"Our problem now will be proving that Junior was Brademas's partner."
Dennis stood up. "You people have been through enough for one night. Wait here and Til see if there's any reason to keep you further."
Dennis left and Crease slumped in her seat. She looked exhausted;
"I still can't believe that Jack was behind all this. I've known him for years."
"If Junior confesses, maybe you can salvage your election campaign," Quinn said in an attempt to cheer up Crease.
"Winning the primary seems less and less important to me, Dick. I've lost Lamar. Now I find out I've been betrayed by someone I really trusted. Besides, I'm so far down in the polls . . ."
Crease smiled sadly and shook her head. The courtroom door opened and Dennis returned.
"You can go," the detective said, "but you'll have to run the gauntlet. Someone notified the press."
Quinn walked toward the courtroom door. Crease started to follow him, but Anthony stopped her and said, "Wait a minute, Ellen. I know I put you through hell by arresting you."
"I don't hold it against you. You thought you were doing the right thing."
"I did, but I might have cost you the campaign, so I figure I owe you one. I need your promise that you won't reveal where you got this information."
Crease gave it.
"Karen Fargo was paid five thousand dollars to tell her story to me."
"Who did it?"
Anthony repeated Fargo's description. As soon as he mentioned the scar, Crease said, "That's Ryan Clark, Benjamin Gage's A. A., and he doesn't spit without Gage's say-so. If he bribed Fargo, Gage is behind it."
Part Four
Political Necessity
Chapter 23.
[1]
Henry Orchard popped the videotape into the VCR and pressed the Play button on the remote. Ellen Crease drew in smoke from her Cuban Cohiba Panatela. The anchor on the evening news suddenly appeared on the forty-eight-inch television screen in her home entertainment center.
"This is the Saturday night news report on Channel 6, but it's representative of the stories that the other local channels carried as the lead story last night," Crease's campaign manager told the senator. "The networks used local feeds."
Crease watched herself leave the courthouse protected by a phalanx of policemen. She saw herself ignore the outstretched microphones and the reporters' entreaties. Then Judge Quinn came down the courthouse steps. He stopped at the bottom and turned to the reporters.
"This is good," Orchard said as he turned up the volume.
"The police have asked me to refrain from making a statement or answering questions, and I am going to follow their instructions with one exception. Senator Ellen Crease saved my life tonight and I want to acknowledge her heroism and my debt to her."
"How did she save your life?" several reporters asked simultaneously, as others asked what had happened in the courthouse, but Quinn refused to say anything more. The next shots were of Quinn's and Crease s cars driving from the scene while a voice-over informed the viewers that Senator Benjamin Gage had refused to comment on the incident at the courthouse.
"Now, here's where they hurt us," Orchard said.
"Although Senator Gage refused to comment on the shooting, United States Congresswoman Renata Camp, a strong supporter of Senator Gage, did have this to say."
The screen showed a stern-looking woman of fifty with short gray hair. When she spoke into the camera, she looked very concerned.
"I want to preface this statement by saying that I know very little of the facts surrounding tonight's shooting incident. I do know that the man who attempted to murder Circuit Court Judge Richard Quinn at the Multnomah County Courthouse was a longtime friend and associate of Senator Ellen Crease and the current head of security at her husband's company. I hope that the authorities will look more deeply into the facts surrounding the murder of Lamar Hoyt."
"The information we have," a reporter told Congresswoman Camp, "is that Senator Crease saved Judge Quinn's life by shooting Jack Brademas. You seem to be suggesting that there was something more sinister going on here."
"I'm not saying that at all. I do find it interesting that the senator hid behind a legal technicality in order to escape a trial of the facts of her murder charge, after spending her political career decrying the so-called legal loopholes that murderers, rapists and child molesters use to escape punishment. Then we have her good friend and associate trying to murder the judge in her case. I think these kinds of facts deserve investigation."
Orchard stopped the tape and switched off the set.
"You don't need to see the rest, unless you want to."
Crease waved her cigar at her political adviser.
"It's more of the same," Orchard continued. "What hurts is the innuendo and the accusation that you're hiding behind legal technicalities to keep the voters from learning the truth about Lamar's murder."
Orchard leaned toward Crease. "There's just over a month to the primary and you are way back in the polls. You've got three choices: You quit, you sit and take it or you fight back. If you choose column A or column B, you might as well concede the election and go on vacation."
Crease blew a stream of smoke toward the ceiling. Then she looked at Orchard.
"You know the first thing I'm gonna do when I'm elected to the United States Senate, Henry? I'm going to get the embargo of Cuba lifted so I can smoke these cigars in public."
Orchard grinned broadly. "That's my girl! Now, I've got some ideas about how we can use Judge Quinn's statement."
"Hold on to them until tomorrow, Henry. I'm meeting with Mary Garrett tonight. I might have something that will bring us back, but I've got to talk to her before I tell you about it."
"What's Garrett have to do with your campaign?"
"I can't tell you. But it will be worth the wait. If I decide to go public with what I know, I've got to make sure that I don't burn myself. So hold on until tomorrow. Then we'll see."
[2]
The Multnomah County District Attorney's Office was deserted on Sunday afternoon, so Leroy Dennis and Lou Anthony were the only people who witnessed Cedric Riker's tirade.
"Can you tell me what the fuck is going on here?" Riker swore when the detectives finished their account of the Saturday shoot-out at the courthouse.
"It's confusing, Ced," Leroy Dennis told the D. A.
"Confusing?" Riker raged. "What do you find confusing? It looks like simple math to me. By my count that bitch has now killed two people. We usually send serial killers to death row. What are you two geniuses proposing? That I give her a marksmanship medal?"
"Just listen to Leroy, Ced," Anthony told the D. A. in his most conciliatory tone.
"I'm all ears."
"Before Saturday, it looked like Senator Crease paid Jablonski to kill her husband. Then the evidence started pointing to Lamar, Jr. Now there's a possibility that Senator Gage is involved."
"Gage! What are you talking about? Are you accusing Benjamin Gage of murder?"
"We're not accusing anyone right now."
"Well, that's a relief. Ben happens to be a close personal friend of mine and one of my staunchest supporters. Not to mention the fact that he is a United States senator."
"I'm just saying that there is a lot of circumstantial evidence pointing at people other than Ellen Crease. We may have acted too hastily when we arrested her."
"Lou, I went to the grand jury on Crease on your say-so. Are you telling me that we indicted an innocent woman?"