Death of a Washington Madame Page 5

  "Leave it alone, Madeline," her husband snapped impatiently. "There's nothing we can do. Not now." There was an ominous portent to the idea of postponement.

  "I'll do my best," the Eggplant said, showing remarkable restraint.

  "Of course you will, Captain," Madeline said, shooting her husband a glance of futility as if he hadn't measured up to the occasion. She watched as the Eggplant turned from the room and let himself out the front door and into the maw of the media.

  CHAPTER 4

  "I should have," Roy said. "It's my fault. I guess I wasn't thinking."

  Mrs. Shipley's caretaker was a tall man, his posture an ungainly slouch, even seated. The fat seemed to have melted off his face, leaving it cadaverous. Behind knobby cheekbones, his eyes were colorless and faded, the whites filled with tributaries of red veins like rivers and streams on a map. But they struck Fiona as feral, alert and wary as they looked back at her. His neck was scrawny and wrinkled and his Adam's apple slithered up and down his neck as he talked.

  Despite his appearance, Fiona's intuitive sense told her that he was not a dullard, although that was the facade he appeared to want to project. His awkward feet encased in ugly black shoes with heavy rubber soles were planted in front of him and his thick arthritic knuckled hands gripped both thighs like claws.

  She noted, too, that the small finger of his left hand was missing its nail and appeared severed to the top knuckle, a minor flaw that was barely noticeable unless it was part of a complete inspection of the man, like now.

  He wore two hearing aids, the kind with a half moon of plastic flattening the gray hair above the ears. He hadn't shaven and the white whisker sprouts gave his face a more ashen and hangdog look than he might have had with a clean face.

  They were sitting at one end of a long heavy wooden table in the large kitchen equipped with appliances that were at least three decades old. The man's name was Roy Parker and he acknowledged that he had been in Mrs. Shipley's employ for more than fifty years. His driver's license had revealed his age as seventy-nine.

  They had only partially interviewed Gloria, the maid, a heavy-set dignified gray haired black woman in her late sixties who still had not recovered from the harrowing experience of discovering Mrs. Shipley's body. She told them that she had gone up with a breakfast tray, knocked as she always did and opened the bedroom door. Recounting the experience was too much for her to continue and they had accompanied her back to her room, where she was currently resting. They planned to talk to her again.

  "What exactly were your chores for Mrs. Shipley?" Gail asked Roy.

  "Oh many things."

  "Such as?"

  "I drove. In the old days, when Madame was very active, I drove a lot. Took her everywhere. Shopping. Parties. Visits. You can't believe Madame's energy in those days. Last few years, she rarely went out. I also helped with the heavy work. You know, the things that Gloria couldn't do. Lifting. Fixing things." He raised his arthritic claws. "Getting harder with these, but I manage. Years ago, I would also bartend and help Gloria serve with the small parties. She always had the big ones catered. I was a kind of all around helper, I guess. Anytime she needed me, I was there." He seemed proud of his loyalty. His articulate manner confirmed Fiona's earlier observations of his innate intelligence."

  "When did you first start working for Mrs. Shipley?" Fiona asked.

  There was a moment of hesitation. Perhaps he was calculating.

  "February 7th, 1952," he said.

  "My God," Fiona said. "That is well over fifty years."

  The calculation following on the date, gave the reaffirmation an incredulous twist.

  Roy nodded.

  "More than half a century?" Fiona mused. "That's a very long time," Fiona said, instantly sorry. Retainers of his type, she speculated, often served their employers for a lifetime.

  "I enjoyed every moment of my life here," Roy shrugged, sucking in a deep breath. "I guess it's over now."

  Earlier she had inspected his room just off the kitchen, a cell really, with a narrow bed, tightly made with a khaki Army blanket and a single pillow, a reading lamp and a telephone on an end table beside it, a wooden chair, a slightly askew wardrobe, a battered chest of drawers on which was a browning picture of a man and a woman in clothes of a long gone era, the man in a high stiff collar and high button shoes, the woman in an old fashioned black dress and hair piled on top of her head like a Gibson girl.

  "Your parents?" Fiona asked.

  Roy nodded.

  On the walls, painted in dull white over obviously repaired plaster were photographs of various dogs in cheap black frames hung without regard to symmetry. There was one crowded shelf of books on dogs, mostly training manuals. On the floor, piled in stacks were paperback novels by such authors as Mark Twain, Charles Dickens, Tolstoy and Dostievski and an old torn and battered copy of The Faith of a Collie by Albert Payson Terhune. The titles, except for the Terhune, who wrote dog stories, seemed oddly out of context with the man's appearance.

  To one side of the room was a long wooden chest and behind it a door.

  "Where does that lead?" Fiona asked.

  "Storeroom," Roy replied. "Where I keep my tools."

  "And you heard nothing?" Fiona asked, yet again.

  "I wish I had," the man said sadly, shaking his head.

  "No vibrations? Nothing?"

  He lowered his eyes, which had begun to glisten with tears and nodded his head in a gesture of despair.

  "I blame myself," he mumbled.

  He took out a soiled handkerchief and wiped his eyes.

  It was Gail who asked about the telephone, the old fashioned kind with a dial and big buttons which lit up when someone called, a deaf man's tool. That instrument, too, like the kitchen equipment seemed an anachronism.

  "When she needed me for something, I could tell by the light, even if I couldn't hear it."

  "Even if you were asleep?" Gail asked.

  "When I was in this room, alone or asleep, I never failed to see that light. Never once. Yes, even if I were asleep. I would awaken instantly."

  Back in the kitchen, he had explained again, remorsefully, that he couldn't sleep with the hearing devices in his ears, which explained why he hadn't heard the intruder. He was repetitive on that point, obviously continuing to blame himself for this deficit having helped cause his employer's death.

  "Marshall would have scared her with his bark and Madame would have picked up the phone," he said, shaking his head. "I forgot about the security system that William had had installed years ago. Fact is, I probably forgot how to activate it."

  "When did Marshall die?"

  "A week ago. We were all pretty depressed about it. Especially Madame. The house wasn't the same."

  "How did he die?"

  "The vet said probably 'bloat,' although he wasn't dead certain. It's a kind of sudden death for a big-chested dog like Marshall. The intestine gets twisted. Blood supply gets cut off. Happens quickly. Sudden death. Second time it's happened to one of our dogs. We lost one twenty years ago like that."

  "How old was Marshall?"

  "Twelve. Probably could have gone another two, three years. I was about to start looking around for another one. Thing with dogs. Their life span is too short. You get so emotionally attached and it hurts to see them go."

  "Who disposed of the dog?"

  "The vet. Actually we have his ashes. Buried them in the pet cemetery in the back. Sort of a tradition with Madame. Little stone plaques over their graves. They were like relatives to us." He grew wistful. "Madame loved her dogs. I trained them well. That was one of my jobs for Madame."

  "Did the vet do an autopsy on Marshall?"

  "What good would that do? The dog was dead. He was a great watchdog. Bark at the drop of a hat. Luckily, we didn't have much trouble."

  "In this neighborhood, no trouble?" Gail said. "Are you saying never?"

  "Madame always believed that if you were nice to people, whatever their race or condition,
they'd be nice to you."

  "Isn't that naive, Roy?" Fiona asked.

  "Probably. But it did work. She was a good and decent woman and they must have sensed that in the neighborhood. Christmas, Thanksgiving, we'd go up and down the street and give gifts. Then she always had the Easter party for children. Wasn't as big as it used to be when she invited the children of the people who ran this country. She knew everyone, you know. Everyone. Invitations to this house were one of the great social honors of Washington."

  "I was here once," Fiona said. "At one of her Easter parties."

  Roy's face lit up in a smile and his eyes glistened.

  "Then you know."

  "You really liked working for her, didn't you Roy?"

  "It was my whole life," Roy sighed. "You should have seen this place in the old days. President's came. Heads of Governments. Senators. Industrialists. Handsome ladies in beautiful clothes. Nobody could throw a party like Madame." Fiona could tell that he was winding up for a loquacious nostalgia trip. Would be nice to get a first hand account of those days, Fiona thought, but a waste of time concerning the matter at hand.

  "Can you tell us what you did this morning, Roy ... before Gloria discovered...."

  He ruminated for a moment, rubbing the sprouts on his chin.

  "Got up at seven. Put up the coffee. I always put up the coffee. Then I dusted up the ground floor. It's a big place and it gets dusty. There's six chandeliers that have to be done on a rotation basis. When Marshall was alive and all the dogs before that I would take them out for a walk. Used to train them. Oh I told you that. I'd walk them three times a day. Today I was going to do the vestibule chandelier and I went down to get the ladder from the basement. When I came up, I went out and got the Washington Post from the front steps. Gloria comes into the kitchen about seven-thirty. Her room is in the back on the other side of the house. She comes in, puts up the oatmeal, pours the juice, makes the toast. Lays out my breakfast, then takes up a tray to Madame."

  "Which is when she discovered ... well what she discovered," Gail prompted.

  "I heard the scream, then rushed up and saw..."

  His face paled and he stood up abruptly and turned away from them, his shoulders trembling with emotion. He removed the handkerchief from his pocket and brought it up to his face. It took him a few moments to regain control of himself, then he turned again, revealing moist eyes and tear stained cheeks, cleared his throat then sat down again. Regaining his composure, he continued:

  "Gloria was in no condition to do anything. It was I who dialed 911." He shook his head. "I can't get it out of my mind. The way she was. It really doesn't make any sense."

  "Never really does," Fiona said.

  "Was it you who covered her Roy?" Fiona asked gently.

  He nodded and swallowed hard.

  "I couldn't leave her like that. This had to be some monster. What he did."

  "And you found nothing else taken?" Fiona asked. It was old ground, but it needed to be covered again.

  "As far as I can see ... just the cross. It was big but it wasn't that valuable."

  "Have you checked the upper floors?"

  There was a brief moment of hesitation.

  "No. We haven't been up there for years. I mean in the rooms. All the doors have been locked for ages. Oh yes, I do the dusting and general cleaning about once every couple of months."

  "Not Gloria?" Fiona asked.

  "Madame thought it a waste of her time."

  "None of the doors been broken into?"

  "Shall I look?"

  "It's alright, Roy." Fiona exchanged a glance with Gail who got up and moved up the backstairs.

  "No cash missing?" Fiona asked when Gail had gone.

  "She kept her wallet and the cash in a desk, which adjoined her bedroom. Like Gloria said, the wallet was still there with cash in it. I also looked in the cash box in the bottom drawer. Doesn't look like it was disturbed in any way. It was never locked. I went to the bank every week and they gave me an envelope with cash that I gave to Madame. She would put it in the box and dispense it."

  "She paid your salary in cash?"

  He nodded.

  "Gloria as well?"

  "Yes. There was extra if it was needed."

  "Just cash. No deductions? No social security?"

  He shook his head.

  "She did that for more than fifty years?" Fiona asked.

  "Yes."

  "Isn't that illegal?" Fiona pressed. "I mean not to take it for taxes or social security."

  Roy shrugged.

  "That didn't seem important. There's nothing I needed. Madame paid our doctor bills." He lifted his hands. "As you can see, I have arthritis and Gloria has asthma. If I needed anything, like clothes or something, Madame would provide the money."

  "You've put nothing aside?" Fiona asked.

  "What for?"

  "What about now?"

  "I never thought about it."

  "You really believed that this life would go on forever, Roy? Was that realistic?"

  "Realistic? I never thought about that either."

  "Does William know about any of this? The way his mother ran things."

  "I don't know."

  "Was he involved in her affairs, Roy?"

  "William?"

  For the first time in the interrogation, she could sense that he was becoming evasive.

  "It would have been none of my business," Roy said. He was holding back, Fiona speculated.

  At that moment Gail returned from her foray to the top floor.

  "As he told us, Fi," Gail said. "All buttoned up upstairs. No sign of forced entry anywhere."

  "Think it needs a techie sweep?"

  "Looks totally undisturbed."

  Fiona glanced toward Roy who seemed relieved by the news.

  "Do you have any idea who might have done this Roy?" Fiona asked.

  He shook his head, then speaking with slow deliberation said:

  "If I knew..." He paused.

  "Yes?" Fiona prodded.

  She saw the gnarled knuckles of his hand go white as they gripped his thighs. His lips pursed and the blood seemed to leave his face completely, making it appear like a death mask in gray cement.

  "He'd be dead."

  Gloria, the maid, was sitting in an upholstered easy chair in her room when Gail and Fiona came in. The room was less sparse compared to Roy's, more homey and comfortable. On her bed was a colorful wool throw with what looked like an Indian design against a blue background.

  Fiona cursorily inspected the books placed in a long row of shelving that took up one side of her room. Among a clutter of cookbooks were books by Alex Haley and Tony Morrison, a bible with leather covers curled with use, and biographies of Luther Burbank and Martin Luther King.

  Gloria--her last name was Carpenter--had jowly apple cheeks which merged with a puddle of chins. Her tight-cropped hair had grayed. Her eyes were dark but prominent with curled lashes and, at the moment, seemed to express both regret and resignation.

  Besides being stout, she was very tall; not quite as tall as Gail Prentiss, but with her full figure she gave one the impression of strength and authority, although at the moment she looked forlorn and defeated. She wore a black uniform with an embroidered collar and matching cuffs.

  Her copper-hued hands were large, strong, even in repose and clasped frozen in her lap. Beyond the sadness of grieving, Fiona sensed that the woman was still trying to comprehend the turn of events and its consequences.

  The terrible discovery, understandably, had taken the starch out of her. Her voice sounded weary, with a note of resignation, as if she was bearing witness, yet again, to an unhappy discovery.

  There was a picture of a family on the end table next to her bed, which she identified as Fiona looked at it. Gail picked it up and studied it with more interest. It showed a stout black woman and four children, a boy and three girls."

  "A lovely family," Gail said.

  "My sister Loreen and her children
a few years back," Gloria replied. Gail put the picture back in its place.

  "The one you visited yesterday?" Fiona asked.

  Gloria nodded.

  "She lives in Southeast?"

  Again Gloria nodded.

  "Who drove you home?"

  "My nephew Benjamin. He takes me home every Thursday night when I come to visit."

  Replacing the photograph, Gail picked up another in a silver frame standing beside it. It was an older picture, slightly browned with age, depicting three children, a boy no more than two or three and two teenage girls, all three, apple cheeked and clearly having the look of siblings.

  "Your brother and sister when you were kids?" Gail asked, studying the picture with interest.

  "Yes," Gloria replied. "Loreen, Lionel and me."

  Gail replaced the picture and roamed the room, taking in every detail, lingering over the books, one of which she opened and appeared to read from it briefly.

  "How long have you worked for Mrs. Shipley?"

  "Goin' on forty-eight years."

  "A few years less than Roy."

  "Yes. I was nineteen years old. The baby, William was just born."

  "Were you his Nanny?"

  "That was Martha. Long gone now. More people worked for Madame then. There was cook, a nanny, and two maids. I was one. And Roy." She grew wistful and her eyes moistened.

  "Have you enjoyed your work here?"

  "Every day." Her eyes lifted. "I loved her."

  Gail slid the book she had been reading into the shelf. Fiona noted that it was "Roots" by Alex Haley.

  "Have you and Roy always called her Madame?"

  Gloria looked at her and frowned as if the question were in an alien language.

  "She was always Madame to us."

  "And your wages? Always in cash?"

  "Yes. Cash. Me and Roy both."

  "Did Madame ever promise you ... in her will?"

  There was a moment of hesitation. Gloria averted her eyes and bit her lip.

  "Madame has always been good to us."

  "So you do have expectations of....?"

  "Madame would never ever turn her back on us," she said firmly. "And she knew that, no matter what, both Roy and I would take care of her until the day she died..." She stopped speaking abruptly, realizing what she had said. "...as we done." She shrugged and her eyes moistened again.