The Witch of Watergate

by Warren Adler

  “Your father blew his brains out because he couldn’t take the exposure, am I right?”

  “She was bent on destroying him, would stop at nothing. Even this terrible, awful lie . . .”

  “But your father killed himself rather than face it.”

  “It turned out that he didn’t have to,” Downey said, fighting for control. He sat down but kept his hands on the table.

  “But he couldn’t face it. The taboo was too monstrous . . .”

  “He couldn’t bear the idea that I would suffer.” A sob gurgled in his throat. “He loved me.”

  “But he left you to face the music.”

  “No. He did it to spare me.”

  “But the story never ran.”

  “He didn’t know that.”

  “But you did and the guilt was too much for you. You needed to punish yourself. You cooked up this phony confession to expiate your sins. The sin of incest, this filthy, dirty secret between you and your father.” She sensed the cruelty of her statement, but waved aside all compassion. For her the bottom line was to find out the truth. The greater wrong would be for Polly Dearborn’s real killer to get away with it.

  “You’re going too far,” he said, still in charge of himself, still unbroken.

  “Not far enough. You’re a liar, Downey. You and your father had this illicit relationship since you were a child, just as you testified. It was so strong that you continued it all your lives. Nothing could break it. Nothing could stop it.”

  “No. No. Absolutely not. That is a lie. I demand you stop this.” His voice rose. “I want my statement. I killed Polly Dearborn. You are tormenting me.”

  Still, he wasn’t breaking. She had broken others with this type of staccato interrogation. Perhaps he was telling the truth. Perhaps he had killed her. Perhaps he had not had this incestuous relationship with his father. It was, after all, the ultimate accusation, the ultimate disgrace.

  “I don’t believe you,” she said. But she could tell that the emotional crescendo was lessening, that he was getting himself under control.

  Then, in one of those wildly insightful moments, when an idea springs from some unknown subconscious wellspring, she took a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree turn in tactics. She was wearing a blue skirt held up by a thin leather rope-like belt, which her fingers had touched by pure accident. She unfastened the buckle. He could not see her do this, since that part of her was out of his field of vision.

  “You say you killed Polly Dearborn. Garroted her from behind, dragged her across the apartment, threw her over the side of the terrace?”

  “It’s all in my statement,” he said. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to sign it and get it over with once and for all. Let’s end it, why don’t we?”

  “That’s okay with me. But first . . .” She pulled the rope-like leather belt out of its loops and threw it on the table. “Show me how you made the knot.”

  He looked at the belt in front of him. But he made no move to reach for it.

  “Just replicate the hangman’s noose that you used on Polly Dearborn. Do that and it’s case-closed.”

  Fiona watched him. The color had drained from his face, even from the reddened knobs of his cheekbones. He had clasped his hands in front of him but he made no move toward the belt.

  “This is ridiculous,” he said, trying to override his anxiety by indignation.

  “That was your choice of weapon,” Fiona pressed. “A little demonstration shouldn’t be a problem.”

  “I refuse,” he said, his voice shaking.

  “You can’t. Not now.”

  He was silent for a moment, averting his eyes. She watched his hands move toward the belt. He lifted it with trembling fingers.

  “You’ve made me too nervous,” he said, his eyes pleading.

  “Your lies have made you nervous, Downey.”

  He picked up the belt and began to create the knot. For a brief moment, Fiona thought he was about to get it. His fingers continued to shake as he made what seemed like the appropriate loops. But when he pulled at it, the plaited leather rope unraveled. He did not look at Fiona. Beads of perspiration began to gather on his upper lip.

  “It’s all right. We’re in no rush,” Fiona said soothingly.

  He tried again.

  “This is not real rope,” he muttered, stopping for a moment to brush away the perspiration.

  Again he tried making the right loops. Again the belt unraveled. It did not deter him as he continued to try, always without success.

  “I’m too . . . too nervous.” He looked toward her. Perspiration was running down the sides of his chin. Drops were falling on his tie.

  “You can’t, can you?”

  He hesitated, turned away from her, concentrating once again on making the knot. After numerous tries, he seemed to have succeeded, creating what looked like a hangman’s knot.

  “There,” he taunted, throwing the looped end in her direction. She took it, pulled, and it unraveled. An odd strangulated sound issued from his throat. Tears of frustration seemed to fill his eyes.

  “You didn’t,” she rebuked. “You didn’t kill Polly Dearborn.”

  “I . . . I . . .” He couldn’t get any further words out.

  “It wouldn’t solve it, Robert,” Fiona said gently. “It would always be there, wouldn’t it?”

  He bowed his head, his shoulders shook with sobs. He had clasped his hands, knuckles white, and rested them on the edge of the table, a child’s gesture. Fiona reached out and touched them.

  “You musn’t be too hard on yourself,” Fiona said. The man’s agony had touched her. He lifted his head and took deep breaths, trying to get himself under control.

  “How can people possibly understand?” he whispered. “I loved that man with all my heart and soul and body. And he loved me. As far back as my memory goes, I loved my father.”

  “Yes,” she said gently.

  “It was more than twenty years ago. How dare she dredge that up. Everybody had forgotten. Even the FBI check on Dad never found it. We thought we were home free. Pamela Dearborn was a cruel beast, a cruel beast. She killed him and I needed to kill her.” He turned his tearstained face toward Fiona. “You understand that.”

  “Of course I do,” Fiona said. “But, you see, our job is to catch her real killer. Forcing the system to punish you wouldn’t help anything, Robert. Leastwise, yourself.”

  He was gaining control. She took a packet of tissues out of her pocketbook and gave it to him.

  “Do you think we can keep this . . . well . . . you know.”

  “Quiet?”

  He nodded.

  “I feel like a fool,” he said.

  At that moment, Charleen burst through the door, followed by the Eggplant. She threw an envelope on the table.

  “They found prints. It’s confirmed. They belong to Robert Downey.”

  Fiona turned to face her, looking up slowly. Charleen’s eyes glistened with the pride of victory.

  “Do they?” she said.

  “Captain Greene has his statement for his signature,” she said. Poor Charleen, Fiona thought. No insight. One searching look at Robert Downey should have convinced her. It quickly convinced the Eggplant. He took a folded paper from his pocket and ripped it up, sprinkling the remains on the table.

  Even then, Fiona wondered when it would finally dawn on Charleen Evans.

  21

  FOR THE FIRST time in days Fiona awoke refreshed from a dead, dreamless sleep. Often in her experience, bearing witness to another’s catharsis had a sympathetic effect on her own emotions.

  Lying in bed, stretching in the delicious warmth, watching bright sunbeams spear through the blinds, she felt an odd sense of peace and satisfaction, as if she had finally said goodbye to yet another brief bout of depression.

  It would pass. She knew it would. A realist, she had learned to trust her self-knowledge. It had been a legacy of her father, who had, for most of his life, relied rather heavily on self-delusion and f
antasy, never really confronting himself. His epiphany, which changed the course of his life, profoundly altered her own.

  The sense of it had burned into her memory, invaded, then embedded itself in her tissue forever. He had assembled his tiny family, consisting of her mother and herself, in the dining room. Perhaps the fact that she continued to live in the house deeply influenced the pristine recall of the moment.

  The memory was further reinforced by another event that had occurred to her almost at the same moment in time, perhaps a day or two before. She had had her first period, had become a woman.

  For weeks before, her father had seemed catatonic, alarmingly so, since he was the very model of the gregarious Irish politician, a man who had parlayed charismatic charm and a gift for blarney to membership in the most exclusive club in the world, the United States Senate.

  It was early morning. She remembered the special quality of the sunlight filtering through the curtains.

  “I have reached a decision,” he said. Perhaps it was the light, but she noted that the fatigue wrinkles in his facial skin had miraculously smoothed and his eyes sparkled with happiness. “I intend to oppose the Vietnam war,” he said. To Fiona it had sounded momentous, although she had absolutely no true understanding of the implications. “It will probably ruin my career and change our lives.”

  “Is that wise?” her mother had said, ever the cautious conservative. Despite the hardships of being a Senator’s wife, she would not have traded her position for anything.

  “Remember what Lou Gehrig said when they gave him that tribute at Yankee Stadium?” her father said. It made absolutely no sense to her. Not then. Who was Lou Gehrig?

  “What are you talking about?” her mother had said.

  “I am the happiest man on the face of the earth,” her father had replied.

  Only later did she learn who Lou Gehrig was . . . the first baseman for the New York Yankees who had just been diagnosed as having a rare form of infantile paralysis. More importantly, she had finally grasped the full import of what he had meant.

  Since then, her life had been through enough peaks and valleys to validate her own self-knowledge. Being true to yourself was always the best remedy for depression. She had traversed yet another valley. It was always difficult to know what caused this. Something to do with loneliness, a protracted famine of loving, both physical and psychic. It would come again. She was sure of it. Optimism returned. Hope was on the horizon. She felt good, joyous, sexy. Life was a kick again. A thousand hosannas.

  She met the Eggplant and Charleen at Sherry’s for breakfast. The Eggplant had assumed his usual morning sourness. A good sign, she decided. In fact, there were good signs everywhere this morning. There hadn’t been a single murder in this city on the previous night.

  And Charleen Evans showed signs of humility and remorse.

  Sherry’s was a police hangout, a ramshackle coffeeshop stuck somewhere in the 1950s. It was furnished with naugahyde-covered booth benches, chipped and faded white plastic tables and countertops. Most of the chrome trim was dented. Sherry grunted her usual indifferent greeting as she poured strong black coffee into their chipped white mugs.

  Beside Charleen on the bench was a dispatch case, which, Fiona assumed, contained the computer disks from Polly Dearborn’s computer.

  They had all read the morning Post’s account of the Dearborn investigation. There was no mention of Robert Downey’s abortive confession. Most of it was a rehash, since there wasn’t much that was new to impart except that, as the story said, “the investigation was continuing.”

  “I resisted temptation,” the Eggplant said, as if he had tuned in on Fiona’s thoughts. He did not wait for her questioning response. “I nearly told Barker about the Downey thing.” He gestured with his thumb and index figure. “Came this close. Just to show the bastard how the media can curdle people’s guts.”

  “Downey’s been through enough hell as it is,” Fiona said, casting a glance at Charleen, who lowered her eyes. Her remorse was palpable.

  “I wasn’t thinking of Downey. I couldn’t give a shit.” He paused and sipped his coffee. “I was thinking how sweet it was to deliberately keep something out of that rag.”

  “I was wondering about that,” Fiona said. It was somewhat unusual. Leaks were everywhere in the department.

  “We were lucky. The guy walked in when I was there. He would only speak to me alone, and Sally, the stenographer, is a buddy. I would trust her with my life.”

  He looked at Charleen.

  “Gut instinct,” he said. Fiona wondered whether Charleen would see the rebuke in it.

  “I feel like a fool,” Charleen said.

  “About time,” Fiona chided.

  Charleen looked into the steaming coffee in her mug.

  “I may not have the right stuff for Homicide,” she said. Fiona was surprised at the extent of her contrition.

  “Maybe not,” the Eggplant muttered. Fiona wondered if his undue toleration was because he feared Charleen’s knowledge. Whatever happened, he would have to contend with the fact of their conspiracy. Charleen, despite her newfound humility, was still a cipher to Fiona, although less so than yesterday.

  Fiona was on the verge of coming to her defense when the Eggplant said:

  “We haven’t got time for that shit, Evans. We still have a killer to find.”

  His rah-rah sense of urgency seemed misplaced. The fact was that they were back to square one. The computer complication had slowed them down considerably and the Downey matter hadn’t helped. Being shorthanded was also an obstacle.

  “I don’t think we’re going to be able to move as fast as Harry Barker would like,” Fiona said.

  “Fuck Harry Barker,” the Eggplant snapped.

  Brave talk, she thought, remembering their first meeting with Barker, at which the Eggplant had reached new heights of humility and deference. He hadn’t been too forthcoming at the second meeting either. There was no point in pushing for an explanation. It would come in its own sweet time.

  “We’ll just have to develop leads.” She looked at Charleen. “Split things up between us.” Then, turning to the Eggplant, “Just don’t expect miracles.”

  “I don’t,” he said. Then he took a deep sip of his coffee. When he had put down the mug he looked at Charleen. “The disks in there?”

  Charleen nodded. She picked up the briefcase and handed it to the Eggplant. He opened it and looked inside.

  “Hard copies, too,” Charleen said.

  He nodded, seeming satisfied, then his eyes shifted, studying both their faces.

  “Let’s go,” he said, picking up the dispatch case.

  He got up and they followed him out. His car was parked on the street and he opened the door on the driver’s side, throwing the briefcase onto the rear seat. Fiona got in beside him and Charleen behind her, next to the briefcase.

  He headed the car toward the Capitol, then swung a sharp right and headed toward Independence Avenue. No one spoke. They passed a construction site where land was being cleared for a large office building. Some of the laborers were standing around a fire in a barrel, warming their hands against the early morning chill, their shovels, picks and sledgehammers lying helter-skelter around them.

  The Eggplant pulled up adjacent to the site and reached over for the briefcase. Then he got out of the car, carried it to where the men were standing, opened it and fed papers into the fire, much to the astonishment of the men warming their hands. The fire flared up and the men backed away. But the performance wasn’t over yet.

  The Eggplant removed the disks from the briefcase, picked up one of the sledgehammers lying about, then proceeded to demolish them until there were only bits and pieces left. Then he picked up the remains and dumped them into the fire.

  “Won’t burn, mister,” one of the men said.

  “All they need is a good charring,” the Eggplant said as he headed back to the car.

  “Felt good,” he said, as he gunned the moto
r and headed back to Sherry’s, where Fiona had parked the car. “Got the idea this morning when I passed this site.”

  “I’d say that was a pretty decisive act,” Fiona said.

  “Just completed the other half of the job is all.” He turned to look at Fiona, showing his broad, gummy smile.

  Charleen seemed speechless with astonishment.

  “Have we missed something?” Fiona said. It was not the first time she had witnessed the Eggplant’s passion for histrionics and game-playing.

  “You mean I haven’t told you?” He chuckled.

  “Told us what?”

  “Farber destroyed the computer.”

  “How can you be sure?” Fiona asked.

  “He sent Barker a handwritten letter, validating its destruction.” The Eggplant laughed. “For some reason Barker faxed it over to me last night.”

  “What happened with the injunction?” Fiona asked.

  “Beats the shit out of me,” the Eggplant said. “Guess he just called off the dogs.”

  “I thought he was so determined to get at it,” Fiona said.

  “Guess he changed his mind. He wrote a cover note. Said better to let sleeping dogs lie. That’s one thing me and the son-of-a-bitch agree on. Let sleeping dogs lie. Especially these.”

  Which explained to Fiona his sudden cavalier attitude toward Barker. With the material out of play, nothing would threaten his becoming Police Commissioner.

  Not that there weren’t still some moral niceties that had to be overlooked. After all, one day the Mayor, if he was still in political life, might have some explaining to do. Without Polly Dearborn’s research, that possibility was not imminent. Nor was it incumbent on any of them to provide the media with the weapon to destroy the Mayor. Who were they to be judge and jury?

  “But why?” Fiona asked. “Yesterday he seemed so adamant at getting the material.”

  “I guess he didn’t think it was worth the hassle,” the Eggplant replied.

  “Or he paid Farber’s price,” Fiona suggested.

  “And what would he have gotten for that?” the Eggplant asked. “The computer had no disks.”