Gideon (56 page)

Still, she had learned much over the years since her son Tommy had become a public figure. Perhaps the most important was to keep everyone at a distance, never let anyone know exactly what you were thinking or feeling. Once they knew what was inside you, they could destroy you. Just as they had destroyed Tommy.

So Nora Adamson straightened herself up, arranged herself properly in the leather chair, wiped the flow of tears from her deeply lined cheeks, and turned to gaze at the bishop sitting before her. It was only then that she noticed the two other priests standing to the bishop’s right. They were both young, one particularly so. So boyish-looking and yet so drawn and haggard. Tommy’s death, she knew, had greatly affected everyone in the country. She was not alone in her mourning; she could tell that looking at the expressions on the faces of these two men of God.

Comforted already, she nodded to the Secret Service man, dismissing him from the room. She was here in this room to find solace. She did not need protection.

“Thank you for seeing me, Bishop. I greatly appreciate your call. I am in great need, as I’m sure you can tell.”

“Mrs. Adamson,” the bishop began.

“Please, Father, call me Nora. I’m still a down-home girl and I’m much more comfortable with Nora.”

“All right … Nora,” the bishop said, his voice solemn. He motioned to the priest immediately to his right. “Father Patrick here knew your son. Advised him on occasion, took his confession.”

The old lady smiled. It warmed her to hear of someone who was spiritually intimate with Tommy. She nodded at the other priest, even younger, standing a few feet from Father Patrick. “Did you know my son, too, Father?”

The third priest in the room shook his head. “No, I didn’t,” he said. “But I feel like I did.”

“The whole country feels that way,” Nora said. “It’s very gratifying.”

“My case is a little different,” this priest said. “I knew him better than most people in the country.” The priest seemed to be struggling with his emotions. He was biting down on his lip, as if trying to control himself. “I know
you
better than you think, too.”

“I believe that, Father. Young as you are, I can tell you seem to have great insight—”

“I know
all
about you, Mrs. Adamson.”

The way he said it, somehow it didn’t sound very priest-like. As Nora stared over at him she squirmed in her seat, which suddenly now felt uncomfortable.

“Did you bring your diary with you?” the young priest asked, his voice as steely as any she’d ever heard, and Nora Adamson turned even paler.

“My diary? I don’t understand what you’re talking about.”

“I’m sure you don’t. And I’m sure you don’t want to. But there’s someone who I think can convince you to listen.”

She turned to the bishop. “I’d like to leave now,” she said. “I’m in the midst of a terrible grieving. I don’t think—”

“Bring her in,” the younger priest said to the other one.

“Carl,” the one whose name was Father Patrick said, “don’t you think you should prepare her for—”

“No, I don’t,” Carl Granville said. “What I think is that you should bring her in now.”

Nora watched as Father Patrick opened the door at the back left of the bishop’s study. She breathed a barely discernible sigh of relief when the woman stepped through the doorway. She didn’t know whom she was expecting, but this was not anyone she’d ever seen before. It was a young woman, twenty-five, maybe thirty—when they were that young, Nora couldn’t tell anymore. Close-cropped black hair, quite attractive. But Nora was sure she didn’t know this woman.

And then another woman was led in.

Wilhelmina Nora Adamson knew this woman.

“Oh, Lord,” she said. She wanted to put her head in her hands, to hide and block this woman from her view. “Oh, Lord, oh, Lord, oh, Lord. It can’t be. You’re … you’re a ghost.”

“Ain’t no ghost,” this woman said. “Ain’t no ghost a-tall.”

The man they called Carl was saying something now. But Nora couldn’t concentrate. She was having trouble breathing. “I believe you know Clarissa May Wynn,” he was saying. “Or maybe you never knew her real name. Maybe you only knew hear as Momma One-Eye.”

No, it’s not possible,
Nora thought.
This cannot be happening. Cannot, cannot, cannot …

But it
was
happening. This woman was standing right in front of her. The woman she’d thought of so many times, for so many years. The woman she’d loved for bringing her son into the world. And hated—for bringing her son into the world. And now the woman was talking. Telling her about long ago. What she had seen. What she knew. What she’d known and kept inside her all this time. What she was now ready to tell the world.

Nora was rocking back and forth now. Her bones were aching, her skin felt as if it would just crack and split, ripping her apart. And still this woman wouldn’t stop talking.

“For years I been scared of you. Afraid you’d come back. Punish me for bringin’ forth that tiny, sad little devil. But I ain’t afraid no more. I’m stronger than you now. Maybe I been a ghost for too long, but I definitely ain’t one now,” Momma One-Eye was saying, looking down. “It’s time to bury all them ghosts.”

That’s when Nora went to her and hugged her. The old black woman was tremendously frail, but she was strong. And then the tears came, she held Nora. And Nora held her. The years melted away, and it was that terrible night again. It was just the two of them there, sobbing in each other’s arms. Remembering and regretting and forgiving.

After a long, long time, Nora gazed through her tears at the young woman standing next to Momma. Then over at the bishop, who was half turned away from her, facing the corner of the room, and at Father Patrick, who was shaking his head slowly and steadily. And then at the young man who was wearing a priest’s collar but who didn’t act or talk like a priest. It was to him she spoke her next words. “Why?” she said haltingly. “Why have you done this to me?”

It was to Carl Granville she spoke, and it was Carl who responded. “Because we need your help. Because there’s something we know that you still don’t.”

“And what is that?” the old woman asked, blinking in confusion. “What could you possible tell me that I would care to know on the very day my good boy Tommy is being buried?”

Carl reached down and touched her thin wrist with his hand. “Who killed him,” he said. “And what you can do about it. It’s too late to save him. But it’s not too late to save the rest of us. That’s what he would want—for you to avenge his murder.”

“Murder?” Nora repeated, her voice quavering weakly. “Tommy took his own life.”

“He was driven to it,” Carl said insistently. “That makes it murder. But they haven’t won yet, Mrs. Adamson. It’s pretty damn close, but it’s not over. Not if you do this one thing for us. For
him
.”

“No,” she said, “this is crazy talk.”

“You’ve protected him all these years. You’ve shielded him and been there for him. All we’re asking is for you to be there for him one last time. do that, and you just may save Tom Adamson’s legacy in history. And maybe his soul, too.” Carl gazed at her beseechingly. “Will you please listen to what we have to say?”

She considered his plea carefully. His words were so heartfelt. And he was such a blue-eyed handsome young thing. So serious and intelligent. If only she had met a man like this when she was a girl. She would have given him the moon and the stars.

Slowly and with some difficulty. Nora Adamson made her way over to the nearest chair and sat, pursing her dry lips thoughtfully. “Somebody get me three fingers of good Tennessee whiskey, and one ice cube in a tall glass,” she said. “Then I’ll listen.”

There was a famous story about Marilyn Monroe, a story Elizabeth Adamson had heard since she was a young girl, when she was just plain Lizzie Cartwright, but had never really understood. The blond star had appeared in public somewhere, in front of soldiers fighting the Korean War maybe, and she received a stupendous ovation. She was married to Joe DiMaggio then, and she excitedly told him all about it, how there were tens of thousands of people cheering her, screaming for her, loving her. “You can’t imagine what it was like,” she had said. And the great Yankee center fielder had quietly replied, “Yes, I can.”

At long last Lizzie understood.

No one was screaming for her. No one was applauding. But today millions of people—tens, maybe hundreds of millions—were loving
her
.

The funeral was going to be magnificent. A triumph. The memory of Thomas Adamson would be secure, and her own future would be brighter than it had ever been. She knew that the strength she was showing in the face of his weakness somehow made them both seem better, more real, more accessible. Her courage nullified his cowardice. His sad end tempered her ambition. Even after his death, they were the perfect political partners.

The media was now officially in a feeding frenzy. They could not get enough of her. But she’d been holding them off, keeping both her distance and her dignity. That only fed the frenzy, which she knew would reach its peak of hysteria that night.

Lindsay was right. When it all began, he had said she was untouchable. Unbeatable.

Tonight, just a few hours after the funeral, she was going to announce her candidacy. By the end of the week she would have the Democratic nomination in hand.

Five months after that, she would be president of the United States.

Untouchable.

She looked around the sitting room in the private residential section of the White House. Tommy had never liked this house, she knew. He had never felt comfortable here, never believed it belonged to him. She had loved it from the very moment she first set foot inside. She appreciated its beauty and its history. She loved its splendor and its many links to greatness. And now it was hers.

Elizabeth Adamson slipped on her shoes. She was ready. A simple black dress, a Valentino; it made her look elegant and somehow vulnerable and distinguished. And suddenly all she wanted was for the day to be over. She wanted to sleep. It had all been much more draining and exhausting than she had anticipated. So she slipped her shoes off again, sat, and leaned back on the overstuffed sofa, her head tilting backward to graze the pillow. Perhaps a quick nap, she thought. Two minutes. The briefest of rests, then she would regroup and clear her head. Then she would be ready to continue.

She didn’t know how long her eyes were closed. What she knew was that there was someone else in the room. She could sense the presence, feel that someone was watching her. Elizabeth’s eyes fluttered open. It took her a moment to focus. She glanced at her watch; she had been asleep less than five minutes. Then she smiled at the other face in the room and patted the sofa for the president of the United States to sit down beside her. But Jerry Bickford stood ramrod straight and unbending.

“I disapprove, Elizabeth. I just want you to know that.”

“Yes, Jerry, you’ve made that quite clear.”

“It’s disrespectful to the office of the president. And to Tom,” he said. “Most of all to Tom.”

“I don’t know what kind of a hold Augmon has on you. I don’t know quite what’s happening between the two of you, but he doesn’t belong here. Not now. Not today.”

“There’s no hold, Jerry. And there’s nothing happening. It’s just that, for some of us, the world is going to continue. You know better than anyone that it’s all just business. And at our level, we can’t allow death to interfere with business. Even Tom’s death.”

President Bickford said nothing, just looked at the woman who had been married to his closest friend. Looked at her as if he had never seen her before. And to her he said, “The car is waiting. Shall we go?”

* * *

The limousine idled before the front entrance to St. Stephen’s Cathedral. There was a tap on the bulletproof window, and then the door was opened from the outside by a Secret Service agent. As Lindsay Augmon stepped out of the car and onto the street, he saw Elizabeth Adamson being ushered out of the long black car in front of him. Their eyes met, and she nodded solemnly. Properly. Thousands of people were already lined up along the streets. The whole city, it seemed, was out to catch a glimpse of her, and when she emerged from the limousine there was a sudden quiet. No one pointed her out; the normal buzzing of the crowd turned silent. Elizabeth raised her head and her eyes swept over her people. She smiled for them, a sad and mournful smile, sharing their pain, thanking them for sharing her pain. It was a magnificent smile, and it would be a wonderful front-page picture the next day, he knew, in every newspaper in the world.

She was brilliant, he realized. She really was. But ultimately she didn’t have a clue. All she knew was that she was mere moments from an extraordinary opportunity. What she believed to be the ultimate power was just inches from her grasp.

She still didn’t understand the real power, though. Then again, how could she? How could anyone?
Because the real power is me
, he thought.

Surprisingly, that thought did not bring him any particular exhilaration. Instead, he felt a subdued kind of tranquility. The game was nearly over now. His most trusted employee had inexplicable failed—repeatedly. He had lost some key players. And he was up against a surprisingly strong adversary. Nonetheless, the end was close by. And he was prepared for it, so in the end, no matter what happened from here on in, he would win. As always, he would win.

The one thing no one ever understood, certainly not Elizabeth Adamson, was how exhausting it was to always win.

Elizabeth was next to him now. She held out her arm and he took it. He had asked to be in the presidential procession, he wanted that, and Elizabeth had arranged it. She had gone one step further and asked him to be her escort. Funnily enough, it pleased him to be with her at this moment. It was only fitting. They had arranged it all, seen everything come to fruition. It was only apt that they go in the door arm in arm, locked together, moving forward.

“Mrs. Adamson,” a priest was saying quietly. “The bishop would like to see you in private before the service begins. To go over the final details. Mr. Adamson’s mother is back there now.”