Marianna, her mouth gaping open, was staring down the street after Vince and Brooke. This was her first taste of the Vince and Brooke show. “I can't believe this,” she said. “What the hell is wrong with him?”
“He's in heat,” I answered.
“I'm sorry about that,” Scott said, joining Marianna and me on the sidewalk. “She's been drinking, I think. Or maybe drugs…”
“Like the drugs you took the night of the murders?” I said.
“Don't be silly,” he answered. “Mine were prescribed. I just took them with alcohol and shouldn't have.”
“Maybe hers were prescribed too. Maybe you broke her heart so badly that she has to be on megadoses of antidepressants to get over you.”
“Antidepressants don't make you crazy like that,” Marianna said. “As a matter of fact, they do the opposite. More likely she's off her drugs.”
I had forgotten that my hypochondriac friend Marianna was a walking Physicians' Desk Reference.
“Will you come with me now?” Scott said. “Let's just get out of here.”
“No,” Marianna answered him. Then she looked at me. “Don't fall into this mess, Shannon. It's a pile of shit.
Look at Vince. He's beginning to look like Brooke's court jester.”
“Maybe your friend's right,” Scott said.
Marianna began walking toward her car, leaving the two of us alone. I watched her walk off and willed myself to follow her. Tough decision and not my style to take the simple route. I caught up to Marianna and began walking next to her. I came with her; I'd leave with her.
“Don't look back,” she said to me. “Want to get a drink?”
“No, I'm going to find Scott as soon as we get back to Providence.”
Marianna just shook her head. “Why would I think you'd ever take my advice?”
“Your advice will guarantee me a long and healthy life—but bore me to death in the process.”
I DIDN'T WAIT UNTIL WE GOT TO PROVIDENCE. From the car I dialed up Scott on my cell and we formulated our plan to meet at his suite at the Biltmore Hotel. Marianna remained quiet during our brief conversation. The beauty of our friendship was our ability to let each other step into the fires of hell with stiff warnings but gentle farewells, letting the other fall while always keeping an eye out for a quick rescue. So far none of us had burned to death. Emotion was usually the trigger for all ill-advised behavior, and because I was the most in control of my heart—or as Beth would spin it, I was the Tin Man without a heart—I was the least flammable of us. Maybe the ignition was lit with the Cohen trial that opened the cauterized wound of my childhood, and, much like a match dropped in a trail of spilled gasoline, the fire was spreading. But whatever the precipitating cause of my present course, I was dangerously near self-combustion.
SEX IN A HOTEL ROOM
MARIANNA DROPPED ME AT THE BILTMORE AND I took my usual route to Scott's room. After a few unanswered knocks at his door, I called his cell and heard it ringing inside the door.
“Scott?” I hollered through the door and dialed again. No answer, so I went down to the McCormick & Schmick's bar in the Biltmore lobby for a quick drink while I waited. But somewhere between the first and last sip of my Glenlivet neat, I realized that I'd called Scott's cell from Marianna's car en route back to Providence, and he'd answered it. He'd had the phone with him in Newport, so he was either in the room and not answering his cell, or he'd returned and then left again without taking it.
“Hi, gorgeous. You looking for some action?”
I turned to see Andy rolling onto the bar stool next to mine.
“Hey,” I said. “This isn't a good place for you. I'd try XO's on North Main Street. And Downcity Bar across from the Turk's Head Building has a hot-looking trans-vestite hostess after five.”
“I didn't say I was looking for action, did I?” He fluttered his lashes at me. “I'm delivering a package to Senator Scott. But he doesn't seem to be answering his door.”
The bartender came and took Andy's order of an espresso martini. “Beats Starbucks,” Andy said. “And in our office, everyone needs a little help of the alcoholic variety to get through the day. The boss is zooming around like a deflating hot air balloon since he got back from that funeral.”
“Who gave you a delivery to Scott Boardman?”
He shrugged. “Brooke Stanford accosted me outside the office. I figured she and Vincent are pretty tight these days—joined at the pelvis if you will—so I accepted my mission. I just tucked a sealed manila envelope under his door upstairs.”
“Is Brooke still sleeping with Scott Boardman too?”
Andy looked at me with one of his typical over-the-top expressions. This time he shrugged his shoulders to the damned heavens and flipped his palms in the air. “I have a hard time keeping up with the bedroom play inside our office. But why would he be sleeping with her now?”
“Isn't everyone in love with her? Although for the life of me I can't understand the attraction.”
“It's a penis thing. She's lubed, easily insertable.”
“Gross me out, Andy, why don't you.”
“Sorry, sweet-cakes, but it ain't love with her. Love is an emotion. Brooke is a thing. Now, Pat Boardman? She was a different species. Way too good for Scott Boardman.”
I sucked down the remainder of my Glenlivet and then turned on my stool to face him. “Spill.”
“I'm a fly on the wall of the Newport Social Register. I know what goes on there without anyone knowing that I know. It's a gay man thing. We don't register on the Richter scale of importance, but Newport's where I hang all summer, and if I didn't see Pat Boardman at the Black Pearl ten times, I didn't see her once.”
“When and with whom? And why haven't you said anything before now?”
“Obviously before she died. I saw her with some guy, and with the woman she was killed with. And who ever asked me if I knew anything? Most people value their dogs more than they value a gay man who isn't a celebrity or doing one. I'm just another useless poke as far as society is concerned.”
“Ah Christ, you're right, Andy. What can I say? It's a shit world out there. But tell me about Pat Boardman. Everything you know.”
“I didn't say I knew much. Just that she was a busy bee with her love life. She and the man had heated conversations. You know, heads dipped in hushed whispers over the yummy Pearlburgers, feeding each other greasy fries and licking each other's fingers. And then the dead girlfriend. They'd go to Tucker's Bistro. There's a back room.” He rolled his eyes. “Need I say more?”
“Pat and Muffie. You actually saw them at this Tucker's place?”
He nodded deeply. “They were having a lover's spat, so they were easy to notice.”
“And the man she was with at the Pearl. Same one all the time?”
“Yes, dear. But he wasn't a local, so I have no clue who he was. I just know he wasn't her hubby.”
“Can you describe him?”
Andy's glance drifted away to memory. “Kind of thinning hair. I remember the eyes. I kept thinking of that Balzac novel, The Girl with the Golden Eyes.”
“Jake Weller.”
“Did I just solve the case?” Andy said with the tiniest tone of sarcasm in his singsong voice.
“No.”
I picked up my cell and dialed Scott's room again. “Hey, you want some food, Andy? Another drink? I'll buy,” I said as I listened to the ringing phone.
“Sure.”
Scott's phone went unanswered. “I've got to go,” I said to Andy. “Order something and have them put it on my tab.”
While Andy ordered, I called the Biltmore front desk and had them ring Scott's room. After a few rings, the call went to hotel voice mail and I hung up. “Here,” I said, flipping Andy my Amex card. “Just charge it all on this and keep the card till I get back to the office.” I whirled off the bar stool. “And stay out of Brooks Brothers.”
Back upstairs at Scott's door, I pounded heavily. Still no answer. I dialed his cell
again and waited to hear the ring inside the door. No ringing, this time. I called Mike McCoy, master locksmith and ex-cop. If anyone could get us into this room without publicity or a key, Mike could.
I waited in the lobby, and a brief ten minutes later, Mike appeared with Marianna in tow.
“So much for no publicity,” I said to him.
Mike left us and walked to the front desk.
“Fuck you, Shannon,” Marianna said. “Since when am I the public?”
“When you start getting all preachy on me. I don't want any more ‘good’ advice.”
“Well, for someone who's so sure she knows what she's doing is right, you've been needing us an awful lot lately.”
The three of us took the back elevator to Scott's room. Again I tried knocking, and dialing his cell. No answer and no ringing inside the room. “His phone was in there half an hour ago. I heard it ringing. Then I went downstairs and had a drink with Andy—”
“Andy?” Marianna asked. “What's he got to do with this?”
“I found him in the lobby bar. Brooke had him deliver a package to this room. I had a drink with Andy and when I came back up here I knocked again and dialed Scott's cell. The ringing is gone. He must have come and gone while I was downstairs with Andy.”
Mike left us and returned a few minutes later with a master keycard that he inserted in the door. I looked at Marianna. “How does he do that?”
“Badge,” she answered. “They never check the date on it.”
Mike pushed the door open and the room was eerily silent. Two glasses sat on the coffee table between the couches. One empty, the other half full. The room had the lingering smell of a woman's perfume… and something else. I raised my nose to the air like a hound after a scent. “What is it?” I asked Mike and Marianna. “What's that other smell?”
Without answering, Mike walked into the bedroom. We followed and the three of us looked blankly at an unmade bed. In this room the phantom smell was stronger, sickeningly sweet.
“Smells like sex in a hotel room,” Mike said.
“Lot of experience in that, Mike?” Marianna quipped. “Sex in hotels?”
“Nah, my experience is mostly limited to the backseats of cars.”
Mike started rifling around the room and found a manila envelope next to the bed. “Get me a clean facecloth from the bathroom,” he said to Marianna.
I moved closer while Marianna retrieved the towel and handed it to Mike. He gingerly lifted the envelope by its end and walked to a desk in the corner of the room. He held the envelope upside down, and out fluttered several black-and-white photos that fell into a serendipitous array of damning evidence.
The three of us stood with heads cocked at varying angles like simpleminded animals wondering at the meaning of some higher order of intelligence.
“Holy shit,” Mike said, stifling a laugh.
Marianna remained docilely silent.
“No wonder he couldn't get it up with you,” Mike said.
The aura pierced, I popped my head from the huddle and turned to him. “Who told you that? Who freaking gave you those false details?”
“Who cares now?” Marianna said. “The important thing is finding out what all this means.”
“It means none of you should have broken into my hotel room,” Scott said from the threshold of the bedroom door. “It means now we have a bigger problem than my dead wife and campaign manager.”
“And what problem would that be, Scott?” I ran my fingers through my hair. “I keep looking for straight answers from you and all I keep getting are crooked question marks.”
“What happened on the boat that night to Pat and Muffie has nothing to do with those pictures. And if they're made public, not only will it do me irreparable damage, but it will lead the authorities on some wild-goose chase for a connection between… what you see there and the murders of Pat and Leo. And there is none. None at all.”
“You're sure of that,” I said.
Mike growled, “Unless you pulled the triggers on those people, Senator. That's the only way you'd be sure of that.”
“Who's blackmailing you?” Marianna asked. She nodded at the photos on the desk. “Those are Pi-style photos, perfect for blackmail or evidence in court. So either your wife had them taken to support a divorce action against you, or she was blackmailing you. Was it your wife? That's why you killed her?”
“Brooke,” I said. “It's Brooke, isn't it?”
Scott breathed a defeated sigh as if he was emptying the air of his lungs once last time before dying. He dragged his feet to the foot of the bed and sat, his head slumping over his knees like a rag doll. “Blackmail,” he said. “I found them slipped under the door.”
“Andy just delivered them for Brooke. This is the package he just delivered,” I explained to Mike and Marianna.
“Impossible,” Scott said, his head still in his hands. “She wants me to marry her. Why in hell would she blackmail me with those? She knows nothing about… that.”
“Who does know, buddy?” Mike asked. “Who knows you like to diddle guys on the side?”
Scott winced. Gritted his teeth. Shook his head. “Pat knew.” He looked up at us. “So that gives me a motive for killing her, doesn't it?” No one answered him. An interrogator's instinct: We all knew that our continued nurturing silence might harvest more ripe admissions. Of course, truth in those admissions was another matter. We could just be getting a shitload of more lies.
“Jake says that's why Pat began her affair with Muffie,” Scott said. “To punish me. Jake insists Pat wasn't gay, just confused or angry with me. Jake was in love with her. Did you know that? Jake wanted us to divorce so he could marry her. I should have let her go. She might be alive today if I'd let her go and forgotten about my political career. And was it worth it? I have no career and Pat's dead. We both lost.”
I watched the man sitting on the edge of the bed. Still so strong-looking, virile, ready to take on the world. So presidential looking. The kind of men we trust—tall, white, and sandy-haired. We use central-casting standards to choose our candidates, and we vote, like Academy Award judges, for the one who fits the part.
“So who killed your wife?” I asked. “Do we get a straight answer this time?”
“The decision in the Booth estate matter had come down the day Pat was murdered. Muffie called me in the afternoon. She said we had to talk—about many things— the estate case was only one. That's what she said. We had many issues to resolve. And she wanted them resolved that night. I had a drink with Leo in Newport at about five o'clock. The Black Horse Tavern. I left him to go to the boat—”
“And he knew where you were going?” Marianna asked.
Scott looked up at her as if he'd just realized her presence. He glanced at me, then back at her. “Why does that matter?”
“Senator Boardman,” she responded as if he were her witness at trial, “would you please just answer the question, yes or no.”
“I don't remember if I told him I was going. But he knew about the court decision—that Pat and Muffie wanted to talk to me about it. I just don't recall if he knew I was going to the boat that night.”
Marianna shook her head, and I knew what she was thinking: He'd still slipped through the cracks of a straight answer.
Scott continued his narration. “When I got to the boat—it was about six o'clock, I think—I found them. Both women dead. I went directly to Doogie's—Virginia Booth's—house to tell her. She didn't look well. When she came into the morning room to greet me, her hair was undone—a disheveled mess—so unlike her. Even if she'd just risen from bed, she'd have neatened her hair before coming down. Even in my frantic state, I noticed her odd appearance. And then, when I told her about the women, she almost fainted into a chair.” He nodded to himself. “Of course, now I understand why. She knew then that she'd killed her own daughter with the vase, and she may well have implicated herself in the second murder. She asked me only one question, a question I thought was rea
sonable at the time. ‘How did my daughter die?’ I assumed it was just a mother's need to know, but of course, it was more than that. It was Doogie's need to know if Muffie died the same way Pat had. Who dealt the actual deathblow to her daughter? Had she actually killed her with the vase, or had someone come in after and killed them both? That's what she wanted to know. I tried to call Leo back that night, but I couldn't find him anywhere. He wasn't answering his cell and hadn't gone home. So I called Jake, the only other person I could trust. I needed to talk to someone… I told him about Pat and the boat. He agreed to meet me… but in Providence. He wanted us to be as far away from Newport as possible.”
“And where was Jake Weller when you called him?” Mike asked.
Scott thought a minute and then answered. “You know… I have no idea. I called his cell and he agreed to meet me in Providence in an hour. So he couldn't have been in Connecticut.”
“But he didn't meet you, did he?” Marianna said. “He never showed up?”
“Not while I was there.” Scott looked piercingly into Marianna's eyes. “But you were there all night. He didn't show up, did he?”
“I wouldn't have a clue what he looked like, Senator Boardman,” she answered. “And I wouldn't have been casing the door for him anyway, would I have? Because at that point—as far as we all knew—you were just another fuck trying to get into my girlfriend's pants.”
“Stop it, Mari,” I said. “That'll accomplish nothing.” I moved closer and sat on the end of the bed with him. “Where was Brooke?” I asked. “Was she with you at all that night before you saw her at Al Forno?”
“It was all a lie that she was with me after four-thirty She didn't tell me beforehand she was going to make such an idiotic statement to the police. I would have stopped her. She must have thought it up after she saw me at Al Forno and then heard the news about Pat and Muffie. She invented that story the next day. I didn't see Brooke again that evening until she showed up in the bathroom at Al Forno.”
Marianna and Mike had huddled near the window after I'd joined Scott on the bed. It was a tacit dance we'd done. They were letting me do the careful interrogation. Scott was talking, seemingly freely; no one wanted to break my spell.
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