Grissom says, “Take care of yourself.”
And then she’s gone, her non-answer raising lots more questions for Tammy.
She takes out her cell phone, feels that urgent hunger to call Harry to see how he’s doing.
But …
Tammy puts the phone away.
The last time she talked to him on this phone, Harry had lied to her.
She doesn’t want to give him another opportunity.
CHAPTER 35
I’M IN THE President’s private study, on the second floor of the White House, and I suppose I should be impressed, but I’m not. I’m thinking about the naughty things that have happened in this room over the years—Harding, LBJ, Clinton—and I force myself to keep a slight smile on my face as I sit down across from the Man. Parker Hoyt is hovering at his side, near packed shelves of leather-bound books. There are also small oil paintings of famed past politicians decorating the walls, and President Tucker is sitting at a small wooden desk.
He starts, “Agent Grissom, I want to apologize for the … brusque tone I took with you yesterday. You can imagine the … stress we were all under.”
“I understand, sir,” I say, sitting still, hands in my lap. I catch the attention of his chief of staff and I say, “Mr. Hoyt, will you excuse us?”
The President’s campaign may be in slow-motion collapse, and the comics and commentators may be having a wonderful time with the “Ambush in Atlanta,” but I have to give Parker Hoyt credit: he looks as tough and as sharp as when I saw him last.
“Absolutely not,” he says. “I stay here. I want to hear what’s going on.”
I smile at him. “Very well.” I shift my gaze. “Mr. President, do you know where your wife is?”
The President is puzzled. “No. Of course not.”
“Thank you.”
Still in the chair, I say, “Mr. Hoyt, that concludes my investigation. You told me yesterday to do whatever it takes to find the First Lady, and I can’t do that by conducting interviews in your presence. So your choice is either to leave and let me perform this investigation in a manner I see fit, or stay here and the investigation is finished. I’m unable to find the First Lady.”
The President says, “Parker, she makes sense. Please leave.”
“Mr. President—”
“Parker.”
He says not a word and then quietly and quickly leaves, closing the heavy wooden door behind him. The President says, “With everything else that’s going on, you’ve managed to make an enemy for life, Agent Grissom.”
“He’ll have to take a number,” I say. “Thank you, sir. I’ll make this as quick as possible. I know your time is extremely valuable.”
He nods, and I think of the times I’ve interviewed men while I was working for Metro DC and the State Police in Virginia, men who were suspected of being drug mules, serial abusers, or rapists. The fact that I’m using my interview techniques with the President of the United States boggles my mind.
“Again, Mr. President, do you know where your wife is?”
“No.”
“With the news about your … relationship with Tammy Doyle, I have to ask this … your marriage, was it in serious trouble?”
He nods, eyes sad. “Ah …”
He stops talking.
“Mr. President … what you say to me I’ll keep confidential. Even if I’m subpoenaed at some point. Right now I want to find your wife, and I need your help.”
He nods, swallows, and that’s when I no longer have the most powerful man in the world sitting in front of me.
In front of me is a husband whose wife has gone missing. “
It … started a couple of years ago. We both had our schedules, our demands. Often we were on the road on separate trips … and then … I started making compromises. Grace didn’t—or wouldn’t—understand that. Politics is a practical business, and it’s better to get half a loaf than none. But she kept on pushing me, pushing me … even working behind my back to reach out to congressional leaders. We had a few private blowups, and then … we settled, I guess. We settled into our own universes, our own lives …”
I hear his words and I also see something else—my marriage, the long stretches of time I spent working and on the road, and Ben doing the same, out visiting the national parks, each of us juggling our own career, our own demands, while trying to raise a daughter.
“I see, sir. Please continue.”
He shrugs. “Our marriage … it was for appearances only. An empty shell. There was no more romance, no more passion. A peck on the lips or on the cheek, a week or so here … a couple of times we tried to mend things, spending long weekends at Camp David; then we’d go back to the old arguments, our old patterns. But you have to know one very important thing, Agent Grissom.”
“And what’s that, sir?”
“I still have affection for her. I always will. And I do love her still. I couldn’t have gotten here without her support, without her sacrifices. I want you to know I bear her no ill will.”
I try to gauge his mood, what’s going on behind that sad yet handsome face, and I say, “When was the last time you spoke with the First Lady?”
“Yesterday morning, when we had just left Atlanta.”
“That must have been a difficult conversation.”
Another swallow. “It was.”
“How did it end?”
“Excuse me?”
Something just flickered across his face. “Your conversation with the First Lady,” I ask. “How did it end?”
He seems to be struggling with something, and I decide not to press him. Too much pressure on my end and he’ll wrap things up, and maybe get another compliant Secret Service agent to conduct this fouled-up investigation. An attractive option for sure, but I’m in so deep now that I’m going to see it to the end.
The President says, “She was angry. Very angry. And she asked me when I was going to get to Andrews … and she said, she said, ‘I don’t want to talk to you now, or then, or ever.’ She hung up on me, and then my follow-up calls went unanswered, and … well, you know the rest.”
I certainly do, which included violating a good half-dozen laws, regulations, and procedures in the process. “Sir,” I ask, “do you know of any other place where she might be? Someplace that she might go to as a refuge.”
“Our residence on Lake Erie, in Vermilion. The Erie White House, you’ll recall.”
“I’ll alert the Secret Service detail there, but I don’t think she would have been able to leave the horse farm and get there without being noticed,” I say. “But her detail has told me that besides Camp David, she did have another place where she could be alone and relax. Does that strike a bell with you at all?”
The President shakes his head, and I sense his frustration. “No, no, I wish I could help you … honestly, I wish I could tell you something useful.”
I take a deep breath, decide it’s time for the Big Question. “Mr. President … did you have any indication, or suspicion, or even a suggestion … that the First Lady might be having an affair as well?”