William Bernhardt - Capitol Threat

“Oh no, no, no. I never paid for it. Nothing like that. We’re just talking, um, what’s a polite term?”

“Women of low repute?”

“Very good, Ben. What a way you have with words! English major?”

“Music.”

“Close enough. Anyway, yes, in my spare time, which was never that extensive, I was cavorting with trailer trash and barflies, and on at least one notable occasion, a thief.”

Ben frowned. “You mean, like, a shoplifter?”

“Please. Give me some credit. I had better taste than that. I’m talking about an art thief.”

“Oh,” Ben said, arching an eyebrow. “Well, that is better.”

“Nothing but the best for young Thaddeus Roush. Okay, maybe she actually stole art only once, but I like to think the job improved her entire résumé.” He closed his eyes and continued his story. “I met Vickie, short for Victoria, at a bar in Georgetown. On the outside she seemed eminently trashy—exactly the sort of woman I was drawn to at the time. Ripped-up jeans, tight T-shirt. Fourteen different tattoos, some of them in places that are…unmentionable. She was a piece of work, no doubt about it. But the more time I spent with her, the more I realized that she was, well, not as dumb as you might’ve guessed. The outward appearance was more show than tell.”

“Like maybe she was slumming, too.”

“Exactly. Of course, that made her all the more intriguing. A little frightening, too. And she was tough, very tough. Exactly how I didn’t feel, at the time.”

“So I assume this led to a relationship between the two of you. And that eventually this relationship led to the two of you becoming sexually involved.”

“I think we became sexually involved the first night I escorted her out of that bar. In time we developed something that you might be able to call a relationship.”

“And this tryst eventually produced a pregnancy?”

“Not at first. We were on again, off again. I had my world, she had hers. And the more I knew about hers, the more I realized it could have nothing to do with my judicial work. We hooked up when we could, when we wanted. Sex, that is. When we wanted sex.”

“And that was…?”

“At first, ridiculously often, particularly given my confused sexuality. I wonder if she didn’t get that, at least a hint of it. Some of the things she did, some of the ways she…humored me.” He took a deep breath. “In retrospect, it’s almost as if she knew before I did.”

“How long did this relationship last?”

“In the first phase, about three months. Till Jerry showed up.”

“Ah. A rival?”

“Oh, no. A business partner. Partner-in-crime, I guess you’d say.”

“Had they worked together in the past?”

“No. Jerry was new. And very different from Vickie.”

“How so?”

Roush held up his hands. “In about every way you could imagine. He was much less adept at disguising his patrician roots. He had a pronounced Southern accent and it was clear he was used to money, if not at present then certainly at some point in his past. It didn’t matter how ragged his T-shirt looked; you always sensed he’d be more comfortable in a Polo. Drove a Maserati, for Pete’s sake—said he’d won it in a lottery. He wasn’t fooling anyone. Could’ve been a Vanderbilt for all he belonged in those dive bars.”

“Then what was he doing there?”

“Said he had a big score, a chance to make some easy bread—he actually used that word, bread. He just needed someone with a little experience in the conning and cat burglary department to bring it off.”

“And that was where Vickie came in.”

“You got it.”

“So what was it he wanted to rip off—his daddy’s summer cottage on Cape Cod?”

“It was actually more ambitious than that. He’d scoped out a small but affluent museum in Boston. Somehow acquired a lot of information about it: interior schematics, the strength and schedule of the security force, that sort of thing. And he wanted Vickie to partner up with him.”

“Did she do it?”

“Oh, yeah. The robbery was in all the papers at the time. For a place with such a valuable collection, it was pathetically under-protected. But somehow or other, it all went bad.”

“They got caught?”

“No. No one ever got caught. But Vickie showed up on my doorstep the next day bleeding from about a hundred places. She was practically dead.”

“Why didn’t she go to the emergency room?”

Roush gave Ben a long look.

“Oh. Right. Thief.”

“Yeah. Thief very much being sought by the police. Fortunately, I know a little first aid, at least enough to get by. Most of the wounds were superficial, all but a bad stab wound near the clavicle. Her left arm was in horrible shape—she had quite literally wrenched it out of its socket. Fixing that was no pleasure, I can assure you. I poured bourbon down her throat, but I know it still hurt like hell.”

“Where was Jerry?”

“That was the million-dollar question. I kept asking. She wouldn’t answer. Finally, one night, when I think she was too weak and too drunk to resist, she told me what happened to her partner.”

“Did he go on the job with her?”

“Oh, yeah. She couldn’t do it alone.”

“So, he was hurt even worse than she was?”

Roush let his eyelids flutter closed. “She killed him.”

Ben’s lips parted. He hoped his jaw wasn’t drooping, but it was impossible to be sure.

“Said she had no choice, of course, but that didn’t make it any better. Falling-out amongst thieves, something like that.”

Ben leaned forward. “So what did you do?”

“What else could I do? I’m a judge! I told her she had to turn herself in.”

“I’m guessing that idea didn’t appeal to her much.”

“You guess correctly. She screamed and shouted, threatened. Told me that if the cops knew about her I’d be implicated, too. And she was right, of course. But it didn’t matter. I mean, cavorting with a thief was one thing. But this was murder!”

“I have a feeling this story isn’t headed for a happy ending.”

“Your instincts are impeccable. I waited until she was stronger. The police still hadn’t made the slightest break in the case. With my connections, I was able to monitor their progress, or lack thereof, pretty closely. They didn’t have a clue. Finally, I told Vickie she had to turn herself in. And I told her that if she didn’t, I would.”

“How did she respond?”

“Two simple words: ‘I’m pregnant.’ ”

Ben fell back into his chair. Now, at last, it was all beginning to make sense.

Roush rose, glancing toward the imposing bookshelf behind his chair, as if selecting something to read to help pass the time. “What was I going to do? Turning in your lover and implicating yourself was one thing. Turning in the mother of your child—that was quite another. We argued for days, back and forth. Mind you, she didn’t want that child; it was just a blackmail device for her. I’ve always hated the idea of abortion—still do. But what business did I have raising a child? Me, an unmarried man preoccupied with sleazy women, a man increasingly realizing he was not entirely heterosexual. Was I going to raise a child with this woman? Was I going to raise a child without this woman?” He leaned his head against the leather-bound books. “It was an insoluble problem.”

“So you reached a compromise.”

Ben could only see the back of the man’s head nod. “She got an abortion. I paid for it. And then she got the hell out of my life and never bothered me again.” His eyes turned toward the ceiling, catching a glint from the fluorescent lighting. “I was appointed to the D.C. Circuit. I bought a beautiful house. I met Ray.” A smile briefly flickered across his face, then faded. “Life was good. For a while.”