The Heir (12 page)

“It was more a rental than a sale. The rules are that the Boyer machine will get him elected, and he is not to build his own organization. He is to do as he is told. Outside of that he is free to preen and strut as he wishes.”

“That sounds like Melvin might have wanted the seat back.”

“Possibly.” Fred stretched out the last syllable like a piece of taffy. “Mainly, it was to keep Forrester from becoming too powerful. But he may have wanted to keep the seat under his control for other reasons.”

“He would have gone back to Washington?”

“No. He wouldn’t have. But he could have been saving the seat for someone else.”

As if it were a bus seat instead of a seat in the United States Senate. Why was Fred looking at me that way?

“You don’t think . . .”

“I have no idea. But you will be thirty before the next election.” A light was going on in his head. “Your father might have changed his will in your favor as part of a larger plan.”

My head was going dark. “No. He changed his will because Nathan Kern asked him to.”

“Your father never did anything at someone else’s request. Perhaps Nathan did request the change. But Melvin wouldn’t have made you his principal heir unless he chose to himself.”

“Fred. The man hadn’t spoken to me in three months. First he leaves me a billion dollars. Now you’re adding a seat in the Senate. Don’t you think he would have clued me in?” What am I doing here? Melvin’s scorn for me was one of the great constants in my life, something I could always count on. Fred must be on drugs.

“Calm down, Jason.”

“I am calm. You’re the one who’s raving.”

“He would have discussed it with you. He did things in his own time.”

“Except when he didn’t, like getting himself killed.”

“A rare exception.”

“Right. And I bet he won’t let it happen again. I don’t think we’re talking about the same person.”

“I knew him much better than you.”

“Yes. Exactly. Exactly. He and I didn’t know each other at all. He had no plans for me.”

“Then I won’t argue. But why does it upset you?”

“I am not upset.” Why was I so upset?

“Then when you are, it must be quite a sight.”

“It is, believe me.”

Fred’s attention shifted to the phone. “Yes, this is Fred Spellman. I’m still here.” Pause. Then the final connection. “Bob. Thank you for taking my call.”

And here was another Fred. Yes, it was still the same large object, no mistaking it, but the voice was respectful, deferential, submissive. In other words, completely fake.

“Yes, I’m here with Jason Boyer. . . . That’s right. He’ll be in Washington this afternoon and tomorrow, and he asked me to schedule a short meeting, if there is a convenient time. . . . Yes, just to introduce himself to the important people in state politics, the people his father knew. . . . All right, yes, that would be fine. I’ll tell him. I appreciate it very much, Bob. Thank you. . . . Thank you. Yes.”

He set the phone down and stared at it with pursed lips.

“Disagreeable.” He looked up at me. “You may have your secretary call his to arrange a time.”

I had taken a deep breath. I was no longer upset, not that I had been anyway. “Is he seeing me because I’m rich and powerful or does he want to renew the deal?”

“The former. If you mention the deal, he will be offended and say he never heard of such a thing. But he knows he has to meet you, and he is wondering what you will do. He may feel that, at this point, the seat is his by right of his social position and tenure, and that you have no choice but to support him. I expect he will treat you as an important constituent and nothing more.”

“But I can toss him.”

“You could choose to not support him, which would make it very difficult for him to run again.”

“Whatever. Do the voters get a say in any of this?”

“No. They are only allowed to choose between the party nominees, and the nomination processes are completely controlled.”

“There are two parties.”

“Each party has been allowed one Senate seat, and the candidates were approved by your father. He also chose every governor and representative in the last twenty years. No election has been close.”

“I guess it’s what I expected. Just like the state contract deals. Does it matter that it’s rotten?”

“It is at least consistent. And it has been completely legal. The nominating process is straightforward: the biggest organization wins.”

“I believe it stinks.”

“I don’t care what you believe. Look at the fools who get elected when no one is in charge.”

I shrugged. “Okay. Never mind. What should I say to Forrester?”

He took his deep breath. “He can be as irrational as Harry Bright, but he is much smarter. He will be receiving information from his allies in the state senate, and he likely has indications about what is happening between you and the governor. You should talk about foreign affairs, talk about the economy, talk about the weather, and not use this as an opportunity to discuss political deals.

But include one sentence about Harry Bright using the word
ineffective
, and he will know why you came. At this point, your main interest is to discourage any alliance between them. After your conversation, Senator Forrester will understand that he would be doing so against your wishes.”

“Will he follow my wishes?”

“In this case, you both realize no precedent is being set. If you were giving him specific instructions, you would be much more forthright.”

“Does he have anyone else to turn to?” I asked.

“He has lots of rich friends.”

“Friends?”

“Acquaintances. He’s the chairman of the board of the opera.”

“The poor man.”

“On the contrary, I believe he enjoys it.”

Who needs a political machine when they have Felicity Nottingham Cavalieri Gildanov?

I called Pamela.

“I thought you were leaving town,” she said.

“Almost. But I have a task for you. Call Senator Forrester’s office to schedule a meeting between himself and myself. Your call is expected.”

“When will you be available?”

“I’ll get to Washington in a few hours and be there until Sunday afternoon.”

“All right. . . . How much time do you want?”

“I don’t know. It’s all Fred’s idea, not mine. Twenty minutes would be enough for me.”

“Now, don’t whine, Jason. It’s part of the job.”

“Don’t you get on me, too,” I whined.

It was late enough that I had lunch at the airport. I called Katie to check on her.

She was sounding worn out. “Angela called. She wanted to have lunch, but I just can’t. I said you were gone, and I could do dinner tonight.”

“You could try to make her not hate me,” I said.

“I’ll get it down to strong dislike. But it isn’t personal, you know.”

“No. She’d feel the same way toward anyone who was her husband’s son.”

I made one more call before I climbed into the airplane. Well, a couple, to get the right number. Then I waited ten minutes on hold, but finally I heard his voice.

“This is Wilcox.”

“Detective Wilcox. This is Jason Boyer.”

“Mr. Boyer. Yes, sir.” The connection on my cell phone was tenuous, but I could still hear the tone in his words that I wanted to hear. “How can I help you?”

“I was just wondering how your investigation was going. It’s been several days now.”

“Well, Mr. Boyer, actually we’ve just had a meeting about it. We’re giving the investigation a lower priority.”

“Oh. Why is that?”

“We’ve had some questions about the evidence. The forensics lab is trying to be very careful, and they’re not sure there’s really enough to go on.”

“I see. What does it mean to have a lower priority?”

“We’ll keep the file open, but we won’t commit any resources to it unless something new comes up.”

“Well,” I said, “I just wanted to know. Thank you.”

“Yes, Mr. Boyer. Glad to help.”

I could picture his mustache quivering as I took to the wind.

I have a fake driver’s license and a credit card with the same name. Melvin had them created for me so that I could travel without being a Boyer. I might be ashamed of my real name, but I’d seldom used the fake.

For this trip, though, I decided Jeff Benson of Worcester, Massachusetts, would rent cars and manage any other transactions. I was becoming shy of publicity.

I let myself in to the Boyer Embassy in Georgetown. It was two side-by-side three-story townhouses, small by Boyer standards but large enough to entertain in intimate senatorial style.

I’d been there a dozen times during the twelve-year Washington residency. As a younger child, I’d not been welcome. I only visited Melvin and Angela when they were back home. In high school and college, when there was less chance of my breaking something valuable, I came for weekends two or three times a year. It had been empty, except for short visits, for the eight years that he’d loaned his Senate seat to Forrester.

This habitation was even more hostile in my memory than the big house, and now it was mine. I would stay in it and do as I wished. Maybe I’d shatter a Limoges plate on the Dutch-tile floor.

After I let myself in, though, I tiptoed up the stairs and set my suitcase quietly on the guestroom bed. But then, standing on the balcony over the living room, I got hold of myself and spoke to the ghosts.

“You’re dead, Melvin.”

There were even echoes.

“It’s my house now.”

And that was all I needed.

I walked through every floor, sweeping the memories away like cobwebs. Not that there were cobwebs. The place was still cleaned weekly and kept ready in wistful hope of being used.

There was no pink in the house anywhere. Angela had taken her things when they moved out, and she didn’t travel with him when he came for business. Nothing there looked like she had touched it, or like anyone had touched it. Even the bedrooms were professionally furnished and barren of soul.

I found the Matisse. It didn’t look very significant.

I read for a while that evening, but I soon found my eyes straying from the pages. I finally started walking the house again, looking through the rooms more carefully than I had before.

Yes, Melvin had been a senator. I was eight when he was first elected, three years after my mother died, and Eric and I had already been banished to the boarding schools that were our childhood. He’d married Angela a year later, here in Washington. She was twenty-eight, he was forty-three. We did not attend the wedding; at our young age, we could not be trusted to act with the proper decorum.

Our teachers and classmates all knew that Melvin was a senator. Of course, everyone at the school was cut from our same cloth, but even among the wealthy families and social elites, a senator would stand out. And if Eric and I had no real father, a senator would do.

Eventually the schools had rendered me presentable enough to be shown. I don’t know whose hands I shook. There may have been cabinet secretaries and ambassadors. I know there were other senators. Those were the years the questions had started, the first Why am I here? It might have been from meeting so many important people and wondering what my value was.

The monthly checks started when I was in college. There was to be no making a living or working to put food on the table for me. No job to take my mind off the questions.

And now what? This was where Melvin had lived for twelve years. Maybe I’d find something here for myself.

12

I was up early Saturday to explore the neighborhood. The meeting was at ten.

No wonder Melvin had been drawn here. This was a place for the powerful. It was written in every storefront and every discreet, elegant facade. He’d had equals here who weren’t natural enemies, as well as many other powerful people who had been less than equal. Only a handful had been higher.

I walked to Capitol Hill. Melvin often had. Five blocks to the head of Pennsylvania Avenue, then four miles to the Capitol. The only thing that kept it from being a straight shot was the White House smack dab in the way, and what thoughts that must have put in his head. But he was a realist; he only owned one state, not the whole country. Ultimately he’d come back home, where his reign was unquestioned. Caesar or nothing.

And one of the few men who could question his position back home was Bob Forrester. So Melvin had lured him away, to where Bob could build his castle and Melvin owned the sand it was built on.

I came to the senate office buildings and was expected. Then I was accepted into the outer office of the senator. The greatest man is still only a man, so his wealth and power have to be visible in other ways. Big Bob was only a man—but through the window was the Capitol, and beyond it the Mall and the monuments and the departments and the great city. A man in that office would know he was very powerful.

The man stood as I entered his inner temple. “Jason Boyer,” he said, standing taller than me. “I remember meeting you before, at your father’s house.” He stood very still, like a monument himself. It made him seem unmovable.

“I remember it, too,” I said, choking back the
sir
. “It was after the election, at the end of his last term.”

“Long ago.” He turned to the window to make sure I had noticed the spectacle. “I want to offer you my sympathy concerning him. I didn’t have an opportunity at his funeral.” I was trying to remember. He hadn’t been at the cemetery, only at the church. He’d sung the hymns off-key.

“Thank you.” There are many shades of gray. Nathan Kern’s hair, for example, was the discreet color of rain clouds. Bob Forrester’s was light, marbled with darker veins. Each strand either black or white.

“I’ve entered a resolution in the Senate honoring his memory. There are still people here who remember him.”

“Thank you again,” I said. Since the first greeting he hadn’t faced me. “Senator, I don’t need to take much of your time. I wanted to meet you because your association with Melvin goes back a long time and was important to him.”

He turned just his head toward me for a moment, and then away. “Yes. Although I’m afraid I didn’t know him well personally.”