David whistled. “That does sound serious.”
“Mocking me, David? Try this on for size.” Clete cranked up his intimidating gaze to full throttle. “Vanessa’s baby wasn’t yours, so you killed it, and you’ve tried at least twice to kill her.”
As Clete had known they would, the statements wiped the smile off David’s face. “If Vanessa told you that, she’s sicker even than we thought, and we both know she’s a fruitcake.”
Clete controlled his temper, not wishing to give David even that much advantage. “I’m not going to waste a lot of time on this, David. For every accusation I make, you’ll have a dozen lying denials, explanations, or justifications. I know how you operate because I’m the one who taught you. So let’s make this easy on both of us. I can guarantee you something you want and need.”
“What’s that?”
“My silence. And Vanessa’s.”
“In exchange for what?”
“Uncontested divorce.”
David didn’t bat an eye. “You must be going senile, Clete.”
“I promise you I’m not.”
“You’ve suggested a quick, uncontested divorce from Vanessa?”
“Not suggested. Mandated. Or else.”
David Merritt’s derisive smile returned. “Or else what?”
Clete reached for his briefcase and withdrew a sealed mailing envelope. “Or else I call up Bill Yancey and surrender this to him.”
He passed the envelope to his son-in-law, who opened it and removed several color photographs. David dropped them as though they were live cobras.
“Turns your stomach, doesn’t it? She bled like hell. But one thing Becky Sturgis did not do was die accidentally. She didn’t fall backward during a scuffle with you and hit her head on the corner of a table, as you told me that night. You beat her to death, David. As these photographs of her will attest.”
David recovered his shock with remarkable ease. “This is a bluff, Clete. One unworthy of you. I’m not in the photographs. These could be the pictures of any corpse. For that matter, you could have beaten this girl to death yourself.”
“I could have, but I didn’t. There’s more in that envelope than the pictures.” David shook it, and an audio cassette fell into his lap. “You killed her, David. You admitted as much in a tearful confession. Remember? If not, it’s all there on the tape.”
Softly Clete added, “I record everything, David. I later erase what’s inconsequential, and keep anything that might someday prove useful. After I saw what you did to that poor defenseless girl and her baby, I decided to keep this particular tape.”
It was gratifying to see beads of sweat forming on David’s forehead. He said, “You’d never use this, Clete, because you’re just as guilty as I am.”
“I wouldn’t want to,” he conceded. “My life of public service would end in disgrace. Instead, I would much rather leave you to the devil, and live out the rest of my days revered as an effective statesman, with my daughter at my side. This nasty incident from your past,” he said, nodding down at the photographs, “can vanish, poof, like that. All you have to do is let Vanessa go without a hassle and without any undue explanations to the media.”
“How do you propose I do that?”
Clete shrugged. “The two of you have irreconcilable differences, period. The death of the child put a strain on the marriage. Millions of couples in America will empathize. The honesty with which you approach the divorce might even win you a few sympathy votes.”
David clenched his jaw. “Do you think I’m an idiot? A divorce before an election year would be political suicide. The party probably wouldn’t even put me on the ticket.”
“You don’t know that. Divorce isn’t a crime. However, double murder is, and there’s no statute of limitations.” He gave his son-in-law time to reflect on the ghastly repercussions should the Becky Sturgis story come to light. After a time, he said, “I’m offering you a generous deal, David. Even if I didn’t have a vested interest, I’d advise you to accept it.”
“Those pictures don’t prove a goddamn thing, and neither does the tape.”
“Doesn’t matter whether it’s proved,” Clete said blandly. “The mere hint of a scandal of this magnitude would eliminate your chance for a second term. In fact, you’d become a pariah. No matter what you tried to do, this would haunt you for the rest of your life.”
David looked on the verge of imploding, but Clete knew he’d won this first round. He would win plenty more rounds before David was on the mat, pleading for mercy. This was the big granddaddy scandal, but there were others, a whole bagful of them. One by one, he would draw them out and expose them. There were enough to last for years, enough to last long after Clete Armbruster was moldering in his grave. But he would die happy, knowing that David Merritt would never know another minute’s peace.
But for the time being, Clete was satisfied. It was enough for on
e morning.