Murder in the White House

by Margaret Truman

  “Is it true?” Chamillart asked. He swallowed his words in a deep, growling French accent. “Will you marry the daughter of the President?”

  Ron laughed, shook his head. “Not soon, anyway.”

  “Perhaps never, then,” said Chamillart. “If it were a true infatuation, you would not say ‘not soon.’ You would say soon, soon, immediately!”

  “What about you, Paul? A bachelor forever?”

  Chamillart turned down the corners of his mouth, laughed, and shrugged. “I was much interested in a young woman, an American… a tennis player. However—”

  “I saw something about that in the papers.”

  “Yes, but, Ron-ald, a tennis player! Ah, in the end, her executions of love were all in her game. And in tennis, love is only acceptable for the other person.”

  Chamillart laughed delightedly at his own joke. He was a well-educated man, deeply immersed in the artistic and literary history of his country. He was proud of French culture and quick to notice anything French that was appreciated and adopted in America. At the same time he openly resented anything un-French that Americans persisted in calling “French”—salad dressing, rotation pool, deep-fried potatoes (“ugh, that gummy orange mess you call French dress-ing, it is a libel on my country”).

  “Paul,” Ron said after they’d finished their champagne and agreed on their dinner. “I need to ask you a couple of questions.”

  Chamillart lifted his brows. “In your official capacity as the investigator into the death of Blaine?”

  “Well… unofficially.”

  “I didn’t kill him.”

  Ron laughed. “And you don’t know who did. But you may be able to help me.”

  “I am afraid, my good friend, you are going to need help… and much of it…. I was distressed to learn you had become the chief investigator—”

  “It seems a lot of my friends were.”

  “He is using you, my friend.”

  “He?”

  “The Presi-dent. Are you certain he wants you to find out who killed the Secretary of State?”

  Ron almost did a double-take. Then: “Yes, Paul, I’m sure—”

  “Ah, but when we find out who killed Blaine, then what will we know that the President does not want us to know?”

  “What do you have in mind?”

  Chamillart shrugged.

  “What had you heard about Blaine? I mean, before he died. Did you know, when the President didn’t, that Blaine was, as we say, corruptible?”

  “We say it too, old friend… Corruptible? No. I did not know, I doubt my government knew. I hear the talk now, but we did not know before.”

  Their talk was interrupted by the headwaiter, Jacques, who came to take their order. Ron let Chamillart settle the menu with Jacques.

  “Well…” Chamillart said when the waiter had left, “what questions, Monsieur l’Investigateur?”

  “Two. First, did you ever hear the name Philippe Grand?”

  “Certainly. Many times.”

  “Good. Who is he?”

  “He could be fifty people, a hundred. The name is hardly unusual. There was an old café singer in Paris—”

  “Do you know anyone specifically, today, named Philippe Grand?”

  Chamillart shook his head. “Why? Who is he supposed to be?”

  “Someone who called Blaine on the telephone many times during the last few months. Blaine always returned his calls. We don’t know who he is. We’d like to know. Blaine’s secretary says Grand spoke with a French accent.”

  “A French accent? What is that?” Chamillart allowed a smile.

  “Look, old friend, we need to find out why Blaine got and returned so many calls to a man we can’t identify. The man left his name repeatedly with Blaine’s secretary—Philippe Grand. So why can’t we find a Philippe Grand?”

  “I will put the question to our security officer in the morning,” Chamillart said. “We will ask Paris. I’ll be able to tell you by tomorrow afternoon if we know anything about your man.”

  “I’d appreciate that.”

  “But don’t forget, they speak a sort of French in Canada. Your Philippe Grand could be a Quebecois.”

  “I’ll check that too.”

  “Ah. Then, what is the second question?”

  Ron smiled. “The second question involves your relationship with a certain young woman—”

  “Ahh!” Chamillart grinned and kissed the tips of his fingers. “The wo-man in the case; and who is the woman?”

  “Martha Koczinski. Or Martha Kingsley, depending on how recently you knew her.”

  Chamillart’s grin instantly disappeared. “Ah, Martha… the lovely, intriguing Martha.” He nodded. “Of course. So she is the woman in your case—?”

  “I’m not sure what her involvement is, but she’s in it some way. I need to know all I can about her—”

  “So why do you ask me?”

  “The FBI has a file on Martha Kingsley. She’s been involved—or has been suspected of being involved—in certain leaks of confidential information. The FBI file includes a list of men known to have been her—shall we say friends? Your name is on the list.”

  “Not prominently, I hope—”

  “Not prominently enough to spoil your dinner. I was surprised, though, to find your name on the list… Did you pay her?”

  “In her own coin,” said Chamillart. He was subdued. “She wished to be invited to certain parties, to be introduced to certain people. We provided each other a quid pro quo.” He smiled faintly. “For my part I did what I was qualified to do for her. And for hers, she did what she was eminently qualified to do for me.”

  “And when she had all she wanted from you she broke off the relationship—?”

  “Oh, no! It was I who broke off the relationship.”

  Ron smiled. “Sorry…”

  Chamillart looked at Ron for a moment. “You misunderstand, my friend. It is not me you underestimate with your suggestion, it is her.”

  “She calls herself a prostitute,” Ron said. “Not me.”

  “Maybe she would like you to think that is all she is. I assure you, she is more.”

  “She had a relationship with Blaine—”

  Chamillart frowned. “She was, then, somehow involved in his death. I think you may be sure of it.”

  “Oh?”

  Chamillart sighed. “A tale of woe, I will tell you… But how shall I explain? Perhaps to begin with my reminding you that while it is not true that all cats are gray in the dark, it is a fact that a woman cannot hold a man’s attention long by what she does in bed.” He shrugged. “Nor can a man hold a woman’s attention long by what he does, for that matter. If the charming Martha wants to call herself a prostitute, very well, but she is a great deal more than that. Ron-ald, would you believe that I genuinely cherished my nights with her, not so much for what she did—which most any woman can duplicate—but for what she said? I enjoyed her company, her conversation, my friend. Her understanding, her capacity to amuse. No… more than to amuse—to stimulate. Do you understand?”

  Ron nodded, waited.

  “Do you remember the details of the N’Djamena affair?”

  “I remember,” Ron said. Chamillart had referred to an incident two years before when a Pan American 747 on a flight from Cape Town to Rome had experienced mechanical troubles and been forced to land at N’Djamena in the Republic of Chad. The Chad government had previously announced that any aircraft or airline crew member that took part in any flight to or from the white Republic of South Africa was barred from landing in Chad. The Chad government sent the passengers on their way but held the airplane and its crew—the crew to pay fines of $5,000 or to serve six-month jail sentences for their violation of Chad law by landing at N’Djamena, the 747 against a fine of $10,000,000 imposed on Pan American. The American chargé d’affaires at N’Djamena had not been able to negotiate a settlement, and the United States had secretly asked France to intervene on its behalf… “You bailed
us out of that one,” Ron said.

  Chamillart nodded. “You sent me a note, expressing your appreciation.”

  The waiter had arrived with plates of tiny scallops and mushrooms in a clear sauce, and their conversation stopped while the waiter served the dish and the white wine Chamillart had ordered to go with it.

  “Were you ever in Chad?” he asked Ron. “I wonder what they eat there.”

  “McDonald’s burgers?”

  “Probably… Anyway, about N’Djamena. Your Secretary of State—it was Blaine, of course—called our embassy in the middle of the evening. It was a Friday. By chance it was the birthday of Madame Gravier and we were celebrating the occasion with a small private dinner at the embassy. After dinner Ambassador Meline telephoned the Foreign Minister in Paris. We woke him in the middle of the night—it was, indeed, four in the morning in Paris—and communicated to him the urgent request of Secretary Blaine. The Foreign Minister was annoyed to have been wakened at that hour; he also recognized that the matter would not be simple, that our government would not be able to secure the release of the Americans and their airplane merely by asking. In fact, as you may not know, we applied pressure to the government of Chad by suggesting we might experience difficulty in delivering certain anti-insurgency weapons they had contracted to buy from us. The Foreign Minister was petulant. He remarked that it was strange how quickly Secretary Blaine came to him for help, immediately after refusing to cooperate in the matter of Martine Nanterre. His petulance was momentary, of the hour. He would never, in fact, have allowed l’affaire Nanterre to stand in the way of France’s doing what we could for the United States in the N’Djamena matter. At the moment, however, being wakened at four in the morning, he linked the two. Do you know what I mean… l’affaire Nanterre?”

  Ron knew… Martine Nanterre was a French actress who had been arrested and jailed in Florida some years before for possession of a large cache of heroin and cocaine. She had jumped bail and returned to France, and the French government, consistent with its law prohibiting the extradition of a French citizen, refused to return her to the United States. An arrest warrant remained outstanding for her, however, and later, when she was performing on the stage in London, the United States asked the British to arrest her and hold her for extradition to the United States. She was forced to give up her London play and return to France, which produced complaints in the French press that the United States was harassing a French citizen, hurting her career. Foreign Minister Thiers had, only a few weeks before the N’Djamena affair, quietly asked the government of the United States to drop the charges against Martine Nanterre. Secretary of State Blaine had refused…

  Chamillart held a bit of mushroom on his fork, letting it drip sauce onto his plate before he leaned forward and took it into his mouth. “Now back to Martha Kingsley,” he muttered as he savored the morsel. “I left the embassy before midnight and took a cab to Martha’s apartment. She was waiting for me, with a bottle of champagne chilled—my champagne, I provide it by the case. It was a memorable night, Ron-ald. A most memorable night. She inspired me to talk about things I had not talked about for years. Things from my childhood… I described my family’s summer holidays on the Brittany coast, and she seemed to enjoy every word of it. She also told stories of her own. It was a memorable night…”

  Chamillart put down his fork. “And during that night, Ron-ald, I committed a grave indiscretion. It was the kind of indiscretion that terminates foreign-service careers. I tell you in confidence, of course.”

  “Of course,” Ron said. “I guarantee it.”

  “I told her what the Foreign Minister said. Influenced perhaps by too many glasses of excellent wine, influenced certainly by her infectious enthusiasm for good conversation, I wanted to tell her something at once amusing and confidential, something only I could tell. So I told her how we awakened the Foreign Minister before dawn and how, most grumpy, he had joined the matter of Martine Nanterre to the matter of the Pan American 747. She appreciated the ironies of the story. The next day I was to learn how much she appreciated it.”

  “Who did she tell? Blaine?”

  “Not Blaine. Blaine was in Tokyo.”

  “Then who?”

  “I do not know,” said Chamillart. He picked up his fork and speared a morsel of scallop. “I left her apartment about nine Saturday morning, after a delightful breakfast. By noon—by noon, my friend—Ambassador Meline received a call from Alfred Eiseman at the White House, advising him that the government of the United States was dropping all charges against Martine Nanterre. I need hardly tell you that I never saw Martha Kingsley again. But I also need hardly tell you that someone in a most important position in your government did talk to Madame Kingsley… and the talk was about Secretary Blaine and l’affaire Nanterre… I told you the lady was extraordinary. Clearly her connections go beyond, above, your own Secretary of State…”

  7

  Special Investigation Office, The White House, Tuesday, June 19, 10:00 AM

  The President sat on the couch in Ron’s office, apparently relaxed, his legs crossed and one arm laid across the back of the couch. Jill had offered to leave when he came in unannounced, but he had only motioned her to scoot down the couch and make room for him as he sat beside her to talk with her and Ron.

  “I like your word consortium,” he said to Ron. “There is a consortium of interests determined to block the trade agreements. They have so much at stake, they are entirely capable of trying to corrupt any cabinet officer, of even killing him. In Japan they are trying to bring down the government to prevent Japan’s adhering to the agreements. Japanese manufacturers have so much at stake that they might well turn to assassination if they fail by political means. In the Netherlands the opponents of the agreements have accused the government of internal corruption, hoping to bring it down before it commits the country to the new trade arrangements that would limit their exports to the U.S. here in the United States…” He stopped, shook his head. “It’s difficult to believe, but I can see no other convincing motive for Lansard’s murder.”

  “It may be too easy a conclusion, Mr. President,” Jill said. “And there’s a contradiction in it. Why would the consortium want to murder the only highly placed member of your administration who opposed the agreements? I’d think they’d want him alive.”

  “Maybe,” the President said. “But remember this… that what we are calling the consortium includes some pretty ugly people. Maybe Blaine promised them, assured them he could kill the agreements, and when they paid him a great deal of money and he could not deliver… maybe they concluded he had welshed on them, that he was, simply and inelegantly, shaking them down and had never intended to kill the agreements—”

  “There’s also the possibility,” Ron said, expressing for the first time some of his earlier thoughts, “that someone was afraid he would talk, or threaten to talk. Of course if he did he would have been the first one in deep trouble, but maybe someone in the consortium was also afraid Blaine might simply confess, under pressure, that he had received bribes, and tell who had paid him…”

  “The point to remember,” Webster said, “is that the consortium consists of people who have, literally, billions at stake. That’s enough to move the kind of people they are to do almost anything…”

  Ron nodded, then: Changing the subject a bit, “Are you worried about a congressional investigation?”

  “I am hoping,” the President said, “that you will have concluded the investigation before a congressional investigation can get off the ground.”

  The previous afternoon Senator Kyle Fleming had spoken on the floor of the Senate, calling for an independent investigation either by a senatorial committee or by a special prosecutor sanctioned by Congress… “The truth is,” the senator had said, “the President has appointed as head of his investigation an inexperienced member of his own White House staff, a young lawyer beholden to him who, in fact, may one day soon—as repeated rumor would have it—become the
President’s son-in-law. Is it appropriate, Mr. President, for a member of the President’s personal staff and a prospective son-in-law to conduct this sensitive investigation? Is it appropriate for this young man to hold authority greater than that of the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation? Is it appropriate for this young man to hold special, unprecedented powers…?”

  And so on. Several Republican senators had spoken in support of Senator Fleming. One of them complained that nearly a week had passed since the death of Blaine and nothing, apparently, had been accomplished by the Special Investigator. Another senator suggested that Ronald Fairbanks should be called before a committee to report on what his investigation had produced.

  “We can’t promise quick results, Mr. President,” Ron said. “We’ve got a lot of suggestive material… we know far more today than we knew this time last week, but I can’t tell you we’re about to solve the case—”

  “Well, like they say, the heat’s on, and it’s going to get worse… we don’t have much more time—”

  “I’m worried about what’s coming out about the way Blaine spent money—”

  “That he was taking bribes,” the President said quietly. He sighed, shook his head. “Ron… Jill… I’m going to have to live with that. We have to live with it. It may destroy this administration. It may even destroy the trade agreements. Whoever killed Blaine may have accomplished what he couldn’t accomplish for them by accepting their bribes. So…” The President got up from the couch. “Let the chips fall where they may. Find out the truth for me. Whatever it is. Whoever…”

  For a long moment after the President left the room Ron and Jill sat staring at the door he had carefully, quietly closed behind him.

  “We’re in trouble,” Jill said finally. “He is… and you… and me.”

  Ron nodded.

  Two major newspapers, one in New York, one in Los Angeles, one the previous evening, one that morning, had published editorials expressing no confidence in Ronald Fairbanks as chief investigator into the death of Lansard Blaine. He was not, they said, qualified for the job. He was making no visible progress. What’s more, said one of them, it was now apparent that Blaine’s death was not an isolated event but rather the dramatic event that had begun to expose deep corruption in the Webster Administration.