...And Never Let HerGo

deserved with the heavy load he carried.
    Tom stayed with Governor Castle until 1992. He had always wanted to run for political office himself; he thought he would makea good attorney general for the state of Delaware. But he talked it over with some of the stronger Democrats, among them the Freels. Kevin Freel, who always said what he thought, while his brother Bud tended to be more enigmatic, told Tom to forget it. He was carrying too much family baggage on his back. His brothers’ shenanigans would surely come back to haunt him if he ran for the highest law enforcement office in Delaware. Between his three brothers, the Republicans could dredge up everything from graft to drugs to rape and kidnapping, and he shouldn’t think they wouldn’t. Kevin warned him he would just be inviting a smear campaign. A Republican wag told Tom his campaign slogan would have to be “Tom Capano: The OTHER Capano.”
    Moreover, despite his success in public office, Tom was not a natural politician. He had little talent for glad-handing and working a crowd. The thought of shaking hands with strangers and kissing babies actually scared him a little. Rather, his forte was in quiet behind-the-scenes mediation. People loved Tom in private; he seemed to lose color and verve in the spotlight. He was just a little too plodding, a little prissy on details and regulations.
    Tom decided not to run for office after all, and then he accepted a partnership at the law firm of Saul, Ewing, Remick and Saul, the bond counsel for the state of Delaware and the city of Wilmington. He would run the public finance department. It was a plum job, but he hastened to point out to anyone who raised eyebrows that he wasn’t hired because he would bring government bond clients to Saul, Ewing. “They already had it all,” he said. Both the city and the state did business with Saul, Ewing.
    There were only two firms in the Delaware Valley that had large public finance departments, and Saul, Ewing (with principal offices in Philadelphia) was one of them. Tom would work in the Wilmington office, and as managing partner, he doubled the office staff, bringing in six partner-level attorneys. He was back in the private sector and in a position to make a very substantial salary. Setting the city and state bonds was very detailed work, but they were mostly multimillion-dollar deals, and the meticulous work paid well.
    Tom’s community service now filled many pages of his curriculum vitae. He was on the board of trustees at St. Mark’s High School and Ursuline, Padua, and Archmere academies. He was a board member of the National Conference of Christians and Jews, chairman of the Wilmington Parking Authority, in charge of the Bench and Bar Committee and the Delaware Supreme Court’s Long Range Planning Committee, and of course, still a stalwart at St. Anthony’s.
    His devotion to Catholic education and good works in no way slowed his affair with Debby MacIntyre or, seemingly, caused him any conflict of interests. He felt he gave so much to everyone that he deserved the—for him—unguilty pleasures of adultery. He was, he believed, a very special man, a man who shouldn’t be fettered by the rules that governed lesser men.
    Tom Capano had over the years polished his knack for friendship and for drawing people to him. He was a highly skilled negotiator and mediator; he
knew
people so well, knew what they wanted and what they needed. He knew the law and the law’s weaknesses. He had used his charm and his intelligence—buoyed by his political connections—to get all three of his brothers out of tight spots. And he had boundless confidence in his own ability to make things happen the way he wanted them to happen.

Chapter Nine
    A NNE M ARIE F AHEY started her new job with Governor Tom Carper right after he was inaugurated in January of 1993. Her desk would be on the twelfth floor of the Carvel state building, just past the elevators. She and Sue Campbell Mast, Carper’s executive assistant, would be the lions at the gate that all visitors would have to pass before they reached the inner sanctum of Carper’s private offices. The two women had desks five feet apart. Sue would answer the governor’s direct phone line, and Anne Marie would field all the other calls. She was now at the very center of what was happening in Delaware, an essential part of the government of her state.
    Anne Marie would make a number of women friends in this new job, including Sue, Jill