Next of Kin (33 page)

The one on the left was beginning to look nervous, but the one on the right was getting angry. ‘I’m not going to tell you again, Miss. You need to leave.’

She looked down at the ground and turned, as if to walk away. She could sense both of them let their attention wander to the rest of the street, assuming the confrontation with her was over.
They were mistaken.

Swinging her body back in one quick motion, she lifted her foot and brought it down with all her weight on the top of the right shoe of the man nearer to her. She was wearing her thick,
hard-soled boots, and the man’s toes were hanging just off the edge of the granite step. The top half of his foot bent forward, cracking one of the bones. He screamed out in pain and his
knees buckled.

The one on the left, already uncomfortable, hesitated. It was a mistake. She swung her bag, loaded with textbooks, into his face. It wasn’t enough to do any real damage, but it knocked him
off balance, and he stumbled off the step.

Sally dashed for the door and grabbed the handle, but she wasn’t fast enough. The one with the broken foot had recovered sufficiently to reach out and grab her. His hand came down on top
of her head and grabbed hold of her hair. ‘You little bitch!’ he growled as he pulled her back from the door.

She yelled out in pain and stomped hard again on the man’s injured foot, bringing a fresh howl of pain. He let go of her hair and bent over again. She swung the bag into him and he fell
into the door. Unfortunately, he managed to catch himself, and as he stood, she could see that his face was contorted in rage. ‘Come over here!’ he yelled. Reaching out, he grabbed her
around the throat and put her in a headlock. ‘Let go of me!’ she screamed. ‘Let go of me now!’ He wouldn’t, though. He tightened the headlock, making it difficult for
her to breathe. ‘You want to play?’ he grunted. ‘Let’s play!’

At that moment, the door behind them opened in, and they both toppled into the office.

‘What the hell is going on here?’ Finn yelled. He helped Sally to her feet. One of Buchanan’s bodyguards tried to keep his hold on her, but Finn stepped on his hand. The man
struggled to his feet and started to go after Finn, but a word from Buchanan halted him. ‘Maurice!’ the senator cautioned.

‘They wouldn’t let me in,’ Sally explained. ‘I was worried.’ Finn looked at Buchanan, who nodded. ‘I wanted to talk to you in private.’

‘This is my office, not yours,’ Finn said, angrily. ‘You had no right.’ ‘Given the nature of our talk, I didn’t want people –’ ‘Sally
isn’t people. She’s my . . . she belongs here.’ He pulled her over, so that she was standing behind him. ‘You need to leave now.’

Buchanan put his hands up, palms forward in a placating gesture. ‘I’m going. But I want you to think about what I’ve said.’

Finn nodded. ‘What you’ve said means nothing. You’ve got no credibility with me. You want me to believe you? You need to give me a reason, because right now I don’t have
one.’

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

Buchanan was back in his office on the second floor of the house on Louisburg Square an hour later. He felt a sense of vertigo he’d never known before. Nothing looked
right anymore; everything was skewed. His chest felt tight, and he was having trouble breathing regularly. Perhaps he was having a heart attack. Perhaps that would be for the best.

He loosened his tie. Early in the day for it, but he thought perhaps it would allow him to breathe better. The call with his lawyer had done little to ease his anxiety. There was no word from
within the police department of an imminent arrest, but nor was there any movement to suggest that Detective Long would be pulled from the investigation. Apparently, while few within the department
had confidence in Long, fewer wanted to give the appearance of showing favoritism to a politician.

The election was only two weeks off. If he could hold on for just that long, he would survive. The Senate was a bulwark from which a defense could be mounted against just about anything. Only
the whims of the electorate could oust him, and only every six years. The memory of the public was laughably short; if he could get through this election, this would all be a distant memory. If
Kennedy could survive Chappaquiddick, surely he could weather this storm.

And yet it all seemed to be slipping away.

He didn’t hear the door open. He was sitting in his chair, leaning back, looking through the window down onto the square. When he turned, Catherine was there in the doorway, staring at him
with that meek-yet-superior look she so often wore on her face. It was a look that enraged him. She would have made a fine martyr.

‘What?’ he demanded. He did not get up.

She continued to look at him. She opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. She looked tired. Tired and old. She always looked tired and old to him now; another thing about her that
kindled his hatred. Imagine what he could do in politics with a proper wife and family.

‘What?’ he said again, this time louder; loud enough to make her jump.

‘I’m leaving,’ she said.

‘Where to?’ he asked. ‘Off to spend more of my money?’ He glared at her, hoping his contempt for her shone through. From her face he was sure it did.

She shook her head. ‘I’m leaving,’ she said again.

‘I heard you,’ he said. ‘I asked where . . .’ He stopped talking as her meaning hit him.

‘I’m taking Brooke with me,’ she said.

He stood up. His size had always intimidated her, and he could see that she was scared as he walked toward her.

‘Like rats from a sinking ship,’ he said. His voice was low and threatening. ‘With only two weeks until the election.’

She stood her ground, though her posture reflected her fear, leaning back on her heels. ‘We won’t say anything to the press,’ she said. Her voice was desperate, almost a
whisper. ‘We’ll appear on stage at the rallies.’

He nodded as he drew closer. ‘Oh, you’ll be at the rallies,’ he said. ‘Because you are not leaving. Not now. Not ever.’

‘Yes, we a—’

She started to speak, and he felt the bile rise in his throat. His hand shot out and grasped her around the throat, cutting off her words. It felt good to silence her. It felt right. He moved
forward even further, pushed her hard while still holding onto her neck as he slammed her head into the wall behind her. Her gasp was muted by the pressure he kept on her windpipe. He leaned in
close to her, so that their noses were nearly touching, so that she could feel the damp heat of his breath on her face as he spoke to her. ‘You’re worthless,’ he said. ‘Do
you understand that? Worthless. And yet I have stayed by you. Any man with half a brain would have dumped you by the side of the road decades ago, but I didn’t. I put up with your
worthlessness and your fading looks and your weakness out of pity. And now, after all I have endured from you, you say you are going to leave me?’

She nodded, fighting against his grip. ‘I am,’ she choked out. ‘I am leaving you.’

He held her still by the throat and slapped her hard on the side of the face. He would have punched her instead, but he knew that he would need her on the podium, and welt marks could be covered
with make-up; cuts and swelling could not. He longed to beat her properly, as she deserved, to break her nose to drive home his point. Perhaps after the election.

To his surprise, she pushed back against him, slipping out of the grasp of his sweaty hand. ‘I am leaving!’ she yelled, sliding to her left, making a break for the door.

He grabbed her by the hair, pulled her back. The rage grew, and his concerns about the marks to her face lessened. He threw her headlong into the wall, heard the crack of her skull colliding
against the horsehair plaster. It felt good. Pulling her up by the shoulders, he spun her around and swung his fist hard into her stomach, doubling her over. She fell to her knees, gasping and
sputtering for breath.

He knelt down next to her, his face close to hers again, his voice low and even. ‘You are not leaving me,’ he said slowly. ‘Do you understand?’

She shook her head, still struggling to breathe. ‘I am,’ she managed to mouth. She gasped the words over and over again. ‘I am, I am, I am.’

He grabbed her by the back of the neck and pulled her closer. He shook his head and he looked straight into her eyes. ‘Never,’ he said. ‘I’ll kill you first.’

Long leaned over the sink in the men’s room at the station house. He let the water run until it was scalding, dipped his head down, cupped his hands and drew the water to
his face. Then he turned off the hot tap and turned on the cold, lowered himself again. If the sink had been large enough, he would have submerged his entire head. He turned the cold water off and
repeated the process twice more. He felt defeated, and he’d hoped the alternating extremes would make him feel better. It didn’t.

Pulling two paper towels from the dispenser, he dried his face, and headed out. He still had a job to do.

Racine was sitting in the chair next to his desk. ‘How’d it go with the wife?’ she asked.

He shook his head as he sat.

‘Nothing?’

‘I thought for a minute she was gonna turn. She was right on the verge.’

‘What happened?’

‘Her daughter walked in. I could see it in her eyes. All of a sudden, she could picture everything she stood to lose. She walked right up to the edge, but she couldn’t
jump.’

‘Hard to blame her, I guess,’ Racine said.

‘You think?’

‘For that kind of money? Yeah, I think.’

Long frowned. ‘He beats her, did I tell you that?’

‘No.’ Her eyes went wide. ‘You know that for sure?’

Long nodded. ‘I know.’

‘How? Did she admit it?’

‘She might as well have. Not that I really needed the confirmation. I know the signs.’ He looked at her, and could see the skepticism in her eyes. ‘You never lived with that
kind of violence. If you had – if the fear had been a part of how you were raised – there’s nothing more obvious.’

‘And she’s still protecting him? God, why?’

‘Because that’s what people in her position do. It’s what almost all families do. It’s like watching a bad movie you’ve already seen. You want to yell at the people
on the screen, tell them how it’s gonna end. But it never works. The movie always turns out the same no matter what you do.’

‘Any chance she’ll change her mind?’

‘I don’t think so. She’s gone into protective mode. Once that happens, she’ll rationalize it all away.’

‘So what now?’

‘We keep working the angles. We nail down more information on the campaign finance problems. See if we can turn a few more of Eamonn McDougal’s employees. Plus, we see what we can do
to get proof that Buchanan is Scott Finn’s father. There are a lot of loose threads out there. We keep tugging at them hard enough, this thing’s gonna unravel eventually.’

As he spoke, he looked up, and he could see a woman walk into the room. She was tall and attractive and young, with dark hair and features carved from a long, unmistakable lineage. She looked
lost, her eyes searching until they met Long’s. ‘I’ll be damned,’ Long said.

‘What?’ Racine looked up, saw the woman. He could feel her tense with a heartbeat of jealousy. ‘Who’s that?’ she asked.

‘Brooke Buchanan,’ Long said. ‘The daughter.’

Racine raised her eyebrows. ‘Really?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Huh.’ She looked back over at her. Long could tell that the jealousy was gone. Then she turned to him again. ‘Maybe this movie’s got a different ending.’

Brooke Buchanan sat in a chair across the table from Long and Racine in an interview room. Her eyes were vacant; she was staring down at her hands in her lap. ‘I wish
he’d never gone into politics,’ she said. ‘It was better before. I’m not saying it was good, but it was better. Now, with all the stress my father is under . . .’ She
looked up at them, then down again, as though looking them in the eyes were physically painful. ‘The stress has to go somewhere, right?’

‘Your mother?’

She nodded. ‘I knew they had fights when I was growing up, but it wasn’t very often. I thought that was normal.’ She fidgeted with her hands. ‘It’s not normal
anymore.’ She took a deep breath. ‘I found my mother in her room today. She was hiding. She had cuts on her head, on her face. There’s a bad bruise on her throat. He threatened to
kill her. From the looks of her, he might have come close today.’

Long and Racine looked at each other. ‘She needs to come in,’ Long said. ‘She needs to report this so we can arrest him.’

Brooke Buchanan shook her head. ‘She’ll never do that. She’s too scared, and she feels like somehow this is all her fault. She doesn’t even know I’m here; she
doesn’t want anyone to know.’

‘He will kill her,’ Racine said. ‘You know that, right? Eventually it will happen.’

She nodded. ‘We’re out of the house for now, staying with friends for a few days. I’m just afraid she’ll end up going back to him. That’s why I’m here. I want
to see him put away.’

‘Has he ever hit you?’ Long asked.

‘No,’ she said. She shook her head vigorously enough to make Long doubt the answer. ‘There have been times when I thought he might,’ she said. ‘I could see the
muscles in his arm go tight, and it felt like he was about to swing, but he’s never crossed that line with me. Sometimes I push him, just to see if he will.’

‘Why?’ Racine asked.

She shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Maybe I figure if he hits me, he won’t hit my mother.’ Closing her eyes, she sighed as though she had never been more exhausted. ‘Maybe
it’s just so that we can stop pretending. So we can look at each other for who we really are. Maybe then we could all walk away.’

‘If your mother won’t come in and swear out a complaint, there’s not much we can do, I’m afraid,’ Long said. ‘How else can we help?’

‘That’s the question I wanted to ask you – how can
I
help?’ She looked him in the eyes. ‘You think he killed that woman. Do you know that for
sure?’

Long shook his head. ‘Not for sure. It’s a real possibility, though. A probability.’

‘And he really had a child with her, a long time ago?’

Long said nothing.