Murder Inside the Beltway - Margaret Truman [49]
Rollins got his chance to taste the “other side” a few weeks later. Bob Colgate was preparing for his first primary debate, with four other candidates, and had dispatched Deborah as his surrogate to Philadelphia for a meeting of Pennsylvania campaign strategists. Jerry decided to drive the Porsche, and invited her to join him. Bob Colgate kidded with them before they left: “Keep that thing under ninety,” he said, “and get the future first lady back here in one piece.”
“Not to worry,” Rollins said.
His departure from his home hadn’t been quite as sanguine. Sue expressed her displeasure at both his driving there in the Porsche and his taking Deborah with him. “She should be traveling on her own,” Sue offered, “and have Secret Service protection.”
“It’s too early in the primary for protection of spouses,” he explained. “Besides, it’s a chance for me to open up the Porsche a little. Since I’m driving there anyway, it just makes sense for Deb to go along.”
Sue didn’t pursue her objection. After all, there had never been any tangible evidence to support concerns about her husband having an affair with anyone, much less the wife of his best friend and one of her closest chums. Still.…
Rollins’s jump to the other side occurred during that trip to Philadelphia. He and Deborah had adjacent rooms in the hotel. Late the first night, after an all-day round of meetings, they relaxed in his room with a drink. Ending up in bed just seemed to happen, no preplanning (although both obviously knew that it was in the offing), no seductive choreographing, no losing decorum because of too much liquor (a single drink each), no excuses.
It just happened.
And would happen again over the coming years, not often, always circumspect, the secret theirs, too much at stake, families to be destroyed, reputations to be upheld—and a future president of the United States being cuckolded.
Was there guilt?
Lots of it for Jerry Rollins. Less so for Deborah Colgate. At one point, she told him that she considered their affair to be retribution of a sort for all the cheating her husband had done over the years. For the logical Rollins, that smacked of illogic. It also caused him to wonder whether she’d used him to extract revenge on her husband, hardly the sort of stuff Dionysian dreams are made of. He considered breaking off the relationship many times, usually the day after they’d ended up in a tangle of hotel sheets after meetings to advance Bob Colgate’s presidential aspirations. There was something wrong with it, he felt.
But it was too sweet to end it, the smell and feel of her, and the roar of his Porsche’s mighty engine, his lifelines to the other side.
• • •
They left the King’s Contrivance separately, she first, he following fifteen minutes later. Nothing had been accomplished. Their lunches sat barely touched, appetites suppressed by more pressing needs. Nothing had been decided. Like Connie Bennett, he’d persuaded her to step back and disengage from the day-to-day rigors of the campaign, to get away for a few days, take a deep breath, and clear the turmoil assaulting her mind.
But he knew she wouldn’t follow that advice, and the contemplation of having her running loose, her nerves frayed and reasoning powers compromised, sent a shiver up his spine. More than anyone, he knew what that could mean.
SEVENTEEN
Hatcher reviewed Jackson’s notes on Craig Thompson, paying particular attention to the apparent lies Thompson had told about when he’d last seen his former girlfriend, Rosalie Curzon. Nothing gave Hatcher more pleasure, gave any detective more pleasure, than catching a potential suspect in a lie. Liars were stupid, like trying to cover up a crime was stupid. Hatcher had worked hundreds of cases over his career in which the cover-ups and lies were more damaging to the suspect than the crime itself. Politicians were the dumbest, as far as he was concerned. Nixon, Reagan, Bush, Clinton. You’d think they’d learn.
He decided to bring Thompson into headquarters