Immaculate Deception

by Warren Adler

  “I feel it in my gut,” he had replied, punching his flat stomach.

  “This is too sensitive a case to build a conclusion on a hunch,” Fiona had said, reacting cautiously, being careful to keep due deference in her tone.

  “Great case,” he had commented using the same fist he had just punched into his stomach to pound a palm. His eyes had moved to the silent TV set. He watched the images for a moment and, she had suspected, he was salivating over the possibilities for his own exposure on the tube. After a while, he had turned and looked sternly at Fiona and Cates. “But you’re right. No shooting from the hip. It’s political to the core. What I want here is textbook thoroughness, hear? You’re on it full-time, overtime and prime time. And nothing, nothing goes without me being apprised. (Apprahzed.) The boys upstairs will be nervous as grasshoppers and the mayor will have a piss hemorrhage if we make a wrong move but he sure will love the leverage against those self-righteous Congressional bastards. Only we’ve got to walk on eggshells. Those congressmen get very touchy we start mucking about in their shit.”

  “Very sensible,” Fiona had agreed, exchanging glances with Cates, who had nodded his understanding.

  “And you can dispense with that patronizing bullshit,” the Eggplant snapped, reverting to character. He had shot them a snarl, walked back to his chair, picked up the People magazine, relit his panatela and lifted his feet to the desk signaling an end to the interview. Cates had risen, but Fiona had continued to sit there watching him. It was a long time before he reacted. He looked over the magazine and took a long drag on his panatela.

  “I want to know something, chief.”

  “So?” A stream of smoke had poured out of his mouth.

  “From the beginning . . .” She remembered feeling suddenly embarrassed and had again cut a glance at Cates. Would he think she was toadying? Such conduct was considered sinful. It was a subject beyond race and rank. She shrugged it off, had to know. “You seemed so dead certain it wasn’t suicide . . .” She had stumbled for a moment. Cates had ascribed it to pure gluttony for publicity. But that was a given, a constant. This was sixth sense, an inborn talent. One of the great challenges of the job was to best him, cut him down to size. On a number of occasions, she had actually done it, albeit without his public ackowledgment. Surely, inside of himself, he had acknowledged her victory.

  He had smiled. More smoke had poured from his nose.

  “Women,” he told her, shaking his head, offering his favorite smile signifying derision and sarcasm. “I’ve been studying them since I was eleven.”

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Fiona had snapped, tossing another glance at Cates, hoping the sudden outburst had redeemed her in his eyes. It was important to show them that she could give as much as she got, another ritual for gaining respect.

  “You call yourself a detective,” the Eggplant had said, sighing derisively. “Never yet met a woman who greased her face without a genuine desire to wake up in the morning.”

  Embarrassment had registered profoundly on Fiona. She stood up absorbing the rebuke. She had missed it. No question. Touché. Her face had grown hot with her blush of shame. Cates, somewhat less moved, had lowered his eyes.

  “Happens,” the Eggplant had said sighing theatrically, hiding his face discreetly behind the People magazine, relieving her of having to watch his smugness.

  “Could have been habit,” Cates told her. “She may have wanted to look good for St. Peter.”

  “Jesus,” Fiona had replied.

  “Him, too,” Cates had said, offering not the shred of a smile.

  The service in the rotunda had taken all of an hour and the crowd, losing some of its solemnity, began to mill about. A knot of mourners surrounded McGuire and his children offering condolences, shaking hands or embracing them depending on the levels of intimacy.

  Charles Rome and, Fiona assumed, his wife Barbara, spoke briefly with McGuire and his children, then moved through the crowd like royalty. Rome had all the bearing and demeanor of a “man of power.” She knew the type well. Her father had been a quintessential example, smiling, eye-engaging, erect, commanding, judicious in laying on of hands to manipulate, comfort and charm.

  Barbara, the equally quintessential politician’s wife, easy in her role as an old shoe, traveled in Rome’s wake, spit-polished, as a Dresden figure, not a hair out of place, not a crease in her clothing, smile at the ready, complementing her husband’s sense of command, showing the kind of distaff charm that underscored the Rome image, spreading the gospel of the Rome power and his worthiness as someone to be idolized and, at the same time, offering a strong hint of wifely influence.

  She reminded Fiona of her mother who, in the end, had not adjusted well to her loss of power, had privately and naggingly balked at the senator’s stand on the war, had railed at him for going against the grain, for forfeiting his position, for losing his place. Unfortunately, the moral highroad her father had taken, while winning him martyrdom had relegated her parents to exile in a political and social Siberia from which they never returned.

  It was this place, the familiar rotunda, where she had sometimes passed the time waiting for her father, playing among the somber statues of famous men and, of course, the context of death, that brought forth this blast of painful memories. The funeral ritual, however distant the relationship of the deceased, always produced personal pain in the spectator. She had attended enough of them in her professional life to understand this truism. In the face of anyone’s death, no one, however hardened and aloof, could be disinterested.

  As the Romes moved comfortably through the milling crowd, the woman who had heckled his oration, elbowed her way toward them. The man who had sat beside her during the service moved to restrain her but she nudged him away. It was one of those little dramas that one might easily miss if one wasn’t, like Fiona, a professional observer.

  Fiona followed her on the assumption that any confrontation might offer some insight into the mystery of Mrs. McGuire’s strange demise.

  “Clear sailing now, Mister Congressman,” the woman hissed. She was a tall intense woman, as tall as Rome, with a large bony face and fierce blue eyes that seemed to have burned their way into her cheekbones. Her dyed blonde hair was styled in an old-fashioned bouffant and she wore a flannel navy blue suit embellished with a single strand of pearls which drew attention to a scrawny neck. Her lips were thin, uneven and seemed locked into a perpetual scowl. The way she held herself, her look and persona, marked her unmistakably as single-minded, fearless and determined.

  “Surely not now, May,” Rome said, touching her arm, which she shrugged away. Barbara’s confident look disappeared and she seemed to actually step behind him as if he were a protective shield. Neither had noticed Fiona’s proximity. Nor were any of the others aware of the impending confrontation.

  “Why not, Congressman,” May said sneeringly. “With Frankie gone you think it’s over, don’t you?” She watched his face and blocked his way. “Godless murderers. You think there won’t be others to take her place. We’ll get stronger, more powerful, and beat you and all your liberal abortionist killers. Let me tell you that someone will pick up Frankie’s relay stick . . .”

  “I’m sure of that, May,” Rome said politely, with an air of futility. He started to take a step forward but the woman continued to block his path. “This is ridiculous, May. The least you can do is have some respect for Frankie.”

  “Respect for Frankie? What respect did you show her?”

  “She was my friend,” Rome said.

  “Double standard hypocrites,” the woman muttered. “You’re everything we detest. It’s disgusting. That committee of yours. Funding murder. Abortion is a sin against mankind. You’ll be punished in hell for this.”

  “Really, May, this is ridiculous.”

  “Why? Your vaunted system can’t be criticized? We must all be ladies and gentlemen about this? Always tea time with the enemy after battle, is it? I never agreed with Frankie
’s opinion about that and I resent your speaking at this service.”

  “You expressed yourself on that point, May.”

  “Jack McGuire was a fool to let you.”

  “Without me, you wouldn’t have been able to hold Frankie’s service here. This required a bit of clout.”

  “If Jack McGuire had any guts he would have rejected it if your help was needed. Your presence here is an insult to her memory.”

  “You are an unforgiving bitch,” Rome snapped, his facade of easy charm collapsing. “Get off your high horse, May. The country is not behind you. Abortion is here to stay.”

  “We’ll never stop until you and your ilk have been crushed.”

  “I know you’re upset about Frankie’s death,” Rome said unctuously, getting on top of his brief blast of anger. “As always, I’ll be glad to debate the point with you or your people. But not here and now.”

  “You’ll hear from me, Congressman. You can bet on it.”

  He shook his head in mock despair, sidestepped, reached out for his wife’s hand and walked quickly out of earshot, disappearing down a corridor.

  “Beast,” the woman muttered, suddenly becoming aware of Fiona, taking her for one of the mourners and, therefore, automatically an advocate. “The height of bad taste for him to be here. The man opposed everything she stood for. It’s people like that murdered Frankie . . .” She paused, looked down and shook her head. “A casualty in a great cause, that’s what she was. No other way to look at it. Satan’s army is very powerful. Very powerful.” Her fierce eyes, dancing behind her cheekbones, burned into Fiona’s face. The only sensible action was to offer nothing confrontational. The woman, Fiona knew, took her silence for the advocacy of an ally.

  “You’re May Carter, aren’t you?” Fiona asked.

  “I am. And you?”

  Fiona fished in her pocketbook and took out her badge.

  “Sergeant FitzGerald, Washington MPD.”

  May Carter lifted her eyebrows, continued to study Fiona’s face. Surprise, too, was a police weapon. By then Cates had crossed the rotunda and came up to her side. Fiona introduced him. May acknowledged the introduction with a nod.

  “You here to arrest me?” May asked, with little glint of humor in her eyes. A hard case, Fiona thought. Little Ms. One-Note.

  “Think we can talk for a few moments?” Fiona asked politely. May hesitated, perhaps remembering Rome’s comment about this being not the time and place.

  “It’s very important, Mrs. Carter,” Fiona prodded, noting a wedding band on the woman’s finger.

  May Carter looked at her watch, then nodded.

  “How long will this take?”

  “Not long.”

  They waited until Mrs. Carter said her goodbyes, then moved out of the rotunda. A glance backwards told Fiona that their exit was not lost on Jack McGuire and she noted a puzzled look on his face.

  8

  They found an empty bench in the little park across from the Capitol building. It was a glorious spring bud-popping day as only an April day in Washington can be, crisp, clear, the light making the neo-Greco facades of the buildings in the Capitol complex shine like new pennies. Hardly the place to probe a question of murder. It was eleven and the lunch hour crowds would soon begin to sprawl over every square inch of the park.

  “When was the last time you saw Frances McGuire alive?” Fiona asked as they settled on the bench. In an unspoken strategy it was assumed that Fiona would lead the interrogation.

  Mrs. Carter raised her eyes skyward.

  “Couple of days. But we were constantly in touch. I’m on the road, out of South Boston, about a week a month. This was my week for Washington.”

  “How did she strike you?” Fiona asked.

  There was a certain awkwardness about the situation since they were all sitting in a straight line. To face her directly, Fiona had to twist her body. Mrs. Carter, on the other hand did not do this, crossing long legs and often answering a question without looking at Fiona directly. This put Fiona at a disadvantage since there was much to be learned from eye contact.

  “Why are you asking me these questions?” Mrs. Carter snapped.

  Fiona was tempted to provide the usual answer. “Routine.” Instead she said, “There is some question about Mrs. McGuire’s suicide.”

  Only then did Mrs. Carter confront Fiona full-face. Her forehead creased and her deep-set eyes probed like lasers. Then, as though a dark cloud had passed over her face, Mrs. Carter brightened, the creases flattened, the lasers shifted.

  “I suspected as much,” Mrs. Carter said.

  “You did,” Cates asked suddenly.

  Mrs. Carter chuckled, glanced briefly at Cates, then looked toward the Supreme Court Building across the park.

  “There,” Mrs. Carter said raising her chin. “Them. Over there. Where nine men decided the fate of a nation of unborn children. Roe v. Wade. A cannonball aimed directly at God himself declaring that a woman can decide, by herself, the fate of life within her. The opening shot of a great war. Since then we have murdered millions. No one can sit still in the face of that. No one. Who will fight God’s battle, if not us? The enemy is powerful, ruthless. He will stop at nothing . . . including murder.” She seemed to be just winding up, offering the well-honed and surely spellbinding theatrics of her advocacy. The woman was quite obviously obsessed totally by her cause and, because of it, every answer to their questions would somehow be related to it.

  Determined to get back on the track, Fiona had interrupted.

  “Are you saying that Mrs. McGuire might have been done away with by . . .”

  “No question about it,” Mrs. Carter interjected, talking now at hyper speed. “Frankie McGuire was our battering ram. Why wouldn’t they want to get her out of the way. She was gaining seniority, getting too powerful for them. We’re winning, you know. In the end we will win . . .”

  “Who specifically did you have in mind?” Fiona asked.

  “Oh, they wouldn’t be so crude as to stick their own necks out. No way. Probably the work of some hit man. Some stranger who they contracted to do the job.”

  “Poison is not exactly the weapon of choice for a hit man,” Cates said, obviously annoyed and impatient over the woman’s drumbeat of polemics.

  “Got you confused, hasn’t it? They’re clever, deceitful. They have their own agenda and their own methods.” She lowered her voice suddenly and looked around. “I’ve received hundreds of threats. Keeps me on my toes, I can tell you. But I look at it as acts of desperation, proving conclusively that we’ve got them on the run. And this thing with Frankie only underlines that fact.” She turned once again to look at Fiona full-face. “You’ll never catch her killer. Long gone, he is. Probably spirited away on a plane somewhere to Europe or Asia.” The assumption made her almost gleeful, as if it was additional proof of the cleverness of the enemy.

  “So it’s a conspiracy theory then,” Cates asked, making no effort to hide his ridicule.

  “It’s not a theory,” Mrs. Carter said smugly. “It’s a fact.”

  “Like some governing body is giving orders, calling the shots.”

  “Of course. Those lezzies that run the pro-choice outfit and their liberal cohorts. All interconnected. All one cabal.” She lowered her voice. “Of course, I could never say this publicly and I’d deny it if pushed. That’s not the strategy that will win this fight. Won’t give them the ammo to dub us crazy right wing fanatic or religious freaks, part of the pope’s army. Our job is to stay in the center. What we’re selling is God’s choice and that cuts across the spectrum.”

  It was growing late. Already the lunch hour crowds had begun to pour out of their Capitol Hill offices, sprawling over the park, opening their brown bags. Mrs. Carter began taking quick glances at her clock, pinned to the lapel of her suit.

  “So who goes for Mrs. McGuire’s seat?” Fiona asked, almost casually. It was an inescapable motive and had to be explored.

  “Jack Grady would give hi
s eye teeth for a shot at it.”

  “Has he a chance?”

  “If I don’t oppose him,” Mrs. Carter said. She snickered. “That was him sitting next to me up there. Quite solicitous, I may add. For obvious reasons.”

  “Would you run?” Fiona asked innocently.

  “Question is where would I be the most effective. Inside or outside. I haven’t yet made up my mind. Jack has got some baggage. He and McGuire are old buddies. Jack of Diamonds and Jack of Clubs. Too much scrutiny will do him in. Oh he’s a pro-lifer to the core, alright. No one gets elected in South Boston who isn’t. Thing is, a woman gives the Congressional battle more authenticity. Not that we don’t need strong men to carry the day. Problem is I know my strengths and weaknesses. I don’t have Jack’s blarney charm. Some people think I’m too severe.” She turned her laser eyes on Fiona and for a brief moment her guard went down showing the real person beneath the fanatic. “You know what I mean. I’m a realist. An aggressive man is dynamic, forceful. An aggressive woman is just a pushy bitch.” She bit her lip and as swiftly as it had gone, the guard came up again, armed to the teeth. “Anyway, the longer I hold out, the more solicitous he has to be. Power is in the perception, you know.”

  “What about Harlan Foy?”

  “For Frankie’s seat?”

  Fiona nodded.

  “A little too prissy, don’t you think? I don’t approve of course. It’s against God’s will to be like that. But not once did I ever suggest that Frankie get rid of him. His life was her. No love lost between us. We argued like the devil and sometimes he tried to bar the door to old May, but he was good backup, damned good backup.” She shook her head. “Take her seat? No way. Okay as a number two. But let’s face it. Our issue gives him a bit of a credibility gap, don’t you think?”

  The explanation left Fiona strangely relieved, although it did not absolve Foy entirely. Perception, despite May Carter’s interpretation, could be illusory. Foy could not be as he seemed, although she agreed that his running for Frankie’s seat was a long shot. But he could not be ruled out on the other. Not yet. He did have access to Frankie McGuire’s apartment. Access could not be ignored in a murder investigation. And there were other motives available. Mrs. Carter looked at her watch again, spurring Fiona to press on.