by Warren Adler
“You tell that to the mayor, chief?” Fiona asked.
“Danced around it,” the Eggplant admitted. “Both he and Rome were in no mood for anything but suicide.”
“And, of course, you explained the consequences of a hasty rush to judgment?” Fiona asked.
“Say what?” They were also in no mood for rebuttal,” the Eggplant sighed.
“What did they say when you told them she was pregnant?” Fiona asked.
His face froze and he looked at he with his cryptic rheumy eyes. Then his mouth tightened into a joyless smile.
“I didn’t,” he said, nostrils quivering.
“Talk about cover-up,” Fiona muttered.
“Didn’t say, therefore didn’t lie,” he said.
“That’s a bad-guy line,” Fiona sighed.
“I know.”
“Then, why not?”
He looked into space for awhile, then struck a match and relit his panatela, inhaling, then puffing out his cheeks and expelling a smoke stream.
“They weren’t ready for it,” he said into the smoke’s wake. “I’m saving them from themselves, giving them deniability. Not to mention that I don’t trust either of them.”
There was, she knew, a two-edged truth in that. Lack of trust was only one edge. The other was that he was also playing the loyal flunky, setting himself up as scapegoat if it came out in the wrong way at the wrong time, giving the mayor a chance to deny knowledge and point a finger at a sub-sub subordinate, always the best choice of goat.
“Does Dr. Benton know this?” Fiona asked. She was calculating how many people up to that point knew the truth. Dr. Benton, of course, and his assistant who would have transcribed his notes.
“We had us a little talk.”
“He won’t hide it and you know it.”
“No, he won’t. If asked. But for the moment, no one is asking.”
“However you slice it that puts us between a rock and a hard place,” Fiona said.
“Worse than that. The mayor promised to keep Congressman Rome apprised.” Apprahzed.
“Sounds like a little too kissassy political to me,” Fiona said, hoping she had put a sneer into her tone.
“Shall I convey these sentiments to hizzoner?” the Eggplant said. She looked downward, surveying her well-kept nails, assessing her cuticles. She just wanted him to be sure that she knew the ploy. Not that it was at all sinister. The case was a hot potato. The House leadership had leverage over the mayor. What good was leverage if it wasn’t judiciously exerted?
“So, we’re the ones on the hook,” Fiona said.
“In more ways than one. More than anything, they want suicide,” the Eggplant shrugged.
She did not respond, watching him. He walked to the window again, looked out, blew smoke against the dirty windowpane.
“No way we’re going to prove that,” he said, his anger rising as he spoke. “No way. Leaves a lot of grey area. If I was them, the pro-lifers, I’d be sitting out there watching and waiting like a line of circling vultures. We say suicide. They say cover-up, that we’re hiding an ideological murder for political purposes. And the prochoicers. We say suicide. They saw why, then start poking around and soon we got the press on our ass and more troubles.”
He turned from the window. No longer the poseur, he was basic Eggplant now. Telling it the way it was. No frills, no flakery, no bullshit.
“I hate it when they use us hardworking cops to do their political dirty work. Okay, maybe we’re not the top of the ladder prestige-wise or money-wise. But we’re out there in the front lines putting our substance between them and the bad guys. I’m not talking causes here. Not race. Not liberal, conservative, right wing, left wing. Not abortion, anti or pro. Not nothing but cops.”
She looked at Cates who was a mirror of her own frustration.
“So where does that leave us?” she whispered.
He seemed to rear up like a bear on his hind legs, his words almost a growl.
“We’ve got to find us a killer, preferably one who would be relieved to confess.”
Cates and Fiona exchanged glances.
“How much time do we have?”
The Eggplant looked at his watch.
“You got until high noon,” he said.
“I should have expected that,” Fiona said. “I saw the movie.”
15
Cates was visibly depressed. They were sitting at one of Sherry’s chrome, Naugahyde and Formica booths, drinking more cups of coffee than was good for them. For him, Fiona knew, the McGuire case was a rite of passage.
She had not been thrilled at being paired with Cates. He had no visible street smarts. Worse, he was an idealist, which was charming, but misplaced in his profession of choice.
He was also a bit of an esthete, a totally useless virtue in their line of work. On the other hand, he was efficient, analytical, loyal, trustworthy and compassionate. Not too shabby for a cop. He also moved with the quick sureness of a panther, had a black belt, was a crack shot and fearless.
After three months together, she had stopped bullying him and his respectful willingness to learn how to be better won her respect. Despite the cases they had worked on, he had actually managed to keep himself above the cynicism and disillusionment that was a natural affliction of their work, like lung disease to a miner. Sooner or later, she knew, the affliction would invade his cells. Unfortunately, it was destined to make him less savory as a human being, but a greatly improved homicide detective. She wondered if the McGuire case would see the first penetration of his immune system.
“He’s putting our careers at risk,” Cates said. “We’re civil servants not politicians.”
“Where you been pal? Life is politics.”
“Not my life,” he muttered.
“That’s your problem, Cates. You haven’t got a devious enough mind. You need a higher level of sophistication. It takes practice to talk out of both sides of your mouth. The important thing is to never lose sight of your objective.”
“And what’s that?”
“The truth.”
Again she felt the pang of guilt about Greg and what she had done, sharper now, an acute pain. She was a dissimulator, a liar babbling platitudes about truth.
She and Greg had come home from Boston Sunday night and he had dropped her off at her home.
Then he had called her first thing in the morning. He knew her habits, of course, the exact hour she rose.
“Missed you like crazy,” he said. “Just wanted you to know.”
“Mighty cold here all alone,” she had bantered, actually patting the left side of the bed which was ordinarily his place when he stayed over.
“Doesn’t have to be,” he had told her.
A warning signal went off in her mind. What was he saying? He interpreted her silence as encouragement.
“Call it a trial run,” he said.
She knew, of course, exactly what he meant. Living together. A scary concept considering what she hoped was going on in her body.
“We’ll see,” she said. It was what she had dreaded most. He was rewriting the script.
“Not pushing,” he said, backing off. “Just falling in love.”
“What!”
Love? She hadn’t called what she felt by that name. Attracted? Yes. Turned on? Absolutely. But love? She dismissed it from her thoughts. Her objective here was procreation. Not love.
“Talk about it next weekend,” he said. She caught a hint of disappointment. You’re making a federal case out of this, she thought, but she didn’t say it. Finally, he hung up leaving her shaken. He wasn’t supposed to do that.
She resented this intrusion on her thoughts. She had kept it at bay all during the Eggplant’s morning revelations. But it was her own attack on Cate’s lack of deviousness that had penetrated her defenses.
“Seems to me he wants to get us to push due process to the wall,” Cates said. “Find this killer at all costs. Even if we can’t make it stick. Unless, we squ
eeze it out of him. Maybe we get ourselves some rubber truncheons.”
“I kind of like the idea,” she said. “Full of surprises, that dude, considering that he may be better off to just lay down and cry suicide.”
“Makes sense to me,” Cates muttered. “Despite his big number about cover-up.”
“Keep an open mind, pal,” she teased.
“Wouldn’t have been in this pickle if that self-centered showboat would have kept his mouth shut. A mystery, he called it. Just to satisfy his ego and vanity. No mystery as far as I can see.” He brought his coffee cup to his lips, forgetting the coffee was cold. He shook his head and spit a mouthful back into the cup. “He was right about one thing. You did bring back motives from Boston but nothing that contradicts suicide.”
“And you, Cates. What did your little sortie turn up last weekend?”
“Not much.”
He proceeded to tell her. He had put in long hours and lots of shoe leather. Nobody could research a case better than Cates. He was a stickler for detail.
Among others, he had interviewed the person who manned the apartment house desk that night, a Nigerian. His report to Fiona was brisk, succinct. Mrs. McGuire had switched phone answering back to her apartment when she came home. Up to the time Foy arrived it had been a routine shift. Nor had the man noticed any strangers coming through the lobby. He did his best to recall but he could have missed someone. Tenants of that building were a demanding bunch, the man had pointed out. Always needing something.
“Some security,” Fiona chuckled.
“He was the night man. A full-time student. Only on the job two months.”
Foreign students who worked mostly nights were a Washington subculture. Living on the economic brink, they took lowly jobs as parking attendants, apartment desk men, caretakers, gas pump attendants or all-night waiters.
“But it is a prestige building nonetheless,” Cates explained. “Ten congressmen live there. Three senators and a cabinet member. Even our present watchdog, the eminent Congressman Rome, lives there with his wife.”
Fiona remembered Rome’s words at the service. He had said he was a neighbor.
“I interviewed the people that lived on either side of her and across the hall. All said she was a quiet neighbor, kept to herself. Always pleasant, gave them a ready smile and a hello. They did say, however, that she was often seen in the building with a man. In the lobby. Coming up the elevator. Coming out of her apartment. Chubby fellow with lots of chins.”
“Foy.”
“The desk man thought, at first, that he was her husband or boyfriend.” Cates paused, then smiled archly. He hadn’t completed the explanation.
“What made him change his mind?”
“It was the way he said it. A wink. More like a leer. Highly doubtful, he told me. One night the man arrived drunk. The clear implication of the Nigerian was that Foy made a pass.”
“When?” Fiona asked.
“The man only worked there two months.”
“Maybe Foy wanted the new man to think that. Sort of a cover ploy,” Fiona said. “Best there was. She could then be having an affair with impunity.”
“Impunity didn’t plant that child,” Cates said, a rare joke for him.
“You didn’t mention it to the Eggplant. The stuff about the pass at the desk man.”
“No.” He shook his head as if to emphasize the point. The fact was that Cates hadn’t briefed the Eggplant on anything that morning. After Fiona had made her report, he had erupted.
“It wasn’t mentioned because you wrote Foy off as a suspect, right?”
“I thought we all did,” Cates said, obviously confused by her sudden pressure. “He seems obvious to me. He’s effeminate, a pufter boy as we called it in the old country.”
“You believe the Nigerian?”
“He had no reason to lie.”
“He take Foy up on it?”
“He said no.”
“Not like you Cates. To throw in your hand so early. The fact is you have no proof on Foy’s sex bias.”
She watched his nostrils twitch. Then he shook his head and offered a joyless smile.
“Christ, Fi. If I didn’t know you better, I’d say you were trying to make that poor bastard the killer? Deliver the Eggplant his patsy.”
She studied him, searching for some excuse to cap her anger. The politics of the situation was getting to him.
“You got a bug up your ass, Cates,” she said.
He lowered his eyes and shrugged and she sensed his embarrassment.
“He just got me riled,” he muttered.
“The point is that I’m sure as hell not writing Foy off. Not yet. That lady died with a baby growing in her uterus. It wasn’t immaculate conception. Somebody did it. As for the man’s being dubbed a gay, never believe rumors or hearsay. Only way you know if a man is overtly gay is if he admits it or you catch him at it. As for all the closet stuff, leave that to the psychiatrists. I’ve seen lots of sissy boys who screw women and lots of macho men who are gay. Watch out for those clichés, Cates. In our business nothing is ever as it seems.”
He needed a little more bullying, she had decided.
“All right then, let’s ask the son of a bitch,” Cates said. “Settle it one way or another.”
“And if he says ‘Yes, I am,’ he’s got his alibi.”
“And if he says ‘No,’ he’s automatically a suspect?”
“Maybe. Unless he’s some kind of a neuter, one of these guys who couldn’t care less. Lots of them around, you know.” She winked. “I’ve met my share.”
He grew thoughtful. And she felt remorse.
“I know. I’m being a pain in the butt. We’re missing something is all I’m saying. We’re also working under a severe handicap. We need more troops on this.”
“Widen the circle? Hell, he wants to keep it contained. That way he can blame us.”
Fiona chuckled.
“Maybe we should get us a little insurance on that,” Fiona said.
“Like what?”
“I’ll think of something.”
“Okay, let’s keep Foy open,” he said, somewhat grudgingly.
“Let’s keep everything open,” Fiona replied. “Stick with the objective facts here. Frankie McGuire had sex with somebody and she took no precautions.”
“Maybe she thought she was too old to conceive?”
“She probably was. Forty-seven. Normally over the hill for that.”
“Let’s put it down as an accident. Passion must have gotten the better of her judgment.”
“Or his.”
“It happens, I suppose,” he said, lowering his eyes. She had noted in him a prudish streak. He rarely used the “F” word and often spoke in euphemisms when discussing sex. Like now.
“Was she a whore, you think?” she asked. “A hardup lady on the make looking for young meat.” Although his skin color didn’t show it, she knew he was blushing.
“Doesn’t fit. Not from what I was able to find,” he answered crisply, still averting his eyes.
“No way,” she agreed. “She was too image conscious, too political. She wouldn’t take the chance.”
“But she apparently did take the chance,” Cates countered. It was a little victory for him and it seemed to burn away any brewing anger.
“Considering the results,” Fiona said, “she certainly did.” Again the thought of Greg and her own “chance” clashed through her mind.
“There wasn’t anything the immediate neighbors said that we could hang a hat on either,” Cates continued. “Sometimes, the neighbors told me, she would entertain, have a cocktail party. Mostly Congressional business, constituents, colleagues, some of whom lived in the building. She was seen a lot with the Romes, though. They were a threesome. Occasional dinner and a show kind of thing. Squares with what Foy and May Carter said. Cavorting with the enemy. Something like that.”
She knew he was thorough, his interrogations revealing and precise. But there was no
thing in them that could satisfy the Eggplant and he knew it. It boiled down to the same dilemma and led to the obvious.
“He’s got us chasing rainbows, Fi.”
“We could be overlooking something,” she said. It was the homicide detective’s ultimate cliché.
“I also checked the Boston shuttle. They faxed me a passenger roster for the week before the crime. No Grady. No McGuire.”
“Doesn’t matter. They both have alibis. Airtight,” Fiona said.
“I also checked out May Carter. Hell, if it was a murder it has all the signs of a woman’s touch. Poison. A female’s weapon of choice.”
Good point, she thought. Forty percent of murders were committed by women. Since they weren’t traditionally involved with violence and firearms, females used other means. Poison and fire were their favorites.
“Struck out on old May, too,” Cates said. “She was at a Right-to-Life meeting in Kansas.”
“So, it’s back to Foy,” Fiona said. She looked at Cates and shrugged.
“Poor bastard,” Cates said. The compassion was real, despite his earlier remarks. For a moment it crossed her mind that Cates might be gay. He was surprisingly delicate, with soft sensual thin lips and brooding dark eyes. He was also thin, tapered. One might say he was effeminate. But, no, he had a steady, Arleen, a nurse at the Washington Hospital Center. See, she rebuked herself, how easy it was to fall into the trap of making judgments on appearances alone.
“Maybe we should put it to Foy once and for all,” Fiona suggested. “Fact is he’s our only suspect.”
“And for your second choice?”
Fiona didn’t answer.
“The Eggplant’s good,” Cates said, “but he’s been wrong before.”
“He’s not wrong,” she snapped. “It’s us.”
“Not me,” he persisted. “You know where I stand.”
“Maybe that’s what’s wrong. No fire in the belly.”
“That’s not it,” he replied.
“What then?”
“No clues,” he said. “Killers can’t be manufactured. Not even Foy.”
“No they can’t,” she agreed. “But I’ve got this theory.”
“What theory?”
“Find the father. Find the killer.”
