by Warren Adler
"The point is..." he began, then searched her face for some reaction. She forced herself into a stony deadpan. "It does make sense. She was stupid enough to go out loaded with jewelry. Somebody spotted it, or knew she did this, robbed and killed her. The other, this business with the Senator, has no relevance to her murder. None whatsoever. Why should we all be penalized for something so obviously not of our making?" He drew in a deep breath, expelled it and watched her face.
"That's the difference between your business and mine, Monte," she said pointedly. "We dig under the surface bullshit. You scrape it up and package it as the real McCoy. Saying it in print does not mean it's the truth."
"You don't think it's true?"
"Shit, Monte, we never make judgements on the obvious. We call that circumstantial. We've got a real conflict of agendas here. We're looking for a killer."
"Are you saying that you still think...?"
"What I think is now none of your damned business," Fiona exploded.
He lowered his eyes and fidgeted with his fingers. Her sudden outburst seemed to flatten him like a hurricane gust. Finally he looked up. "Listen, I'm sorry. But the milk is spilled. What can we do now?"
"Still in damage-control," she said with contempt. "I'll tell you what you can do."
He lifted his two hands.
"I know. I'm just leaving."
He walked across the room and picked up his jacket.
"I hope you don't hurt them—hurt all of us," he said.
"My business is catching killers. I shouldn't have taken any detours."
He looked genuinely whipped and uncertain. Contempt was quickly turning to pity in her mind and she cursed her vulnerability. If only he wasn't so ... so cuddly. The thought made her smile.
"We meant well," he said. "We may be assholes, but we're not murderers."
She shook her head.
"The fact is that it does look like robbery. But we'll never know until we find the person that did it. That's the bottom line."
He paused, studying her face for any signs of forgiveness. Perhaps he saw some.
"It's a viable theory then, Fi? That's what counts at this stage, doesn't it?"
"Yes," she admitted, her anger softening. "A viable theory."
"Then maybe it will all come out right."
"Maybe," she shrugged.
"And you won't ... not deliberately ... hurt us?"
"No, I won't, Monte." She hesitated for a moment. No, she decided, unwilling to let him off the hook. "Not if you're all innocent."
He seemed confused, on the verge of protesting. Then she saw him surrender.
"I still want you to know—" he began.
"Never mind," she said, cutting him off with a wave of her hand.
He started toward the door.
"And you and I?" he asked when he got there.
"Not even for fun and games," she heard herself say. Next time she'd buy a pet.
Still he did not leave, his eyes roaming the room as if taking a farewell look. She was even disappointed in assessing that gesture. He saw the Washington Post and picked it up. Then, without another word, he left.
Her instinct, she knew, was to overreact. A cool head must prevail, she badgered herself. They had betrayed her. No question about that. But, she argued, it had not been a malicious betrayal, an act designed deliberately to injure her, although it could have that effect.
Reason, you gullible vulnerable bitch, she admonished herself, heading up the stairs to her bedroom. Shower time. She decided a real hot-and-cold treatment was called for. She was out of her clothes in seconds, striding across the bedroom to the adjoining bathroom. Only then did she see the flashing light on her answering machine. Its placement was a quirk of hers, since often, out of sheer exhaustion, she headed first for the bedroom to flop into bed and oblivion.
She hit the rewind, then the play, and listened.
"Got something significant Fiona. Cates at home. Eight p.m."
There were two other messages, also from Cates.
"Heavy date, you sly fox," Cates' voice blared in his stunted version of black street talk. The last message, an hour ago.
"Don't want to interfere with your love life, lady, but when you come up for air, call me."
She pulled the comforter from her bed, wrapped it around her naked body, then punched in Cates' home number. He answered before the second ring.
"You saw it," she said.
"Saw what?" he asked.
"The Post, Cates. The Washington Post ... " It occurred to her that the reiteration was not necessary. Also the question. He was obviously on a different tack.
"I get mine in the morning, Fiona," Cates said, his voice reflecting his confusion.
"It goes like this," she began, sucking in a deep breath, pulling the comforter tighter. "First let me take my shower. I'm standing here balls-ass naked and shivering."
"I won't ask why," he snickered.
"You'd be wrong. Its the furthest thing from my mind, body and spirit. I'm going into an imaginary nunnery." But she could not shake off her own curiosity. "So what's so urgent?"
"Remember that lady I talked to at the Judiciary Committee about our old bones?"
Her mind clicked into his mental rhythm, alert now. A surge of adrenaline warmed her body. Betty Taylor, she thought.
"The lady messengered over the Congressional Directory for that year. Feeling obliged, I flicked through it."
"For chrissakes, Cates."
He was doing it too often these days, building the suspense for greater impact.
"He was on the committee for which the lady worked."
"Say it, Cates. Stop this shit."
"Langford. Representative Samuel Langford." Cates said.
Despite her body's apparent warmth, she began to shiver again.
16
THE EGGPLANT was just winding down his tantrum, but the adrenaline was still pumping up his anger.
"Thickness of the fucking skull," he shouted, jabbing a dark finger at his temple. "It is a disease, an affliction that impinges on the brain, the thinking processes, creates terminal stupidity. And here"—he pointed at both of them for the umpteenth time—"are two prime examples of the condition. What has to be said for the message to sink in? Never, never, never talk to the press, not through tenth parties, third parties, any parties. Zip the mouth." He motioned with his finger across the mouth. "Zip. Zip. Zip. We are in the killer-catching business. Leave the public relations to the eggplant. Heah. Do you get this message or am I pissing into the wind?"
Since they had expected it and, as best they could, had prepared for it, she and Cates wore their masks of contrition and waited for the flumes of verbal venom to subside.
Since it was the eggplant who had opened up the attack, they had little chance to fill him in on the facts of the case. The story in the Washington Post, as they knew, would set him off. It had little to do with substance. To the eggplant, nothing was worse than an invasion of his turf, which is the way he perceived the Post article. It was, of course, irrational, egotistical, perhaps even verging on the maniacal, but, as she had often concluded, it was the nature of the beast, an aberration to be accepted. The beast had a good side, as well, which often outweighed the bad.
Apparently, a reporter had made appropriate inquiries the night before, but there was no one around with any authority to answer them. Eventually, the eggplant had gotten wind of it, preferring to duck the call until he could gather all the facts at their morning meeting, not realizing how fast the story was moving. He was a man that liked to set agendas in dealing with the media, not be manipulated by them. What riled him most was that one of his own staff had put the first spin on the story without his knowledge and against his caveats. To him that constituted usurpation of power and bordered on betrayal. While he was in this state, there was no room for protest.
As he spoke, his frustration accelerated. Veins stood out in his neck and forehead and bits of spittle caught at the sides of his mo
uth. It was not a pretty sight. Fortunately, the dark gloom of the dreary rain days had lifted and the sun shone through the dust-caked windows, making the scene, if not cheerful, bearable.
Finally spent, the eggplant ended his ranting and looked out of the window, one arm leaning against a wall, his broad back offered as a sign of immediate dismissal. Fiona glanced at Cates, her look an obvious solicitation of support.
"We think the motive might not be robbery, Chief," Fiona said, reaching for a conciliatory tone. He did not respond and she spoke again. "We think the motive might be more"—she hesitated, groping for a word that would arrest him—"controversial."
He turned slowly like a heavy door on a rusty hinge.
"I believe the newspaper story was premature, maybe even misleading," she pressed. "Even though it stemmed from my meeting with the Ambassador." He had, she was certain, already surmised that Fiona was the source of the story. His version had her cast as the deliberate "leaker," who passed it along to a reporter to embarrass him. He hadn't yet given them a chance to fill him in on all the details.
"You mean the jewelry is not missing?" he asked, malevolence still resonating in his voice.
"I didn't say that. The Ambassador had promised to take an inventory. Yes, the jewelry is probably missing."
"So where is it misleading?" He walked back to his desk and poked a finger into the newspaper lying there.
"I'm trying to 'apprahze' you," she said, using his pronunciation.
His lips curled and his eyes narrowed. Then he sat down at his desk and glared at her. "Show me, bitch," his attitude said.
She and Cates had determined that a bit of deft editing was in order, although she feared that the eggplant's paranoic antenna might pick up the nuances. A woman, in his world, acting out of friendship with a man was always suspect. To him, female vulnerability was endemic, an inherent weakness in the gender. The fact was, it shamed her to acknowledge that such a conclusion in this instance was not far from the truth.
She began her explanation from the beginning, trying to prescreen her every utterance. She took him through the events of the investigation, her various meetings with the cast of characters, cataloguing their fears, motivations and proclivities. She included her earlier meeting with Monte, Bunkie and the Ambassador when they first learned that Helga was missing.
His reaction to her admission that she had merely been doing a favor for a friend brought a slight tic to his cheek and a barely perceptible denigrating twist to his lips. Naturally, she left out any hint of a quid pro quo with Monte on the matter of keeping their interrogation of the Senator and his staff under wraps, but she foresaw that a satisfactory explanation had to be attempted, and she provided one. Her reference to Monte as a "friend" was transparent enough for him to get the message. She knew he took it for the confession it was, hoping that was the end of it. She needed to get through that before she threw in the clincher, the part about the old bones.
"Blame me, Chief," she said bravely. Of course, he already had. "I made a fine-line judgement. We had every intention of keeping you 'apprahzed,' but the opportunity to interrogate the Senator presented itself and we had to take it as it came. Also, frankly, I did not yet want to open a Pandora's box that could involve the Department in a political donnybrook, especially if the Senator and his staff were blameless in the woman's death, which is still a possibility." She watched for his reaction. She was being deliberately oblique, talking in the kind of shorthand she knew he would understand, but before he could make an overt conclusion she proceeded: "You've drummed it into us ... this sensitivity to cases involving politicians, especially a Senator about to announce his campaign for the Presidency. We didn't 'apprahze' you of it yesterday, pending this meeting, because we wanted to have a more complete story to present for your judgement."
Toadying it was, but she preferred to mentally refer to it as "defusing." She watched the eggplant's face for the desired effect and actually saw it happen. He nodded, not quite a nod, but close enough. And she knew why. She had struck a chord of accommodation. He had finally seen the personal benefit to himself, always his prime motivation.
Through the eggplant's good offices, he undoubtedly reasoned, the Mayor would have another chit to collect from a politician, an important factor considering that the District of Columbia Government was still beholden to the Congress for its funding. More important, the eggplant, if he chose, could hold the chit for his own purposes. Not corruption, really. Perhaps a form of blackmail. But part and parcel of the political process, which, like most endeavors, was dependent on trade-offs, favors and, ultimately, the power to manipulate.
"So they decided among themselves that robbery gets them all off the hook," the eggplant said. He was calmer now, sopping it up like a sponge. He was, she knew, a quick learner when his mind was freed from his emotions.
"And that's the genesis of the Post story," she said. "They engineered it for their own political purposes."
Except for his tight-lipped interpolation, he had barely moved a muscle in his face, his bloodshot eyes fixed into a stare from which she did not flinch.
"But you did say that the woman's jewelry was probably taken. I can see premature. But misleading?"
Again she shot Cates a glance and nodded. It was his turn to carry the relay stick.
"'Could be diversion' would be a better description," Cates said. She watched the eggplant's stare move from her face to Cates'. "Technically speaking, it was accurate. No question about it. The woman was robbed."
Before the eggplant could show his dissatisfaction with the explanation, Cates plunged ahead. She watched as the eggplant moved his upper body forward, planting his elbows on the desk.
"It has to do with those old bones," Cates said. "Betty Taylor." He paused for a moment, perhaps waiting for an expected groan from the eggplant that did not come.
"Could be just a presumption. But certain connections are inescapable. Connection one: Betty Taylor was believed to be having an affair with someone who wished to keep his identity secret. The Senator, then a representative, a philanderer of the first rank, is on the Committee that Betty Taylor had worked for. Connection two: In the instance of Mrs. Kessel we know that she was having this affair with the Senator. Both women were killed by strangulation. Both were buried in the yards of houses that were then unlived in, on the sales block."
Cates had, Fiona learned earlier, managed to track down the status of the Woodland Drive property on which Betty Taylor was buried at the time of her death. Like the property in Cleveland Park in which Helga had been buried, it, too, had been empty at the approximate time of the murder. In fact, it had been empty for nearly a year.
"Helluva theory," the eggplant said. He did not smile, but his eyes were dancing his approval. Fiona sighed with relief.
"And there might have been more," Fiona said. "We only know of these two."
"You really think the Senator..." the eggplant began, his voice trailing off.
"If the logic holds," Fiona said cautiously, "the more likely perpetrator is the Senator's flunkie. Bunkie-Flunkie." In her explanation earlier, she had already mentioned him, without fleshing him out, which she did now. "Farrington. You know him. A stock character in political theater. Overzealous, overidentified with his fearless leader. He takes care of everything. Chief pimp and bottle washer. You know the type."
"Gets rid of anything that gets in the way," Cates said.
"He becomes the alter ego," Fiona added. "Most politicians have one. Stays in the background. Pulls strings on his own sometimes. Takes the fall, if necessary. Depending on his commitment."
"And this guy's commitment?" the eggplant asked.
"Total," Fiona said. Cates nodded.
The eggplant straightened and stood up. There were no traces of anger now. He was playing to his strength, doing his job, pacing the room, as he did when deeply immersed in attempting to crack a homicide puzzle.
"We trace Farrington to the jewelry, he's on the ropes," th
e eggplant said. It was rhetorical. He was thinking out loud. Then he turned to them. "Get the ice descriptions out as soon as possible. Maybe a search warrant."
"With respect, Chief," Fiona interjected. The eggplant turned toward her. "My impression is that the jewelry, any personal material gain, is out of it for him. He's got other fish to fry. He'd have dumped the jewelry, maybe buried it elsewhere, thrown it into the Potomac. If he's our man his purpose would have been to put the lady—ladies—away forever, with no identifying possibilities."
"Hoping that the beautiful Helga would become, like the other lady, old bones." Cates interjected.
"I'll buy it. No search warrant then," the eggplant said, still pacing, shaking his head in agreement. "Besides, we stick too many fingers in the mix we blow the Senator out of the water. Better if he thinks we're protecting him."
"Unless he's the one," Cates said.
"Or the one behind the one," Fiona added.
"Remains to be seen. Meanwhile why deep-six the poor bastard?" He looked at Fiona. "If having sex was murder, half the politicians would be in prison." She had expected him to chuckle. He didn't. He was dead serious.
She was locked into his thought pattern now. What's in it for the eggplant? Easy, she decided. Two possibilities. Chits or glory. Either one had value for him.
If Bunkie were an innocent and none of this slopped over into the media, the eggplant would have his chit. On the other hand, if Bunkie was the perpetrator, the Senator gets blown out of the water, not just out of the Presidential race, but out of Washington, far out. Breaking a case like this becomes an international incident, a sure-fire name identifier, grist for the media and the supermarket tabloids. New worlds opening for Chief Luther Greene.
"We handle this gingerly," he warned, stopping his pacing, pointing his finger like a weapon. "No surprises."
"No surprises," Fiona agreed.
"Let's get us Mr. Bunkie," the eggplant said. He looked around the office. "Sweat him up. But best we keep him out of here." He looked up and, for the first time that morning, showed a genuine smile. This was his meat. "Your place, FitzGerald?"
