Senator Love

by Warren Adler

  "You don't think she did?" Fiona asked.

  "The thing about Frances is her ... well, her pragmatism. By the time we split, I felt nothing for her."

  "And she? Did she feel anything for you?" Fiona pressed.

  "It wouldn't have mattered," Sam said. For a politician, he seemed utterly without guile, which confused her.

  "Did you ever see Betty Taylor again? After Bunkie's conversation?"

  His mood changed suddenly, but it was too dark to see if the color had changed in his face. He shook his head.

  "No, I didn't," he whispered.

  "Or inquire about her welfare?" Fiona asked.

  "I told you. I'm a flawed man."

  "Did Bunkie report to you about her reaction to his ... surrogate Dear-John?" Fiona asked.

  He nodded.

  "He said she cried. She was very young, you know."

  "And you believed him?"

  "Of course I did. Why should I doubt it?"

  "Maybe she didn't go quietly," the eggplant said. "Maybe she told him she was going to stand and fight. Blow your Senatorial chances out of the water."

  "Hell, she was just a kid," the Senator said defensively.

  "But she could have caused you trouble," the eggplant said, tapping one finger on the table.

  "I suppose," the Senator mused.

  "And Bunkie could have foreclosed on that," the eggplant snapped.

  "Your premise is wrong, Captain. You'd have to know Betty."

  "I'm afraid I'll never have that chance. None of us will."

  The Senator shook his head and bit his lip.

  "Damn, that hurts to hear," he said.

  "I'll bet," the eggplant rejoined.

  "Listen, I felt like hell about Betty. Going through this thing with Frances and then Bunkie. I felt like hell. Frankly, it's a bit unbearable to know that she was murdered ... in that way. God, how awful."

  Lowering his eyes, he looked at his hands with an air of helplessness. It was apparent that he took his self-effacement seriously.

  "With Betty you went further than with the others. Set her up in her own place. Why?"

  Sam shrugged.

  "I guess I cared."

  "Because she was black," Fiona said. "You wanted some method of isolation."

  "That was part of it, of course."

  "There could be political consequences beyond just womanizing."

  "Everything has political consequences."

  "And Farrington took care of the political end of things," the eggplant said.

  "I've told you all that."

  "There were other women as well, Senator?" the eggplant said. His quick change of mood was startling, like a whip cracking, although he did not raise his voice.

  "I won't deny it."

  "Quickies?"

  "More or less."

  "Only the quickies were your business. Bunkie didn't know about those," the eggplant shot back.

  "They weren't political," the Senator said.

  "Meaning that the ladies didn't take them seriously," the eggplant pressed.

  "Or you," Fiona said, completing the idea. They were speaking in shorthand and all three understood. To the Senator and his handlers, only emotional involvement posed a political threat.

  With the exception of the one bite she had of the Bo Xao, no one touched it. The restaurant emptied out, but the waitress, perhaps understanding the gravity of their discussion, did not intrude or ask that they leave.

  "You say the breakup with your first wife was amicable?" the eggplant asked.

  "Considering."

  "Considering what?"

  The eggplant's question seemed to confuse the Senator.

  "Considering," he began hesitantly. "that she had just found her husband..."

  "Exactly the point," the eggplant interrupted. "Why go to all the trouble of investigating, following, the confrontation, all that messy business, if it didn't mean something? Something big? Then the lady is a good sport? Come on, Senator."

  "She was," he countered. "Still is. Are you suggesting...?"

  "Considering you've eliminated Farrington from contention," the eggplant said. He cut a quick glance at Fiona, who knew better than to interrupt the eggplant's onslaught.

  "Not Frances, too. Surely not Frances," Sam said with an air of protest. "Way off the mark. First Bunkie. Then Frances."

  It was interesting to see his method at work in this interrogation. He knew exactly how hard to push. Every question seemed designed to elicit an oblique piece of information, a nuance. She knew he was observing the Senator carefully, the wheels in his mind turning, taking in every subtlety. What he was doing now was tracking the Frances option, which opened up an entirely different tack. Up to then, she hadn't remotely occurred to them as a suspect.

  Despite all Fiona's disagreements with her boss, despite her aggressive dislike of his often self-serving agenda, she loved this special skill of his, especially when the diamond was being diagrammed for the tap that might finally split it.

  "Well then, let's go down both routes," the eggplant said. "Two possibilities." Fiona was perfectly tuned in, knowing what to expect. "Bunkie did her because she would not go quietly. Or"—he paused, his eyes dancing with alertness—"Frances, burning on the inside, acted out her own version of revenge."

  They both watched Sam react. He tapped his fingers on the table and shook his head. Then he picked up his glass with shaking fingers, but did not drink from it, putting it down instead.

  "I'm sorry. I can't reconcile the possibility..." He choked up and seemed too overwhelmed to continue. The eggplant exchanged a glance with Fiona. Your turn, he seemed to say.

  "Let's concentrate on Frances. She's a big woman," Fiona said. "Did she have the strength to use a scarf to yoke and strangle another woman? Then dig her grave, carry her to it, cover it up?"

  The Senator appeared genuinely shaken. When he finally responded, his voice was reedy.

  "That's scary. But yes, she is a strong woman. Very athletic—on the girl's volleyball team at college. Frances was very physical. But really..."

  "So she could do it," Fiona pressed.

  "Physically ... I suppose," the Senator said. "But..." He hesitated, shook his head in disbelief, then spoke again. "...It seems so out of character. At the beginning she was a big, happy, gentle girl, a knockout. Six feet tall in her stocking feet and perfectly proportioned. Even at the end, she showed no sign ... I admit she became increasingly, well, private. She did keep things in. But murder ... for what reason?"

  "Revenge," Fiona said. "Powerful stuff in a scorned woman. Powerful stuff."

  "I won't argue with that. But I never saw that in her character."

  "I'll admit we're theorizing," Fiona said. "Carrying it further, perhaps she did Helga as well. Same modus operandi. We are talking here of someone with a psychological aberration..."

  "I can't buy that," the Senator said. "No way. After all these years to still harbor a desire for vengeance. That's crazy."

  "You got it," Fiona said, shooting the eggplant a look. His eyes blinked with approval.

  Again Sam shook his head in disbelief.

  "Then how do you explain Nell?" he asked with a tremor of relief, as if he had just come across this new argument. "We courted. We loved each other. That, too, could be said to begin as a ... a meaningful affair."

  This new theory was taking shape in Fiona's mind and she had no doubt that the eggplant was coming up with a similar scenario.

  "Maybe she never counted Nell as extracurricular. We are dealing, after all, with bizarre reasoning," Fiona said.

  "But how would she be able to determine...?" Sam began.

  "The wheat from the chaff?" Fiona said.

  "That's a quaint way to put it."

  "She could have made it her business to find out. She spied before. Who knows? You may think you were being discreet." Fiona paused, watching his reaction. "But if someone truly wanted to know, they could find out."

  "I rarely saw
her," Sam said.

  "Because you weren't looking for her," Fiona pointed out. "But it could be that she was always there, watching, waiting."

  "Pure fantasy," Sam muttered.

  "It happens," she said.

  Fiona could tell that Sam was absorbing the information, although he appeared to be continuing to resist it.

  "But there's no real evidence," Sam protested.

  "Right, Senator. Only theories," the eggplant interjected suddenly. He paused quickly, nodding, his signal for Fiona to press on.

  "If it wasn't for the rain no one would be the wiser," Fiona said.

  "Gives me the creeps," Sam said. "Unfortunately, I can't reconcile the idea with what I know about Frances. I grew up with her. I knew her folks. They were good solid people, lived in Pensacola. Her dad was an ex-Navy pilot. I knew everything about her. She was a big, gentle woman. Happy, too. At least at the beginning. Above all, incapable of such an act."

  "How come no kids?" Fiona asked.

  "We deliberately postponed. Hell, I was 24 when we got married. So was she. By thirty I was in Congress. We thought we had time. Then it all fell apart." He paused, then spoke again before anyone else had time to respond. "My fault. Same old problem. I'm not a good boy. Here I had a great flavor at home, but I had to try the other varieties. It's a kind of addiction, I suppose." He shook his head vigorously. "But no. Not Frances."

  All this self-abnegation seemed sincere, but she had trouble being convinced. A bit too much sackcloth and ashes, she decided.

  "You noticed nothing out of the ordinary in her behavior?" Fiona asked. "No changes in her personality or character in the stress of your breakup? And later?"

  "Nothing that points to what you suggest. That's why, bottom line, I can't buy it."

  Nor did Fiona totally buy his protestations. If the Senator's ex-wife was the murderer it would be the death knell of Sam Langford's Presidential bid, perhaps even the end of his Senatorial career. Of course, he was vastly popular in his state and might be perceived as a victim of circumstances, depending on just how much dirt surfaced. Considering the motive they were postulating, it would take a miracle for him to recover politically.

  Surely, he was calculating all this as he wrestled with the information. And yet there was no way that a cover-up was possible. Under all the posing and posturing, she was certain that even a master politician like Sam Langford could not live with the idea of these murders going unpunished, despite the consequences to himself. In every politician, as she had learned from her father, there are latent seeds of nobility and martyrdom. Such thoughts went a long way to temper her cynicism.

  The Vietnamese waitress glided toward them. It was obvious now that they wanted to close the restaurant. The bartender had cleaned up and was waiting with his jacket on.

  "I'm terribly sorry," she said, handing them a check.

  "Of course," Sam said.

  The eggplant pulled out a billfold and paid it.

  "This one's on the cops," he said.

  They got up and left the restaurant. Outside it had gotten chilly. The streets were deserted now. It was nearly midnight. For a while they drove in silence, each lost in his own thoughts.

  "It's really very upsetting. I think you're both way out in left field. Bunkie and Frances? Too incredible to take seriously," Sam said.

  "Call it thinking out loud," the eggplant said, squinting through the windshield.

  "We're sharing a possibility," Fiona said from the back seat.

  "It seems to me that you're fishing for something that may not be there." Sam mumbled.

  "We're fishing. We admit that. And notice how carefully we're doing it. You know why?" She did not wait for an answer. "Because you are a significant American political figure," Fiona said, hoping he would understand the implications without her spelling them out. She could see the eggplant's head bob in approval. "Certainly a career worth saving if we can. Again the eggplant's head bobbed in approval. "And, more important to us and the community is the fact that someone has been murdering women and getting away with it." There was, of course, something left out.

  "It could be all coincidence," Sam said, offering the last flickering spark of resistance.

  "More remarkable than any miracle going. These were your ladies, Senator. As much as you may deny it to yourself, these murders are, in a very significant way, related to you."

  "I'm not denying that," Sam said. "But you're asking me to believe something I can't. Simple as that. Frances, for example, did not give me the slightest bit of trouble. Hell, she didn't ask for anything, no alimony, no money, nothing. We split the furniture, the books, everything. She could have given me a bad time. At least there weren't any financial problems. She was already doing quite well herself."

  The Giant Food parking lot loomed before them and they pulled into it beside the Senator's car. He started to let himself out, but Fiona stopped him with a question.

  "Senator," she asked. "What does Frances do for a living?"

  The car had stopped and the Senator had already put his hand on the door handle. He turned to look at her.

  "I thought you knew. She's one of the hottest real estate salesmen in town."

  24

  "IT'S THE only way," Fiona told Monte.

  They were walking along the Tidal Basin in the golden glow of a spring sunrise. The cherry blossoms had just begun to pop, but had not yet achieved the full flowering of their display. Aside from its heart-pounding ceremonial rituals and Greco-Roman architectural splendors, the blooming cherry blossoms, a gift to Washington from the Japanese, were Washington's most spectacular, albeit seasonal, wonder.

  "You could be wrong," Monte protested lamely.

  "Well then, we'll know for sure, won't we?"

  Across the basin the heroic statue of Jefferson peeked out between the columns of his marble gazebo. It was a stirring sight to the most jaded heart and, Fiona had decided, an ideal and secure spot to make peace with Monte Pappas. She had told him everything and he had taken it like bad medicine.

  "If true, there goes the ballgame," he sighed.

  "Depends."

  "Finis, Fiona," he chuckled with resignation. "Salivating stuff for the media. Goes to trial we're dead."

  "That's the point. We get her dead to rights, you might work some kind of credible denial. You guys are good at that."

  A long shot, she knew. They'd have three alternatives. Come clean. Lie. Or make no comment.

  "It's a tough one, Fiona," Monte said. "Besides, you've got to do what you've got to do. My favor bank with you is overdrawn anyway."

  "That it is," Fiona agreed. "But that doesn't mean he couldn't be politically saved in the Senate," Fiona pointed out. "You could paint him as a victim. People have compassion. Hell, Teddy Kennedy saved his seat."

  "He lied."

  "Just trying to look at the bright side," Fiona said. The point of the conversation, which they both knew, was the extent to which Monte could get the Senator's cooperation on the plan that was germinating in her mind. Without that, they might never be able to break the case.

  She had spent the night wrestling with the problem. They could, of course, hassle Frances, try to wrest a confession from her. They could search her home, look for clues. Fiona had to assume that Helga's jewelry had been, quite literally, trashed. Apparently the woman had plenty of money, although vanity had a way of convoluting self-interest.

  But if none of Helga's jewelry was found in Frances' home, nor any evidence tying her to these murders, they would be back to square one. And unless the clues found were utterly damning, like a confessional diary, Helga's prints on suspect surfaces, the burial shovel, mud in her car trunk, for example, they would have no real evidence or, at best, purely circumstantial evidence, which was unlikely to bring a conviction.

  Also, they had to assume that Frances, if she was the killer, had demonstrated extreme craftiness and evasion skills. In the absence of real clues, they would have to search for eyewitnesses, none o
f which had yet been found. Even if they did find a connection between Helga and Frances in a potential real estate deal, that would still not constitute any more than circumstantial evidence. There was only one sure way: Get Frances to repeat the crime. No, she corrected. Get Frances to attempt to repeat the crime.

  "You know her?" Fiona had asked earlier.

  "I've met her," he had replied. "She's on the circuit. Goes everywhere. You know these real estate types, always networking, ingratiating, hustling. Part of the game. She and Sam often bumped into each other. But it was strictly ships that pass in the night. She was long out of the picture before I came on board."

  "So she'd be accessible?" Fiona probed. That was crucial. Everything suggested that Frances was getting her information by clever and sometimes surreptitious observation. "We'd have to get the point across, trigger her modus operandi."

  "I still think it's crazy," Monte said.

  "Maybe so. But calculate the risks if we don't do something."

  "I'm calculating," Monte said. "You're setting yourself up as a target."

  "Macho me."

  "I don't know if I want to be a party to that," he muttered.

  In her heart, she had forgiven Monte. He was driven by his own dreams and priorities, ambitious but not malicious. She berated herself for getting too rigid, too parochial.

  "You are a party to it, Monte. There's also the big picture." She watched his face, the big brown eyes looking sad and hangdog as they walked. "Let's say we do nothing. He could be President. Living in the White House, they tell me, makes it easier to screw around. Kennedy and Johnson were no angels."

  "Johnson, too?"

  "We're the cops. We have files." She hadn't seen them, but had heard rumors. So she was going slightly out on a limb for a good cause.

  "Well, they were good Presidents just the same," Monte muttered.

  "That's Senator Langford's contention too," Fiona said. "Bottom line is that she can't be on the loose."

  "Have you told him your idea?"

  "Not yet. You're my test case. I thought it might be nice to have a voice of reason on my side."

  "Suppose she catches on?" he asked.

  "We'll just have to be convincing, won't we?" Fiona said. She felt a blush begin at the base of her neck.