Senator Love (19 page)

"And if your husband admitted it, would you believe it
then?"

"Not necessarily," she said, defying all logic.
"He might have his reasons."

It was exasperating. Nell Langford had the great facility
of skewering reality, bending it to her will. She remembered Bunkie's words.
"Not Nell." He was dead wrong. Nell could easily hire a hit man to
eliminate Helga or anyone else, then cavalierly dismiss it from her mind.

"All right then," Fiona said, as if it were an
announcement of a changing tack. Ready about. "Were there any other women
rumored to be having an affair with your husband?" The use of the word
"rumor" was an obvious placebo. Nell grabbed for it like a life
preserver.

"There were always these rumors," she replied
with some eagerness, as if the question had been some sort of a cue. "I
put no credence in them."

"What about names?"

"If I heard them, I put them out of my mind. The
Senator is a good and faithful husband and father. I resent these rumors, not
for myself, but for my children. I have explained to them that they will hear
them. Children will bring them to school. And I have instructed them to pay no
attention. Like me. These rumors are manufactured by his enemies and those that
are jealous of his success. He is a national political figure. We are conditioned
to expect such things."

She delivered this speech flawlessly, as if it were by
rote, to be trotted out for just such occasions. It was, unquestionably, a
summation and signaled that she was on the verge of dismissing them. Not so
fast, lady, Fiona thought.

"Did you think the Helga thing was a rumor?"
Fiona asked, determined not to be deflected.

"I never heard it. If I did, I would have dismissed it
as such. Yes."

Fiona's level of exasperation was rising. The woman had an
enormous talent for obfuscation.

"You're not helping your husband, Mrs. Langford,"
Fiona said. In her mind, she decided, she would give the woman the presumption
of innocence. At least for the moment. Nell listened silently. "This case
stinks of scandal. The media would have a field day and in their environment
rumor becomes truth. So let's stop all this bullshit and get to the
point."

Still stonewalling, Nell glared at her.

"I have nothing to say," she said haughtily.

"Next thing you'll be calling for your lawyer,"
Cates interjected.

"Better believe it."

"More people to tell," Fiona sighed. "Keep
spreading the word until you destroy your husband's career. He's in real
political trouble, Mrs. Langford. Somebody, for reasons that are directly
related to your husband, killed those women."

"So you say," Nell said, as if to further prove
her resilience. "But it is obvious that you haven't got an iota of
evidence to back up that contention." She stood up, pulling back her
shoulders, illustrating what Fiona supposed was her sense of aristocratic authority.

"You realize, of course, that you're forcing us to
widen the circle."

The threat could not be made any clearer. In fact, the
potential demise of Senator Langford's career might be considered the theme of
the meeting. It apparently had not fazed Nell, which, for Fiona, was the heart
of the puzzle. Why not?

The answer came after they followed her out of the room.
They passed through the living room, festooned with sunlight flowing from
window walls that faced out to lush greenery, enriched by the recent rains.

But in the tiled vestibule, Fiona hesitated, waiting for
Nell Langford to turn. She did not wish the interview to end. Something was
awry here. The woman did not fear the detonation of her husband's career.

Perhaps she hated him with such intensity that she was
hoping for it to happen. On the other hand, she might be guilty of the killing
of Helga, and valued her own skin above all else. A cool number either way,
Fiona decided. Once again the social scene was a poor arena for psychological
evaluation. People wore masks in that setting. For this visit, Nell Langford
had simply changed masks.

"One might say that it was you who are pulling the
trigger." Fiona had chosen the metaphor carefully.

Nell's face, instead of the expected anger, registered a
confusing serenity.

"You know," she said, "I admire your
tenacity, but you're coming from the wrong place. I'd be quite happy if my
husband abandoned his career. Public life is a treacherous jungle. And if his
aspirations are scuttled by this affair, I'd be the first to stand up and
applaud. I love my husband dearly, and, if you must know, I hate being a
political wife. Politics destroys marriages. Yes, he is ambitious. Yes, he is
also enormously attractive to women. The important thing for me is that I'm the
mother of his children. I'm the woman he takes home at night and I'm the woman
he sleeps with. He is also not a person who hurts other people, certainly not
intentionally. As for being a killer, that is preposterous. The fact is that,
if my family were in danger, I am a more likely candidate for murderer than my
husband." By then, her expression had become sweet, benign. A clever act
or the soul of sincerity. The latter judgement was terribly convincing.
"Do whatever you have to do," she said after a brief pause. "But
I'd suggest you look elsewhere for your culprit."

"That"—Fiona said, holding onto a brief shred of
purpose—"is why we are here."

"I can't help you," Nell said, opening the door
to let them out.

"Won't," Fiona said as she went through the door,
carrying with her the uneasy feeling that Nell, despite her apparent
indifference, had more than an idea of who the killer might be.

"GHOULS," MR. Haber said. "We had two
contracts on the house by noon."

His pink cheeks creased into a broad smile, showing a row
of perfect white, but obviously false, teeth. With the exception of thick
rimless glasses, he was pink from his chin to the back of his bald head where
grey hair formed a natural ridge line.

"It has cachet now. A landmark of sorts. Here's where
the body of the Austrian Ambassador's wife was buried. They'll probably frame
the clippings and put it in the den."

They were getting this lesson in real estate sales from the
President of Haber and Weston, a man of obvious self-importance. His office was
filled with plaques, framed certificates and photographs that attested to his
energetic pursuit of ego-fulfilling honors and sales-motivational ploys.

Real estate sales was Washington's second-oldest profession
and the number-one topic of conversation wherever Washingtonians gathered from
Georgetown to Capitol Hill. Fiona was not immune to the subject. She was, after
all, a property owner herself and the astounding rise in Washington real estate
values did not leave her unaffected.

Fiona had inherited the house in the Forest Hills section,
which her father had bought in 1953 for $32,000. When last she checked, it was
worth $750,000 and rising, and not a week went by without some real estate
person soliciting her interest in a sale. Although she was inherently
practical, her sentimental attachment to the house remained stronger than the
potential monetary gain.

Cates, who rented his apartment, listened with a student's
interest.

"You'd think the house would be less attractive,"
he said with some surprise.

"Houses are a reflection of our need for identity.
They represent our deepest yearnings. The people who expressed their desire to
buy were bringing a yearning for celebrity into their lives." Haber
unraveled his spiel, honed down by obvious repetition, to appear as if it were
coming from Mount Sinai.

"You said ghouls," Fiona reminded him.

He leaned over his desk and lowered his voice.

"Ghouls buy houses, too, Officer FitzGerald. We have
only one interest in life here." He raised his arm in a gesture to encompass
the universe. "Move 'em out. Stroke 'em. Feed the fantasy. Bring 'em to
settlement and take our commission. Name of the game."

It struck Fiona that he was "relating," playing
the cynic. Somewhere out there in TV land he had been shown cynical cops.

"How many people," Cates asked, "would have
some knowledge that this house was empty?"

"For one thing, everyone in our offices." He
moved his hand across his chin, exhibiting a huge star sapphire on his right
pinky.

"How many people?"

"Counting part-timers, nearly eight hundred."

Cates cut a glance at Fiona. He had not expected the
answer. Seeing this, Haber pressed forward with obvious enjoyment.

"We have twenty offices, all hooked in by computers.
Then, of course, there are the people that drive by and see our sign. Be
surprised how many people buy that way. We also do a big trade promotion. Hold
an open house for agents from different companies. We give them a walk-through.
Then, of course, there's Multiple Listing, a computer network plugged into most
of the real estate people in the area."

"Brings the access to how many people?" Fiona
asked, mostly for Cates' benefit.

"Thousands. Multiple Listing is a data base showing
the bulk of the inventory in this area. Every sales agent worth his or her salt
knows what's on it. They match a prospect with a house, then make a connection
with the listing broker to see the property. It's a salami business." He
chuckled at his comparison.

"Salami?" Cates asked.

"Everybody gets their cut. The person that gets the
listing splits with the broker and they in turn split with the agent that makes
the deal, whether it's from our company or not. Everybody's happy."

"Any other way people learn about the house?"

"Advertising," Haber said. "After a while
it's no secret."

"Was the house in Cleveland Park advertised?"

He opened a file on his desk and studied it.

"Not for a while."

"How long ago?" Fiona asked.

"Three months ago. Price was too high. We brought it
down some. Then pow. The Kessel murder. Front-page advertising in the
Washington
Post
. None of the customers brought to contract quibbled over price.
Actually we could have gotten more. That's the way it goes in this
business."

"And the people who lived in the house?"

"They moved out two weeks ago. An elderly couple.
Lived there for twenty-five years."

"Do you make a list of everyone who visited the
property?" Fiona asked. An idea, still in embryo, was trying to bubble to
the surface of her consciousness.

"It's a cockamamie system. We try to save the
salesman's cards, but more often than not, we blow it. The point is, if they do
make a deal, they have to come through us anyhow."

A presumption was growing in her mind. The perpetrator had
to be somewhat familiar with the property. He would need to pick a site that
might remain untouched for years. The chances were it would not be a compulsive
decision. Something well planned, requiring a passing knowledge of the
property. A friend of the family, perhaps? A relative? A neighbor? A friend of
a neighbor? A relative of a neighbor? All possibilities. More than likely,
Fiona decided, someone who had already made a decision to kill, someone who
wanted a sure-fire body-disposal system, someone who could research the site
without fear of discovery and someone who knew the site would be empty when it
was needed.

"Would Multiple Listing indicate that the house was
empty?" Fiona asked.

"Not necessarily. But there would be lots of ways to
find out. In the first place, there aren't many houses in Cleveland Park that
come up for sale. In the second place, this is a network business. People find
out. A house is harder to sell when it's empty."

With all their psychological meanderings into the motives
of the Senator, Bunkie, Kessel and Nell, they had missed an essential
ingredient. They had not connected the four in any way with the house in
Cleveland Park or its occupants. As for the case of Betty Taylor, two of the
suspects were not even in the picture at that time. Thinking about Betty Taylor
suggested an idea.

"I know there are records of property transfers,"
Fiona said. "But is it possible for your records to tell me when a house
was actually being offered for sale?"

"I think I just explained that," Haber said,
somewhat confused.

"I mean fourteen years ago," Fiona explained.

Haber thought for a moment, then nodded his head.

"Take some doing, but I think we might find it."

She found the Woodland Avenue address in her notebook, then
transferred it along with the probable dates to another piece of paper and gave
it to Haber.

"Anything to help the defenders of the civic
peace," he said, showing the full set of his perfect white false teeth.

"Now tell us about the elderly couple that lived in
the Cleveland Park house," Cates said. He looked toward Fiona. It was
certainly a reasonable tack to take.

Haber consulted his file.

"A recent retiree from the Justice Department,"
he said, looking at them over half-reading glasses.

"What did he do there?" Cates asked.

"He was with the Congressional Liaison Office,"
Haber said, consulting the file again.

"A lobbyist!" Fiona exclaimed.

"More than that," Cates shot back, turning to
Fiona. "What committee would concern him?" She saw Haber searching
their faces, obviously confused, trying to pick up their shorthand.

"Judiciary," Fiona said.

"Bingo!" Cates exclaimed.

"No prizes until all the numbers are confirmed,"
Fiona said.

They thanked Haber, who offered his hand in a
"sincere" salesman's shake, and left the office.

"MORE HOLES in this case than Swiss cheese," the
eggplant said, biting into a sticky jelly doughnut. A drop of jelly squirted on
his tie. "Shit." He fussed with a napkin and made it worse.

Fiona had come to the same conclusion after a sleepless
night. They were sitting in the eggplant's office. Apparently the windows had
been cleaned. With the removal of layers of dust the spring sun bathed them in
light. Despite the light, no one made a move to lower the blinds. It felt good
to have clean, warm sunlight in the otherwise drab office. It filled the room
with an air of optimism that had long been absent. Even the eggplant seemed
infected by the mood created by the changed light.

"At least we're off the front page," the eggplant
said, stabbing an ebony finger into the
Washington Post
spread out on
his desk. A bland one-column headline in an inside page read: PURSUE KESSEL
UPDATE. The story was a rehash. Thankfully, the reporter was not an eager
beaver and he was still flacking the robbery theory. He had not written that
"an arrest is imminent."

Both Cates and Fiona had been meticulous in their reporting
to the eggplant, who sensed that he was getting the full picture, which,
indeed, he was. For his part, the eggplant had reported that nothing had turned
up about the jewelry.

"Coincidence or connection," the eggplant had
mused when they reported what they had learned about the occupation of the
owner of the Cleveland Park house.

The former occupants were on safari in Kenya, Cates had
discovered, and currently out of touch. But the euphoria of the revelation had
dissipated. At best, the circumstantial thread had little currency without
witnesses, and, so far, a canvass of the neighborhood had yielded little and no
one had stepped forward to offer any further information. Nor could Cates'
informant at the Committee provide any connecting links.

In an effort to accelerate action on the case, they had
gone the psychological route with Bunkie and Nell. Spin a web of circumstances
that threatened suspects into believing either they were trapped or triggering
deep guilt responses, forcing them into confession. So far it hadn't worked.

What was even more troubling to Fiona was that neither
Bunkie nor Nell had given her any intuitive sense of their guilt. Not that such
feelings were a foolproof barometer. She had often overreacted to these inner
signals, only to find that they had guided her in the wrong direction.

"We've got to talk to the man," the eggplant
sighed. "I was hoping for more, before we got to him." He shrugged
and licked the jelly and sugar off his fingers. "Something really concrete
to open him up."

"And then?" Fiona asked. It was the kind of
innocent question that often riled others. It had been inadvertent and she
moved to quickly correct the situation. She had no desire to change the mood in
the room. "What I mean is ... suppose he does open up. Maybe after all this
he knows no more than we do."

The eggplant pondered the idea, stood up and moved toward
the window, transforming himself into a silhouette.

"Still," the eggplant mused, "we have the
power to blow him to hell and back."

"Or save him," Fiona argued, forcing the issue
back into the area of self-aggrandizement. To catch a killer, she could be
single-minded and ruthless. But something about the Senator left her with a
soft center. No politician is ever truly innocent, she knew. And a womanizer
like Sam Langford was not deserving of compassion. And yet ... ?

"We're missing something," Cates interjected. He
was, after all, the only really neutral force in the group. "I wish I knew
what it was."

For some reason, Fiona's mind had jumped to focus on Helga
Kessel. Had she really, as Bunkie and Kessel had alleged, "gone
quietly"? And if not, how strong was her capacity to disrupt the Senator's
career? In effect, she would be destroying two careers. Her husband's as well
as the Senator's. Would that be the rational act of a sophisticated woman of
the world? Fiona thought not.

Her mind fastened on the Betty Taylor connection. Nell was
absolutely correct. That was before her time. Also Ambassador Kessel's, which
considerably diluted the possibility of their committing what on the surface
seemed like a serial crime.

But the young Betty Taylor, in the throes of a passionate
love affair with an older man, offered a troubling prospect, especially for
Bunkie and/or the Senator. She might have been quite capable of making waves, tempting
fate. Ambition, especially in Washington, had a force beyond measure. To stand
in its way was like deliberately planting oneself in the middle of a track in
the face of an oncoming train.

And the power of love, since time immemorial, was capable of
making people, both men and women, commit all sorts of acts contrary to their
own self-interest. History and literature were filled with examples of such
destructive behavior.

"I keep thinking cover-up," Fiona said.

"Has all the earmarks," the eggplant said.

"They could all be in it together," Cates said.
"Including the Senator and his wife."

"Which still leaves how Betty Taylor fits," Fiona
said.

"Or doesn't," Cates said.

"She fits," Fiona insisted. "I know she
does." Intuition again, she cautioned herself. In the game of random
selection she played with herself she allowed one intuitive thought to outweigh
another.

"Have to go with that," the eggplant said.

At that point the phone rang. The eggplant picked it up.

"For you," he said, handing the phone to Fiona.
It was Haber.

"Found what you wanted, Officer FitzGerald,"
Haber said as if he were pitching a prospect.

"Great," Fiona acknowledged. She covered the
mouthpiece with her hand. "The real estate man," she said. The
eggplant nodded.

"House was empty for six months fourteen years ago.
Couldn't move the damned thing for $300,000. Goes for one million one now.
Imagine that. Only fourteen years."

"Who was the listing broker?"

"Another company. Heller and Smith."

"Was it on Multiple Listing?"

"Sure was."

"Thanks, Mr. Haber."

"Ever ready to oblige," he said. But he did not
hang up. "Say, Officer. I understand you have a prime piece of property in
Forest Hills. I think I can get you close to eight if you want to move."

"How the hell did you know that?" Fiona snapped.

"Ve haf our methods." He chuckled. "You look
for killers. I look for real estate. You got a real hot and easy one, Officer.
At least eight. Maybe more."

"Thanks and no thanks," Fiona said, hanging up.
She shook her head and looked at the phone. "Says he can get me $800,000
for my house."

"Was me, I'd take the money and run," the
eggplant said. She was instantly sorry she had mentioned that. The class issue
was always a silent irritant in her police relationships, more so than the
matter of race. It fed her own paranoia as well, since she truly believed that
many of her colleagues secretly believed that her serving in the police was a
form of slumming, and, therefore, her reaction to them was always patronizing.
No matter how much respect she had won, how many psychic medals were strung
across her chest, how many cases she had broken, there always lingered the fear
in herself that she was still an alien, still arrogantly superior, still the
hated lily-white cunt.

"Run to where?" Fiona replied, pausing. The idea
that had been bubbling in her subconscious suddenly broke to the surface.
"He did sell me one thing, though."

"What's that?" the eggplant asked.

"Ten to one our murderer is a real estate
salesman," she said, bells of intuition clanging in her head.