Capital Crimes

Books by Stuart Woods FICTION Dirty Work* Capital Crimes° Blood Orchid† The Short Forever* Orchid Blues† Cold Paradise* L.A. Dead* The Run° Worst Fears Realized* Orchid Beach† Swimming to Catalina* Dead in the Water* Dirt* Choke Imperfect Strangers Heat Dead Eyes L.A. Times Sante Fe Rules New York Dead* Palindrome Grass Roots° White Cargo Under the Lake Deep Lie° Run Before the Wind° Chiefs NONFICTION A Romantic’s Guide to the Country Inns of Britain and Ireland (1978) MEMOIR Blue Water, Green Skipper *A Stone Barrington Book †A Holly Barker Book °A Will Lee Book CAPITAL CRIMES Stuart Woods This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. Capital Crimes: Will Lee series A SIGNET Book / published by arrangement with the author All rights reserved. Copyright © 2005 by The Signet Publishing Group. This book may not be reproduced in whole or part, by mimeograph or any other means, without permission. Making or distributing electronic copies of this book constitutes copyright infringement and could subject the infringer to criminal and civil liability. For information address: The Signet Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Putnam Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014. The Penguin Putnam Inc. World Wide Web site address is http://www.penguinputnam.com ISBN: 0-4512-1156-1 A SIGNET BOOK® SIGNET Books first published by Berkley Publishing Group, a member of Penguin Putnam Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014. SIGNET and the "S" design are trademarks belonging to Penguin Putnam Inc. Electronic edition: March 2005 This book is for Marvin Green 1 Senator Frederick Wallace of South Carolina rose at dawn from the bed in the lakeside cabin that he had shared with his African-American lover for more than twenty years. He went into the bathroom and relieved himself noisily. His lover, Elizabeth Johnson, liked to sleep later than he. Freddie and Elizabeth had produced two sons early in their relationship, both of whom were enrolled in Ivy League universities. Freddie’s wife, Betty Ann, disliked coming back to Chester, their putative home, preferring the social life and shopping of Washington, D.C., which made it easy for Freddie to make weekend trips back to South Carolina, ostensibly for constituent services. He did a bit of that, of course, but mostly he and Elizabeth did each other. It was the only completely satisfying sexual relationship of his entire life, and he cherished it above everything else in his existence, except his status as a conservative Republican U.S. 1 Stuart Woods senator. Since he was a politician, the hypocrisy of his position weighed lightly upon him. Once, a couple of years before, someone had found out and had tried to expose the relationship, but Freddie had, by a previous plan with Elizabeth, denied everything and fought the rumor to a standstill. He had been unable to see her for three months, and that had hurt him badly. Ted, who had been s