The Nomination (30 page)

AS FAR AS Jessie was concerned, dinner at the Thai restaurant didn't end soon enough. Poor Mac had a struggle, Jessie observed, trying to be warm and friendly to her, and at the same time trying not to be
too
warm and friendly lest he upset Katie.

Katie didn't speak during the entire evening unless she was asked a direct question. Then she was polite and monosyllabic. Mostly she looked down at her plate.

When they got back to the house, Katie gave Mac a hug and Jessie a perfunctory smile and said she was heading up to finish her homework and go to bed.

After Katie went up, Jessie said, “I'm going to leave tomorrow,” she said. “Get out of your hair. Let you and Katie get back to your lives.”

Mac nodded. “I'm sorry. I guess it wasn't such a good idea. It's pretty tense, I know.”

Jessie shrugged. “I'd like to know what happened.”

“My wife, you mean.”

She nodded.

“She was run over by a train,” he said.

J
essie slept fitfully, and when she woke up, she felt unrested and jittery. But alert and focused, too, the way she felt when something important was going to happen. There were powerful emanations in this house. A lot of negative vibes from Mac and Katie. Ghostly vibes from his dead wife, her mother.

Run down by a train.

He'd told her the whole story. He blamed himself. She figured Katie blamed herself. At the same time, in some way that neither of them was able to recognize, they blamed each other, too.

Sunlight streamed in through her bedroom window. She looked at her watch. It was after eight o'clock. She never slept that late, but then, she usually managed to fall asleep more easily than she had last night.

She showered quickly, pulled on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, and padded downstairs on bare feet.

She found a full coffeepot in the kitchen, poured herself a mugful, and went looking for Mac.

She found him in his office in the back corner of the house, peering at a computer monitor.

Jessie stood in the doorway. “Hey,” she said.

He swiveled around and smiled. “Hey, yourself. Found the coffee, I see. How'd you sleep?”

She combed her fingers through her hair, an old habit from when it was long. “Okay. Fine.” She went over and sat in the leather chair in the corner of the room. “Can we listen to the tapes?”

Mac nodded. “Simone told me that the main reason she agreed to do the book was so that you could hear her story. Your story.”

“Assuming I'm her daughter,” said Jessie.

“Simone was convinced that you were.”

Jessie shrugged. “Let's do it, then.”

Mac inserted a cassette into his recorder. “This is a dupe,” he said. “I Fed-Exed the originals to my agent for safekeeping. There were some photographs and documents, too. I photocopied them and sent the originals to Ted also.”

Jessie shrugged. “Makes sense.”

For an hour she sat there with Mac and listened to Simone's voice describe her horrifying childhood in Vietnam. She had a low-pitched, sultry voice and a faint accent that Jessie couldn't place. A mixture of French and Vietnamese, she assumed.

When she tried to think of this woman—whose voice she was hearing but who was now dead—as her mother, it caused pressure to build behind her eyes.

She watched Mac as the tapes played. Now and then he scribbled a note on a yellow legal pad. He seemed unaware that Jessie was there, and she understood that he was working.

And then Simone's voice said, “And so it was done. I belonged to Thomas Larrigan. I was, as near as I can figure it, about thirteen years old.”

Mac lurched at the tape player and punched the pause button. He looked at Jessie. “Holy shit,” he whispered.

Jessie frowned. “Huh?”

“Do you know who Thomas Larrigan is?”

She looked at Mac. “You think it's
that
Thomas Larrigan?”

He nodded. “I bet it is.”

“Do you realize what you've got here?”

He nodded. “A different kind of story from what I thought, for sure.”

“Yeah,” she said. “A dangerous story.”

“Let's hear the rest of it.”

It was after three o'clock in the afternoon when they finished listening to the last tape. The pressure behind Jessie's eyes had been building as Simone described her love for May, her daughter, and her enormous sadness at losing her, and how she longed to see her again, and now, when Jessie realized it would never happen for mother or daughter, the tears broke through.

Mac looked at her. “That must've been hard.”

She wiped her eyes on the back of her wrist and smiled. “I'm okay.” Jessie cleared her throat. “Are there more tapes?”

He shook his head. “That's it.”

“You think it's me?” she said. “You think I'm May?”

Mac shrugged. “It fits, doesn't it?” He hesitated. “I'm sorry, Jessie. I know that's important to you. But I'm thinking about something else—the implications of these tapes. I'm thinking that Simone—”

“She was murdered,” said Jessie. “She and Jill. I know. I apologize. That's way more important. They were murdered to keep them quiet, right? To keep this story from getting out. Do you think she knew who Thomas Larrigan is?”

Mac shook his head. “There's no indication of it in these tapes. Simone and Jill didn't have a television. I'm not sure they even had a radio. I never saw a newspaper or even a magazine in their house. It's got to be the same Larrigan, though.”

“No question,” said Jessie. “She talks about shoving that broom into his eye. Our Judge Larrigan has a patch over his eye. He's the right age. He was in Vietnam. Didn't you say you kept copies of the photos Simone gave you?”

“Plus the documents,” he said. “From what Simone said, there's a marriage certificate and a birth certificate.” He frowned at her. “
Your
birth certificate. Very powerful evidence.”

“Let's look at the photos.”

Mac fumbled through a stack of folders on his desk and pulled out several sheets of paper. Jessie got up and went to his desk. She put a hand on his shoulder and leaned against his back to look.

He moved a magnifying glass over the faces in the photos. They were a little blurry and faded, but there was no mistaking Thomas Larrigan even thirty-five or so years younger than he was now and with long hair and two functioning eyes. Jessie had seen the Supreme Court nominee's picture on TV and in the papers several times recently. This was definitely the same man.

Simone was terribly young and scrawny, Jessie thought, but she had a beautiful face. The other woman in the photos—Bunny Brubaker, according to the tapes—looked a few years older. She was also quite pretty. The other man—Eddie Moran—looked like a teenaged Huckleberry Finn, a rebel type with a fuck-the-world grin that the girls probably found irresistible.

In a couple of the photos, Simone—Li An, back then—was holding a baby. Jessie shivered at the realization that she was that baby.

Jessie said, “Why don't you see what you can find out about Eddie Moran and Bunny Brubaker.”

“You think because Simone—?”

“Eddie Moran and Bunny Brubaker were there, too,” she said. “They probably know everything Simone knew.”

“Good thinking.”

Mac went to Google and a few minutes later he clicked on a story about a woman named Bunny Brubaker getting robbed and murdered in a motel room in Davis, Georgia. According to the story, the police believed drugs were involved. Ms Brubaker's killer had not been apprehended. There was no picture of the victim with this or the two other short news items that he found.

“You think that's our Bunny?” said Jessie.

Mac shrugged. “It fits. Unusual name. She's about the right age.”

He then did a search for Eddie Moran—Edward, Edwin, Ed—and came up with dozens of hits, none of which seemed to be quite the right age or background.

He leaned back in his chair and gazed up at the ceiling. “They killed Bunny Brubaker, too,” he said.

Jessie nodded. “I'm thinking that if they—whoever they are—if they killed Simone—they probably know about the tapes and the photos and those documents.”

He nodded. “I've been thinking about that, too.” He looked at her. “If they know that . . .”

“Then they know about you,” said Jessie.

WHEN TED AUSTIN answered the phone, he said, “I was going to call you. What the hell is going on?”

“You heard about Simone,” said Mac.

“Yes. Suicide. That's terrible.”

“I don't think it was suicide, Ted.”

Austin was silent for a minute. “You're saying . . .?”

“I'm saying that what Simone knew got her killed. You haven't listened to those tapes I sent you, have you?”

“No,” Austin said. “Should I?”

“No,” said Mac. “But you should know that they're dangerous. The photos and documents corroborate what's on the tapes. I hope they're in a safe place.”

“They're safe,” said Austin. “You better explain.”

Mac summarized Simone's story as succinctly as he could.

“Wow,” said Austin. “So let's see if I got this right. Judge Larrigan got his eye patch from a fight with his wife, making him a phony war hero. He had a baby with a fourteen-year-old girl, making him a pedophile and a statutory rapist. He married the girl and probably never divorced her, meaning he's a bigamist. He abused his young wife and then deserted her. He may have sold his baby.” Austin paused. “This is the man who's going to sit on the Supreme Court?”

“No way he'll make it to the Court if the media get wind of this.”

“If the media hear about all this,” said Austin, “there'll be more hell to pay than that.”

“I expect that great efforts will be made—have already been made—to keep this story from the media.”

“Killing Simone,” said Austin.

“Right.”

Austin was silent for a moment. Then he said, “This is a helluva story, Mac. A much bigger story than we bargained for.”

“Don't think that hasn't occurred to me,” said Mac.

“We can't, um, go to the authorities, I guess.”

“I don't think so.”

“Because these people, these killers . . .”

“Unless I'm mistaken,” said Mac, “these killers
are
the authorities.”

WHEN JESSIE CAME downstairs later in the afternoon, she found Katie in the kitchen.

“Can I help?” said Jessie.

Katie was at the stove stirring something in a big pot. She didn't turn around. “No, Karen. Thanks. Everything's under control.”

Jessie got a Coke from the refrigerator, then sat at the kitchen table. “Smells great,” she said.

“Hope you like marinara sauce.” Katie still hadn't looked at Jessie.

“I do,” said Jessie. “So how was school?”

“Did he send you in here to make friends with me?”

“He?”

“My father,” said Katie. “He likes you, you know.”

Jessie hesitated. “What makes you say that?”

“It's so obvious.”

“Look,” said Jessie. “I'm only going to be staying one more night. I'm sorry if I make things uncomfortable for you.”

“What makes you think I'm uncomfortable?” Katie turned to face Jessie. Her cheeks were wet.

“Oh, honey,” said Jessie. “I'm sorry.”

“You probably think I'm like jealous or something,” said Katie. “It's not that. I just wish he could be happy. I try, but . . .”

Jessie got up, went over to Katie, and put her arms around her. Katie let her arms hang at her side, neither resisting nor participating in the hug.