Senator Love

by Warren Adler

  Again she could not shake the comparison to the Betty Taylor case. Mrs. Taylor had also reached over to show her a picture of the victim, had also failed to relinquish it, as if somehow such an act would make the picture disappear.

  "I'm sure they were quite expensive."

  "Expensive?" He offered a wan smile. "Everything about Helga was expensive. We are very comfortable, Detective FitzGerald. I enjoyed buying her exquisite things."

  He replaced the picture, but not before Fiona had also noted Helga's earrings. They also appeared to be made of precious stones. She remembered the matching emerald earrings that Helga had worn at Mount Vernon. And the diamond bracelet.

  "Did she wear the wedding and engagement rings every day?"

  "Of course. Doesn't a married woman always wear her wedding and engagement rings every day?" He seemed affronted and his eyes drifted down to Fiona's hands.

  "I'm not married," Fiona said defensively. She repressed a brief tremor of anger. "As you might have guessed, Mr. Ambassador, her body was stripped of everything, including jewelry."

  He was learning this for the first time, although he surely surmised what she had been getting at. Often, next of kin did not ask or inquire about the victim's effects at the time of identification. He was aware, though, that she had been buried naked. He shook his head in disgust.

  "But to kill for that? Confronted with the danger, Helga would have handed them over."

  "Perhaps she did. And saw the robber."

  "Still," the Ambassador said, "to kill?"

  "People kill for less," Fiona said with a sigh.

  The Ambassador lowered his eyes and clasped his hands and she allowed him his moment of grieving silence.

  "Would she have worn other jewelry during the day as well?" she asked when she felt it appropriate.

  "Undoubtedly."

  "Would you know what that might normally be?"

  "Certainly a bracelet, necklace, earrings, even another ring. Helga adorned herself liberally. She was, as you saw, a woman of great style. I purchased many of the pieces as gifts. Often, she would buy something herself. It had to be the real thing. She was very European in that regard."

  "Where did she keep them?"

  "We have a wall safe in the bedroom."

  "Is there an inventory?"

  "I believe so. We did not insure all the pieces."

  "Would you mind checking the inventory for me?"

  "If it will help find Helga's murderer, I'll do anything."

  "It would be enormously helpful. We know her valuable rings are missing. Might be other pieces as well. Tracing these items is very difficult, but it would be something to hang our hat on. A clue, if you will. Certainly it gives us a credible motive."

  She studied his reaction to this carefully. A robbery motive would get them all off the hook, the Senator and his inner circle, including Nell. The Ambassador, too, would be free from suspicion.

  He nodded his agreement, but his mind seemed to be drifting back to his grief, which seemed quite genuine. She stood up and observed him for a long moment. There was another issue that had begun to nag at her earlier, but she had filed it away. It surfaced again and she confronted it.

  "I know this might seem rather crass and unfeeling, Mr. Ambassador, but I must address another issue that you might think out of line."

  "Out of line?" The idea seemed to confuse him, but Fiona continued to press on.

  "Apparently you are an important political figure in Austria."

  He raised his eyes to meet hers. They were suddenly alert, on guard. The political animal was stirring, even beyond the grief.

  "I am," he replied. "Although this is a professional assignment, and I have to be totally objective and, as far as I am able, politically neutral. The answer, however, is yes. I have a political agenda for the future." He was approaching it with a politician's caution.

  She hesitated, trying to find an inoffensive way of dealing with the question.

  "Obviously no one can possibly expect a tragedy like this to occur..." she began. "But why would you put up with such political risk-taking? Your marriage ... well, it seemed to open you up to scandal. Given that Austria is a deeply religious, traditional country."

  He averted his eyes, looking everywhere but in Fiona's direction. Although he had confided in her earlier, he seemed to be wrestling with a sense of personal embarrassment. His confidence had considerably eroded since they had pondered the problem of Helga's disappearance, and he seemed to be working through layers of repressed emotion.

  Like many men in the diplomatic and political business, he had clearly learned the process of inner control. At the moment he was having difficulty with that process. After an obviously long wrestling match with himself, he stopped his eyes from roaming and met her gaze.

  "I've been less than forthright, Madam Detective," he said, assuming a distinctively formal continental tone. "I have been absolutely faithful to my wife during our ten-year marriage."

  He paused for a moment, presumably to allow Fiona to fully absorb the statement. Earlier he had hinted that he, too, was involved in affairs outside the marriage contract, that theirs had been a truly open marriage ... ?

  "Everyone bears a cross, Madam Detective," he continued. "Helga needed the romanticism of an outside affair and all the attendant excitement. My hope has always been that this need would diminish with time." Again he averted his eyes, then struggled out of his chair and paced the room. "Our only compact was honesty and discretion. I have absolute faith that she observed both criteria. Despite everything, she was a woman of extraordinary integrity. Since, in this case, the Senator was equally at risk, I felt that she had satisfied the compact. It hurt, of course. I had to subjugate my ego. Put up with it, if you will. I hated the idea. But I loved her."

  "Why take the pain, Mr. Ambassador?" Fiona asked gently, wondering if such a question really had relevance to the case.

  "We make compromises," he shrugged. "It gave her pleasure and, in fact, it did not distract from our own relationship, hard as that is to imagine." He stopped in the center of the room. "I was elated when the Senator broke off the affair. Even Helga seemed relieved, although she adored him in a romantic and, I suppose, sexual way. I detected, as I told you before, no sign of depression. That very evening"—his ashen skin took on a slight coloring—"you understand. It was better than ever."

  "Yes." Again he was silent for a long time, standing like a statue in the center of the room, a man lost, unable to decide whether to move or sit. He lifted an arm and swept it across his chest. "Now see? I have nothing. I have lost her completely." His voice broke and tears rolled down his cheeks. Genuine tears, Fiona decided. He was sincerely bereft.

  "You'll call me on the inventory, won't you?"

  He nodded, then turned his face from her as she left the room.

  15

  OFTEN WHEN she needed to think, Fiona would squirrel herself away in some out-of-the-way spot. Among her favorites was "Holloways," a neighborhood bar on upper Wisconsin Avenue, in a block of buildings from another era, still untrammelled by the gentrification of Georgetown and the trendiness of upper Chevy Chase.

  Which is exactly what she did when she left Ambassador Kessel. Although she was a curiosity to the regular bartender, she avoided any familiarity. He knew what she drank, a dry martini straight up, rarely more than one. She always chose a booth in the rear.

  She felt the first rush of alcohol stimulation, triggering a kind of movie reel in her mind. A cast of characters paraded themselves one-by-one across the mental screen.

  There was the Senator—ambitious, articulate, driven by power and sex and willing to take risks to achieve both. Then Bunkie, whose future was in lockstep with the Senator's—ruthless, dissimulating, sly and mean-spirited if faced with something that might thwart ambition.

  And poor Monte, like the others, obsessively ambitious, which, despite his protestations and her own feelings, gave some weight to moral ambiguity. And the Ambass
ador, like Monte, an unlikely suspect. But she had often learned that some people had awesome powers of creating a new persona out of their real selves, undetectable to even the most practiced observer of human nature. Yet he had seemed completely sincere and believable as the bereft and grieving husband.

  And little Nell, who might have acted out of jealousy, which created in susceptible individuals a blind, overpowering and often fatal rage.

  The political motives were obvious on the part of both the Senator and the Ambassador. Too obvious.

  Then there was robbery. A simple, but always compelling motive. The leap from robbery to murder was easy. A robbery is committed. The perpetrator is at risk. He or she can be identified. A quick garroting removes the risk. Burial in the backyard of an empty house, on the edge of a lot unlikely to be tampered with, was a gamble, but it could be justified. The house then represented the central core of a clue. Cates was following that lead.

  By the time she had finished her martini, she felt that she had adequately worked through the puzzle. Robbery. By a person or persons somehow connected to that house.

  She felt better. The alcohol had masked the fatigue, but she knew it would return as soon as the effects wore off. She left the bar, stopped at an Italian restaurant on Connecticut Avenue, ate a small plate of pasta and grilled sole washed down with white wine and drove home.

  She caught Monte Pappas in her headlights. He was standing in her driveway, shielding his eyes from the glare as she drove up. Stopping her car, she pulled up beside him and lowered her window.

  "You are one elusive lady," he said, ducking down and poking his head into the window. In the shadowy light, his face, framed by the window, looked bearlike. He bent forward and planted a noisy kiss on her cheek.

  "Your affection will wake the neighbors," she said, patting his cheek. He backed away and she got out of the car. "Did I miss something?" she asked.

  "I hope me," he replied, smiling broadly, obviously feeling good. He held her shoulders and pulled her to him, enveloping her in his arms. She let him hug her, but his mood was confusing. When she had last seen him he was anxious, tense.

  He released her to unlock the door and followed her inside.

  "Waiting for you, I was growing jealouser and jealouser," he said as he came in.

  "There were secret lovers to be satisfied," she joked, leading him into the den. Her hand swept in the direction of the bar. "Help yourself."

  She went to the bathroom, freshened her makeup and came back to the den. She was puzzled by his high spirits, of course, but glad that he had come. She had not relished coming back to an empty house.

  He had taken off his jacket and was just popping a champagne cork as she came back into the den. The bottle's neck was foaming as he carefully poured the sparkling liquid into two flute-shaped glasses.

  "We mustn't let the moment go to waste," he said, handing her the glass.

  "So you found the good stuff," she laughed.

  "I have a nose for that," he said, kissing her lightly on the lips. With her free hand, she reached up and stroked his face. He needed a shave and his skin felt like sandpaper, but she liked its feel against her palm. They clinked glasses and drank.

  "He'll never be the same," Monte said.

  "Who?"

  "The Senator. The great Sam. Mr. Hot Rocks." He began to roam the room and for a moment she wondered if his high spirits were actually hysteria. She watched, rooted to the spot near the bar, as he circled the room. "It was wonderful, Fi. Wonderful. He was shaken, really shaken. For the first time, I really believe now that he has taken the pledge."

  She remembered her own reactions during her interview with the Senator. Doubtful, she told herself.

  "Even sobered up the Bunkie-flunkie," he continued. "They were two little boys caught beating each other's bishops in the barn. I loved it."

  "Loved what?"

  "Their contrition," Monte said. His roamings took him back to the bar, where he poured more into his glass. She covered her glass with her palm and he put the bottle back on the bar. "I now feel," he went on, "that this campaign truly has a Chinaman's chance. The sword of Damocles seems to have fallen ... and missed."

  It was only then that his conduct and words lost their sense of joy and became bizarre.

  "What the hell are you jabbering about, Monte? I'm confused."

  He had begun to roam again, but her remarks had brought him up short.

  "You're kidding." He looked at her with confusion, then, frowning, he walked over to the couch where he had tossed his jacket and removed a folded newspaper jutting out of a side pocket.

  "This," he said, handing it to her. "The Washington Post bulldog edition. I got it direct from the Post. The ink isn't dry."

  Fiona opened the paper to the front page. In the lower left-hand corner was a picture of Helga Kessel. Over it was the headline: AMBASSADOR'S WIFE PROBABLE ROBBERY VICTIM.

  "How could they know?" she asked.

  "Read on," Monte urged.

  "Helga Kessel, the wife of the Austrian Ambassador, whose nude body was found in a shallow grave behind a house in Cleveland Park two days ago, was apparently the victim of robbery.

  "According to the Ambassador, Mrs. Kessel's expensive jewelry worn that day was not found with her body, leading police to theorize that she was probably the victim of a robbery attempt.

  "While police were not available for comment on this aspect of the case, the Ambassador revealed that Mrs. Kessel, whose passion for expensive jewelry was well known, left her home the day of her murder wearing her diamond engagement and wedding rings, and a necklace and bracelet containing gold and precious stones.

  "The Ambassador estimated that these items represented a value of 'probably close to one hundred thousand dollars.'

  "The Ambassador also indicated that he was told by the police that Mrs. Kessel might have been murdered to prevent identification of her assailant. He told the Post that the police were pursuing all leads based on this theory."

  What followed was the so-called back story, a rehash of the body's discovery and the eggplant's press conference.

  She looked up and saw him smiling.

  "We truly appreciate this, Fi. It simply refocuses everything. Takes the heat off. Nipped in the bud, as we say."

  "I didn't give this to the Washington Post."

  "No, you didn't. As you can see, the Ambassador did."

  She was dumbfounded, and he was obviously confused by her reaction.

  "When the stakes are this high, you don't pass up opportunities like this."

  "This is your idea?"

  "It's not a question of taking credit, it's a joint campaign management decision." Lines formed on his forehead and he cocked his head in a gesture of puzzlement. "Hell, is there something wrong, something inaccurate in the robbery theory? It looked cut and dried to us."

  It was beginning to dawn on her. As soon as she'd left him, Ambassador Kessel contacted the Senator or Bunkie. A hurried, cautious telephone meeting. They wouldn't have taken the time to meet personally. It was apparently essential that they move to forestall any mud being thrown in their direction. She looked at Monte, confused and hurt at the same time.

  "What you implied to the Ambassador was the logical, wasn't it?" Monte asked with obvious agitation. When she didn't answer quickly, he said, his voice rising, "Hell, Fi, we didn't blow anything, did we?"

  He looked pathetic and she wasn't certain whether to curse him or pity him. Them.

  "Good thinking. Great damage-control thinking. Take the heat off. Did it ever occur to you to tell me? Poor little me, who was trying to get at the truth and, if you were all innocent, hold off the mudslide. Don't you think I should have been consulted?"

  "We thought..." He hesitated, then stopped abruptly.

  "It was in still in the theory stage," she sighed. She knew the mechanics of the act. An anonymous tip. A call for confirmation, and voilà: the Ambassador is available for comment. A bull's-eye in PR management. Ju
st in time for the deadline pressure of the bulldog edition.

  "Will it get you into trouble?" Monte asked sheepishly.

  "Trouble?" She thought better of explaining. The eggplant would be furious that he was not "apprahzed," livid that the media was getting privileged information and—she would definitely not tell Monte this—be predisposed to look beyond the robbery theory out of sheer pique and orneriness. Especially if she told him exactly how and why all this had transpired in the first place. Besides his having her ass, perhaps even ruining her career, she would have to contend with the political ramifications.

  "Trouble?" she repeated, a wave of nausea rolling through her. "You don't know what trouble is." She paused to let that salvo sink in. From his expression and his pallor she knew that the message had been received. With her knowledge, she could blow them out of the water.

  "You wouldn't," he whispered. She had the impression that he might have wanted to speak louder, but had lost wind by her implication.

  "Why not?"

  "Please, Fi," Monte said, genuinely panicked. "You are not a vindictive person. All right, we might have made an error in judgement. Maybe we should have checked with you. It had to get out fast. But surely you would have agreed with our intentions, considering the stakes here."

  She shook her head, feeling suddenly ashamed for him, for his fear and his weakness. And for herself for going soft inside.

  "I would have been opposed, totally. Aside from my official responsibilities, I consider it manipulative and cynical. That part disgusts me, if you want to know."

  "I'm really sorry, Fiona. I had no idea you'd react this way." He looked helpless and forlorn and his large brown puppy-dog eyes grew misty. He was a bear all right, a big teddy. Just another frightened flunky who danced around the flame of power.

  "A common affliction. A lack of perception about other people."