Mortal Friends

by Jane Stanton Hitchcock

  “I would not like to have you as my enemy, Senator.”

  Grider paused. “Like to have me as your friend?”

  Chapter 35

  Senator Grider and I started “keeping company,” as he liked to put it. But that didn’t mean we saw each other every day. Socially, Washington was what Grider referred to as “a Tuesday Wednesday town,” because so many members of Congress commuted back and forth to their constituencies on weekends. The senator flew back and forth to Nebraska a lot. The arrangement suited me perfectly. Our relationship was decorous, with handholding and a little “smooching,” as he called it, but no sex. I didn’t really want to sleep with him, and fortunately, he didn’t press me.

  During this period, I saw much less of Gunner. I figured it was because the case was closed. But then I found out that he was spending quite a lot of time with Violet. The two of them had become great pals all of a sudden. I admit I was a little jealous. After all, Gunner was my friend first, and I’d helped him crack his big case. Yet now he seemed more interested in Violet than in me.

  One day he called up and asked if we could go for a walk. I’d been cooped up in the shop, and I was ready for some air. I told Polo to mind the store while I stepped out for a while. I met Gunner up at the Oak Hill Cemetery for old times’ sake. The grounds were an oasis of tranquillity in the spring, with flowering trees and emerald green lawns.

  Gunner seemed very distracted, and when I asked him why he wanted to see me, he said, “It’s about the case.”

  There was only one case in Gunner’s life. He was still obsessed with the Beltway Basher murders, despite the fact that the killer was in custody—thanks in large part to my tip.

  “Reven, I need you to tell me the truth about something. It’s important.”

  “Okay,” I said warily.

  “Did you ever tell Violet about me when you first became my snitch?”

  “No!” I cried, feigning surprise. I didn’t want him to think I’d betrayed him. It was kind of like politics: if I told him the truth, he’d never trust me again.

  He stopped in his tracks. “Do me a favor. Don’t ever commit a serious crime.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Because you can’t lie worth shit,” he said.

  I hung my head. We walked on. “Okay, maybe I mentioned it.”

  “When?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “From the git-go?”

  “Maybe,” I said sheepishly.

  He shook his head in disgust. “That explains it.”

  “What?”

  “How she knew about Nancy Sawtelle’s calendar. She said she read about it in the paper. But it hasn’t been in the paper. You told her, right?”

  I nodded. “I shouldn’t have, I know. But it was all a game to me then, Gunner. I didn’t really take it seriously until Amber. I’m sorry. I’m really, really sorry…. Anyway, why is that important now? You’ve got Wardell or Maxwell or whatever he’s called in custody.”

  “There are some other aspects that I still find interesting.”

  “Like?”

  “Like, who was Nancy Sawtelle tracking? I don’t think she was tracking Wardell.”

  “Does it matter?”

  “Matters to me. See, Wardell’s now admitted to doing three of the women—Bianca Symonds, Maria Dixon, and Amber. But he hasn’t admitted to the others. He probably thinks that gives him some bargaining power.”

  “Why does that give him bargaining power? He admits to killing three women.”

  “If you were the parents of one of those girls, you’d understand!” Gunner shot back angrily.

  I was pretty shocked at how vehement he was on this subject. I guess being a homicide detective, he understood the long consequences of murder a lot more than most people—the grief and the frustration, and most of all, the grand silence the victim’s family has to endure.

  He saw my startled reaction and softened his tone.

  “Look, suppose your child is murdered. She’s dead and buried, and part of you as a parent is dead and buried right alongside her. Well, you need to know that your kid’s killer isn’t still out there, enjoying life, laughing at the cops, maybe killing again. You need to know they’ve got him, and that he’s gonna pay for what he did, for what he stole from her and from you. You need to know. Can you understand that?”

  “Yes.” I thought I saw Gunner wipe a tear from the corner of his eye. “Are you crying?” I asked him.

  “No. Just got something in my eye, is all,” he said irritably. “So anyway, until this creep Wardell confesses to all six murders, the police are never gonna be sure. We need to be sure. And he knows that. That’s his power—his sick, controlling little piece of power in this world. I think he wants to make us believe there’s another guy out there violating innocent girls and bashing in their skulls.”

  “But you don’t think that, do you? You think he acted alone, right?”

  “You can’t be a hundred percent sure of anything until there’s proof or a confession.”

  “Wait. You don’t still think Bob Poll’s involved somehow, do you?” I said.

  “We have no proof whatsoever that he is. And, believe me, they went over every inch of his place and his life with a fine-tooth comb.”

  “But you think he’s involved. I know you do. You always have. So do you and Violet discuss this case ad nauseam?”

  “Lemme tell you something. Your friend knows more about serial killers and the way they think than half the guys in my department,” he said admiringly.

  “Yeah, I can just hear you two discussing the finer points of dismemberment.”

  “She’s had some brilliant insights.”

  “You know what I think, Gunner? I think you have a crush on Violet.”

  “I don’t.”

  “Are you sure? I mean, she’s very needy at the moment. And you’re a big one for damsels in distress.”

  “I don’t have a crush on her,” he assured me.

  “Well, you certainly see enough of her. She tells me you’re over there all the time.”

  He paused and slid his dark eyes onto mine. “Jealous?”

  “No! Well…maybe a little. Violet always winds up doing better than I do in life.” I sighed.

  “Say what?”

  “I’ve told you the whole story about how when we were in school, I was the Valkyrie and she was the troll. Then she wound up on top. Of course, now she’s back down again, and we’re on more of an equal footing. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t begrudge her her success—honestly, I don’t. But why is she so interesting to you?”

  “Violet interests me because she’s interested in the same things I’m interested in.”

  “Yeah—bludgeon, sweat, and tears. You two are a pair of ghouls.”

  Gunner chuckled. “I think your pal Violet likes to talk about violent crime because it’s unexpected coming from someone like her. Makes her stand out. Makes her shine in a weird kinda way.”

  “Are you going over there this afternoon?” I asked him.

  “Thought I might drop by.”

  “I’m coming with you.”

  Violet was out in the garden when Gunner and I arrived. Since Grant left her, she’d thrown herself into gardening with a vengeance, taking out all her frustration on the earth. Whenever I went to visit her she was either weeding like a maniac or trimming the life out of some poor hedge. Kerry Blockley, her longtime gardener, told me she dug soil fast enough to be a union gravedigger.

  Violet greeted us in her usual costume—jeans, a long shirt, a floppy straw hat, and old moccasins. Her hands were covered with dirt. Her face glowed with sweat. She seemed pleased to see us and to take a break from her labors.

  The Ancient Maureener brought us a pitcher of iced tea and homemade lemon cookies on a silver tray. The three of us sat out on the patio. I tried to enjoy the lovely weather while Violet and Gunner discussed serial killers who acted in pairs. Violet spoke with disconcerting authority on the subjec
t.

  “A lot of serial killers have accomplices,” she explained as she sipped her tea. “Sometimes when people get together, they become a lot more violent than they would if they were on their own, right, Gunner? Look at the Moors murderers, Myra Hindley and Ian Brady, or the Hillside Stranglers, Angelo Buono and Kenneth Bianchi, or Leonard Lake and Charles Ng, who filmed their victims being raped and tortured. Individually, those people may or may not have committed murder. But those couples were diabolic. They fueled each other’s bloodlust. It’s all very psychologically complex. But if you don’t believe me, read In Cold Blood.”

  “So you think Wardell might have had a partner?” I said.

  “Possibly. I’m not just saying this to be provocative, Reven, because he was such a shit to you, okay? But I wouldn’t be surprised if Bob Poll knows more than he’s letting on.”

  Gunner turned to me and said, “See? I told you she was an interesting girl.”

  “That’s because she agrees with you. Gunner’s always thought Bob was involved, haven’t you, Gunner?” I said.

  “Let me put it this way. My soul is not entirely rested.”

  “Mr. Wardell hasn’t confessed to all of the crimes, so I definitely think there’s more of a story there. More tea, anyone?” Violet said, lifting the pitcher.

  Violet was a different person around Gunner. She played yet another role: ladylike crime buff to his seasoned detective. He seemed to regard her with what I thought was amused wonder, probably because her genteel surroundings were such an incongruous backdrop to her vast knowledge of unspeakable perversions. But he also listened quite closely to what she said, as if he respected her opinion and her observations.

  “So how come a nice girl like you is so interested in all this dark stuff?” Gunner said, half joking, half not.

  I’d asked Violet that a million times. She never answered me. She always just laughed and told me about some other fiend. This time, however, Violet didn’t laugh. She stared at Gunner and thought for a long moment.

  “I’m not sure,” she began hesitantly. “Maybe…maybe it’s because growing up, I lived in a house full of secrets. I didn’t know what they were, but I knew they were around me—like shadows. And when you’re a kid, you imagine the very worst, like goblins hiding in the closet and bogeymen coming to get you through the window. So I guess serial killers are the real-life versions of goblins and bogeymen. You never really outgrow things, do you?’

  When we left, I said to Gunner, “Don’t you think Violet would have made a great detective?”

  “Or a great criminal,” he responded with a smile.

  Chapter 36

  Violet, Peggy Myers, and I had lunch together once a week, mainly to discuss what was now referred to as “the Grant situation.” We always went to Café Milano, and we always sat at the same corner table and ordered the same thing. We hunkered down in deep conversation over plates of chicken paillard and grilled vegetables. Marge Horner once told Peggy that we looked like “a trio of suicide bombers.”

  Although Grant and Cynthia were seemingly inseparable in public, his divorce was going slowly, and not because Violet was doing anything to hold it up. She had a prenup, and there was not much she could do. On the contrary, it was Grant who seemed to be stalling. This gave Violet hope. She had been waiting anxiously for the report from the private detective, and it finally came. Peggy and I were dying to know the results.

  “I can’t believe you hired an investigator,” Peggy said.

  “Why should we believe what this woman says about herself, huh?” Violet said.

  “No one who courts the limelight as much as the Trailblazer can afford to lie,” Peggy said.

  Violet waved a dismissive hand at Peggy. “Don’t kid yourself. Everyone can afford to lie. They just can’t afford to get caught. This would hardly be the first time a big shot has told a big lie in Washington.”

  Violet knew as well as I did that if she could turn up some really unsavory detail about Cynthia, Grant would abandon her in five seconds flat.

  “Grant’s always been so careful about who we connected ourselves with,” Violet said, imitating Grant’s supercilious lockjawed tone of voice. “Just imagine if Cynthia actually turned out to be a convicted felon or something. He’d kill himself. Or her. That’s why I hired the detective. And I just got the results this morning.”

  “Well?” Peggy and I said in unison.

  Violet paused for effect, then deflated.

  “Nada, I’m afraid.”

  “Don’t tell me! Well, there goes thirty thousand dollars down the drain,” I said.

  Peggy’s eyes widened. “Is that how much they cost?”

  “More,” Violet said glumly. “A lot more.”

  Unfortunately for Violet, Cynthia Rinehart appeared to be exactly who she said she was: a smart, self-made cookie who had made her fortune in the insurance business. She’d never been married, though there was talk she’d had an affair with the married chairman of the insurance company she worked for, and that’s how she got her start. But there was no proof, only rumors. That affair didn’t matter to anyone except Violet, who said it showed Cynthia had a history of targeting married men.

  The only bright side was that although Cynthia appeared to have made her money legitimately, there were questions about how she was spending it. That wasn’t covered in the detective’s report. But I now knew from Grider that people had to be very careful about how they ran a foundation. Aside from having to give away a percentage of the foundation’s assets every year, they had to be scrupulous about how they spent the foundation’s money. If they were not careful, they risked being in serious violation of the tax code.

  Since putting money into a foundation is a way of avoiding taxes, you can’t turn around and squander foundation money on a lavish lifestyle. In other words, you couldn’t pay yourself a huge salary, buy a big house, take people on junkets in your private plane, and give expensive gifts, all in the name of philanthropy. There were strict rules and regulations.

  Peggy, who was on the board of two Fortune 500 companies and who knew her way around corporate America, pointed out that a foundation had to be very well endowed indeed to own and operate its own plane in the first place, much less fly people around in it the way Cynthia did. It was also unclear what Cynthia’s Rinehart Retreats had actually accomplished—except to provide a luxurious venue for networking celebrities.

  As Grider said, Cynthia gave a million dollars a year to the Kennedy Center, independently of the hundred-million-dollar pledge she had yet to fulfill. But as Violet was quick to point out, “She spends nearly that whole budget on those ridiculous Golden Key dinners and other events. Meanwhile, the staff sits in offices the size of coffins and the roof leaks. There has to be a better use for that money than food, flower arrangements, and inappropriate entertainment.”

  The three of us decided that unless Cynthia had a vast personal fortune no one was aware of, what she was doing with her foundation’s money wasn’t strictly legal, and that she eventually could be held accountable. In that case, she would need a protector—one who was titanically rich. I wasn’t the only one who wondered if Cynthia had picked Grant, not for his unscintillating personality, but for his very scintillating pocketbook. God knows this wasn’t lost on Violet either, who said to us, “It would serve Grant right if Washington’s biggest philanthropist turned out to be Washington’s biggest gold digger.” And we weren’t the only ones asking these questions.

  I’ve found that in this world, you can get away with a lot if people like you. But if you’re high-handed and make promises you don’t keep—like pledging money and then withdrawing it, or not paying your bills—people start to dislike you. Dislike leads to complaint. Complaint gives rise to rumors. True or not, those rumors will almost certainly reach the ears of a zealous reporter anxious to check them out.

  Corinna Huff was like a bad cold: there was no avoiding her once you were exposed. I often ran into Corinna at social events aroun
d town. She seemed vaguely aware of who I was, but we were not what I’d call friends. When she marched into my shop one sunny May morning, eager to talk to me, I knew she wanted something—and I figured it wasn’t a discount.

  She said she was writing an article for the Washington Post. I was impressed. Corinna rarely wrote articles anymore. She was far too busy with social life. Her marriage to Barkley Huff, the grand old man of the Senate, had catapulted her to the pinnacle of Washington society, where she reigned with purpose and élan. Few subjects were powerful enough to lure Corinna out of her semi-retirement as an investigative reporter. Clearly, she had found one worthy of her fabled poison pen.

  “I’m doing a piece on Cynthia Rinehart,” she said, pausing to appraise my reaction. “I understand you know her.”

  “And how,” I said.

  “Can I talk to you?”

  It was well known that Corinna’s sly ability to put people at their ease was the way she coaxed them into saying things they would later regret. But if she was leveling her pen at Ms. Rinehart, who was I not to pass her some ammunition? I played hard-to-get for a few seconds—just because I felt like paying her back for all those times she never remembered my name. But I finally gave in and led her upstairs to my office, where we spent the next hour and a half drinking bottled water and discussing a subject that was near, but far from dear, to my heart.

  Corinna was all charm and chat. She’d never been so affable to me before. She had the manner of a sophisticated college girl. Her bobbed brown hair and youthful looks masked a kind of slithery determination. At first she talked to me conspiratorially, like she just knew that she and I were kindred souls who shared the same slightly wicked points of view. It was like yakking with a great girlfriend I hadn’t seen in ages. The conversation was easy, effortless, and fun because we had so much to say to each other on a variety of subjects, and we agreed on everything, most especially on what we disliked.

  Gradually, however, I realized that she was luring me into deeper waters—getting me to tell her about Cynthia stealing Grant and how it almost ruined my friendship with Violet. I told her how Cynthia had stiffed me when I was decorating her house. As I spoke, I knew I was being indiscreet. But that was Corinna’s great gift: she got me to the point where I didn’t care what I said. I just wanted to keep on chatting with this very clever, very entertaining, very sympathetic woman.