Death of a Washington Madame Read online

  "Would that be a crime?" Gloria said with obvious hostility. It struck Fiona that she had apparently fully recovered from the shock of Mrs. Shipley's death and it was obvious that Gail was deliberately pushing her. Fiona continued to allow herself to be a spectator.

  "Not at all," Gail countered. "I understand that you've been very good to your family."

  "Yes, I have."

  "And that there have been many problems with your sister's family as well."

  "All families have problems, woman" she blurted, her anger rising. "And I don't see what any of this has to do with Mrs. Shipley's death."

  "What are you expecting from Mrs. Shipley's will?" Gail asked pointedly. Fiona could sense the mechanics of the trap. She was going for Gloria's jugular.

  "What difference does that make? I told you before that she was a very good and generous woman."

  "What specific promises did she make to you and Roy?"

  Gloria hesitated, obviously irritated by the tone of Gail's questions.

  "I really can't tell about these things. It's not your business," Gloria said.

  "That again!" Gail shot back. "We'll find out one way or another. What did she promise you, Gloria?"

  "I can't say."

  "Or won't."

  "It's none of your business."

  "Gloria," Gail said with studied exasperation. "The fact is that both you and Roy had expectations to benefit from Mrs. Shipley's death. Moreover you and Roy, undoubtedly, knew you would benefit because Mrs. Shipley promised it."

  "Yes we did," Gloria said. "She told us she had made provisions for us."

  "Besides," Gail pressed. "After all those loyal years of service, you thought you deserved what you had been promised."

  "And what if I did?" Gloria said and in a gesture of belligerence, she folded her arms across her chest.

  "It was more than loyalty that kept you here, wasn't it Gloria?" Gail asked.

  "I told you the truth," Gloria answered, exhibiting a growing agitation that was eroding her arrogance. "I loved working here. And I cared about Madame. We were a family, the three of us, a loving family. I would have stayed on forever without any promises."

  "When did she make you this promise, Gloria?" Gail asked.

  "Years ago," Gloria said.

  "At about the time William married Madeline Newton? Say eight, nine years ago?" Knowing what she knew, Gail had Gloria at a distinct disadvantage.

  "I can't remember," Gloria said.

  "How did she put it when she told you?" Fiona asked.

  "She.... she just said it."

  "Said what?"

  "That she would take care of us in her will."

  "No more than that?"

  Gloria shook her head, but it was obvious that she was holding back. Besides, Brewer had confirmed it for certain.

  Gail got up from the table and began to pace the room. Occasionally she exchanged glances with Fiona. With her dark glasses and height, Gail looked both mysterious and menacing. Vindication, Fiona thought suddenly. She is looking for vindication. It was more than an interrogation. Gail was deliberately trying to win back her credibility in Fiona's eyes by an exhibition of what she must have interpreted as impartiality, following the police policy of colorblind engagement.

  "Gloria," Gail said. She had stopped her pacing and returned to where Gloria was sitting, standing over her, her expression fierce and aggressive. "Why are you lying to us?"

  "I am not lying," Gloria protested, the residue of her earlier cockiness fading fast.

  "Yes you are," Gail shouted, surprising Fiona with her vehemence. "You know that you and Roy are getting everything. Why not say so? We know you called Mr. Brewer to confirm it. Time to end your little game of innocence."

  "I ... I.... "Gloria was having a tough time trying to simulate indignation. "She ... she promised."

  "Have you any reason to believe that she reneged on that promise?" Gail asked.

  '"No," Gloria whispered.

  "Mr. Brewer also told you that Riggs Banks is now the executor, am I right?"

  Gloria nodded sheepishly.

  "And you called them?" Gail asked. It seemed a logical conclusion.

  Gloria nodded.

  "Couldn't wait, could you?"

  "I ... I wanted to be sure."

  "Sure that she fulfilled her pledge?" Gail snapped.

  "I ... I have nothing. It's my only security."

  "What did the bank say?"

  "They said they were checking things," Gloria said.

  "Worried that something will go wrong?" Gail pressed.

  Gloria shrugged and made no comment. But she was clearly concerned. She had removed her arms from her chest and was now nervously playing with her fingers. When she didn't answer, Fiona pressed her.

  "Are you afraid that William will contest the will?"

  She shook her head.

  "It wouldn't be his idea," she muttered. "Not Billy."

  "Whose idea?"

  "Hers," Gloria said with sarcasm. "The star."

  "For what reason? She has plenty of money."

  "Control," Gloria mumbled.

  "So you shared Mrs. Shipley's animosity about Madeline?"

  "That was my personal feeling," Gloria said. "I can't speak for Madame."

  "Or won't."

  Gloria shrugged and turned away. So she was still protecting Madame's privacy, Fiona thought.

  "I have one more question Gloria," Gail said.

  Gloria seemed to grow frightened at the prospect.

  "What did you promise Lionel?" Gail asked.

  "Promise?"

  "Don't play the innocent Gloria."

  Gloria swallowed hard, then bit her lip.

  "Help," Gloria said. "The help of a good sister."

  She bowed her head and struggled to hold back tears. But Gail had certainly made her point, both to Gloria and to Fiona.

  "I'm going to bust this one, Fi." Gail said.

  "You've got the wheel," Fiona said.

  As they left, Gloria was slumped over the kitchen table, her head in her arms, her shoulders wracked with sobs.

  CHAPTER 13

  Not only did she have the wheel, Fiona decided. She had her pedal to the metal.

  "The logic is there," Gail said, her good eye gleaming with religious fervor as they moved through the corridor of the hospital where, by a providential set of coincidences, Martine and Lionel were still residents.

  They moved past the uniforms at a checkpoint, showing their ID's and proceeded to where Lionel was bedded. A uniformed guard and a nurse were just coming out of his room. They showed him their ID's.

  "He's not very happy," the nurse, a middle-aged black woman said. "Got him on methadone."

  "Heroin?" Gail asked.

  "So says the red liquid," the nurse, raising her eyes to the ceiling in a gesture of futility.

  "Got the tracks to prove it," the guard added.

  "He's an alky, too," Gail said.

  "Says he's been clean for a long time on that. You Officer Prentiss?" the nurse asked.

  Gail nodded.

  "Blames you for pushing him off the wagon," the nurse shrugged, chuckling. "They got to blame somebody."

  "Who does he blame for the heroin?" Fiona asked.

  "Didn't say," the nurse replied. "Tried to deny it at first. Then it became obvious."

  "Is he lucid?" Gail asked.

  "Lucid?" She made a kind of abortive raspberry sound. "None of it makes any sense to me."

  She strode away down the corridor, a smirk of disgust on her face.

  "Got some visitors, Carpenter," the guard said, opening the door.

  "Sheet," Lionel said when he saw Gail. He was lying in bed, his shoulder in a cast. His complexion was a chalky gray and his eyes bloodshot. He was a man of indeterminate age, probably somewhere in his fifties. The resemblance between him and his sister was clear. He had the same apple cheeks and prominent eyes lined with curled eyelashes and there were already signs that he was headin
g toward the pure white hair that distinguished his sister.

  He was obviously nervous and jumpy and had the look of a haunted man.

  "They treating you okay, Lionel?" Gail asked looking toward Fiona. "This is Sergeant FitzGerald my partner."

  "What the hell you want from me, woman?" Lionel said, shaking his head. His hands were nervously scratching himself in various places. "Crank me up."

  Gail started to crank up the bed. When he reached a shallow angle, he signaled with his hand to stop.

  "Can't get comfortable," he said hoarsely. "I feel like turd."

  "You look it," Gail said, taking off her sunglasses. Lionel looked at her and groaned.

  "I do that?"

  "You should have exercised a little more self-control, Lionel," Gail said putting her glasses back on.

  "She pushed me," Lionel said, looking toward Fiona who stood by the bed silently observing, determined to let Gail take the lead, knowing it was an opportunity for her redemption. "Put me back on the booze."

  "You didn't seem too reticent," Gail said.

  "You shoulda known better than to bring me there."

  "You were on the juice before I met you, Lionel."

  "That's a damned lie," Lionel blurted.

  "And the other?" Fiona asked.

  "What other?"

  "Horse," Fiona said, offering the slang name for Heroin.

  "I'm clean," Lionel whispered, but with hollow conviction.

  "Denial won't work here, Lionel. The blood doesn't lie," Gail said. "Nor those." He hadn't realized that his arms were bare and hadn't been able to hide them fast enough. The needle marks were confirmation.

  "Lionel, please," Gail said, pointing. "These don't lie."

  "Don't tell Gloria," he whispered.

  "Wouldn't matter," Gail said. "She's also in denial."

  He was silent for a long moment.

  "I ain't no killer," he said. "I didn't touch that woman."

  "We know that Lionel. The boy did it. Somebody drove up to where he was hanging out and offered him five hundred dollars to do Mrs. Shipley."

  "Five hundred dollars? Where would I get five hundred dollars? I don't have no car neither."

  "There's more, Lionel," Gail said. "The deal with Martine was specific. The deed had to be done on a Thursday night. You know what happens on a Thursday?"

  "Comes before Friday," Lionel snapped. He looked toward Fiona. "She still playin' games with my head."

  "Hear her out, Lionel," Fiona said.

  "On Thursday Gail visits with your sister Loreen and her family."

  "Yeah. So?"

  "Your sister is driven home late by your nephew Ben."

  "That's right. That a big secret? I told you. I don't have no car."

  "You could always borrow one?" Gail asked innocently.

  "Who from?"

  "What color car does your nephew Ben drive?"

  With a massive effort of will, Lionel lifted himself to a sitting position, wincing with pain.

  "You leave Ben outa this," he cried. "He got enough on his plate. Loreen, too."

  "Have you ever borrowed it Lionel?" Gail persisted.

  "Damn you woman," Lionel shouted.

  The uniformed guard rushed into the room, his hand on his holster.

  "Everything okay in here?"

  "No problem officer," Fiona said.

  The guard assessed the situation, nodded, and left the room.

  But the effort seemed to enervate Lionel, who lay down again, grimacing with anger and pain.

  "I just asked a simple question," Gail said.

  "Once or twice, yeah. I borrowed it. Maybe a month ago. So what?"

  Gail seemed to grit her teeth in frustration. Fiona sensed that nothing was going to stop her. The money and car situation was a circumstantial issue to be reckoned with at some point. She was obviously trying to break Lionel with relentlessness.

  "Where were you that Wednesday night?"

  Lionel frowned, his lips tightened and he shook his head and closed his eyes.

  "You asked me once," Lionel whispered.

  "You told me you didn't remember."

  Gail and Fiona watched him as he lay there. At first they thought he had fallen asleep or passed out.

  "Come on Lionel. It's that important. If you can verify your whereabouts on that night, you'd have an alibi. We'd be off your case."

  After awhile, Lionel opened his eyes. They were pained and bloodshot. For a brief moment they glazed over, and he wiped the moisture away with the back of his hand.

  "I swear. I just can't remember."

  "Or won't," Gail snapped.

  "Well it wasn't me. Let the little sumbitch look at me. You'd see that I'm out of it."

  "That's exactly what we're going to do, Lionel. Let the little sumbitch look at you."

  "Why would I want to cause harm to that lady. Sure I worked for her. But it was me who screwed it up. I had nothing against her."

  "What exactly did you do for her?" Gail asked.

  "Odd jobs around the house. Helped Roy. I was pretty good with my hands ... once. Could fix anything electrical or mechanical."

  "What happened?"

  He turned his face away.

  "I.... disappointed Gloria. She was right. She's always right."

  "And will soon be rich," Gail said.

  Lionel smiled a joyless smile through tight lips, shook his head and turned to Fiona.

  "See her game, woman. She's trying to pin this on me cause I know that my sister stands to inherit something from the lady. You don't understand. Gloria loved that old bitch."

  "It's not Gloria we're after," Gail said.

  "It's me ... you think I put that little devil up to it. I told you. Bring him on."

  "You said you knew his mother," Gail said.

  "Me and my big mouth. Yeah, I knew his mother. Crazy crack head. And I know her mother, the bitch. Yeah I knew them. And don't ask me to say nothin' good about them. I say put me in front of the dumbass kid."

  "You're about to get your wish, Lionel."

  "I didn't do it. And I ain't got no business in this place. You put me here, woman." His nostrils twitched suddenly. "I sure could use a drink."

  "Maybe a little mainline sugar, right Lionel?"

  "Yeah baby," Lionel mocked. "You got some?"

  His face broke into a crooked sinister smile. But when he tried to move, he grimaced with pain.

  "What you do this for, woman. I got enough troubles?" he muttered.

  Gail tapped on the door. The guard opened it and they moved in the direction of where Martine was situated, passing through more checkpoints. The boy was in bed looking at a comic book. An older black woman sat in the only chair in the room. She looked up as they came in, her tired moist eyes narrowing, expressing instant hostility.

  "Hello Martine," Gail said as they moved into the room.

  The boy glanced up from his hospital bed, but he made no effort to greet them. His physical condition had apparently improved, but he still looked as dull and impassive as he had in the wine cellar.

  "Who are you?" Fiona asked the older woman who sat beside him.

  "I'm his Gramma. I got permission."

  "We have to talk to the boy," Gail said.

  "I'll jes set."

  Gail and Fiona exchanged glances and simultaneously shrugged consent.

  "How are you today Martine?" Gail asked.

  "Fahn," the boy said raising his eyes from the book. In his white hospital gown, he looked younger than his years, a child. It was hard to imagine him as a killer and rapist.

  "We need your help, Martine," Gail said gently. "We're looking for the man who gave you that five hundred dollars."

  "He told you," the older woman interjected. "He don't know."

  "Was it someone even vaguely familiar," Gail pressed. "Maybe someone who resembled a person in the neighborhood."

  "I ain't never seen him," the boy said, his eyes drifting to his grandmother.

  "Thin
k hard, Martine. It's very important," Gail said. "It could help."

  "Help who?" the Grandmother huffed.

  "Him," Gail turned toward the older woman. "And, considering what he has done, he needs all the help he can get."

  "He was a good boy," the Grandmother said, her eyes moistening, the creases in her face deepening. Fiona could see the suffering of a lifetime etched in her dark leathered skin. "I can't understand how all this happened. First Helene, then Martine." She turned her sad moist eyes to Fiona, then to Gail. "He wanted to help me and his Mama. None of that money was for his self. I don't understand none of it. My Daddy come up from Louisiana during the war to work for the Government. We were good people, church people. How did this all happen?" Tears spilled out of her eyes and rolled down her cheeks. "We knew what right was. My Mama and Daddy knew. What happened to us people? We're God's children like you."

  Fiona looked at Gail, but could not see her eyes through the dark glasses.

  "And so we are," Fiona said, her stomach tightening. She felt a lump of bile rise to her throat and swallowed hard to keep it down.

  "We can't look back," Gail said sharply. "The damage is done." Fiona knew it was an exercise of overcompensation. The woman's plight spoke far beyond the kinship of race or gender or age. Hers was raw suffering, heartrending, able to invoke the kind of compassion that was off the scale. Fiona was surprised that Gail, considering her feelings, could hold herself together.

  "Not nothin' to look forward to," the older woman sighed.

  "Things could go easier for him, Miss..." Gail began.

  "Mrs. James," the woman said with the emphasis on the "Mrs." as if it were necessary for her to validate her values, despite the predicament of her progeny. "I'm a widow. My husband drove for the Yellow Cab Company. He was a good man, a good father."

  "No one is questioning that, Mrs. James," Fiona said gently.

  "I don't know what happened is all," the woman persisted.

  "Martine," Gail said, focusing on the boy. "All we're saying is that it can go better for you if you cooperate with us. Are you sure you don't know who this man was?"

  Martine shook his head.

  "If you did know," Gail asked. "Would you be afraid to identify this man?" She turned to his grandmother. "Afraid for your Gramma? Or your mother?"

  The boy looked at his grandmother, then back at Gail.