The Witch of Watergate

by Warren Adler

  “He wouldn’t know that until he got the computer,” Fiona persisted.

  “I thought of that. But he seemed perfectly content with the way the situation was. Knowing the bastard, he would have bitched like hell if he thought that Farber had screwed him.”

  “So we let the sleeping dogs lie,” Fiona said.

  “May they sleep in peace forever,” the Eggplant said.

  He dropped them back at Sherry’s and sped away in the direction of headquarters, leaving them still somewhat in a state of shock. Sherry brought them coffee. It suddenly occurred to Fiona that Charleen hadn’t made a comment on the Eggplant’s action.

  “What do you make of all this, Charleen?”

  Charleen picked up her mug and drank. She looked somewhat vague and uncertain and made no effort to reply.

  “Listen, Charleen, we all make mistakes,” Fiona pressed.

  “This is more than a mistake. It shakes your confidence in me, makes me lose credibility. Everything I say is suspect. I’ve made a damned fool of myself.”

  “You just haven’t got all the answers, Charleen. No crime in that. None of us has.”

  “I don’t even have the right questions,” Charleen said.

  “Not always. Neither do I.”

  “You know your stuff, FitzGerald.”

  Fiona took a deep drag on her coffee and looked at Charleen.

  “Enough of this bullshit, woman, we’ve got work to do. Problem is I don’t exactly know where to start.”

  They were silent for a long time. Charleen looked into the black coffee of her mug as if she were searching for alien bacteria.

  “All right, FitzGerald,” Charleen said. “I’ve got a question.”

  Fiona looked up in response.

  “What caused Harry Barker to change his mind about obtaining the material?”

  Fiona thought about it, let the idea sink in, then nodded her head vigorously.

  “There’s hope for you yet, Charleen. That’s one fucking good question.”

  22

  FOR THE NEXT two weeks, murder was not Washington’s number-one topic. Not that crime was off the front pages. There was a major coke bust, a sting operation that bagged fifty-three thieves and the arrest of the leaders of a major black gang in Southeast Washington.

  The Mayor had created task forces and various committees to come up with ideas to combat crime. Having little choice and backed to the wall by media-fed public opinion, the Mayor cranked up his public-relations machine.

  More significantly, the cherry blossoms were popping, signaling the start of the tourist season. The Post, perhaps honoring Barker’s pledge to the Eggplant, no longer used the sobriquet that Washington was the murder capital of the United States and stopped bashing the Mayor. More cynical minds, like Fiona’s, determined that this was more in deference to the paper’s advertisers than to any pledge to a mere captain of Homicide.

  It seemed a watershed time, a respite. Fiona and Charleen continued their investigation of the Dearborn murder. They made lists of possible suspects, gleaned from those newspaper clippings provided by Sheila Burns.

  Because of the manpower shortage, Fiona and Charleen had to work alone, returning each evening to headquarters to compare notes. Even Fiona’s friend Chappy was a suspect and worthy of an interview.

  Fiona visited him at his Georgetown house.

  “Drink?” he asked, inviting her into the sitting room.

  “This is official,” Fiona said with a wink. “I’m on duty.”

  “Two olives or one?” Chappy asked.

  “I’m tracking a killer,” Fiona said, holding up one finger.

  “Rocks or straight up?”

  “Not a lead in sight. Rocks.”

  “Gin or vodka?”

  “Did you do it, Chappy? Stolly.”

  He mixed the drinks, popped in the ice and olives and sat opposite her in the little sitting room that overlooked his elegant but small English garden.

  “In my mind, a thousand times,” Chappy said, lifting his glass in a silent toast. “In reality, I couldn’t, and I doubt any of us mowed down by her ferocious pen could do it. Public men, in the final analysis, are cautious realists. The fact is that there is another life beyond the limelight. All right, I’m no longer viable for the perks and ego satisfactions of the diplomatic life, but life is not over.” He sipped his drink. “As you can see.” He swept his arm to take in the antique-filled room and the garden.

  “Chester Downey had another view,” Fiona said.

  “That is an enigma. His downside, while devastating, need not have been fatal. A public scolding, a resignation and temporary limbo. There had to be more to it.”

  She studied his face, wondering if he knew more than he was saying.

  “There are also the realities of being a public person. You know up front that the media is gunning for you. That is a given. The media barons know that there is nothing more tantalizing to curiosity than watching a star fall and no posture more fearsome than righteous indignation. We are a nation of watchers and the media is the surrogate for all of our frustrations. It is a lethal combination, especially for a public person who has made a tiny misstep. And who hasn’t?”

  “Should I believe my ears, Chappy?” Fiona said.

  “Polly Dearborn was a master of the half-truth. Or should I say the half lie. In my case, she accused me of using my position to gain inside information of a certain transaction for personal profit. Well, it’s half true. I made the transaction and I made the profit.”

  “And the other, the inside information?”

  Chappy took another sip and put his drink down on the table beside him. He smiled.

  “Hearsay, rumor, an overheard tip. That doesn’t qualify as inside information. The fact remains that I was in the position to hear it.”

  “Are you defending the lady?” Fiona asked.

  “Defending? Not at all. I’m commending her for her skillful use of the language, for creating high art out of vagueness, and drawing masterful conclusions from inconclusive information. The fact is that I knew the game and the house rules. I gambled on the play and lost.”

  “What about her dredging something out of the distant past? A youthful indiscretion.”

  “If it’s on the record, fair game.”

  “A sexual aberration?”

  “Aberration? What’s that?”

  “Homosexuality?”

  “Tame stuff. It’s called sexual preference. No mileage in that any more.”

  “Womanizing?”

  “Image-enhancing, unless a scorned woman blasts away. Or the lady is underage.”

  “Whips and chains, sadism, masochism.”

  “Almost over the edge.”

  “Incest, child abuse.”

  “Beyond the pale. You’re hiding that, stay out of public life.”

  “What about crime?”

  “Crime is also fair game. But that, too, has to be beyond the pale. Like murder, dope peddling, burglary. Not drunken driving or car theft for joyriding. The public can forgive that if no one got hurt. Her research in that area was dogged. If there was a record anywhere to be found, she found it.”

  “Computers. She was hooked into data banks.”

  “God help us. Still, you can’t blame the messenger.”

  “My, Chappy. All this defense. I thought you rejoiced in her death,” Fiona said.

  “Not really. I rather liked having an enemy, gave the adrenalin a lift.”

  “So you don’t think she was done away with by her victims?”

  “As a victim, I tend to doubt it,” Chappy said. He finished his drink. “But hell, I’m no detective.”

  Her conversation with Chappy seemed a bellwether to their investigation. Other victims of Polly Dearborn seemed to express the same point of view. A public person is the media’s target of convenience. They are in the business of gaining attention, attracting notice. Only a familiar star can do that.

  They interviewed those with whom Pol
ly Dearborn spent social time. Most were catalysts of the social scene, people who reveled in collecting powerful persons. Potty Dearborn was sought after because of her power, not her social graces. All agreed that she was mostly a loner, secretive and protective of herself. Most felt that she was always in a working mode, a lion in lamb’s clothing. Nor was she averse to probing her social contacts, sometimes relentlessly.

  It seemed obvious after a number of interviews that Polly Dearborn had been sought after by people of prominence more as a defense mechanism than for her scintillating company. Nobody admitted close friendship with her, only casual acquaintanceship.

  Essentially she was a loner, her modus operandi quite transparent, and there were always people available with scores to settle to provide her with information laced with nasty gossip that might form the basis for one of her scalpel-wielding performances. Now that she was dead, there seemed to be no reluctance to tell the real truth about her. Such was the hypocrisy of the Washington social system.

  Aside from interviews with those who touched Polly Dearborn’s life, Charleen and Fiona contacted hardware stores that sold the brand of rope used to hang her. It proved a common type. Every store carried it and every lead provided led nowhere.

  Even the story of Polly Dearborn’s murder, after a surge of interest in the national media, seemed to fade away, yet another brief titillation to pique the public’s interest and pass into history.

  Because of the stringent manpower shortage, Charleen and Fiona’s pattern was to go their separate ways during the day and review their findings when they came back to the squad room each evening, It was a painstaking process, mostly discouraging, since they could not develop a single lead.

  Charleen’s awareness of her own vulnerability and self-doubt was not helped by the failure to produce any results in the Dearborn killing. She grew increasingly morose and depressed, which did little for Fiona’s morale.

  “Patience, Charleen. It’s a tough case.”

  “I just feel I’m not pulling my weight,” she said often.

  “We just stay with it, something will develop,” Fiona told her, but without much conviction. This one was getting away from them. Nevertheless, the reality was that not every homicide was solved. Who knew this better than Charleen?

  Although they were encouraged by the Eggplant to pursue the case diligently, it was beginning to seem more for show than for substance. Their reports to the Captain were getting briefer and subject to cancellation by more pressing matters. A number of gang murders and random killings had been solved, and better police protection of the combat zones seemed to be holding down the killings.

  Besides, Fiona knew that the Eggplant was merely marking time for the day when he would take over as Police Commissioner. Rumors were rampant about his impending appointment. Apparently the present Commissioner was waiting for the most propitious moment to announce his resignation, a moment of calm, to allow him to save face and point with pride.

  Unfortunately, the calm was not to be. The nightly bloodbath began again, triggering a new round of daily meetings and even more pressure on the Homicide squad. And once again the Washington Post began to describe Washington as “the murder capital of the U.S.A.” and resumed its bashing of the Mayor.

  “The bastard broke his word,” the Eggplant ranted as they met with him one morning. The new round of murders had broken the calm in his disposition as well. “His Honor has been chewing carpets all morning. Can’t say that I blame him.”

  “Have you discussed this with Barker?” Fiona asked.

  “Left messages at his home and office,” the Eggplant said. He took a deep drag on his panatela, then blew a smoke ring toward the ceiling.

  “What do you make of it?” Fiona asked.

  “Maybe he’s saving things up. One day he’ll use it to fry us. Do a story on the great unsolved murder of Polly Dearborn. His Honor is giving me the I-told-you-so routine.”

  “Sounds strange. He seemed so anxious to be kept in the loop,” Fiona said.

  “Fact is, there’s no loop to keep him in. Nothing’s happening. Right?”

  “I wish there was,” Fiona said, exchanging glances with Charleen, who looked away.

  “Maybe Barker feels that because we hadn’t busted the Dearborn case fast enough, all deals are off.”

  “We’re trying, Captain,” Fiona muttered.

  They had reported to him at every step of the investigation.

  “Considering the circumstances, I know you’re giving it your best shot.” He shot a glance at Charleen. “Both of you.”

  “Give us some extra manpower, we might get something going,” Fiona said. It was a futile gesture and they both knew it.

  The telephone rang, a welcome relief for all of them. He picked it up and turned away, a clear gesture of dismissal.

  Charleen and Fiona went back to their desks in the squad room.

  “Any ideas?” Fiona asked.

  Charleen began to speak, then hesitated, and said nothing. In two weeks she had become reticent, gun-shy.

  “Open up, for chrissakes, Charleen. Take a chance.”

  Charleen shrugged and nodded.

  “I think Barker knows something we don’t,” Charleen said.

  Fiona hadn’t focused on that point and appreciated the idea. She wanted Charleen to know it, rebuild her confidence.

  “Not bad, Charleen. Let it hang out a bit more.”

  Charleen rubbed her chin.

  “Maybe the feds got to him. Maybe there is some aspect of national security to this. Maybe this is all a CIA game, a plot that had as its object the elimination of the Defense Secretary.”

  “Maybe,” Fiona said, half believing the possibility. In the absence of leads, homicide detectives often fantasized. Charleen, intrepid despite her defeats, was having a lulu.

  “You think I’m crazy?” Charleen asked.

  “You spend enough time in Washington, nothing surprises,” Fiona said.

  “I . . . I’ve worked out a theory,” Charleen said, encouraged by Fiona’s initial response. Charleen paused and cleared her throat. “The CIA could have concocted the whole idea,” Charleen continued. “Rather than reveal that the Defense Secretary was a spy, they conspire to knock him off. Kill Dearborn, then orchestrate Downey’s suicide. People think it’s because of Dearborn’s articles. In this way the country is spared a scandal and the world doesn’t skip a beat knowing that some other country now has all our secrets.”

  “And how does Barker figure in this?”

  “The President tells him.”

  “Makes it a cover-up, with Barker participating,” Fiona said.

  “For national security. For the good of the country.”

  The stuff of fiction, Fiona decided, unwilling to pour cold water on Charleen’s fantasy. She remembered seeing Charleen’s extensive library of spy, detective and suspense novels.

  “You think it’s off-the-wall?” Charleen asked. Coming along, Fiona thought. At least she trusted Fiona enough to ask.

  Fiona mulled it over for a long moment. The idea had possibilities, but, as in most of Charleen’s theories, despite its imagination, it lacked insight.

  “It has a fatal flaw,” Fiona said gently.

  Charleen frowned.

  “Good for the country or not, Barker would never agree to bury a helluva story like that.”

  “You think not?”

  “No way.”

  Charleen seemed puzzled but did not reply. Fiona felt compelled to explain.

  “Whatever the circumstances, Charleen,” she said, “would you, as a homicide detective, cover up a government murder of a civilian in our jurisdiction for whatever reason?”

  “Absolutely not,” Charleen said indignantly.

  “Nor would I. Not the Captain, either.”

  Charleen lowered her eyes, obviously considering the explanation.

  “You get my drift,” Fiona continued gently. The real talent of a homicide detective was in understanding huma
n behavior. People had parameters, a hard core of pride and identity, even the most amoral. Deduction depended more on insight than bare facts. How could she possibly explain such concepts to someone as literal as Charleen? Indeed, if an explanation was required it defeated the logic. You can’t intellectualize instinct. This was something that had to be built into the cells.

  “I’m not sure,” Charleen admitted.

  “Just don’t commit to it,” Fiona pressed.

  “Like Robert Downey?”

  “You got it,” Fiona said. “Keep an open mind.”

  The rebuke took its toll. Charleen, tight-lipped and uncertain, began to rifle through papers on her desk.

  And yet, Charleen had raised one issue that did linger in her mind, rousing the very instinct she had secretly accused Charleen of not having: “Barker knows something we don’t,” she had said.

  Yes, he does, Fiona agreed.

  23

  SHE HAD NEVER seen the Eggplant so agitated. A vein palpitated on his forehead, spittle had formed on the edges of his mouth, the whites of his eyes were crisscrossed with red veins and his nostrils seemed unusually wide and distended as if they had expanded to gulp up scarce air.

  He was slumped over the wheel of his car. Fiona sat beside him. Charleen was in the back. Their car was parked beside the Eggplant’s in a picnic parking spot on a deserted stretch of Rock Creek Park.

  It was the Eggplant’s idea to meet there, someplace off the beaten track. Not at headquarters. Not at Sherry’s. No place that was indoors. The request had all the symptoms of acute paranoia. It was the hour of twilight and only the dark clouds that hovered over the city belied the time. Fiona felt chilled. The mood was ominous.

  “I don’t know how he got it, but he’s got it. No question.” The Eggplant shook his head in frustration.

  He had just come from the Mayor’s office, he had explained. Summoned there out of the blue. What he found was a man on the edge of hysteria and rage.

  “The way he tells it,” the Eggplant said, “the Post had called with allegations about his conduct that were insulting and harassing. Those are the words he used, ‘insulting and harassing.’ Then he gave me the topper. He said they asked him about something that took place years ago. An indiscretion, he called it.”