“We need to give you a quick Breathalyzer anyway,” the deputy said.
“Yes, fine,” Smalls said. “I had a glass of wine before we left my cabin, CeeCee didn’t have anything at all.”
The test took two minutes. Smalls blew a 0.02, well below the drunk-driving limit of 0.08, although Smalls was an older man, and older men were hit harder by alcohol than younger men.
“Be sure that’s all recorded,” Smalls told the cop. “I want this nailed down.”
“Don’t need to worry,” the deputy said. “We’ll get it right for you, Senator. Now... did you see the truck?”
Smalls shook his head. “He had his high beams on, and they were burning right through the back window of my Caddy. It was like getting caught in a searchlight. I couldn’t see anything... And he hit us.”
The deputy looked down the hill. “She did a heck of a job driving. Another twenty, thirty feet, and you’d have gone over the edge and hit that gravel bar like you’d jumped out of a five-story building. Makes me kind of nervous even standing here.”
—
THE AMBULANCE LEFTfor the Winchester Medical Center, Smalls following in a state police car. Whitehead’s death was confirmed,and Smalls was treated for the impact on his nose. It had continued to bleed, but a doc used what he called a chemical cautery on it, which stopped the bleeding immediately. The doctor gave him some pain pills. Smalls said, “I don’t need the pills.”
“Not yet,” the doc said. “You will.”
When he was released, the deputies took him aside for an extended statement, and told him that the Cadillac would be left where it had landed until a state accident investigator could get to the scene.
When he was done with the interview, Smalls called chief of staff Kitten Carter and arranged to have her drive to the hospital to pick him up. She said she would notify Whitehead’s mother and father of her death.
And when there was nothing left to do, Smalls asked to be taken to the hospital’s chapel. The police left him there, and Smalls, a lifelong Episcopalian, knelt and prayed for Cecily Whitehead’s soul. Less charitably, he had a word with the Lord about finding the people who’d murdered her. Then he cried. He finally pulled himself together after a while and began thinking seriously about the accident.
It had been no accident.
It had been an assassination attempt, and he thought he knew who was behind it. Justice, if not in a court of law, would come.
He said it aloud, to Whitehead: “I swear, CeeCee, I will get them. I’ll get every one of those motherfuckers.”
Whitehead hadn’t been particularly delicate, nor particularly forgiving: if she were already experiencing the afterlife, he had no doubt that she would be looking forward to any revenge—and the colder, the better.
—
KITTEN CARTERarrived at the hospital. She’d been on her cell phone for three hours by the time she got there. The first news of the accident would be leaked to reporters who owed her favors and who would put the most sympathetic spin to the night’s events.
“...good friends and political allies who’d gone to the cabin to plot strategy for the summer clashes over the health care proposals...”
—
THE LOCAL DEPUTIESturned the crash investigation over to the West Virginia State Police. The second day after the accident, an investigator interviewed Smalls, in his Senate office, with Carter sitting in. Smalls, with two black eyes and a broad white bandage over his nose, and dressed in a blue-striped seersucker suit with a navy blue knit tie, immediately understood that something was wrong.
The investigator’s name was Carl Armstrong. When he’d finished with his questions, Smalls said, “Don’t bullshit me, Carl. Something’s not right. You think I’m lying about something. What is it?”
The investigator had been taking notes on a legal pad inside a leather portfolio. He sighed, closed the portfolio, and said, “Our lab has been over your vehicle inch by inch, sir. There’s no sign that it was ever hit by another truck.”
Carter was sitting in a wingback chair, illegally smoking a small brown cigarillo. She looked at Smalls, then frowned at Armstrong and said, “That’s wrong. The other guys took themright off the road—smashed them off. What do you mean, there’s no sign?”
Smalls jumped in. “That’s exactly right. The impact caved the door in... there’s gotta be some sign of that. I mean, I was in a fairly bad accident once, years ago, and both vehicles had extensive damage. This one was worse. The hit was worse. What do you mean, no sign?”
“No metal scrapes, no paint, no glancing blow. The only thing we’ve found are signs that you hit several trees on both sides of the truck and the front grille and hood,” Armstrong said.
“Then you’re not looking hard enough,” Smalls snapped. “That guy crashed right into us and killed CeeCee, and damn near killed me.”
Armstrong looked away and shrugged. “Uh, well, I wonder if he actually hit you or maybe just caused Miz Whitehead to lose control?”
“She hadn’t been drinking...”
