'The senator does not want to give the impression that he is being interrogated,' Rodgers replied. 'He told me he will gladly answer Paul's questions about the case but insisted that he does not have much to say.'
'Right. And when I go there, this immediately becomes more about us than about him,' Hood said. 'It looks like I'm making a personal headline grab, which will call into question our motives which Link has already done and undermine everything Op-Center has or will contribute to the investigation.'
'Mike, I just don't get it,' McCaskey said. 'I damn near agreed to exonerate the senator and back away. Why wouldn't he want that?'
'My guess is he isn't guilty of anything,' Rodgers said.
Hood rested his elbows on his desk. He dug his palms into his eyes. 'I think it was Twain who said that when all else fails, do what's right.'
He looked up. 'Gentlemen, we were justified getting into this, and we have a valid reason to see it through. Mike, please thank the senator for us and tell him we hope it won't be necessary to accept his generous offer when the investigation is further along.'
Rodgers did not respond. He looked at McCaskey, gave him a half-smile, and left the office.
'Not 'strange,' McCaskey said when Rodgers was gone. 'That was disturbing. How did we end up on different sides of the barricade?'
'I'm not even sure how the barricade got there,' Hood said.
'I swear, I should have just ignored the goddamn wound under Wilson's tongue,' McCaskey said.
'No!' Hood replied, a hint of anger in his voice. 'That would have been a lot worse than disturbing, Darrell. When it becomes wrong to seek justice, we should all turn in our suits.'
Darrell could not dispute that. But he was not ready to agree that the goal was more honorable than what it might take to get there: going to war against an old friend.
SEVENTEEN
Washington, D.C. Monday, 7:22 p.m.
It was not supposed to happen the way it did. The death of William Wilson was supposed to be news for a day or two and then go away. It was supposed to be recorded as a heart attack, not a homicide. Now it was not going to go away, and she had to change the focus.
She dressed the same as last time, only this time she wore a scarf instead of a wide-brimmed hat. And big, dark sunglasses, pure Audrey Hepburn. All the fashionable people wore them at night. She went to another fashionable hotel, the Monarch on M Street NW, in the upscale West End district. She sat by a courtyard fountain, her back to the hotel, her feet on the ground, her purse and a package of Kleenex in her lap. She thought of the death of her father, something that always brought tears. She wept into one Kleenex and then another for practice. Then she stopped crying and waited. She told herself not to worry, everything was going to go down perfectly.
A white stretch limousine pulled up. A couple got out. She ignored them. They ignored her. A few minutes later, a cab arrived and two men emerged. One of them attempted to talk to her. He was a lobbyist for the recording industry. Close, but not worth the effort. She did not cry. She did not continue the conversation.
The third limousine was a black stretch. A gray-haired gentleman emerged with a young aide. The older man was about sixty and dressed in Armani. He was wearing a wedding band and a deep tan. He obviously lived in a sunny climate. He was tall and trim and apparently worked out.
She started to sob. With a glance her way and a tug on his cuff links, the older man excused himself from the younger man and walked over.
'Is there something wrong, miss?' he asked.
Southern accent. Deep south. He touched her shoulder. She looked at his hand and then at him. The hand appeared soft, except for chafing around the crook of the thumb. From a golf glove and too-hard grip, she imagined. There were three clear one-carat diamonds in the cuff link and a Rolex on his wrist.
'Thank you, but I I don't want to trouble you,' she said.
'It's no trouble to stop a pretty girl's tears,' he replied.
She smiled up at him. 'You're sweet. But really, I'll be all right just as soon as I find someone to teach my husband a lesson.'
