The Next President (54 page)

She told him of her nightmare. She said she was sorry for acting like such a fool. While admitting nothing, J. D. told her she had nothing to be sorry about. It had seemed to him at that moment Jenny had a secret she wanted to share with him, but apparently she thought better of it.

What Jenny hadn’t told J. D.” thinking the time was not yet right, was that she’d kept the pictures of him at the scene of Alvy McCray’s death from falling into police hands—and that she’d agreed with the now departed Don Ward to let Ward take the responsibility for killing Tom Laughlin. Jenny Crenshaw now had demons of her own to appease.

But her visit to J. D. in the hospital had been the start of a reconciliation.

What remained uncertain was how they’d deal with the secrets they knew about, but kept from, each other.

J. D.‘s gaze moved to a framed photo that had been set in a place of

honor on the credenza behind the president’s desk. Dante DeVito looked every inch of what a special agent of the Secret Service should be.

“He thought you tried to kill me that day in Chicago,” Del told J. D. “By the end he was absolutely sure of it. Even had me persuaded for a while there.”

J. D. could only sit mute under Del Rawley’s scrutiny.

The president continued, “I’ve also spoken with your cousin Ben and a number of other Cades living in southern Illinois. I’m afraid I made them somewhat uncomfortable with my questions. Without responding directly, they hinted that you might be in legal jeopardy concerning the death of one Alvin C. McCray, who as far as I’ve been able to determine died in a highway accident.”

Del Rawley stepped behind his desk and sat down. He took a piece of paper out of the top drawer.

“This is the first time I’ve sat here as president, and this is my first official act.”

He signed the document in front of him and slid it across the desk to J. D., who picked it up and read it silently. Then he looked up at the president.

Del said, “That is an absolute pardon for any and all crimes you may have committed in your life. No one will ever use Alvy McCray or anything else against you. And when I spoke with Blair McCray, he said that as far as he’s concerned, the Cade-McCray feud is over.”

J. D. nodded. Then he asked, “Any and all?”

“Yes,” the president said. Del Rawley paused a moment and then asked, “Do you know my Secret Service code name?”

“Orpheus.”

“Yes, Orpheus. The man with the wonderful voice, whose only mistake was looking back at just the wrong time. I’m not going to make that mistake.

There are some things I’d rather not know. You think that will make me a weak president?”

J. D. remembered Del Rawley begging to be killed rather than let his grandson die.

“There is no weakness in you, Mr. President. None that I’ve ever seen.”

Del Rawley remembered the note the Secret Service had shown him, the one they’d found in the pocket of J. D. Cade’s sport coat when it had been stripped from his bloodied body. Garvin Townes has my son. Please save him if you can. The words of a brave man and a loving father who had not expected to live long enough to see his son again.

“Nor in you, Mr. Cade. Now, please put that pardon away, and if you don’t mind, I’d prefer you keep it to yourself.”

“Yes, sir.” J. D. tucked the sheet of paper into his inside coat pocket.

Del pressed a button on his intercom and said, “Come on in. Jenny.”

She stepped into the Oval Office. J. D. felt very strange seeing her again, especially while sitting in a wheelchair. But there was no denying he enjoyed seeing her smile at him just now, and she seemed to respond to his smile.

“I’m very busy today, J. D.,” Del told him.

“But as of now Ms. Crenshaw is at loose ends, casting about for something to do.”

“Is that right?” J, D. asked.

Jenny said, “I never argue with the president.”

Del Rawley laughed and then he said, “I’m going to want her back four years from now.”

“We’ll see,” J. D. and Jenny said at the same time.

And they smiled at each other once more.

Among those journalists leaving Washington for reassignment after the inaugural festivities were over was a reporter who’d been among the media contingent at the Hollywood Bowl on that historic night. He was a scribe from the Perth Morning Standard, and unlike anybody else, he’d come away from that awful blood bath with a memento. He’d been hunkering on the ground along with everybody else after the gunfire had started when a pen came skittering over to him. Just as if someone had kicked it to him. A bloody nice Mont Blanc, it was.

It had a wonderful heft to it. He’d thought it would make a grand pen to use in his work. Too bloody grand, really. He’d been carrying it around for months now and had never used it.

He decided what he’d do once he got home to Perth was encase it in Lucite and put it on his mantel. He’d tell his grandkids twenty years from now about the night the Yanks almost shot up their presidential candidates right under his very nose.