The Witch of Watergate

by Warren Adler

  She watched his face. He obviously did not have the ability to hide his feelings.

  “My father was enormously gregarious, a real social person. Yes, he did say he knew her.”

  “Did he say he knew her well?”

  “That’s the irony of it. When all hell broke loose and he got wind of her story, he told me that he had actually considered her a friend. Some friend.”

  “Did you ever meet her?”

  “Never. Dad and I did not travel in the same social circles.”

  “Did you ever talk with her?”

  “Yes. She called me.” He mumbled under his breath. “Bitch.”

  “You spoke?”

  “She asked if I had anything to do with getting Pentagon contracts for my firm. You know how they do things obliquely. Subtle. Soft southern drawl. Butter would melt in her filthy mouth. I told her that her implications were a lot of bullshit.” He was starting to wind up again, knew it, and seemed to make a genuine effort to hold his rage in check.

  “So she called you that one time?”

  Robert Downey turned away suddenly. The knobs on his cheekbones flushed.

  “Makes me livid to think about it.”

  “She called you again, then?”

  “Oh yes. But she called Dad lots more times. He discussed these conversations with me. At first he told me he was very forthcoming, very. Open and honest. That was him. But when she started asking about the divorce from Mother, he got his back up. Oh, he expected controversy, expected to be vetted. He was an old pro and he knew what kind of stuff that woman did. I told him to stay away from the bitch. Too late by then. Maybe he thought he was above it all. That was a mistake. No one is safe from the Polly Dearborns of this world. No one.”

  “Did your Dad have any girlfriends?”

  “I never discussed that aspect of his life,” Robert Downey said flatly, without emotion.

  “But he did date women?”

  “Yes. Many. Part of the game. The bachelor condition is a two-way street. Washington is a pair town. Everything in twosies. An uneven dinner party counts as a disaster.”

  Fiona knew she was dancing around a delicate theme.

  “You sound like you know the drill, Mr. Downey?”

  She could detect a flash of defensiveness.

  “I do. I’m a bachelor.”

  She caught the tiniest edge of aggression.

  “Did you discuss the Dearborn inquiries with your father?”

  “Yes, I did. We were both appalled at the turn it was taking. How do you combat stuff like that? Also that part about the divorce with Mother. She failed to mention that they were divorced in California, which is a 50-50 settlement state. Of course, he tried to protect his assets. You don’t know my mother. Where was Dad’s comeback? He had to grin and bear it.”

  “Did you see today’s story in the Post?”

  His eyes glazed, as if he had suddenly turned inward, searching inside of himself for a way to answer the question. Fiona was certain that he had seen it.

  “I never want to read that paper again. Never. As long as I live.”

  She exchanged glances with Charleen. The question had to be asked and she searched her mind for some easy way to approach it. In Fiona’s mind the abuse issue was surely the one that kicked Chester Downey over the edge.

  “Did she ask you about the cult trial?” Fiona asked, as gently as possible.

  Downey frowned. His lips tightened and his eyes seemed to reflect the animal’s fear of the predator. His guard was definitely on alert.

  “We know you left something out, Mr. Downey,” Charleen said suddenly. The timing of the question seemed all wrong. Downey reacted swiftly.

  “I don’t believe I want to go on with this interview,” he said.

  “Neither do we,” Charleen said. “Not on this basis.” She looked toward Fiona. Dumb, insensitive bitch, Fiona thought, trying to mime a severe rebuke. This interview had to be salvaged.

  “We know it’s a touchy subject, Mr. Downey,” Fiona said. “We also know that your Dad attempted to get Harry Barker not to run the cult trial material. As you see, he didn’t. Perhaps if he had known that it would not run, he would not have taken such drastic action. Unfortunately, we, as investigators, can’t avoid discussing it.”

  “It’s a pack of lies. Even Harry Barker must have thought so—” He checked himself, then shrugged.

  “We have to assume that you and your Dad did discuss the matter,” Fiona pressed, hoping to tamp down his agitation. She was furious with Charleen for disrupting the interrogation with her blatant insensitivity.

  Fiona waited through Robert Downey’s long silence. Charleen, too, remained silent. Perhaps Fiona’s look had sent its message. Downey studied his hands with great intensity, as if he were searching there for a way to confront the issue. Finally he spoke. A hoarseness crept into his voice.

  “We talked about it, yes. It was depressing for him, but I never thought this . . . this would happen.”

  “Did he tell you he spoke with Barker?”

  “Yes, he did. Barker said it was on the record, that the Dearborn bitch had checked it out. Something about Dearborn using data banks on her computer, that she had the testimony on her computer. But Dad did say he was not going to take it lying down.”

  “Did he say what that meant, what he was going to do?”

  Again, Robert Downey’s eyes glazed over.

  “Well, did he?” Fiona pressed.

  Downey shook his head.

  “Did you threaten any action?”

  “Yes,” he said, his eyes clearing, suddenly alert as a ferret.

  “Like violence on the person of Polly Dearborn?” Charleen interjected. Again Fiona was infuriated with Charleen’s interruption. Her sense of timing was totally awry, counterproductive. And her choice of words, antiquated legalese, was horrendous.

  Downey gurgled a hysterical chuckle that was more eloquent than words.

  “What was your father’s reaction?”

  “He begged me not to do anything foolish, that I was still young, had lots of things ahead of me.” Another sob broke through, which he could not mask. Instead, he took deep draughts of air to tamp it down. “I told him that I thought it was worse to stain his distinguished reputation as a public servant. I told him, yes I was young enough to rise above it. But for him it was a travesty. I told him . . .” He seemed to be having trouble getting himself under control.

  Suddenly he held up his hand with the same traffic-cop gesture he had used before.

  “That’s about all I care to discuss on this matter,” he said.

  Fiona hesitated, exchanged glances with Charleen.

  Once again he had wanted this interview to stop, but he made no overt move to retreat.

  “I was just a kid, nineteen years old. Twenty-one years ago . . .” he began, then shook his head and did not go further.

  “But you did testify at that trial?”

  The subject itself seemed to loom as such a monstrous taboo in his mind that she feared a more specific reference would end the interview once and for all. He was now running on inertia, but he would have been well within his rights to throw them out and get himself a lawyer.

  “Yes, I testified for them,” he said with an air of resignation. “I was brainwashed by the cult. Explaining that to you people would be like reinventing the wheel. I was coerced to lie, mentally forced to discredit my father.”

  “Did you explain that to Polly Dearborn?”

  “Of course I did,” Downey said belligerently. Rage was rising in him now. “Oh, how self-righteous she was. Said she was only reporting what was on the record, not drawing any conclusions. That’s a laugh.” He drew in a deep breath. His nostrils quivered with anger. His hands gripped the arms of the chair in which his father had died. “She’s the one who pulled that trigger.”

  “The issue here, Mr. Downey, is not how your father died, but how Polly Dearborn was killed.” Fiona said the words slowly, determined to con
vey the real message of their conversation.

  “You think he killed that bitch, don’t you?”

  “There’s not enough facts to draw that conclusion,” Fiona said.

  “Or me. Maybe you really believe I did it.”

  “Or together,” Charleen snapped. Fiona couldn’t fault her on that intervention.

  “Yes, together. That would be rich.”

  “You certainty had the motive. Both of you,” Fiona said. There were others, too, that Polly Dearborn had destroyed, but this one was too recent, too compellingly topical, to be ignored.

  “Bet your ass on that,” Downey muttered. He got up from the chair and strode across the room, looking idly at a row of books on their shelves. Then he turned suddenly.

  “But you have no evidence,” he said pointedly.

  “Frankly, no, but that doesn’t foreclose on the possibility that maybe you have.”

  “Me?”

  “The note he left you,” Fiona pressed.

  “It’s none of your business. His last words to me were for my eyes only.”

  “When was it given to you?”

  The question seemed to confuse him momentarily.

  “It was hand-delivered to me at the funeral parlor. I thought it was from the police.”

  “Wasn’t us. Federal agents were on the scene within minutes of my getting here. They took charge of the letter.”

  “All I want to know is whether there was anything in it that suggested that your father might have been the person who killed Polly Dearborn.”

  “A confession, you mean?”

  “Yes.”

  “If that was so, why would the federal agents have returned it to me?” Robert Downey asked.

  “They have their own reasons for everything. Their agenda is not that of the Metropolitan Police Force. They have other priorities.”

  He appeared to be thinking it over.

  “Nobody will ever see it now. I’ve destroyed it.”

  “Why did you do that?”

  “I don’t have to explain that to you.”

  “No, you don’t,” Fiona agreed. “But it is possible that what you destroyed was not the genuine article. You’d be surprised how accurately they can create authentic-looking correspondence.”

  Her imagination was soaring into the realm of spy fiction, CIA shenanigans, dirty tricks, conspiracy and double-cross. Give her a little time and she might construct a logical scenario. Chester Downey, America’s Secretary of Defense, was a former KGB mole or somesuch. Lots of people around who would bite on that apple.

  “All right, Mr. Downey, then I’ll ask you—do you believe that your father murdered Polly Dearborn, then killed himself?”

  Downey smiled and bit his lip. The knobs of his cheekbones were beginning to turn scarlet.

  “If he did, he would have done it that way. A public hanging. That’s what was symbolically happening to him. He appreciated things like that.”

  Despite his grief, Downey appeared fascinated by the interrogation. Suspects, guilty or not, often enjoyed these cat-and-mouse games, especially those with a vaunted opinion of themselves, where matching wits with their pursuers represented a life-or-death challenge.

  “Yes,” Downey said slowly, shaking his head in the affirmative. “Why not proceed on that theory?”

  “We are,” Charleen snapped. “Is there something you can offer us that might help?”

  “I wish I could,” Downey said, offering a bold smile.

  Despite the sardonic challenge, Fiona sensed that it was probably unlikely that Downey senior would have told his son that he murdered Polly Dearborn. As an allegedly loving father, he would not wish to complicate life for his son after his own death. It was time to switch gears.

  “Where were you on the night Polly Dearborn was murdered?” Fiona asked abruptly. She had hardened her approach now. For his part, Downey showed the first signs of caution.

  “I was in bed, I suppose,” he murmured.

  “Were you alone?” Charleen asked abruptly. Fiona cut her another glance of rebuke.

  “Alone?” He seemed to recoil from the question.

  “Just looking for corroboration,” Charleen said.

  “Yes,” he said after a long hesitation “I was alone.” His answer did not carry much conviction.

  “Too bad,” Charleen said. “A witness would have disposed of the matter quickly.”

  “I think it’s time that I disposed of both of you quickly.” He strode to the door of the den, opened it and stepped aside. They had apparently invaded his boundaries. He was being conclusive now and Fiona sensed that it was not the time to press forward without more evidence. She started to cross the room. Charleen hung back.

  “Were you sexually abused by your father?” Charleen asked Downey. The question seemed to freeze him. He looked at her for a long moment.

  “Not my day for the kindness of strangers,” he said, puffing his cheeks, then expelling the air. Fiona knew the reference from the Tennessee Williams play. They were definitely transgressing now. He would, Fiona knew, be prepared to defend that boundary with his life.

  “I think we’ve taken enough of Mr. Downey’s time,” Fiona said, shooting a cutting glance at Charleen.

  “But we haven’t finished here,” Charleen said.

  “Yes we have,” Fiona said. She grabbed Charleen by the elbow and ushered her out of the room.

  Back in the car, they were silent for a long time. To Fiona’s surprise, it was Charleen who broke the silence.

  “He was wide open,” she said. “We could have run a truck through him.”

  “For what purpose?”

  “There was a compelling reason here. A motive with teeth.”

  “You really think he did it?”

  “He or his father. Or he with his father.”

  “That’s a conclusion without evidence.”

  “Then we’ve got to find the evidence, don’t we?”

  “That’s a dangerous way for a homicide detective to think,” Fiona said, as she drove. She could feel Charleen’s eyes boring into her.

  “The guilt came out of him like sweat.”

  “Which guilt was that?”

  She waited for Charleen’s answer.

  “I have an advantage over you, Sergeant FitzGerald,” Charleen said.

  “Fiona. Make it Fiona, Charleen. The formality seems, well, hostile. Now what’s the advantage?” She had pointed the car toward M Street. They had told Sheila Burns that they would meet her at the Post sometime after lunch.

  “I read Downey’s trial testimony in the hard copies. You and the Captain hadn’t got to it. But I read it and it disgusted me.”

  “Doesn’t make a case, Charleen. Sexual deviation is one thing, murder another.”

  “Sometimes you’re so patronizing, Sergeant Fitz—Fiona. It’s galling.”

  “Can’t you just remove the damned chip, Charleen?”

  She was silent for a while, then she spoke.

  “He testified that his father seduced him at twelve on a camping trip in Yosemite National Park, and that it happened many times after that.”

  “Did the father confirm or deny it?”

  “Denied it. Said it was the cult’s doing. That they came up with the most horrible thing they could devise to tear father and son apart.”

  “And the verdict?”

  “Hung jury. Young Downey went back to the cult.”

  “All this was in Polly Dearborn’s computer?”

  “Everything. Apparently he drifted out of the cult himself about a year later, went back to college and, you might say, reconciled with his father.”

  “What’s this, ‘you might say’?”

  “Dearborn had a comment on her computer. She suspected that this affair was a lifelong thing, that it was still going on.”

  Fiona felt a sudden stab of rage. Self-righteous Polly Dearborn, a sexaphobe, afraid of the dick, a virgin after forty. How dare she judge the sexual propensities of others? She cas
t a sidelong glance at Charleen Evans. And you, she asked, silently, imagining tight-assed and controlled Charleen impaled on some big black dick. No way, she decided, remembering the obsessive order of her apartment. Nothing ever out of line for old Charleen.

  “Okay, so what if they were still having an affair? We’re still talking murder.”

  “It’s one strong motive,” Charleen said. “Imagine having your deepest secrets splashed all over the papers.”

  “She’s done it before. There are others who have also been brought down.”

  “Not like this. This was more than an ordinary career-breaker. This was ten points on the psychic Richter scale.”

  “Not bad, Charleen,” Fiona said. “The part about the Richter scale.”

  “Now it’s ridicule,” Charleen harumphed.

  “You and your attitudes. I’ll try to ignore it. The bottom line is do you seriously believe that one or the other Downey or both killed Polly Dearborn?”

  “Let’s say that the possibility should be seriously considered.”

  “You want to bring it to Captain Greene?”

  Charleen was silent as she looked out of the window. A warm sun had brought out early lunchers who brown-bagged on Farragut Square and filled the sidewalk tables of restaurants.

  “Not yet,” Charleen said. “But I think we missed something at the apartment. I don’t know what. But something.”

  Fiona headed the car toward 15th Street, then made a right into a parking lot adjacent to the Washington Post building.

  “Okay. I offer you my expression of support. After the Burns woman we go back to the witch’s lair.”

  “There it is again,” Charleen said.

  “I hope so. Ridicule, was it?”

  “Sarcasm,” Charleen replied. Fiona took it as a good sign. Charleen was loosening up.

  13

  THEY FOLLOWED SHEILA Burns to her office.

  “You’ll never find it without me,” she had said cheerily over the telephone at the reception desk in the lobby. A few moments later, she was beside them, a small woman with white skin framed by ringlets of jet black hair. She shook hands and led them to the elevator.

  “They’ve got me in this Siberian hole,” she said after the elevator had stopped at the third floor. Fiona noted that the editorial department was on the sixth floor. They followed her through a maze of corridors until they came to an unmarked, door which Sheila opened with a key.