The Witch of Watergate

by Warren Adler

  After the photographer, a group of tech boys came into the den, all business, inspecting the premises. Her instinct was to protest the usurpation of police power, but she repressed that. The Eggplant would have raised hell. But this was, after all, bigger than a mere suicide. There were implications beyond police jurisdiction. Downey could have been, what did the Brits call it, a mole for a foreign power. A traitor. The Feds had to contend with these issues, conspiracy, the fate of the nation, establishment paranoia.

  The bald man and his partner conferred out of earshot, then talked into their wrists again. After a while, the bald man came back and addressed Fiona.

  “We’re in touch with your superiors. The body is going to the MPD medical examiner.” Fiona watched as the weapon and the notes were put in Ziploc plastic pouches. “We’ll be sure you’re copied on these.”

  Two men with a folding stretcher came in and began to bag and load the body, leaving a trail of blood and matter along the carpet.

  Fiona looked at her watch. The Eggplant’s press conference would be in full swing. In moments, the two deaths would be connected. The media circus would begin. To the Eggplant, Downey’s death would be a bonus, as if he had been granted his fondest wish.

  “Truth kills,” Fiona said, looking at Evans, wondering if she fully understood.

  They moved through a sea of agents and MPD uniforms as they followed the body to a waiting ambulance. Press and television reporters were already on the scene, taking pictures, attempting to question agents, who rebuffed them with stony silence. A reporter who knew Fiona yelled a question at her. She put a hand over her mouth, signaling her response.

  In the car, with Fiona driving, they headed back downtown.

  “You let yourself be intimidated, FitzGerald,” Evans said as Fiona swung the car into the M Street traffic. The tone was accusatory.

  “It’s a joke, right?” Fiona said.

  “No joke at all. That was our jurisdiction. You let them push us around.”

  “Where were you?” Fiona snapped. The woman was infuriating.

  “This is your turf,” Evans said. “You’re the experienced operator.” Evans turned and looked out of the window at the streets of Georgetown, the heavy street traffic with few black faces, the trendy restaurants and boutiques.

  “What does that mean?” Fiona said.

  She knew exactly what it meant. To Evans, Fiona was the honky princess who specialized in all the fancy white crimes. It had been said often enough by her colleagues, always articulated with sarcasm and resentment.

  Fiona understood it, of course. The establishment, high society, the power elite, had nurtured her. This was her natural milieu. Homicide detectives with that background were nonexistent. The squad knew that. They also knew that, if called upon, she could deal with Washington’s underbelly, it’s scummier side. But that didn’t prevent some from secretly resenting her, her gender, her color, her education, her background, her contacts, her money. The best she could hope for was respect, which had to be won many times over. With newcomers, it was harder. Especially if she wasn’t motivated. Like with Evans.

  Evans did not answer Fiona’s question, which just hung there now, a sail flapping helplessly in the wind.

  “You’ve got a real attitude problem, Evans,” Fiona said. “You don’t like the way I handled things, bring me up on charges.”

  “No way. They’d laugh. Call it a cat fight.”

  “So what’s the point of bitching?”

  “The point is that I’m on to your kiss-assy little game. Doesn’t mean it’s right. Means it’s expedient. You backed down because you didn’t want to upset the Eggplant’s show. A fight with the feds wouldn’t look good just now.”

  “Which side are you on, Evans?”

  “My side—and don’t you forget it.”

  Cantankerous bitch, Fiona thought, letting her anger simmer. She took a stab at trying to analyze Evans’ hostility toward her. Some deep-seated race and gender thing, as if Fiona’s very presence and persona provoked agitation. Fiona supposed, if she worked at it, she might crack through, reach common ground. Professionals compromised, repressed, accommodated.

  Why bother, she decided. Whatever was bugging her, this was Charleen Evans’ problem, not Fiona’s. When they got back she’d ask the Eggplant for Cates. The Eggplant understood the delicate chemistry between partners. He wouldn’t refuse, not with a high-profile case in the making, not when he might be needing her.

  She pushed Evans out of her mind. She’d have Cates back and Charleen Evans would be history. She forced her thoughts back to Pamela Dearborn. They had said goodbye to Sheila Burns, locked the apartment and dashed over to Downey’s house. Yet something lingered in her mind, some vague discomfort nagged at her.

  If Polly Dearborn was murdered, a distinct possibility in the absence of a suicide note, they would have to start blazing a trail through thickets of suspects, meaning everyone the woman’s cruel pen had skewered. This implication of numbers made her think of Polly Dearborn’s computer. All in there, Evans had said.

  “What was on that computer?” she asked Evans, trying to keep her tone indifferent and professional. She was surprised when Evans answered her, adopting a similar tone.

  “Lots of things. It’s going to take hours to get through. She was hooked into scores of data banks. There was also a Rolodex containing hundreds of names and private numbers, dates and times of contact, personal comments, opinions. In hard copy it would have filled filing cabinets.”

  “But no suicide note?”

  “I didn’t say that.” There it was again, that attitude, the touch of arrogance. “I only said I hadn’t found it yet.” She jerked a thumb toward the rear seat. “That’s why I took the hard disk.”

  “And if it doesn’t turn up, then what?” Fiona asked.

  Evans shrugged.

  “It was a good shot, win or lose,” she muttered.

  “This isn’t a contest, Evans.”

  “Then why make it one?”

  At that point one of the more macho of her colleagues might have said, You wearing the flag, big Mama? She felt herself on the verge of mimicry, but desisted. Instead, she prepared her own retort.

  “I’m not going to plumb your depths, Evans. I’ll leave that for your shrink.”

  “Good. Stick to your last, Sergeant. And I’ll stick to mine.”

  “And if you don’t find a note, will you concede it might, just might, be murder?” Fiona asked.

  “Maybe,” Evans conceded.

  First words out of her mouth when she got downtown would be “Give me Cates!” The Eggplant would ask why and Fiona would talk about the sensitivity of the case and the need for teaming up with an experienced partner. She wouldn’t mention the attitude problem or the woman’s self-righteous arrogance. Leave that to others to find. She’d stay with the experience part. He’d see through it, of course, maybe give her a bad time at first. That was his way. In the end, she knew, he would give her Cates.

  She navigated Washington Circle, turned down 23rd Street, hung a left past the State Department and headed toward Constitution Avenue.

  “And if it is murder,” Evans said as they neared headquarters, “then that computer will tell us who did it.”

  “That’s what I detest about you most, Evans,” Fiona said through clenched teeth. “Your sense of certainty.”

  They sat in the Eggplant’s office, where she heard the death knell to her idea that she might be able to rid herself of Charleen Evans.

  “I’ve got two of my best people on this, Amy,” the Eggplant said into the phone, his chair angled, his spit-shined shoes resting above a pile of thick folders on his desk. He puffed deeply on his panatela and blew perfect smoke rings, a sure sign of his satisfaction. “Two women. Detectives FitzGerald and Evans.” He was silent for a moment as he listened to a voice on the other end. He smiled and nodded and put his hand over the mouthpiece of the instrument. “I hadn’t thought of that.” He winked at them. “Am
y Perkins, New York Times. Likes the idea of women investigating the death of a woman.”

  “Verisimilitude,” the Eggplant said, his hand off the mouthpiece. “I like that. Sure, Amy. Anytime.” He hung up and took a deep puff on his panatela. “Always darkest before the dawn.” His eyes scanned the faces of the two women who sat before him.

  They had briefed him, Fiona doing most of the talking, putting everything in perspective. Evans said nothing, wearing her favorite neutral expression. He was exhibiting too much goodwill for them to show him the ugly side of their relationship. Nor was the Eggplant in a badgering mood. He had not brought up Evans’ failure to find a suicide note. At a less amiable time, he might have excoriated her for her apparent certainty. And Evans hadn’t expressed her opinion about Fiona’s quick jurisdictional surrender to federal agents, although Fiona had alluded to it herself.

  “Why get into a pissing contest with the feds?” the Eggplant said. “Unless an autopsy comes up with surprises, I’d say Downey’s suicide is unassailable.”

  “It doesn’t absolve him as a suspect,” Fiona said, cutting a glance at Charleen Evans. At least Fiona had kept that theory to herself. It probably had never even crossed Evans’ mind. But now she needed to gain ascendancy over Evans with the Eggplant.

  Yet, Fiona was far from ready with theories. Even the idea that Downey was Dearborn’s killer was premature. Nor had they ruled out without a shadow of a doubt that Polly Dearborn had committed suicide. Evans might find a suicide note in the computer, which would eliminate Downey as perpetrator. And there was still the autopsy.

  “Downey a suspect?” the Eggplant mused, tapping his teeth.

  “I don’t see it,” Evans interjected, rushing into an explanation. “If he was planning to kill himself anyway, why go to such elaborate lengths to kill her? A bullet or a knife, even a garroting, would have done the job very well. Think of what hanging requires. The purchase of the rope, bringing the rope to the scene, researching the fine points of hanging, constructing the right knot, not only the one around the noose but the one around the cement pylon of the terrace. Not to mention that there is no evidence to suggest that he was there.”

  “So far,” Fiona pouted.

  “I’ll grant you . . .” Evans paused, throwing a smug glance at Fiona, “. . . that anything is possible. Downey’s note to his son, for example.” Again she paused. No question, she had their attention. “That letter to his son could have been a confession.”

  “What letter?” the Eggplant asked.

  “Downey’s letter to his son,” Evans said. “His personal suicide note. Along with the other. The ones the feds confiscated.” She looked pointedly at Fiona.

  “You let them take it?” the Eggplant said, directing the question to Fiona.

  “They invoked national security,” Fiona muttered.

  “You didn’t read it?” the Eggplant asked.

  “No, I didn’t,” Fiona answered. “I’m not certain we could do that.” There was, of course, the legal issue of privacy. But that was a cop-out. The fact is that they should have beat the feds to the confiscation.

  “I’m sure the feds had no such compunction,” Evans said, troweling the blame onto Fiona.

  “We can still confront the younger Downey,” Fiona said defensively, feeling herself nakedly vulnerable on that point. “On the question of murder, he would also be a suspect. Along with everyone else she had wronged.” She thought suddenly of Chappy and his threat. Undoubtedly, there were many more who had the same violent wish.

  “I’d say that the term ‘wronged’ is inaccurate,” Evans said. “It implies the people she wrote about were innocent. ‘Exposed’ might be more apt.”

  “That’s because you’ve never been on the receiving end,” Fiona snapped, remembering how her father was excoriated by the press when he made his antiwar stand. She glanced at the Eggplant. “The fact is, we’re all on the receiving end now. Like it or not.”

  The Eggplant nodded, but he did not pick up the cudgels to dispute Evans. At the moment he wasn’t happy with the media, especially the Post. But when they made him a hero, publicized his exploits, he was the first to embrace them.

  Evans was like most people not in the power loop. They loved to see someone, particularly a person from the so-called power elite, impaled in the press. It was a favorite Washington sport, like watching a bullfight. Many were quick, eager, to pass a guilty judgement, especially if the person impaled was a “have” as opposed to a “have not.” Seeing these mighty “haves” fall was to many, especially to a woman with an obvious chip on her shoulder like Charleen Evans, an exhilarating experience. Clearly, the root of her hostility was putting Fiona in the category of the “haves,” then bashing her.

  Although Evans never spoke the words, Fiona imagined that she could hear them loud and clear: “The apple never falls far from the tree.” Be on guard, Fiona cautioned herself. This woman wants to cut your heart out.

  “However defined,” Fiona began, tackling the issue of “wronged” versus “exposed.” Avoiding any show of weakness, she had to repress any sign of animosity. “A media attack, deserved or undeserved, provides grounds for a motive. On that basis alone, the woman had legions of enemies.”

  “No question about that,” the Eggplant agreed, determined not to take sides between them. It was obvious that he wanted them to stay partnered. He rubbed his chin and took a deep drag on his panatela. “Good thinking on getting that computer material. Might be something in it.”

  “I can’t take any of the credit on that one, Chief. We’re lucky to have someone as computer literate as Officer Evans.” Fiona looked toward the recipient of her compliment, hoping that her patronizing tone was rankling. Evans’ expression remained neutral, showing neither pleasure nor pain.

  The phone rang on the Eggplant’s desk and he picked it up routinely.

  “Greene here.”

  After a brief pause, he straightened in his chair, a gesture that signaled that someone very important was on the phone. Despite the macho pose to his underlings, he could appear groveling when it suited his purpose, a performance that assuaged any guilt in her use of the term “Eggplant.”

  “We’re not a hundred percent certain, Mr. Barker,” the Eggplant said after listening for a few moments. They could hear the muffled voice on the other end. “An autopsy might tell us something.” There was more talk at the other end. “Yes, we do have our hands full. But we’re on this one. You can be sure about that.” More talk at the other end. The Eggplant lifted his eyes and looked at them, first one then the other. “Yes. We do appreciate that, Mr. Barker.” The Eggplant looked at his watch. “We can be there in less than a half hour. I’m sure it would be helpful. Yes. See you then.”

  The Eggplant hung up the phone and bashed out his panatela. He was smiling, his change of attitude abrupt, showing them he was merely playacting.

  “The man himself,” he said. “This Dearborn thing’s got him rattled.” The Eggplant rubbed his chin in contemplation, then he stood up and paced his office, lost in thought. “Offered carte blanche to the investigation. That’s exactly his words. Carte blanche. Who could blame him? They start knocking off his reporters for writing their shit, who knows where it ends?” He shook his head and stomped his foot in a kind of dance of joy. “Harry Barker himself. Shit. He wants in. Needs us now.”

  As editor of the vaunted Washington Post, Harry Barker was the single most powerful person in Washington. At the paper, his word was law, absolute. He had the ear and the complete confidence of the paper’s owner, Mrs. Grayson, who, along with most Post employees, worshipped him or appeared to do so. He was, as they say, a legend in his own time and he enjoyed the role.

  Except for that one time as a young reporter when he had interviewed her father, Fiona had not seen much of him. He was rarely on the social circuit and was apparently very reclusive outside the office. Who could blame him? He had enemies. He had made the paper, in his thirty years as editor, the voice of indign
ation. He had toppled Presidents and poseurs with the power of the word. The trail of busted careers and ruined lives was endless. Most, Fiona supposed grudgingly, were justified. Others were clearly marginal. But one thing was certain. If anyone got entangled in the net of Harry Barker’s system of media justice, he was, if not doomed, damned to banishment from the national control tower.

  “Let’s roll. We can strategize on the way,” the Eggplant said, starting for the door. He looked toward Evans.

  “Better keep working on that computer search,” the Eggplant said.

  “Maybe that note will turn up yet,” Fiona said, smiling. Evans said nothing, but Fiona could detect the flash of hatred in her eyes. “If it’s there, Evans will find it.”

  “Be a damned shame, wouldn’t it?” the Eggplant said as he and Fiona dashed out of the office. Fiona cut a final look at Evans. Unhappy hunting, she wanted to say. She hoped her eyes conveyed the thought.

  6

  HARRY BARKER’S OFFICE had a glass wall through which he could see the vast expanse of the paper’s city room. His legions of editors, reporters, researchers, secretaries and copy persons could also see him, which seemed the object of the configuration.

  He sat on the flat side of a conference desk shaped like a fat half moon. Around the rim of the rounded part of the desk were chairs for six people. These people faced Harry Barker and the window, which looked out on 15th Street. Harry Barker faced his visitors and his city room.

  “I really appreciate this,” he said politely in his gravelly voice, standing up to shake hands. There was a brisk courtliness about him and a firm sense of command. His face was like old cracked leather, his eyes watery blue, his hair a neat steel grey with a perfectly straight lefthand part. He wore a light blue button-down shirt with a striped blue-and-red tie, and when he stood Fiona noted that his waist-line was small, boyish. He reminded her of some Hollywood image of an old sundried cowboy dressed in strange clothes who had wandered into this place by accident.