William Bernhardt - Capitol Murder

“There is nothing!” she screamed, and even though her arm was hooked to the IV, she jerked forward, teeth gnashing, biting at him. “Please! I burn, master. I burn!”

“And if I give you what you want, what will you give me, my darling?”

She jerked back and forth on the table, growling like a feral beast. “Punish me, master.”

“Do you deserve to be punished?”

“I want to feel the hurt,” she gasped. “I need the hurt.”

“You must control yourself, my child.”

“Hurt me!” she screamed, an earsplitting cry that reverberated through the room. All at once he reared back his hand and hit her, his knuckles smashing against her face. A trickle of blood flowed from the corner of her lips. She thrust her tongue out and licked it up, rubbing it across her lips, savoring the taste. “I need more, master.” Her voice was low and guttural. “You know what I need.”

“Very well.” He leaned back, walking a finger across her barely covered chest, pinning her to the table not with his finger but with the intensity of his eyes. “I believe you are sincere. I will give you what you crave. Because you can still be of use to us. Soon we will perform the final rite of purification. And then, my dear-” He brushed the matted hair from her face. “-then we will have all of eternity before us.”

“I still can’t believe it,” Glancy said, pounding his fist on the conference table. “As long as I’ve been in politics, I’ve never been played like that. I might have believed it from anyone else, but not Shandy. Not in a million years.”

Ben tried to be sympathetic. “Just shows to go you. You can never really know a person.”

“But I did know her, Ben. I did. I just didn’t see this coming.”

“Well, it’s over now. We have to move on.” They were seated around a conference table in Ben’s borrowed law offices. After hours of being grilled by the police about the death of Amber Daily, Loving had dropped by to deliver an update, then left again to resume his investigation. Christina and Jones were present, though, as well as all the members-all the remaining members-of Glancy’s staff. Amanda Burton was fielding phone calls from the press, Marshall Bressler was on his cell trying to minimize the political damage, and Hazel was keyboarding a flurry of documents, some legal, some political. “What was in that letter Shandy gave you, anyway? Before court was in session.”

“The height of objurgation.” Glancy flung it across the table. “Her letter of resignation.”

“How decent of her,” Christina said. “Saved you the trouble of firing her.”

“And gave her an out in the event that she might be held in contempt of Congress for testifying against me,” Glancy said. “Not that any charges are likely to be brought now. The press are treating her like some heroic whistle-blower, not like the b-” He glanced up and caught Christina’s eye. “Okay, the unsavory person that she is. Amanda tells me that 60 Minutes and 20/20 are engaged in a bidding war to get her on as a guest.”

“I thought they weren’t allowed to pay for interviews,” Ben said.

“Oh, they won’t pay her anything directly. They’ll just… make a contribution to her elderly father’s pension fund or something. Maybe they’ll give her a free hour of prime-time TV to promote her new CD. That’s how they got Michael Jackson.” He snorted. “Next they’ll be offering to pay for the film rights to her life. Erin Brockovich, Part Two. Except without the cleavage.”

“Do you have anything we might use to impeach her testimony?” Ben inquired. He’d asked before, of course, but it never hurt to try again. “Judge Herndon knows Shandy took us by surprise. I think he’d let me call her back as part of the defense case, if we had a decent reason.”

“I hardly know anything about the girl. Contrary to the picture painted by Mr. Padolino, I am not a serial sex addict. And it isn’t because I’m such a pure soul-it’s because I know you cannot keep a secret in this town. I strayed once-only once-and of course the whole damn world knows about that now.”

“So Shandy-”

“I hired her in a rush the day this mess began. I never had a chance to socialize with her.”

“You’ve said some very complimentary things about her since. Talked about how she was taking care of you. You’re still saying you thought you knew her,” Christina pointed out.

“After the murder. When she was spying on us. I thought she was trustworthy.”

“And there was never anything… untoward?”

“When would I have had a chance? Yes, I do tend to hire attractive interns. It’s not because I want to sleep with them; it’s because it’s good politics. Even interns have a role, and a good intern can sometimes make the difference between a bill that passes and a bill that fails. We all are more persuaded by attractive people; it’s just human nature. Hiring young pretties isn’t sexist-it’s smart.”

“Glad you hadn’t figured that out yet when I came on board,” Marshall said, his hand covering his cell phone.

Glancy grinned. “And just for the record, I did not ask if she was wearing thong underwear. Why would I? I’m a senator, for God’s sake. You make one remark like that and you’re on the six o’clock news.” He bristled. “I don’t know what the big fuss is about those damn thongs, anyway. I never liked them. I much prefer-” He caught himself. “Well, never mind.”

“What about the others?” Christina asked. “The other interns and job applicants who testified.”

“Look, I’m not going to pretend I’ve never done a little flirting. I am a human being, and moreover, I’m a politician. If I can work a little charm on someone to get what I want, I will. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

“The incident with the zipper-”

“Didn’t happen. If my fly was open, which I doubt, it was an unfortunate accident, and I certainly didn’t do it for that woman’s benefit. Ask yourself this: if all these incidents are true, why didn’t anyone say anything about it at the time? We’ve got a Senate watchdog oversight committee, an Ethics Committee, and a hound-dog press. Any one of them would love to get their hands on a story like that. Plus it would guarantee the tattletale tubs of TV time and probably a job. Why would they remain silent?” He balled his fists and pressed them together. “This is just like what they did to Clarence Thomas. Not that he’s any great gem. But how is it all those women who were sexually harassed never said a word about it-until he was appearing on televised hearings?”

“So you think she’s lying about you just out of spite?”

“Spite? Hell, I think she’s on the payroll. It’s Paula Jones time, all over again. Give me enough money and I’ll say anything.”

“And who would want to bankroll Shandy’s lies?”

“Anyone who doesn’t want to see me on a national Democratic ticket. And believe me, there are a lot of them.”

“A right-wing conspiracy?” Christina said, arching an eyebrow.

He grimaced. “Count on Hillary to express something real in a way that makes it sound like a paranoid fantasy. I’m not talking about some secret society. I’m talking about rich Republicans, period. Even though there are more registered Democrats in this country than Republicans, the Republicans typically fund-raise more than three times as much money for national elections-and produce twice as many attack ads.”

“What about the Delia Collins incident?” Christina asked. “The one Representative MacReady told the jury about?”

“Never happened. I remember that woman-I met with her on several occasions. But I did not have sex with her. Not under anyone’s definition of the word.”