Death of a Washington Madame

by Warren Adler

  Gail finished her roaming and leaned against the wall watching the interrogation. It was not uncommon for one to remain silent while the other asked the questions, although Gail was often more voluble than most of her other partners, especially the males, and might often jump in with a probing question.

  "Can you think of anyone who could do such a terrible thing to ... to Madame?" Fiona asked.

  Gloria reflected for a moment, then shook her head slowly. Fiona watched her looking for some sign of hesitation. None was apparent.

  "No," she said in a whisper. "I can't.... can't believe anyone could do a thing like that to Madame. Everybody loved her."

  "Everybody?"

  Fiona detected the first note of hesitation.

  "Madame was a good person," Gloria sighed.

  "She was supposed to have a cutting wit," Fiona said. "If the put-down is too biting people take it for cruelty."

  "Madame? Madame was not a cruel person," Gloria protested gently. "But she was honest about people. What some people might take contrary was the way she joked. She knew the good ones from the bad ones."

  "Still, there were those who might not have taken her remarks as a joke," Fiona said. "She could have made enemies that way."

  "Madame had no enemies," Gloria said. "Anyone that knew her, knew she was honest and decent. She made jokes is all."

  "With a put-down style," Fiona said.

  "I don't know about that. She was a kind woman, the best in the world."

  "And you can think of no enemies she might have made? People who took her remarks wrong?"

  "Nothing I seen," she said emphatically."

  "In the years that you worked for her, Gloria." Fiona paused." Did she have any men friends?"

  Gloria seemed to rear up with indignation, obviously uncomfortable with the question. Then she stood up with some effort and walked to the other end of the room, turning suddenly, her expression troubled.

  "It's not my place, Miz..."

  "FitzGerald."

  "Miz FitzGerald." She shook her head. "Madame had many men friends."

  "I meant lovers, Gloria."

  Gloria's agitation clearly accelerated. Her nostrils widened in anger.

  "That's a terrible thing to say."

  "There's no need to be protective, Gloria. We need to get at the bottom of this. It's our job to know everything about the victim."

  Gloria shook her head vigorously.

  "Does that mean that to your knowledge she had no lovers?"

  "Madame never messed with men. She was a Godly woman, a good woman."

  "Gloria, Madame is dead."

  "Miz FitzGerald," Gloria said, pulling her shoulder's back, striking a pose of indomitable dignity. "In my heart, she will always be Madame. For me, she will always be alive."

  Denial, Fiona thought, she is in denial. Fiona had seen manifestations of this phenomenon before, many times.

  "I understand that, Gloria. Really I do. I was simply asking a question relevant to the investigation. We are seeking her killer, Gloria."

  "I told you." Gloria said with indignation.

  "I take that as gospel then, Gloria," Fiona said gently. "About men."

  Gloria nodded her understanding.

  "You must not hold anything back, Gloria," Fiona said. "What you might think is a small detail could help us find the person who did this terrible thing to her."

  "I understand, Miz FitzGerald," Gloria said firmly.

  "I know you do Gloria."

  Gloria sighed.

  "Nobody could ever say anything bad about Madame," Gloria said, a reiteration of her attitude.

  Gloria's reactions during this first interrogation had been contrary to Fiona's initial expectations. Fiona had come across faithful retainers before, but when she did many of them revealed a secret resentment of their employers. Gloria hinted at no such animosity. Quite the opposite. Nor did Roy. Fiona decided to let the matter sit and start a new tack.

  "Did Mrs. Shipley get along with William's wife?"

  Tension between Mrs. Shipley and her daughter-in-law had been a lingering impression left by Madeline Newtown at Daisy's dinner party and their conversations earlier in the day. Fiona had been seeking the perfect moment to pose such a question. This seemed like that moment.

  "I never mixed in Madame's family matters, Miz FitzGerald."

  "All I'm asking...."

  "I can understand English, Miz FitzGerald. We never mixed is all."

  "Don't you see Gloria," Fiona said trying to find the right tone of ingratiation. "By your refusal to answer the question, you leave us with the conclusion that all was not serene between Mrs. Shipley and Madeline."

  "It wasn't my place..." Gloria replied, her voice drifting off in protest.

  "It's perfectly natural for a loving mother to resent a son's wife..."

  "It's alright Gloria," Gail interrupted suddenly. "You don't have to hold back now. You don't have to be afraid of her."

  Gloria shot Gail a look of derision, as if she were insulted. Fiona was puzzled by Gail's remark.

  "I never feared Madame," Gloria said indignantly. "I told you. I loved her. You don't fear people you love."

  "I think you might have misinterpreted.... "Gail began.

  Fiona signaled Gail with her eyes. My interrogation, please. Gail shrugged and nodded.

  "Would it be mixing if I asked how she and William got on?"

  Gloria reflected for a moment, then offered a thin smile.

  "Madame loved William," she said.

  "Gloria. I'm a police detective," Fiona said with mounting inner frustration. "Believe me I respect your sense of confidence in terms of Mrs. Shipley. But someone murdered her, probably raped her. I'm not asking you to compromise your integrity or her dignity. Don't you want to find her killer?"

  Gloria lowered her eyes and nodded.

  "When you work for someone for nearly fifty years, Gloria," Fiona said. "I assume you have transcended an employer employee relationship, especially in this line of work. You've been her confidante, an intimate observer of this scene for nearly five decades. To find a murderer, it is often necessary to probe deeply into the life and character of the victim. Do you understand me?"

  Gloria turned and paced the room for a moment, obviously weighing the options. As she passed Gail, she gave her a brief look of disapproval. Finally, she moved closer to Fiona and stood before her. Fiona had to look upward to study her eyes.

  "William was the light of her life, Miz FitzGerald."

  Fiona smiled and shook her head in a gesture of approval.

  "So that anything that made him happy made her happy."

  A shadow crossed Gloria's face.

  "She loved Billy deeply."

  Fiona took note of the familiar diminutive.

  "And loving him would certainly indicate approval of anything that made him happy," Fiona persisted.

  "Madame was sorry that Florence never made him happy. Florence was his first wife. Billy is a sweet boy. He deserves to be happy."

  "Are you implying that Madeline Newton doesn't make him happy?" It was, Fiona knew, a trick question.

  "As I said, I don't mix in that."

  "But Gloria..."

  "I just don't mix, Miz FitzGerald."

  "But by your avoiding the issue, you're implying that there was a bone of contention between Mrs. Shipley and Madeline Newton. I'm not saying she didn't love her son, Gloria. The question is: Did they get along? Was Madeline Newton the source of friction between mother and son."?

  "I'm sorry. I just don't mix in that," Gloria repeated.

  "Gloria..." Fiona snapped, but before she could continue Gail interrupted.

  "Really Fi..." Gail began.

  "It's a legitimate question, Gail. Do I have to cite the statistics on family disputes and what they lead to? If anything, we should either dispose of the idea or pursue it. It may have no relevance whatsoever, but this woman should be able to provide us with some insight that will aid that decision
."

  "From her perspective, Fi, it is a violation of a trust. She has every right to keep that trust."

  Fiona felt the sting of rebuke. What the hell is going on here? Fiona wondered.

  "May I remind you Gail that this is not an ordinary case. William Shipley is a much talked about contender to be the next President of the United States."

  "What the hell has that got to do with anything?" Gail snapped. Fiona cut a glance to Gloria who was watching the argument with some confusion.

  "Maybe nothing Gail. But it doesn't excuse this woman from answering legitimate questions being put to her in the course of this investigation."

  "You're always dwelling on politics, Fiona."

  Fiona turned the observation over for a long moment. Two women competing for the attention of a man seeking the highest office in the land was certainly a relevant aspect of this case, especially since one woman was brutally murdered. Was there a political connection? Maybe not? But why inhibit the exploration?

  Political ambition, Fiona had learned, was a powerful generator of intensity and focus. Its grip on the psyche was fierce, tenacious, all-encompassing. It had devastated her own parents and destroyed the integrity of their marriage. Her father did love the political life to the exclusion of almost everything. Except her, the one exception. She was the apple of Daddy's eye. She felt his glory and his pain.

  Maybe Gail had a point. Maybe she was exaggerating its relevancy. And maybe it had no bearing on the case whatsoever.

  "Point noted," Fiona said sharply. "Let's put it on hold."

  "Good."

  The fact was that Gail had pushed a button that had gotten Fiona riled far beyond the issue itself. There was more to it than met the eye. For her own reasons Gloria was not being cooperative, obviously withholding information for her own secretive purposes. This seemed obvious. Normally, Fiona would have expected Gail and her to share the same observations. Information, after all, was the heart's blood of investigation. Information withheld was obstruction.

  The truth was that, so far, Fiona's detective instincts leaned toward the obvious, that Mrs. Shipley's murder was, most likely, a crime perpetrated by a drug crazed amateur looking for cash or something that could be easily converted into cash. Building on that assumption, Fiona speculated that the perpetrator knew that works of art and mementos were not easily fenced, were probably traceable and, therefore, valueless. There was also little to be found in the way of media equipment, stereos, recent model televisions or other electronic gadgets that could be easily disposed of for quick cash.

  Having no experience of this kind of household or lifestyle, the perpetrator might have been frustrated by the lack of these items, compounded by the fact that he was unable to find cash in the woman's pocketbook. He probably raped her in anger, killed her in outrage, then took off. It was, Fiona knew, a clichéd theory, but, more often than not, a reasonable assumption.

  "I'm trying to be cooperative, Miz FitzGerald," Gloria said, having seen the friction between Fiona and her partner.

  "I have to cover all the bases, Gloria. Perhaps you need time to think about this. I'd suggest you do and we'll certainly talk again."

  Gloria nodded.

  Fiona studied the woman's face. At that moment, her formidable air of protection of her late employer seemed impregnable.

  "I'll be right here Miz FitzGerald."

  "Here?"

  She was almost militantly emphatic, which was puzzling. Fiona hadn't thought about where Gloria and Roy would live now that Mrs. Shipley was gone. She had simply assumed the house would revert to Mrs. Shipley's estate and be disposed of according to her official behest.

  Perhaps, Fiona speculated, the murdered woman had made arrangements for the two to stay on and provided them with the income for maintenance. It was a matter that seemed too delicate to be brought up at the present time.

  "Well then Gloria," Fiona said as she and Gail prepared to leave the room. "We'll know where to find you."

  Flanagan's boys had discovered plenty of latent fingerprints and Fiona speculated that these clues might lead to a fingerprinted juvenile with a long rap sheet who would be easily identified, with an arrest sure to follow. Unfortunately, this was a high profile case, as Madeline Newton had contended, sure to be spread over the media and interpreted as a manifestation of the crime epidemic that the police were, allegedly, powerless to stop.

  "Ragtime?" Fiona asked Gail, trying, with a spin of gender joking, to jolt her out of her long pout as they drove back to headquarters.

  "Must you?" Gail muttered.

  "Considering the wild eruption, it does have a certain logic."

  "With you it's either hormonal or political, Fiona."

  "And with you Gail? What the devil is going on?"

  "I think you were a little patronizing with Gloria Carpenter," Gail said.

  The comment took Fiona by surprise. She cut a puzzling glance at Gail.

  "Patronizing?"

  "Like you were talking to a darkie on the old plantation," Gail said.

  "Are you serious Gail?" Fiona asked, knowing she was, but hoping she wasn't.

  "That's the way it struck me," Gail said. Then after a long pause with unmistakable intent: "Sergeant."

  "Sergeant?"

  "You couldn't possibly understand," Gail murmured.

  Fiona turned away before answering, going over in her mind the full impact of her intent. It was unmistakably racial. The dreaded dragon rises from the mud, Fiona thought, hating the implication and fearing its consequences to their relationship.

  "Sorry," Fiona said, hoping she might deflect the obvious. "I don't see it that way. I see no violation in method, protocol or sensitivity. Frankly your attitude is puzzling ... officer."

  Gail shrugged.

  There was an undercurrent here that she had best avoid. Let it ride, she decided. Maybe the dreaded dragon would return to the slime and go back into hibernation.

  They drove to headquarters in silence.

  CHAPTER 5

  As Fiona had expected, the television news and the newspapers were filled with the story of the murder. As if in revenge for the manner in which Madeline Newton treated him, the Eggplant was quoted as saying that Mrs. Shipley was probably raped. The headlines in the press were, as Madeline Newton predicted, lurid and sensational.

  Old pictures of Mrs. Shipley at the height of her glory were displayed. There she was with Presidents and royalty, just as Roy had described it. There was an irony, too, in the fact that there were more pictures of her more famous daughter-in-law in the coverage than of victim.

  The stories filled in more details of Mrs. Shipley's earlier background. Her father had been in the auto parts business in Ohio, had sold his business after his wife had died and come to Washington as a Roosevelt appointee in the NRA. He had bought the house on 16th Street and died sometime after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. Mrs. Shipley had married young William soon after. He was subsequently sent overseas and reported missing and presumed dead in 1944.

  Mrs. Shipley stayed on in Washington and eventually established herself as one of Capital's prime hostesses in the fifties, sixties and seventies after which, she began to fade into obscurity until her son William, jr. became interested in politics, serving first as a Congressman from Northern Virginia for three terms, then as Governor of Virginia.

  Even in citing Mrs. Shipley's background, the media was less than expansive. They seemed far more interested in the life of her daughter-in-law, Madeline Newton, her marriages, her movies, even her political views.

  In the next few weeks, Fiona expected, the tabloid press would have a heyday and the speculation about Mrs. Shipley's murderer would, as Madeline predicted, reach accelerating levels of absurdity.

  The day after the murder, Hal Perry woke her early. He was calling from Indonesia.

  "You're famous," he said. "Your boss was quoted in the Post as saying he had his best team on the case. Named names."

  "News sure travels
fast."

  "Over modems, Fi. The globe has shrunk to the size of a pea."

  "Did they spell my name right?"

  "On the money," he said. "By the way I love you."

  "And me you."

  "This is crazy, me being so far away."

  "And me in bed here. This is where you should be. Locked in my arms."

  "That's where I want to be. You can make it happen, Fi. Say the word. I'll send the jet. We can get married in China."

  "I thought you were in Indonesia."

  "We just took off."

  "When will you be back?"

  "Can't say for sure. There's only one certainty I live with. My love for you. We have to put it on the front burner, Fi."

  She knew what that meant, the finality of resolution and it frightened her.

  "We'll certainly discuss it," she said, hoping it would suffice to placate him temporarily.

  "Will you catch the bad guy, Fi?"

  "Absolutely," she said.

  They talked some more, she steering the conversation to less controversial areas than their joint future. She hung up. With a force of will, she quickly filled her mind with speculations about Mrs. Shipley, her brutal murder and the people who surrounded her.

  "Evidence of semen," Dr. Benson said, his hands folded in a Cathedral as he peered through them to look at Fiona with his blue eyes. His Louisiana heritage, he called it, the result of a Frenchman passing through the Bayou. "Rape is a logical conclusion."

  They were having coffee and bagels in his office. Gail was doing follow-up calls in the squad room.

  "Before or after she was killed?" Fiona asked.

  "It would be pure speculation. I believe the events were too close together to call. The woman was stabbed only four times, but the carotid artery in the neck was the fatal blow."

  "She was seventy-seven," Fiona said.

  "And well preserved," he said. She knew him well enough to understand his delicate allusions, which sometimes told her more than his analysis in technical terms.

  "Does that mean you think she still had an active sex life?"