James Grippando - Born to Run

“Hey,” said Theo, “isn’t Paulette the reporter you-”

“Quiet!” Jack and Andie said in stereo.

The wind was kicking up in Washington, and the reporter fought to keep her hair out of her face. “CNN has also learned that the car’s engine was running, but the lights were off, and the first officers on the scene did not see anyone behind the wheel. As the first officer approached, he saw what he described as a hose running from the exhaust pipe into the car through the rear window, which was opened just a crack.”

“A hose?” said the anchor.

“Yes,” said Brown. “A regular rubber garden hose. It was then that they shined their flashlights inside the vehicle and saw a body slumped over the console. The door was locked, and police shattered the driver-side window. Paramedics were notified immediately, and the victim-described as a white female in her early thirties-was taken to George Washington Medical Center.”

“Any report on her condition?”

“I don’t have that information.”

“Has the victim been positively identified yet?”

“I’m told that she has, but police are not releasing her name until her family can be contacted.”

“Of course we don’t want to speculate,” said the anchor, “but Paulette Sparks is like family to many of us here. We are all deeply concerned. Our thoughts and prayers are with Paulette and the Sparks family right now.”

The anchor switched gears to another breaking story. Jack switched off the television and looked at Andie.

The look on her face said it all, but she verbalized it anyway. “It’s Paulette.”

Jack glanced at Theo, then back at Andie. “Is she going to be all right?”

Andie drew a breath before answering.

“She’s dead.”

Jack caught a mid-morning flight into Reagan National Airport and called his father as soon as the plane touched down. Harry had a full day of meetings at the White House, but he didn’t have to guess what all the urgency was about. By lunch-time, Paulette’s name had been released to the public, and the story was all over the news. The two men met in private in the only vacant office in the West Wing-Vice President Grayson’s old office.

“Sounds like she killed herself,” said Harry. The office was barely wide enough for the camelback sofa in the center of the room. Harry sat at the far end of it, near the window, and Jack was in the armchair beneath the brass chandelier.

Jack shook his head. “Not Paulette. No way.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“First of all, she wasn’t even close with her sister. This idea that she was so upset over Chloe’s murder that she drove over to her apartment and took her own life just doesn’t wash.”

“It may seem far-fetched to you. But by definition, anyone who commits suicide has lost perspective.”

“This was not a suicide,” said Jack. “Paulette called me last night. She was not a woman on the verge of checking out. I could feel her energy, her excitement.”

“About what?”

Jack told him about Chloe’s notes and the reference to someone other than Jack and Paulette’s sister getting an e-mail about bringing down the Keyes presidency.

“Where are those notes now?”

“I’ll bet they’re gone,” said Jack. “And if they have disappeared, that’s the nail in the coffin for the suicide theory, if you ask me.”

“Have you reported this to the FBI?”

“I told Andie this morning.”

Harry nodded, but not in agreement. He was simply thinking.

“What would you like me to do?” he said.

“Be honest with me,” said Jack.

“Of course.”

“The other day, when we were out jogging. When you, you know-”

“Fired you?”

“Well, you didn’t really fire me.”

“Yes, I did.”

“Okay, all right. I got fired. F-I-R-E-D. Is everybody as happy as a pig in a pile of shit now?”

Harry glanced around the room. “Jack, it’s only you and me here.”

“Never mind. This is important, and I need you to be completely straight with me.”

“I’m starting to resent the implication that I would be anything less than that.”

“You’re right,” said Jack. “I’m sorry. Let me just put this to you, and we’ll go from there. The other day, when I got f-f-”

“Fired.”

“Yes. You were really upset with me for putting my trust in Paulette Sparks.”

“I was upset with you for putting that level of trust in a Washington reporter. Any Washington reporter. It just so happened to be Paulette Sparks.”

“And now it just so happens that she’s dead.”

Harry’s mouth was agape. “Are you suggesting that I -”

“No,” said Jack. “Not even when you were governor and signing death warrants for my clients did I call you a murderer to your face. That’s not what this is about.”

Harry checked his watch.

“Am I holding you up?” said Jack.

“I don’t mean to be rude, but I have a meeting with the chief of staff in five minutes.”

“Okay,” said Jack. “Here’s the thing. I told you how determined Paulette was to find out who sent me and her sister those e-mails about President Keyes. I also told you that she thought Vice President Grayson had been murdered.”

“So?”

Jack narrowed his eyes, more like the way he would press a witness than speak to his father. “You’re the only person I told.”

Harry folded his arms-a defensive gesture, it seemed to Jack.

“I see,” said Harry.

“So my question to you is this,” said Jack. “Did you tell anyone what I told you?”

There was a knock at the door. The chief of staff poked her head into the office.

“The president is going to join us for our three o’clock,” she said. “Let’s not keep him waiting.”

Harry nodded, as if to tell her that he needed just a moment more, and she closed the door.

“I have to go,” said Harry, rising.

“I’d like an answer before you go anywhere,” said Jack. “Did you tell anyone what I told you about Paulette?”

Harry took a deep breath, and he seemed to hold it for the longest time. Then he looked out the window, his gaze fixed so long that Jack, too, needed to turn and see what had caught his attention. There was nothing.

“Dad? Did you tell anyone?”

Harry started to shake his head, but then he shrugged and said, “I don’t remember.”

“You don’t remember?”

“No. I truly don’t. But if I had, don’t you have to believe I would remember?”

“Honestly, I’m having trouble distinguishing between what I have to believe and what I want to believe.”

Harry stepped toward him and laid a hand on Jack’s shoulder. “Stop worrying, Jack. Or you’re never going to make it to fifty.”

An eerie feeling came over him. Jack knew that it wasn’t a threat, but he wondered if it was more than just fatherly advice-perhaps some kind of warning.

Jack watched in silence as his father left the vice president’s office for his meeting with President Keyes.

Andie had a four o’clock phone conference with the assistant special agent in charge of the Washington field office. She had been thinking about the call all day-and about Jack.

It wasn’t that she didn’t love Jack. Maybe he wasn’t the smoothest guy she’d ever dated, and sometimes he drove her crazy, but there was cause for optimism. He tried to do the right thing-tried really hard. He still opened doors for her on dates. He paid the price to valet the car whenever she wore high heels. He told her she was beautiful, and not just to get in her pants. Not once did she have to tell him that a woman never wanted to hear the simultaneous sound of her man brushing his teeth and going to the bathroom. That alone made Jack a dream compared to her ex-fiance in Seattle, though a groom who slept with the maid of honor didn’t exactly set the standard for lifelong commitment.