Years ago the Senate had voted to cap the amount of honoraria each member could collect in a year. This did not deter senators from accepting "speaking engagements, " however. They continued to be flown to plush resorts, put up in lavish suites, wined and dined for days before and after their 'speech", usually a few after-dinner remarks to the corporate sales conference attendees, and then flown back to Washington loaded down with gifts. The thousand-dollar honorarium for speaking? That was donated, very visibly, to a charity.

The all-expense-paid vacation and gifts were enough of a haul for most of the legislators, but not enough for Senator Schulz. He accepted every speaking invitation that came along, demanded high honoraria, but graciously donated every dime to a church in his hometown where his uncle was minister. Gerry's investigation had uncovered evidence that the minister was keeping only a quarter of the donations for the church and funneling the rest back to Schulz.

But then Gerry had come across a connection between Schultz and Representative Hugo Lane. Both were cozy with one of the Japanese auto lobbies. A Japanese auto corporation had bought an $800, 000 condo in Palm Beach. It was registered in the company's name, but its use was reserved exclusively for Schulz and Lane. Whenever they wanted some fun in the Florida sun, it was theirs. They simply had to work it out between themselves so they wouldn't arrive at the same time

Congressman Lane had died in a car crash, ran it into a deep ravine in Rock Creek Park, two weeks before Schulz's death.

A connection? Maybe. Gerry was looking into that. So far he'd come up with zilch, but he was still looking.

"One interesting note, " he said to Ketter. "I came across a fat canceled check for plastic surgery."