The Divine Appointment (6 page)

The Vidalia restaurant, Washington DC

“How are things on the Senate floor?” Porter McIntosh asked. He and Cooper Harrington sat at a corner table in the swanky Vidalia restaurant on M Street NW, approximately five blocks northwest of the White House. Porter had vetted Judge Shelton’s name with several friendly senators over the last couple of days. The time had come to approach Senator Proctor’s office about the plan.

“Things are going great.” Cooper scanned the lunch offerings, then laid the menu on the table. “Senator Proctor is getting his agenda through the Senate.”

Porter recognized Cooper’s intended message: that the Senate majority leader’s agenda, not the president’s, was getting pushed through the Senate.

“How’s your boss doing?” Porter asked. “I heard his health isn’t so good.”

“Wishful thinking, Porter. He’s fit as a horse and plans on getting reelected this year.”

Porter laid a cloth napkin in his lap and aligned the silverware beside his plate. Cooper took a sip of water and motioned for the waiter. The waiter was dressed in a white shirt, necktie, dark slacks, and a long white apron. He took Porter’s and Cooper’s orders promptly and disappeared.

Porter resumed the conversation. “As his chief of staff, aren’t you worried that the good people of the state of Tennessee are tired of electing a liberal like Proctor? Bryan Edwards is running a great campaign, and that state’s been leaning considerably toward the right in recent elections.”

“Proctor will never lose in Tennessee. The senator, Mrs. Proctor, and I were in Nashville last night meeting with some of his key contributors. They’re as excited as they’ve ever been to have him reelected. Do you seriously think that the son of the most popular governor in the history of the state is in jeopardy of not being reelected? Honestly, Porter, I thought you were smarter than that.”

Porter chuckled softly and straightened his necktie. “You can’t blame a guy for hoping, can you?”

Porter and Cooper were well into their conversation when the waiter delivered salmon seared in fennel for Porter and breast of duck for Cooper, refilled their crystal water glasses, and disappeared again. The employees of the Vidalia were trained well in the art of secrecy. The only time an employee of the Vidalia had spoken to a reporter about what he’d overheard he’d been immediately terminated. Porter knew that this waiter wasn’t about to eavesdrop on a conversation between the president’s chief of staff and the chief of staff of the Senate majority leader.

“Porter, I’m surprised you invited me to lunch,” Cooper said. “We’ve never liked each other very much.”

Porter took a bite of his meal and wiped the corners of his mouth with his napkin. Cooper was right, Porter knew. He didn’t like the guy. Cooper had the reputation of being a playboy. The position of Senate majority leader’s chief of staff provided Cooper with immense access to practically anything…and anybody he wanted. His good looks—blond hair over the collar, dark blue eyes, and year-round tan skin—only served to inflate his already large ego.

“I wouldn’t be here if the president hadn’t insisted that I open a dialogue with Senator Proctor’s office about the upcoming appointment to the Supreme Court.”

“I hear you’ve struck out with practically everyone in the Senate.” Cooper twirled his empty fork slowly and smirked. “And can’t get enough votes lined up.”

Porter bit his lip to keep from saying something that might hurt the cause. Cooper got under his skin, but he refused to let Cooper know it. Entering into a deal with the devil was the only choice the president had to get Judge Shelton’s nomination through the Senate, and Porter hated it.

“The president’s determined to have his nominee to the Supreme Court confirmed by the Senate,” Porter replied forcefully, as if Cooper would roll over and immediately capitulate.

But Porter knew there was simply no chance of that happening. Cooper—or, more accurately, Senator Proctor—held all the aces in this game of poker.

“Tell me who’s going to get the nomination and I’ll tell you whether he has a chance at confirmation or not.” Cooper sipped his ice water and peered at Porter over the rim of the glass.

“You know who it is.” Porter’s eyes met Cooper’s.

“Who?”

Porter laid his fork and knife on either side of his plate and bent forward, toward the center of the table. He glanced around at the other patrons to see if anyone was listening. Satisfied that his and Cooper’s conversation couldn’t be overheard, he whispered, “Judge Dunbar Shelton.”

“You’re kidding.” Cooper gave a loud, patronizing laugh.

Porter could feel his face flush. The people at adjoining tables glanced briefly at the two, in reaction to Cooper’s outburst, before resuming their own chatter.

Cooper, obviously realizing that he had drawn attention to himself and Porter, also leaned toward the center of the table. “You’re kidding,” Cooper said again, only this time in a much softer voice. “It’ll be a cold day in Hades before the Senate confirms him. He’s much too conservative. The pro-choice lobby will have our heads on silver platters if he’s appointed to the Supreme Court.”

“That’s who the president wants, and he’s willing to do anything to get him.”

Both men were still leaning into the center of the table. Their faces were less than two feet apart, speaking forcefully with tones barely above whispers.

“Anything?”

“Anything.”

Cooper reverted to the upright position in his chair and narrowed his eyes. Porter, too, sat upright, and waited in silence for Cooper to make the next move. It took only two seconds.

“You know the price will be high.”

“I know.” Porter crossed his arms over his chest. He intentionally paused before continuing, for the dramatic effect. “And so does the president.”

Cooper removed the cloth napkin embroidered with a script
V
from his lap, folded it, and laid it on top of his plate. “Let me talk with Senator Proctor.” He pushed back his chair and stood to leave. “I’ll get back to you in a couple of days.”

The Hart Building, Washington DC

After leaving the Vidalia, Cooper went directly to the Senate majority leader’s office in the Hart Building. It was the newest of the three Senate office buildings—the other two were the Russell Building and the Dirksen Building.

The Senate was on a lunch break between the morning and afternoon sessions. Cooper walked past the senator’s secretary without waiting for her to announce him and entered Senator Proctor’s opulent office with its sixteen-foot-high ceiling. Senator Proctor was sitting behind his oversize mahogany desk, watching the stock market on CNBC. He pressed a button on the remote control to lower the volume as Cooper entered.

“I just had lunch with Porter McIntosh,” Cooper proclaimed. He plopped down in a wingback leather chair across the desk from Senator Proctor. He crossed his legs and smiled wide.

The senator was in his midfifties and a rather large man. To say he was robust would have been an understatement. His bushy black hair contained a hint of gray, and a full beard and mustache consumed his face. When his mouth was closed, which wasn’t very often, his lips were barely noticeable among the dark facial hair. He had a very dominating personality, and a resonant voice that commanded attention when he spoke.

“Did he confirm that Wallace wants to nominate Shelton?” the senator demanded.

“Just like we thought.”

“What did he offer?” Senator Proctor smiled.

Everything in politics was negotiable, Cooper had learned. He cocked his head back and spoke deliberately. “He said the president would do ‘anything’ it took to get Shelton confirmed.”

“Anything?” Senator Proctor asked rhetorically. He locked his fingers together over his corpulent stomach, and Cooper could sense the gears grinding in the senator’s head. “Really,” Senator Proctor said thoughtfully. “The president will do anything for this nomination,” he repeated. He looked back at Cooper. “What did you tell him?”

“Only that I had to talk with you,” Cooper responded proudly.

Senator Proctor stood and walked to the closet on the right-hand side of his office. “That’s good, Cooper,” he said, as if he were a schoolteacher complimenting one of his star pupils.

Cooper twisted slightly in his chair so he could watch as his master pondered the possibilities.

“Cooper, let’s meet this evening after the Senate adjourns.” The senator slid into the suit coat he removed from the closet and glanced at his wristwatch. “I’ve got to be back on the Senate floor in five minutes, but I think I know what I’ll demand of the president, and I want you to be thinking about it, too. We have several senators up for reelection this fall, and three of them are quite vulnerable. Dawson in Wyoming, Fleming in Kansas, and Martin in Kentucky. The president’s been raising a lot of money for their conservative opponents. If we lose two of those three, then we lose control of the Senate, and we can’t have that.”

What Senator Proctor didn’t say was that he would lose his Senate majority leader’s seat if the balance of power shifted to the other party. He didn’t have to say it. Cooper knew what he meant.

“So, I want the president to stay out of those races. I know he won’t endorse our guys. But he can order the party chairman to pull their resources out of those three races. I think that’s worth a Supreme Court appointment, don’t you?”

“That’s why you’re the boss,” Cooper said admiringly.

“I’ll see you this evening,” Senator Proctor said as he left Cooper sitting in awe in his office.

The medical examiner’s office, Nashville, Tennessee

“Do you have anything for us, Doc?” Lieutenant Brantley asked.

The question was directed at Dr. Morris Stephenson, the senior Metropolitan Nashville medical examiner. Lieutenant Brantley and Sergeant Dodson dispensed with the initial pleasantries. They were at the ME’s office in downtown Nashville. It was Saturday—the day after Jessica Caldwell’s body had been discovered. Murder investigations didn’t stop for the weekend.

Brantley and Dodson were anxious to leave the coroner’s office as soon as possible. The room reeked of the smell of death to Dodson, but it didn’t seem to bother Dr. Stephenson. The doctor, in his midsixties, wore a lab coat with his name embroidered over the pocket. He was about six feet three and weighed about 280, Dodson guessed.

“You guys in a hurry or something?” Dr. Stephenson talked slightly out of the right side of his mouth. He glanced at the officers with an annoyed expression. “She’s only been dead a little over twenty-four hours.”

“We
are
in a hurry, Doc,” Dodson replied. “We’ve got a killer to catch before the trail grows cold.”

The medical examiner, in a huff, turned his back to the officers and began walking. “I’m retiring at year’s end, and I won’t have to put up with you detectives anymore.”

Dr. Stephenson led Brantley and Dodson across the room to the table holding the body of Jessica Caldwell. The doctor’s gait was a labored hobble. From other cases he’d worked with the ME, Dodson knew it was from two bum knees. He also knew—from experience and from reputation—that the doctor was rather cantankerous.

“Two tours with the navy and thirty years with you demanding detectives, not to mention the DA’s office, is long enough for anyone.”

“The sooner you tell us what we need to know, the sooner these two detectives will be out of your hair,” Dodson said, pointing at Brantley and himself.

“Not much of that left either.” Dr. Stephenson rubbed his flattop, and began his report from memory. “The cause of death was asphyxia from neck compression. Do you see those marks on her neck?” Dr. Stephenson pointed to the neck area of the corpse and waited for Brantley and Dodson to acknowledge that they saw the markings. “Those are bruises caused by someone other than the decedent. She had hemorrhaging in the throat area, and her hyoid bone was fractured. Clearly strangulation.”

“What’s that bruise on her forehead?” Dodson asked.

“Blunt-force trauma, but that didn’t kill her,” Dr. Stephenson explained. “It probably dazed her, then the assailant finished her off by choking her to death.”

“But it didn’t happen when she fell to the floor?” Brantley inquired.

“No, she was clearly struck with something before she fell. She does have a small contusion on the back of her head from the fall, but again, that didn’t kill her either.”

“What was the time of death?” Brantley asked.

“Probably between twelve thirty and one thirty a.m. I can’t get any more precise than that.” Dr. Stephenson partially removed the drape that covered the torso of the corpse, so as to expose the victim’s arms. “Defensive bruising on the inside of her forearm,” he said, rolling the left arm so the detectives could see the bruises for themselves. He then walked to the other side of the table and rolled Jessica’s right arm to likewise expose the bruises on the inside of her right forearm.

“She didn’t go down without a fight.” Dodson studied Jessica’s gray, lifeless body. More than anything he wanted to arrest someone—and he hoped it was Dr. Grissom—for this murder. The woman—the
young
woman, Dodson reminded himself—had been struck on the forehead and strangled while she lay on her own living-room floor. Her life had literally been choked from her. Anything short of frying in the electric chair would be too good for her murderer.

“No, she didn’t,” Dr. Stephenson concurred. He hobbled to the counter located to the right of the examination table and retrieved a chart containing the complete report from the autopsy. Brantley and Dodson followed.

“I found skin tissue under the fingernail of the middle finger on her right hand,” Dr. Stephenson said, flipping through several pages in the chart.

“Not hers, I take it,” Brantley said.

“Nope,” affirmed Dr. Stephenson. “Probably the assailant’s.”

Brantley and Dodson thanked Dr. Stephenson for his excellent work and returned to their car. Their investigation into Jessica’s murder was moving rapidly.

“You remember that bandage on the side of Dr. Grissom’s face?” Dodson asked as he opened the driver’s-side door.

Brantley peered at Dodson over the top of the car. “Yeah, I do.”

“I hope it’s his skin Dr. Stephenson found under Jessica’s fingernail.”

“I hope you’re right.”

As they sat down in the car and closed the doors, Brantley’s wireless phone chirped. “Brantley,” he answered.

Dodson could only hear Brantley’s end of the conversation. “Great,” he heard Brantley say. “We’ll be there in about fifteen minutes. Meet us in Captain Montague’s office.”

Brantley pressed a button on the telephone to disconnect the call and faced Dodson. “That was Sergeant Crossley. She has a match on one of the prints her team lifted from the crime scene. She’s going to meet us in Captain Montague’s office to see if we have enough to get an arrest warrant.”

The Metropolitan Nashville Police Headquarters, Nashville, Tennessee

Sergeant Dodson and Lieutenant Brantley hastily returned to the police department headquarters downtown and met Sergeant Crossley outside the office of Captain Bill Montague. Captain Montague was a thirty-year veteran of the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department and was in charge of the criminal investigation division.

“What ya got, Sergeant?” Dodson asked.

The three detectives waited for Captain Montague in the hall outside his office. Dodson could see Captain Montague through the glass walls that separated his office from the rest of the department. He was standing behind his desk, talking animatedly on the telephone.

“We found a fingerprint match through the Tennessee Department of Safety for a handgun permit issued in 2001 to a Todd Allen Grissom.” She handed Dodson the report.

Dodson scanned the report, then passed it to Brantley.

“Amazing.” Brantley read the report and smiled at Dodson and Sergeant Crossley. “This investigation couldn’t have come together any better.”

“I like what I’m seeing,” Dodson said.

Captain Montague looked up and waved the trio of officers in.

“I’ll talk to you about it later,” Dodson heard Captain Montague say into the telephone as they entered. “Bureaucrats,” he muttered as he slammed the phone down and fell into the chair behind his desk. He locked his hands behind his balding head and looked up at Sergeant Crossley and the two detectives who had gathered at the front of his desk.

“I hope you’ve got something on the Caldwell murder. I’m getting a lot of heat from the mayor’s office.”

“How ’bout a suspect?” Brantley asked.

“Now we’re getting somewhere. Give me the details.”

Dodson took the lead. “It seems she was seeing a married man. A doctor from Brentwood. Sergeant Crossley matched a print from the scene with one on file for the good doctor with the Department of Safety.”

Brantley handed Captain Montague the fingerprint report.

He scanned it and handed it back to Brantley. “Looks like you’ve got opportunity sewn up.”

“It gets better,” Dodson added. “Dr. Stephenson found skin tissue under her fingernail. Brantley and I noticed a bandage on Dr. Grissom’s cheek. My bet is that the DNA matches.”

“Sounds like he’s our guy,” concluded Captain Montague. “Go bring him in.”

The Proctor residence, Washington DC

Hazel Johnson placed a cup of fresh coffee before Evelyn Proctor as she sat at the breakfast table of the Georgetown area brownstone she shared with her husband, Senator Proctor. Although Evelyn was rarely beaming with happiness, Hazel noticed that recently she appeared more sullen than usual. She was still dressed in her nightgown and robe, which was usually never worn outside her bedroom. Her salt-and-pepper hair was unkempt, and for the first time that Hazel could remember, Evelyn wasn’t wearing any makeup.

Hazel wasn’t certain as to what had caused this recent bout of depression that appeared to have reached a new valley this morning. It might have been the gray skies and May rain that pelted against the dining-room window, or it might have been something more disturbing. But whatever it was, it caused Evelyn not to speak as Hazel served her, and that was most unusual. Today Evelyn appeared to barely notice her presence in the room.

Hazel hesitated briefly at the swinging door leading from the dining room to the kitchen and glanced back at Evelyn, who remained virtually motionless at the end of the table.

“Mrs. Proctor doesn’t look good this morning,” Hazel told her husband, Albert, after the door that separated the kitchen from the dining room was safely closed. Although Senator Proctor and Evelyn rarely graced the kitchen with their presences, it, like the entire house, contained all the trappings befitting one of Washington’s elite families. Only the best would do for the Senate majority leader and his wife.

“That’s none of your business, Hazel,” Albert reminded her. His voice was scratchy and hoarse. He was standing with his back to Hazel, near the stove, preparing breakfast for Senator and Mrs. Proctor. A cigarette smoldered in an ashtray nearby. “You stay out of that. You’ve got a job to do, and that’s all.”

“I know, Albert, but it kills my soul to see her suffer. She knows he’s cheating on her, and it’s eating away at her. I don’t know how much more of this she can take. She’s been depressed like this since she came back from Nashville Friday morning.”

Albert and Hazel had been employees of the Proctors for over ten years. They had first served the Proctors in their Nashville home, then had moved to Washington DC at the insistence of Evelyn five years ago. The Proctors were rarely in Nashville, Evelyn explained, and she needed their help in Washington. The Washington domestic staff was inadequate to handle the demands of the Senate majority leader and his wife. Albert and Hazel had hated the thought of leaving their native Tennessee, but the Proctors paid well and provided living quarters.

“It doesn’t matter to us what goes on between the senator and Mrs. Proctor,” Albert insisted. “It’s their marriage, and you stay out of it, Hazel. You hear me?”

“I hear you, Albert, but it’s—”

Hazel was interrupted in midsentence by the sound of Evelyn’s voice in the adjoining room.