No Safe Place (16 page)

“Maybe he
was
,” Peter Lake had told Clayton. “What we look for is any face that’s not part of the crowd experience—serious while everyone around him is cheering, watching us instead of the candidate. Review those films, and Hinckley’s face is just
different
from anyone else. You don’t even have to know who he is.”

Behind the speakers’ platform, Clayton saw the lead car
of the motorcade coming to a stop. He looked at the press platform and, for the first time, spotted Lara Costello, with her cameraman. Then Kerry Kilcannon stepped from the black Lincoln, flanked by Secret Service agents, and headed for the platform.

The crowd began to cheer.

“Kerry, Kerry, Kerry …”

Standing beside Clayton, Peter Lake was intent, unsmiling. All at once, Clayton thought how drained Peter and his agents must feel at night—they were as taut as the assassin they were watching for. “You always wonder,” Peter had told him over a drink, “which time it will be.”

Clayton placed a hand on Peter’s shoulder. “Six more days,” he said.

Edgy, Lara Costello waited for Kerry to appear.

Next to her, Lee McAlpine was showing Nate a love letter from an Ethiopian security guard who had seen her once on C-SPAN. “Dear Genius Woman,” the letter began. What followed was a tortured poem describing the despair of living in Ethiopia—the absence of food, of opportunity, of the hope of a better life—and an offer to become Lee’s “lover and guard dog.” Lee found this quite amusing; Lara had been to Ethiopia and knew that what the poem described was true.

Lee turned to her. “C-SPAN,” she said. “Amazing. You must get letters like this all the time.”

That she had seen more than Lee, Lara reminded herself, did not make her Mother Teresa. “From Ethiopia?” she answered. “Some. But most of them just want food. And they don’t write nearly as well.”

Lee gave her a brief quizzical look, then put the letter in the pocket of her jeans.

Scanning the crowd, Lara distracted herself by noting details she might use: that an angry-looking pro-life woman was holding a sign which read “Abort Kerry Kilcannon”; that the crowd was young and multiracial; that, knowing they had an attractive candidate, the Kilcannon signs used Kerry’s picture. Then she spotted a young black man with a hand-lettered “KFK” sign. At once, she remembered Kerry on the beach
during that last weekend, smiling when she asked him why he refused to use his initials.

“Change one letter,” he had told her, “and I’m someone in a white hood. Or maybe a bucket of fried chicken.”

“Or a Kennedy,” she answered.

Kerry had stopped smiling. “I’m a policeman’s son from Newark. All I’ve got in common with the Kennedys is a murdered brother.” He stuck his hands in the pockets of his wind-breaker and stared out at Nantucket Sound, adding softly, “I hate the way people romanticize death. One look at the back of Jamie’s head …”

They never spoke of it again. Perhaps, Lara thought, if she had known how little time was left …

“Kerry, Kerry, Kerry …, ”
the crowd began chanting.

Suddenly he was on the platform, perhaps a hundred feet away, a slim figure in shirtsleeves, his tie unknotted.

Lara felt the briefest pulse, the tightness of a caught breath. She could not see his face well. At this distance, he was all energy and movement, sending a current through the crowd. The visuals were good, Lara thought: waiting on the platform were a black congresswoman from South Central and several advocates for battered women.

Kerry paused, talking with each of them, and then walked to the podium. Perhaps, Lara thought, she only imagined that Kerry waited until he saw her, or that this moment—Kerry suddenly quite still—lasted more than a few seconds. But in that brief time she experienced two years’ worth of regret, loss, the guilt that never quite left her. Then she shut it down, like a curtain drawing closed, and Kerry began to speak.

A few minutes into his speech, Kerry noticed them—a handful of women scattered among the cheering volunteers. Their faces were tense, and they did not join in the applause. Kerry had a preternatural sense of crowds; had it not been for the impact of seeing Lara, he would have spotted them at once.

Now, as he spoke, they edged closer to one another.

“It is not just battered women who suffer.” Kerry paused, scanning the faces before him. “The children who witness the brutality of a father to a mother are scarred by that experience forever; by the helplessness they feel, by the anger it breeds, by
the prospect—borne out by bitter experience—that many of those who witness abuse as children will practice abuse as adults.”

The crowd was quiet now. Kerry saw an Asian woman with tears on her face and wondered what emotion he had touched, what experience of pain had come to the surface. But that group of women still watched him intently, seeming detached from the excitement surrounding them.

“Should children be punished,” Kerry asked, “because their father is abusive and their mother has no skills? Should
women
be abandoned because, after a good-faith effort, the one way to protect themselves is to leave?

“I think this country is better than that …”

Suddenly forming a line, the women held their banner aloft for the TV cameras.

“Abortion Is a Right,” the banner read, “Not a Favor.”

The women began a chant—their voices ragged but audible enough for the press to hear.

“We will not apologize,”
they called out.
“We will not apologize.”

Watching from the bleachers, Nate Cutler felt the pieces fall into place: the memo in his pocket; Mason’s speech in Boston; the demonstrators now.

Next to him, Lara Costello seemed taut. “Who
are
they?” she asked.

“Anthony’s Legions, I expect—militant pro-choicers. Kil-cannon’s advance team fucked up somehow, and now
this
is what gets on the news.”

When he turned to her, Lara was quite pale.

Lara felt Nate watching her.

“I’m not asking you to apologize,” Kerry told the women. “Neither is anyone here.”

Quickly, a trim woman with glasses and long gray hair called out to Kerry, “We want to be heard.”

Kerry hesitated, then nodded. “Come on up.”

“Risky,” Nate murmured.

Lara shook her head. “He can’t blow them off—not after
Boston.” All around them, the television Minicams followed the woman’s progress to the speakers’ platform.

Kerry gestured toward the podium. Nodding curtly, the woman stepped to the microphone. Amplified by the PA system, her voice was high, nervous.

“On behalf of pro-choice women,” she began, “we want answers to our questions.

“You’ve said a fetus is a life. Does it have legal rights? Do you believe that a woman who has an abortion is, effectively, a murderer?”

Tense, Lara watched Kerry’s face. But at this distance, all that she could see was how intently he seemed to listen.

The woman turned to him. “You also say, Senator Kil-cannon, that
you’re
pro-choice. Does that mean you believe a woman has an absolute right to choose?

“Do you support the right to a late-term abortion?

“Do you support the use of the abortion pill RU-486, to protect women from potential violence like at the Boston clinic?

“Do your personal and religious beliefs mean that a Kil-cannon presidency would be a risk to pro-choice women?”

Abruptly, she faced Kerry. “In the last two years, the right to choose has been eroded in Congress and in the courts. Your party is
our
only protection. The Vice President’s position is clear. We feel threatened by your recent statements on choice, and we need to know just who you really are.”

The questions were straightforward, each a perfect sound bite. For a moment, Lara shut her eyes.

“My turn?” Kerry asked politely, and walked to the podium. The crowd was silent, waiting.

“First,” he said crisply, “I support the right to choose.

“I support the use of RU-486.

“I support late-term abortion to protect the life or physical health of the mother.

“My personal and religious beliefs are just that—I don’t propose to force them on anyone, let alone make women and their doctors outlaws. Only a woman can make this difficult judgment, based on her
own
life and her
own
beliefs.”

Kerry turned to the woman. “Those positions are as clear as I
can make them. They’re the same as Dick Mason’s, or any of
the thousands of politicians in this country who call themselves ‘pro-choice.’

“And,” he added, “they are absolutely devoid of moral content or
any
thought too complicated to fit onto a bumper sticker.”

“Jesus,” Nate said. “He was almost out of this.” But those listening seemed rapt; Lara felt herself stand straighter.

Kerry faced the crowd. “In an environment where pro-life fanatics use harassment and even violence, to concede how complex abortion is may seem like a step backward. I sympathize with those fears. But having an abortion is the most wrenching decision some women will ever have to make, and no ‘position’
I
take will ever change that.

“Why are so many people so uncomfortable with so-called partial-birth abortion? Because the issue, however cynically it’s used, makes it so painfully clear that an abortion is not just another operation and that the words we use to avoid that truth—like ‘procedure’ and ‘choice’—beg the difficult questions each woman must face alone.”

His voice grew soft. “Any parent who has ever seen a sono-gram, or listened to the heartbeat of an unborn baby, or thanked God for the doctor who saved their premature child, knows that.”

“Oh, Kerry,”
Lara said under her breath. The crowd was utterly silent.

“I didn’t come here to talk about abortion. I wish it weren’t an issue. It’s not the proper business of a senator—or a President—to force pregnant women to have children.” Once more, Kerry turned to the woman. “Your rights are safe with me. You needn’t apologize for anything. But
I
refuse to apologize for believing what I believe.”

For a long moment, there was silence. And then the applause started, slowly building—a solemn sound, different than cheers. To Lara, it was the sound of respect.

Beside her, Nate was quiet.

Checking his watch, Nate saw that it was nearly six o’clock.

As the crowd drifted away, the print reporters hurried to the press filing area, a canvas tent on the knoll overlooking the plaza. But Nate had no deadline; his responsibilities were to write a weekly article and to accumulate materials for
News-world
’s special “Campaign 2000” issue, covering the early primaries to the November general election.

Today’s incident would be part of that, he was certain. But the deeper story could become the campaign’s central drama, rich in character, irony, and, to Nate, something akin to tragedy. Though part of Nate recoiled, he could imagine that, for the rest of his life, he would be known as the reporter who had brought down Kerry Kilcannon.

On the field near the press tent, he spotted Lara.

She was setting up for a shoot. At a distance, she seemed to be practicing her lines as she paced, waiting for her cue. He could not resist watching.

Crossing the field, he stood to one side.

Lara stared at the ground, oblivious to anything but the cameraman, the instructions coming through her earpiece, her own thoughts. “When I say ‘private trauma,’” she said through her microphone, “that’s your cue to roll the tape.”

She cocked her head, as if listening. “All right,” she answered, and faced the camera.

A moment passed. “Speaking in Los Angeles,” Lara began, “Kerry Kilcannon capped a day devoted to issues targeting female voters—education, day care, support for battered women. But his appearance outside a women’s shelter was interrupted by pro-choice militants, demanding that he clarify
his recent
statement that a fetus is a ‘life.’ His response was to suggest that abortion is a public right but—at least for some women—a private trauma …”

Abruptly, Lara stopped. Nate realized that the technicians in the NBC sound truck were running the tape. Listening, Lara was intent, motionless. Then she raised her eyes to the camera.

“This was
not
the speech,” Lara continued, “that Kerry Kil-cannon had planned. In the California primary, the women’s vote is critical, and the campaign had hoped to avoid further problems on the abortion issue.

“Senator Kilcannon
did
strongly affirm his pro-choice stance. But by implying that those views begged deeper moral questions, he may have said more than he needed to. The question is whether voters will remember his public position or his personal qualms—and how they will feel about either.

“Lara Costello, NBC News, with the Kilcannon campaign in Los Angeles.”

Lara was still for a moment. When she turned to him, Nate realized that she had been aware of him all along. Her gaze was level, cool.

“Well?” she asked.

At once, Nate felt uncomfortable. “Kilcannon went too far.”

Something changed in her eyes; her answer was at once soft and sardonic. “I guess that’s his fatal flaw, isn’t it.”

Nate nodded. “I’ll see you at the hotel,” he said, and went to call his editor.

In the stairwell of the building’s emergency exit, Nate spoke into his cellular phone, hoping no one would overhear. “Did you get to the counselor?” he asked. “We did.” Jane Booth sounded wired. “Her name is Nancy Philips. She confirmed that Costello was a patient, that Costello met with her in confidence, that Costello talked about the affair with Kerry Kilcannon.

“According to Philips, Costello was devastated.” “Yeah,” Nate said softly. “That’s pretty clear from the notes.” “The problem is that Philips won’t talk on the record. What I get from Sheila Kahn is that Philips feels almost as guilty about what she’s doing now as about what she
used
to do.”

“Why shouldn’t she?” Nate asked. “I mean, violating Lara’s
right to privacy is one thing. But ruining her life should give this lady at least a little pause. Even in
these
tawdry times.”