The Confirmation (49 page)

Frida was another matter. Her face etched with pain, her skin sallow, she seemed dazed. When they came into Reynolds's private office, she closed her eyes tightly and struggled to sit down, maneuvering her distended belly with obvious difficulty. As she sat on the edge of the couch, she let out a low, barely audible moan.

“Honey, are you okay?” asked Marco.

“I think so,” said Frida slowly. “I—I—I think I might be having contractions. It happens sometimes when I'm tired . . . or stressed.” She smiled weakly. “As I am right now.”

“Are you sure you're okay?” he asked, his voice rising.

“No, I'm not sure, but . . .” Her voice trailed off. “The pain is coming in waves.”

Diaz glanced around, his eyes panicked. “Can we get her a doctor?” he asked. “Frida thinks she might be having contractions.”

Reynolds turned to an aide. “Call the clinic,” he ordered. “Tell them Judge Diaz's wife needs medical attention.” The aide bolted from the room.

Marco rubbed Frida's lower back to ease the pain and discomfort. Reynolds brought her a glass of water. Morris took a call from the White House, which was monitoring press reports about Solis's testimony. Details about her deposition from the previous evening were leaking. After a few minutes of hushed back-and-forth, he hung up.

“Penneymounter's leaking Solis's deposition,” he announced. “There's nothing new.”

“Is she here yet?” asked Reynolds.

“No,” said Morris. “She's still at the Mayflower. ETA twenty minutes.”

Frida doubled over and let out a louder moan. Diaz crouched down to comfort her, whispering, “It's going to be alright, honey. The doctor is on his way.”

Reynolds and Morris exchanged nervous glances. Just then a doctor and a paramedic burst through the door, both wearing street clothes beneath white coats.

“Mrs. Diaz, I'm Dr. Paulk with the Capitol Hill medical clinic. I understand you're experiencing contractions?”

“Yes,” said Frida, nodding her head.

“How long have you been feeling discomfort?”

“About twenty minutes. They started in the car on the way over here.”

“How far apart, ma'am?”

“I haven't been timing them. Maybe every five to seven minutes.”

The doctor checked Frida's vital signs, gazed into her pupils with a pen light, and took her blood pressure. After a brief examination he rose to his feet and turned to Marco. “Judge Diaz, I'm fairly certain this is false labor brought on by a lack of rest and stress. But just to be safe, I recommend we should take your wife to the hospital. It's a precautionary measure. But if she needs medical care, I'd feel a lot more confident if she was in a hospital. This is not the place for a pregnant woman experiencing her symptoms.” He put his stethoscope back around his neck. “I recommend we take her to George Washington University Hospital's OB-GYN unit and let them examine her.”

“Are you sure she's alright?” Marco stammered.

“I think so, but we should err on the side of caution,” the doctor replied, sounding confident. He glanced at Frida. “Alright?”

Frida nodded.

“Should I go with her?” Marco asked the doctor.

“No, you stay here,” Frida replied. “I'm okay. I'll call you from the hospital.”

A wheelchair materialized, and the doctor and paramedic helped Frida into her seat, careful to place her feet firmly in the foot rests. They wheeled her out of the office, surrounded again by Capitol police, and steered her toward the elevator. The press scrum degenerated into a surging blob of humanity, craning necks, snapping photos, and jogging into better position with television cameras.

Within minutes, Merryprankster headlined the breaking news. “FRIDA DIAZ RUSHED TO HOSPITAL” the Web site's banner screamed. “DID GIRLFRIEND'S UGLY CHARGES CAUSE HER TO GO INTO LABOR? WILL HEARING BE DELAYED?”

JAY NOBLE SAT IN his office watching the breaking news on television about Frida Diaz being rushed to the hospital. He was on the phone with Ross Lombardy.

“Are you watching this?” he asked.

“Yes,” said Ross. “Penneymounter has to delay the hearing, don't you think?”

“Not him,” said Jay. “Solis is on her way to the Capitol.” He paused. “Hold on while I patch in Phil Battaglia.” He called out to his assistant, who got Battaglia on the line. “Phil, I have Ross Lombardy on the line. He's got some information about Maria Solis. Ross, tell Phil what you just told me.”

“Okay,” said Phil. “Go ahead but make it quick. I'm under the gun.”

“Phil, I got a call this morning from a friend of mine who's the dean of the law school at Trinity University,” Ross began. “He has a friend named David Kenworthy, who's a law professor at Pepperdine. Kenworthy dated Maria after she and Marco broke up. My friend said that Kenworthy had some information about Maria Solis, so I called him.”

“OK. What's the punch line?” asked Phil.

“Right,” replied Ross. “After they started dating, Solis told Kenworthy she might be pregnant and she thought he was the father. But she was mad at Diaz for breaking up with her, so she went to Diaz and told him that
he
was the father.”

“Is he willing to submit that as sworn testimony?” asked Battaglia. “He'll say that under penalty of perjury?”

“Yes,” said Ross. “He's preparing an affidavit right now. I just hung up with him. He said he's willing to come to DC and testify if necessary.”

“To his knowledge, was she pregnant at the time?” probed Battaglia.

“According to him, she came back a few days later and said it was a false alarm,” said Ross. “He didn't go with her to the clinic, but he said that's what she told him.”

“I'll call Tom Reynolds right now,” said Battaglia. “You call Kenworthy back and tell him to get that affidavit to you, me, and Reynolds ASAP.”

“Where's he going to find a notary at 5:30 in the morning Pacific Time?” asked Jay.

“Don't worry, we'll find him one if he can't,” said Battaglia, hanging up.

Jay and Ross were still on the line. “Good work, Ross,” said Jay. “Can you call him and work with him on the affidavit? Just the facts, no embellishment.”

“I'll call him right now,” said Ross. “Where should we e-mail the affidavit?”

“Don't e-mail it,” ordered Jay. “Fax it to my office, to Phil's office, and to Tom Reynolds's office. We'll take it from there.”

“Got it.”

“And Ross?”

“Yes?”

“Do it right now. We don't have much time.”

“I'm on it,” said Ross. He hung up and immediately dialed the home number of David Kenworthy.

NATALIE TAYLOR, CHRISTY LOVE, and Piper Duncan sat in the coffee bar in the lobby of the Mayflower Hotel, waiting for Maria . . . or so it appeared. Christy warily eyed the clutch of reporters gathered in the lobby, hoping to catch a glimpse of the woman of the hour.

“How do we get Maria past the press?” asked Christy.

“I've got that all worked out. We're a decoy,” whispered Natalie, leaning forward to prevent being overheard. “While the press is shadowing us, hotel security will take Maria out a service entrance. We're meeting her at the Hart building.”

“By the time the press figures out what's going on, she'll be gone,” said Duncan, a smug expression on her face.

Christy scrolled through e-mail on her BlackBerry, killing time. Her eyes widened and she let out an expletive. “Merryprankster is reporting that Diaz's wife has been taken to the hospital.”

“My God, we need that like a hole in the head,” said Natalie. “Did she have some kind of panic attack? Do you think it's a plea for sympathy?”

“They say she's having contractions.” She shook her head. “Let's hope it's false labor. If she has to be hospitalized, I can hear Andy Stanton and the right-wing talk jocks now.”

Natalie's cell phone rang. “That's probably security,” she said. “This may be our signal to go.” Some reporters standing nearby pretended to shoot the breeze, all the while keeping an eye on the female troika so they couldn't slip away undetected. To avoid being overheard, Natalie stepped to the corner to take the call.

“Good morning, Ms. Taylor,” came the voice on the other end of the line. It was the head of security for the Mayflower. “Are you in the lobby?”

“Yes. Is it all clear? Can we head on over?”

“No ma'am. I need you to come upstairs.”

“Why?” asked Natalie. “Is there some kind of problem?”

“Yes, ma'am,” replied the head of security. “I'll meet you in Ms. Solis's room.”

Natalie hung up and returned to the table, grabbing her purse. “Something's up. We need to go meet up with the head of security. Let's go.”

They headed to the elevator, causing a rustling among the press corps. When they arrived on the eleventh floor, there were two Capitol policemen at the elevator, grave expressions on their faces. Natalie and Christy exchanged worried glances. They walked down the hall to Solis's suite. The door was ajar. The head of hotel security stood in the foyer, hands clasped behind his back.

“Is Maria ready to go?” asked Natalie.

“No,” he said. “Ma'am, she's gone.”

“What do you mean, gone? Where?”

“She's dead.”

“What?!” exclaimed Duncan, her voice ragged. “How?”

“We don't know. It looks like she passed away in her sleep,” he said. “We don't know the time or cause of death. That will have to be determined by the medical examiner.”

“I don't believe it,” said Natalie, her face draining of color, eyes filling with tears.

“Come with me.” The head of security led them through the living room to the back bedroom. He paused when they reached the door. “Don't touch anything,” he instructed. “We are treating this as a crime scene.”

Natalie shot Christy a look that said, “Crime scene?”

He opened the door slowly. Solis's body was sprawled on the bed, her legs turned to the side, her head tilted at an impossible angle. She wore a hotel bathrobe partially open at the torso. One arm lay at her side, the other dangled off the edge of the bed. Her face was pale and splotchy, the skin dark on her right side where her blood pooled. Her lips were blue. A half-empty glass of red wine was on the nightstand, lipstick smudges visible at the edges.

“My God,” whispered Natalie. “Please tell me she didn't kill herself.”

“She had prescription medication in her personal effects,” said the head of security. “There's no suicide note. If the medicine killed her, it looks like it was an accident.”

They stumbled out of the bedroom, stepping back into the living room of the suite, flopping on chairs and the couch.

“I can't believe it,” said Christy softly. “This is a tragedy.”

“I have to call Joe,” said Natalie. “The hearing is in an hour. We have to war game how we're going to alert the media.”

“I have to call her family first,” said Duncan. “I don't want them hearing about this from the media.”

“Sure, of course,” said Natalie.

Christy nodded. She slouched in a chair, a devastated look on her face.

As Natalie dialed Penneymounter's number, Christy stared into the distance, her eyes glazed. Glancing back, she made eye contact with Duncan, who shot her an icy stare.

“How are you doing?” she asked.

“I'm not well at all,” said Duncan, voice cracking. “You gave me your word no one would know about Maria unless she gave her explicit permission.” The veins in her neck began to show. “You broke your word, and now an innocent woman is dead. I hope you're happy.”

Christy said nothing in response. She got up and walked to the restroom, closing the door behind her, and began to sob.

THIRTY-EIGHT

Joe Penneymounter sat in his office in the Russell Building, flipping through the Solis deposition with the trained eye of a prosecutor, making notes on a legal pad. Next to the deposition lay a sheet of paper containing a list of questions prepared by his staff. But Penneymounter didn't need coaching. He knew the material backward and forward.

Penneymounter's BlackBerry vibrated. He answered it.

“Joe, it's Natalie,” she said, voice catching. “I'm afraid I have some very bad news. Maria Solis is dead.”

Penneymounter felt the breath knocked out of him. “How?”

“We don't know,” replied Natalie. “The head of security for the hotel says it looks like an accidental overdose, but we won't know until the autopsy.”

“Overdose of what?”

“Antidepressants,” said Natalie. “And wine.”

“Dear God,” said Penneymounter, shattered. “I don't want to sound like a conspiracy nut, but do you think there's any chance there was some funny business?”

“I don't think so,” replied Natalie. “It was a common prescription antidepressant. There are still pills in the bottle. If she took it with wine, the combination would slow her breathing and, in rare cases, stop her heart.”