The First Lady Read online

  That tickles a memory.

  Seeing tanks moving around in the North African desert. World War II, Germans versus the British and fighting in sandstorms.

  Tammy gets off the bed, goes to her small office. Starts going through the piles of receipts and business cards that she always collects during the week.

  There.

  The business card from Jamal, the Ethiopian cabdriver who took her home yesterday.

  She scrambles and finds her iPhone, ignores all the missed calls screaming at her with their bright letters and numbers, and punches in the number.

  It rings.

  It rings.

  It rings and—a burst of static.

  “Hello?”

  In her dark living room, she sits down in a chair. “Jamal? Is this you?”

  “Yes,” comes the suspicious voice. “Who is this, please?”

  “This is Tammy Doyle,” she replies. “I’m the woman who was in the car accident yesterday, with your cousin … I’m sorry, I didn’t get his name.”

  “Ah, yes, Caleb. A good man.”

  “I need to speak to him. Do you know where he is?”

  He laughs. “Oh, yes, I do. He’s here with me … we’re watching the football match, Ethiopia against Ghana. Hold on.”

  Some rustling and tumbling, and Caleb comes on and says, “Missy? Are you all right? Did you forget some luggage, then?”

  “No, I’m doing well, thank you. And I have all of my luggage. It’s just … can I ask you a question?”

  “Yes, missy, but please, make it quick. We’ve waited two months to watch this.”

  She shifts in the darkness. Outside there are lights from the tribe of reporters, still eager for her to come out and confess all. Tammy says, “The accident … you said it made you remember when you served in the army in Ethiopia. Driving through the desert, in sandstorms, dodging armored vehicles.”

  “Yes, yes, very true.”

  Tammy grips her iPhone hard. “What did you mean by that? I mean, the pickup truck that struck us … was it … armored in some way?”

  Caleb says, “It was, it was. That’s what I told the police agents. The pickup truck … it was black, very heavy-looking, and there was something on the front … a big piece of black metal, welded on.” Caleb gives an amused giggle, like this sort of thing was always spotted on the Virginia highways. “It looked like somebody had fixed the pickup truck so it would cause bad damage, very bad damage, to my taxicab. Lucky for both of us, it hit the trunk and not the center. Eh?”

  Some shouting in the background, and Caleb says something in Amharic, and to Tammy says, “Please, I must go. The match, it’s very important.”

  “Thank you, Caleb,” says Tammy, and he hangs up before she even has a chance to ask him how he’s feeling.

  In the darkness now, for at least ten minutes, and another memory has come forth, one that’s screaming for attention.

  When she had come home yesterday, her boss, Amanda Price, had been here waiting for her.

  Supposedly just to talk.

  But maybe she was here for another reason. To search her place, to find something her firm could use against Harry, something embarrassing or humiliating like photos on her home laptop, showing them in a compromising position. Or an email. Or something worse.

  And why would she be confident in coming to her condo unit without thinking she’d be caught?

  Because …

  Because Amanda knew she was going to be in a traffic accident.

  She knew.

  Remember what her boss had said when she had told Amanda about the car accident?

  “Interstate Sixty-six … what a horror show that can be.”

  How did she know that?

  How did Amanda know the accident took place on I-66?

  Tammy sure as hell hadn’t told her.

  She moves around her condo, making sure the windows and the door are locked. In her kitchen, feeling panicked, she takes a carving knife and goes back to bed.

  Never has she felt so alone.

  CHAPTER 47

  THE PRESIDENT OF the United States is hanging up his Oval Office phone—after a disappointing conversation with his campaign’s lead pollster—when there’s a knock on the near curved door and Parker Hoyt comes in, looking troubled.

  “Yes?” he asks.

  Parker comes over, sits down in front of him. “No news.”

  “No good news, you mean,” he says sharply. “So far the investigation has turned up her untriggered panic button, a partial note we know Grace wrote that isn’t helpful at all, and the remains of a poor unidentified woman. Am I missing anything?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Now what?”

  “Well, it—”

  Harrison interrupts him. “I just got off the phone with Taylor Smith. She says the overnights have shown a two-point drop nationally in the polling. Two points! Can you imagine what it’s going to be by this weekend?”

  “Sir, trust me—”

  The President leans over his desk. “That’s what you told me on Air Force One. ‘Trust me, trust me.’ Well, I’ve trusted you so far and what has that gotten me? A drop in the polls, and the whispers out there that are going to start turning into shouts about the First Lady. Where’s the First Lady? Where’s the First Lady? Well?”

  Parker has his hands folded in his lap. “We’ve done an extensive search up and down the river by the horse farm, using her Secret Service detail and elements of Homeland Security under the guise of a training mission.”

  “And?”

  “It’s time to change the approach.”

  “To what?”

  Parker says, “Sir, the First Lady … has gone rogue. She must be up to something … what, I don’t know. But we don’t have to play her game. We need to be a step ahead of her.”

  “By doing what?”

  “Sometime tomorrow, we leak the story to the press that she’s gone missing, following a ride at the horse farm she frequents. We believe she’s lost, injured, or perhaps even … drowned. We get the story out that way, we get the general public looking for her. A woman so prominent can’t hide forever.”

  “But suppose … I mean, suppose she’s found?”

  Parker smiles. “Then it works in our favor. She’ll have to explain why she went missing, why she frightened you and the other members of the administration, and that story will be on the front page and on the cable networks. Not the story about you and Tammy Doyle. And speaking of Miss Doyle, you haven’t been in contact with her, have you? Remember what I said coming back from Atlanta. No phone calls, no contact, nothing.”

  Harrison recalls the not-so-happy conversation he had yesterday with Tammy and decides to leave it be. He’s not in the mood for a lecture.

  “I listened very carefully to you, Parker.” The President leans back in his chair and stares at his chief of staff, and there’s something else going on there, something he can’t quite figure out.

  “Parker?”

  “Sir?”

  “You’ve got something else going on,” he says. “Spill.”

  Parker nods. “Agent Sally Grissom.”

  “She all right? She still keeping her mouth shut?”

  “Ah …”

  “What the hell is it, Parker?”

  “Sir, Agent Grissom’s husband was murdered at her apartment about two hours ago.”

  It was like one of the bulletproof French doors behind him had opened up a crack, for it felt like a cool breeze was tickling the back of Harrison’s neck.

  “Go on.”

  “It seems that there was a break-in, or a burglary attempt, and Ben Miller, her husband, caught whoever was there. A fight ensued … and he was killed.”

  He shakes his head. “Was anything valuable stolen? Was it a burglary?”

  “We don’t know that yet.”

  Harrison stares and stares at the man most responsible— besides himself—for getting him into the White House.

  “So you
’re telling me that less than two days after we tasked Agent Grissom to find my wife, her husband is murdered.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Hell of a coincidence.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Parker … you’ve got to tell me, right now, if you or I or anybody in this administration, however distant, was responsible for his death.”

  Parker says, “Sir, I’m … Harry, that’s a damn insulting question, and you know it.”

  “Parker, answer the damn question!”

  Parker stares right back at him. “Mr. President … we bear no responsibility for that man’s death. And if you think otherwise, you’ll have my resignation on your desk within the hour.”

  Harrison thinks maybe he’s pushing him too far, and says, “Parker, please, you’re overreacting. I just need to know and—”

  Parker interrupts him again, a record. “Harry, when I first met you at the statehouse in Columbus, you were like a dedicated and eager puppy, stumbling over your own paws. You had lots of raw talent, and you needed somebody to mold and direct that talent. That’s what I did, and defending you and your administration has been the key part of my life. No time for a wife, no time for a family. Don’t you dare insult me like that again.”

  Harrison slowly shakes his head. “No insult was meant, Parker. I … it’s a tough time for all of us.”

  “It certainly is,” Parker says, standing up. “Is that all, sir?”

  “For now,” Harrison says. “Do keep me informed … and make sure Agent Grissom gets a card or flowers or something similar from me.”

  “Yes, sir,” Parker says, heading to the door, and when he reaches the handle, Harrison calls out, “Parker?”

  He turns. “Sir?”

  “Usually I’m relaxed about such things, but don’t ever call me Harry again in this office. Do I make myself clear?”

  Parker just nods, exits the Oval Office, and like before, the President of the United States is alone.

  Still wondering whom he can trust.

  CHAPTER 48

  MARSHA GRAY IS in her out-of-the-way apartment outside of Silver Spring, Maryland, watching a Discovery Channel special about snipers and having fun picking out the errors, when her iPhone rings. She checks the incoming call and sees it’s Parker Hoyt, for the third time in the last ten minutes. The previous two times she’s hung up on him after the call deteriorated into insults and name-calling, and she’s deciding to give him a third try.

  “Yes?”

  She hears his heavy breathing. “Don’t you ever hang up on me, ever again.”

  “What, you expect me to keep a line open with you, twenty-four/seven?” Marsha asks. “I always hang up on you when our conversation is complete.”

  “You know what the hell I mean.”

  “Perhaps, but I’ll say it for the third time, Mr. Hoyt. Just because you’re paying me doesn’t mean you have a blank check to scream at me or insult me. You want to have a serious, employer-to-employee conversation, I’m open to that. Otherwise, the minute the insults fly, I’m off to do something more productive. Like watching television or trimming my toenails.”

  More heavy breathing. “Did you have to kill him?”

  Marsha says, “Of course I did. I was there in the apartment, pretending to be a Comcast employee, with very illegal and technical surveillance equipment on my body. What, you think I should have given up? Let myself get arrested? That would have been a fun police interrogation later, don’t you think?”

  “Answer the damn question! Did you have to kill him?”

  She says, “Sorry to shatter any illusions you might have, Mr. Hoyt, but when I’m in a hand-to-hand combat situation, my goal isn’t to leave them with a lump on the skull. He’s dead, I’m alive, and that’s the way I wanted it.”

  “And what the hell were you doing there in the first place?” On the television, the program depicts a sniper who is supposedly in camouflage, and Marsha thinks a Cub Scout wearing corrective lenses could spot him from fifty meters away. “I was trying to gather something missing from this little op, which is actionable intelligence. You’ve given me scraps and pieces, always late, and I’ve done the best I could with those scraps. Well, I was tired of doing the best I could. I wanted to try excellence for a change, by placing surveillance equipment in her apartment, and her vehicle, if I got lucky.”

  “You should have told me beforehand.”

  “I tried, but for some reason, Mr. Hoyt, you weren’t answering your phone. And you told me earlier that if need be, I should act on my own. So I did. So unless you have anything else to tell me, give it a rest.”

  More breathing. He says, “By this time tomorrow, we’re going to leak out that she’s missing. Get the news media and the public involved.”

  “Ah,” she says. “Try to flush her out of whatever hole she might be hiding in.”

  “That’s right.”

  “And my job?”

  “Same as before … but to be clear … we’re looking for a final solution.”

  “How German-like of you. Okay.”

  “Are we done?”

  “For now.”

  “What do you mean by that?” he asks.

  She wonders for a moment, and then decides to make it all clear. “I just want you to make sure that you remember I’m a professional. And you don’t last in this business by being an amateur. And a professional has something in hand to guarantee one’s safety. So if there’s a funeral next week for the First Lady, there better not be an FBI contingent breaking into my apartment with an arrest warrant the day after. Clear?”

  A long, long delay, and she’s sure he’s trying to keep control of his temper. “You’re threatening me.”

  “No, I’m setting expectations. Pay me, keep your end quiet, and my end will be quiet as well.”

  Then he loses it, calls her a number of names, and then hangs up.

  Marsha shrugs, sees that once more, she’s successfully recorded this call from the chief of staff, and happily goes back to watching the documentary on snipers, which makes her smile in amusement for the next forty minutes.

  CHAPTER 49

  ON THIS DAY, the worst of days, I’m like an actress in some play, not knowing my lines or responsibilities, just being gently pushed along by those in the know. The day has been a jumble of images and sights, and now, I’m in the final act of this performance, a cloudy and cold day in a Jewish cemetery near Capitol Heights, Maryland, holding Amelia’s frigid hand in my own as the rabbi speaks over Ben’s open grave.

  It’s been just a day since I last saw my husband, dead in my bedroom, but because of my in-laws’ religion, he’s being buried this afternoon. Esther and Ron Miller are standing on the other side of the dirt pile, holding each other. Both are wearing black, and Ron is wearing a yarmulke. My father-in-law just stares and stares at the plain pinewood casket, but every now and then my mother-in-law looks at me with her eyes full of restrained fury and pure hate.

  I make no excuse for that look, for I can see that from her point of view, it’s fully deserved. Ben wasn’t particularly observant and he never pressured me to convert, but his mom would drop hints the size of boulders whenever we came to visit, especially after Amelia was born. Now she’s staring at me, a Gentile with a Gentile daughter, and with her familial line cut off with the remains in that casket.

  Other members of Ben’s family are lined up in solidarity, and there are coworkers of his from the Department of the Interior. I spend a few dreary seconds trying to decide whichever interns over there might have slept with my husband. My side—God, the horror of having sides at a graveyard ceremony—consists of me; Amelia; my deputy, Scotty; and one of my two sisters, Gwen, who works for the NSA and is standing at my left. She’s five years younger than me and about five times as smart. My other sister, Kate, is flying home from a GAO conference in Seattle, and my parents—last I knew—were trying to get flights north from Florida in the middle of a tropical storm.

  I squeeze Amelia
’s hand, but she doesn’t squeeze back. I haven’t slept. I’ve been consumed with making the necessary phone calls; watching the coroner’s team remove that heavy black plastic bag containing the man I had loved, lived, and laughed with; and above all, being with my daughter once I told her that her daddy was dead and that she would never, ever see him again.

  The long wails, sobs, and cries from Amelia yesterday cut at me and cut at me, like somebody coming after me with a large knife for hours, until finally she fell into a slumber. By then we were in a motel room, and I was on the bed with her, not sleeping, watching the sun eventually rise and trying so desperately not to think of anything.

  For the past hours, from the motel room to the synagogue to here, Amelia’s been quiet, as if being a good little girl will somehow bring her daddy back. Her face quivers and her eyes are wide and red-rimmed, and I glance at her every now and then, seeing she’s no longer my daughter from the day before. Oh, she is and will forever be my Amelia, but something deep inside of her has broken, and when it does heal, it will heal crookedly, with bumps and ridges and memories, and she will be a different daughter.

  The rabbi continues his prayers. He’s one of the most gracious and generous men I’ve ever met, and I’m ashamed to say that I’ve forgotten his name. But he knows the family status and tensions, and does his best with his soothing and reassuring voice to bring some sort of closure and completeness to this horrid day.

  Oh, Ben, I think, I never …

  I never what?

  I … never.

  Just that.

  The rabbi—dressed in a baggy gray suit and holding a small leather-bound book, with a yarmulke on his head—makes some sort of gesture and my husband’s casket is lowered into the ground by two tired-looking cemetery workers dressed in jeans and gray sweatshirts, and Esther, Ben’s mother, cries out and her husband squeezes her shoulder.

  When the casket is finally lowered into the ground, the rabbi steps forward and speaks to us all. Near him are two battered cardboard boxes filled with old books, and he explains that these old Jewish books are going to be buried with Ben as a sign of respect and honor. There is also a mound of dirt with a shovel, and the rabbi explains that those who wish to can come up and deposit a book into the open grave and then toss dirt in with the shovel.