Murder on K Street - Margaret Truman [88]
“Top of the line,” the captain said. “Ready to board?”
“Yes, sir,” said Simmons. “Let’s go.”
The interior of the sleek business jet was all leather and chrome. It looked to Rotondi that it would seat a dozen people, and he wondered whether others would join them. The closing of the passenger door answered that question. There would be just the four of them in the back, with the two-man crew up front. The first officer came to where they’d chosen their overstuffed, swiveling tan leather club chairs and announced that he’d be back to serve coffee and pastries once they were at cruising altitude. “There’s a bar, too. Help yourselves. It’s fully stocked.”
Rotondi was impressed with the aircraft’s power as it lifted from the runway, the nation’s capital falling away below. They soon reached their assigned cruising altitude, and the first officer fulfilled his promise of a continental breakfast. Markowicz, who sat next to Simmons, said, “How about moving to the rear, Senator? There’re some things to discuss.”
Simmons replied, “Anything can be discussed in front of Phil, Peter. He knows why we’re going to Chicago.”
“Fair enough,” Markowicz said, smiling at Rotondi. He said to the senator, “Some press has gotten wind of the meeting and the reason for it.”
“Who?”
“I got a call this morning from a reporter at the Post. She wanted to know who would be attending the meeting, and whether they’d signed on to your campaign.”
Simmons laughed. “Campaign? What campaign? I haven’t announced anything. I assume you straightened her out.”
“I don’t know whether she’s straightened out or not, but I told her that you were going to Chicago to attend a fund-raiser for your next senatorial run. I don’t think she bought it.”
“What about the Chicago press? Do you think they’ll be on it?”
“Beats me” was Markowicz’s response. “I’m working with our PR people there. They’ve got their finger on things. We won’t be blindsided.”
As Simmons and his two top staff people continued to discuss the upcoming meeting and possible media interest in it, Rotondi reclined his leather chair and contemplated where he was and why he was there. Should he, Philip Rotondi, son of a shoemaker from Batavia, New York, feel privileged to have been included in this inner circle, seated next to a possible future president of the United States and listening to conversations to which few were privy? The most influential journalists in the land didn’t enjoy this level of access.
His overnight bag sat on the carpeted floor next to him. In it was the file Jeannette had given him when they were together on the Eastern Shore. There was a certain irony, he knew, in having such damaging information within a few feet of the man who might one day end up in the White House. He’d considered pulling Simmons aside and laying it all out for him, and knew that the time would probably come when he would do just that. But at this stage, he preferred to keep his friend’s confidence and to wait until he’d had a chance to learn more about the source of the salacious, damning material. That’s why he’d agreed to accompany Simmons to Chicago. The answers to his questions, he now knew, were in the Windy City.
As he sat in the opulent private plane flying at thirty-one thousand feet, the whoosh of its twin jet engines the only ambient sound, he shifted his attention between what Simmons and his aides were discussing, and his own thoughts about everything that had transpired since receiving Lyle’s phone call announcing that Jeannette had been killed. Had his friend of so many years played a role in his wife’s murder? There was certainly speculation about that around Washington. The senator’s own daughter harbored such suspicions. Was she right? He knew he had to consider the source, a free-spirited, iconoclastic daughter estranged for years from her powerful father. Still, one had to at least not arbitrarily rule it out, nor summarily dismiss anyone else in the Simmons family with the exception of Polly, who wasn’t anywhere near D.C. the day of the murder.