Sadly, there is a degree of urgency. The courts will need notification of intestacy, before we can proceed to the probate process. She saw the baffled expression on the secretarys face and pressed ahead, dredging her memory for any jargon she could remember that would sound suitably intimidating. This will require an immediate declaration of kinship, heredity and outstanding claims on the estate. Its a legal process and the courts could issue a subpoena against any person or individual who obstructs that process. Which would mean this school. Or indeed you. She felt cruel doing this to the poor woman, but there was too much at stake to play nice.
The smile had gone now.
There is one more thing I should explain. The policyholder left behind a considerable sum of money. There is scope in the terms of the policy for a facility fee. Maggie said these last two words slowly, so that they might sink in, then repeated them: A facility fee to be paid to anyone who assists in the disbursement of funds. She leaned forward, ensuring that eye contact remained locked. That too could of course include you.
Im not sure I follow, Miss Muir.
The point is that we believe the policyholder died without a will. We think he left a lot of money with no one to give it to. My duty is to be absolutely sure that he did not leave any family or dependants behind and once Im sure of that well, then the sum has to be distributed somehow, doesnt it? She laughed and the secretarys eyes widened.
In previous situations like this, schools have been recipients for such monies. And of course there would be compensation for your time and effort in helping us conduct our inquiries.
So what would you need exactly?
All I would need is for you to take me to wherever those files are kept, so that I can take a quick look at the one belonging to our client and then I will be on my way.
Thats all?
Thats all. Im in the business of friends and family. Thats what Im looking for: friends and family.
The smell of bullshit was filling her own nostrils, but somehow Maggie sensed it was working.
The light was fluorescent, the smell stale. Upon rows and rows of metal shelves, mounted on Meccano-style uprights, were hundreds of cardboard boxes. Each one was labelled in the thick but fading ink of a marker pen. She began reading off the years. 2001-2, 2000-1
The secretary had just asked the difficult question Maggie had been hoping to avoid whose file is it youre looking for? when she was called away to deal with a fourteen-year-old boy with a nosebleed. She nudged Maggie through a pair of double-doors, then unlocked another dark green door before rushing upstairs with a pack of tissues, calling back over her shoulder, Ill be back shortly!
Maggie was left alone, accompanied only by the gurgling of hot water pipes. She didnt have much time. With her head angled, she read quickly along the sides of these old brown boxes. 1979-80, 1978-79, 1977-78
Turning the corner, she found at last the right year. She pulled the box down and, with no table to rest on, set it on the ground and knelt beside it, coughing as the dust of the floor rose to her throat.
Inside were two parallel rails on which hung a series of dark green files. She did a quick flick through the Bs: the Baker file was gone, no doubt removed during last years campaign, when journalists kept asking for it. A few Cs, a large number of Ds, a handful of Es; on and on until, at last, there it was.
Jackson, Robert Andrew
There was a home address, which Maggie swiftly scribbled in a notebook. There was a mother, Catherine Jackson, but by the word father only a blank.
Copies of his school report, including praise for his leadership of the debate team. High scores for history and for Spanish, decent in maths. Not what she needed. She turned the pages fast, hoping something would pop out, something that-
What was that?
A sound, close by. Metallic, but not the banging of a pipe. It came from further away and yet it was definitely down here, in the bowels of this building. It sounded somehow deliberate. Man-made.
She scoured the file, speed-reading. There was another reference to the debate team, written by a Mr Schilling. The date was three years after the first one: Jackson would have been seventeen.
Roberts contribution to the debate team has not been quite as enthusiastic as it was previously. I suspect the loss of the captaincy of the team made him a little sore. If he is to pursue a political career, he needs to learn that every career includes its defeats!
A political career. Maggie kept going. A letter to Mrs Jackson from the Principal, suggesting a meeting at the school to resolve the disciplinary matter we discussed on the phone. A reference accompanying an application to Harvard. A rejection letter from Harvard.
Finally, at the back of the file, a photocopied page from the high school yearbook. In the photograph Jackson wore the same expression Maggie had seen on his CIA file: smiling and hopeful, but with a hint of something else, too. Arrogance, determination or youthful ambition it was hard to tell.
Keeping the file on the floor, she replaced the box on the shelf and was just reaching for the lid when she heard the same metallic sound again, this time nearer. Inside the room.
Over her right shoulder she saw nothing but more rows of boxes. Over the other were the heavy pipes of the school heating system. Suddenly aware that she was alone in a closed, dark underground room, she felt a desperate need to get out.
The sound came again and it was getting closer.
She bent down to pick up the file, pausing to shepherd a few loose sheets back between the covers, and when she came back up, she could tell the light had changed. The area where she had stood was no longer in shadow.
She turned around. There, framed in the light between two rows of shelves, just a few feet away from her, was the outline of a man. Fixed, still and staring at her.
34
Washington, DC, Friday March 24, 12.00
Are we on a secure line?
Always, Governor.
Youre not telling me you consider the United States Congress secure, are you?
I am not, sir, no. We have our own encryption equipment in this office.
Thats smart, Senator.
I thank you.
You sure you not from Louisiana? A loud thunder of laughter down the phone, the way politicians used to laugh half a century ago: the sound of a big, Southern man who could fill a room with his own charisma. This, Senator Rick Franklin guessed, is how Huey Long would have laughed. Conventional wisdom said they didnt make them like that any more, but Governor Orville Tett begged to differ.
I also want to thank you for getting in touch, Governor. Im most grate-
We can cut the formal bullshit. Were busy men and were on the same side, aint we?
We are.
So: seems like youre the main man on this Baker stuff. Youre leading the troops into battle.
Im humbled by that description, but yes. I started this fight and I mean to finish it.
Well, good for you. Thats the kind of fighting spirit we need in our party. Too many pussies up there in DC who were ready, once Baker won last fall, to shut up shop and hang out the gone fishin sign. Thats why I want to help.
Im humbled by that description, but yes. I started this fight and I mean to finish it.
Well, good for you. Thats the kind of fighting spirit we need in our party. Too many pussies up there in DC who were ready, once Baker won last fall, to shut up shop and hang out the gone fishin sign. Thats why I want to help.
Glad to hear that, sir.
Heres the thing. You know that cesspit down in NAwlins is run by Democrats. So, surprise surprise, theyve canned the investigation into Forbess death. That particular truth a bit too inconvenient for those liberals! Another gale of laughter came roaring down the phone.
I hear you, Governor Tett.
Despite everything the Lord has rained down on that Sodom of the South, there are still a few good, God-fearing men down there in New Orleans. And one of thems been watching things very closely. Kind of my eyes and ears down there. Found out something mighty interesting too.
Franklin flashed a thumbs-up at Cindy, sitting opposite him, watching MSNBC on mute. He could hear a rustle of papers on the huge lump of oak he imagined served as the Governors desk.
Let me just get my reading glasses here a moment. OK, here we go. He made a murmuring sound, as if skim-reading, enjoying the suspense a tad too much, Franklin decided.
He noticed a woman down there, snooping around. Claimed to be press, but was doing her own thing. My man kept a close eye on her. Even followed her to some kind of sex club.
Franklin felt his shoulders tense with embarrassment: Governor Tett had gained national fame during his first term when he had been covertly filmed in a variety of strip joints. The killer sequence shown by Jon Stewart every night for a week had Tett rewarding a particularly buxom performer by slipping a twenty not into her garter belt, as convention demanded, but directly into her underwear, twanging it forward and, it appeared on tape, taking a peek inside as he did so. Everyone had written the Governor off, assuming he would be impeached or turfed out by the voters, whichever came first. But Tett had gone on the Christian Broadcasting Network, sobbed about his shame, called to his saviour to rescue him and begged for forgiveness. After that direct appeal to evangelical voters instantly dubbed the Tett offensive his poll numbers went up. Hed been reelected last year, against the national trend which saw Baker win his landslide.
Turns out this womans not press at all, Tett went on. She called herself Liz Costello of the Irish Times. But that aint her real name. She is, in fact, Maggie Costello. He stopped, like a comedian whos delivered his punch-line.
Franklin waited for a moment, then realized Tett was not going to go on. Im sorry, Governor. The names ringing a bell but-
I thought all you Washington insiders knew each other! Im not a Washington insider, Governor Tett. Im a- Aw, come on. Im just jerking your chain. Maggie Costello was, until this week, a foreign policy advisor to one Stephen Baker. President of these United States. Oh, thats good.