Dead Man’s List. Mike Lawson

of the Capitol. The interior walls of the building are polished slabs of white and gray marble, and the doors to the senators’ chambers are all brass and mahogany and an impressive eight and a half feet in height. The taxpayers house their senators in style, and Morelli’s suite had a fireplace, rich antique furnishings, and a reception area filled with plaques and awards that the state of New York had bestowed upon its favorite son. A photograph of Morelli and the president was prominently displayed. The president appeared uncomfortable in the photo—he had the look of a man who knew he was posing with his replacement.

      Morelli’s receptionist was a woman in her fifties with a horsey face and watery eyes. When DeMarco asked to see Abe Burrows, she pointed wordlessly at an open door while blowing her nose loudly into a tissue.

      Judging by his office, Burrows was a typical harried, overworked chief of staff. His small, messy room was overflowing with documents half-read or never-to-be read; his in-box was a Tower of Babel about to collapse; yellow call slips formed a large, untidy pyramid next to his phone.

      DeMarco had known dozens of men like Burrows. They didn’t have enough charisma to be elected as dog catchers but they were smart, hardworking, and fanatically dedicated. While their bosses were cutting ribbons and smooching babies, they stayed in the office until midnight, reading the fine print on the bills and making the deals that passed the laws. Politicians were often the hood ornament on the government’s machine—people like Abe Burrows were the engine.

      Burrows was on the phone when DeMarco entered his office, and DeMarco heard him say: “You tell your guy that Morelli won’t give a shit about bridges in Mississippi until someone over there starts caring about Northeast interstates. Call me back when you got your head outta your ass.”

      He was short and overweight, had frizzy hair, and wore wrinkled clothes that fit him badly—yet DeMarco knew it would be a mistake to assume Burrows’s appearance was an indicator of his character. Senators didn’t select their chiefs of staff for charm and good looks; they picked them because they were harder than diamond-coated drill bits and usually just as sharp.

      Slamming down the phone, Burrows looked at it and said, “Dipshit.” Looking up at DeMarco, he raised his eyebrows in curiosity.

      “Joe DeMarco, Abe,” DeMarco said.

      “Yeah, I know. What do you—”

      “The other night, when you and the senator couldn’t remember Janet Tyler, he told me to stop by here. He said you’d check your files.”

      “Oh, yeah. But I’m kinda busy right now. I’m…Aw, never mind. Hang on.” Burrows hit a button on his desk and said into the speaker box, “Call George Burak. Tell him to pull the personnel file on a gal named Janet Tyler. She worked for the senator when he was mayor. Tell him to do it right away and call me back.” Burrows disconnected the phone call without waiting for a response, then said to DeMarco, “Why are you wasting your time on this?”

      DeMarco obviously couldn’t tell Burrows what Lydia Morelli had told him. So he just shrugged and said, “Just being thorough. I told Dick Finley that I’d check out the names on that list, and Tyler’s the last one.”

      “Good,” Burrows said, then he ran his hands over his face, like he was trying to scrub away his fatigue. “You know, we’re gonna start our run for the White House sometime next year. And Paul will get the nomination, no doubt about it. But as soon as we declare, the Republicans are going to do everything they can to smear him. They already took a pretty good shot at him when he ran for the Senate, and they didn’t find bupkus, but when he gets the nomination they’ll pull out all the stops. They’ll use anything to discredit him.”

      “I’m not trying to hurt the senator,” DeMarco said.

      “I didn’t say you were. What I’m saying is that Terry Finley was bush-league. There was no way in hell a guy like him was going to find something wrong about Paul when the entire Republican Party and every conservative journalist in America can’t do it.”

       Maybe they could if Paul Morelli’s wife was helping them.

      “I’ve been in politics all my life,” Burrows said, “and Paul’s the best I’ve ever seen. And I’m not saying that just because I work for him. He’s the real thing, DeMarco. He’s going to change this country.”

      Burrows’s phone rang. He hit the speaker button and said, “Yeah.”

      “George is on line three, Abe,” a disembodied voice said.

      Burrows punched another button. “George?” he said.

      “Yeah,” George said. “What do you want to know about this Janet Tyler?”

      “Who is she?” Burrows said. “Apparently she worked for Paul when he was mayor, but I don’t remember her.”

      “You don’t remember her because she was only with us two months. We hired her to help with some zoning study, but I guess she quit.”

      “You guess?”

      “Well, we didn’t fire her. The file only says secretary, Brooklyn zoning study, separated in ‘99. That’s it. If we’d fired her ass, the file would have said so.”

      “And that’s all you got?”

      “Yeah. I even asked a couple of my guys about her, but they don’t remember her either.”

      “Thanks, George,” Burrows said and hung up. Looking at DeMarco, he said, “Okay, you happy now? You now know everything I know about Janet Tyler.”

      The phone call between Burrows and this Burak character hadn’t sounded the least bit rehearsed. And the conversation that Lydia Morelli claimed to have heard between Burrows and Paul Morelli regarding Janet Tyler had happened eight years ago. It was possible that Burrows didn’t remember the discussion—assuming Lydia was telling the truth, which was a big assumption. So who should DeMarco believe: the alcoholic or the politician? Now that was a tough choice.

      “Yeah, I’m happy, Abe,” DeMarco said. “Thanks for your time.”

      

      Emma watched DeMarco exit the Russell Building, and smiled when his head swiveled to stare at the well-formed derriere of a young woman who was just entering the building. She had to find DeMarco a girlfriend, or even better, a wife. DeMarco was the kind of man who needed a wife.

      Emma knew that he had fallen head over heels for a spunky FBI agent a couple of years ago, but then the woman had been transferred to L.A. And then he’d hooked up with some school teacher, and although Emma had never met the woman, she’d sounded nice. But the teacher lived in Iowa and she and DeMarco had drifted apart, and now she was marrying somebody else. Emma needed to find him someone local so he couldn’t use distance as an excuse for not making a commitment.

      The term “commitment shy” may have been a cliché, but in DeMarco’s case it was valid. And the reason, Emma knew, was his ex-wife. His ex had been an adulterous airhead but for some reason he just couldn’t get over her or get beyond what she had done. But DeMarco’s love life—or rather his lack of one—would have to wait.

      DeMarco had descended the steps of the Russell Building and was now standing on the corner of Constitution and Delaware. When a cab came into view, he waved it down and jumped in, and Emma, watching from half a block away, saw a dark blue Buick fall into place behind the cab.

      DeMarco hadn’t known it, but Emma had been parked near his house at five-thirty that morning. At seven, she noticed a car with two men in it pull up and park, and when DeMarco caught a taxi to the Russell Building, the car had tailed the cab—and Emma had tailed the car. Emma pulled out her cell phone. It was time to find out who was in the Buick.

      The men following DeMarco were a block from the Russell Building when they were pulled over by the U.S. Capitol police. Emma knew that the female officer driving the patrol car would tell them that they had been seen “lurking” near the Senate Office Buildings and, times being what they were, the Capitol cops wanted to know what