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When they made love again after the second incarnation of their relationship Brad thought the sex was still pretty good. Then Bridget started making excuses for avoiding his bed. This, she finally confessed as they approached their second breakup, was because she was sleeping with an artist who lived in Chelsea. Bridget claimed that she was cheating because of her fear of commitment.
The third time they started seeing each other the sex had come to feel like an obligation.
Being with Gi
While spacing out during an assessment of a tax-avoidance scheme a partner had dreamed up for a wealthy client, Brad decided that the major difference between Gi
Brad found Gi
“I was begi
“This too shall pass. Tuchman will find another associate to torture, and she’ll lose interest in you. Just hang in there.”
“I’m begi
“I do miss you but that’s not the only reason I dragged you to our favorite caffeine salon. Guess what I discovered?”
“This doesn’t have anything to do with Clarence, does it?” Brad asked, alarmed.
“It does, but don’t worry. I figured a lot of it out online. And I didn’t use a computer at the office.”
“Figured what out?”
“What happened to the teenage client Farrington was rumored to have been sleeping with. You know what the Portland Clarion is, right?”
“The alternative newspaper?”
Gi
“The day he received the check for the settlement Farrington rented a Town Car and picked up Pulaski at her high school. On the way, he showed the check to the chauffeur, Tim Houston, and bragged about the settlement. Houston told the paper that Farrington had been drinking and brought a bottle of champagne to Pulaski’s school. Houston thought that was really inappropriate.
“Instead of taking Pulaski straight home, Farrington had the chauffeur cruise around. There was an opaque window between the backseat and the driver’s seat, so Houston couldn’t see what happened between Pulaski and Farrington, but he claims to have heard them having sex.”
“What did Pulaski say?”
“Her parents wouldn’t let the police or the paper talk to her, and no charges were brought. Farrington threatened to sue the newspaper. The Clarion runs on a shoestring and defending a lawsuit would have bankrupted it, so they printed a retraction. I called the paper. The reporter who wrote the piece isn’t there anymore, but Frieda Bancroft, the editor, is still around. I wanted to talk to Houston, but she said he disappeared. No one knows where he is.”
“What about Pulaski?”
Gi
“I get less interested in pursuing this every minute,” Brad said nervously.
“Don’t be a sissy.”
“You’re confusing cowardice and prudence. If we’re right, Farrington is responsible for the deaths of three teenage girls and a chauffeur. I don’t want to add two associates to his total.”
“Farrington doesn’t even know we exist.”
“Yet. If we keep poking around, eventually we’ll appear on his radar.”
“Brad, this is too important to drop. Do you really want a murderer ru
“You forget revenge, which has always been a pretty strong motive for murder.”
“Farrington is too busy to bother with us. We’re the smallest of fry. He’s already worrying about the independent counsel’s investigation of the Walsh murder. If he has to worry about the Erickson and Pulaski cases he won’t have time to think about us.”
“You’re probably right, but do you want to take a chance that you’re wrong when the consequences could be that we end up dead?”
“As I see it, the only thing we’re going to do is try to find Laurie Erickson’s mother. If she doesn’t talk to us, that’s that. If she implicates Farrington, we go to the cops or the FBI and they’ll take it from there.”
“We aren’t doing anything. I told you I’d talk to Mrs. Erickson myself so you wouldn’t get in trouble with Tuchman.”
“Then you’ll do it?”
Brad nodded. “You’re right about how important this is. But talking to Erickson is all we’re going to do, right? After that we forget about the Clarence Little case, agreed?”
Brad stuck out his hand, and Gi
Chapter Thirty-one
Unlike an incoming attorney general of the United States who starts his tenure with an existing office, staff, and equipment, an independent counsel starts with nothing but the piece of paper appointing him. On an independent counsel’s first day on the job he does not have computers or telephones or desks on which to put them. He has to locate and lease office space then fill it with furniture, equipment, investigators, books, and lawyers. This explained why Keith Evans was using a room in an inexpensive motel on the outskirts of Washington, D.C., to conduct his interview with Irving Lasker, the head of the Secret Service detail that guarded President Farrington at the farmhouse in Virginia.
Lasker was a wiry, stern-looking, middle-aged man with tight skin, sunken cheeks, and bright blue eyes that Evans half-believed could beam death rays. From his crew cut and the way he held himself, Evans guessed the Secret Service agent was ex-military.
Lasker sat stiff backed on a chair with gold casters that was upholstered in imitation red leather. Evans sat on a similar chair. The two men were separated by a round wooden table over which hung a cheap brass light fixture. Cars sped by on a freeway through the window on Keith’s left. To his right were a queen-size bed and an armoire containing a television that showed in-room movies. The room was dark and depressing and smelled of cleaning fluid.