“Detective, I’m not inclined to check anything until I know the relevance. And what does any of this have to do with that guy on the street?”
Markey said, “You assaulted a witness.”
“Witness?”
“You remember that on June fourteenth, Justice Hollander was hit by a car?”
“Of course. Everybody knows.” Anne tried to keep her voice even.
“She was with someone right before it happened but won’t say who.”
“So? Maybe she wants to save a friend embarrassment or something.”
“Like the senator?”
Anne swallowed. “Come on.”
“About a week after it happened I got a call from the desk that somebody wanted to talk about the accident. Somebody who was probably nuts. It was a slow morning, so I took it. Turned out to be our friend Elijah. And he had a very interesting story to tell.”
“A street person,” Anne said, making it sound as ridiculous as possible.
“That’s what I was saying to myself. He said he was out by the Lincoln Memorial when he saw Senator Levering with a woman in some sort of wrestling hold, and then the woman ran off. He followed the woman. And he saw what happened.”
“Wait a minute here. Are you trying to tell me some street bozo sees Senator Levering in the dark and can identify him?”
“Who said it was dark?”
Anne put her hands on her hips. “I’m assuming.”
“I try never to do that. “
“Still, you’re taking this guy seriously? Where’s the credibility?”
“You’re right. We didn’t take him seriously. He had kind of an odd way about him, you know, that crazy kind of look.”
“That’s what I’m saying.”
“But then yesterday, somebody sprayed Elijah. A witness wrote down the license plate number of the person who did it. The guy in dispatch who ran the plates crossed it in the computer with Elijah, and sent it to me. So now it looks like Senator Levering’s number-one aide sprayed mace at a potential witness, one who IDed the senator. Suddenly, I’m interested again.”
This isn’t happening, Anne told herself. The potential damage was huge. “Senator Levering was not out wrestling with Justice Millicent Mannings Hollander,” she said. “That much I can tell you. But even if he was, why are the D.C. police interested? Would that be a crime?”
“Maybe.”
“That’s not what this is about, is it?” Take the offensive. “It’s about some low-grade detective trying to notch a prominent politician.”
He looked at her evenly.
“I’ve seen this before,” Anne said. “You’re not kidding anybody. So why don’t you go get some real bad guys for a change?”
“You are not being very cooperative. It would help your own situation, you know.”
“I don’t think I follow you.”
“You maced a guy. That’s an assault, too.”
Anne felt frozen in place, as if a police officer had asked her to assume the position. “You cannot be serious.”
“I’m afraid I am, Ms. Deveraux,” Markey said.
“Then you can contact my lawyer. Our interview is over.”
Markey took out a pad. “Who is your lawyer?”
Anne glared at him. “You’re the detective. You find out.”
3
Aggie Sherman angrily shook her head. “You shouldn’t of come here.”
Charlene stood in the doorway of what could only be described as a shack. A bare yellow lightbulb on the porch gave a strange circular glow in the night. Facing Aggie Sherman through the screen door, Charlene looked past the huge mosquitoes hovering around the mesh and said, “Please. I need to say something.”
“Say nothin’. You lost us a load of money and we don’t need to hear you say any more! Now get off my porch afore somebody sees you.”
“I need you to forgive me,” Charlene said.
In the long silence that ensued, Charlene felt as much as heard the din of the cicadas in the night. What would be her fate? Thumbs-up or thumbs-down? Then Aggie Sherman wordlessly unlatched the screen door and opened it.
“Thank you,” Charlene whispered as she stepped inside.
“Just so you know,” Aggie said, “Sarah Mae’s been crying ever since we got back here.”
Charlene’s heart cracked. “I’m so sorry.”
“Sit down then.”
Charlene sat down on the sagging brown sofa. Aggie lit a cigarette and sat opposite Charlene in a faded recliner. “You like my place?” Aggie asked with bitter sarcasm.
“It reminds me a little of the place I grew up in,” Charlene said.
A look of curiosity came to Aggie’s face. “That right?”
“We didn’t have much,” Charlene said. “We had each other. Same way you have Sarah Mae.”
“That’s all I got. That girl. I wanted better for her than this. Her daddy run out on us when she’s ten year old. You think that don’t hit a child?”
“I know it does,” Charlene said, remembering her own father. The warmth she felt in his arms, the security. That Sarah Mae was denied this hit Charlene personally. This whole matter was hitting her personally. That was why she was sitting here.
“That’s why I wanted that settlement money,” Aggie Sherman said. “Look at this place, will you?”
Charlene took a deep breath. “I talked you into going forward with the case. I told you God wanted us to do it. I made you believe you would get more money if we kept going. I did that because I wanted to win this case. I hate what happened to Sarah Mae. I wanted to win for her. But I also wanted to win for me.”
Aggie Sherman sat silently behind thin wisps of smoke.
“I got to thinking I was God’s special woman,” Charlene continued. “I guess I found out I’m not so special. I could have had help on this case, there were groups that offered, but I wanted to do it alone. I wanted to be the one who did it, who won it all, and then maybe the people who told me I’d never make a good lawyer would see me. But I failed to be a good lawyer. A good lawyer looks out for her clients first and always, and that’s why I came here tonight.”
Aggie took a puff on her cigarette and brushed some ashes off her lap. “You tried,” she said. “No one’s takin’ that away from you.”
“I’ve been on my knees asking God what to do, and all I keep hearing is that I need to be broken. I need to get myself out of the way. But I don’t need to quit, either.”
“What’s that mean?” Aggie said.
“An appeal.”
Aggie Sherman shook her head. “Can’t afford it.”
“I wouldn’t ask you to pay anything.”
“You’d do that for us?”
“Yes,” Charlene said.
Aggie Sherman looked at Charlene, long and hard. Outside, the moan of a cat sounded like a creaking door.
“I hated you,” Aggie said. “I hated that you made me want more money. And I hated you cause you’re black and we needed your help. Guess I need forgiveness, too.”
Charlene Moore had heard the word grace countless times in church. But she knew at that moment that she had never fully understood it. And the feeling that she had let God down, let Aggie and Sarah Mae down, gave way to a sense that, at last, God’s will might truly be done in her life. She did not know how, could not see it yet, but she trusted it would be. And she was ready for it. For maybe the first time in her life, she was really ready for God’s will to be done.
4
Anne Deveraux could tell Senator Levering was in a foul mood. Really on edge. His drinking was not doing him any good, either, but Anne was not a nursemaid. She was a highly paid aide, and as long as he was well enough to authorize her checks, she’d let him do what he wanted with his personal life.
“This Unborn Victims Act they’re trying to get to the floor,” Levering said the instant Anne sat down. “It could be dangerous. They think they get that language in, unborn child, then they have ammo to go back to the Supreme Court and overturn Roe.”