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22
A pleasant older woman answered Savich’s call to the CEO of Clarkson United Industries on the first ring. “Mrs. Clarkson’s office. How may I help you?”
“I’m Special Agent Dillon Savich, FBI, calling from Washington, D.C.” He paused a second to let this sink in. He knew it had when he heard the woman suck in her breath.
“The FBI? I don’t understand, sir, Agent. Mrs. Clarkson has never had any dealings with the FBI.”
“No, I imagine not. Please tell Mrs. Clarkson it concerns her granddaughter, Rebekah Manvers.” If nothing else, that should be enough to get Mrs. Clarkson on the line.
“Oh my, yes, certainly, Agent Savich. A moment, sir.”
Almost immediately Savich heard the clipped no-nonsense voice of the top dog. “The FBI? Agent Savich? This is Gemma Clarkson. I suppose this has something to do with Rebekah and her attempted kidnapping?”
It wasn’t concern he heard, it was a sheen of impatience, and wasn’t that curious? Rebekah had told him she and her grandmother weren’t close, but this?
“Mrs. Clarkson, as I told your assistant, I’m Agent Dillon Savich, FBI. Rebekah said you were the best person to speak to about her grandfather and that’s mainly why I’m calling. I believe the two are connected.”
There was a moment of silence, then again, that hint of impatience. “Why on earth would Rebekah send you to me? She and her grandfather were like two peas in a pod. Surely she knows everything you would need to know. But that begs the question, Agent Savich. Why do you want to know about my husband? He’s dead now, at last, buried a month ago. Actually, he was dead for all intents and purposes when he fell into a coma sixteen years ago. Putting him in a casket was only a formality.”
“Mrs. Clarkson, Rebekah was attacked last Thursday in Washington. If you didn’t see Congressman Manvers briefly speak about it on TV, please don’t be alarmed. She was uninjured, but we have reason to believe her attack involved your late husband, Congressman Clarkson.”
“What? How in the world? I don’t understand any of this. I mean, of course I knew about the supposed attempted kidnapping. I saw her husband on TV say the FBI believed kidnapping her for ransom was at the root of it and the FBI was dealing with the situation. Well, her husband is rich, and so is she, what with the trust her grandfather set up for her a long time ago. I would have thought Rebekah would have the maturity to call me herself, but she didn’t. Are you certain Congressman Manvers didn’t stage this attempted kidnapping? For the publicity? He’s up for re-election, and an attack on his young wife would certainly garner him sympathy. I don’t understand how you could believe the attempt to kidnap her has anything to do with her grandfather. He’s dead and buried.”
“That’s why I’m calling you, Mrs. Clarkson. To provide me with information Rebekah is unable to. We know she held a special place in her grandfather’s life, but still, she was very young when he fell into a coma and so wasn’t able to answer a number of concerns.”
Silence. It felt calculated to Savich. He pictured her tapping her fingernails on her desktop, ready to what? Lie to him? Give him the heave and hang up? She said at last, her voice calm and matter-of-fact, “So it appears all the money her grandfather left her came to the attention of the wrong people. I hope you find the criminals responsible.”
“I’m certain we will. Now, what we believe, Mrs. Clarkson, as I already said, is that her attempted kidnapping is very probably connected to her grandfather and had nothing to do with a ransom demand. As I understand it, after Congressman Clarkson suffered the strokes that left him in a coma, he was placed in a private sanitarium. Is that right?”
“Yes. That is public knowledge, Agent Savich. What does this have to do with Rebekah’s attempted kidnapping?”
“I’m not at liberty to give you any details, ma’am. I’m asking you to verify. What is the name of the facility?”
“No details? You’re worse than a politician. Ah, very well. For sixteen years, my husband was in the Mayfield Sanitarium. It’s one of Virginia’s finest long-term-care facilities. He had round-the-clock nursing there for each and every long year. The nurses and doctors who tended him were kind and attentive. I hired private nurses for him as well. As you probably already know, the series of strokes brought on the coma, and he never woke up. And then he died, only last month. Is there anything else?”
“Did Rebekah visit her grandfather often?”
Mrs. Clarkson gave a short, brittle laugh. “Oh certainly, she was there at his bedside as often as possible. She worshiped him in life, as he worshiped her. I can’t imagine how his years in a coma could have anything to do with this—situation.”
“Let me ask you about another important person in Congressman Clarkson’s life: his longtime friend Nate Elderby. I understand Mr. Elderby drowned in the nineties. What can you tell me about him?”
“I do not see what Nate Elderby has to do with anything, alive or dead, Agent Savich.”
He plowed right over her again. “I imagine you remember his death, ma’am, since it must have affected your husband profoundly, and you as well, I imagine.”
If she considered arguing with him, she thought better of it. She said, her voice even more clipped, “Nate died in 1995, Agent Savich. It’s hard for me to even call his face to mind now, it’s been so long. Yes, he and Johnny were childhood friends, and they remained close until Nate drowned. My husband never spoke of it to me, but I know he mourned his friend deeply.”
John hadn’t talked about Nate’s death to his own wife? Savich said, “I know your husband had to deal with rumors insinuating he was responsible for his friend’s death, rumors it wasn’t an accident, that they’d had a falling-out and he murdered Nate. What happened between them to give rise to such rumors?”
She gave a full-bodied, let-it-all-loose kind of laugh. “Of course he didn’t kill Nate. There was no falling-out—I would have known about it if there had been. I blame his political enemies at the time. As you well know, once a rumor starts, it’s impossible to stop it. Anything that juicy breeds like mold in the dark. And the press at the time, they were pushing, always pushing, to find something shocking, something to boost their sales. And people, no matter who they are, even supposed friends, are always interested, always seem to take pleasure in the misfortunes of others. The more gruesome, the better. The Germans even have a word for it—schadenfreude. The truth, of course, was very uninteresting. Nate was drunk. He fell overboard and drowned. It was an accident.”
“Here’s the thing, Mrs. Clarkson. Even though Nate Elderby’s blood alcohol level wasn’t high enough to be debilitating, according to the autopsy report, the local police ruled he fell overboard and drowned. How do you think such a thing could happen?”
“The fact is, Agent Savich, I believe Nate was an alcoholic. Maybe he hadn’t drunk himself stupid that particular day, but he really loved his bourbon. He was always careful—he didn’t want to jeopardize his criminal law practice. Still, he always drank a single shot before court, said it smoothed him out and fired up his brain. Then, of course, he always had a breath mint or two as a chaser. But he remained a firecracker in the courtroom, that’s what Johnny always said, until his untimely death. Yes, I believe he was drunk enough to be careless, and he did fall overboard. Believe me, Agent Savich, my husband was not responsible for his death. There wasn’t any earthly reason.”
Savich said, “So Nate was a successful lawyer?”
“Yes, he was, but he had the ethics of a man for hire. That is to say, he didn’t have many ethics. I do know Nate defended some bad people, got many of them off. I remember the police did look into one of his criminal clients in particular, a Mr. Showalter, but they couldn’t find any necessary proof.
