William Bernhardt - Capitol Murder

“On September 26 of last year, did you attend the morning meeting of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions?” Padolino asked.

“I did, sir. I’m proud to say I have the best attendance record of any member currently serving. I’ve never missed an entire day. I even attended when I had strep and a temperature of one hundred and four.”

Well, I bet the other committee members appreciated that, Ben mused.

“And was the defendant present on September 26?”

“He was, sir. He’s still vice chair, and I believe he handled some of the parliamentary rigmarole at the opening.”

“And did he remain in the committee chambers for the entire morning?”

Ben wondered if he had been coached to pause at this dramatic juncture, or if his political experience had given him sufficient instinct to work these things out for himself. “No, sir. He did not.”

A small stir from the gallery. Not quite enough to get Herndon’s gavel rattling, but close.

“At what time did Senator Glancy leave the room?”

“I can’t be certain. I was very busy, and I didn’t know then that it would be important. But it was in the first hour or so of the session.”

“Say around nine thirty?”

“Objection!” Ben rushed in. “Leading.”

“Sustained.”

“I really didn’t notice the time,” Tidwell continued. “But it was early. Before ten, certainly.”

The earliest time the coroner said the killing could have occurred, Ben noted. How terribly convenient.

“Thank you. I have no more questions.”

But Ben did. More than a few.

“Could we possibly get some specifics on this previously unmentioned absence?” Ben thought it was an appropriate time to allow some indignation to show.

“What would you like to know? I told you as much as I can about when he left.”

“How long was Senator Glancy gone? According to you.”

“I really couldn’t say. I had other things to do than monitor his comings and goings.”

“Give me a ballpark figure.”

“I can’t.”

“Was it a bathroom break? Or was he gone a good long time?”

“It was more than a bathroom break. I was trying to float a redraft by him, but he wasn’t anywhere in the chamber. I searched the whole place, waited, finally had to move on to something else. It was at least ten minutes before I saw him in the chamber again. Maybe as much as twenty.”

More than enough time, Ben realized. He played the best card he had. “Senator Tidwell, I interviewed you two days after the murder occurred, along with every other member of that committee. You told me you were working on a new formulation of a bill and couldn’t remember whether Senator Glancy was present the whole time or not.”

“And that was true. At the time. But I’ve had a long while to think about it since then. Time to reflect and to review my notes. Now I distinctly remember looking around for Todd, and not finding him.”

The man was so smooth he could make anything sound reasonable. Ben had one last impeachment card, a pretty feeble one. But he had to play it.

“Despite being from the same state, you’re not a member of the same political party as Senator Glancy, are you?”

“I think I made that clear.”

“The current Senate has only a bare Republican majority. You’d probably like to see a few Democrats replaced by Republicans, right?”

“I don’t see what that has to do with anything.”

“Answer the question.”

“Well…” He grinned a little. “I wouldn’t object.”

“And you’d probably enjoy being the senior senator from your state, wouldn’t you?”

That got a rise out of him. “If you’re trying to suggest that I’m making this up just to get Senator Glancy out of the Senate, you’re wasting your time. I wouldn’t do that. We may be political opponents, but we’re still brother senators. Politics is one thing, but loyalty is another. I put loyalty first.”

“So you say,” Ben rejoined. “But that didn’t stop you from testifying today, did it? No more questions.”

Padolino would try to patch that up on redirect, Ben well knew. But at least it gave him an exit line.

As Glancy had predicted last night, Opportunity had arrived. Coupled with Motive, the prosecution had made their case. They’d given the jury everything they needed to convict. For all intents and purposes, the burden of proof was now on Ben-and if he failed, Todd Glancy was a dead man.

It was overkill, Ben thought, and the flaw with overkill was not just that the jury would get bored but also that eventually some witness might make a mistake that would undermine everything. Padolino had made his case; the only sensible thing to do was rest. But instead, he opted for the anticlimactic introduction of character assassination. For what purpose? Ben wondered. What character was there left to assassinate?

Ben did his best to exclude all such witnesses, but Herndon ruled that it went to the issue of both motive and the likelihood that Glancy might leave a meeting to engage in “inappropriate relationships.” So it came in. Padolino put a succession of three women on the stand-all of them young, all of them pretty.

The first, a senatorial aide, claimed that during a meeting of the Atomic Energy Commission, Glancy put his hand under the conference table and between her legs. According to her, when she looked at him, shocked, he whispered, “My dear, you’re as cold as ice. Would you like to conduct a little science experiment? Let’s see if we can generate some spontaneous combustion.” The second, a member of the Senate secretarial pool, claimed Glancy had stumbled into her elevator late one evening, drunk as a skunk, belched, put his hand on her breast, and slurred, “Sssorry. I missstook you for a doorknob.”

Christina whispered into Ben’s ear. “Am I the only one who’s like, ickk ?”

“No, I’m pretty sure there are others,” Ben whispered back. “Sixteen of them, to be exact. And they’re all sitting together.”

Glancy remained quietly impassive throughout the testimony.

The most damaging was the third, which was undoubtedly why Padolino had saved her for last. She claimed to have been interviewing for an intern’s position in Glancy’s office, the position later held by Veronica Cooper. This put it in the realm of employment-related sexual harassment, which was not only contrary to federal law and actionable in civil court, but also grounds for immediate expulsion from the Senate, as Senator Packwood had learned several years before.

“He kept saying, ‘Hiring is so difficult. You can’t make an informed decision unless you’re aware of all the candidate’s talents.’ And then he unzipped his fly.”

“Did he… make a request?” Padolino asked.

“He didn’t have to. It was obvious what he wanted. I told him I wouldn’t have sex with a stranger just to get a job. And you know what he said? He said, ‘Hey, it’s not like it would be real sex.’” She pursed her lips. “Obviously, he was a Democrat.”

Ben didn’t bother asking his client if any of these incidents actually happened. They didn’t directly pertain to the murder. And Ben didn’t really want to hear the answer. He was much more concerned about what was going on at the prosecution table. Padolino had effectively completed the day with what at best could be called filler witnesses. Damaging, perhaps, but not that damaging.

If this was the best he had left, he would’ve ended with Tidwell. Which led Ben to an inescapable conclusion. There was something more. Some one more. Some killer witness Padolino had saved so he could end with a bang. But who could it be? What could there possibly be left to say?