Oath of Office (3 page)

“Believe it. And believe something else, too. All those supporters you have on the board may not be so supporting after this.”

Rather than make a disastrous situation even worse, Lou set down the receiver. Surprised when his legs held him up, he stepped numbly into the hallway, headed back to Emily. Ahead of him, facing into the treatment room, her arms folded severely across her chest, her magnificent profile as motionless as marble, was Renee.

Lou moved in next to her. Barbara Waldman had clearly not yet returned, and Emily was alone in the room with Desmond Carter. She had moved to the man’s bedside and was holding his hand.

Renee’s disapproving expression would live forever in the Take Your Child to Work hall of fame.

At that moment, Emily looked up. “Mom!” she cried with unbridled glee. “Guess what? I’m going to be a doctor!”

CHAPTER 3

The First Lady of the United States, Darlene Mallory, snapped her flip phone closed and glanced over her shoulder at her chief of staff, seated directly behind her. That look was more than enough for Kim Hajjar to know what had transpired.

“He’s not coming, is he,” Kim said, leaning forward and whispering in Darlene’s ear.

“No, he’s not. Try to look happy.”

“You mean as opposed to looking like I want to wring your husband’s presidential neck?”

Strictly for any paparazzi who might be watching, Darlene forced a smile and nodded. “I’m getting tired of this, Kim.”

“I know, hon, I know.”

“Last week he announced his intention to begin his reelection campaign.”

“No surprise to anyone.”

“Except me. He never even spoke to me about it.”

Kim hugged her friend. It had been six years since she had agreed to join her former Kansas State roommate, then Senator Martin Mallory’s wife, in Washington. During that time, the two women had grown closer than ever. The press cared little about First Lady appointments, but what coverage they devoted to Hajjar never failed to mention that she was the first Lebanese White House chief of staff, and that she was a former beauty queen. They seldom touched on her master’s degree in sociology. With cameras watching Darlene’s every move, having an aide with whom she could communicate almost telepathically had proved invaluable.

“Well, I suppose I’d better push on with this,” Darlene said, sighing.

“Does Martin know how much press is here covering this event?”

“I believe that’s why he’s not coming. The kids are going to be so disappointed. The director says they’ve worked really hard on their song.”

“I’ll schedule them to sing at the Rose Garden next week when you and Martin are welcoming the President of Ireland.”

“Do you think Martin will be upset if we do that?”

“I don’t think he’ll care. In fact, he may blow off President Callaghan the way he did these kids. The position sounds important, but in Ireland it’s largely ceremonial. Still, Callaghan being a woman, Martin may not want to withstand the flak of standing her up.”

Darlene smiled even though her insides were knotted up. “What would I do without you, Hajjar? Put yourself in for a raise.”

“That’s just what I need to do. I can see the headlines now:
ECONOMY DESCENDING DEEPER INTO DUMPER. FIRST LADY CELEBRATES BY RAISING STAFF PAY.
”

“Okay, no raise. I’ll think of something, though.… Well, the director’s got a what-are-we-waiting-for expression. I suppose I need to move on.”

“You’ll be great as usual.”

Darlene stood, smoothed her skirt, and gave the press corps her A smile. She had chosen a baby blue suit for the ribbon-cutting ceremony, which was in celebration of the grand opening of D.C.’s new Boys & Girls Club. The suit had cost $120 at Macy’s, and it sold out from every department store the first day she had worn it in public. Thanks largely to Kim’s tutelage, she now knew what colors best flattered her fair complexion, light brown hair, and hazel eyes.

Her brief speech would focus on her two favorite topics—raising her daughter, Lisa, now a sophomore at Yale, and working as first a pediatrician and then the president’s wife to improve the nutrition of all citizens of the world, especially children.

Unlike some First Ladies who embraced the guilty pleasure of fashion, Darlene did not, and whenever the cameras weren’t rolling, she favored the dungarees and plaid work shirts that were the mainstay of her wardrobe at K State.

“Once a farmer, always a farmer,” she had been oft quoted regarding her background as a wheat farmer’s daughter.

To the left of the two rows of folding chairs where they were sitting, a broad blue ribbon stretched diagonally across the glass doors of the gleaming new building fluttered gently in the breeze. The Young People’s Chorus stood off to one side on metal risers, waiting patiently to sing their song, “The Face of the Waters.” Kim had researched the piece and passed on the information that it was about creation. It was a fitting anthem, thought Darlene, considering that once again, she needed to create an explanation for President Mallory’s absence. Politics aside, his recently unpredictable behavior concerned her the way it would any loving and devoted wife.

Martin’s nosedive in the popularity polls was one of the most historic drops in presidential history. But before the economy tanked, he had touted this particular Boys & Girls Club as a symbol of America’s renewed community spirit, and a shining example of the effectiveness of his controversial domestic spending policies. Now, with the country’s fortunes in free fall, the costly modern steel and glass structure might well become a symbol of his administration’s fiscal excesses.

Darlene crossed to the lectern and spoke to the crowd of several hundred. “I’m afraid I have just received a call from my husband. He is tied up in an emergency meeting and regrettably will not be able to attend this magnificent grand opening. However, he is making arrangements for the Young People’s—”

“Is he scared to show his face in public?”

Through the glare of the afternoon sun, Darlene could not see the face of the man heckling her, but he was certainly close by. Too close. Kim must have sensed Darlene’s concern, because she immediately went into attack mode and began scouring the crowd for the potentially dangerous protester. The large Secret Service contingent did the same.

Meanwhile, Darlene continued with her address. “The president wanted me to let you know—”

The heckler wasn’t finished. “What’s next?” he called out. “Will our tax dollars buy a new football stadium for the Skins?”

By this time, Kim had spotted the man and alerted Secret Service agents to his location. The agents acted quickly to cull the protester from the crowd. Darlene was used to hecklers, although their numbers seemed to be increasing at every one of her appearances. It made her sad that the outburst may have eclipsed the real story of the day, which was the children. Perhaps it would turn out for the best that the president had chosen to stay home.

Immersed in a forest of angry pickets, most of the anti-Mallory protesters that day were kept at bay behind a sawhorse barrier set up across the parking lot. Darlene estimated their number might be half as many as those attending the ceremony. In addition, signs with unflattering epithets for the president and his administration were nailed to nearly every tree in the area.

The kids were getting a serious lesson in civics, American style.

Undeterred, Darlene smiled and was about to start speaking again when she felt a tiny tap on her right arm. She looked down into the wide, tear-filled eyes of a boy, no more than seven or eight. The child was dressed splendidly in a green and blue striped tie and V-neck pullover sweater.

“Please,” he said. “I promised my mommy and daddy the president would be here. Please.”

Darlene laid a hand on his tiny shoulder and swallowed at the orange-sized lump in her throat. Kim immediately sized up the situation and led the child back to his parents.

“Listen,” Kim said when she had returned. “How about if I cover for you and you try again to get him down here? It’s only, like, a five-minute drive, and the motorcade is probably still standing by.”

Darlene smiled at her friend. “Did you just read my mind?”

“No, I read your eyes—probably the easiest thing I’ll have to do all day.”

“Do you need my talking points?”

“Darlene, I might not spend my free time dissecting every global conflict like some First Lady that I know, but trust me, I could give this speech in my sleep. For now, I’ll just stall them—maybe do a little soft-shoe.”

Darlene stepped back to the microphone, introduced Kim, and then excused herself from the platform stage. A few feet away, she stopped at a relatively secluded area and, with Secret Service agents keeping close watch, called her husband for the second time.

“Darlene, what is it? Is everything all right?” Martin sounded genuinely worried, probably fearing that the protesters had turned violent.

“Everything here is fine, Marty,” Darlene said. “In fact, it’s better than fine. It’s really something special, except you’re not here and you should be.”

“Is that why you’re calling me?”

Darlene heard the anger in her husband’s voice. He had never had much of a temper, but lately outbursts to one degree or another had been coming more and more frequently. At the podium, Kim was entertaining the crowd with stock humorous stories about Darlene’s college days.

“Look, I know you’re concerned about the polls, honey,” Darlene said to Martin, “but you need to stand up for what you believe. Polls don’t mean a thing. Polls didn’t get you reelected; people did. And these people care about you.”

Martin breathed heavily into the phone. “Darlene, what the hell is wrong with you! Are you blind?”

Darlene’s pulse accelerated the way it did in the moments before they fought. She felt defensive and was surprised at how quickly her husband had angered. “Please don’t speak to me that way, Martin,” she said in a harsh whisper.

“Agent Siliphant radioed me. I know how many protesters are there. Do you think I want to come just to get shouted down by an angry mob? Do you know what my approval rating is right now? Do you?”

“Marty … I…”

“Thirty-eight! Down in less than a year from sixty.”

“Please, Martin. Do this for the children.”

“You better have made a good excuse for why it is I’m not there, Darlene. I don’t want to hear on the news tonight that President Mallory is a coward, or doesn’t give a shit about needy kids. That club wouldn’t exist except for my initiative.”

There was a click and the line went dead. Darlene stood shaking, breathing deeply to calm herself. At the podium, the mayor had taken over and was regaling the crowd with a story about his childhood on the harrowing streets of D.C.

Kim appeared by her side. “Let me guess,” she said. “It didn’t go well.”

Darlene’s hands were still shaking. “I’m really worried about him,” she said. “It was never like Martin to behave this way. He’s never run from a fight in his life. What do you think we should do?”

Kim answered with an impish grin. “I say once we’re done here, we’ve got two choices for what we should do next.”

“And those would be?”

“Either we go shopping, or we go get a drink.”

CHAPTER 4

Fighting to control his speed and to maintain at least a modicum of concentration, Lou made the thirty-mile drive from D.C. to DeLand Regional in forty minutes. He hadn’t bothered to change out of his scrubs.

Over the years, like most people with a television, he had sat riveted to the set countless times, watching reports of pathetic souls who had, for whatever reason, lost it and gone postal—murdering at random. In most cases, the explanation for the carnage remained a mystery, cloaked in the catchall of
crazy
. After a short stay as the lead, the stories inevitably slipped from the news. The killers who didn’t take their own lives, or weren’t shot to bits by the police, vanished to prison someplace, or into an asylum. To everyone aside from their shattered families, and the shattered families of their victims, the memory of them vanished like April snow.

Lou could not recall the name of even one of the killers, no matter how many lives they had taken. But this killer was different. This killer was John Meacham—for nearly four years, his client, and more recently, his friend.

Flipping the tuner on the radio of his Toyota, he checked in on a series of stations. The story was front and center on many of them, and a bulletin on most of the rest. Within fifteen minutes, there was nothing new, and Lou settled back on 103.5 FM, the all-news station.

“… Meacham, a fifty-two-year-old internal medicine specialist had been practicing in Kings Ridge for three years. His partner, sixty-two-year-old Carl Franklin, was one of the seven victims. At this moment, Meacham is listed in critical condition at DeLand Regional Hospital. Police speculate that the recoil of his pistol jerked his shot off line enough to keep it from being immediately fatal.

“They report that all seven victims were pronounced dead at the scene of the carnage, Meacham’s medical office on Steward Street in the Kings Ridge Medical Park. Only one of the victims, a female, whose name is still being withheld, survived long enough to say anything to authorities. A source in the department has told reporters that all she said before she died was, ‘No witnesses.’”

No witnesses.

Lou shrugged and shook his head. Seven dead and one life hanging by a strand.

No witnesses.

What in the hell does that mean?

Emily had gone home with Renee, and the chief of the ER department at Eisenhower had rushed over to finish out Lou’s shift. The severe weather, which had been on and off stormy all day, was on again—fog, wind, and a chilly, pelting rain.

From what Lou knew, Kings Ridge, population maybe ten or fifteen thousand, was a bedroom community for D.C., surrounded by expansive farms, mostly corn. He had driven through it a couple of times, and remembered the downtown as being fairly affluent and well maintained, with a quaint village green, coffee shops, and restaurants spaced along on the main street.