The Last Virginia Gentleman

by Michael Kilian

  Showers remembered Lenore kneeling before him on the lawn that evening—rebuffed, driving away stark naked, furious that he’d rejected her.

  “No,” he said.

  On the screen, Vicky and Becky remained seated on the bed, less hostile now, united by Lenore’s obnoxiousness. They waited as Lenore, now dressed, crossed in front of the camera and walked out of the room, her high heels clicking on the wooden floor.

  An impish grin came over Vicky’s face. She was going to win, she said. She had something Showers would want very badly—information, about a horse that was going to be auctioned. Showers would do anything for a horse, she said. She told Becky about Bernie Bloch’s bay. She extracted a promise from Becky not to tell Lenore. Becky, looking troubled, agreed.

  They got up, Becky going into the bathroom. The camera continued to record, nothing on the screen but the empty bed.

  Spencer stopped the tape.

  “Becky told me about the horse,” Showers said. “That’s how everything started.”

  “Did Vicky say anything to you that night?”

  “She tried to. She asked to talk to me in private. She was very high on something, could barely keep her balance. I didn’t want anything to do with her. I’m afraid I was a little rude.”

  “And sometime that night, Becky went up and shot her full of horse tranquilizer, perhaps to keep her from queering the horse deal?”

  “You’re crazy.”

  “There’s evidence.”

  “Bloody nonsense. She wouldn’t do a thing like that.”

  Spencer got up and ejected the tape, replacing it with the other cassette.

  “I told you about the computer analysis I had a friend of mine do. Of the scratches on Meade Clay’s back?”

  “It didn’t sound very conclusive to me.”

  “Well, I found it very impressive. After all, this is a fellow who works up projections of missile trajectories for strategic defense systems, such as we have anymore.”

  He started the tape, returning to his seat. A brutally clear photographic image of Meade Clay’s skin filled the screen, complete with moles and freckles and the horrible crimson scratchings. A moment later, the picture was transformed into a computerized diagram, with electronic lines representing the scratches. Their form and patterns began to change, stretching and shrinking, tangling into bizarre contortions.

  “What he did was isolate the deepest impressions on Clay’s back and complete the most likely patterns Vicky was trying to make. The computer projected the lines a million different ways, and came up with three letters. Watch.”

  “You told me about this.”

  “Just watch.”

  They did. The computer became an artist, laboriously painting and repainting. Finally, satisfied with its product, it stopped, erasing everything on the screen except the forms of three letters, the last one somewhat indistinct.

  “You see. A B and e, and a c,” Spencer said. “The last letter might also be an n, or an r. But the computer thinks c is the most probable.”

  “As in ‘Becky.’ But it could be ‘Bernie,’ as in Bernie Bloch. Really, Jack, it could be anything.”

  “The prosecutor’s office wasn’t very convinced, either. And it’s a good thing.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “My friend kept playing with this. He was able to determine that there were two sets of impressions—one very deep, breaking the skin, the other fairly light, very superficial. The girl was almost completely paralyzed, David. It’s astounding she was even able to move her fingers. He decided it was most likely she had made the light impressions, that someone else came along and made the deep ones. His hypothesis was that it was the killer. He or she gave the Meades their fatal doses, then came back later to see if they were dead—and discovered the scratches. They couldn’t be erased, so he or she—she—wrote over them. If the sheriff had checked people’s fingernails the next day, he probably could have found some traces of Meade Clay’s blood.”

  A broken nail. A smudge of red.

  “Take a look at this now,” Spencer continued. “My friend ran everything through again, this time isolating the lightest impressions.”

  Showers stared transfixed. The computer’s unseen hand drew three letters on the screen, including an e and an n.

  The first letter was an L.

  “My God.”

  “It doesn’t do Becky much good now, but there you are. Put this together with what you saw on the first tape, and it’s damn interesting. I don’t think we can get that lunkhead sheriff to do anything with this, but the state police might be able to run with it. Or the FBI, now that your ladyfriend’s father has brought them in.”

  Showers sat motionless.

  “Mrs. Fairbrother’s husband owns the inn,” Spencer said. “She has access to the keys. Probably has her own set, given her interesting idea of fun.”

  Showers swallowed, but could not speak.

  “I could ask if you want me to draw you a picture, David, but I just did.”

  “I know.”

  “I talked to Mrs. Fairbrother while you were away, among a lot of other people Alixe Percy put me on to. She joked about all the women out here who had killed their husbands without anyone knowing, how murder was just part of the general depravity. All I thought at the time was that she had a peculiar sense of humor.”

  “Give me the tapes.”

  Spencer went to fetch them. “Bensinger knows about the bedroom scene,” he said. “Alixe had put it in a safety deposit box. He retrieved it for me.”

  Showers took the cassettes and then went into the kitchen.

  “Are you going to call the police?” Spencer asked.

  “No. I’m looking for some charcoal lighter fluid.”

  “What the hell are you talking about, David? You need those tapes.”

  “No I don’t. As you said, this won’t do Becky any good. It won’t do Vicky any good. It certainly won’t do me any good.”

  “Look, I know Lenore Fairbrother was once the love of your life, but for God’s sake, murder is murder. Hell, she had that horse you saved put down. What was its name? Moonsugar.”

  “I’m well aware of that. I’m not doing this out of any past love for Lenore. I just don’t want what’s on here played out in a public courtroom. I don’t want to have to testify in a trial. It could go on for weeks, and I can’t be stuck out here that long.”

  “You’d let her go free just because a trial would interfere with your plans?”

  “Yes, I would, as things stand now.” Showers started out the front door.

  “At the very least, you ought to let her husband get a look at these,” Spencer said, following. “Let him know what he’s living with.”

  “She lets him know what he’s living with every day. I’m not interested in handing him grounds for a divorce. The idea of their living out their days as husband and wife rather appeals to me. It’s the meanest thing I can think of for them.”

  “She could end up giving him a shot of jump juice some time.”

  “That’s Mr. Fairbrother’s problem.”

  Out in the yard, Showers took some straw and made a small pyre, setting the tapes in the center and dousing them with lighter fluid. The flames engulfed them in an instant.

  “So much for that front page story. I’ve got another. It’s all written—just sitting in my computer back in the office.”

  “And what’s that, Jack?” Showers sounded very weary.

  “That Napier creep? Who lied about the memo you showed me? He’s got a little men-only bordello going in Georgetown. He may be using money from the national committee to pay for the rent. Your friend Jimmy Kipp told me about it. He thought you’d be of a mind to get even. We can really put the screws to them, David. The first lady’s social secretary is a regular there. Kipp said he’d go on the record about that. We could really ding the administration.”

  “To get back at May’s father.”

  “He has it coming.”
<
br />   “No.”

  “You could discredit Napier completely. You could get your old job back.”

  “That doesn’t matter to me anymore. None of this does. I don’t care and I don’t want to hear about it. You said you owed me an obligation for the trouble your column caused. All right, I’ll collect. Don’t run that piece.”

  “Mr. Moody?”

  “He’s going to be family.”

  Spencer kicked some straw into the fire.

  “You’re not helping my career in journalism.”

  “Stick to art exhibitions. They’re a lot more edifying.”

  The cassettes were melting, the smell of burning plastic noxious and strong. They stepped back.

  “What about the saga of the counterfeit horse? I have most of that in the computer, too. All I need is a lead, and you’ve certainly handed me a good one today.”

  “That I wouldn’t mind seeing in the public print at all. I don’t ever want anyone coming out here and trying something like that again.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Thank you, Jack. You’ve gone a lot further than the extra mile.”

  “I’ll go call in my stuff. There are no menacing foreign powers involved, but maybe my bureau chief will run with it anyway.” He started for Showers’ house.

  “Don’t take too long. I want to go see Alixe.”

  “So do I. She’s the first woman I’ve met in a long time that I think I really like.”

  Showers stood alone, staring at the diminishing flames. Purification. Becky and Vicky would be remembered solely by their graves.

  Spencer was back sooner than expected.

  “Scooped again,” he said. “But I suppose it’s justice.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Someone—and I guess we’ll never know who—just blew up Bernie Bloch. Bloody car bomb. In the garage of his building. There was some blonde with him. They haven’t been able to identify her.”

  The last item on the Oval Office schedule was “President meets with the Chief of Staff.” This was how the schedule routinely ended, but this meeting was not routine.

  Moody placed the neatly typed, two-sentence letter on the president’s desk, then stepped back. The president stared at it somberly.

  “You needn’t have been in such a rush about this, Bob,” he said finally. “This says ‘effective immediately.’ Really, this could wait a few days. Weeks, if you want.”

  “I don’t think so, sir. If it’s going to be done, it should be done now. You have to get the whole mess behind you, and I’m sure as hell part of the mess.”

  “Sit down, Bob, please.”

  Moody did so. He had never before felt so uncomfortable in this room.

  The president ticked the anchor of his model sailing ship, then looked at Moody’s resignation again. He seemed genuinely saddened.

  “You’re absolutely certain this is necessary.”

  “Yes sir. My friendship with Bloch has been a long one. I’ve no idea what may turn up, what he may have done—what he may have done in my name. The same goes for Reidy. I’d only be a liability. You need a clean house.”

  “You knew you’d have to do this, when you agreed to that meeting?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Well, let me say, Robert Moody, that you are a very fine man, indeed. I can’t think of a president who was ever better or more unselfishly served.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “But what will you do?”

  “I haven’t given that a lot of thought. I’ll be all right. I’m not exactly a candidate for the poorhouse. I’ll get out of Washington for a while. Travel. I don’t know. Maybe go back home. Who knows, someday I may run for public office again. I might come back and haunt you as a congressman.”

  “I hope you do. I truly do.”

  “Thank you, sir. For everything.”

  The president was in no hurry to conclude the conversation.

  “How do you think it looks for the treaty now?”

  “This blowup today will delay a vote—possibly until next year,” Moody said. “It won’t be a cakewalk. It never was going to be that. But, on the whole, I’d say you stand the best chance now you ever did. Anyone casting a ‘no’ vote is going to have to explain his motives very carefully. Especially those guys who were close to Reidy.”

  “I daresay you’re right.” The president glanced at the resignation letter one more time, then slipped it into a leather-bound folder on his desk, closing the cover very gently, forever ending the White House career of Robert Moody. “If this Belize thing will quiet down for a while, I’m going to go up to Wellfleet for a week or two. Would you …” He paused. “Would you and Mrs. Moody like to join us?”

  “Mrs. Moody and I have separated.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry to hear that.” He looked anything but.

  Moody rose. “That’s kind of you, sir. I’ll see you again soon. If not on Cape Cod, somewhere.”

  “Good, good.” They shook hands. “If you don’t mind, Bob. I’d like to call on you if I could, for advice, on the treaty and …”

  This would last only until he had someone else in Moody’s job he could cling to. With luck, it might be Sadinauskas, or General St. Angelo.

  “Anytime, sir.” He started toward the door.

  “Bob?”

  Moody looked back. He had never seen the man look so alone before.

  “Yes sir?”

  “I really don’t know what I’m going to do without you.”

  “Thank you, sir. I think you’ll do just fine.”

  No one spoke to him as he walked down the carpeted corridor to his own office. He’d sent his secretary Anne home early. To his surprise, she had started crying. He’d seen to it that she and Wolfenson and the others would get jobs elsewhere in the administration. It was the first rule of working in the White House, just as it had been with the people he’d grown up with in West Virginia, the people who had saved May’s life. You took care of your own.

  His framed photograph of Deena was still on his desk. He dropped it noisily in his wastebasket. The one he’d kept of May he put in his briefcase, along with a few personal possessions. The picture of himself and the president on the Truman Balcony he left hanging on the wall. It might tell his successor something.

  He still had a White House car at his disposal, but he’d sent his driver home, too. He’d take a cab home. He decided he’d leave all the trappings behind, cut loose, and not look back. But, walking down the driveway from the West Wing lobby, he paused as usual to take in the White House’s floodlit North Portico, the great white pillars, the semicircular half-moon windows of the second floor family quarters, a brightly lit chandelier visible inside.

  Before the president’s election, he’d often gazed at those windows, wondering what it would be like to stand on the inside looking out. On inauguration night, he’d gone up there as soon as was seemly, feeling like a child at Christmas, looking down at the mere mortals on Pennsylvania Avenue.

  Now he was on the outside again.

  He turned in his White House pass at the guardhouse of the Northwest Gate. Word of his resignation had quickly spread through the entire Executive Mansion establishment, and the guard took the coded, laminated card without surprise.

  “Goodnight, Mr. Moody. Hope we see you again soon.”

  “Thanks. Thanks for everything.”

  The guard buzzed the door lock open. Moody walked through briskly, listening to the click as it closed behind him. Then he stepped onto the sidewalk.

  From the moment he’d first signed on, he’d continually reminded himself that this day would come. He’d seen so many onetime mighties and worthies walking the streets as ordinary citizens, waiting at traffic lights, hailing cabs—former CIA director Richard Helms, former defense secretary and World Bank president Robert McNamara, former everything Elliot Richardson. Now, for the first time, Moody realized what it meant.

  He couldn’t go back through that gate. Not
like before.

  Like his ancestors who had served in the Union Army during the Virginia campaigns of the Civil War, Moody had always been a man to march directly to his goals. Once deciding upon a course, he stuck to it, dodging dangers and skirting obstacles perhaps, cutting corners where he had to, but always keeping his ultimate destination firmly in mind. As the president’s man, he’d hooked all his ambitions and aspirations to passage of the treaty, and driven relentlessly, with skill and stamina and raw goddamn guts, toward the prospect of its success.

  Now it was a very real prospect, but his headlong push had left him here on the street.

  Two men in suits came by, carrying briefcases, talking earnestly, paying him no mind. A pretty girl with a Smithsonian souvenir bag sauntered along after them. She glanced at him, then looked away. What was he, after all? Just another fifty-three-year-old man in a dark suit, one of thousands in Washington.

  He’d not had any lunch. He thought for a moment of walking over to Maison Blanche, an expensive Gucci loafer joint of a restaurant on the other side of the Old Executive Office Building. It had long served as an unofficial White House mess for major figures in the administration and the glad-handing lawyers and lobbyists and consultants who fluttered like moths in their light. In the past, Moody’s appearance at the door would bring the maître d’ scurrying forward, summoning waiters and busboys to see to his every need.

  How might he be greeted now? Whispers. Averted eyes. A table in the rear? It might take days for that to set in, but he didn’t feel up to taking the risk. Even if the glad-handers came up and surrounded him with bonhomie in his hour of need, he felt too weary, too beaten down, to talk to any of them.

  He raised his arm. The cab stopped and he got in, sitting there a moment after closing the door.

  “Where to?” the driver said, impatiently.

  Where indeed?

  “The Watergate.”

  “The hotel?”

  It might as well have been.

  “No. The residential entrance.”

  His housekeeper was surprised to see him. He was home earlier than he had been in months.

  “Would you like me to fix you some dinner, Mr. Moody?” He set down his briefcase on the foyer’s marble floor. Deena had taken all her clothes and jewelry, but not touched any of the garishly expensive furnishings, all of which she’d picked out. The apartment was depressingly empty, but she still seemed a presence. He’d have to move out of here as soon as possible. Maybe he’d go to his Ocean City place, and leave it to someone else to pack all this up.