Philip Margolin: Capitol murder

Even locked up on death row, three thousand miles away, Clarence Little still scared the hell out of Brad. The idea that he might gain his freedom was terrifying. Brad hadn’t lied to Ginny when he said he believed that Little appreciated what he’d done for him. But Ginny had been right. Little was a conscienceless sociopathic serial killer whose mood changed with the wind. There was no telling what he would do if he was released from custody.

Unless you’ve stood for public office, it’s almost impossible to appreciate the rigors of running for election. On Tuesday afternoon, United States Senator Jack Carson rushed from a session of the Appropriations Committee to Dulles International Airport for a three-thousand-mile cross-country trip to Oregon. As soon as the plane landed, he boarded a small plane bound for Pendleton, a city of sixteen thousand in the eastern part of the state. After the Pendleton fund-raiser, the senator brainstormed with his advisers in his hotel room before exhaustion forced him into a deep sleep. His six A.M. wake-up call shocked him into consciousness so he could be interviewed on a phone-in radio show. When the show was over, Carson vacuumed down an Egg McMuffin and a container of black coffee during a car ride to a local television station. Then it was five hours on the road, broken up by a lunch with supporters in a small Oregon town. During the rest of the ride, the senator’s cell phone was pressed to his ear as he tried to coax money from his supporters while he was driven to an evening fund-raiser in a ballroom at the downtown Hilton in Portland.

By the time Carson finished his speech, posed for photo ops, and glad-handed the guests, he was punch drunk, starving, and running on fumes. But he still had to appear enthralled by Harry Butcher’s tedious saga of his battle with the fifth hole of his country-club golf course, a tale that seemed to go on as long as an audio version of War and Peace.

“And when I climbed up out of that damn bunker and trekked up to the green, everyone was clapping,” Butcher concluded. “The ball had hopped into the hole for a par. Can you believe it?”

Carson faked a hearty laugh and clapped Butcher on the shoulder. The $2,000 Butcher had forked over to attend the fundraiser gave him the right to bore the senator to tears.

Carson looked over Butcher’s shoulder and saw Martha chatting up a wealthy doctor and her socially connected spouse under a banner with large red letters blaring SEND JACK BACK. His wife hated these dinners, but she was a trouper. Butcher asked Jack a question about business taxes that he only half heard. As he finessed an answer, he saw a woman approaching, and the fog that enshrouded his brain suddenly cleared.

Carson had been a nerd in high school and college, succeeding in the classroom but failing miserably with women. Getting laid had been one of his main reasons for getting involved in college politics, but politics had not helped his sex life much until he was elected to national office and discovered that for certain women, being with a United States senator was an aphrodisiac.

Carson was of medium height with a slender build, curly brown hair, and pale blue eyes, someone you would pass on the street without a second glance. He had met his wife in a chemistry class at Cornell. She was attractive in a pleasant sort of way, and their marriage was conventional, with two children, a golden retriever named McGovern, and an estate in the country, purchased with part of a fortune Jack had made from software he had created during the dot-com boom.

Jack loved his wife, but he’d always harbored certain desires he could not reveal to Martha, desires that some of his mistresses were willing to indulge. Two years ago, a fling with a young lobbyist had ended badly enough to scare him straight. Lucas Sharp, Carson’s childhood friend and his chief aide and fixer, had taken care of the matter. The senator suspected money was involved, but Lucas had done something else he would not discuss with Jack on the theory that what his boss didn’t know couldn’t be testified to in a grand jury. Whatever Lucas had done had worked, because the girl moved back to Indiana two days after Sharp met with her.

Jack had stayed on the straight and narrow after that unnerving fiasco, but the mere sight of this woman in her tight black dress caused a raft of fetishes to sail out of the senator’s subconscious. If his PR firm had concocted a slogan for her, it would have been SEX, set off in blazing scarlet letters. She had high cheekbones, a dark complexion that hinted at Middle Eastern ancestry, silky black hair that fell past her shoulders, lightly muscled, long, tanned legs, and a self-confident air. She waited patiently as Carson got rid of Butcher, then walked close enough for Jack to smell her perfume before extending her hand.

“I don’t believe we’ve met, Senator. My name is Jessica Koshani.”

Carson took the hand willingly. It was warm to the touch, and he felt a slight shock of sexual pleasure from the contact.

“Pleased to meet you,” was the best he could come up with.

“I loved your speech,” Koshani said. “You’re one of the few voices of reason in Middle East policy.”

“Thank you,” Carson answered, fighting the heat he felt rising in his cheeks as he struggled to keep his tone professional.

“I realize you’re tired. These fund-raisers must be exhausting. But I would like to meet with you to hand over some sizable campaign donations. They’re from a few of my business acquaintances who admire your work.” Koshani fixed her large brown eyes on him and smiled in a way that brought more heat to another part of his body. “Would you be able to come to my home in Dunthorpe sometime this week? It will definitely be worth the trip.”

The practical part of Carson’s brain took precedence over his lizard brain for a second. Dunthorpe was where some of the wealthiest members of Portland society lived. If Koshani had a home in Dunthorpe, she would be connected. Jack was in a fight to the death with a well-heeled opponent, and he needed all the money he could get. He also wanted a chance to see Koshani again.

“I do happen to be free Thursday evening.”

“Wonderful,” Koshani said as she handed Jack a business card with her name, a telephone number, and the word I NVESTMENTS.

“I’ve written my address on the back. Shall we say eight?”

“I’ll be there.”

Koshani smiled and walked away. Seconds later, Lucas Sharp was at the senator’s side. Physically, Lucas was everything Jack Carson was not. The African American was a shade over six feet tall, compact and muscular, with a smooth shaved skull that made him look dangerous. Lucas had wrestled and played football in high school, but he’d also had a near-perfect GPA. Brainpower was the bond that made Jack and Lucas best friends. Sharp would not tolerate a single word against his nerdy white friend and had protected him from bullies from elementary school through high school.

The friendship had blossomed at Cornell, where Sharp’s intellect was valued above his wrestling skills and he could let his interest in computer science run free. While attending law school at Harvard, Sharp had made major contributions to the software Carson had developed in graduate school at MIT, and he’d shared in the financial windfall when the patent was sold to Microsoft. Though he didn’t need the money, Lucas worked as a Multnomah County district attorney for four years before quitting when Jack decided to run for Congress. Jack relished the spotlight, but Sharp preferred working behind the scenes.

“What was that about?” Sharp asked when Koshani was out of earshot.

“She wants to meet with me to discuss a major contribution to the campaign.”