"Imagine," Sam whispered. "He's down there right now, waiting."
"Have you bought it? The Bunkie theory?"
"Not quite."
Bunkie had come back from California and Sam had, according to their instructions, set it up. "Wasn't hard," he had told them. "Bunkie usually knows my day minute-by-minute. Our people in the office told him that I was spending unscheduled time somewhere. He wanted to know. I evaded the issue. Voila. Bunkie is very resourceful. I had no doubt he would want to confirm the s ituation for himself."
Cates, using his car phone, had called up to the room, talking in code.
"He's in his car, waiting," Cates had said. She assumed that Bunkie had followed Sam to the motel.
"No sign of Frances?" Fiona had asked.
"None."
"Ten-four," she had answered, hanging up. "Frances may have it right after all."
"As long as I live I won't believe any of this."
"He'll want to make certain who the new lady is. Figure your charm has seduced yet another canary. We're in Virginia, so it won't be official MPD police business." She twisted her body to face him. "Then he'll confront you? What will you tell him?"
"I'll tell him it's none of his business."
"And then?"
"I'll get the usual lecture about destroying my political career." Fiona saw the evasion.
"Will he believe that I'm the real thing?"
"It's true."
"Stop it, Sam," she said firmly, wanting it to be true, hating herself for wanting it.
"He'll be convinced. He'll also think that by these little meetings in a public place I'm really taking a chance, throwing caution to the winds. Oh, he'll be convinced all right." He stroked her side and kissed her hair. "If Frances is right, I'm setting him up to attack you."
"That's the point."
"Scares the hell out of me," Sam said. He raised himself on an elbow and leaning over her, he kissed her deeply on the lips. "Rough duty," he said when his lips had disengaged.
"We'll get him, Sam. But we've got to get him to crack wide open."
"And Frances is free and clear?"
"Maybe."
It was, the eggplant and Cates had agreed, worth the test. The fact that Frances was not in evidence was certainly a plus for her contention.
"Be a miracle if I can salvage a political career out of this," Sam sighed. "Even a confession has to deal with a motive."
"Maybe he'll cop an insanity plea. Leave a doubt in the public's mind."
"Or he'll deny it. Get a smart lawyer. Go to trial. Put me on the stand. Any way you slice it, I'm in deep shit."
"It was always worth the try, Sam. And the right thing to do."
"I'll buy that."
He slid lower on the bed and embraced r, kissing her navel and her pubic hair.
She caressed his head.
"Maybe we'll find a way, Sam. I would if I could."
She felt suddenly heroic and determined, which triggered an idea. Unfortunately it was morbid, ugly, against her grain. Bunkie would attack her and she or Cates would shoot him.
"My God," she said aloud.
"What is it?" Sam asked.
Should she tell him what was going on in her mind? Before she could act, the phone made them jump. She picked it up.
"He's gone into the lobby," Cates said.
"Can you see him?"
"He's just sitting there, watching the elevators. It's a good spot to observe. You won't see him."
"Ten-four."
She told Sam where Bunkie was at that moment. He reached out to look at his wristwatch.
"Damn. Time goes."
She came back into his arms. It was madness, lunacy for both of them. Once again, old Fiona was trapped by her romantic nature, she told herself. Runs in the blood. The impractical Irish romantic, the worst kind. Maybe she was his counterpart, fated to spread her love over the entire other gender. Yet, she wasn't promiscuous. Certainly not indiscriminate. All right, she could count her lovers on the fingers of both hands. Not quite all the fingers. Was that promiscuity? It certainly was chance-taking in this age of AIDs. A shiver ran through her as she thought of Bunkie and Sam in the way Frances had described them. Oh no. Not Sam, she decided. Hell, was she supposed to cart around condoms in her handbag like some slut?
In his arms she felt safe. More than that? She brushed away the thought. This entire interlude was a travesty, an insult to her job, a violation of all procedures. Wrong as hell. But it hadn't stopped her. Nothing had stopped her.
As agreed, he would be leaving the room first. He prepared to go. They had been together just under two hours.
"Anything happens to you, I'll never forgive myself," he told her.
"I'm a professional," she assured him. "I know how to handle myself. And I've got backup."
"It's not worth it, Fiona. I'm not worth it."
"We're not doing it for you," she said firmly.
"It's me that killed those women," he said. "I should be punished for it." He looked at her, his eyes brimming with tears. "Hell, there's life after politics." Then he opened the door and went out.
She showered and dressed quickly. No point in thinking about anything but the matter at hand. She hefted her pistol, drew it out of the holster and checked to be sure it was loaded. It was.
She did not expect him to make his move immediately, only to make her, identify her. That done, he would act as soon as he determined that her relationship with the Senator was more than casual. But expectations often conflicted with reality. It was his option and he could act immediately. Today.
As if to assure his postponement, she put on her trick brassiere,
which she carried in her shoulder bag. Above all, she'd be ready for the son-of-a-bitch. Catch him in the act and loosen his tongue. That was the gamble.
"You get done for nothing, I'll have your ass," the eggplant had warned, still reticent, genuinely worried.
"Nothing's for nothing," she whispered to herself, thinking of Sam.
———— *30* A GREY-HAIRED couple got on the elevator with her. She smiled thinly, let them push the button, and stood against the rear panel as it descended.
On the lobby floor, she hung back and waited until they got out. Then she moved, walking slowly, exhibiting herself. Her check-in method was to pay in advance and there was no need for her to stop at the desk. This time she did, asking the clerk for the time. Peripherally, she saw Bunkie. He was sitting in a corner, a magazine held up to partially conceal him. When she was certain he had made her, she headed out the side door toward the parking lot.
She pushed through the door, noting as she angled her body that he made no move to rise and follow herCates, she knew, was waiting in his car at a point in front of the hotel that afforded him the best view of any of Bunkie's potential actions. She assumed that Bunkie's car, too, was parked at curbside. The objective for Cates was to keep the man in view at all times, while giving him enough distance for him to think he was safe enough to make his move. Apparently, now that he knew who she was, he would save that for another time.
Almost at the moment she approached her car, her cop's sense of things awry assailed her. She slowed her steps, studying the vehicle. Then she saw it. The inside lock button was raised. Had she been careless when she left the car? Highly unlikely. She had equipment in her glove compartment, a walkie-talkie. Under the dash was the police radio and car telephone. No way would she have left the door open. Force of habit. Someone had hooked it open.
Her mind focused on that fact and she could feel the adrenaline pumping. Was someone inside? Who? There was no time to analyze. She prepared her body, which surged with alertness, every cell ready to react.
Hesitating for a brief moment, she touched the mechanism in her brassiere, felt it activate, then opened the door to her car on the driver's side. Before she slid in, her peripheral vision caught the picture. Someone was, indeed, lying on the floor of the car. It was a tricky moment.
There w
ere no doubts now. Frances had snookered them. Quickly, she noted that there were no people in the parking lot. Only cars. Good, she thought. No interference. The time was now. She bent forward, put her key in the ignition, then straightened, calculating the moment. Her fist went up to her neck at precisely the moment when the scarf swished over her head. She felt the pressure on her fist and windpipe as the scarf was pulled taut, tightening as strong hands pulled at either end of a loop.
She heard the grunting sound, distinctly female, although the grip seemed masculine. Body to body, she had been taught — the key to overpowering an opponent was leverage and concentration. With her free hand, she grabbed a handful of hair, pulled back, heard the squeal of pain. With her fisted hand she pushed, feeling the grasp loosen and scarf loop widen. Then she slid under the loop and twisted her body, both arms free now, as she rose to her knees on the front seat and tightly grasped both of Frances' wrists.
In a quick twist, she reversed the woman's body. Frances was strong. No question about that. But not as skilled in defense. In a few seconds, despite the awkwardness of her position, Fiona had both her arms twisted behind her and was tying her wrists firmly behind her with the scarf.
In a futile effort to get free, Frances had used her head as a weapon.
Fiona had avoided it, and after the knot was tied, she pulled the woman's head back until it literally hung over the front seat and the woman was grunting in pain. Then she quickly rolled over to the rear seat, unholstered her pistol, and still holding a handful of hair put the muzzle of the gun against the woman's forehead.
"Give me the pleasure, lady," Fiona said breathlessly. Frances had continued to struggle, but the warning froze her. In the light, she saw the woman's frightened eyes. "Funny how even the worst of them hate to die," Fiona snapped.
She pushed the woman facedown on the rear seat, removed a pair of cuffs from her shoulder bag, closed them on her wrists, undid the scarf, then looped it around the cuffs and, forcing th e woman to bend her knees, tied the scarf to her ankles.
Then she pushed the woman on her side, jumped over to the front seat and started the car. Her body was still charged as she backed the car out of its space and headed out of the lot.
"Just you and me, babe," she muttered, angling the rearview mirror to see the woman immobilized on the back seat. To see behind her, she glanced at the sideview mirror. No sign of Cates. He was off following Bunkie. Good. This one was for her. And Sam.
"Real smt-ass," Fiona said, looking at the woman.
"Where are you taking me?"
"Mine to know. Yours to find out."
She headed the car north along Route One toward the District of Columbia. Again she checked the sideview mirror. No sign of Cates.
"Had you going," Frances said after a long and deliberate silence on Fiona's part. The woman needed to simmer. Fiona's own plan was still vague. Above all, she needed the woman to talk up a storm.
"You have the right to remain silent — " Fiona began.
"We're getting formal, are we?" Frances sneered.
Fiona completed the spiel, getting it on tape just in case, knowing that the legal niceties would inevitably be gummed up by the lawyers. Okay, baby, Fiona silently urged the woman. Talk to my tits.
"You people and your little games," Frances said. "Fools, the pack of you."
Fiona let silence do its work. She said nothing for a long time, a psychological ploy, feeding on the woman's natural anxiety. Finally, she said, "Blaming all this on poor, sad Bunkie." Fiona shook her head in mock ridicule.
"Not over yet," Frances said. Incredulously, Fiona thought she saw the woman smile.
"For you it is," Fiona said.
No mistaking it now. The woman was smiling.
"Back to square one, lady. No real evidence." Frances giggled. "And old hot-cock's career goes down the tube."
"Beware a woman scorned," Fiona said.
"Scorned? Me? You've got it wrong, lady."
"Have I?"
"I was the only one he loved. The first and only."
"That's a laugh."
"They didn't have any rights to him. They were usurpers. Who were they supposed to answer to?" She laughed. "They deserved it." Off and running, Fiona thought, relieved.
"Why not Nell?"
"I would never interfere with the sanctity of the marriage bond." When she said this, there was not the slightest hint of sarcasm in her tone.
It was convoluted, of course. But the woman was obviously mad, answering only to her own skewered logic.
"If you didn't miss the ankle bracelet we might never have identified Betty Taylor."
"Nobody's perfect," Frances said. "Little black cunt. She was easy."
"Easy?"
"Got her just like I nearly got you. In back of the apartment house, where she parked her car. Got rid of everything she owned in the city dump. Fourteen years and you hadn't a clue."
"You strangled her?"
"She was gone in no time at all. No time at all."
"Swimming pool and the rain fucked you up," Fiona said. She pressed her breast, felt the tiny recording purring.
"The fact was they came too close to the property line when they built that pool. They were illegal. I measured it."
"There you go. Nobody's perfect."
The road grew more congested as they headed north. She cut into the spaghetti curves at the edge of Arlington and headed past the Pentagon toward Memorial Bridge. Spring buds had just exploded into leaf along the parkland beside the highway and the Potomac was slate grey without its normal muddy brown caste.
"Tell me about Harriet," Fiona asked.
"That pig," Frances muttered. "I didn't even want to dirty my hands. I counted her as an infatuation. I used to think about them together, her stinking of horseshit. I just chased her into a tree. Pure panic. I enjoyed the harassment. Never laid a hand on her."
"But you missed Judy Peters," Fiona goaded.
"I was going to follow her to Europe, the little bitch. But I had a big deal going. I canceled out. Then when she came back, I burned out on her."
"Had to feel the white heat of it?"
"Something like that."
Then Frances grew silent.
"Where are you taking me?" she said after a while.
Fear of death, Fiona thought. She had seen it when she had put the pistol muzzle against her temple. She saw it now. No question. The woman was a psychopath. And yet she feared death. Was that a contradiction? At that point another idea had popped inther mind. Resisting arrest. Bang bang. She tried to will it away.
"Why, after all that time, did you do Helga?"
"Kraut pussy. I thought it was over for old hot-cock. I really did. Then when I saw him and her together I knew it hadn't. She was a greedy little pig. I knew she was in the market to buy. Got it right off the computer. I caught her in the ladies' room they had set up in Mount Vernon and told her I had this piece of property to show her, a real deal, a steal. She liked that. Picked her up a block from the Embassy. Dug the hole the night before."
"In the rain."
"Yeah, the rain, the damned rain. Was good for digging, though. Nice and soft."
Frances began to laugh, a kind of cackle, hardly normal.
"What are you laughing at?"
"She put the idea in my head about pinning it all on Bunkie."
"How?"
"That day when I picked her up — to show her up — on the pretext of showing her some property, we had a real talk, us girls. She told me about her affair with Sam. After all, we did have him in common. All of us. You and me, too."
The remark curdled Fiona's stomach. All of us, she repeated to herself. How could he have loved all of us?
"What about the idea?"
"She told me about how Bunkie had told her it had to end. She was upset about it. But she understood. The thing that upset her the most was being told to do it by Bunkie. It was really just a coincidence."
"What was?"
"Him an
d me onto the same thing. And just about at the same time." She
giggled. "Only I made sure it was permanent."
"Killing them?" Fiona said, mostly for the benefit of the machine purring next to her right breast.
"You got it. And they deserved what they got."
Adler, Warren - FitzGerald 03 - Senator Love Page 27
