by Stuart Woods
“Why is that?” Shelley asked.
“She’s too normal to have murdered three people.”
“Too normal?” Dino said. “I see murders committed all the time by people who seem normal.”
“You’ll have to trust me on this, Dino,” Stone said. “I can’t prove she didn’t do it. She worked in Senator Hart’s office and knew Milly, said she liked her. She knew Muffy Brandon, too, but didn’t like her. There’s not the slightest evidence that she could have killed either of them. She does use Pagan Spring, though. It was on her dressing table in her bedroom.”
“I checked with the drugstore chain that sells it in D.C.,” Shelley said. “They’ve sold about nineteen hundred tubes of Pagan Spring since it came out a little over two years ago.”
“Swell,” Dino said.
“Since the two women were killed, my office is taking a new interest in the Kendrick deaths.”
“Great,” Stone said. “As far as I’m concerned, you folks can take over the investigation today, and I’ll go home and practice a little law.”
“Yeah?” Dino said. “I’m starting to get interested again.”
“Who, specifically, is getting interested over at the Hoover Building?” Stone asked.
“My boss, Kerry Smith.”
“Does he think you screwed up the original investigation?”
“Let’s just say that if something comes up that contradicts our conclusions, he wants to be ready with some answers to the inevitable questions.”
Dino spoke up. “I think we need to take a deeper look at Charlotte Kirby.”
“Why?” Shelley asked.
“Because when we talked to her, she was very uptight, very defensive.”
“That’s true,” Stone said. “She seemed to recoil.”
“And we don’t have anybody else who’s recoiling,” Dino said. “So she’s my suspect, until she isn’t.”
“Agreed,” Stone said.
“I’ll pull her FBI file,” Shelley said. “Everybody who works in the White House has one. There might be something there that will help.”
“Good idea,” Stone said. “Especially since we don’t have another one.”
A copy of Charlotte Kirby’s FBI file was delivered just before lunchtime, and Dino read it first.
“Anything interesting?” Stone asked.
“She’s divorced, one grown daughter.”
“Gee, that’s damning, isn’t it?”
“She was valedictorian of her class at Vassar.”
“We’re lucky she hasn’t murdered more people.”
“And she was a suspect in a murder case four years ago, when her sister was killed. She was cleared when the sister’the sists boyfriend confessed. He’s in a hospital for the criminally insane.”
Stone thought. “So she wasn’t cleared by evidence, but by the confession of a lunatic?”
“That’s about the size of it.”
“How did her sister die?”
“Head trauma from a blunt instrument.”
“I see.”
“And Charlotte inherited her sister’s share of her father’s estate, which amounted to a couple of million bucks.”
“She gets more and more interesting, doesn’t she?”
“I was interested before, remember?”
“This time, let’s not make an appointment. Let’s just show up.”
37
They arrived at the White House, and Stone told the receptionist that they were there to see Fair Sutherlin. Two minutes later, as he had hoped, Charlotte Kirby appeared.
“I’m sorry,” she said, “but Ms. Sutherlin wasn’t expecting you. She just left for a meeting at the State Department.”
“Then we’ll settle for speaking with you, Ms. Kirby,” Stone said. “Since Fair’s office is not in use, we can talk in there.”
“I’m not sure-”
“Ms. Kirby, you should know by now that we have the run of the White House.”
Her shoulders sagged. “Oh, all right. Follow me.”
Stone and Dino fell in behind her, and as they walked down the hall, Stone said quietly to Dino, “Do you think she’s Brix Kendrick’s type?”
“I don’t think Brix had a type,” Dino replied. “Or if he did, it included most of the female gender.”
Kirby ushered them into Fair’s office and closed the door behind them. “Now,” she said, “what can I do for you?”
“You can have a seat,” Stone said, indicating the sofa. He and Dino took chairs opposite.
“What is this about?”
“The same thing it was about the last time we talked,” Stone said, “except we did most of the talking, and you were reluctant to answer.”
“I don’t know anything you want to know,” she said.
“On the contrary,” Stone replied, “you know just about everything we want to know, but don’t want to tell us.”
“You knew about each and every one of Brix Kendrick’s affairs, didn’t you?” Dino said.
She looked alarmed, but said nothing.
“Ms. Kirby,” Dino said, “if you continue to obstruct our investigation, the president is going to hear about it, then Ms. Sutherlin is going to hear about it, and then you’re going to find yourself working in a government basement somewhere, if you’re still employed at all.”
Tears rolled down her cheeks.
Dino handed her a box of tissues from Fair’s desk. “Let’s start at the beginning,” he said. “When did you first meet Brix Kendrick?”
“Two years ago,” she said. “At a White House staff party. I was working for the director of the General Services Administration, and Mr. Kendrick needed someone with my experience in government.”
“And when did you come to work for him?”
“A few weeks after meeting him.”
“And when did the two of you first have sex?”
The tears came again. “The night we met,” she said.
“Where?”
“In his office, on the sofa.”
“Brix was a fast worker.”
“Mr. Kendrick was a very persuasive man.”
“And when did you next have sex?”
“The following evening, at my apartment.” Dino started to ask another question, but she held up a hand. “After that, it was three or four times a week, sometimes in the evenings, sometimes he’d come by my apartment early in the morning-five or six-on the way to work.”
Stone spoke up. “And when did Brix stop having sex with you?”
She drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. “As soon as I came to work for him. He said that since we were working together, we couldn’t take the chance. After that, he was all business, except when he was talking about his affairs.”
“He talked with you about other women?” Dino asked.
“I know it sounds perverse, and maybe it was, but he’d talk about what they’d done in bed, and in great detail. He knew it made me . . .”
“Jealous?” Dino asked.
“Horny,” she replied. “He would insist that I . . .”
“Go on.”
“That I masturbate while he talked about the other women.”
Dino seemed to have run out of steam, so Stone stepped in. “And how did that make you feel?” he asked.
“Less horny.”
“Did you enjoy these experiences?”
“I’m ashamed to say I did,” she replied. “I began to look forward to them.”
“No need to feel ashamed, Ms. Kirby,” Stone said. “You’re telling the truth now.”
“And I feel better for it,” she said.
“How long did these . . . conversations continue?”
“Until the day he died,” she replied.
“Now,” Stone said, “let’s start from the day you went to work for Mr. Kendrick: who were the women he slept with?”
“There were nineteen of them,” Kirby replied.
Now Stone ran out of steam, and Dino stepped in. “Their names
, please.” He opened his notebook.
“He never used their names. He either made up names, like ‘Shotzie,’ or ‘Toots,’ or he gave them nicknames, like ‘the Bunny,’ or ‘the Grasshopper.’”
“What did he call Milly Hart?” Stone asked, recovering.
“I think she was the one he called ‘the Rabbit,’” she said, “but I can’t be sure. He saw the Rabbit for a long time, and often.”
“And what name did he give Mufd he givfy Brandon?”
“‘The Doggie,’” she said, “because that was her preferred position.”
“And when, in the chain of events, was he seeing her?”
“Only for the last month or so of his life, I think. She lived in Georgetown, and he would run over there, screw her, and be back in half an hour. He said he would walk into her house, and she’d be waiting for him, already naked. He’d just drop his pants and stick it in. Ten minutes later, he was on his way back to the office.”
“You make it sound as though Brix was not a considerate lover,” Stone said.
“Oh, I don’t mean to make it sound that way,” Kirby said. “He took pride in giving them what they wanted, the way they wanted it. He was very . . . proficient. If he was seeing Milly Hart, he’d be gone for a couple of hours. She liked everything.”
“Ms. Kirby,” Dino said, “would you describe Brix Kendrick as a sex addict?”
She laughed at that. “What else? He practically turned me into an addict, too, except I was addicted only to him.”
“Did you like him?” Stone asked.
“I loved him, and I loved working for him, too. He was a good boss, and he got a tremendous amount of work done every week, in spite of his extracurricular activities. I made a lot of that possible, of course, but he always gave me a list of things to accomplish before he went out.”
“Ms. Kirby,” Stone said, “this is important. Early in the afternoon of the day he died, he had sex with a woman in the family quarters-in the Lincoln Bedroom, in fact. Who was she?”
“Yes, he came back, went to work, and then, a little after five, he changed and went to play tennis on the White House court.”
“Who was she?” Stone asked again.
“I don’t know,” she said, “but he called her ‘the March Hare.’”
38
Stone and Dino were quiet on the drive back to the Hay-Adams. When they were back in the suite Stone called Holly.
“Hello?”
“We’ve just left the White House, where we conducted a very important interview. I don’t want to talk about it on the phone, so can you come over for a drink or dinner?”
“I can come over for a drink and dinner,” she replied. “Seven o’clock?”
“Good. See you then.”
Dino picked up the phone. “I think it will save time if I ask Shelley over, too.”
“We may as well have all the principals here,” Stone said.
Dino looked at Stone closely. “You seem a little down, pal. I would have thought you’d feel great about our interview.”
“You’re right, Dino, I should feel that way, but I’m sort of depressed about the direction this is taking.”
“What, too many suspects?”
“Right, and nobody knows who they are, except Brix, and he took the shortcut out of here.”
“Well, we know three of them,” Dino said, “but two of them are dead. All we’ve got is Charnlotte Kirby and the March Hare. That’s from Alice in Wonderland, isn’t it?”
Stone nodded. “The Tea Party. It’s where the expression ‘mad as a March hare’ comes from.”
“Well, Brix seemed to give a meaning to each of his nicknames: the Rabbit, the Doggie, et cetera. So maybe the March Hare is a nut job.”
Stone nodded. “She’d almost have to be,” he said. “I mean, jealousy is one thing, but to kill Brix’s wife, then two of his lovers, well . . .”
“Maybe,” Dino said, looking thoughtful, “the March Hare is Charlotte Kirby herself. Maybe Brix drove her crazy with all of his descriptions of his sex life. Maybe masturbation really does drive you around the bend.”
“That’s a perfectly valid theory,” Stone admitted, “but it goes against the grain.”
“What grain is that?” Dino asked.
“The grain of Charlotte Kirby. I bought her story-hook, line, and sinker.”
Dino nodded. “I know what you mean. I had the feeling that we had stripped all her pretense away and we were getting the unadulterated truth. That happens in a successful interrogation, you know? The perp finally has no place to go but the truth.”
“You’re right,” Stone said.
“Maybe she still knows something she hasn’t told us, though,” Dino said. “Maybe she’s holding back the final tidbit.”
“The name of the March Hare?”
“Yeah.”
Stone shook his head. “No, I think she would have told us, if she knew.”
“Maybe she suspects?”
“I think she would have told us her suspicion. I think she’s sick of all this, and she wants an end to it.”
“I can’t disagree with you,” Dino said. “And I still think the March Hare is a nut job.”
“Agreed,” Stone said.
Shelley and Holly arrived, and drinks were poured. “Why so glum, fellows?” Holly asked.
“Because,” Stone said, “we’ve had a breakthrough.”
The room became very still.
“How so?” Holly asked carefully, looking from Stone to Dino.
“It’s like this,” Dino said. “We broke through, then found ourselves staring at another stone wall.”
“Explain, please,” Holly said.
Stone recounted their interview with Charlotte Kirby.
“Nineteen!” Holly exclaimed. “And if Charlotte’s timeline is accurate, that’s over a two-year period.”
“That’s about right,” Dino said.
“Brix was a busy boy.”
“To paraphrase Frank Sinatra,” Dino said, “I don’t know why he isn’t in a jar at the Harvard Medical School.”
“Oh, come on, folks,” Shelley said, speaking for the first time, “that’s less than one a month.”
“Yeah,” Holly said, “but he was doing it multiple times with each one.”
“It’s hard to know how he had the energy for tennis,” Dino said, and everybody laughed. “And for all we know, he might have been doing that for years.”
They ordered dinner and took a break from the case for a while. Finally, when they were on coffee and brandy, Stone spoke up. “I don’t know where to go from here,” he said.
“Neither do I,” Dino replied.
The phone rang and Stone went to the desk to answer it. “Hello?”
“Mr. Barrington?”
“Yes.”
“It’s Charlotte Kirby.”
“Yes?”
“I thought of something else.”
“Yes?”
“Brix had another nickname for the March Hare. He used it only once.”
“Yes?”
“He called her ‘RoboCop.’ I’m afraid that’s all I have for you.”
“Thank you very much,” Stone said. He hung up and returned to the table.
“Who was that?” Dino asked.
“It was Joan,” he said.
“Your secretary Joan?” Holly asked.
“Right. Another brandy anyone?” Nobody wanted another. They repaired to their respective bedrooms.
39
Todd Bacon was at a technical services meeting at the Agency, where a schematic of a new cell phone was being displayed on a large screen as the designers presented it.
“Our phone,” the designer said, “operates perfectly as an Apple iPhone Five, except that it will also broadcast a message that has been composed on the phone’s keyboard, then automatically compress, encrypt, and transmit on a high radio frequency of our choosing. And, as you can see, the phone is indistinguishable from the Apple phone.”<
br />
Todd’s phone began to vibrate on his belt, but he ignored it. “That’s obvious,” he said, “but what about if you open the phone and expose the works? Is it indistinguishable then?”
“It is,” the man replied, “except that the battery is marginally smaller. We’ve added three new chips to the phone, but each looks exactly like the ones they replaced, even to the serial numbers.”
“And if you crack the parts?”
“All you’d see is circuits which, visually, are identical. What’s different is what the circuits are used for, and the software contained therein.”
Todd’s phone vibrated again. “So if an enemy tech is really good, is he going to be able to tell the difference between your phone and the original?”
“If he’s really, really good, he’ll notice some differences, but he’ll just think that Apple has made some changes, and if he cracks one of the three parts, the software will automatically be dumped.”
“So,” Todd said, “he’ll find an Apple phone with no software?”
“That’s better than leaving our software available for him to play with, isn’t it?”
“Yes, of course it is,” Todd said. “That will protecbt your software, but it’s not going to protect my operative. They’ll know immediately that he’s got a very sophisticated communications device that does not work like an Apple phone.”
“Well,” the man said, sounding exasperated, “what do you suggest?”
“What do I suggest?” Todd asked. “I’m not the designer here.”
The man gazed at the blowup of his design. “I suppose we could load the Apple software and our software on the same chip, and have only ours dumped.”
“Is there room on the chip for all that software?” Todd asked.
“Almost,” the man said. “We’ll have to write some new compression code.”
“Well, then,” Todd said, “that’s my suggestion. How long will it take you?”
“A few weeks,” the man said, looking doubtful.
“And what about the battery capacity? Is it going to be sufficient for transmitting in HF?”
“If it’s fully charged, and the message is brief, but if it’s plugged into an electrical outlet, your transmitting would be unlimited.”
