Solving the mystery of Caroline Kennedy

The door to the America Wants To Know offices flew open on Friday night and Lieutenant Columbo stormed in, followed by Sam Spade, followed by Sherlock Holmes. Sam Spade was in handcuffs and Sherlock Holmes was holding a pistol.

"What is this," we asked, "a union meeting?"

"More like an interrogation," Columbo said. "Where's the sink?"

"There will be no waterboarding in this office," we said firmly. "The water leaks through the floor and then we have to meet the neighbors."

"All right, fine," Columbo said. He pulled a chair away from the desk and pushed Sam Spade into it. "Okay, Sam, let's have it. Why'd you dig dirt on Caroline?"

"I didn't dig dirt on nobody," Spade growled.

Sherlock Holmes leaned against the desk, cradling the pistol. "Is that a new Rolex, Sam?"

"What about it?" Spade said with a snarl.

Columbo wound up and slugged Spade across the jaw.

"That's for Caroline," he said. He hit him again. "And that's for Teddy."

Spade clenched his jaw and peered at Columbo through squinted eyes.

"I didn't dig dirt on nobody," he said in a low voice.

"Why did you do it, Spade?" Holmes asked. "Are you in financial trouble?"

Spade stared at the floor.

Holmes set the pistol on the desk. "You have a home in Palm Beach, don't you?" he asked blandly.

"What about it?" Spade snapped.

Columbo looked up. "Of course," he said. "That's it."

"That's what?" we asked.

"Our friend Spade got out of the detective racket five years ago," Columbo said. "'I'm through working for a living,' he told me. 'I joined a country club and made some contacts in business. Now it's all Easy Street.'"

"You don't mean...." we began.

"I sure do," Columbo said. "Sam Spade invested everything he had with Bernie Madoff."

"I got my check every quarter, without fail," Spade said miserably. "Every quarter. Without fail."

Sherlock Holmes shook his head. "You're such a schmuck," he said.

Everyone else in the room turned to look at Holmes.

"Sorry," Holmes said. "I've been spending quite a bit of time in Palm Beach of late. Beginning to pick up a few phrases of the local dialect."

Columbo grabbed Spade by the collar of his shirt and leaned in close. "All right, Spade, who hired you?" he said in a menacingly soft voice.

"You know who hired me," Spade said. "Let's not waste an hour and a half pretending you don't."

"Are you trying to put me out of business?" Columbo asked.

"It was Mrs. Clinton, of course," Holmes said. "A child of six could see it."

"Wait, slow down," we protested. "How do you know it was Mrs. Clinton?"

"Elementary," Holmes said. "Caroline Kennedy crossed the Clintons last January by endorsing Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination. Hell hath no fury like a Clinton scorned, and the female of the species is particularly vicious. She has spilled the blood of more working women than Jack the Ripper."

"Well, that doesn't prove anything," we said. "Maybe one of Caroline's rivals for the Senate seat hired Spade to dig dirt on her. Maybe it was Andrew Cuomo or Carolyn Maloney."

"Not a chance," Columbo said.

"But how can you be sure?" we asked.

Columbo reached into the inside pocket of his weathered coat and pulled out a handful of folded news clippings.

"Timing," he said. "The also-rans would have dumped the stuff earlier. No, it was Mrs. Clinton all right. Look at this."

He spread the clippings out on the desk.

"Tuesday morning," he said, pointing to the first clipping. He began to read. "The whispers have become louder that Gov. David Paterson has come to a U.S. Senate seat decision -- and that it's Caroline Kennedy," he read. He tapped the paper. "And you'll notice in this same story that Senator Clinton's confirmation vote hit a little hitch over concerns about conflicts of interest from her husband's foundation."

"Come on, there was never any doubt she'd be confirmed," we said.

Holmes raised an eyebrow.

Columbo pointed to the second clipping. "Wednesday afternoon," he said. "The Senate confirmed Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State on a 94-2 vote. She was immediately sworn in, right in her office in the Russell Senate Office Building. Her husband was waiting there with the family Bible."

Holmes raised the other eyebrow.

"It was then and only then," Columbo said, gesturing with his index finger, "that she submitted her resignation as senator. She sent a letter to Vice President Biden, as president of the Senate, and she sent an identical letter to David Paterson, the governor of New York."

"And that's when the deed was done," Holmes said. "It was Wednesday afternoon, after Hillary Clinton was safely confirmed as Secretary of State, that the dirt was dumped on the Kennedy woman."

Columbo scooped up the stack of clippings. "There was complete confusion Wednesday night over whether or not Caroline Kennedy had dropped her bid for Hillary Clinton's U.S. Senate seat," he read. He leafed through the news stories in his hand. "This one says, 'She called the governor around midday Wednesday and told him she was having second thoughts about the job,' and this one says, 'Sources tell CBS 2 HD that the governor apparently found something in Kennedy's background check that he didn't like.' Here it says she was withdrawing, but here it says she's not withdrawing, and here it says she's got a personal issue that came up very suddenly."

Sam Spade laughed.

"And all this," Columbo said, "just hours after Hillary Clinton was confirmed as Secretary of State."

"Less than an hour," Spade said.

"Now, wait a minute," we said. "What does any of this have to do with Hillary Clinton being confirmed as Secretary of State?"

Columbo gestured to Holmes to take over.

"It's quite simple, really," Holmes said. "President Obama wanted to reward Caroline Kennedy for being an early and loyal supporter. And Hillary Clinton wanted to destroy her for precisely the same reason.

"So President Obama nominated Senator Clinton to be Secretary of State, creating a vacancy in the Senate for Caroline. He used his influence to make it known that Governor Paterson would be making a very wise choice by appointing her.

"Hillary Clinton did not want Caroline to have that Senate seat, but she didn't want to move against her too early. There was always the risk that President Obama might suddenly decide that something in Bill Clinton's business dealings presented an insurmountable hurdle to her confirmation as Secretary of State. She had just seen Bill Richardson humiliated and forced to withdraw as Commerce Secretary, and she wasn't going to let that happen to her.

"So she bided her time. If President Obama wanted the Senate seat open for Caroline, he would have the Senate seat open.

"But Hillary Clinton intended to make certain that Caroline never occupied it.

"She waited until she was confirmed by the Senate. She waited until she was sworn in as Secretary of State. And then, before Governor Paterson could pick up the phone and tell Caroline Kennedy she was the next U.S. Senator from New York, Hillary Clinton released the hounds."

"What could she have had on her?" we asked.

Holmes looked at Sam Spade, still in handcuffs in the chair.

"It's gonna cost you a Rolex," Spade said.

Columbo was unfolding another clipping. "Two can play that game," he said. "This is from the Washington Times today. 'Former President Bill Clinton's foundation, despite identifying more than 200,000 of its donors in recent weeks, will not say who paid it windfall prices for stock in a struggling Internet firm with links to the Chinese government.'" He handed the clipping to Holmes.

"Ah, the Accoona Corporation," Holmes said. "A mysterious stock transaction in 2006 that was inexplicably profitable for the Clinton Foundation. Someone paid them $700,000 for their stock in a company that was nearly bankrupt." He looked up with a twinkle in his eyes. "Odd that this story should be in the newspapers now," he said. "Perhaps President Obama has a detective on the payroll as well."

"Nah, he's not hiring," Sam Spade said. "He's got the FBI files."


Copyright 2009

Editor's note: You might be interested in the earlier posts, "Burying the Clintons," "Burying the Clintons, Part II," and "Hillary Clinton and the perfect crime."

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