Page 29 of The Night Of
There was a simple equation to all murder investigations: why plus how equals who. The problem was, there were so many potential whys, I didn’t know where to begin to focus.
And I didn’t have a clue how Baker’s death could be a murder and not what it appeared to be.
A hidden note. A secret gun.Flowerterrible. A bruise on the back of his neck.
The bruise, the goddamn bruise.
Jonathan handed me the folded warrant, signed by the judge, from his jacket pocket. I tucked it into my own. “I’ll be back soon.”
I watched him take a deep breath and become the president again as he turned and strode toward the outer Oval door. He opened it, stepped out, said hello to Mrs. Reilly.
I slipped out the door on the other side of the Oval. Three steps down the hall, my knees almost buckled, and I ducked into the empty Roosevelt Room. My back hit the wall and I slid down, falling to my ass as I breathed hard. What the fuck had just happened? I thought I’d—
How could I have been so wrong?
What were we going to do now?
Eight
The medical suiteat the White House was on the ground floor, in one of the basement levels built into the side of the north-facing hill the Residence sat on. Those levels were some of the only places in the White House that felt cramped, with curved ceilings and low archways, and chandeliers that dipped down almost to your head.
There were no White House tours going on, and the screens were put away, and the red carpet ran from the Palm Room to the visitors’ foyer in the East Wing. My stop was just after the Palm Room, and I knocked on the heavy wooden door three times before opening it and ducking inside.
Dr. Manny Fernandez was alone in the medical suite’s front office, sitting on the waiting room sofa and staring at the wall. He turned his head when I entered, gazing through me as if he couldn’t quite focus on what was happening around him.
“Dr. Fernandez?”
He looked me up and down. Blinked. “You. You were at the postmortem this morning.”
“Yes, sir, I was. Special Agent Sean Avery, Secret Service. I was present at the autopsy at President Sharp’s orders. I need to ask you some questions, also at the president’s orders.”
Dr. Fernandez frowned. I pulled out two folded papers from my inside jacket pocket and handed them over. The first was Jonathan’s signed order authorizing my investigation, and the second was the search warrant. “I’m here to talk to you about President Baker.”
Fernandez sighed. He folded both papers and passed them back. “What does President Sharp hope to find with this investigation? More heartache? More salt to rub in the wound? Is he searching for someone to blame?”
I answered his questions with one of my own. “What did you think about the autopsy?”
“What did Ithinkabout it?”
“Yeah. What did you think? About the findings, about Dr. Hendricks?”
“Dr. Hendricks is the best pathologist in her field. I think she was excellent.” Fernandez’s eyes were cold. “And her findings support exactly what happened: President Baker killed himself.”
“You’re certain of that?”
“I am,” he said softly. “I was Steven’s doctor. I suppose, since you showed me that warrant, you want me to give you all of Steven’s medical information?”
I nodded.
“Steven was acutely depressed. He’d been depressed for months. This was the third year of his presidency, and with the reelection campaign ramping up and then the Hardacre disappearance exploding in his face, he was feeling enormous pressure. He wasn’t sure he wanted to run for reelection, but to admit that is to admit failure. More than anything else, he did not want to be a failed president. He was afraid he already was.”
“What were you doing for him?”
“We talked once a week. I’m not a counselor or a psychologist, but I have some basic training in cognitive behavioral therapy. I offered to work with him on his depression. I offered to bring in a therapist, someone who was qualified to help with acute depressive episodes, but he refused. Instead, he asked for antidepressants and an anxiolytic. I prescribed them, and I kept themoutof his medical records.”
A serious breach of protocol and of public trust. It was strange, but the American public had the almost indignant right to know the ins and outs of the health of their president. That kind of intrusive speculation could lead to someone refusing treatment, and I could understand why Baker would want to keep all evidence of his depression quiet. How would the American public react to knowing their president was depressed, was taking medication? Sure, a lot of Americans had similar issues, but the president wasn’t allowed to be human. God fucking forbid.
My mind flashed to Jonathan. Jonathan smiling as we walked on the beach. Jonathan moving toward me in the West Wing, his features stern, his expression severe—but his eyes used to light up when he saw me.
