Death of a Washington Madame

by Warren Adler

  "Does what?"

  "Have a stake in the future." Fiona said. "She'll do anything to protect that stake. Hence our suspicion."

  "I don't buy it," the Eggplant mused.

  "But it does hang there," Gail interjected, "like an old sheet swinging in the wind."

  "You still on that kick too, Prentiss?" the Eggplant asked. "Where is your sisterly concern. You dames can be more brutal to each other than to my gender buddies."

  Gail shot a glance at Fiona before answering.

  "Last time, I was a race baiter in need of counseling. Now I'm a female trasher," Gail said, smiling, as it to extract any bitterness from the remark.

  "I'm still holding you to counseling Prentiss," the Eggplant said, ignoring the gender business, always a minefield.

  "I may be self-curing Chief," Gail said. "Now that we're off this nigger in the woodpile kick."

  "Very funny," Fiona said.

  "Jesus, Prentiss," the Eggplant groaned.

  "Proves the point. I can make blatant ethnic jokes. I'm cured."

  "Now that she has a possible white perp in her sights," Fiona said. The bantering seemed good-natured. Even the Eggplant, despite himself, offered a chuckle. An eavesdropper on this conversation might have hauled all of them up on charges.

  "I think your theory is garbage," the Eggplant said. "Besides, me and the star have become kissing cousins. Called me.... "He looked at his watch. "No more than an hour ago. I'm thinking of installing a direct line."

  "What was it this time, Chief?"

  "Seems that little fire caper was on her mind. I think she caught it on the radio. The old media Cyclops, never rests, never sleeps, stuffing the bull into its greedy maw. Anyway she wanted more information and I gave her what you gave me."

  "What was her reaction?"

  "I would say ... what's the word. Bemusement. She was bemused. Couldn't understand this never-ending saga. That's the way she put it. Never ending saga. Even asked my advice."

  "Which was?" Fiona asked.

  "Pray for mayhem in other places. Keep the media chasing Iraq, oil spills, foreign wars, terrorist bombings, drug raids in Mexico, plagues and pestilence invasions."

  "Good spiritual advice, Chief," Fiona said.

  "Never fear, she's a master at the game. Done pretty good so far."

  "So what you're saying Chief, is that we don't push this path of opportunity."

  "Not without better evidence than the ravings of this senile old man and.... "He apparently wanted to say more, perhaps something referring to the power of female envy, which seemed the logical next step in his denial, but he stopped himself.

  "They're not ravings," Fiona said. "His comments about Madeline and the mutual hatred between her and the victim suggest a course of investigative pursuit. That's all we're saying. It's not a theory to be cavalierly dismissed ."

  He smiled but did not take umbrage.

  There was something stirring in back of her mind. It hadn't quite surfaced, but she sensed it was on its way.

  "So they hated each other," the Eggplant argued. "So what? Lots of people hate each other and don't hire contract killers.... some contract killer. Little bastard."

  "We could always rattle Clayton's cage," Fiona said cautiously.

  "Who's Clayton?"

  "The bodyguard. You met him Chief at the Shipley place. Used to play for the Skins."

  "I thought he looked familiar," the Eggplant said.

  "He might also look familiar to Martine," Gail said.

  "Isn't once burned enough?"

  "He did say he thought it was a black man," Fiona pressed."

  The Eggplant stuffed the panatela in his mouth, a sure sign of tense cogitation on his part.

  "I can already hear the thundering hoofs heading my way," the Eggplant said.

  "It's a stone to be unturned," Fiona said, noting that her chief seemed to be waffling over the idea of Madeline using Martine to kill her mother in law with her boy Clayton's help.

  "What would she have to gain, setting that kid off," the Eggplant reasoned. "That's exactly what she would want to prevent. Fuel for the media that associates her husband with negativity or tragedy. Makes no sense."

  "Maybe the old Mrs. Shipley had threatened to do something, reveal something. Blow her son's Presidential ship out of the water." Fiona was surprised at the direction her thoughts were taking, the idea still standing at the edge of consciousness.

  "Like what?" the Eggplant asked.

  "I don't know. Something ... and yet it seems so bizarre."

  "How so?" the Eggplant asked.

  "According to Roy, Billy Shipley was his mother's life and apparently her life's work was to get him to the top."

  "If I can't have him nobody can," the Eggplant said, a tone of ridicule rising in his tone." Seems to me, FitzGerald. You got two trains on a one-track collision course."

  "Vivid image, Chief."

  "Too vivid," the Eggplant said. "Let's leave it on the table for the time being, capeesh?"

  Fiona nodded. The Eggplant stood up, an obvious dismissal tactic.

  Fiona was getting ready to leave the squad room when the telephone rang on her desk. It was Angus Macintosh."

  "So much for keeping things out of the media," he said. He did not sound upset.

  "I heard," Fiona said.

  "That's the bad news," Macintosh said. Unlike her previous exposure to him, he sounded downright playful.

  "Okay, I'll bite. What's the good news?"

  "All over. No auction necessary. That one buyer flew in the transom. We're all off the hook. I just called to thank you for your help."

  "Who was it?"

  "Believe it or not. Madeline Newton. Mrs. Shipley's daughter in law. All debts paid. Her own money and lots left over."

  "How much?"

  "Two hundred thousand dollars."

  Fiona was confused.

  "Why wasn't it done earlier? Might have spared Gloria's life."

  "I'm really sorry about that. But you see, they didn't know. The Shipleys had no idea. If Mr. Parker hadn't lit that fire and if it hadn't been reported, they wouldn't have known."

  "All's well that ends well, Angus," Fiona said.

  "Mrs. Shipley is a most gracious lady," Macintosh enthused. "Said she couldn't bear all those wonderful possessions going to strangers. Mentioned that beautiful portrait of her husband's father, too. Isn't that a wonderful gesture?"

  "The bank should send her flowers," Fiona said, remembering that the Governor was entitled to the heirlooms anyway. It was obvious that this was a ploy to shortstep the media at a comparatively cheap price.

  "They already have."

  After hanging up, Fiona looked through her messages, turning her mind back to the events of last night and this morning, remembering the terse note she had written to Hal. Was she having second thoughts? Yes, she admitted, looking forward to a lonely night alone after what was a trying day. Some days were more draining than others and this had been one of the most enervating.

  Gail had already left for home. She wished she hadn't. Perhaps she would call her at home and they'd go out for dinner. She hated the idea of going home to the house from which she had willfully, deliberately, chased her lover. Perhaps all this talk of undying love and sexuality had led her thoughts into a morass of self-pity and perceived deprivation.

  Then it occurred to her that she must call Roy. His condition was worrisome and his fate pressed upon her thoughts.

  She looked up the number of the Shipley house and dialed. She let the phone ring ten times. No answer. Of course, she thought. He had fallen asleep with his hearing aids intact. He probably awoke, took them off, and went back to sleep. Subliminally, she accepted that explanation, although there was a tiny jab of lingering doubt.

  She got into her car and started home. The sense of loss, of Hal especially, was getting to her as she drove, pushing her into a depressive state. She felt bereft, regretful, unsure of her decision. What, she wondered, was so precious ab
out her work, tracking down evil, angry, destructive people? Was their pursuit worth wasting her youth, expending the energy of her prime on such a thankless occupation?

  It was Thoreau who said that most people lived lives of quiet desperation. Did she fit that description? What she needed most at this moment, she knew, was the comfort of a man's body, strong arms wrapped around her, the feel of male flesh, the rejuvenating force of his body entering hers. In that act, life had meaning, the joy of pleasure, the wonder of human contact.

  Suddenly the lights in front of her swam in the tears of her eyes. She wondered if Dr. Benson was home and reached for the phone. No, she decided, his gentle way and soft rebuke would surely talk away her present state of mind. That was not exactly what she wanted. She needed this quake of private introspection to shake her up and perhaps find the key to her own self-cure.

  It was Gail who had announced that she had achieved her own "self-cure." Fiona had taken it to mean that she had come to terms with the perpetual ache of her guilt and the overwhelming sense that she was not without blame for all the suffering of her black brothers and sisters. It was, Fiona knew, a dangerous state of mind.

  But anxiety about Roy intruded again. It prodded that errant thought still bubbling in a distant puddle of her mind. She was approaching Thomas circle where the street spokes branched off toward Massachusetts Avenue, which was her direction and Sixteenth Street, which led to the Shipley house.

  She called the Shipley number on her cell. Despite her earlier reasoning, the lack of response was worrisome and her sense of anxiety accelerated. At times, she had been plagued by this intuitive sense of impending doom. Mostly it was a highly inaccurate measure of the future. Nevertheless, in her highly vulnerable state, the idea panicked her and she took the Thomas Circle spoke that led to the Shipley house. She was there in minutes. The house was in total darkness.

  Remembering that the lock had been broken when the firemen had entered the front door, she parked and found she was able to open the door with little effort. When she entered, she flicked the switch and the big rock crystal chandelier bloomed with light.

  She moved along the hallway to the rear of the house, toward the kitchen, putting lights on as she went. She allowed herself to assume that Roy was sleeping and did not call out to him. For her, the ideal situation would be to merely check on his condition, then satisfied that all was well, she would leave.

  But when she reached his room, his bed was empty. The blanket with which she had covered him lay rumpled on the floor.

  "Roy," she called, listening. No sound returned. She studied the room. Nothing seemed to have changed. The door to the storeroom was still open, with the materials she had seen there before still intact.

  "Roy," she called again, raising her voice in counterpoint to the returning echo.

  Of course, she told herself, although Gail had taken the ignition key, there was another set. Oddly that possibility had never crossed her mind. To confirm this presumption, she went out the rear door and crossed the alley to the garage. The car was gone. She felt ashamed of their oversight.

  Instead of leaving, she went back into the house, still arrested by the nagging idea that still nibbled on the edge of consciousness. She roamed the house, intent on dredging up this idea, certain that it had something to do with the secret scenario that had played out in these rooms. At the same time, she used this emerging germ of an idea to delay her leaving the house. Surely, Roy would be back shortly, his mission accomplished She would wait.

  Entering the great room, she clicked on the various lamps that were scattered in various places. One switch put a spotlight on the painting of Mrs. Shipley's young husband, forever frozen in his hero's pose.

  She studied the painting, arrested by the eyes, which, as often happened when one concentrated on a painting, seemed to become alive. When she moved, the eyes moved, as if she were trapped in its gaze. The inevitable corny question popped into her mind. Was the picture trying to tell her something?

  She moved toward it, reached out and lifted it partially so that she could see behind the canvas. There it was, the neat lettering, Roy Parker, April 1945. The idea that had been assailing her began to take shape in her mind. She remembered the old and yellowing sketchbook that she had seen in Roy's storeroom.

  Retrieving it, she came back into the living room and compared the various charcoal sketches with the pose in the painting. The position of the body seemed to have been fixed in the very first sketches, but as she turned the pages, she noted that the face had undergone considerable changes. Indeed, the first sketch of a face had barely any resemblance to the last in the sketchbook, the one that most closely resembled the face in the painting.

  As she turned the sketchbook pages, many of them yellowed and fragile with age, a fragment of what seemed like a page ripped from a magazine floated to the floor. It was a compendium of medals and ribbons depicting decorations of various types. The date on the magazine was July 1944.

  She thumbed through the sketchbook and continued to study the picture. Something in the soldier's face arrested her, kept drawing her back, but she couldn't quite decide what it might be. Again she studied the sketchbook. Obviously the artist was evolving the final version of the face.

  The evolution was troubling. One would expect that a dead soldier's portrait might be done from a photograph. She began to search the room for a photograph of the young soldier.

  There were any number of photographs of Deb Shipley and important people at the time. Deb with President Eisenhower, Deb with a young John Kennedy, with Lyndon Johnson, with a young Richard Nixon, Deb with various Senators and Congressman who were certainly celebrities in their time. There was even a picture of Deb Shipley and Fiona's father. Although it surprised her, she realized that it would not have been uncommon. In his day, Senator FitzGerald maintained a very high profile. He was handsome, gregarious and very much on the social scene.

  The photographs were mostly in silver frames of elaborate designs, tucked away on every available surface and shelf. The walls seemed to have been reserved for paintings of dogs, obviously lovingly rendered by Roy Parker.

  The dog paintings were accessible and she unhooked a number of them to look on the backs of the canvasses. The earliest painting was of a German Shepherd, painted in February 1943.

  Of course, the dominant picture in the room by far was the painting of the young soldier. Fiona estimated that it was probably life-size, the portrayed figure at least six feet tall.

  Fiona knew it was not uncommon for a public room to contain many pictures of the host or hostess with various political celebrities. Nor did she think it amiss that there were few personal family pictures in the room. It did not strike her as unduly odd that there were no pictures of Deb's dead husband. After all, his spectacular portrait was a ubiquitous presence in the room.

  Ascending the stairs to the first level, she walked through the master bedroom where Mrs. Shipley had been murdered. The room was immaculate now, obviously cleaned and lovingly tended and polished by Gloria and Roy. There was even the sense that Roy had administered his care to the room that very day. The way it was cared for indicated that it had been treated as a kind of shrine to the memory of its lifelong occupant.

  Unlike the great room, the bedroom was filled only with personal pictures, all depicting various phases of Deb and William Shipley's life. There was Deb as a baby, Deb with what must have been her parents when she was a child. Deb in jodhpurs, holding the harness of a horse. Deb with William as a baby. William at various stages in his life. William as a graduate in cap and gown. William being sworn in to various elective offices. William with a woman who must have been his first wife.

  As she had noted before, there were no pictures of Madeline Newton, conspicuous by their absence, considering that she was probably one of the most photographed women in the world. But there was another, even more telling conspicuous absence.

  There were no pictures of the young senior William Ship
ley. No wedding pictures. No pictures of a happy couple on their honeymoon. Not a trace of the young dead soldier.

  One could argue, Fiona thought, that such real life photographs of the dead husband might be too painful to exhibit. People grieved in different ways. And, after all, there was a highly romanticized picture of the young man in full view of anyone who had ever walked into the house. Holding with that argument, Fiona searched the room for any photo albums that might have held pictures of the man.

  At the bottom of a chest of drawers, Fiona found a number of leather bound albums. She sat down at Mrs. Shipley's desk and trained the desk lamp on the albums, studying them carefully to see if she could find any face that might remotely resemble the man in the picture.

  Unsuccessful, she began to roam through the house. One of the front bedrooms was obviously William's room from childhood through teenage. It was large, a typical boy's room with diplomas, photographs of various athletic teams, banners of the schools William had attended, Choate, Harvard, various summer camps.

  There were photographs of William with what obviously were teenage sweethearts, photographs with Deb. Again, conspicuously, there were no photographs of anyone resembling the young dead soldier.

  Her detective's curiosity informed her that she was missing something, but she couldn't quite put her finger on it. In the Post article it was recounted that William Shipley, the elder, had volunteered for overseas duty in 1944, after spending a year in a Pentagon desk job.

  According to the article, he had risen to the rank to Captain and had participated in the invasion of Normandy and the Battle of the Bulge where he was highly decorated. It was in that battle that he was declared missing in action, which was not an uncommon designation in that fierce battle. Young William was born in the same month, December, 1944, that his father had been killed.

  In her mind, Deb had told the interviewer, she had often fantasized that her husband was the unidentified body in the tomb of the Unknown Soldier, which accounted for the picture displayed prominently in the den of William Shipley Jr.'s house in Middleburg. Jogged by the memory of the picture in its silver frame, Fiona also remembered, what she had not noted at the time, that in the Shipley den there was not a single picture of Deb Shipley with or without her son.