Senator Love (15 page)

"And you won't ... not deliberately ... hurt us?"

"No, I won't, Monte." She hesitated for a moment.
No, she decided, unwilling to let him off the hook. "Not if you're all
innocent."

He seemed confused, on the verge of protesting. Then she
saw him surrender.

"I still want you to know—" he began.

"Never mind," she said, cutting him off with a
wave of her hand.

He started toward the door.

"And you and I?" he asked when he got there.

"Not even for fun and games," she heard herself
say. Next time she'd buy a pet.

Still he did not leave, his eyes roaming the room as if
taking a farewell look. She was even disappointed in assessing that gesture. He
saw the
Washington Post
and picked it up. Then, without another word, he
left.

Her instinct, she knew, was to overreact. A cool head must
prevail, she badgered herself. They had betrayed her. No question about that.
But, she argued, it had not been a malicious betrayal, an act designed
deliberately to injure her, although it could have that effect.

Reason, you gullible vulnerable bitch, she admonished
herself, heading up the stairs to her bedroom. Shower time. She decided a real
hot-and-cold treatment was called for. She was out of her clothes in seconds,
striding across the bedroom to the adjoining bathroom. Only then did she see
the flashing light on her answering machine. Its placement was a quirk of hers,
since often, out of sheer exhaustion, she headed first for the bedroom to flop into
bed and oblivion.

She hit the rewind, then the play, and listened.

"Got something significant Fiona. Cates at home. Eight
p.m."

There were two other messages, also from Cates.

"Heavy date, you sly fox," Cates' voice blared in
his stunted version of black street talk. The last message, an hour ago.

"Don't want to interfere with your love life, lady,
but when you come up for air, call me."

She pulled the comforter from her bed, wrapped it around
her naked body, then punched in Cates' home number. He answered before the
second ring.

"You saw it," she said.

"Saw what?" he asked.

"The
Post,
Cates. The
Washington Post ...
"
It occurred to her that the reiteration was not necessary. Also the
question. He was obviously on a different tack.

"I get mine in the morning, Fiona," Cates said,
his voice reflecting his confusion.

"It goes like this," she began, sucking in a deep
breath, pulling the comforter tighter. "First let me take my shower. I'm
standing here balls-ass naked and shivering."

"I won't ask why," he snickered.

"You'd be wrong. Its the furthest thing from my mind,
body and spirit. I'm going into an imaginary nunnery." But she could not
shake off her own curiosity. "So what's so urgent?"

"Remember that lady I talked to at the Judiciary
Committee about our old bones?"

Her mind clicked into his mental rhythm, alert now. A surge
of adrenaline warmed her body. Betty Taylor, she thought.

"The lady messengered over the Congressional Directory
for that year. Feeling obliged, I flicked through it."

"For chrissakes, Cates."

He was doing it too often these days, building the suspense
for greater impact.

"He was on the committee for which the lady
worked."

"Say it, Cates. Stop this shit."

"Langford. Representative Samuel Langford." Cates
said.

Despite her body's apparent warmth, she began to shiver
again.

THE EGGPLANT was just winding down his tantrum, but the
adrenaline was still pumping up his anger.

"Thickness of the fucking skull," he shouted,
jabbing a dark finger at his temple. "It
is
a disease, an
affliction that impinges on the brain, the thinking processes, creates terminal
stupidity. And here"—he pointed at both of them for the umpteenth
time—"are two prime examples of the condition. What has to be said for the
message to sink in? Never, never,
never
talk to the press, not through
tenth parties, third parties, any parties. Zip the mouth." He motioned
with his finger across the mouth. "Zip. Zip. Zip. We are in the
killer-catching business. Leave the public relations to the eggplant.
Heah.
Do you get this message or am I pissing into the wind?"

Since they had expected it and, as best they could, had
prepared for it, she and Cates wore their masks of contrition and waited for
the flumes of verbal venom to subside.

Since it was the eggplant who had opened up the attack,
they had little chance to fill him in on the facts of the case. The story in
the
Washington Post,
as they knew, would set him off. It had little to
do with substance. To the eggplant, nothing was worse than an invasion of his
turf, which is the way he perceived the
Post
article. It was, of course,
irrational, egotistical, perhaps even verging on the maniacal, but, as she had
often concluded, it was the nature of the beast, an aberration to be accepted.
The beast had a good side, as well, which often outweighed the bad.

Apparently, a reporter had made appropriate inquiries the
night before, but there was no one around with any authority to answer them.
Eventually, the eggplant had gotten wind of it, preferring to duck the call
until he could gather all the facts at their morning meeting, not realizing how
fast the story was moving. He was a man that liked to set agendas in dealing
with the media, not be manipulated by them. What riled him most was that one of
his own staff had put the first spin on the story without his knowledge and
against his caveats. To him that constituted usurpation of power and bordered
on betrayal. While he was in this state, there was no room for protest.

As he spoke, his frustration accelerated. Veins stood out
in his neck and forehead and bits of spittle caught at the sides of his mouth.
It was not a pretty sight. Fortunately, the dark gloom of the dreary rain days
had lifted and the sun shone through the dust-caked windows, making the scene,
if not cheerful, bearable.

Finally spent, the eggplant ended his ranting and looked
out of the window, one arm leaning against a wall, his broad back offered as a
sign of immediate dismissal. Fiona glanced at Cates, her look an obvious
solicitation of support.

"We think the motive might not be robbery,
Chief," Fiona said, reaching for a conciliatory tone. He did not respond
and she spoke again. "We think the motive might be more"—she
hesitated, groping for a word that would arrest him—
"controversial."

He turned slowly like a heavy door on a rusty hinge.

"I believe the newspaper story was premature, maybe
even misleading," she pressed. "Even though it stemmed from my
meeting with the Ambassador." He had, she was certain, already surmised
that Fiona was the source of the story. His version had her cast as the
deliberate "leaker," who passed it along to a reporter to embarrass
him. He hadn't yet given them a chance to fill him in on all the details.

"You mean the jewelry is not missing?" he asked,
malevolence still resonating in his voice.

"I didn't say that. The Ambassador had promised to
take an inventory. Yes, the jewelry is probably missing."

"So where is it misleading?" He walked back to
his desk and poked a finger into the newspaper lying there.

"I'm trying to 'apprahze' you," she said, using
his pronunciation.

His lips curled and his eyes narrowed. Then he sat down at
his desk and glared at her. "Show me, bitch," his attitude said.

She and Cates had determined that a bit of deft editing was
in order, although she feared that the eggplant's paranoic antenna might pick
up the nuances. A woman, in his world, acting out of friendship with a man was
always suspect. To him, female vulnerability was endemic, an inherent weakness
in the gender. The fact was, it shamed her to acknowledge that such a conclusion
in this instance was not far from the truth.

She began her explanation from the beginning, trying to
prescreen her every utterance. She took him through the events of the
investigation, her various meetings with the cast of characters, cataloguing
their fears, motivations and proclivities. She included her earlier meeting
with Monte, Bunkie and the Ambassador when they first learned that Helga was
missing.

His reaction to her admission that she had merely been
doing a favor for a friend brought a slight tic to his cheek and a barely
perceptible denigrating twist to his lips. Naturally, she left out any hint of
a quid pro quo with Monte on the matter of keeping their interrogation of the
Senator and his staff under wraps, but she foresaw that a satisfactory
explanation had to be attempted, and she provided one. Her reference to Monte
as a "friend" was transparent enough for him to get the message. She
knew he took it for the confession it was, hoping that was the end of it. She
needed to get through that before she threw in the clincher, the part about the
old bones.

"Blame me, Chief," she said bravely. Of course,
he already had. "I made a fine-line judgement. We had every intention of
keeping you 'apprahzed,' but the opportunity to interrogate the Senator
presented itself and we had to take it as it came. Also, frankly, I did not yet
want to open a Pandora's box that could involve the Department in a political
donnybrook, especially if the Senator and his staff were blameless in the
woman's death, which is still a possibility." She watched for his
reaction. She was being deliberately oblique, talking in the kind of shorthand
she knew he would understand, but before he could make an overt conclusion she
proceeded: "You've drummed it into us ... this sensitivity to cases
involving politicians, especially a Senator about to announce his campaign for
the Presidency. We didn't 'apprahze' you of it yesterday, pending this meeting,
because we wanted to have a more complete story to present for your judgement."

Toadying it was, but she preferred to mentally refer to it
as "defusing." She watched the eggplant's face for the desired effect
and actually saw it happen. He nodded, not quite a nod, but close enough. And
she knew why. She had struck a chord of accommodation. He had finally seen the
personal benefit to himself, always his prime motivation.

Through the eggplant's good offices, he undoubtedly
reasoned, the Mayor would have another chit to collect from a politician, an
important factor considering that the District of Columbia Government was still
beholden to the Congress for its funding. More important, the eggplant, if he
chose, could hold the chit for his own purposes. Not corruption, really.
Perhaps a form of blackmail. But part and parcel of the political process,
which, like most endeavors, was dependent on trade-offs, favors and,
ultimately, the power to manipulate.

"So they decided among themselves that robbery gets
them all off the hook," the eggplant said. He was calmer now, sopping it
up like a sponge. He was, she knew, a quick learner when his mind was freed
from his emotions.

"And that's the genesis of the
Post
story," she said. "They engineered it for their own political
purposes."

Except for his tight-lipped interpolation, he had barely
moved a muscle in his face, his bloodshot eyes fixed into a stare from which
she did not flinch.

"But you did say that the woman's jewelry was probably
taken. I can see premature. But misleading?"

Again she shot Cates a glance and nodded. It was his turn
to carry the relay stick.

"'Could be diversion' would be a better
description," Cates said. She watched the eggplant's stare move from her
face to Cates'. "Technically speaking, it was accurate. No question about
it. The woman was robbed."

Before the eggplant could show his dissatisfaction with the
explanation, Cates plunged ahead. She watched as the eggplant moved his upper
body forward, planting his elbows on the desk.

"It has to do with those old bones," Cates said.
"Betty Taylor." He paused for a moment, perhaps waiting for an
expected groan from the eggplant that did not come.

"Could be just a presumption. But certain connections
are inescapable. Connection one: Betty Taylor was believed to be having an
affair with someone who wished to keep his identity secret. The Senator, then a
representative, a philanderer of the first rank, is on the Committee that Betty
Taylor had worked for. Connection two: In the instance of Mrs. Kessel we know
that she was having this affair with the Senator. Both women were killed by strangulation.
Both were buried in the yards of houses that were then unlived in, on the sales
block."

Cates had, Fiona learned earlier, managed to track down the
status of the Woodland Drive property on which Betty Taylor was buried at the
time of her death. Like the property in Cleveland Park in which Helga had been
buried, it, too, had been empty at the approximate time of the murder. In fact,
it had been empty for nearly a year.

"Helluva theory," the eggplant said. He did not
smile, but his eyes were dancing his approval. Fiona sighed with relief.

"And there might have been more," Fiona said.
"We only know of these two."

"You really think the Senator..." the eggplant
began, his voice trailing off.

"If the logic holds," Fiona said cautiously,
"the more likely perpetrator is the Senator's flunkie.
Bunkie-Flunkie." In her explanation earlier, she had already mentioned
him, without fleshing him out, which she did now. "Farrington. You know
him. A stock character in political theater. Overzealous, overidentified with
his fearless leader. He takes care of everything. Chief pimp and bottle washer.
You know the type."

"Gets rid of anything that gets in the way,"
Cates said.

"He becomes the alter ego," Fiona added.
"Most politicians have one. Stays in the background. Pulls strings on his
own sometimes. Takes the fall, if necessary. Depending on his commitment."

"And this guy's commitment?" the eggplant asked.

"Total," Fiona said. Cates nodded.

The eggplant straightened and stood up. There were no
traces of anger now. He was playing to his strength, doing his job, pacing the
room, as he did when deeply immersed in attempting to crack a homicide puzzle.

"We trace Farrington to the jewelry, he's on the
ropes," the eggplant said. It was rhetorical. He was thinking out loud.
Then he turned to them. "Get the ice descriptions out as soon as possible.
Maybe a search warrant."

"With respect, Chief," Fiona interjected. The
eggplant turned toward her. "My impression is that the jewelry, any
personal material gain, is out of it for him. He's got other fish to fry. He'd
have dumped the jewelry, maybe buried it elsewhere, thrown it into the Potomac.
If he's our man his purpose would have been to put the lady—ladies—away
forever, with no identifying possibilities."

"Hoping that the beautiful Helga would become, like
the other lady, old bones." Cates interjected.

"I'll buy it. No search warrant then," the
eggplant said, still pacing, shaking his head in agreement. "Besides, we
stick too many fingers in the mix we blow the Senator out of the water. Better
if he thinks we're protecting him."

"Unless he's the one," Cates said.

"Or the one behind the one," Fiona added.

"Remains to be seen. Meanwhile why deep-six the poor
bastard?" He looked at Fiona. "If having sex was murder, half the
politicians would be in prison." She had expected him to chuckle. He
didn't. He was dead serious.

She was locked into his thought pattern now. What's in it
for the eggplant? Easy, she decided. Two possibilities. Chits or glory. Either
one had value for him.

If Bunkie were an innocent and none of this slopped over
into the media, the eggplant would have his chit. On the other hand, if Bunkie
was the perpetrator, the Senator gets blown out of the water, not just out of
the Presidential race, but out of Washington, far out. Breaking a case like
this becomes an international incident, a sure-fire name identifier, grist for
the media and the supermarket tabloids. New worlds opening for Chief Luther
Greene.

"We handle this gingerly," he warned, stopping
his pacing, pointing his finger like a weapon. "No surprises."

"No surprises," Fiona agreed.

"Let's get us Mr. Bunkie," the eggplant said. He
looked around the office. "Sweat him up. But best we keep him out of
here." He looked up and, for the first time that morning, showed a genuine
smile. This was his meat. "Your place, FitzGerald?"

"I thought you'd never ask."