Immaculate Deception

by Warren Adler

  “Can’t say you haven’t got a position on the issue,” she said, searching for a way to lighten his mood.

  “Controlling your own destiny,” he said, the anger still boiling. “That’s the name of the game.” The idea hit a deep chord in her. She was trying to control her own destiny, at the expense of his. “All they want to do is control us. Always control. That’s their game.”

  There was only one logical explanation for his vehemence. It was, she remembered, his wife’s cause and he hated his wife. Therefore, he hated her cause.

  That she could understand. Also his reaction. But he had also touched on something that had relevance to her investigation. She deliberately tried to recalibrate the conversation, take it from the specific to the general an out of the personal arena.

  She turned her head to look at him. “It’s America. A cause is a cause. Is ideological passion enough motive to kill?” It was a lawyerly question and she hoped it would trigger a lawyerly response.

  He stroked her cheek, but she could tell that he was having a hard time repressing the emotional baggage he was carrying.

  “Done all the time. It’s a worldwide epidemic.” He patted her shoulder. “Believe me I have observed it firsthand, It’s a thin line between the political and the personal, I can tell you.”

  He grew silent for a long moment. His thoughts seemed to drift and she could tell he was still under the spell of painful old psychic injuries. “It requires strong measures to combat it, to stand up to it and protect yourself against its onslaught. People with causes never admit to the possibility that they are wrong, you see. Beware especially of people who believe that they have enlisted in God’s’ army. Their minds are closed. History has shown they are willing to kill for their ideology.”

  He reached out and refilled their glasses with Champagne, sipping some and replacing the glass on the end table. She could tell he wasn’t finished with his argument.

  “There’s a complete lack of doubt, absolute surety. Under that mantle you stop at nothing. The cause takes over. You’re no longer an individual. Nothing matters but the cause. No matter what it does to the people around you. Soon all those who are against the cause are mortal enemies. Then hate takes over. Give it a mandate from the deity, any deity, and you’ve got unshakable fanaticism. I abhor all ideology.”

  “Which explains why you can represent such shitheels as the tobacco industry, Libya and the Moonies.”

  “You got it.”

  Suddenly he shrugged and shook himself like an awakening dog. Fiona detected a twinge of embarrassment. Obviously, he had taken the subject farther than he had intended. Certainly, it was farther than she had intended. But he had been a sounding board and she forced herself to come full circle, back to the case at issue.

  “So you think it could be a political assassination?”

  “I told you. If I had the guts I might have done it myself.”

  “I’m serious.”

  “If I were on the other side, I wouldn’t have voted for it,” he said. “What you don’t want to do in this business is create a martyr. Frankie murdered would be an opening for canonization.” He paused. “On the other hand, he could have been a lone killer, a fire-in-the-belly killer with the political all mixed up with the personal. Lee Harvey Oswald, for openers.”

  “You’re getting closer to May Carter’s thesis. She thinks a hit man did it.”

  “She may have a point,” Greg said.

  She had her rebuttal ready before he finished the sentence.

  “No way. A hit man doesn’t do poison.”

  “A fanatic then, a crazy.”

  “Too well planned for the work of a crazy. A crazy pushes, chokes, shoots, cuts, bombs. Not this cat. This killer, if there was one, calculates.”

  “You’re murdering our theories, Madame Detective.”

  “Maybe,” she said, mulling the distinction between politics and ideology. Grady was politics. May Carter was ideology. Her thoughts were spinning now.

  “Which brings us back to suicide,” Greg said.

  “I’m not ready to vote. But if it was suicide then the lady deliberately created the puzzle. No note. No clues.” She paused. A yellow caution light flashed in her mind. There was a clue, of course. A live fetus growing inside of her. The irony was disturbing. She shook her head. Maybe this was her message. Death before abortion. The ultimate political statement. An outrageous act to illustrate a point. She shivered suddenly and stood up.

  “Something wrong?” he asked.

  “She could be laughing at us. All this effort and angst. If she wasn’t who she was, it would be over. File closed. And yet . . . when you ask yourself the eternal question. Who benefits? You do get answers.”

  She could sense him waiting for more. Ethics and propriety intruded, repressing her. The fact was she was not yet ready to truly trust him, which was ironic since she had proven that she herself could not be trusted and had plotted to steal his genetic legacy without his permission. Guilt again. It came at her in waves. Once again, she faced them, braced, and let them crash over her and eddy back on the tide. She clutched her midsection and paced the room.

  “And suspects,” Greg volunteered, recalling the question, bringing her back to Frankie’s death. Suspects, yes, she thought, but no real evidence, no nagging hunches. Only the Eggplant’s good batting average on instinct. An errant thought suddenly floated into her consciousness. No, it wasn’t the Eggplant’s instinct pushing her now. At the beginning maybe, but not now. Or any burning desire beyond professionalism to discover the truth about Frankie’s death. Nor the desire to see justice done on principle. None of the above.

  It was the dead baby.

  A chill swept through her. It was an issue she had avoided, never daring to come down on either side. She believed intensely in her power to control her destiny, to make responsible decisions concerning her life, which included her body and her mind. The church held her as a sentimental childhood concept, although when she did go to church on rare occasions, she was moved by the soothing sense of spirituality, of being a tiny particle of a great grand design, a rudderless figure in a stormy sea with no power whatsoever against the wind and tides. Yes, it moved her, but it also repelled her.

  No, she had not allowed herself to fantasize a predicament where she would ever have to make a choice. She had been impeccable in protecting herself against pregnancy. A passionate woman, she had always kept her wits about her. Even in the most intense sexual situations she had never gambled on fate. Never.

  Until now.

  She let the sudden chill subside, then drove the idea from her mind. Only then did she cease her pacing and plunk herself down beside him on the couch.

  “The thing about this business . . .” she said, forcing her thoughts back to the case, soaking in the comfort of his proximity. She lifted her arm and put it on his bare chest. “. . . in the absence of a confession or even hard proof, you can’t make a good case out of mere suspicion. In any homicide there are always beneficiaries. They cover the spectrum.”

  Grady gets to run. McGuire gets his other lady. Carter gets a controllable congressman. The Eggplant gets to be show bizzy. She gets to go to Boston and make a baby. A giggle bubbled out of her.

  “That’s funny?”

  She shrugged and with her free hand reached for the Champagne glass and emptied it. He drank his and filled them both again.

  “Now, down to the business at hand,” she whispered caressing him. He lifted her face and kissed her deeply. She felt it beginning again, the tide of pleasure stirring. He had slipped his hand into her robe and began to knead her breasts.

  The sound at the door startled them both. It was a loud hammering noise, hardly the discreet knock of the hotel help.

  Greg ran to the door and called out, but he did not open it.

  “What the hell is going on?”

  The hammering continued unabated.

  “I’m calling the manager,” Greg threatened. It did not inti
midate whoever was doing the hammering, although the intervals seemed to be getting longer. Greg looked toward Fiona who shrugged.

  “I want that bitch,” a gravelly voice shouted in the lengthening intervals between the pounding. The voice had a familiar ring. Fiona came toward the door.

  “What bitch?” Fiona called out, recognizing the voice.

  “You. The cop bitch,” the gravelly voice said. Fiona opened the door. Jack McGuire, red-faced and fuming stood in the doorway. His blue eyes peering from underneath shaggy white eyebrows glared hatred.

  “You calm down, pal,” Greg said menacingly.

  “Out of my way, asshole,” McGuire said heading toward Fiona who stood her ground.

  “It’s okay, Greg,” she said calmly shifting herself into a Karate stance in case the man got physical. She found his eyes and stared him down. He got just close enough to wave a finger in front of her nose.

  “You come around here trying to make a mockery of my wife’s name. I tell you this, lady. You go back to that . . .” Spittle settled at the ends of his mouth and when he spoke sticky strands clung to the corners. “. . . that sewer you call the capital. Your kind is not welcome here.” He paused, the flow of his words constipated by rage.

  “Make some sense, McGuire,” Fiona said calmly.

  “You don’t have to take this, Fi,” Greg said.

  In the pause, Jack McGuire seemed to find his tongue again.

  “You listen, bitch. This is my turf here. I can have you thrown out on your ass. Like this.” He snapped his fingers.

  “Who is this jackass?” Greg asked. He had moved behind the man to get in position to defend her.

  “He’s Jack McGuire. Husband of the deceased.”

  “Doesn’t give him license for this,” Greg muttered.

  McGuire shot him a look of contempt.

  “Disturbed your little shack-up, did I?”

  Greg snarled back at him, obviously preparing himself for any physical eventuality.

  “Couldn’t blame the lady . . . if it was suicide.”

  “Whatayamean, if?” McGuire sneered. His face flushed as if he were working up another head of anger.

  “Under control,” Fiona said to Greg. “Really.”

  She turned to McGuire, studying him. No contest, she thought. The man was heavy, out of shape. With one well-placed blow with the edge of her hand she could break his windpipe. He seemed to consider the odds, then appeared to retreat from contemplating any violence.

  “Grady told me,” he mumbled between clenched teeth.

  “Just what did he tell you?” Fiona asked.

  “That . . .” He paused, licked the spittle from the corners of his mouth. “. . . that you were implying that Frankie was . . . well . . . a loose woman. I don’t know what you people are up to. But we have children. And she had constituents. Nothing must blemish her memory. Nothing.”

  He was running out of steam fast and she dropped her hands and tightened the belt of her bathrobe.

  “Sit down and have a drink,” Fiona said. Who could resist the Irish salutation? she thought. Sure enough, he responded.

  “I won’t drink that swill,” he said, looking at the Champagne.

  “We have Scotch,” Greg said, his eyes probing Fiona’s.

  McGuire nodded and Greg went into the bedroom for the bottle he had brought with him.

  “Why can’t you just let her rest in peace?” he sighed, sitting down on one of the chairs. His festering sense of outrage had obviously exhausted him. Greg came out of the bedroom with a bottle of Chivas Regal and a bathroom glass still wrapped in plastic.

  “No ice or soda,” Greg said, undoing the plastic. “I could call down.”

  “Just pour,” McGuire said, watching Greg as he unwrapped the glass and poured three fingers of Scotch into it.

  “D.C.’s got chummy cops,” McGuire said watching Greg as he handed him the glass. He was still in his terry cloth robe which matched Fiona’s. He looked at Fiona. “What happened to the black boy?”

  “He’s doing Frankie’s case in D.C.,” Fiona said in clipped cop talk. McGuire, she decided, was one nasty bigot.

  McGuire upended his glass and drained it in two swallows. Greg watched him and reached for the bottle.

  “Why don’t you leave it while I talk to Mr. McGuire here?” Fiona said, hoping that Greg got the message. He gave her his little-boy-insulted look and shrugged. He didn’t like being dismissed. She couldn’t blame him, but this was now an official interrogation and Greg’s presence would be an inhibition. He knew that, of course, but still didn’t relish the dismissal.

  “You want him. You got him,” Greg muttered as he left the room.

  “Touchy one,” McGuire said. He poured himself another three fingers, but only took one small sip before putting it down on the table again.

  “I’m here trying to get to the bottom of this, McGuire.”

  He finished his drink then looked at her, anger smoldering.

  “There is no bottom,” he said. “She killed herself. People do it every day. She pushed it too hard. It takes its toll. I don’t know what set her off. But nobody murdered Frankie. She snapped, is all. There is no other explanation.”

  “Why, do you think?”

  “I don’t know what goes on in people’s heads.” He tossed her a cold look, “Either do you.”

  She let him finish his drink, pour himself another, take a deep swallow and put down the glass. No point in humoring the bastard, she decided.

  “How hard did you press her about wanting to marry Beatrice?”

  It took him totally by surprise. But instead of rage he registered confusion and knitted his brows. His forehead wrinkled into deep frown lines.

  “The son of a bitch told you.”

  “They tell me it’s common knowledge,” she said, as if she had spoken to others. He lowered his eyes and stared at his drink for a long time. He hadn’t even bothered to ask: “Who’s they?”

  “So it’s no secret. Big deal.” He emitted a cold joyless chuckle. “Yeah. We talked.”

  “No dice, right?”

  “Not at first. But after awhile she changed her mind. Then, all of a sudden she did a turnaround, called the whole thing off.”

  “Why?”

  He hesitated, then shrugged.

  “Maybe she wanted me back. Who knows?”

  “She said so?”

  “Danced around. Led me to believe that was it. But I know better.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Politics. Everything was politics with Frankie. Maybe she thought a divorce would hurt her chances? Hell, she was a shoo-in. But who knows what goes on in the devious mind of a politician.”

  “That’s an old fashioned view, Mr. McGuire. Lots of divorced Catholics are in politics now. Lots of divorced politicians, too. Reagan was divorced. They’re all over the House and Senate.”

  “Tell me. I argued until I was blue. Couldn’t budge her. It made no sense. She was entrenched. Nobody could beat her. A real hardhead, she was.” He nodded in agreement with himself, then looked up. “But a great lady just the same.” His finger came up again and he wagged it in front of her nose. “We mustn’t drag her name through the mud now. It’s over. She’s gone. Nobody killed her. Who would kill Frankie?” His gaze drifted, fixed on the window through which could be seen the lights from the buildings surrounding the Common. “She’s at peace now. No one to harass her. Not anymore.”

  “Who, Mr. McGuire?”

  “Who what?” he said after a long silence. Wherever his mind had gone it had come back now. He lifted his glass and emptied it.

  “Who harassed her?” she said quietly.

  “Harassed her?” he said, his eyes glazed with confusion. “Did I say that?”

  “Yes, you did.”

  “I guess I meant me, then,” he said. “Me, always at it with her, especially in the last few weeks, pushing her on the divorce. Nothing could budge her. Nothing. Believe me, I tried every argumen
t I knew. Even more money. I got enough, she said. Hell, she got enough because the Jack of Diamonds earned it for her.”

  “Grady said she died of a broken heart,” Fiona offered cautiously, watching his expression.

  “Broken heart? He told you that? Broken over who?”

  “You.”

  “Me? That’s rich.” He actually chuckled. “Show you the power of P.R. The ever loving Frankie McGuire. Had even Grady fooled. Hell, it was always easy to fool Grady. I suppose he gave you that chestnut about him loving Frankie.”

  “As a matter of fact.”

  “Hated her guts he did. Ever since old Huey dumped him in favor of Frankie. Raised hell about that.”

  “He implied you begged him until he consented to be bought off.”

  “Half-right, I suppose. I don’t beg. But I do buy. On that alone, she owed me one. Frankie owed it all to me in the first place. But it worked out fine all around. Old Grady didn’t have a pot to pee in or a window to throw it out of. We got him a chunk of real power in the State.” He hesitated. “Changed his life. Good all around.”

  “You don’t mind him running for Frankie’s seat?”

  “Hell let the son of a bitch have the seat. He’s got an ego on him won’t quit. Inside he’s dancing on Frankie’s grave. Perfect timing, too. The Jack of Clubs was losing his clout.”

  He was straying too far afield now. She had to reign him in, get back to the central question.

  “Did you ask her again that night?” He seemed not to comprehend. “Ask her for a divorce?”

  “That night?” His eyes narrowed and he rubbed his chin, as if were unsure how to answer.

  “That could have set her off. Been the deciding factor. The straw that broke the camel’s back.”

  “That’s a heavy load to lay on a person,” he sighed.

  “I know. But it could provide a conclusive motive for Frankie’s suicide and end this investigation once and for all.” And put the monkey of guilt on your back all the rest of your life, she thought. It was the kind of knowledge that could be passed on without words. When he reached again for his glass, she noted that his fingers were trembling. He put it down quickly. It was empty and she poured him another, but he held off from taking it.