Farrell paused to drink coffee. He looked at me while he swallowed.
“I know that name,” I said.
“So did Quirk,” Farrell said. “You remember where you heard it?”
“Motel room in Alton, South Carolina,” I said. “Mal Chapin is in Stratton’s office.”
“Pretty good,” Farrell said. “Of course I mentioned that Quirk knew it too; that was a clue.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I’m excited. Usually when I get a clue, I trip over it, and skin my knee.”
“Quirk’s talking with somebody in the FBI, see about getting one of their accountants to check out The Democratic Imperative, see what they do with their money.”
“You figure it supports Stratton.”
“Sure,” Farrell said. “A charity with no offices, wholly owned by another charity, with no offices, headed by a guy works for Stratton. What do you think we’ll find out?”
“That it supports Stratton,” I said.
“That’s what we’ll find out,” Farrell said. “Maybe there’s a motive in it. Maybe Olivia Nelson knew what was going on and they had a lover’s quarrel and she was going to blow the whistle on him.”
“And he got a hammer and beat her brains out one night?”
“Maybe he had it done.”
“By somebody that would use a hammer?”
“Possible.”
“Sure,” I said. “But likely?”
Farrell shook his head slowly.
“Not likely.”
“Stratton know you’ve been investigating him?”
“Shouldn’t,” Farrell said.
“I’d like to bring them all together and confront him with it.”
“All of who?”
“Tripp, his kids, Stratton, see what comes out of it.”
Farrell stared at me for a couple of long moments. Then he shook his head slowly.
“You’re still trying to fix that family,” Farrell said. “You just want to shake the old man out of his trance if you can.”
I shrugged, drank some coffee.
“You could just stick to finding out who killed the woman?”
“Might make sense to bring them together,” I said. “Something might pop out. No harm to it.”
“No harm to you,” he said. “Might be some harm to a detective second grade who accuses a U.S. Senator of a felony without all his evidence in yet.”
I nodded.
“Be stupid to do that,” Farrell said. “Especially if being a gay detective second grade made command staff ill at ease anyway, so to speak.”
I nodded again.
“Unless, of course, you made the charge,” Farrell said.
“Without saying how I knew it,” I said. “And you simply called us together to give the Senator a chance to respond privately, before any formal inquiry began.”
“A chance to lay these baseless charges to rest,” Farrell said.
“Sure,” I said.
“Want to meet here?”
“I’m the guy making the baseless charges,” I said.
“Okay,” Farrell said.
There was silence while we both drank the rest of our coffee. Then Farrell put his cup in my wastebasket and stood.
“I’ll be in touch,” he said.
“I know you are going out a little ways on a limb,” I said. “Thanks.”
“Nice of you to come to the funeral,” Farrell said.
chapter forty-five
THEY CAME. NOBODY seemed very pleased about it, but Farrell got them there. The three Tripps came together, and Stratton came with two guys in London Fog raincoats who waited in the corridor outside my office, and looked intrepid.
Stratton looked at neither Farrell, nor at me. He shook hands with Loudon Tripp and put a hand on his shoulder while he did it. Unspoken condolence. Then Stratton shook Chip’s hand and they gave each other a manly hug and clap on the back.
“Great to see you, Bob,” Chip said. He wasn’t very old and you could tell he liked calling a U.S. Senator by his first name.
We got arranged. Stratton and Loudon Tripp in the two client chairs. Farrell leaning on the wall to my left. The two Tripp children to my right, a little back from the group. Chip looking aggressive, ready to slap a half nelson on someone, Meredith looking passively at the floor.
“Okay, gentlemen,” Stratton said. He smiled at Meredith, who made no eye contact. “And lady. Let’s get to it. You called us together, Officer. What have you got?”
Stratton looked tanned and healthy. His hair was perfectly trimmed and trying its best to look plentiful. His pinstripe suit was well cut. His white shirt crisp and new. He still wore his trench coat, unbuttoned, the belt tucked into the pockets. All in all he was direct, competent, square dealing, straight shooting, judicious, and nice.
Farrell looked edgy and tired.
“Spenser here came to me with some allegations which I thought we’d best confront privately, Senator.”
Stratton’s glance shifted to me. The pale blue eyes as hard as chrome.
“Allegations?”
“Involving the Tripps,” Farrell said.
Stratton continued to stare at me.
“You are becoming something of a pain in the butt,” he said, “Maybe I should have put you out of business a while ago.”
“Being a pain in the butt is my profession,” I said. “What’s the first word that comes to mind when I say The Better Government Coalition?”
Stratton’s eyes became more opaque.
“The American Democratic Imperative?” I said.
Stratton didn’t speak.
“Mal Chapin?”
Stratton stood up.
“That is just about enough of that,” he said. “I am not going to sit here and listen to some cheap private eye trolling for some way to make a name for himself at my expense.”
“I’m cheaper than you think,” I said. “The only check I got for this job bounced.”
Stratton turned toward the door. Farrell went and leaned against it.
“Why not hear him out, Senator, in front of witnesses. Maybe he’ll do something actionable.”
“You get out of my way,” Stratton said.
Farrell’s voice was soft. He was standing face-to-face with Stratton.
“Sit down,” he said.
“Who in hell do you think…?” Stratton started.
“Now.”
Stratton stepped back from the force of the single word.
“I’m sick of you, Stratton,” Farrell said. “I’m sick of the phony macho. I’m sick of the self-importance. I’m sick of the way you comb your hair over your goddamned bald spot. Sit and listen or I’ll bust your stupid senatorial ass.”
“What charge?” Stratton said.
But it was weak. The game was over the moment Stratton stepped back.
“Violation of no-dork zoning regulations,” Farrell said. “Sit down.”
Stratton sat.
“What’s the first word that comes to mind,” I said, “when I say The Better Government Coalition? The American Democratic Imperative? Mal Chapin?”
“Mal works for me,” Stratton said. His voice shook a little. “In my office. I don’t know those other things.”
“Mal work for you full-time?” I said.
“Yes. He’s my chief of staff.”
“Hard job?”
“Hard.” Stratton began to make a comeback. He was on familiar ground. “And thankless. We are involved in very many crucial national and international issues. Mal works ten, fifteen hours a day.”
“Not much time for another job,” I said.
Stratton realized he’d been led down the path. He tried to backtrack.
“Certainly he works hard, but what he does in his off-hours…” Stratton shrugged and spread his hands.
“He’s listed as the President of The American Democratic Imperative,” I said. “A charitable organization based in Washington.”
Stratton shook his head in silence
.
“Before her death, Olivia Nelson regularly made large contributions to The Better Government Coalition, in Cambridge. The Better Government Coalition is listed as a subsidiary of The American Democratic Imperative, which is headed by your chief of staff.” Stratton stared straight ahead.
“And you have told me directly that you were intimate with Olivia Nelson,” I said.
The words hung in the room, drifting like the dust of ruination.
Then Loudon Tripp said, “Enough. I’ll hear no more, Spenser. I’m responsible for all of this. I hired you. I brought you and your dirty mind and your gutter morals into all of this. And now you contrive to dirty my dead wife and my friend with one lie.”
“He’s not your friend, Mr. Tripp,” I said. “He slept with your wife. He stole your money.”
“No,” Tripp said. “I’ll hear no more.”
He stood up. Chip stepped in beside him.
“You can’t stop me,” he said to Farrell. “Come on, kids.”
“Last chance,” I said to Tripp. “For all of you. You’ve got to look at this. You’ve got to stop pretending.”
“Get out of my way,” Tripp said again. His voice sounded strangled. “Not my wife, not with my friend.”
He moved past Farrell toward the door. Chip went with him, knotted with excitement, frantic to explode. Meredith stared at him with her mouth half open, motionless.
“Come along, Meredith,” Tripp said. Except that his voice was strangled, he spoke to her as if she were dawdling by a toy store.
“He’s… not… your… friend,” Meredith said.
“Meredith,” Tripp said. The squeezed-out voice was parental-exasperated, long-suffering-but not unloving.
“For crissake, Mere,” Chip said.
“He… was… fucking her,” Meredith said.
Tripp flinched. Chip’s face reddened.
“He was fucking me,” she said in a rush. “Since I was fourteen and he came in my room at one of those big parties.”
The silence in the room was stifling. No one moved. Meredith was rigid, her hands at her sides, a look of shock on her face.
“Jesus,” Chip said. “Mere, why didn’t you…?”
“Dr. Faye says I was getting even with Mommy, and I wanted Daddy to…” She put both her hands suddenly over her mouth and pressed them, palm open, hard against her face, and slowly slid her back down the wall until she was sitting on the floor, her legs splayed in front of her. Chip looked at his father, who seemed frozen in time, then he went suddenly to his knees beside his sister and put his arms around her and pressed her head against his chest. She let him hold her there.
Loudon Tripp stared for a moment at both of them, and then, without looking at anyone else, he walked across my office and out the door and down the corridor past the two guys in their London Fogs. They looked in the office uncertainly. Farrell shook his head at them and they stepped away from the door.
Stratton continued to sit in his chair with his head down, staring at the floor, contemplating his ruin.
Human voices wake us, and we drown.
chapter forty-six
ON A BRIGHT Sunday morning, Susan and I took Pearl over to Harvard Stadium to let her run. We sat in the first row of the stands while Pearl coursed the football field alert for game birds, or Twinkie wrappers. Her nose was down, her tail was up, and her whole self seemed attenuated, as she raced back and forth over the field where generations of young Harvard men had so fiercely fought.
“Your name was in the paper this morning,” Susan said.
She was wearing a black and lavender warm-up suit, and her dark hair shone in the sunshine.
“Did you cut it out and put it up on the refrigerator with a little magnet?”
“Most of the story was the Senator Stratton indictment. Detective Farrell is quoted extensively.”
Pearl spotted a covey of pigeons near the thirty-yard line and went into her low stalk. The closer she got, the slower she went, until finally the pigeons flew up and Pearl dashed to where they had been and wagged her tail.
“He did the work,” I said. “And he did it even though he wasn’t feeling too swell.”
“How are you feeling?” Susan said. “You did some work too.”
“Not enough,” I said.
“You’re worrying about the Tripps,” Susan said.
“Wouldn’t you?” I said.
“Up to a point,” Susan said. “You didn’t get them into this dysfunctional mess. You have done something to start getting them out of it.”
“By pulling the lid off,” I said.
Susan nodded. “By pulling the lid off. Someone had to. If it could have happened more gently, and more gradually, that would have been better. But you didn’t control that.”
I nodded.
Pearl finished hunting the stadium, and came up into the stands, and sat in front of us with her mouth open and her tongue hanging out.
“Dr. Faye is a well-respected and experienced therapist,” Susan said.
I nodded again. We were near the open end of the stadium. Across Soldiers Field Road, the river moved its oblivious way toward Boston Harbor.
Susan put her cheek against my shoulder.
“And,” she said, “you’re kind of cute.”
“There’s consolation in that,” I said.
I put Pearl’s leash on, and we stood and started out of the stands. Susan took my hand and we strolled back through the Harvard Athletic Complex toward the Larz Anderson Bridge. There was a red light at the pedestrian crossing. We stopped.
“What are you going to do about the murder?” Susan said.
“When Jefferson told me the truth that night,” I said, “there were six or eight dogs sleeping in the atrium.”
The light changed and we started across. “I think I’ll let them lie.”
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Paper Doll s-20 Page 16
