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The first couple was virtually carried from the scene, across the dance floor, past hundreds of partygoers with horrified expressions on their faces, beneath sharpshooters stationed on rooftops, and to the waiting bulletproof limo. Chaos reigned. Some guests, convinced that they would all be slaughtered, made for the exits. Others sought answers. The shooter, his arms wrenched behind his back, was transported away by four Secret Service agents. “You bastard!” a man yelled.
“Who is he?”
“He’s a terrorist,” others answered.
“How did he get a gun in here?”
Bill Frazier, the Opera’s chairman, grabbed the microphone and called for calm.
Mac and A
“A terrorist attack?” Mac said.
“Right,” the senator replied. “They’ve gu
Two security men whisked the senator and his wife away.
Frazier’s continuous call for order had some effect. The Brazilian band began to play again, and a couple took to the dance floor in a show of confidence.
“Please,” Frazier said, “let’s continue with the evening despite the dreadful attack that’s just happened. Everything will be fine.”
Mac wanted to leave, but A
Mac and A
Homeland Security Chief Wilbur Murtaugh was rousted out of bed, briefed, and held a hastily convened press conference: “This was obviously an orchestrated terrorist attack on leading public officials,” he said. “Our hearts go out to Congressman Chapman’s family. He was a dedicated public servant, gu
The president’s press secretary’s statement from the White House said only that the president and first lady were fine, and expressed their heartfelt condolences to Congressman Chapman’s family.
Mac and A
The phone in their apartment rang incessantly the following morning, the calls a combination of questions and theories about the thwarted assassination attempt on the president and first lady, and the one against the congressman that had succeeded, others rehashing the ball’s success. It had raised more money for the Washington National Opera than any previous Opera Ball. Bad news with good news, the bitter with the sweet.
At eleven, Mac and A
“Welcome,” he a
They entered the house. “Get over last night?” he asked.
“It’s not something you get over,” A
“We live in perilous times,” Pawkins said. “Might as well get used to it. Nothing new on the news. Just confusion. Come, take a tour of the old homestead.”
They ended in his elaborate study, where the strains of an opera-Death in Venice by Benjamin Britten, he explained-poured out of speakers. “Britten wrote it for his lover of many years, Peter Pears. That’s Pears singing the title role.”
They gravitated to the kitchen, where Pawkins had set a long table of antique French pine. A vase of freshly cut flowers dominated the middle.
“A drink to celebrate?” he asked. “Bloody Marys are mixed and ready to go.”
“I don’t think a celebration is in order, Ray,” Mac said.
“I disagree, Mac. Tosca is a smashing success. Last night’s Opera Ball raised a ton of money and is still D.C.’s social highlight. We lost a congressman, but the president emerges unscathed. And I am about to embark on a new phase of life.”
Pawkins poured drinks whether they wanted them or not, and joined them at the table. He raised his glass in a toast. “To all things good, Mr. and Mrs. Smith.” One of the cats jumped up on the table, and Pawkins shooed him down. “All right,” he said, smacking his hands together as though cueing someone, in this case himself. “One, I did not murder Aaron Musinski.”
“We know that,” Mac said.
“Oh? How?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“I knew it was Grimes from the begi
“It wasn’t an unreasonable possibility,” Mac said, “considering what Josephson told us. Now we know differently.”
“I would certainly hope you do, and an apology is in order.”
A
“Of course I took them. Everything he told you about that is true.”
His easy admission of guilt silenced Mac and A
“You look shocked,” Pawkins said. “I can’t imagine why, a pair of worldly people like you. I spent twenty years with MPD, watching my fellow officers steal whenever it was convenient. They’d do a drug bust where a hundred packets of crack were found. How many were reported? Eighty? Ninety? The rest were sold to the same drug dealers who were busted and who walked, thanks to our screwed-up legal system.”
“Are you justifying what you did because of what others have done?” A
“You bet I am,” Pawkins said without hesitation. “I never did any of that. Steal drugs to put a few bucks in my pocket? Disgusting. I was a straight arrow, a complicit one maybe, looking the other way when my colleagues crossed the line. And do you know what? I never really blamed them. Cops don’t make a lot of money for putting their lives on the line every day to keep fat cats like you and the rest of official Washington safe from the bad guys. How much did you rake in, Mac, when you were defending the scum of the earth?”
“That misses the point,” Mac said. “And don’t broad brush your fellow cops, Ray. Most of them are honest, and you know it.”