Neither you nor your partner nor any other member of the defense team asked if I knew
anything about Senator Glancy’s relationship with Veronica Cooper.”

And why would we? Shandy had just started work the day of the murder. Padolino had calculated
this perfectly.

“For that matter,” Shandy continued, “I was told not to eavesdrop on any conversations between
Senator Glancy and his lawyers, and that if I did by chance overhear any communications between
them, I was not to repeat the information to the police.”

So Padolino had covered his ass perfectly. Small wonder he always knew what Ben was doing,
that he never made any decent plea offers. He had a mole in Glancy’s camp the whole time.

“Let me ask you one more thing, Miss Craig. Do you have a conscience?”

Padolino rose. “Your honor, please.”

Shandy held up her hands. “No, let me answer that. I don’t mind. Mr. Kincaid, helping the
police capture a murderer does not in any way offend my conscience.”

“Move to strike,” Ben shot back. “You don’t know—”

“Sure, I’ve had to pretend to be Senator Glancy’s friend. I’ve had to put up with him staring
at my boobs when he thinks I’m not looking, dropping things on the floor and asking me to pick
them up, asking me to adjust his tie so he can press up against me, finding accidental excuses to
paw me one place or another. But I put up with it—waiting for this moment. The moment when I
could help put away the man who killed Veronica Cooper.”

There was more cross-examination after that, more redirect, lots of shouting, many arguments
before the judge, and several carefully drafted instructions to the jury on exactly what they
could and could not consider as evidence. Ben filed a motion to suppress based on the
prosecution’s withholding of information, but given that he’d had complete access to Shandy
during the pretrial period—more than Padolino, in fact—he knew it wouldn’t fly. In the end, none
of it mattered, because the true bellwether of a trial was written on the faces of the jurors—and
when he looked into their eyes he could see exactly what they thought. They thought Todd Glancy
was a murderer, and they were ready and willing to give him the punishment he deserved. Barring
an unforeseen miracle, this case was over and Glancy was going to death row.

“You don’t understand. I have to talk to her!”

Loving and Daily stood outside the Bethesda ICU, as they had been for the last twenty minutes,
arguing with Dr. Aljuwani.

“I understand your pain,” the doctor answered, “but I believe it is you who does not
understand the situation.”

“You said she was awake.”

“Her eyes are open, yes, and she is stable. But she has not spoken or in any way indicated
that she is aware of her surroundings. She is breathing through a respirator. She cannot talk and
you cannot talk to her. She would not understand what you were saying.”

“I don’t care about that. I just—” His voice choked. Tears began to form in his eyes. “Please.
I need to see my little girl. Just—just to know that she’s safe. I’ve been looking for her,
waiting for this, wanting it, for so long.
Please
.”

Aljuwani blew out his cheeks. “You will not attempt to question her? Not even talk to
her?”

“No. Not if you say I shouldn’t.”

The doctor was obviously conflicted. But Loving could also see a great deal of kindness and
sympathy in his eyes. “Very well. But only for five minutes. And only you. I will not have a
crowd in there.”

“Understood.” Daily turned to Loving. “See you in five?”

“I’ll be here. Give Amber my best.”

Daily entered the private room in the ICU alone, as the doctor had instructed. No one else was
present, not even an attending nurse.

“Amber?”

Her eyes were open, as the doctor had said, but there was no light in them, no indication that
she heard him.

“Amber?” he repeated, but still there was no sign of recognition, no indication of
consciousness.

He walked to the side of her bed. “Good.” He switched off the respirator unit, then removed
the plastic cup from her mouth. Almost immediately, her breathing became strained, irregular. Her
body heaved. She gasped for air.

“And just in case that isn’t fast enough . . .”

He pulled the pillow out from under her head and shoved it down on her face. She began to
convulse, to thrash back and forth on the bed. Her arms flailed and grasped at the air, as if
some subconscious spirit was struggling to get free. But he held the pillow down tight. And less
than a minute later, the thrashing stopped. The heart monitor flatlined.

“Guess you weren’t immortal after all,” he said, smiling to himself. He put the pillow back
where it had been under her head, then started quietly for the door. “Farewell, my princess of
the night. Sweet dreams.”

She 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.”