Immaculate Deception

by Warren Adler

  “Was it on the left? On the right?”

  She seemed to struggle with that for a few moments.

  “I’m not sure,” she said. She looked at McGuire. “Is it important?”

  “Not really,” Curran said. He seemed to have determined that the best way to get rid of her was to let her do her number.

  “When you got out of the cab were there many people around? Could it have been Georgetown?”

  “I wish I was sure,” Beatrice said, looking at Fiona. “I want to be cooperative. Really I do. But consider my condition and my emotional state.”

  “I am, Beatrice. I am quite sensitive to it.”

  “I want to do the right thing,” Beatrice said.

  “Of course, you do, my darling,” McGuire said. He picked up the hand which he was holding and brought it to his lips. There was genuine affection here, Fiona observed, wishing she could dispose of her suspicions, feeling queasy. Unfortunately, there was no going back. She had to play out the string, follow her instincts.

  She turned suddenly to Curran.

  “We’ll have to check out the cabs,” she said. “You’d expect that of your people as well.”

  Curran looked at McGuire. Again there was the exchange of collusive glances, but neither made a comment. But Beatrice’s eyes flitted between them nervously. She turned to face her.

  “All I want is some geographical point that puts you far away from the scene. A witness, for example, who saw you at the coffee shop. Something. Anything. I can’t go back and tell my boss that you simply forgot where you were.” Again, Beatrice looked at Curran, her expression deliberately troubled and pleading.

  Curran turned to her.

  “Surely you remember something, Bea?”

  “I was so overwrought,” she began, then shook her head vigorously. “I just don’t remember.”

  “Was it Georgetown? Did you walk in Georgetown?” Fiona asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “She wouldn’t even know where it is,” McGuire said.

  “Did you tell the cab driver where you wanted to go and then change your mind?”

  “I . . .”

  She hesitated and turned once again to McGuire.

  “Believe me, I can check that,” Fiona said.

  “Well, then, check away, dammit,” Curran said. “Stop harassing the lady.”

  Fiona ignored him and pressed on, concentrating her stare, trying to hold Beatrice’s gaze.

  “Did you get to the apartment house, then turn around?”

  “I told you I couldn’t go through with it,” Beatrice said.

  “So you went to the apartment house first, then turned around?”

  “I won’t have this,” McGuire said, getting up, his face flushed. Yet, he continued to hold her hand.

  “I did not kill her,” Beatrice cried. Her body stiffened as she raised her voice. “I did not kill her. I did not.” The veins stood out on her neck.

  “Stop this,” McGuire said, his rebuke directed now to Beatrice.

  “I only talked to her,” Beatrice whined. She had started to stand up then fell back on the chair. She had turned dead white. Fiona felt pity for the woman, ashamed for herself. Worse, she worried about the baby inside of her.

  “Some water, please,” McGuire screamed, rubbing Beatrice’s hands. Curran ran out of the room.

  “I’m so sorry,” Fiona said starting to rise.

  McGuire reached out with one hand, palm upward.

  “No. You’ve caused enough trouble.”

  Curran came back with the water and gave it to McGuire, who lifted it to Beatrice’s lips. Concentrating on Beatrice, they ignored Fiona who felt thoroughly guilt stricken. The sudden admission, although she had suspected what was in the air, had stunned her.

  “It’s all right,” Beatrice said finally, waving them away.

  “You had better go,” McGuire commanded. Curran was silent, averting his eyes. The man showed no emotion at all.

  Fiona got up. Her legs felt rubbery. Her mind told her she wasn’t supposed to go. How could she explain it away?

  “I’m sorry, Jack. We can’t have this,” Curran said.

  “What could I do, Billy?” McGuire whispered.

  “Too late now,” Curran said. They were still ignoring Fiona.

  “I’m glad it’s out,” Beatrice said. The color had returned to her face. “It’s a relief. I knew at confession this morning. I couldn’t tell anything but the truth.”

  “Goddamned priests,” McGuire mumbled.

  Fiona sat down again, waiting for some calm to set in.

  “I did go there,” Beatrice said. She looked directly at Fiona now. “But he didn’t know that I was going. Not then. We talked about it weeks ago when she changed her mind. At first he did suggest I talk to Frankie. Then he decided it would be too much stress for me. You see, she didn’t know I was pregnant. Finally, I said to myself, I’ll go see her, talk woman to woman. Show her what was happening. Plead with her. She couldn’t be as cruel as all that. She wasn’t interested in Jack anymore. She couldn’t be. I’m sure her constituents would understand. People are generous.” She paused, smiled, touched her belly. “There he is again. See he knows I’m doing the right thing.”

  She looked at McGuire, reached out and held his hand. A sweet and loving woman, Fiona decided, knowing that a detective must always look beyond the personality, keep all options open, eschew quick judgments. The woman’s face was suffused with joy and she envied her. Oh how she envied her. Perhaps she too . . . but she quickly put such sentiments out of her mind.

  “I called her from the airport. I was quite determined, you see. We had never met and when she answered the phone I identified myself and there was a long pause. Please Frankie, I must see you, I told her, explaining that I was in town. I don’t want to embarrass you in any way but we must talk woman to woman. At first she refused. But people do have a way of reaching across animosity and hatred. Finally, she did relent. But, bless her memory, she was still the politician, still protective of her image, still a bit fearful that I might be concocting something to deliberately embarrass her. She told me to have the cab drop me off at Wisconsin and M Street and she would pick me up there. True to her word she was there waiting and she drove the few blocks to the apartment house. We went in the garage you see. I didn’t realize it until later, but obviously she did not want me to go through the lobby. Probably wanted to keep me a secret, something like that. When I found out about what happened . . .” She looked at McGuire. “We thought that her taking me through the garage was a blessing in disguise.” She shrugged. “We were wrong as you can see. Anyway we went up to her apartment. I remember nobody was in the elevator. Inside she made some coffee and we talked.”

  She had been holding the glass of water as she talked, the words tumbling out of her, as if it were necessary to expel them as fast as possible. She raised the glass to her lips, finished the water, and gave the glass back to McGuire. He, too, appeared to be approving and relieved. Only Curran remained stolid and emotionless. All this was apparently news to him as well.

  “We chatted for a long time, circling the subject. I told her how much I respected all she was doing on those issues that were important to me, especially on the issue of abortion. I would never, ever, contemplate such a thing. Never. She touched her belly with both hands caressing it. I told her how much I loved Jack . . .” She paused, her voice breaking. Gathering control, she cleared her throat and continued. “. . . how much it meant to me to have his child. Tears came into her eyes. She told me that it had been impossible to hold her marriage together considering her role in politics. Nor could she blame Jack. Early on, she said, it had been a good marriage, that both she and Jack had respected each other and that she appreciated Jack’s willingness to go through the charade, she used that term ‘charade,’ when it counted for her career. She was not the unfeeling bitch I had once thought she was. She was very kind, very thoughtful, very understanding and we had a good cry
together. Finally I asked her why she had changed her mind after she had agreed to the divorce. She grew very depressed. The color drained from her face. Her lips trembled and for a moment she could not speak. I was very alarmed, afraid she was about to faint or something. Finally, she said . . .”

  Beatrice looked up and turned for a moment to briefly face each one that was listening.

  “I swear this to you. May God strike my baby dead, if I am not telling the truth. She said: ‘I give you my consent and I give you my blessing.’ I swear it on my baby’s life. She said that she would call her lawyer in the morning and told me to tell Jack to do the same. She said they would explore the quickest way to do it. Then she took me downstairs and drove me to the airport. We kissed in the car. I told her that I was eternally grateful . . .” At that point she faltered. Her chest heaved and her shoulders shook as she covered her face with her hands. After awhile, she removed her hands and wiped her tear-stained cheeks with tissues. McGuire had hurried out of the room to bring her a box of them.

  But she wasn’t finished yet.

  “When I came home I was so happy. So happy, Jack was upset with me, of course. I couldn’t blame him. He had been terribly worried and he had called Frankie. You know the rest. That man Foy called. I can’t believe it. I just can’t believe what happened. She was so kind and considerate. I had no idea that she would do that. No idea at all. I tell you it will haunt me all my life.”

  “You can’t blame yourself,” Fiona said. She had been deeply moved by Beatrice’s story.

  “It’s been a terrible burden for us, FitzGerald,” McGuire said, turning to Curran. “Can you ever forgive me, Billy? I should have told you the whole story. But I was so afraid for Beatrice. So afraid that they would accuse her of doing this to Frankie.”

  “What do you think, Bea?” Curran asked. He did not look at Fiona.

  “I tell you she was perfectly content when she left me at the airport,” Bea said. “I keep thinking that maybe after she got home, she mulled it over, felt some sense of overwhelming unhappiness and did away with herself.”

  “I can understand sleeping pills, some other overdose, but cyanide.” Curran shook his head and finally looked at Fiona. Although his face was still expressionless she could sense that the hostility had dissipated.

  Fiona turned to Bea.

  “What Chief Curran means is that the type of poison used implies planning. No one has cyanide lying around the house.”

  “Unless she was contemplating suicide for a long time,” Curran said. “Then, of course, she would have to obtain the cyanide, have it handy. It’s not something that lies around the medicine chest.” He turned to McGuire. “I never knew Frankie to manifest the slightest tendency to suicide. Unless she just flipped out.”

  “Not Frankie,” McGuire said. “Frankie was always in control.”

  “I don’t know what to make of it,” Beatrice said. “I’ve just been holding myself together for the sake of the baby. I’d never forgive myself if I caused her to do that. Never.”

  “I keep telling her,” McGuire said. “She can’t blame herself. We were hoping to keep a lid on this. Never works.” He turned to Fiona. “I hope you can keep this out of the media. Be messy for all of us.”

  “Certainly we’ll do our best.”

  She was tempted to tell them about how the mayor and important members of Congress were trying to do just that, but she held her peace.

  “There are still some questions,” Fiona said. She turned toward Curran and detected the faintest nod of approval.

  “I told you the absolute truth, Sergeant FitzGerald,” Beatrice said.

  “It’s just that these questions must be asked,” Fiona said. Beatrice sighed and nodded. “Do you recall touching anything in the room?”

  Beatrice grew thoughtful.

  “Certainly the coffee cups.”

  “Apparently she washed those,” Fiona said.

  “I went to the bathroom,” Beatrice said brightly. “Being pregnant you know. Yes, I went to the bedroom and used the bathroom.”

  “There was a guest bathroom. Why not that one?”

  “She said it would be more comfortable for me to freshen up in the bedroom john. Better lighting. Things like that.”

  “Did you touch anything?”

  “Of course. How could I do otherwise?”

  “That’s been the problem. The absence of prints.”

  “Believe me, Sergeant FitzGerald. I used the bathroom. I was there.”

  “In light of your story, Bea,” Curran said gently, “they would want to establish that you were there, corroborate it.”

  “And if they did?” McGuire asked.

  “Be a question of who believes what,” Fiona shrugged.

  “That’s why it seemed that the best way would be to deny that she was in the apartment. If the police couldn’t place her there what was the point of her telling everyone? Just because she was on the plane doesn’t mean she was at Frankie’s place.”

  Beatrice patted McGuire’s hand.

  “I’m happy I told them, Jack. Very much relieved. It’s the truth, the absolute truth. You can’t go wrong telling the truth.”

  “The car,” Curran said suddenly. “Frankie’s car.”

  “Of course,” Fiona said, reacting instantly.

  “They brush the car for prints?” Curran asked. He was all police professional now.

  Her hesitation gave him his answer.

  “We might have missed that, too,” Fiona said, a bit ashamed of the oversight.

  “That will prove it then,” Beatrice said. “I didn’t wear gloves.” She looked up and smiled at them.

  “On the one hand it will indeed corroborate your story,” Curran said looking at Fiona. She picked up the message. They were a team now, two detectives on the job.

  “And prove she didn’t sneak in to Mrs. McGuire’s apartment with bad intentions,” Fiona said hopefully. She felt herself fully in their corner. “Unfortunately, it still wouldn’t explain the absence of prints, or anything else to place her in the apartment. That could be a negative.”

  “How so?” McGuire asked with some concern.

  “Could be argued that she wiped away the evidence. Forgot about the prints in the car,” Curran said. He looked at Beatrice. “It’s all right, Bea. Just cop speculations. Nothing to be alarmed about.”

  “Maybe we should have kept quiet,” McGuire said.

  “I couldn’t live with it, Jack,” Beatrice said firmly. “I don’t care what they think.”

  “Suppose they just don’t believe her?” McGuire asked.

  “Don’t worry, Bea, it’s not enough to make a case,” Curran said.

  “I told the truth. That’s all that matters,” Beatrice said, turning to Fiona. “Do you believe me?”

  “Without a shadow of a doubt,” Fiona said.

  At that moment McGuire bent down and kissed her hair. It was odd, Fiona thought. Her first impression of McGuire was that he was shrewd, devious and corrupt, all of which he probably was. But she was quite touched by his display of loving affection. Suddenly she thought of Greg. Perhaps loving covered a multitude of sins. Perhaps she had been too judgmental, too willing to see his public life of dissimulation and insensitivity as an extension of his private life.

  Suddenly the room grew silent, each of its occupants lost in his or her own thoughts. It was the moment, Fiona decided. There was no way around it. They needed to know.

  “Mrs. McGuire was pregnant,” Fiona said quietly. No need for her to raise her voice. The information seemed to hit them like an earthquake.

  “Frankie?” McGuire responded hoarsely. Even Curran, for the first time that morning, showed signs of emotion. His mouth hung open.

  “How could she? She was . . .” Beatrice began.

  “Forty-seven,” McGuire said turning to Fiona. “That has got to be pure bullshit.”

  “This is an M.E. confirmation?” Curran asked, his voice strangely hoarse.

  �
��There is absolutely no question about it,” Fiona said. “Six weeks according to Dr. Benton, our M.E.” She turned to McGuire. “She was in superb shape.”

  “Frankie preganant?” McGuire said again. “Involved with a man? Jesus.” He turned to face Fiona. “Who was it?” he looked down at his hands, then at Beatrice. “I can tell you this much. It wasn’t me.” Beatrice smiled briefly.

  “That explains why she changed her mind,” Curran said.

  “Poor Frankie,” Beatrice said. “Oh God, I hope I didn’t push her to it.” She stifled a sob.

  “You didn’t,” Fiona said emphatically. An idea was forming in her mind, taking shape.

  “How can you be so sure?” Beatrice asked.

  Fiona pointed to Beatrice’s belly.

  “Would you kill that baby?”

  “Never. Absolutely never.” She shook her head repeatedly. “No way.”

  “Find the father . . .” Curran began.

  “. . . find the murderer,” Fiona said. It came as a pronouncement, without strings or doubts.

  18

  The Mayor was livid with rage. The Eggplant had played his card. He had just revealed to him and Charles Rome that Congresswoman McGuire was pregnant.

  “Why wasn’t I told this earlier?” he shouted.

  He turned in his big leather chair and looked at Congressman Rome, whose unruffled dignity contrasted severely with everyone in the room, including Fiona. The Eggplant, although immaculately groomed in his tan suit, chocolate brown tie with yellow stripes and cordovan tasseled loafers, was, she knew, fighting with himself to appear unruffled. Cates’s complexion had turned to the color of clay.

  “Frankly, it was such explosive information, I did not want to compromise you.” He paused and glanced toward Congressman Rome. “Either of you.” Rome had the air of a man for whom there were no surprises. Discipline and dignity were apparently the key to his persona. Quite obviously, he had harnessed these traits to the service of his political career.

  “That was for me to judge, Captain Greene,” the mayor said, somewhat mollified by Rome’s controlled reaction.

  “We needed to be sure because of the political implications. In this case, suicide might have been considered a rather crude form of abortion,” the Eggplant said, turning to the congressman. “It wasn’t the issue itself. The credibility of a dedicated congresswoman was at stake. I wanted to be sure before I reported it.”