Senator Dalton sat in her office drinking her morning coffee and reading the Washington Daily Star’s front-page story about its Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter, Laura Wolfe. Roanne remembered the gruesome stories about a serial killer slaying pregnant women and stealing their fetuses. One victim had worked for Vice President Grayson. She buzzed Michael and asked him to come in.
When he entered, she held up the paper, front page facing him. “Have you read this?” she asked, pointing to Laura’s picture.
“Not yet.”
“She’s quite the investigator. She went against the flow, survived two suspicious accidents, and withstood heavy criticism over her persistence to dig deeply into the life of one victim who had worked for the vice president.”
“I remember. Seemed there was a sexual scandal or something.”
“It appears this Laura Wolfe was right in her speculations. She led the FBI to the killer and has just been awarded the Pulitzer for investigative journalism.”
Michael was ambivalent.
“She battled the odds,” Roanne said pointedly. “She went up against the powerful and was undaunted by various attacks made on her person and her name . . .” She let that hang. Come on, Michael, she urged to herself, don’t make me spell this out. “Replace sexual misconduct with political misconduct . . .”
Slowly his expression showed some comprehension. “Are you thinking . . . but what does she know about the Senate?”
“What did she know about the White House?”
“May I?” he asked, indicating the paper, which she passed to him.
His eyes scanned the front page, and he moved to the inside page, where the story continued. Roanne watched him, envying his photographic memory.
“Oh, I see she uncovered some fraud in a city government and turned the tables on some cops in—”
She smiled. “Exactly. She often put her career—”
“And life, it seems,” he interrupted.
“Well, we don’t want that.”
“We?”
“She may be the perfect answer to our problem—to investigate the fall of Tutoxtamen. We’ve got plenty to get her started.”
“Yeah, but she’s a beat reporter for the Metro section. She was assigned—”
Roanne pressed him. “I know, but maybe we can entice her with more than just the ‘unapproval’ of a drug. Perhaps we can get her thinking that there is something much bigger happening.”
“But what? We don’t even know.”
“Because we can’t ask the questions. Or at least I can’t.”
He nodded. “So how do we get her interested?”
“You call her and set up a meeting with me. Somewhere quiet. My condo, for instance.”
“Isn’t she going to be busy with this Pulitzer thing for a while?”
“I’m a United States senator. Ms. Wolfe has a very curious mind . . .”
He nodded and went back to reading the article.
“Tell her we have suspicions about some possible illegal activity,”
Roanne prompted her AA. “Tell her it’s beyond partisan politics. Tell her it’s something that affects millions of Americans. Tell her there’s a possible collusion between the pharmaceutical lobbyists and some senators.
“Give her until tomorrow—or until you can put together a good synopsis on Rogers, the testing results, and the FDA’s reasons for turning down Tutoxtamen. Don’t use any names, other than mine, of course. If she balks, tell her she’ll get all the names if she decides to take this on.”