CHAPTER 50
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Elise Campbell had several pieces of the puzzle, but no matter how she spun them, she still couldn’t get them to fit together.
The night Nikki Hale died, she might or might not have been drinking with the president. Whatever the case, when she left, according to Max Holland, she didn’t appear drunk. Todd Hutchinson was the next to see her, and he claimed the same thing. She might have been a little flushed when she left, but she didn’t tumble down the stairs or weave on her way out the door, so according to him, he had no way of knowing if she was drunk. This despite the fact that she had apparently been drinking with the first lady.
But the most inexplicable pieces of the puzzle were Porter’s accusation that Hutchinson and Hale had something going on between them and the fact that Hutchinson had looked Elise right in the face and lied to her. She was certain of it. Those microexpressions hadn’t been a figment of her imagination.
Porter claimed to have seen them groping each other by the garage that night, just as Nikki Hale was leaving. He’d also seen them exchange a very intense kiss. Setting aside the fact that such behavior from a Secret Service agent, especially while on duty, was incredibly unprofessional, if Porter was telling the truth, then Hutchinson had to have known how wasted she was. Even so, he still let her go that night. Why?
And what was the president’s role in all of this? What had he done that Stephanie Gallo could threaten to bring down his presidency with?
Somehow, he had not been honest about the events of that night. Elise had hoped she could ferret out the information from witness statements in the police reports, but with Hale dead, none had been taken.
Elise’s attention then shifted to the people who could fill in the blanks. As she couldn’t directly confront the president, she had approached Max, and he had pointed her toward Hutch, and because of that, another piece of the puzzle had been set on the table by Matt Porter.
Still, Elise’s intuition kept drawing her back to the president. Gallo had accused him of being involved in Nikki Hale’s death and participating in a cover-up. A cover-up by definition was an attempt to obscure or divert attention from the facts. In the absence of any statements made to the police, there was only one other way Elise could imagine the president might have attempted to conceal what had happened that night.
A forty-five-minute meeting with Nikki Hale, regardless of what they had been doing and even if they had been drinking, would not be enough to lose Alden the presidency. And as damaging as an affair’s becoming public might be, it wouldn’t be enough to force him from office. To lose the presidency, a crime would have to have been committed, and even then, it might not be enough to completely shove him out. For that to happen, the crime would have to be so scandalous that even someone as masterful with the press as Alden was couldn’t spin it.
But Elise Campbell still believed that President Alden was a good man. Despite what people wanted to pin on him and the aspersions they loved to cast, having an attractive woman in charge of your Internet campaign wasn’t a crime, nor was having a beautiful and powerful donor cum media ally. Just because he had working relationships with attractive women didn’t mean he was sleeping with them.
Elise looked down at the telephone number Christine De Palma had texted her from East Hampton. Along with it was a five-word message; He’s waiting for your call.
Highlighting the digits, Campbell selected the option to dial and waited. Three rings later, Herb Coleman answered the phone at his home in Naples, Florida.
“Mr. Coleman, this is Elise Campbell. Christine De Palma told you I would be calling?”
“Yes, she did,” said Herb Coleman. He had a calm and relaxing voice. “I’d ask you what I can do for you, but Chris already explained everything to me.”
“I want to make sure that you also know that this is all off the record and you are under no obligation to speak with me.”
“But you’re operating within your capacity as a Secret Service agent, so this is somewhat official, isn’t it?”
Elise took a deep breath. “Mr. Coleman, I wouldn’t blame you if you hung up on me right now. Ms. De Palma was very clear that your settlement agreement with Mrs. Gallo and President Ald—”
“Senator Alden,” corrected Coleman. “He wasn’t president yet when all of this happened.”
“Correct. He was not yet president when this happened. Nevertheless, as part of your settlement you’re required not to talk about the case in any way.”
“Agent Campbell, I’m not going to the papers with any of this, and from what I understand, you’ve got your own reasons for playing things pretty close to the vest. Alden was under oath when he responded to those interrogatories at the beginning of our lawsuit against him. If he lied in any of them, then that’s a felony. That’s pretty damn serious. But from a court of public appearance perspective, it’ll be a supernova if he did so to cover up what happened that night to our son, our daughter-in-law, and our two little grandchildren.”
“So you’re prepared to read me the president’s answers to your interrogatories?”
“I am,” said Herb Coleman, “and I hope you’re sitting down. I think you’re going to find this very interesting.”