Chapter 38
I based a character on him, Senator Frank Lord, appearing in a few early Scarpetta novels.
Orrin introduced me to all sorts of people, including Ted Kennedy, Dianne Feinstein, Joe Biden.
I knew Orrin didn’t believe Anita Hill’s claim that Clarence Thomas sexually harassed her. So I asked what really happened.
“I’ll let you find out for yourself,” Orrin replied.
Next thing I knew, I was sitting in his office with Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. He spent two hours telling me his version of the story. It was typical of Orrin to do something like that.
I knew I’d seen him on TV. He started chatting and introduced himself as Orrin Hatch.
At this early point in my career, I had only three Scarpetta books published, and he’d never heard of me.
We chatted the entire time we were in the gym, and he invited me to have dinner with him and his sons that night.
I declined, thinking I’d feel out of place, and Mormons had a lot of rules.
Like not smoking. Or drinking booze. Or anything with caffeine.
The next morning when I was checking out, I carried a coffee to the front desk.
There was Orrin with several men I assumed were the sons he mentioned.
He was paying his bill and wished me a good morning.
“What are you drinking, Patsy?” he asked with that dry sense of humor of his.
“Nothing.” I exaggerated hiding the cup.
Both of us were headed to the airport, and he offered me a ride in his Lincoln Town Car. As we were driven there, he told me about his ambition of running for president one day. He talked about his love for the United States and that he felt he’d been put on this Earth to make it a better place.
After that encounter, I wrote to him asking for a favor.
The FBI Academy had severe budget problems and was in a hiring freeze that precluded training new agents.
Orrin was the head of Judiciary, and I explained to him what I knew.
He responded by touring the Academy with me by his side on September 25, 1993.
“The Senator was such a gentleman with me,” I wrote in my journal. “Treated me with such honor and gave me much credit.”
After the tour, Orrin would include $50 million for FBI training in a new crime bill. We had a very special relationship for many years, and his wife, Elaine, wasn’t happy about it. This was evident one early evening when the three of us were walking to our cars at the Capitol.
She was several steps behind us when Orrin lightly wrapped his arm around my shoulders, telling me how he appreciated our friendship. Suddenly, I was startled by someone touching me from behind. His arm was pulled away rather violently.
“I’ll put up with a lot of things but no touching!” his wife snarled.
Hurrying to my waiting limo, I returned to my hotel, and the next morning he called.
The two of us needed to talk, and he asked me to meet him at the Capitol.
Leading me into the austere Vice President’s Room outside the Senate chamber, Orrin closed the door.
He told me he was sorry for how his wife had acted.
He hoped I’d understand what it’s like when someone is “insecure.”
“That’s fine, and I understand completely and have empathy,” I replied. “But please tell her never to come up behind me and do something like that again. I had no idea what was going on. She’s lucky I didn’t turn around and slug her.”
Not a diplomatic thing to say, but I was simply being honest. If I’m walking along a sidewalk and hear someone closing in from behind, I’ll stop what I’m doing and turn around aggressively.
After years of the morgue and working with police, it’s my conditioning to assume everything is a potential attack.
I told Orrin that, explaining it had nothing to do with his wife.
I didn’t blame her for perhaps wondering about our friendship.
I’d visited him in Utah, sitting next to him during the flight there.
I even flew him in my helicopter once. On another occasion, he wanted to test drive my V12 Mercedes.
I let him take it for a spin around the Capitol while the police watched in befuddlement.
Talking to me about the Mormon faith, he gave me books, including a Mormon Bible. He’d call regularly to see how I was, always ending our chats by threatening to “send the missionaries.” He composed music for the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and would play his songs for me.
As we talked inside the Vice President’s Room, I looked around at the ornate wall coverings, the antiques, the dark oil paintings, gilt-framed mirrors, and chandeliers. I thought to myself, This is crazy. It occurred to me that we were closer to an indiscretion than we might realize.
Orrin was devoutly religious and not the sort to cheat.
But had he been, I’m not sure what would have happened, if I’m honest about it.
I respected him enormously, my feelings for him intense.
I watched how kind he was to everyone he came across, calling the security officers, the janitors, and housekeeping staff by name. Orrin was easy to love.
In the summer of 1993, I returned to London for a book tour and hosted a launch party at the Hyde Park Hotel. My dad and Rita flew in for it. So did Ruth Graham. She was dressed in black, wearing pearls, her hair pinned up. I thought how bizarre that she and my father would finally meet.
When I introduced them, they barely said two words to each other.
I’m just sorry Billy Graham wasn’t there.
Dad used to accuse him of owning all the North Carolina judges.
After London, I flew to Nice, France, and spent several days with the Grahams. From there, we drove to Monte Carlo, where I stayed in the Beach Plaza Hotel.
It was one of the few places Billy could go without being bothered, and I got the impression the owner or someone gave them quite a discount. Our first night there we made our way to Chez Cianni on Avenue Princess Grace.
We got there at 7:30, “too early for anyone but us ‘old folks’ who wanted to be left alone,” I wrote in my journal. “Billy moves so painfully, and yet his face would still stop traffic. His blue eyes glint with the light of a 1000 warriors…”
After dinner we returned to the hotel where Billy and I sat in a quiet corner of the lobby discussing the memoir he was writing.
He didn’t have a literary agent, and I called Esther Newberg.
She agreed to meet with him, and when he showed up at her office, her colleagues kept walking past her door, staring.
ICM was used to celebrities. But Billy was in a category by himself.
On July 16, I took a helicopter shuttle from Monte Carlo to the airport in Nice, flying low over the sparkling blue water of the Mediterranean.
I’d been captivated by helicopters since first seeing one up close in the early 1970s.
I’d gotten off the school bus one afternoon, and parked in the grassy field next to the Montreat gate was a Bell 47 like on the TV show M*A*S*H.
In those days, it was rare to see a helicopter at all, much less up close.
It may as well have been a UFO as I slowly walked around the long, crisscrossed metal tail boom.
I peered into the glass bubble cockpit, awestruck, wondering what the “stick” and all those instruments did.
I rode my bike back to the gate later, disappointed that the helicopter was gone.
Apparently, someone important had flown in to meet with Billy Graham.
I heard it was Muhammad Ali or Richard Nixon, but rather much doubt it was either.
The boxing legend was notoriously afraid of flying, and the president of the United States likely wasn’t buzzing around by himself in a single-engine civilian bird.
When I saw that helicopter, I never imagined it was a glimpse into my own future.
One day I’d become a pilot, and in 2004 would chopper Mom to the Grahams’.
It was the first time she’d been to their house since that snowy January day in 1966.
Now she was arriving in my Bell 407, thundering down and landing inside the split-rail fence, blowing roses everywhere.
After my first helicopter flight in 1993, I was smitten.
From that point on I began taking helicopters on research trips.
It was a great way to set scenes while getting a bird’s-eye view from the air.
I’d fly with the charming and handsome Whit Baldwin, the owner of Richmond’s HeloAir and at the time single.
When we were buzzing around, we often had dinner and many adventures.
In New York City we’d go to the 21 Club, eating steaks and drinking very good Scotch.
We smoked cigars, laughing a lot. When we flew, I’d sit up front in the left seat, and being a passenger wasn’t enough.
I was curious about how everything worked.
Whit began explaining the cyclic (stick), the collective that controls the power, and how to talk on the radio.
I decided that Lucy would be a helicopter pilot in my Scarpetta novels.
I began lessons with one of HeloAir’s instructors, Rob Roberts, and there were many instances when I was tempted to quit.
I thought I’d never learn to hover, but one day it happened.
I got lost on my first long-distance solo, flying over endless pine forests, getting low on fuel.
Finally, I had to call the Richmond air traffic control tower for a heading, and a mayday was declared.
Landing in Petersburg, I refueled without having done it by myself before.
Meanwhile, several old-timer pilots were watching.
The overcast had settled even lower. I couldn’t see much but grayness.
“Which way is Richmond?” I had to ask, and they pointed.