The Next President (28 page)

When he opened the door, he saw Jenny. She’d brought another breakfast, but she immediately saw that something was wrong.

“What is it?” she asked.

J. D. replied, “A family emergency. Can you give me a ride to the airport?”

She could and did. The Sunday morning traffic was light and when J. D. told her what had happened, Jenny took her eyes off the road to look at him.

“Your son was arrested for murder?”

“Yes,” he confirmed.

“What happened?”

“I have very few details. My mother just called and I know only two things for sure: my son is in a hospital room under police guard, and he wouldn’t kill anyone.”

“Who died?”

“A man named Ivar McCray.”

“Why would the police think your son killed him?”

J. D. sketched a quick outline of the hostilities between the Cades and the McCrays.

“Your family is party to a blood feud?”

“I thought it was history but it seems someone is trying to stir the kettle again.”

Five minutes later they arrived at the airport.

“I hope everything works out for your son,” Jenny told J. D.” sympathizing with the tension she saw in his face.

He nodded. Then he said, “I’m really sorry about leaving you in the lurch.

About speaking for the senator, I mean. Please give him my regrets.”

“He’ll understand. He left the campaign for a family emergency himself, remember?”

J. D. took Jenny’s hand.

“I like to finish the things I start.”

“Me too.”

“I understand someone in my position wouldn’t reflect well on the campaign.

But if you ever need me to write another check, just let me know.”

J. D. kissed Jenny.

“And when I get back, after the campaign if not sooner, I still want to see you.”

“I’d like that, too.” She repaid J. D.‘s kiss with one of her own.

He stepped out of the car, grabbed his suitcase and Pickpocket’s laptop from the backseat, and was gone with a wave.

Jenny watched him go. A son arrested for murder? A blood feud? J. D. Cade had been a hard man to pin down from the start and now she was

even less certain of who he was. But after last night she definitely wanted to see him again. And sooner rather than later.

The FBI let DeVito sleep for all of three hours before they woke him for a second round of questioning. His answers were the same as the first time through. He’d been working late, using Ms. Crenshaw’s office so he could stretch out. He’d knocked over a glass of water and just as he bent over to pick it up, bang-boom. Somebody was shooting at him. He’d scuttled into a corner, and as soon as he thought it was safe, he called for help.

Was the file on J. D. Cade of any significance? the FBI wanted to know.

“No, it’s just a background check on someone who’s joined the campaign.

I was closing out the file, in fact. You’re welcome to look; it all seems pretty harmless to me.”

The FBI, which bore the burden of investigating the attempt on Del Rawley’s life, now had the added responsibility of investigating the attempt on DeVito life. DeVito understood that they had their job to do and he told them what he knew. But there was no love lost between the FBI and the Secret Service just then. Each felt the other had fucked up royally at its primary function. The Secret Service had failed to stop the assassination attempt on Orpheus, and the FBI had been unable to find the assassin ever since.

Now the Secret Service faced the added embarrassment of almost having one of its own agents assassinated. The situation didn’t reflect well on anybody or make for a close working relationship. So while DeVito told his counterparts at the bureau everything he knew, he didn’t tell them everything he suspected.

What he’d come to suspect—to the point where he’d bet the pension he still hoped to get—was that Cade was linked to Roth and Danby by something more than an unfounded suspicion of the former by the latter. If nothing else, DeVito had ticked off all three men recently, and whoever had tried to shoot him had to be somebody he’d pissed off very badly.

Then there was the fact that he’d felt something was wrong with Cade, Roth, and Danby right from the start. All of them, each of them. That was another thing they had in common.

He’d been tempted to sic the FBI on Roth and Danby. He couldn’t do it, though. There were tribal loyalties to be observed. The FBI was Justice Department;

the Secret Service was Treasury. If you fouled your own nest, DeVito thought, then it was your job to clean it up.

Looking at it that way, DeVito decided his best bet was to keep going

after Cade. Cade might have Jenny Crenshaw in his corner but he had no official standing. He’d be the one who could make the least trouble for DeVito

he’d be the one who was the most vulnerable.

That strategy fit perfectly with the only good thing that had happened to DeVito all morning. He’d captured the thought that had eluded him in the moment before he’d almost died: Check Cade’s recent past—the last few weeks, months, maybe a year—to see if something unusual prompted his sudden interest in presidential politics. The man’s overall history might look squeaky clean but maybe something kinky had cropped up lately.

Something that had landed him smack in the middle of the Rawley campaign.

Special Agent Charlie Clarke walked into the interview room at the federal building where the FBI had been talking to DeVito Clarke had escorted him there for the beginning of the session and then gone to inform Orpheus of what had happened.

“Come on, DeVito you’re free,” the agent in charge said.

“I went bail for you.”

“You’re a card, Charlie.”

Despite the lame humor, DeVito was glad to see one of his own. On the drive back to the Century Plaza, Clarke asked DeVito how he was feeling.

“Fine, I’m fine.”

“You see a doctor yet?”

“What for? I didn’t even get nicked.”

“How about your general state of mind, if nothing else?”

“My mind’s clear as a bell.”

“Yeah?” Clarke looked him over closely, then he said, “Well, you won’t have to worry about Cade anymore.”

Surprise painted a clown mask on DeVito face.

“Why not?”

“He’s left the campaign.”

“Why?”

“Family emergency. Jenny Crenshaw just told me his son was arrested and charged with a murder in southern Illinois. Cade flew there this morning to be with him.”

Bingo, DeVito thought. Something big—and bad—had just happened to Cade.

Clarke looked at him strangely, “You’re smiling, DeVito A kid getting charged with murder strike you as funny?”

“You know, Charlie, maybe I could use a day or two off.”

“Take whatever time you need. Just don’t do anything either of us will regret.”

DeVito swore he wouldn’t but Clarke saw the gleam in those dark Sicilian eyes. DeVito had some kind of plan. For the moment, Clarke was just as glad he didn’t know what it was.

He had a million things to do, and when he got back to his command post he was given an urgent message to call Ted Reineke, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s local office. Reineke told him he’d just had a call from the LAPD. The two agencies were going to stage a raid off an anonymous tip the cops had received moments ago about the sighting of a man with what had been described as a “sniper kind of rifle.” If Charlie was interested, he could get in on it.

The raid took place at an apartment complex for white-collar transients in Marina Del Rey. The apartments were month-to-month furnished rentals for businesspeople arriving in L.A. with new jobs but no permanent place to live. The reputation of the place said it was filled with exciting young professionals who carried on like libertines because they were all away from home and everybody understood that no commitment lasted longer than a weekend. In other words, faces were soon forgotten, and intentionally so.

The combined forces of the LAPD, the FBI, and the Secret Service took three hours to prepare for their strike. During that time, they ascertained that the tenant in their target apartment had obtained his digs under a false identity.

They also evacuated the rest of the complex and had to call for more cops to keep the titillated residents from creeping back for a better look at the action.

When the media inevitably arrived, a lie was blandly passed out that the object of official attention was the head of a huge counterfeiting operation.

Which explained the federal presence.

The actual assault on the apartment was loud but in no way life threatening. Nobody was home. None of the law-enforcement types thought it was wasted effort, however.

Inside the premises they found a McLellan M-100 rifle.

)J D. Cade returned home for the first time in thirty-three years.

He took a taxi directly to University Hospital, asked a blue-haired lady behind the information desk for his son’s room number, and was striding toward the elevators when someone called his name.

“Mr. Cade?”

J. D. stopped and saw he’d been addressed by a muscular young man whom J. D. was sure he’d never met before… but somehow looked familiar.

The man extended his hand and J. D. cautiously took it.

“You are J. D. Cade, aren’t you, sir?”

“Yes.”

“I recognized you the moment I saw you walking toward me. You couldn’t be anybody but Evan’s daddy. I’m a friend of your son.”

“What’s your name?” J. D. asked.

“Blair McCray.”

J. D. released Blair’s hand and made sure he kept his expression neutral, but there was something about this young man that made J. D. peer at him closely.

“I tried to visit with Evan just now, Mr. Cade, but there was a lot of your kin up there and I thought I’d better come back later. I already told Evan I think he’s being set up, but if you’d let him know that I mean to prove it, I’d appreciate it.”

J. D. nodded and expressed his thanks. He still couldn’t figure out who Blair McCray reminded him of.

Blair recognized J. D.‘s scrutiny and answered his unspoken question.

“If I look familiar, maybe it’s because I heard that one time you had a run-in with my daddy. Alvy McCray.”

“Yes, I did,” J. D. admitted impassively.

He wondered if the violence would ever really end. Then Blair McCray gave him a small measure of hope.

“Mr. Cade, I just want to say I’m sorry for everything that’s happened.”

“So am I, Mr. McCray. So am I.”

Then J. D. Cade said he had to see his son and left.

J. D. was mobbed by aunts, uncles, and cousins until his mother raised her voice above the din and demanded, “Let me see my son!”

The crowd parted and Belle Cade stepped forward and hugged J. D. Then they moved off from the others and sat side by side in a small lounge at the end of the corridor. Belle held her son’s hand.

“I’m so glad you’re here, J. D.,” she told him.

“When I heard Evan had been arrested… well, I can’t recall ever being so angry.”

“Neither can I, Mom. Where do we stand with the murder charge?”

Belle pointed out a man standing among all the Cades down the hall.

“That’s Richard Shuster, Evan’s defense attorney. He took a sworn statement from a clerk who works at the Salvation Army store. The clerk remembers Evan’s shoes—the ones the police found—being part of a package I’d donated two weeks before Ivar McCray died. Mr. Shuster is going to file a motion in court tomorrow to have the charges against

Evan dismissed. What we don’t know yet was who bought the shoes from the resale shop or if they were stolen. Mr. Shuster told me that’s what the police could claim: Evan had someone buy—or steal—the shoes back for him. But Mr. Shuster said the chances are very good that he’d be able to create a sense of reasonable doubt if the case ever comes before a jury.”

“I don’t want it to get that far,” J. D. told his mother. He asked her if anyone was in the room with Evan now.

“No. The guard lets only one of us in at a time, and Evan is sleeping. But you go right in.” Then Belle Cade kissed her son’s cheek.

“It’s so good to finally have you home again.”

J. D. entered Evan’s room without disturbing him. He removed his son’s laptop computer and that morning’s newspaper from the seat of the visitor’s chair and placed them on the bedside tray. He sat down and simply watched Evan sleep.

It was something that had fascinated him since his son was an infant, and it took him back to a far more peaceful time. He realized that Evan was an adult now, but, sleeping peacefully, he looked so impossibly young and innocent that it made J. D.‘s heart ache.

When Evan opened his eyes a half hour later and saw his father sitting next to him he exclaimed, “Dad!”

J. D. reached out and took his son’s hand.

“How are you?”

Evan looked toward the room’s door, which was tightly closed. Still, he answered quietly.

“It depends on who’s asking.”

“I am.”

“Physically, I’m doing better.”

“And otherwise?”

“Dad, this situation has gotten very bad.”

He told J. D. what had happened to the Laneys.

“I’m so sorry, Evan.” J. D. let go of his son’s hand. He knew he was responsible, at least in part, for the violence that had befallen the Laneys. He wanted to look away but forced himself to meet Evan’s eyes.

“We have to talk.”

“I know.”

Evan saw that his father was looking for a way to begin and gave him a running start.

“Cousin Ben told me about Dr. Skipaniak.”

J. D.‘s eyes widened in surprise.

“How did he find out about Skip?”

“He read a story in the St. Louis paper.”

Evan told his father how Ben Cade had never gotten over his suspicion that his cousin J. D. had somehow managed to contrive the death of Alvy McCray to spare him the need to commit murder and save the rest of the Cade family from a resumption of the feud. Each spring for several years Ben had gone to the spot where Alvy’s pickup had struck the deer, hoping to figure out how J. D. had done it.

He’d never managed to arrive at a solution, until one day he read a story in the newspaper of how the chief veterinarian at the St. Louis Zoo, Dr.