Senate Cloakroom Cabal by Keith M. Donaldson

Horne has some credentials. We’ll start a file—without naming names, just a pharmaceutical piece. It’ll make a nice project for our newly hired copy people.”
    â€œSenator Dalton wants to meet with me privately.”
    â€œGo for it. Meanwhile, I have to pass this by Barton, make sure we’re not stepping on any journalistic toes up on the Hill.” She held up Michael’s file folder. “Are these your only copies?”
    â€œYes.”
    She handed them to me. “Make a set for me. I’ll get back to you after I’ve talked with Barton. And get me the name of the pharmaceutical company.”
    That ended our session. I went straight to the copy machine and ran off the pages, hoping Mary wouldn’t show up. It would hurt her feelings, my not asking her to do this, but I thought it worth the risk. Fortunately, no one showed up.
    Back at my desk, I called Horne and told him to set up my meeting with his senator.
    â€œThere are no votes scheduled for this afternoon, so she could make it a little earlier than 7:00, if you like.”
    â€œI have to go home first in any case. I need to call my husband. It’ll really depend more on his schedule. I don’t think I could make it before 6:30.”
    I called Jerry’s private line, but he didn’t answer. I dialed the office number.
    â€œMr. Fields’s office,” Sophie said softly.
    â€œHi, Sophie. It’s Laura. Is he in?”
    â€œHe’s not in right now, but he is expected back by 3:00.”
    â€œAsk him to call me right after you talk with him.”
    â€œWe will not hear anything before then.”
    â€œOkay. Thank you.”
    â€œYou are welcome.” The line went dead.
    I hung up. Sophie was super-efficient and super-literal. Jerry says she was dynamite in her job and a whiz at editing. She’d drive me crazy if I had to work with her on a daily basis. I buzzed Van and asked for copies of what he had on Horne and the Daltons. He’d get them to me.
    â€œHave them put on my desk please, not Mary’s.”
    I went to the cafeteria for a salad. Copies of Van’s research were on my desk when I returned. I read all of them, including copies of newspaper articles about Roanne McAllister’s beauty-pageant escapades, H.T.’s crash, Roanne McAllister Dalton’s appointment to the Senate, and her primary and general election wins.
    She and Michael were both well educated. I saw no blips on the screen— very clean. Van noted he found no connections between Dalton, Horne, or any pharmaceutical company. There was some pharma Political Action Committee (PAC) money that had been donated to both Dalton campaigns, but nothing leaped out as unusual.
    Jerry called before 3:00. I gave him the short version. He’d be home by 5:00.
    â€œI was talking with Ralph Morgan today on another matter and asked him about any contacts he might have had with the pharmaceuticals,”
    Jerry said. “He’d had some for then-Senator Rick Grayson, but not after Grayson became the Veep. I didn’t mention anything about Dalton, only that you were working on PAC stuff in preparation for the impending battle in the Senate over discount drugs and Medicare.”
    â€œAnything he has will help, will give me a comparison to what Dalton and Horne tell me.”
    I called Anna and told her I’d be home by 4:00. Everything there was good. I called Horne to say I’d aim for 6:30. He said the senator would be home by 6:00. He then gave me instructions on which garage to use, which numbers to punch in, and the rest. Dalton’s condominium building was right off Jefferson Davis Highway in Crystal City, a mile from the Potomac River.
    My intercom buzzed. Lassiter wanted to see me.
    My editor started talking as soon as I entered her office. “Barton has given us the green light. We’re to keep him in the loop. He’ll let his Senate correspondent, Claire Rowley, in