Death of a Washington Madame Page 15

  "Don't start tearing yourself up again. Gail," Fiona rebuked. "You did what had to be done."

  Fiona watched Gail grow reflective, hoping she was not heading back into the morass of racial conflict. Thankfully, the Eggplant interrupted and summoned them back into his office.

  "The star is happy, all's well with the world," the Eggplant said, smiling, obviously comforted by Madeline's call. "The light at the end of the tunnel she calls it."

  "No doubt in her mind?" Gail asked.

  "And if she had, what would that matter?" the Eggplant said." Her thoughts reach beyond these mundane matters."

  "How did Gloria take it?" Gail asked.

  "She never said," the Eggplant replied. "She was more concerned about the spin."

  "Spin?" Gail asked.

  "Where you been Prentiss? Spin is where it's at. Ask your partner over there. The Senator's daughter knows all about spin."

  "Mother's milk to me," Fiona said. "Image is all."

  "She's let me in on her secret tactics, told me how they were going to play it, spin it so it comes out good for the A team. P.R! Isn't that what's it's all about? I'm now an official co-conspiring spin-doctor's assistant. She wants me to tell the media guys that this is all the result of a breakdown in family values. Play it as a great universal tragedy as if there was a moral lesson to be learned from all this."

  "She wants you to go evangelical," Fiona said.

  "How does that help the.... the spin?" Gail asked.

  "The Governor, as a reward for our brilliant detective work will compliment our little homicide division in this the murder hotbed. Throw bouquets to the boys.... and girls ... in blue. Especially big kisses all around for the two ladies who found a viable suspect, even..." He nodded toward Gail. "The dark menace over there. Naturally he will also place a kiss on the fat moon of the old Eggplant." He snickered at his little private joke. He knew what they called him behind his back, spinning it inwardly to accept it as a term of affection not necessarily derision. "Somehow. Don't ask me to spell it out, they'll relate it or blame it all on the decline of moral values, the primacy of the family unit, etcetera etcetera. She really went at it, trying to pump me up with talk about how much little Billy loved Mommy and what a great moral force she was in his life. She's gonna spin it as a great American tragedy, American is important in this, and, in a gesture of Christian forgiveness, she and her husband will establish a fund for the Rehabilitation of Juvenile Offenders."

  "I'll say this for her," Fiona said. "She keeps her eye on the ball."

  "Hell, you'd think the bitch was Joan of Arc. Sugar on her lips. Talked to me pro to pro. Her idea is to spin it up to a higher level, foreclose on the tabloid stuff, downplay the blood and gore. As she put it nothing is more boring to the great unwashed than a moral posture to chase away the media. The objective here is to cap the sensational coverage as fast as possible."

  "And you told her you'd cooperate." Fiona said. Of course, he would, she knew. He was never one to turn down an opportunity to get his name in the media, especially if the cause had such a high moral tone. After all, he, too, was running for office, head of the cops.

  "How could I turn down such a pretty lady? Maybe we should hire her as a consultant. We sure could use a good spin doctor around here."

  Fiona had never seen him on such a high. Normally, his mood was somber, his temper short and his psyche harassed by an army of demons. Fiona wasn't sure she liked him in this uncommon mode, his guard down, his edges blunted.

  "The point of the exercise," he said, "is that if either of you are approached by the media, you just zipper up. No sideshows, hear? I said I'd play it her way."

  "Your call, Chief," Fiona shrugged.

  "My call is that you are both doing one helluva job. In case you missed the implication, that's a compliment." He looked toward Gail. "Good to see you got your stuff together, Prentiss."

  "But suppose we're wrong about Lionel?" Gail asked.

  "Wrong? The man hasn't been indicted yet. The point is that we're doing our job. Time is on our side, ladies. The media will flit like the bumblebee to other flowers. Give us a respite. Get the Guv and the star off our backs."

  "That's pretty cynical, chief," Gail said.

  Fiona watched the beginning of his fulminations. He ripped apart the cellophane on the panatela and shoved it in his mouth. Then he patted his jacket pocket as if he were looking for a match, seemed to remember that he had given it up, then champed down on the end.

  "Cynical, Prentiss," the Eggplant said. "Cynical? Moi cynical?" He pulled the panatela out of his mouth and pointed it at Gail. "We got here a can of high profile turd. An inside job. No question. Lionel is still a good bet. The star knows we got a movie with ... what do they say ... legs. As she sees it her job is cut the legs off at the knees. Our job ... get along and go along. She don't mess with our rap, I don't mess with hers. Capeesh."

  At that moment the telephone rang.

  "Barring the unforeseen, we buy the kid's ident." the Eggplant said. "Okay?"

  Barring the unforeseen, Fiona mused, seem to mean that he wasn't totally convinced. She looked at Gail who shrugged consent.

  The telephone rang again.

  "Yeah," the Eggplant barked into the phone.

  Fiona could hear the muffled tones of the speaker. The Eggplant's face grew slack as he listened.

  "Damn!" he shouted, slapping the table with the palm of his hand. It sounded like a gunshot. He champed down on his panatela, staining his underlip. Then he hung up, slamming the instrument into its cradle.

  "Get your asses down to Shipley's house," he shouted, tight-lipped and angry. "Gloria Carpenter is dead."

  CHAPTER 15

  They found Gloria in her bathtub, a graying corpse in a sea of crimson. With an eye toward modesty, she had worn a nightgown, which clung to her ample body. She had used a single razor blade to open the veins of both wrists.

  "Suppose we were wrong about Lionel," Gail said, obviously unable to sustain the emotional distance required of a homicide detective. She was clearly moved to an unacceptable level of guilt. "I'm the one who pushed it."

  "You did your job, Gail," Fiona said. "She did this ... to herself."

  "I set him up," Gail protested. "The boy could have identified him for all the wrong reasons."

  "What's that got to do with it?" Fiona said. "Either he was or he wasn't. Anyway, it will all come out in the wash. It usually does."

  "Maybe if we showed more doubt this might not have happened."

  "Stop feeling responsible Gail. Gloria made her own decision."

  "All I'm saying..."

  "I don't care what you're saying. It doesn't change things. Besides ... you're really getting to be a pain in the ass."

  "Don't you see?" Gail said. "We rushed to judgment."

  "Stow that old turkey. We're cops, not judges. We theorize,deduce, gather evidence, interpret. Criminology 101. We are not responsible for the actions of others."

  She did have a point, Fiona knew. Martine's identification of Lionel fit everyone's agenda, if not their preconceptions. And there was the matter of giving Gail her head, pushing her to rise above her anger, encouraging her to prove her racial objectivity.

  "Maybe if we hedged, waited, not jumped so fast."

  "Good advice, Gail. Take it."

  "I don't understand."

  "How do you know that this thing with Lionel set her off?"

  "Because it's obvious."

  "You're experienced enough to know, Gail," Fiona said, with the kind of deliberate patience one displays with a child. "That in this business, beware of the obvious."

  "I wish you would stop lecturing me."

  "You're right. It doesn't seem to help you worth a damn. And I'd appreciate it if you stop beating yourself up. It's getting boring."

  She watched Gail's nostrils quiver with anger. Fiona felt a sloping wave of precognition begin to curl over her. She had no time to brace herself for the onslaught.

 
; "Trouble with you Fi. You're a hard case. Fiona FitzGerald wouldn't crack. No way. Not thick white skinned Fiona, standing on the mountain watching us Ubangis do our tribal dances."

  "You know what you need, Gail." Fiona said, her short fuse ignited. "You need to get laid. I hear a good screwing is the best remedy for hysteria."

  "Hasn't seemed to have done much for you," Gail shot back. The remark, despite its bite, seemed to indicate that Gail was still somewhat in charge of her tongue, a good augury for her emotions.

  "Hey good comeback, Gail."

  "Offense intended," Gail said, shaking her head, as if to illustrate impatience with her herself. "But not sincerely meant."

  They eyed each other in silence for a long moment. "Now can we get back to the job or do I have to listen to your whining for the rest of the day?"

  They turned away from each other and began to do what detectives do, inspect the premises, check for clues.

  "Find any suicide notes?" Fiona asked after awhile.

  "Negative."

  "That's a help," Fiona mumbled. The absence of a note made it more difficult to declare a definite suicide. From all visible signs, it appeared, however, that this was a classical female suicide. For some reason, the modus operandi, opening wrist arteries in the bathtub, appeared to be the method of choice for females, borrowed, perhaps, from Hollywood, which portrayed the method in countless movies.

  Roy Parker had discovered Gloria's body at about ten thirty in the morning. After checking the scene and inspecting the corpse, Fiona and Gail left the work to Flanagan's techies and moved to the kitchen where Roy was waiting for them. His complexion was ashen and more flesh seemed to have melted from his face since they had seen him last.

  "I saw her this morning," Roy said. "About seven thirty as always. She had made breakfast for me.... "His eyes welled for a moment, then he cleared his throat and continued. "Used to be, she would always have breakfast with me, then she would make breakfast for Madame and bring it up to her. Maybe I should have seen something different this morning. She made me breakfast, but not for herself. I asked her why. She said she was too upset to eat."

  "You saw no signs of extreme depression ... no hint of suicidal intent."

  "Extreme depression? I would say that was the malady we both suffered from. As for suicidal intent. How does one notice that in others?" He shook his head in despair. "Can you see it in me?"

  "As a matter of fact," Fiona said studying him. "No."

  "I do think about it, though. But I don't believe I would have the courage."

  "Did she say anything that might indicate this intention?" Gail asked. "Since only a couple of hours elapsed since you saw her last and her ... suicide."

  He appeared to concentrate as if focusing inward to reconstruct their last moments together. After a few moments he shook himself alert to the moment at hand.

  "She said she was up all night thinking about things. This business with Lionel was eating at her. She didn't believe it."

  Gail looked toward Fiona, her expression clearly regretful.

  "What did she believe, Roy?" Fiona asked. Roy frowned in confusion. He folded and unfolded his hands. Fiona noted his swollen knuckles and the missing tip of his little finger.

  "That Lionel had nothing at all to do with Madame's death."

  "Aside from Martine's identification, there's a lot of weight on the side of Lionel's guilt. He knew the routine of this household. He worked here, remember. He knew the layout of the house. He knew when Gloria was off, when she came home ... and did you wear those hearing aids ten years ago?"

  Roy lifted his arm and touched his right hearing aid. He nodded.

  "And he probably knew you slept without them."

  "Anyone around people with hearing loss would know that."

  "And I'm sure Gloria told him that Marshall had died." Another thought suddenly intruded. "Did he know about the security system?"

  "He was here when it was put in," Roy said. "Knew how it worked better than I did."

  "So he wouldn't be far off if he had learned from Gloria that it had been deactivated and the household was depending for security on Marshall. He could have calculated that the system was put in so long ago that you wouldn't remember how to activate it?"

  "I suppose."

  Fiona looked toward Gail.

  "A stretch but possible," Fiona said.

  "Okay ... so Lionel knew things. But others did as well. It wasn't exactly a secret that Marshall had died. Or knowing the layout of the house. And me sleeping without my hearing aids."

  "Like who, Roy?" Fiona asked.

  "Billy, his wife. Others. Gloria's sister, her children.... "He stopped abruptly. "No. None of them could do a thing like this. You might as well accuse everybody." He looked at Fiona through lugubrious eyes. "Me, for example. I knew all those things."

  "Did you know about the inheritance?" Fiona asked.

  "What inheritance?"

  "Mrs. Shipley's inheritance. The one that you and Gloria were to share fifty-fifty."

  "None of that ever mattered to me."

  "But you knew you had it coming?"

  "I never thought about it."

  "But you knew?"

  "I don't see what that has to do...."

  "Everything, Roy," Fiona said. "It gives Lionel a motive. He had expectations of being helped by Gloria's sudden good fortune." She paused and studied him." In a crime like this, one always asks the same question first."

  "Who benefits?" Roy said.

  His response surprised her, again validating his knowledge and intelligence far above his station.

  "Well who?" Fiona prodded.

  Roy grew thoughtful.

  "If you use that as a measure, you might say that everyone in Gloria's family would have benefited. Gloria was the big sister to all of them. She always helped them out. Not just Lionel. Gloria never believed that the people she cared about were capable of doing evil things. She spent her life forgiving those she loved. That was Gloria."

  "So Roy," Fiona asked. "If it wasn't Lionel, who?"

  "Maybe me," he said bitterly." Aren't I a good bet? And now you have me benefiting."

  He put his arms in front of him as if he were to be handcuffed.

  "Then arrest me. I fit the criteria. I know everything that Lionel was supposed to know. By your criteria, I'm the perfect suspect. Put me in front of that boy. Give him his chance to get even."

  "I'd say he had his opportunity.... in the wine cellar."

  "Too bad," Roy said. "I'd love to confront that little bastard again. What I don't understand is how you could possibly believe anything that little murdering monster says?"

  "So you discount his identification completely?" Fiona asked.

  "I wouldn't believe that boy under any circumstances. Don't be fooled. He may be on the retard border, but he's got a Ph.D. in street smarts. Hell, even he could have figured out when the best time would be to make a hit on this house. He lived in the neighborhood. They watched us, these little bastards who hang out around here looking to score something. He would have known Marshall was gone. As for me being able to protect the house? I'm an old man. Maybe he discounted the possibility. As for getting into the house, or the actual layout, any moron could figure that out."

  "Looks to me..." Fiona said. ".... as if you reinforced her idea to fight for her brother?"

  "Sure I did, if that's what you're asking. I told her to get herself a good lawyer, the best in the business."

  "And she agreed?"

  Roy nodded.

  "Doesn't sound like someone who would commit suicide sometime within the next two hours."

  "No, it doesn't," Roy said.

  Fiona shot Gail a reassuring glance.

  "What did you do after breakfast?" Fiona asked.

  "Chores. Old habits die hard. I watered the grass in the front. Its April you know. Starting to grow. Madame liked a nice neat patch of green at the entrance. Then I came back into the kitchen and started polishing t
he silver. Madame liked the silver nice and shiny. Gloria usually helped. In fact we always did it on Wednesdays. And today is Wednesday."

  It struck Fiona as odd that they were continuing to follow the routine of the household as if Mrs. Shipley was still alive. Yet, in a weird way, it had a certain logic to it. They both probably speculated that they were going to inherit the house where they had worked a combined total of nearly one hundred years. As Roy had said; old habits die hard. Perhaps they intended to follow this same routine for the rest of their lives.

  "When she didn't come down to the kitchen," Roy continued, "I called her on the intercom. There was no answer. I went to her room and knocked at the door. No answer then either. I went into her room. The bathroom door was closed. I knocked, called her name. Finally, I opened the door ... God it was awful."

  Suspicion rose naturally in Fiona's mind. But she hastily eliminated the idea. She had seen enough suicides to know that this was exactly that, a self-inflicted death. But that did not mean that Roy was entirely free of blame. Perhaps he worked on her mind, brutalized her with the power of suggestion. Roy, she had learned, was a man of shrewd intelligence, his intellectual assets far superior to the role he had chosen for himself for half a century.

  "Is that the extent of your conversation this morning?" Fiona asked. "She told you she intended to fight for Lionel."

  "This morning yes. But then we had discussed that last night."

  "Last night?" Fiona prodded.

  "Actually, we stayed up a long time talking," Roy said. "Gloria needed to talk. Billy's call had upset her. Did I tell you Billy called last night?"

  "Yes."

  "From what Gloria said Billy felt certain that Lionel was probably the guilty party."

  "Makes sense," Gail interjected. "He was black."

  "That again," Fiona said, sighing with frustration. "You're beginning to sound bi-polar."

  "Not Billy," Roy said. "He was not a man of prejudice."

  "Besides, he was a politician in Virginia." Fiona said, turning to Gail. "It's the capital of the old dominion. Blacks are numerous and they vote."

  "He'd never admit it, of course," Gail sneered. "But his wife.... "Fiona again noted that she was skirting the edges again and threw her a sharp look of rebuke. It seemed to do the trick. She raised her hand to signal that she had understood.