Damage Control: A Novel Page 11

Faraday closed the door, sat, then clasped his hands, pinkies extended, in an almost dainty manner.

  “Does the Mission Inn of Riverside ring a bell, Senator? May thirtieth?”

  A muscle on the senator’s jaw twitched. “Not especially.”

  “Were you there?”

  “I’d have to check my calendar.”

  “Now listen here,” said Neil Bernstein, “you can’t come barging in and—”

  “Was Emily Mortimer there too?” Faraday interrupted.

  The senator looked like he’d eaten a bad fish taco.

  “Sir, shall I call Lambert?” Bernstein said.

  “That would probably be a good idea,” the senator said.

  “Nobody’s saying anything until the senator’s attorney arrives,” said Bernstein, pulling out his phone.

  “Sir,” said Faraday, “right now your house is burning down and I’m here to put out the fire. A Washington Post reporter is about to throw the Mission Inn pajama party on the web. We need to head off the journalistic feeding frenzy that will follow. I need the facts, right now, so I can put together a strategy.”

  “But . . .” said Bernstein.

  Senator Paxton raised his hand to quiet his chief of staff.

  “Go on,” he told Faraday.

  “You rented a room at the Mission Inn on May thirtieth. Was Emily Mortimer with you?” Faraday said.

  The senator considered the question. “She might have been,” he said offhandedly. “She often accompanied me so she could tweet and blog about the events.”

  “Champagne. Late at night? Does that jog your memory?”

  The senator ignored Faraday’s tone. “If I recall, Emily had friends who lived nearby and she wanted to visit them. Maybe it got late and she didn’t feel like driving home.”

  I notice that when people lie, they often offer up too much information.

  “So Emily Mortimer spent the night at the Mission Inn too?”

  “I don’t keep tabs on what my staff does after hours.”

  Faraday sat back. “Don’t lie to me, Senator. The two of you were made.”

  The senator’s brow furrowed. He glanced at his chief of staff.

  “That’s ridiculous,” he whispered. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You’re not going to have a job to go back to if you don’t get one thing straight, Senator,” Faraday said softly. “We’ve just been broadsided because you lied to me. If—”

  “Nobody lied to you,” the senator said.

  “Lies of omission are just as bad,” Faraday thundered, making it clear who the alpha dog in the room was.

  I’d seen this performance before, and I always marveled at its audacity, how it balanced on a razor wire of pomp and desperation. Faraday needed to make the senator understand that his fancy title and political power were irrelevant right now. Here in this room, he was just another Blair client in crisis. And he had to listen and do what Faraday said or else his career, and possibly his life as a free man, would be over.

  The senator had gone pale. Bernstein’s eyes were bugging out. But no one said a word.

  Faraday eyed the room like a conquering general.

  “As I was saying, you lose all credibility when you’re caught lying. With the public and the police.” He waggled his eyebrows for emphasis.

  “I am not a liar.”

  “That’s exactly what Richard Nixon said before he got nailed for Watergate. So pardon me, Senator, but Maggie just spoke to a reporter from the Washington Post. He’s got a waiter on record as delivering champagne to your room at the Mission Inn on May thirtieth at one thirty a.m. Emily Mortimer answered the door in a robe. The waiter recognized her when he saw the photo on TV late last night. And yes, he’s checked the room number. It matches. And it’s your credit card. Your personal credit card.”

  Paxton looked stricken.

  “A story like that worries me, Senator, because I’ve got a professional reputation to uphold too,” Faraday said wearily. “But how can I do that if the media thinks I’m lying? And why am I lying? Because my client has not been honest with me. So listen up. We don’t need your business if it means torpedoing our credibility. At Blair, our reputation is all we have. So this ends here. You will get your deposit check back in tomorrow’s mail if you don’t tell us the whole truth right now.”

  Faraday stood up, and the only sound in the room was his chair squeaking backward.

  I knew I should rise too, but I was frozen to my seat.

  The two men stared each other down—the lean patrician and the bulldog Irishman.

  “Sit down, Mr. Faraday,” Paxton said at last. “I understand your terms and I’m willing to accommodate you.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Faraday said with exaggerated courtesy. He settled into his seat like a priest about to hear confession. “Please start at the beginning.”

  Paxton’s mouth gave a small, rueful twist. “Yes, well, I’m afraid I can’t do that alone. I’m sorry to try your patience again, but I need my brother. Please give us ten minutes.”

  And he walked out, closing the door behind him.

  Faraday shifted in his chair. “Now what?” he muttered.

  Fifteen minutes later, the Paxton brothers walked in, the senator with his usual confident stride, Simon Paxton looking slightly green. They were accompanied by Harvey Lambert, carrying a suitcase and bristling with purpose.

  The senator and Lambert sat down. Simon Paxton stood by the window, staring at a yellow construction crane that was lifting blocks of steel onto a skyscraper skeleton. His hands moved nervously, adjusting his tie, smoothing back his hair, checking things in his pockets.

  Anabelle had never mentioned her uncle when we were kids. Was it because he lived back east? Had the brothers been estranged? Maybe I’d never paid attention, just as Anabelle had never inquired about my parents. It brought home what a hermetically sealed world we’d lived in as teenagers.

  Simon Paxton turned to face us. He cleared his throat. “It wasn’t the senator in the hotel room that night with Emily Mortimer,” he said. “It was me.”

  The only sound was the faraway shouts of construction workers, the dim clang of metal against metal.

  Then Faraday swore. He swiveled in his chair and glowered at Henry Paxton. “C’mon, Senator. You expect us to believe that?”

  The senator’s eyes went to his brother. Simon Paxton was expressionless, but his voice wavered as he said, “I’m prepared to testify under oath.”

  Faraday’s lip curled in disgust. He ignored Simon Paxton and addressed the senator. “You’re willing to sacrifice your brother to keep yourself from going down? It’s not going to fly, you know.”

  The senator’s face was bloodless. He opened his mouth but Lambert beat him to the punch.

  “It will have to,” the attorney said, a sharp edge in his voice. “Because it’s the truth.”

  A numb relief coursed through me. I had wanted so badly to believe that Henry Paxton was innocent. And here it came. The senator was sprung. It was his weaselly, conniving fixer brother who’d been in the hotel room with Emily Mortimer that night.

  Or was this another lie?

  “What is your recommendation, Mr. Faraday?” Lambert said. “How shall we proceed?”

  For a long moment, there was silence, as Faraday examined the brothers. I could almost feel his nimble brain working, trying and discarding strategies, poking holes in the story, testing to make it airtight.

  Finally, he said, “I’d like the senator and his brother to meet with the reporter and tell him exactly what they’ve told me. He’s promised to keep the story off the Internet for now, but we can’t stall him forever.”

  A horrified look had come over Lambert’s face.

  “You’d prefer,” asked Faraday, “that it trickles out bit by bit, giving everyone time to speculate wildly and come to the worst possible conclusions? While the brothers deny and obfuscate and trap themselves in statements that will come back to haunt t
hem? We need to be out front with this, setting the agenda. It’s the only way. And after talking to the reporter, you tell it to the cops.”

  “We need time,” Lambert pleaded.

  “Well, we haven’t got any,” Faraday snapped.

  He turned to the senator. “Sir, when did you become aware of your brother’s relationship with Emily Mortimer?”

  A look passed between the Paxtons.

  The senator hesitated. “My brother came to me today, plagued by guilt.”

  “And you didn’t see fit to tell me? Or the police?”

  “I needed some time to absorb this news,” Henry Paxton said softly.

  “Come on, Jack, he learned about it only this morning,” said Lambert.

  “So pardon my impertinence, Senator,” Faraday said, “but did your brother kill the girl too?”

  My head shot up, worried that he’d finally gone too far.

  Lambert the lawyer rose. “That is completely out of order. Simon, do not answer that question.”

  “I didn’t kill anyone. I swear it on my mother’s grave,” Simon Paxton said.

  “What I’d like to hear more than oaths right now is that you have an ironclad alibi for the night Emily was killed.”

  “Simon,” said Lambert, “please tell Mr. Faraday what you told me.”

  Simon Paxton walked to a chair like a zombie. He sat down and placed his hands on his thighs.

  “I was in Washington, D.C., Monday night. I had a late dinner with a colleague, then took a cab home. My wife and I have a place near Dupont Circle. The security system in the parking garage and my unit should confirm that I was home from one thirty until about eight the next morning. I had a lunch meeting on the Hill, then took a cab to the airport and flew to L.A. I spent last night in our condo in Century City.”

  “So you couldn’t have killed her because you were still on the East Coast late Monday night and early Tuesday morning,” Faraday said.

  Simon Paxton nodded.

  Faraday raised an eyebrow. “Of course, you could have caught an earlier flight. Or come by private plane.”

  Simon Paxton threw up his hands. “The cops can dig all they want. I’m telling the truth.”

  “He’s telling the truth,” Harvey Lambert intoned.

  “Fine,” said Faraday. “Let’s talk about how you and Emily Mortimer met.”

  “I like to mentor young people,” Simon Paxton said. “They have an energy, an optimism that I find invigorating. They’re not cynical and jaded. They want to change the world for the better.”

  Faraday rolled his eyes, but I saw that he was listening intently.

  “For a long time, this is how I excused my attraction to Emily Mortimer. I’ve got a wife I care deeply about. So Emily and I would meet in bars and places where we wouldn’t see anyone we knew. We talked about things that were happening at work. She complained about her boyfriend and asked my advice. It was all very innocent.”

  Faraday asked, “Did you supervise her? Either directly or indirectly?”

  Simon Paxton looked up. “Emily reported to Bernie Saunders. I’m not even on staff. My position is completely unofficial.”

  “Well, thank God for that. Did she come on to you?” Faraday’s eyes narrowed as he sought an angle.

  “It was . . . mutual.” Paxton stared at his hands.

  “Was it only that one time, at the Mission Inn in Riverside?” Faraday prompted. “You were working late, thrust into close quarters, had a little too much to drink?”

  Simon Paxton hesitated. “There were other times.”

  “Did it start that night?”

  Again, Paxton hesitated. “Yes. We were there for the opening of a mall. The senator was going to cut the ribbon and give a talk at the Inland Empire Chamber of Commerce. Emily Twittered the whole thing and uploaded photos of the talk and the Mission Inn, where the senator was going to spend the night. It’s a beautiful, Spanish Mission–style building. But Henry ended up driving home.”

  “With the body man?”

  I started, but nobody else reacted, so I figured it must be some political term.

  “No body man that day,” the senator said.

  Faraday raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Well, isn’t that convenient.”

  Simon continued. “After Henry left, I stayed in his room and Emily joined me.”

  “Are you in the habit of using the senator’s personal credit card to order champagne?”

  Simon Paxton stared steadily at Faraday. “We’re brothers. He doesn’t mind. We share a lot of things.”

  Did they share the girl?

  “Why didn’t you just charge the champagne to the room?”

  “Because taxpayers shouldn’t be billed for my personal expenses,” Simon said between clenched teeth.

  “How very noble. Then why not use your credit card?”

  “I forgot my wallet at home,” Simon Paxton said evenly. “My brother loaned me his MasterCard.”

  “That’s very convenient.”

  Faraday rubbed his hands together and blew on them. His cheeks were flushed and his eyes were dilated.

  “Mr. Paxton, was the affair ongoing at the time of Emily Mortimer’s death?”

  Paxton hung his head. “Yes,” he said, his voice so low it was barely audible.

  Faraday took out a cigarette and shoved it savagely between his lips and began to chomp on it. “Jesus Christ,” he said, massaging his temples.

  “Were you in love with her?” I asked.

  I didn’t know why this was important. Would it make what had transpired more palatable?

  Simon Paxton lifted his head and fixed me with a look that was sorrowful and enigmatic, lambent and rueful. Something passed between us that unsettled me, and I can’t explain why, but I felt sorry for him.

  “I don’t know if it was love. But that girl made me feel alive.”

  Faraday chomped on his cigarette. Bits of tobacco had come free and stuck to his lower lip.

  “When’s the last time you slept with her?” he asked.

  “Three weeks ago.”

  Simon looked at his brother, his eyes begging forgiveness.

  “Henry, there are no words to explain how devastated I feel knowing I’ve damaged your career through my stupidity and selfishness. I know you have to . . . I want you to throw me to the wolves. You’ve got to distance yourself from me to save your political life. But I want everyone in this room to know I was not with Emily Mortimer the night she was murdered and I didn’t kill her. So help me God.”

  Faraday examined him with clinical detachment.

  “I am truly grateful that neither of you has discussed this with the detectives yet,” he said. “Because it has kept you from telling any lies. But the cops are going to hammer you both. The media will be merciless. There will be calls for you to step down, Senator. There will be allegations of a cover-up, probing into sordid sexual affairs. Simon’s right. He cannot continue as your political adviser.”

  “My brother made a mistake and is guilty of using very poor judgment,” said Henry Paxton. “But he is guilty of no crime.”

  The senator stretched the word into three syllables, his meaning unmistakable.

  “And I hope my constituents will not hold my brother’s affair of the heart against me.”

  I winced, because of course they would. The senator should have known about the affair and put a stop to it. And the question would fester: Was Simon Paxton taking the fall for his brother?

  Henry Paxton ran his finger along a yellow legal pad. “When I was running for the U.S. Senate, my opponent was found to be embroiled in a sex scandal. There is no doubt that it contributed to my election. I remember, back then, promising the people of California that they could trust me to govern fairly and embrace a strong moral code.”

  He looked down. “I have betrayed that trust.”

  “I don’t know if I’d go that far, Senator,” said Faraday, moving into reassurance mode. “But these are going to be the toughest couple
of days you’ve ever faced. We need to hang tight, ride the whirlwind, and hope for no further surprises.”

  Faraday put his elbows on Paxton’s desk and clasped his hands. “I’m going to tell you something now, and please keep it in mind as the media submits you to the stations of the cross.”

  Both Paxtons nodded eagerly.

  “The news cycle is so short today that everything is compressed. You can go from disgraced pariah to rehabilitated elder statesman in less time than ever. Some of these guys, they’re already charting their comeback as they admit guilt. Look at Eliot Spitzer, he’s writing for Slate, doing the round of talk shows. Nobody asks Bill Clinton about Monica’s blue dress. The public is more forgiving today. I’m not saying we’re there. I’m saying we’ve got a fighting chance.”

  But both the girls those politicians dallied with are still alive.

  Faraday looked from one brother to the other. They gazed back, wary but game, like athletes after the coach’s pep talk.

  Faraday tapped the side of his head as if he’d just remembered something.

  “Before I go any further, I need to confirm that you would, in fact, like us to represent Simon Paxton in this new matter.”

  “I certainly think we need to jump on this,” Simon Paxton said.

  Henry Paxton nodded, and the brothers turned to Lambert.

  “That’s fine,” he said, “but I want a separate spokesperson for Simon.”

  “That goes without saying,” said Faraday.

  He got on his phone. “Lydia, could you please find Samantha for me. A doctor’s appointment?” Faraday frowned. “Please call her mobile and tell her I need to see her in my office in exactly one hour.”

  He looked up.

  “I am assigning Samantha George to speak to the press on your behalf,” Faraday told Simon Paxton. “But she won’t make a move without consulting Thomas Blair or me. We’ll continue to supervise both cases.”

  “Maggie, two statements, please. One from Simon Paxton, admitting the affair and expressing remorse. The other from Senator Paxton. He learned about the affair only today. He is shocked and dismayed and has dismissed his brother as political adviser and banned him from the office until this is resolved. He’s calling for an inquiry to determine whether any laws were violated.”