Senator Love (14 page)

"Out of line?" The idea seemed to confuse him,
but Fiona continued to press on.

"Apparently you are an important political figure in
Austria."

He raised his eyes to meet hers. They were suddenly alert,
on guard. The political animal was stirring, even beyond the grief.

"I am," he replied. "Although this is a
professional assignment, and I have to be totally objective and, as far as I am
able, politically neutral. The answer, however, is yes. I have a political
agenda for the future." He was approaching it with a politician's caution.

She hesitated, trying to find an inoffensive way of dealing
with the question.

"Obviously no one can possibly expect a tragedy like
this to occur..." she began. "But why would you put up with such political
risk-taking? Your marriage ... well, it seemed to open you up to scandal. Given
that Austria is a deeply religious, traditional country."

He averted his eyes, looking everywhere but in Fiona's
direction. Although he had confided in her earlier, he seemed to be wrestling
with a sense of personal embarrassment. His confidence had considerably eroded
since they had pondered the problem of Helga's disappearance, and he seemed to
be working through layers of repressed emotion.

Like many men in the diplomatic and political business, he
had clearly learned the process of inner control. At the moment he was having
difficulty with that process. After an obviously long wrestling match with
himself, he stopped his eyes from roaming and met her gaze.

"I've been less than forthright, Madam
Detective," he said, assuming a distinctively formal continental tone.
"I have been absolutely faithful to my wife during our ten-year
marriage."

He paused for a moment, presumably to allow Fiona to fully
absorb the statement. Earlier he had hinted that he, too, was involved in
affairs outside the marriage contract, that theirs had been a truly open
marriage ... ?

"Everyone bears a cross, Madam Detective," he
continued. "Helga needed the romanticism of an outside affair and all the
attendant excitement. My hope has always been that this need would diminish
with time." Again he averted his eyes, then struggled out of his chair and
paced the room. "Our only compact was honesty and discretion. I have
absolute faith that she observed both criteria. Despite everything, she was a
woman of extraordinary integrity. Since, in this case, the Senator was equally
at risk, I felt that she had satisfied the compact. It hurt, of course. I had
to subjugate my ego. Put up with it, if you will. I hated the idea. But I loved
her."

"Why take the pain, Mr. Ambassador?" Fiona asked
gently, wondering if such a question really had relevance to the case.

"We make compromises," he shrugged. "It gave
her pleasure and, in fact, it did not distract from our own relationship, hard
as that is to imagine." He stopped in the center of the room. "I was
elated when the Senator broke off the affair. Even Helga seemed relieved,
although she adored him in a romantic and, I suppose, sexual way. I detected,
as I told you before, no sign of depression. That very evening"—his ashen
skin took on a slight coloring—"you understand. It was better than
ever."

"Yes." Again he was silent for a long time,
standing like a statue in the center of the room, a man lost, unable to decide
whether to move or sit. He lifted an arm and swept it across his chest.
"Now see? I have nothing. I have lost her completely." His voice
broke and tears rolled down his cheeks. Genuine tears, Fiona decided. He was
sincerely bereft.

"You'll call me on the inventory, won't you?"

He nodded, then turned his face from her as she left the
room.

OFTEN WHEN she needed to think, Fiona would squirrel
herself away in some out-of-the-way spot. Among her favorites was
"Holloways," a neighborhood bar on upper Wisconsin Avenue, in a block
of buildings from another era, still untrammelled by the gentrification of
Georgetown and the trendiness of upper Chevy Chase.

Which is exactly what she did when she left Ambassador
Kessel. Although she was a curiosity to the regular bartender, she avoided any
familiarity. He knew what she drank, a dry martini straight up, rarely more
than one. She always chose a booth in the rear.

She felt the first rush of alcohol stimulation, triggering
a kind of movie reel in her mind. A cast of characters paraded themselves
one-by-one across the mental screen.

There was the Senator—ambitious, articulate, driven by
power and sex and willing to take risks to achieve both. Then Bunkie, whose
future was in lockstep with the Senator's—ruthless, dissimulating, sly and
mean-spirited if faced with something that might thwart ambition.

And poor Monte, like the others, obsessively ambitious,
which, despite his protestations and her own feelings, gave some weight to
moral ambiguity. And the Ambassador, like Monte, an unlikely suspect. But she
had often learned that some people had awesome powers of creating a new persona
out of their real selves, undetectable to even the most practiced observer of
human nature. Yet he had seemed completely sincere and believable as the bereft
and grieving husband.

And little Nell, who might have acted out of jealousy,
which created in susceptible individuals a blind, overpowering and often fatal
rage.

The political motives were obvious on the part of both the
Senator and the Ambassador. Too obvious.

Then there was robbery. A simple, but always compelling
motive. The leap from robbery to murder was easy. A robbery is committed. The
perpetrator is at risk. He or she can be identified. A quick garroting removes
the risk. Burial in the backyard of an empty house, on the edge of a lot
unlikely to be tampered with, was a gamble, but it could be justified. The
house then represented the central core of a clue. Cates was following that
lead.

By the time she had finished her martini, she felt that she
had adequately worked through the puzzle. Robbery. By a person or persons
somehow connected to that house.

She felt better. The alcohol had masked the fatigue, but
she knew it would return as soon as the effects wore off. She left the bar,
stopped at an Italian restaurant on Connecticut Avenue, ate a small plate of
pasta and grilled sole washed down with white wine and drove home.

She caught Monte Pappas in her headlights. He was standing
in her driveway, shielding his eyes from the glare as she drove up. Stopping
her car, she pulled up beside him and lowered her window.

"You are one elusive lady," he said, ducking down
and poking his head into the window. In the shadowy light, his face, framed by
the window, looked bearlike. He bent forward and planted a noisy kiss on her
cheek.

"Your affection will wake the neighbors," she
said, patting his cheek. He backed away and she got out of the car. "Did I
miss something?" she asked.

"I hope me," he replied, smiling broadly,
obviously feeling good. He held her shoulders and pulled her to him, enveloping
her in his arms. She let him hug her, but his mood was confusing. When she had
last seen him he was anxious, tense.

He released her to unlock the door and followed her inside.

"Waiting for you, I was growing jealouser and
jealouser," he said as he came in.

"There were secret lovers to be satisfied," she
joked, leading him into the den. Her hand swept in the direction of the bar.
"Help yourself."

She went to the bathroom, freshened her makeup and came
back to the den. She was puzzled by his high spirits, of course, but glad that
he had come. She had not relished coming back to an empty house.

He had taken off his jacket and was just popping a
champagne cork as she came back into the den. The bottle's neck was foaming as
he carefully poured the sparkling liquid into two flute-shaped glasses.

"We mustn't let the moment go to waste," he said,
handing her the glass.

"So you found the good stuff," she laughed.

"I have a nose for that," he said, kissing her
lightly on the lips. With her free hand, she reached up and stroked his face.
He needed a shave and his skin felt like sandpaper, but she liked its feel
against her palm. They clinked glasses and drank.

"He'll never be the same," Monte said.

"Who?"

"The Senator. The great Sam. Mr. Hot Rocks." He
began to roam the room and for a moment she wondered if his high spirits were
actually hysteria. She watched, rooted to the spot near the bar, as he circled
the room. "It was wonderful, Fi. Wonderful. He was shaken, really shaken.
For the first time, I really believe now that he has taken the pledge."

She remembered her own reactions during her interview with
the Senator. Doubtful, she told herself.

"Even sobered up the Bunkie-flunkie," he
continued. "They were two little boys caught beating each other's bishops
in the barn. I loved it."

"Loved what?"

"Their contrition," Monte said. His roamings took
him back to the bar, where he poured more into his glass. She covered her glass
with her palm and he put the bottle back on the bar. "I now feel," he
went on, "that this campaign truly has a Chinaman's chance. The sword of
Damocles seems to have fallen ... and missed."

It was only then that his conduct and words lost their
sense of joy and became bizarre.

"What the hell are you jabbering about, Monte? I'm
confused."

He had begun to roam again, but her remarks had brought him
up short.

"You're kidding." He looked at her with
confusion, then, frowning, he walked over to the couch where he had tossed his
jacket and removed a folded newspaper jutting out of a side pocket.

"This," he said, handing it to her. "
The
Washington Post
bulldog edition. I got it direct from the
Post
. The
ink isn't dry."

Fiona opened the paper to the front page. In the lower
left-hand corner was a picture of Helga Kessel. Over it was the headline:
AMBASSADOR'S WIFE PROBABLE ROBBERY VICTIM.

"How could they know?" she asked.

"Read on," Monte urged.

"Helga Kessel, the wife of the Austrian Ambassador,
whose nude body was found in a shallow grave behind a house in Cleveland Park
two days ago, was apparently the victim of robbery.

"According to the Ambassador, Mrs. Kessel's expensive
jewelry worn that day was not found with her body, leading police to theorize
that she was probably the victim of a robbery attempt.

"While police were not available for comment on this
aspect of the case, the Ambassador revealed that Mrs. Kessel, whose passion for
expensive jewelry was well known, left her home the day of her murder wearing
her diamond engagement and wedding rings, and a necklace and bracelet
containing gold and precious stones.

"The Ambassador estimated that these items represented
a value of 'probably close to one hundred thousand dollars.'

"The Ambassador also indicated that he was told by the
police that Mrs. Kessel might have been murdered to prevent identification of
her assailant. He told the
Post
that the police were pursuing all leads
based on this theory."

What followed was the so-called back story, a rehash of the
body's discovery and the eggplant's press conference.

She looked up and saw him smiling.

"We truly appreciate this, Fi. It simply refocuses
everything. Takes the heat off. Nipped in the bud, as we say."

"I didn't give this to the
Washington Post."

"No, you didn't. As you can see, the Ambassador
did."

She was dumbfounded, and he was obviously confused by her
reaction.

"When the stakes are this high, you don't pass up
opportunities like this."

"This is your idea?"

"It's not a question of taking credit, it's a joint
campaign management decision." Lines formed on his forehead and he cocked
his head in a gesture of puzzlement. "Hell, is there something wrong,
something inaccurate in the robbery theory? It looked cut and dried to
us."

It was beginning to dawn on her. As soon as she'd left him,
Ambassador Kessel contacted the Senator or Bunkie. A hurried, cautious
telephone meeting. They wouldn't have taken the time to meet personally. It was
apparently essential that they move to forestall any mud being thrown in their
direction. She looked at Monte, confused and hurt at the same time.

"What you implied to the Ambassador was the logical,
wasn't it?" Monte asked with obvious agitation. When she didn't answer
quickly, he said, his voice rising, "Hell, Fi, we didn't blow anything,
did we?"

He looked pathetic and she wasn't certain whether to curse
him or pity him. Them.

"Good thinking. Great damage-control thinking. Take
the heat off. Did it ever occur to you to tell me? Poor little me, who was
trying to get at the truth and, if you were all innocent, hold off the
mudslide. Don't you think I should have been consulted?"

"We thought..." He hesitated, then stopped
abruptly.

"It was in still in the theory stage," she
sighed. She knew the mechanics of the act. An anonymous tip. A call for
confirmation, and voilà: the Ambassador is available for comment. A bull's-eye
in PR management. Just in time for the deadline pressure of the bulldog
edition.

"Will it get you into trouble?" Monte asked
sheepishly.

"Trouble?" She thought better of explaining. The
eggplant would be furious that he was not "apprahzed," livid that the
media was getting privileged information and—she would definitely not tell
Monte this—be predisposed to look beyond the robbery theory out of sheer pique
and orneriness. Especially if she told him exactly how and why all this had
transpired in the first place. Besides his having her ass, perhaps even ruining
her career, she would have to contend with the political ramifications.

"Trouble?" she repeated, a wave of nausea rolling
through her. "You don't know what trouble
is."
She paused to
let that salvo sink in. From his expression and his pallor she knew that the
message had been received. With her knowledge, she could blow them out of the
water.

"You wouldn't," he whispered. She had the
impression that he might have wanted to speak louder, but had lost wind by her
implication.

"Why not?"

"Please, Fi," Monte said, genuinely panicked.
"You are not a vindictive person. All right, we might have made an error
in judgement. Maybe we should have checked with you. It had to get out fast.
But surely you would have agreed with our intentions, considering the stakes
here."

She shook her head, feeling suddenly ashamed for him, for
his fear and his weakness. And for herself for going soft inside.

"I would have been opposed, totally. Aside from my
official responsibilities, I consider it manipulative and cynical. That part
disgusts me, if you want to know."

"I'm really sorry, Fiona. I had no idea you'd react
this way." He looked helpless and forlorn and his large brown puppy-dog
eyes grew misty. He was a bear all right, a big teddy. Just another frightened
flunky who danced around the flame of power.

"A common affliction. A lack of perception about other
people."

"The point is..." he began, then searched her
face for some reaction. She forced herself into a stony deadpan. "It does
make sense. She was stupid enough to go out loaded with jewelry. Somebody
spotted it, or knew she did this, robbed and killed her. The other, this
business with the Senator, has no relevance to her murder. None whatsoever. Why
should we all be penalized for something so obviously not of our making?"
He drew in a deep breath, expelled it and watched her face.

"That's the difference between your business and mine,
Monte," she said pointedly. "We dig under the surface bullshit. You
scrape it up and package it as the real McCoy. Saying it in print does not mean
it's the truth."

"You don't think it's true?"

"Shit, Monte, we never make judgements on the obvious.
We call that circumstantial. We've got a real conflict of agendas here. We're
looking for a killer."

"Are you saying that you still think...?"

"What I think is now none of your damned
business," Fiona exploded.

He lowered his eyes and fidgeted with his fingers. Her
sudden outburst seemed to flatten him like a hurricane gust. Finally he looked
up. "Listen, I'm sorry. But the milk is spilled. What can we do now?"

"Still in damage-control," she said with
contempt. "I'll tell you what you can do."

He lifted his two hands.

"I know. I'm just leaving."

He walked across the room and picked up his jacket.

"I hope you don't hurt them—hurt all of us," he
said.

"My business is catching killers. I shouldn't have
taken any detours."

He looked genuinely whipped and uncertain. Contempt was
quickly turning to pity in her mind and she cursed her vulnerability. If only
he wasn't so ... so cuddly. The thought made her smile.

"We meant well," he said. "We may be
assholes, but we're not murderers."

She shook her head.

"The fact is that it does look like robbery. But we'll
never know until we find the person that did it. That's the bottom line."

He paused, studying her face for any signs of forgiveness.
Perhaps he saw some.

"It's a viable theory then, Fi? That's what counts at
this stage, doesn't it?"

"Yes," she admitted, her anger softening. "A
viable theory."

"Then maybe it will all come out right."

"Maybe," she shrugged.