The Big Secret

Federal Chief Investigator Nick LeRue is an expert on unraveling a crime; he's brought down some of the smoothest operators on Capitol Hill and uncovered dangerous secrets in politicians' pasts. In his personal life, however, his commitment to his job has left him unlucky in love. When his ex-girlfriend, investigative journalist Heather Cole, appears after a long period of silence, things start looking up. But Nick is about to learn that nothing is ever what it seems.Surprisingly, the woman who approaches Nick isn't his ex at all, but her twin sister, Melanie Cole. The two sisters share an unusually strong bond, one that allows them to sense when the other is in danger and even visit one another in their dreams. Melanie has been seeing images of her sister being held captive by an unseen man; somehow she knows that time is running out for Heather.Though skeptical of the sisters' connection, Nick follows Heather's trail to Pushmataha, Mississippi. It appears that she was close to uncovering the town's darkest and bloodiest secret---the beating and lynching of a young black man in the 1955 when she mysteriously vanished. A photograph of the event reveals that all but two of the mob have already died. One of the survivors is Jeb Rogge, the town's most powerful and dangerous man. But why would Jeb get involved in a crime that would obviously point to him?The town's residents seem to know something they're not telling Nick, and Melanie's dreams are becoming more and more intense. As more and more of the pieces fly together, it becomes all too clear that whoever has covered up the racial murder is willing to keep it hidden at any cost, even if it means killing again.Combining an intense paranormal thriller with edge-of-your seat mystery fiction, Pete Earley's The Big Secret will keep you guessing until the unbelievable end.

From Publishers Weekly

Edgar-winning true crime writer Earley (The Hothouse, etc.) delivers a fast-paced but uneven fiction debut. U.S. Senate investigator Nick LeRue spends most of his time vetting nominees for federal judgeships—that is, until he's contacted by Melanie Cole, who wants him to track down her twin, Heather, a reporter who's vanished from the small Mississippi town where she'd gone to research a 1955 lynching. LeRue agrees, mainly because he still loves Heather, who broke his heart two years ago when she took up with investigative reporter Andrew Middleton. LeRue and Melanie learn that Heather has been kidnapped, possibly by one of the white supremacists involved in the lynching. LeRue's investigative savvy paired with Melanie's ability to communicate in dreams with her twin lead to the discovery that Heather is captive in a remote cabin. But before they can get to her, her captor kills her and then, apparently, himself. But is that the end of the story? The action shifts back to Washington, D.C., where a Southern senator and Middleton—a sort of fictionalized Bob Woodward character—fall under suspicion for Heather's death. Here, Earley's narrative takes a series of credibility-straining turns, including key characters who turn out to be delusional and dream sequences that herald events to come. LeRue, however, remains a well-conceived protagonist, full of honor, cunning and a fine sense of self-deprecating humor. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Big Secret, TheOneI'm watching a man who thinks this is going to be one of the happiest days of his life. I'm about to make it the worst.Information is power, especially in politics, especially in Washington, D.C. But it's only truly powerful if you know how to use it. My boss, United States Senator Leslie Homer DeLong, taught me this. In the decade that I've worked for him, he's taught me plenty. He's a Texan. A die-hard Democrat. And he's been a politician nearly all of his life. He first ran for election to a city council job in Tyler, Texas, after he returned from killing Germans in World War II. From there, he climbed the ladder to the nation's capital quickly. He's been a senator for seven consecutive terms. That's forty-two years! He likes to say that he learned everything he knows from another Texas Democrat: President Lyndon Baines Johnson. You can say what you want about this country's thirty-sixth president and the mess that he made in Vietnam, but early in his political career, Johnson was the youngest majority whip ever to serve in the Senate, and he was shrewd and tough enough to guide a civil rights bill through Congress at a time when the word "nigger" was still being spoken without embarrassment at fashionable Georgetown parties. My boss quotes Johnson all of the time. "Nick LeRue," he says to me--for some reason he always says both my first and last names--"if you want to survive on Capitol Hill, you've got to remember what LBJ used to tell me: 'I never trust a man unless I got his pecker in my pocket.'"Which, in a way, is what today is all about. My boss was double-crossedby another senator. The man sitting in front of me right now had nothing to do with it. He's a pawn, but it doesn't matter. He's about to pay the price.The man is wearing a charcoal gray pinstripe suit, tailor-made and pricey. His wife and their two kids--a boy about six and a girl about four--are sitting in chairs directly behind him and are also well dressed. The woman is the man's second wife and the kids are his second set. I know this about him, and much, much more. For example, I know his wife got caught stealing when she was thirteen years old. She's never told him. Her two best friends pressured her into stashing a bottle of Revlon's Fire & Ice fingernail polish in her purse. It cost ninety-five cents and she was stopped by a sales clerk trying to leave the store. I know these details because an FBI agent who interviewed the shop's manager told me about them.The man's name is Daniel Hertell and he has been nominated by the president to become a U.S. District Court judge in Mississippi. He and his family are appearing before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee this morning for what should be a largely ceremonial confirmation hearing. The U.S. Constitution gives the Senate "advise and consent" powers over the president's choices for federal judges. It also reviews the president's nominees for U.S. Attorney and U.S. Marshal jobs. It's all part of the "balance of power" that our forefathers put into place. Remember high school civics? Three branches: the executive, legislative, and judicial. Checks and balances.The Judiciary Committee meets on the second floor of the Dirksen Senate Office Building. Politicians like to name federal buildings after one another. The Senate has three office buildings and each is named after a former senator: Richard Brevard Russell, Jr.; Everett McKinley Dirksen; and Philip A. Hart, respectively. The words "Senate Office Building" are always tagged onto the address. Our committee meets in Room 224 Dirksen Senate Office Building. Since that's cumbersome to say, everyone uses the acronym SOB. That makes the committee's legal address: 224 Dirksen SOB.I've always thought adding SOB after a senator's name was fitting. But then, I've been accused of being a smart-ass.The committee hearing room in which we are sitting was built to impress. The ceiling rises fifty feet tall. A plush green and white carpet covers the floor and the walls are made of oak panels. Slabs of dark green marble line the base of the walls and the room's lighting comes from antique brass fixtures made in the shape of large Roman torches. Thecommittee members' rostrum fills one entire end of the hearing room. It's a half circle and resembles a judge's bench. In spite of its size, it's not big enough for the ten Democrats and nine Republicans appointed to our committee. There's only enough room for twelve to sit, not nineteen. Luckily, this hasn't been a problem because my boss prefers to work behind the scenes. By the time our committee meets, he's already resolved most of the controversial issues, so we rarely draw a full quorum. On most days, our members keep busy by attending other, more volatile hearings where they can be seen on television.The senators' swivel chairs behind the rostrum have thick cushions that make each senator look several inches taller than he is. My boss has a cushion twice as thick as everyone else's. I sit directly behind him and my chair doesn't have a cushion. I'm not an elected official. I've never run for office and never have wanted to. My title is Chief Investigator, Senate Judiciary Committee. But what I really am is a political detective whose specialty is investigating people's pasts and uncovering information that they would prefer to keep hidden. I have a top-secret security clearance and I can subpoena both records and witnesses--as long as my boss approves. That gives me virtually unlimited access to just about any record in the government and private world, and anyone living in the country.I began my career as an FBI agent and a lawyer. In Washington D.C., being a lawyer is essential because politicians, federal prosecutors, and federal judges prefer to speak to other lawyers. It's snobbery, but that's just how Capitol Hill operates. I can't think of another place in our nation where the virtues of the common man are praised more by people who have never thought of themselves as being common and make damn sure whenever you meet them that you quickly realize just how special they are.But I'm getting off track.This is how the nominations process works. After a new president is sworn in, he sends our committee a list of his nominees for federal judgeships. Most are attorneys who either have given big contributions to his political party or have worked in his election campaign. Some are state judges who are banned from engaging in partisan politics, but are buddies with the local Democrat or Republican bigwigs. It's all part of that ancient "to the victor belong the spoils" process.Now, if a president is savvy, before he sends a single name to our committee, he'll meet with all of the senators from his political party and toss them a bone. If a state needs four new federal judges, for example, a politicallywise president will let a senator fill one of those spots. It's called trickle-down patronage.But our Republican president didn't do that. He never bothered to meet with a single senator. None. So several of them complained to my boss. The result: The first batch of judge nominees from the White House is still waiting for our committee to approve it. The "paperwork" has been lost and I'm guessing it will never be found. After a few months of waiting, the White House realized what was happening and the president woke up and met privately with several Republican senators. He offered them a peace offering and that led to a second wave of nominees being put before our committee. Most have sailed through.My job begins after the president sends over his list of candidates. By that point, the White House should have already investigated each of its nominees. No one there wants to embarrass the president by nominating someone who once got caught cheating on his federal income taxes. As soon as I get the White House's list, I contact the FBI.Over the years, I've developed a tremendous admiration for the bureau's ability to burrow into a person's past. Okay, I'll admit I'm biased since I used to be one of J. Edgar Hoover's boys. But the bureau has vast resources. It not only uses all of the computerized federal records at its disposal, including limited Internal Revenue Service tax information, it also sends out agents to delve into your past. Remember that second-grade teacher who was your first crush, the camp counselor who caught you smoking in your cabin, the fraternity brother who got sloshed with you? The FBI finds them.By the time the bureau finishes its background check, it's collected hundreds of pages of personal information. I call it the "This Is Your Life" file and it's delivered directly to me.I'm responsible for warning my boss if I think there's anything politically damaging in the FBI report. Most of the time, there's not. But when there is, I take charge. My boss likes to handle skeletons quietly. Generally, he'll have a private chat with the senator from the nominee's home state. They'll agree to use what's called a "blue slip." It's a piece of blue paper that I send to each senator whenever one of his constituents has been nominated. If the senator conveniently "forgets" to return it, the nomination is lost forever in a paperwork netherworld. After a few months, the White House will quietly pull the nomination and submit a new name. Chances are, the media will never notice, and even if they do, there's no one to blame. After all, paperwork gets lost all of the time on Capitol Hill.Which brings me back to today's hearing and Daniel Hertell. This isnot one of those quiet, lost-paperwork nominations. About a month ago, my boss handed me a slip of paper with Hertell's name written on it."Do some digging," he said.I didn't ask why. If he'd wanted to tell me more, he would've. I pride myself on my sources and ingenuity. If a senator has too many shots of Jack Daniel's in an Old Town bar, I hear about it. If a...

About the Author

Pete Earley is a former Washington Post reporter and winner of the Mystery Writers of America's Edgar for Best Fact Crime Book in 1996 for Circumstantial Evidence: Death, Life, and Justice in a Southern Town. His book, which also won the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award, helped free an innocent man from Alabama's death row. Earley's account of the John Walker spy ring, Family of Spies, was a New York Times bestseller and CBS mini-series. The Hot House: Life Inside Leavenworth Prison was a national bestseller and was based on a year that Earley spent inside a maximum security federal prison as an author. Born in Arizona, Earley was reared in Colorado and worked for newspapers in Kansas and Oklahoma before moving to the Virginia suburbs of Washington D.C., where he lives with his wife, Patti. They have seven children.

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