Burying the Dead

Chapter 3-1

Chapter 3

Catherine Darlington rose at five A.M. to begin a day that was like any other day when she was in residence at the White House. Or so she thought.

She crossed herself and then recited the “Angelus” as she did her Sun Salutations, breathing deeply as she made her yoga practice a moving meditation. Then she headed to the “Un-Sitting Room,” as the former third-floor Sitting Room-turned-Workout Room was sometimes called. At least it wasn’t one of those sterile, high-tech gyms teeming with grimly determined users in search of a youth that was passing them by with every step and a beauty they probably never possessed, Catherine thought.

This was a makeshift exercise room with a TV and standard equipment whose powder-blue intimacy suggested the toile guest room it had been in the Kennedy Administration. Time really is another country, Catherine thought as she pulled back and released on the rowing machine. In the 1960s, a young first lady had connected the space with Napoleonic Paris. Catherine wondered what Jackie would’ve made of the rowing machine in place of an Empire-style divan. Or of the blond sss of a trainer who had decreed “It is imperative that you do an hour of vigorous cardio four times a week.”

For her part, Catherine had merely smiled. As a young publicist, her accounts had included a show-jumping circuit in which Dutch Warmbloods trod treadmills as part of their exercise. A horse can do this, she had felt like telling the trainer but remembered her manners. Instead, she found her a job even better than the White House gig, then broke the news to the president, whose staff had hired her as a “fitness advisor,” probably so he could drink in her statuesque figure.

“The president”: Catherine always referred to him as such, never as “my husband,” or “Ken.” She did so as much out of a desire to keep her distance as out of respect. As she rowed with a Ben Hur-like determination, her thoughts drifted back and forth from her days representing Warmbloods to another kind of warm blood—Dimitri Orlov. She who regularly turned up in polls as the most admired woman in the world—one-half of an envied marriage, a woman coveted by world leaders—had a secret schoolgirl crush.

How disappointed the prime minister of India would be, she thought maliciously. Once he had told the president that if he ever tired of her, he’d be happy to swap wives. Far from being offended, Catherine laughed at the memory of the president blanching, not at the idea—he was constantly pressing her to up the kinky ante in their s*x life—but at the thought of his wife being elevated to a kind of stratosphere that she knew he reserved for himself alone. Whenever she thought of the president, she thought of Harry Chapin’s “Shooting Star.” Like many wives, she was the indispensable moon to her husband’s fragile sun, even if he didn’t know it. For his part, he was happy to have her shine as long as she merely reflected his good taste in selecting such a cultured, sophisticated satellite, ah, partner.

What then did that make Dimi? (She already thought of him as Dimi, not Dimitri Orlov.) He was perhaps a sun in another galaxy, and or maybe he was the sleeping male beauty Endymion to her moon goddess Diana, who shed a caressing light on him but only from a distance. Part of the appeal of a younger man—particularly one you didn’t actually know well—was that he might be whatever you wanted him to be. How nice, she thought, finishing her workout, to be the controller and not the controlled.

She showered and dressed quickly in a white sheath, white pumps, and gold coin jewelry—taking time only for her hair and makeup—then spread out the sports pages of all the major newspapers on the dining room table in the family quarters. As she ate her usual breakfast of nonfat Greek yogurt, fruit, cranberry seltzer, and decaf, she luxuriated in those pages, scouring them for even the shortest report on the tournament.

Catherine had given the performance of a lifetime pretending to be rooting for American Ryan Kovacs during the finals. She had the rumpled program to attest to her nerves during the tense first set in which Dimi struggled to find his footing. But then, with Ryan ahead 3-2 in the second and the world seemingly against Dimi—ah, but I’m not, she had longed to whisper—he had hit a series of improbable returns that made her think Dimitri Orlov was more than a player. He was a wizard.

Quickly, Catherine cut out the related articles and photographs, then stuffed them into one of the journals she kept locked in a safe in a closet she also kept locked. She carried the keys on her person. Years of putting up with the president’s rages had taught her the wisdom of locking away all that she held dear, including herself. She had from time to time the bruises and the ripped couture dresses to prove it.

Fortunately, she cared nothing for the couture clothes that came out of their joint account and joint lives. The iron-clad prenup he had insisted on fifteen years ago when they wed guaranteed all she really wanted—her own bank accounts, stocks, and bonds, along with Wyldewick, the pink Victorian she had inherited from her family that graced a stretch where the Long Island Sound met the Connecticut River in Old Saybrook. It was her refuge, her haven, her everything. On the bad days—and she tried not to think that there had been many bad days—all she had to do was remember it and the walks along the causeway, the wind at her back, and the light at exhilarating play on the waves, to know its balm.

It was the place to which she would retreat when all this was over and she could write her memoirs. Then she would divorce the president and be free of him. Until then, she would take whatever he dished out and wait. She could afford to be patient, then strike, like a cobra. For the first time in her life, she had real power and a real purpose. She wasn’t going to give that up for anything—or anyone.

She applied her red lipstick, finger-brushed her long, dark tresses and took a hard look at last in the mirror at the face and figure of the woman the press called “one of the most beautiful in the world.” “Showtime,” she said as she made her way to the office of the first lady in the East Wing—which the president referred to informally as “that coven of witches”—carrying the pink “I’m Very Busy” appointment book that she reviewed every morning and evening, a smile at play on her lips. Ah, Dimi: Nothing wrong with a pretend boyfriend, she thought. Oh, whom was she kidding? She was old enough to be his mother’s, well, younger sister. But then, he had no mother. Poor, orphaned child, she thought, I could be mother, wife, everything to a man who would love me.

“Well, someone’s looking gobsmacked and gobsmacking this morning,” Marge Heller, her right-hand woman said, handing her another decaf—cinnamon, no sugar, and nonfat half and half, wasn’t that an oxymoron?—in one of Marge’s mugs, which said ironically, “Smart Women Stay Single.”

“Thank you, Marge, another beautiful day. Did you happen to catch any of that match yesterday? It was transcendent.”

“So I heard. And that you did a great job with the trophy presentation.”

“Oh, all in a day’s work. And speaking of the day, any changes in the schedule?”

“No, we’re on track. We still have the new soup kitchen downtown to begin with, and I’ve jotted down some notes for your remarks that we can go over in the car. Then there’s lunch at the National Association of n***o Business and Professional Women’s Clubs. I’ve made the changes in the speech that you requested.

“After lunch, we have a brief break before the reception for the new Impressionist show at the National Gallery. The French ambassador will be on hand, and I know you want to say a few words in French. I’ll leave that to you. Then it’s back here to get ready for the ballet and a late fundraising dinner at the Kennedy Center.”

Another big day but then that’s how Catherine liked it. Not only did it make her feel useful in leading such a glamorous life—it wasn’t like she was digging ditches, for God’s sake—but it had the added benefit of keeping her off the president’s radar. Indeed, whole days and even weeks might pass in which she was not in his presence for more than a few moments, if at all. This looked to be one of those glorious days.

Until intern Jemma McClintock approached, breathless, quivering in her five-inch heels. “The president wishes to see you immediately.”

Catherine smiled, putting a calming hand on her arm. “I’ll be right there.”

He could’ve called her himself or even texted, not that either of them was big on texting. “A talented monkey could do it,” he had said at one state dinner. “No seriously. You know what H.L. Mencken said, or maybe it was Truman Capote, and it applies here: ‘That’s not writing. That’s typing.’”

No, the president had decreed that texting, tweeting—“remember the word ‘Twitter’ contains the word ‘twit,’” he always said—was for the members of the staff who were “young, dumb and full of c*m,” all those eager-to-please interns, mostly female, Catherine noticed, who fluttered about. Although she sometimes had to rein in the ones like Jemma who, while bright, would sometimes get carried away in doing the first lady’s social media posts.

We were googly-eyed as we took in the tennis game yesterday at the D.C. Open, she wrote @first lady. Marge shook her head as she showed it to Catherine.

“Okay, Jem,” Catherine said. “We are not now, have never been and will never be googly-eyed about anything or anyone.” Jemma looked crushed. Catherine gave her a hug. “But I love your passion. Let’s revise this to say, ‘We were delighted to take in yesterday’s final at the Citi Open. Congrats to Dimitri Orlov and Ryan Kovacs on a great match.’ And make sure we get those names right.”

Catherine couldn’t figure out if Jemma was an admiring acolyte or a 21st century Eve Harrington as she trailed her on her way to the West Wing, proclaiming her undying devotion and gratitude.

“When I get old I hope to be just like you,” she said. Catherine stopped short. “Wish only to be what you are and you will get on well. Now go fix that post.”

Catherine didn’t want an entourage accompanying her to the Oval Office. She knew the drill. The president’s secretary, Carolyn Norris—who was as blond, trim, and manicured as Marge was salt-and-peppered and heavy set—would tell her he was still in a meeting. She would have a seat. The wait would grow awkward, humiliating even to the point where Carolyn would feel sorry for her and want to entertain her. Whereupon Catherine, trying to make her feel better, would engage her in a conversation that neither desired. Today, Carolyn mercifully left Catherine to her pleasant thoughts of Dimi.

“You can go in now, Mrs. Darlington,” Carolyn said at last.

Catherine smoothed her dress as a way to still herself and feel less as if she were on a job interview or audition as she always did in his presence. The president, on the phone, didn’t acknowledge her at first, then motioned impatiently for her to have a seat as he finished an angry conversation with the words, “No, this isn’t the end of it. We’ll talk about this later.” Catherine wondered if he were warning an aide, a congressman, or one of the reputed mistresses who looked like her—men always seeming to take up with women like the wives they were cheating on.

As he considered her, she considered him—close-cropped gray hair trimmed to crest fashionably toward the front, gray eyes, and a physique in fighting trim that was shown off to good advantage in a pale gray suit with a pale pink shirt, tie, and pocket square. The overall impression was of something silver—steel. Or a shark.

“Nice dress, Katie. I see you’ve finally dropped those few extra pounds.”

Catherine smiled tightly. “You wanted to see me, Ken.”

“Yeah, I did. No doubt you’ve seen the headlines.” He threw The Washington Post across the desk as she flushed deeply. But it was foolish to think he was reading her mind, she realized. This was about something other than Dimi. She picked up the paper to read “Oil tycoon found dead at Hays-Adams.” Now it was her turn to toss the paper.

“And I’m supposed to care why?” she said.

“Because I need you to put on your best New York black and pay a condolence call on the Russian embassy this morning.”

“I will do nothing of the kind. And, if you had stopped to think for a moment, you would’ve realized that the American people would not want you or someone in your administration to do any such thing either. This is, after all, a man who decimated the Louisiana coastline when that faulty tanker of his exploded, thanks to his cheapness, to say nothing of the Coast Guard lives lost, those poor boys, trying to rescue the crew.”

“He made restitution, Katie.”

“Only because public opinion twisted his arm, and the lawsuits are still winding their way through the courts. Plus, what about the other tanker where they found weapons on board?”

“Nothing was ever proven beyond protection for some of his oil rigs.”

“And besides, he was such a pig when it came to women. Need I remind you of the case of the prostitute he brutalized at the Waldorf Astoria in Manhattan?”

“You know we could never prove that either.”

“It says right here that he may have died of natural causes. I’ll bet. Too much rich food and strong drink and too many underage females, if you ask me.”

“Well, no one is asking you, Kate. I’m telling you. As of an hour ago, the D.C. police are calling the death questionable. They won’t release the body, and now the Russians, who want the body, are claiming foul play on a favorite son on our soil even though word is Zagrev had been on the wrong side of the Kremlin for months. Who knows? Maybe they poisoned him and are trying to make it look like we did it to send us a message.”

“Why would they do that, Ken?”

“Because they’re deceitful and power-hungry, because they understand that what matters is not what’s true but what appears to be true, what you can persuade people to believe is true. Narrative, Kate, it’s all about the story. You of all people should know that.”

She thought of that day when they were first wed and she sat in the U.S. District Court of New York, Southern District of New York in Lower Manhattan and watched her groom eviscerate a drug dealer who had caused the death of an associate accidentally. The case hinged on a federal law that held that agreeing to commit a crime is as much a crime as committing the criminal act itself.

“Remember, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, that what you say in this world, what you agree to, what you think even, lives on for good or ill,” she recalled him saying. “It is as powerful as action. It is action.”

She could still see the defendant, turning around to look at her. He was a kid in an ill-fitting white shirt and dark pants, probably bought for the trial—a medium fish caught in a net of publicity and prosecutorial ambition that bigger fish had somehow eluded, as they always seemed to. He looked so lost. What must it be like, Catherine thought then, to know your life is over before it has even begun? For there was no doubt in her mind that her husband was going to rack up another conviction. And I cannot help you, kiddo, she thought then as she looked away.

After the defendant got twenty-five to life, Catherine watched his mother wander out into the lushness of Foley Square amid a spring rain—without an umbrella. For years, Ken had dined out on that story.

“I did that,” he’d brag. “I made that happen. I made that woman wander about without an umbrella, looking for all the world lost. I can change people’s lives in an instant, I am that much of a magician.”

Now Catherine thought the magician looked as if he may not be able to pull the rabbit out of the hat this time, he who always knew he would win at everything.

“Besides, Zagrev or his foundation gave the campaign some money.”

It was as if Catherine had been hit in the chest.

“Don’t look at me that way, Katie. You know what Alexander Hamilton said, ‘Power without revenue is a mere bauble.’ Money is the lifeblood of campaigns.”

“So, he gave the campaign some money, and now he’s dead for whatever reason. Then let this die with him, an act never to be repeated. In the words of Jesus, ‘Let the dead bury the dead.’”

“I’m afraid it’s a bit more complicated than that.”

“How much is ‘a bit more’?”

The president got up and walked to the other side of the desk, where he leaned against it next to where she was seated. They were close enough now that their feet were touching.

“All you need to remember are the words of Benjamin Disraeli: ‘There are no permanent friends or permanent enemies, only permanent interests.’ Everything I do is in our interests and those of the American people, of course. Just because I take money or help from someone or some group, maybe even some other country, doesn’t mean they own me.”

“That,” Catherine said, “may be the greatest delusion of all. Every time you take money from someone, even an employer, he owns a piece of you. The more money, the more he owns.” She pushed her chair back and rose, forcing him to stand to take in her full measure. Though he had a good sixty pounds on her, she was almost his height in her heels. She measured well against him in other ways, too, she knew, the star publicist—“New York’s number one fixer,” the tabloids had called her—who had married the star prosecutor. And though he liked to demean her in his superior way—“My wife, the spin doctor” he would introduce her—he, like everyone else, knew what an asset she was and how much he relied on that spin. As he did now.

“Here’s what you’re going to do, Ken. You’re going to let the investigation determine your course of action. Who knows? Maybe Zagrev did die of one too many porn stars. But if he didn’t, you can’t afford to let the Russians seize the moral high ground. You’re going to have to be prepared to go on the attack immediately: ‘How dare the Russians do this on our soil. What if others were harmed?’ Blah, blah, blah.

“For now, you tell the press that law enforcement is taking the lead and you don’t want to comment on an active investigation—yet. This way you show prudence and an unwillingness to make political hay out of a tragedy, which is, of course, precisely what you’re going to do. The minute you know the cause of death, you get out in front of this, Ken, or, mark my words, it will bury you.”

Yes, Katie, she thought. Thank you, Katie: Words she knew she would never hear from her husband.

“Now if you’ll excuse me,” she said to him, “I have a full day and am running a few minutes late. I don’t want to keep them waiting at the soup kitchen.”

“It’s a soup kitchen. They have all the time in the world.”

“And whose fault is that? The times demand our engagement. The need is great.”

He grabbed her right wrist hard. “My need is great, too.”

There was a time when he had the power to move her. Not anymore. Once I would’ve done anything for you, she thought. When had love died? Was it like death? You were alive, then you were dead. You were in love, then you weren’t. Or was it like dying? Gradual. Did it matter, or was the loss all that mattered?

She held his gaze evenly. “You listen to me: I’m not one of your former clerks or interns or freshmen congressmen who’s failed to pass one of your pet trade bills. I’m your wife, the first lady of this country. I don’t work for you—although you’d never know it from all the spinning and handholding I do. Now let me go.”

Catherine made sure she was smiling when she left the office but detoured briefly to the family quarters to grab another bracelet that would hide any bruising and could provide a convenient excuse for the bruising: “I must’ve bumped my wrist,” she would say. She had said it before. But she knew the internet rumors. “Is the president a wife beater?” the opposition wondered. “Katie Darling,” her childhood Saybrook friend Karen Sampson had said, “if you ever need anything, you come to us.”

“Karen, Katie’s a big girl,” Karen’s husband, Bill, had said. “But if Ken hurts you, Katie, I’ll clock him one.”

“Thanks, you two,” Catherine had said. “But I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ll be fine. I am fine.”

She was fine. She had been there before. Later when she came home from being photographed and admired at the ballet and the post-gala supper in a silk lime green and red strapless ball gown with matching stole—Cinderella after the ball—there would be a gift, a ruby tennis bracelet. He would be contrite and buzzed. (When he was drunk, he could be really mean.) He would insist she wear only the bracelet for him. The s*x would be rough. But she would imagine Dimi above her, his green eyes wide, his glossy black hair and stubble, fine bones and sinewy muscles bathed lightly in sweat, his need greater than both of them and that would be enough to make her come.

Somewhere in the middle of the night the president would wander off to his own room and then to the Workout Room before the Oval Office and she, grateful for the solitude, would fall back to sleep till the alarm went off and it was showtime again.

But this time, her morning reading was divided between the cultural and sports pages on the one hand and the Zagrev investigation with its battle of wills between the D.C. police and the Russian Embassy on the other. A sense of dread flooded her. But she smiled for her staff in the East Wing before calling out to Marge, “Whom do we know at the USTA? I’d like to go to the US Open in New York in August.”