Murder Inside the Beltway - Margaret Truman [100]
“I spoke with Sue today,” she said, taking the chair.
“After I called you?”
“No, before. She sounded good, strong, said she was certain that Sammy would be back soon. God, I admire that sort of faith. I’m afraid I couldn’t muster it under such dire circumstances.”
“We never know what we’re capable of, Deb, until we’re faced with adversity. Sue is a strong person. I share her confidence about Samantha.”
She exhaled a stream of air and adjusted herself in the chair. “So, this is not about Sammy,” she said. “What is it about?”
Rollins touched her shoulder as he walked past and took his seat behind the desk. He rolled forward so that his knees came closer to hers. “I said we had to get together, Deb, because of something I’ve recently learned.”
“Go on.”
He glanced up at the James Vann painting, behind which the wall safe was situated, before responding. “I’m sure you know that I’d move heaven and earth for you and Bob in this campaign.”
“And Bob has always appreciated it.”
“You? Have you appreciated it?”
She cocked her head as though to say she considered it a strange question.
“It’s important to me, Deb, that you understand how much you and Bob mean to me.”
Now she turned her head right and left. “Why do I get the feeling that I’m being set up for a fall, Jerry?”
He ignored the comment and forged ahead with what was a semblance of the speech he’d been running over and over since deciding to meet—the words to use, the tone to cushion the blow, the preamble, creating a relaxing atmosphere, all the tools he used when confronting an adversary in the courtroom.
“The problem, Deb, is that in this dirty game of national politics, there are some things that take on their own life, that happen, no matter how hard we try to head them off.”
“Thanks for trying to let me down easy, Jerry,” she said, reaching and patting his knee. “But I’m a big girl. I’ve taken a few blows and I’m still standing. Swing away.”
“Okay.” He sat back and searched the ceiling for the right way to phrase what he was about to say. There wasn’t one. “Deb, I’ve learned through sources that there exists a videotape that can be extremely damaging to Bob’s campaign.”
Her placid expression didn’t indicate shock. It was void of any emotion. Had she even heard him? She had. “A videotape?” she said.
“Yes.”
“Of Bob?”
He hesitated. “Yes,” he said.
He allowed her to process what she’d heard. The room was still, silent, threatening.
“That tape that was mentioned in City Paper?” she asked, her voice soft and lacking strength.
The question took him by surprise. He’d forgotten about the article that had hinted at such a tape existing, and that mentioned rumors linking her husband to the slain call girl in Adams Morgan. “Trash,” had been his reply to the reporter. If only that were so.
“I wouldn’t give that article any credence, Deb,” he said, glad that the subject had been changed, if only for the moment.
“I’m not,” she said. “I don’t give credence to anything in the media when it comes to politics. But now you say such a tape exists.”
“I’m afraid so.”
“How? Who has it?”
“I don’t know the specific answers to those questions, Deb. I wish I did.” Another guilty glance at the painting hiding the wall safe. “What I do know is that the tape has surfaced and is likely to be used against Bob, and you, in the campaign.” He got up and walked to the window, wishing he could look outside through the drapes and blinds. “The Pyle people have the tape,” he said, his back still to her.
When she didn’t respond, he turned, and saw that she was hunched over, her arms wrapped around herself. He came up behind her and placed his hands on her shoulders, kneaded them with tenderness. “I’m sorry,” he said. “If there were anything I could have done to stave this off, I would have.”
He wanted her to leave now. He hadn’t been sure that he could lie with such conviction and without remorse, but he had. He wanted to say that the only thing that could have caused him to turn over the tape to the Pyle campaign was the life of his daughter, to save her, to put an end to