is worse, they’re shifting, an ominous sign this late.
With physical evidence connecting Arnsberg to the scene, with no alibi, and with an apparent motive, I have been forced to consider the defenses of last resort, diminished capacity or possible insanity. These are inevitably a hard sell to any jury. Besides, I have had my client examined by experts, shrinks who know their stuff, and the tea leaves are not good. While Arnsberg claims to possess blanks in his memory immediately following the trauma of the murder scene, his story is always the same, that Scarborough ’s dead body and the blood were already there when he arrived in the room. His lapses of memory all come afterward. He cannot recall touching the hammer, according to the police the murder weapon. He can’t account for how his palm print became superimposed in the victim’s blood on the floor. He does remember entering the room, for which he did not have a passkey. According to Arnsberg, the door was ajar, so that when he pushed, it opened.
According to the theory advanced by the cops, Scarborough let him in, since it is established that he ordered breakfast, only to turn his back, take a seat, and be murdered.
Without evidence of another person at the scene and some overriding motive for this phantom to have murdered Scarborough, the classic SODDI defense-“some other dude did it”-is a long shot. For this reason the lure of the missing letter and its potential value has opened the possibility, fleeting as it may be. So I pursue it.
My flight lands in D.C. midmorning. Early September, eleven-thirty, and the day is beginning to heat up. I make my way to what is known by locals as Gucci Gulch, the concrete canyon that is K Street in the nation’s capital. Here high-rise offices house some of the most powerful lawyers and deal makers on earth. Twenty years ago they reveled in publicity. Books celebrated them as the “superlawyers,” until politicians, always anxious to keep the spotlight on themselves, painted the bull’s-eye of reform on their ass. Ever since, the goal has been to remain invisible, like the mob.
Law firms with two and three hundred partners are not unusual here, sometimes with offices in Singapore, London, Beijing, and Paris. These give new meaning to the term “global economy,” peddling power and influence around the world. Every politician running for office runs from these firms, except at milking time, when lobbyists jerking on the udders of the industries they represent fill pails with campaign dollars that are quietly shuttled down K Street by bucket brigades of congressional staff and hired consultants.
I have read that the Jefferson Monument is slowly sinking, settling into the ancient swamp that is now dubbed the Tidal Basin. This may be symbolic of the visionary who dreamed of America as an agricultural utopia and whom history has shown to have been so badly beaten by his nemesis, Hamilton, who favored a commercial and industrial nation run by money managers and corporate markets.
A major chunk of the business done from K Street is lobbying, hustling the 535 members of the Congress, the Senate with its legions of staff, and the hundreds of administrative agencies that crank out regulations governing everything from milk price supports to Social Security. It has long been known that if you want to talk, you go to Congress. If you want something done, you go to K Street.
The men who crafted the Constitution must be doing wheelies in their graves. To the eighteenth-century mind in the Age of Reason, an American government obsessed with controlling every aspect of individual existence, with its hands in every pocket up to its national armpits, would be a greater source of terror than the atom bomb. Had they known, the Bill of Rights would not have ended with ten amendments. It would be a perpetual work in progress with periodic political lynchings made part of the fabric of government.
The cab drops me in front of a smoked-glass high-rise. I pay the cabbie, and a minute later I’m in the air- conditioned lobby, leaving the oppressive humidity of Washington outside. I check the building’s directory. Barrett, Coal & Johnston takes up the top three floors of the twelve-story office building. Those entering have to clear security at a desk in order to access the elevators.
As I edge across the lobby toward the main desk, I feel the vibration at my belt. I take out my cell phone. It’s Harry. I flip it open.
“Hello.”
“Where are you?” says Harry.
“In D.C. The law office,” I tell him. From our telephone conversation last night, Harry already knows where I’m headed and why.
“Then I caught you before you found this Scott woman?”
“Yes. Why?”
“If you catch up with her, press her on Ginnis,” says Harry.
“Any particular reason?”
“I’m still digging for all the details,” says Harry, “but it’s starting to look like Ginnis could be the lead to the letter.”
“Can you give me specifics?”
“Not right now,” says Harry. “Trust me. Just see if you can find some way to get to him. But call me before you talk to him. By then I should have more information.”
“You got it,” I tell him.
“Talk to you later.” Harry hangs up.
Juggling my briefcase in one hand, I pocket my phone and hand the guard at the desk one of my business cards. I tell him I have an appointment with Trisha Scott at B, C & J. This lie gets me a phone call to reception upstairs. Four minutes later I am treated to the officious click of heels on the hard terrazzo. A woman, blond, blue- eyed, in her late twenties, dressed in a dark business suit. She collects my card from the guard and approaches.
“Mr. Madre…”
“Madriani,” I help her out.
“I understand you have an appointment with Ms. Scott?” The lilt in her voice leads me to think that she has already searched Scott’s calendar and not found my name on it.
“I called twice and left messages. I was in New York on my way back to my office in California and wanted to stop in and see her. It would only take a moment and would save us both an immense amount of time.”
“Does she know what it regards?”
“It’s a personal matter. I’m sure that if she knew the details, she would want to see me.”
This stumps her. She looks at my card again: “attorney-at-law.” If it said “salesman,” I’d be out on the street looking back through the glass by now.
“If you’ll follow me,” she says. “I’m not sure whether Ms. Scott is in.”
We head to the elevator. A minute and a half later, I’ve made it to the next level, the reception area upstairs. Here there are deep plush carpets and floor-to-ceiling windows of smoked glass with shaded views out over the city. Across the street lies Farragut Square. One block beyond lies the squat Roman temple that is the U.S. Chamber of Commerce building. Over the top and beyond is Lafayette Square, and in the distance behind the park is the White House. Toward the southeast the Capitol dome sprouts like a half-hatched Easter egg in the noonday sun. The executive offices of Barrett, Coal & Johnston possess an eagle’s-nest view of all the power spots in town.
“If you’ll take a seat,” she says, “I will check with Ms. Scott’s assistant.”
As the phalanx of gatekeepers grows, the mesh of their screen becomes finer. I may be wasting my time. By now Scott would surely be following the news reports of Arnsberg’s trial. If so, she will have seen my name. What I am banking on is her curiosity. A lawyer, she would know that I could subpoena her to the trial, put her on a witness list, and let her cool her heels. What is more difficult would be to get her to talk to me. If she refuses, there is little I can do, and to put her on the stand at trial and ask questions to which I do not already know the answers would be its own form of Russian roulette.
The receptionist disappears to the back behind the large ebony reception counter and the mirrored glass wall separating me from the firm’s engine room, where power is spun into gold.
Barrett, Coal & Johnston is sufficiently large that to dispense separate business cards for the many partners and associates out on the counter would require a vending machine. Instead there’s a glossy brochure that outlines the firm’s services and specialties. I pull one of these and take a look. To no one’s surprise, the firm is heavily invested in regulatory law, with a sideline in patents and appellate practice, all keyed toward business and commerce.
The firm sports two former United States senators as “of counsel,” a kind of emeritus status in which work is
