to jail.”
Nichols clasped his hands together, and his voice lowered, harder now. “I have told you the truth. I will not speak of it again.” He turned to Rachael, raised his voice. “Who are you to destroy a man’s name, to have the world judge him on a fraction of his life when he spent years—years—doing such fine work? That is one decision you cannot make for anyone. Especially not for him. You had only six weeks with him, Rachael, not enough time to know what he even liked to eat for breakfast. You did not know his mind, or his heart. You must accept that.”
Jack saw Rachael’s face was stark and pale, and said easily, “Where were you that night?”
“Me? All right, I suppose I am a suspect. Trust me, I don’t need a calendar. That night is burned into my memory forever. I was to have dinner with Susan Wentworth—she works over in the GAO. But we didn’t go, I can’t remember the reason. So I don’t have an alibi for the night of Senator Abbott’s death.” He looked down at his watch. “I must brief Senator Jankel. He needs my input before he votes.” He rose, didn’t offer to shake hands. He said to Rachael, “I hope you think long and hard about this, Rachael. Very hard.”
Rachael didn’t say anything. Jack thought she looked sad, and very tired.
Outside Senator Jankel’s office, Jack said, “I expected you to tell him someone was trying to kill you, but you didn’t.”
“To be honest, I didn’t see the point. He is very bright, Jack, and very smooth. His word against mine, and what good would it do? And he knows that.” She shrugged. “I don’t blame him, not really. He was only trying to clean up the mess; he didn’t create it.”
Jack said, “He’s also a liar.”
“Yes, he is.”
Jack said, “Do you think he murdered your father?”
Rachael paused on the sidewalk in front of the Hart Senate Office Building and raised her face to the warm sun. She said, “Bottom line, who would hire him on Capitol Hill if it was known he helped my father cover up that accident? Oh, I don’t know. My head hurts.”
THIRTY-FOUR
When Savich called Congresswoman McManus’s office, a staffer told him she wouldn’t be in today, and that was all. It was no problem discovering McManus’s home address. They drove straight to her house in Tenleytown, past the business district along Wisconsin Avenue to Upton Street. “No warning?” Sherlock asked. Savich shook his head. “Nope.”
“I would assume she’s a very busy woman. I hope she’s home and not off at some function.”
Dolores McManus was home. Her secretary, Nicole Merril, brought down her thick dark raised eyebrow when Savich identified them, then she led them to the congresswoman’s home office in the back of the good-sized redbrick Georgian house set back from the busy street, surrounded by oak and maple trees. She knocked once, lightly, then ushered them into a room that wasn’t all that large, but it was beautiful, covered with bookshelves, even a ladder to reach the ones on top, heavy dark furniture you could sink into, too warm for Sherlock’s taste.
Nicole Merril said, “Congresswoman McManus, forgive the interruption. This is Agent Savich and Agent Sherlock from the FBI, here to see you about a Dr. Timothy MacLean.”
As an intro, it did the trick. Savich saw McManus’s hands fall off her computer keyboard and he’d swear she nearly rose straight out of her chair before she got herself together.
Then she straightened to her full height, and stood tall and still, facing them. In person, Congresswoman Dolores McManus was magnificent and well-dressed, standing close to six feet tall, with a sturdy, solid build and an amazing face, all angles and hollows, and deep lines seamed along the sides of her mouth. That mouth was opening right now, and Savich knew to his heels this woman loved to mix it up, no matter who or what the subject. Maybe he’d cheer her on if he agreed with her politics; at least he would if she hadn’t paid some yahoo thug from Savannah to murder her trucker husband.
He looked into those dark eyes, saw both guilt and knowledge. He knew she’d done it. She’d thought about it carefully, gone through a dozen pros and cons, a dozen scenarios, then planned it meticulously, probably scared the spit out of the guy she hired to kill Mr. McManus.
He’d really like to have seen her with Timothy in the room, but of course there was no way she would have agreed to such an arrangement. If she was the one who tried to kill MacLean and indeed killed his tennis partner, Arthur Dolan, did she somehow manage to get out of Washington unnoticed and make the attempts herself, or did she hire someone like she did with her husband?
“Congresswoman,” he said, striding forward, his hand out, giving her an engaging smile. “Thank you for seeing us.”
McManus shook their hands, gave them both a quick up-and-down look, offered them water, which they both refused, and said, “Agents. Let me say, this is unexpected. Nicole said you are from the FBI?”
“That’s right, ma’am.” Sherlock gave her a sunny smile. “We would appreciate your speaking to us, Congresswoman, about Dr. Timothy MacLean.”
McManus was shaking her head as she looked down at the Rolex on her wrist. “I don’t understand what this is about. I mean, what about Dr. MacLean? Look, I have no plans to sue him, so what are you doing here? I don’t have any time right now, there’s always a meeting, and I must go ...”
Guilt and knowledge—Savich saw both again. She knew what MacLean had said about her—she’d just admitted to a motive. She was already flustered, talking all over the lot. He had to keep her off-balance. “This won’t take long,” he said, and his dark eyes became cold and flat. His voice went lower. “It’s to your benefit, we believe, Congresswoman McManus.”
“How could a visit from the FBI be to my benefit? How could anything about Dr. MacLean be to my benefit? I scarcely know the man.”
“I suppose you weren’t aware that someone brought down his plane? A bomb?”
“What’s that? A bomb? No, of course not. It’s regrettable, to be sure. Was it a terrorist act, do you think?” Her voice sharpened, the honey Southern accent became markedly clipped, and she slapped her open palms on the desktop. “Are you here because you believe I’m not tough enough on terrorism? Are you here because you don’t believe I’m a patriot? Do you believe I don’t love my country? Do you believe—”
“No, Congresswoman, not at all,” Sherlock said, running over her smoothly, her voice nearly an octave higher, but it was difficult even with all Sherlock’s experience. “May we be seated?”
“What? Well, yes, all right. But I don’t have much time, as I told you.”
She sat down herself and stared at them from across the expanse of her dark leather-surfaced partners desk.
Sherlock said, “We’re here to speak with you about Dr. MacLean’s claim that you murdered your husband. Surely you remember, Congresswoman—under hypnosis you said you hired someone to murder your husband at a truck stop outside Atlanta?”
Congresswoman McManus jumped to her feet. Savich saw she did indeed have beautiful breasts, as Timothy had said. The lovely silk wraparound dress showcased them quite nicely. She was shaking, he saw, her face remarkably flushed—with rage? Fear?
“That is ridiculous nonsense! I want you to leave now. Do you hear me? I don’t have to put up with this!”
Savich raised a hand. “A moment more, Congresswoman. I realize you can’t begin to understand why Dr. MacLean told us about this, so let me explain. Dr. MacLean has been diagnosed with frontal lobe dementia, a pernicious disease that makes him say inappropriate, even extraordinarily damaging, things—in your case, breaking patient confidentiality—all without meaning to, all without malicious intent.” He paused a beat. “Perhaps you know there have been other attempts on Dr. MacLean’s life? That his office records were hurried?”
McManus’s voice was deep and vibrant, and shook with passion. “You’re here to accuse me of having my husband murdered? That is monstrous nonsense, monstrous. His death, his murder, it was a horrible thing to have happen; my children were devastated. I loved my husband.
“You said Dr. MacLean claims I told him I killed my own husband? And now you say he’s demented? And he didn’t tell his patients that he was
“If he was only incompetent, Congresswoman, why would you think of suing him?”
