Conspiracy (24 page)

 

Dear Taylor:

I am taking the precaution of writing this note because I have learned some incredible things this evening. Now I have a premonition that because of what / know, I may never make it out of Japan to complete my investigation.

As I continued to do research about Yahiro Sato after my recent series, I learned something startling, which I haven't written in an article because I needed confirmation and I wanted to understand it better. What I learned is that Sato has taken an enormous interest in the American presidential election. He established, early last summer, a huge fact-gathering team to assemble information about all the candidates: Webster, Boyd, Brill, and Crane. Not merely their statements about Asia and Japan, but everything about their lives.

I recognize that important foreign leaders follow American elections to a considerable extent, but Sato's attention seemed excessive. So I kept digging. I reached a breakthrough a few days ago when I was studying the tape from a recent television interview of Sato. In it he expressed the opinion, without any doubt, that the man in the White House after January twentieth will support his program to rearm Japan. Knowing where Senator Boyd stands on this issue, I suspected that Sato was somehow involved in manipulating the American election. I have learned that he made a twenty-four-hour trip to Buenos Aires on August 28, after Boyd was nominated. He stayed at the Alvear Palace. My guess is that he went there to meet an American and enlist that person's help in somehow eliminating Senator Boyd from the campaign. That would be consistent with Sato's style.

To confirm all of this, which involved a great deal of speculation on my part, I had dinner this evening with General Toshio Ozawa, who is close with Sato. After far too much to drink, Ozawa confirmed my suspicion that Sato has some scheme for ensuring that Senator Boyd will not be the next president. Ozawa didn't tell me whom Sato met with in Buenos Aires, although he said it was an American man who flew down to Buenos Aires from Washington for the August 28 meeting. He may not know the man's name himself. Nice, isn't it?

 

She was astounded by what she was reading. What American could be mixed up with Sato in this way? It didn't make sense. She continued reading:

 

Anyhow, my plan is to fly to Buenos Aires tomorrow, do some digging, and learn the name of the American, hopefully from records at the Alvear Palace.

Now it's very late, and I'm very tired. That's all I can remember of our conversation.

As / write this, I hope to God that you never read it. That I can lay it all out in an article in the Times, which I intend to write in Argentina as soon as I have the name of the American. I'm close, but not quite there. If you do read this, it means something happened to me. You'll know what to do with this information.

Beyond Sato and all of this shit, I want you to know I really did love you. For me, it wasn't just a fling. You 're the best, Taylor. Take care of yourself and find happiness. Alex.

 

The letter dropped out of Taylor's hands and onto the floor. Tears welled up in her eyes as she remembered the evening she had been on the back of that motorcycle with him. She had been pleasantly high from the Kirin they had drunk with wonderful sushi at a dive Alex had found in an out-of-the-way neighborhood. She was clutching him around the waist as they roared across nearly deserted Tokyo streets in the wee hours of the morning.

Sato was responsible for his death. She was certain of it. She put the letter in a drawer of her desk, burying it under some papers. She had to figure out what this all meant. An image of C. J. Cady popped into her head. She should talk to him. Even if he'd been on the wrong side, he'd be willing to help her now.

* * *

Taylor fell in step with the crowd, walking into the dimly lit National Cathedral, built on the highest point in the District of Columbia. The massive gothic structure, laid out in the form of a cross, had been designed to match the great cathedrals of the Old World, with its pointed arches and vaulted ceiling shooting up toward the heavens.

Dressed in somber black suits and dresses, Senator Boyd's colleagues from Congress, influential political leaders, campaign workers, staff from his Senate office, family, and Washington friends were in attendance. Scores of people, his oldest friends, had flown in from Napa Valley. Outside, hundreds of D.C. police manned the barricades to keep out the press, photographers, and gawkers.

As Taylor sat down, the organ was playing "Amazing Grace," which Sally had said was her husband's favorite. To Taylor it grated like chalk on a blackboard. The senator had told her several times how much he hated that song.

Taylor wasn't surprised that Sally had decided on a memorial service at the prestigious cathedral, to be followed by a private burial for family at Arlington National Cemetery. As a much-decorated air force pilot in Vietnam, the senator was entitled to that, regardless of the ignominy of his end.

Before the start of the ceremony, Taylor joined other mourners filing by the closed coffin. Most walked with heads bowed in respect. Very few were crying. Boyd had been an ambitious man, and in his drive toward the world's highest office, he had touched their lives, helped advance their careers, and expanded their horizons, but there were few whom he befriended. Like so many of his congressional colleagues passing by that coffin, Taylor thought, for Boyd friendship was a commodity for which there was little time in the long days consumed by the Washington power game and the demands of public office. Friendship existed only outside of the beltway.

Glints of sunlight shone through the ornate stained-glass windows, ricocheting off the rich carvings on the gray stone walls. Looking for Sally, Taylor found her standing in the front row flanked on each side by her sons. The face behind the black veil was expressionless. Both young men were weeping softly. There were no tears on Sally's face. Taylor didn't know what to say to her.

"I'm sorry, Sally. So sorry," she blurted out.

When Sally didn't respond, didn't even acknowledge her presence, Taylor moved on. Against the wall, under a stained-glass window, Taylor saw Governor Crane standing alone, looking exhausted and deep in thought. According to morning news accounts, the Democratic National Committee had struggled through a rancorous twelve-hour marathon session, in which Brill supporters mounted a major effort to seize the nomination. Finally, at about six-thirty in the morning, amid the internecine warfare, the committee had made a decision. The Democratic ticket would be Crane for president and Dale Carlton, the governor of Texas, for vice president. This result generated very little initial public enthusiasm. NBC telephone polls concluded that Crane would win twenty percent of the votes, carrying only the District of Columbia, Massachusetts, and perhaps the candidates' home states of Pennsylvania and Texas.

Wes Young was standing ten feet away, with the ubiquitous earphone of his trade in clear view along with the protruding outline of the revolver in his shoulder holster. He nodded to Taylor.

The bishop began speaking: "Dearly assembled, we have come to pay our last respects to Charles Boyd, who for much of his life was a plowman, laboring literally in the vineyards of the Lord—"

Three rows in front of Taylor, someone's cell phone rang.

The bishop stopped midsentence as myriad irate people looked in that direction. Hurriedly the self-important power broker turned it off.

The eulogy resumed. "While many of us came to know Charles in Washington, it was his work in the lush green fields of Napa Valley that Charles, the plowman, best loved. He..."

Taylor didn't need to listen. She had her own memories of "Charles the plowman," the debonair figure who had approached her in a dusty parking lot in Napa, taken her to lunch, and given her a tour of his vineyards that magnificent spring day so long ago. She could recall every detail of that day as if it were yesterday. She was sitting next to him in the front of his red Lamborghini. The top was down. The wind was whipping through her hair.

As she remembered, tears rolled freely down her cheeks. Kendrick reached into his pocket and handed her a handkerchief, which she clutched tightly, closing her eyes while her whole body shook with grief.

"Charles left a comfortable business in order to perform public service," the bishop said. "When we judge a man's life, we must judge all of the days of his life. When we look at Charles Boyd, we see the enormous good he has done for this country and for the world. That's what we must remember."

"All of us are flesh and blood. All created in the image of the Lord. No man, beginning with Adam, has ever been perfect. Perfection belongs only to our Lord."

Implicit in the bishop's words, Taylor realized, was the implication that the senator had committed a crime, and that was why he had killed himself.

She wanted to stand up and scream, "He was innocent. He didn't do anything wrong." But she kept her seat.

* * *

After the ceremony, Taylor went back to the law firm. She had to see Harrison. She had to convince him that she was right that the senator had been murdered as a part of a conspiracy. She'd tell him about Alex's letter. Once she got Harrison on board, he would help her develop a plan for proving it. He was so smart and well connected. He always had ideas for everything. She just had to persuade him to work with her.

She was surprised to find Harrison's suite at the law firm deserted. Not only was his office empty, but Doris wasn't at her desk.

Taylor got the eighth-floor receptionist on the phone. "Where's Philip Harrison?"

"He left this morning on a business trip. I'm sure Doris knows where he went, but he didn't tell us. About all I know is that he was going out of the country. I imagine he's on an airplane right now."

"Doris isn't here either."

"Oh, yeah, I forgot. She took the rest of the day off."

Feeling alone, uncertain what to do, Taylor stumbled in a fog back to her own office. The whole world came sharply into focus with a start when she saw two policemen in dark gray uniforms standing next to the desk of her secretary, who had a contentious look on her face.

"What's going on, Kathy?" Taylor asked.

"These two state troopers from Mississippi said they had to talk to you right away, but I wouldn't bother you at home. You're entitled to a day of mourning. I told them I didn't know when you'd be in. They could just come back tomorrow. If they didn't like that, they could go pound sand."

"Thanks, Kathy. But I think I can deal with them. It can't be any worse than everything else that's happened today."

Taylor turned to the two state troopers, who were holding their bubble-top hats in their hands, fiddling nervously with them. "You two looking for me?"

"Yes, ma'am," a heavy set man in his mid-twenties with a cherubic face and carrot-red hair answered in a Southern accent. "If you're Taylor Ferrari."

She nodded.

His tall, thin partner, intense-looking with bushy brown eyebrows, produced a Mississippi State Police ID with his picture. The heavyset trooper followed suit.

"We'd better go into my office to talk," said Taylor. Kicking the door shut, she directed them to chairs in front of her desk. "What can I help you gentlemen with?"

The heavyset one was the spokesman. "Well, we're sure sorry to bother you right now, but we've got a serious matter that couldn't wait."

His tone sounded ominous, putting Taylor on her guard. "You've got my attention. Sergeant Billings."

"Were you in the town of Hattiesburg, Mississippi, on May twelfth of this year?"

"I was in Hattiesburg at about that time." Taylor was trying to remember the exact dates of the trial in the power case. She was tired. Her mind refused to give her more than early May for the trip to Mississippi, and the fact that it had been very hot. She picked up the calendar on her desk and flipped back to May. "I was there from the fifth to the fourteenth of May."

"Miss Ferrari," Sergeant Billings said politely, "I've got a warrant here for your arrest."

Taylor leaned forward in her chair. "You've got what?"

"I'm sorry, Miss Ferrari—really, I am—but the sheriff of Forrest County has sworn out a warrant for your arrest. Gus here 'n' me were sent on up to serve it on you and to bring you back."

"And what in God's name does the sheriff of Forrest County think I did?"

"Hit and run." Billings looked down at the document he was holding. In a somber voice he began reading: " 'At about ten o'clock p.m. on the night of May twelfth, Taylor Ferrari was driving a blue Toyota Camry that struck and killed a ten-year-old girl named Sue Ellen Westin.'"

Taylor's mouth opened in dismay. "Is this somebody's idea of a stupid prank?"

"No, ma'am. I'm awfully sorry."

Her eyes moved from one of the troopers to the other. They were squirming in their chairs.

"Give me that warrant. I want to see your IDs again." Taylor examined the documents carefully. They all seemed genuine. The warrant cited a blue Toyota Camry, which was what she had rented for the trial. But she had never driven at night. She was positive of that fact. She had worked every single night in her bed-and-breakfast. Besides, she was reluctant to drive at night in a part of the country that was foreign to her, particularly because emotions in the community were running high on the issue of expanding the power plant.

There had to be some mistake. Her blue Toyota had been confused with another car of that type. She studied the Mississippi license plate number shown on the warrant—ZKA 372. That had to be the answer. Someone had mistaken another blue Toyota with the license plate ZKA 372 with the car she had rented. She knew how she could easily establish her innocence.

She buzzed Kathy. "Please bring all of my expense reports from the Mississippi trip in May, and the backup, particularly the car rental agreement with Hertz."

"These things sometimes happen," Sergeant Billings said. "The country roads are dark at night. Kids walk on the edge of the highway. People don't realize when they've hit something."