Senator Love Page 8

  "What about Nell Langford?" she asked, wondering how truly accepting Little Nell might be of such an arrangement.

  "I told you. Nell suspected everyone. Came with the turf," Bunkie said. "But she could never know. Not really know." He paused and sucked in a deep breath. "What you see is what you get."

  There were reasons for these questions, she told herself, although she resisted the full amplification to herself. Of course she knew that she was triggering greater anxieties, perhaps preparing them for the worst.

  "So you're all saying that nobody other than you truly knew the score?"

  "Now you," Bunkie said.

  Beside her, Monte stirred.

  "So what do you think we should do, Fi?" he asked.

  "I know what you can't do," she said. She turned to the Ambassador. "Aside from the emotional trauma, the not knowing, I think the best course is to wait. No sense stirring the sleeping dogs." She paused, letting the message sink in. Wait for what? they surely were speculating. She had the answer to that, but she held off for the moment.

  "We didn't need you to tell us that," Bunkie said.

  She looked at the Ambassador. "Ever happen before?"

  "Never."

  "Is she the kind of woman who might do this ... well, for the sake of annoyance?"

  "No," the Ambassador shot back. "Not Helga. She is not a woman who could indulge in recrimination."

  "What about for fun? To tweak you all."

  "Not Helga."

  "Would Helga do anything if ... if she were hurt?"

  He made a strange sound, a kind of joyless laugh.

  "You must understand. A beautiful woman in her prime is not like other women. My wife has many wonderful qualities. But at heart she is a narcissist and, if you know the breed, they are totally self-centered."

  "Did she have enemies? An unrequited lover, perhaps?"

  "Not to my knowledge." He thought a moment. "Or hers. She would have told me."

  "Do you love your wife, Mr. Ambassador?"

  "Of course."

  For a diplomat, he was surprisingly open and unguarded. But then, his value system was outside her frame of reference. She suspected that he was cooperating because he was genuinely alarmed and, although ambitious, less frightened about his career dangers than the Senator and his men.

  "I assume each of you has considered and discussed the other scenarios," she said. Their silence told her that they had, encouraging her to continue.

  "If she's been kidnapped for ransom, you'll hear. If she's been taken hostage you'll hear that, too. If she's been kidnapped for other aberrational reasons, sex, for example, you'll probably never know until she's been released." She paused for a long moment, repressing something she wanted to say, then continuing. "That is, if she's released." She said it quickly, not willing to linger over the point. "On the other hand, this may be all her doing and since she knows it is highly unlikely that you would contact the authorities, she might simply, barring those behavioral patterns that the Ambassador rejects, be enjoying some self-motivated bizarre type of freedom. Freedom from her own identity. It happens."

  Fiona shrugged. She had tried to be precise. Of course there was a puzzle here and they all knew it. But she clearly understood the role that Monte had cast her in and which she had accepted. She was here for reassurance.

  "So we wait," Monte said.

  "Was there ever another choice?" Bunkie said morosely.

  "I just want her home," the Ambassador said. It was the nearest thing to a cry he had uttered.

  "I'm sure it will turn out just fine," Monte said, much like the boy whistling in the cemetery.

  Ambassador Kessel got out of the car and ran through the rain to his own. Monte maneuvered the car out of the Seven-Eleven lot and drove south down Wisconsin Avenue.

  During the drive back to his house, Bunkie dozed and Fiona stared straight ahead, mesmerized by the steady hum of the windshield wiper as it beat away the rain. It had slackened somewhat but not much. Far from over, she told herself.

  When they reached his townhouse on Capitol Hill, Bunkie got out. Instead of making a run for it, he tapped the window on the driver's side and Monte brought it down.

  "I still think we didn't need her," he said, not bothering to look toward Fiona. Without responding, Monte raised the window and gunned the motor.

  "How come the Senator wasn't here?" Fiona asked when they were underway.

  "He doesn't do this."

  "The dirty work?"

  "That's the deal."

  "Even when things go sour?"

  "Especially then."

  She thought of her father. No way, she decided. Her father wasn't a creation made out of straw and polls. He would have done the right thing.

  Monte headed the car back toward police headquarters. She had toyed with the idea of inviting him home, but then he foreclosed on it himself.

  "Now I've got to hold Sam's hand," he sighed. "But I'd rather hold yours." Reaching out, he took her hand and held it up to his lips. "He'll be disappointed."

  "How so?"

  "Nothing definitive really happened. We agreed to wait is all, hold off informing anyone. For him that's nebulous. He likes resolution. Something happening that inspires the need to interact."

  "A real man of action," she quipped as he headed the car back to police headquarters. They drove in silence as he continued to hold her hand. Fiona's thoughts drifted.

  "In a way, he's right, Monte," Fiona said, breaking the silence.

  "Who?"

  "Bunkie. About not needing me."

  "Not needing you? To me you were essential. Maybe I needed you to get me through this. I hate it. The whole idea of it. I'm a professional. This is not part of my act. I needed you."

  "I know you needed me, Monte," she said, moving closer to him, caressing his arm. "I didn't mean that. I meant something else."

  "What?"

  It had to be said. She owed him that.

  "You won't really need me until the body turns up."

  9

  "I HAD A problem," she told Cates the next morning, explaining why she had not been there when he had gotten back from the Hill. It wasn't exactly a lie. She could tell he didn't buy it.

  She wished she could discuss it with him. It had haunted her all night and needed airing. Had she given her promise to Monte too eagerly? Giving one's word had always been sacred to her, even as a child. Long ago she had made it the bedrock of her value system.

  "Remember, Fiona," her father had told her, in a preachier moment, perhaps when his own integrity had been challenged. "All you own is your good name and your word. Everything else is borrowed."

  His loans against such a wise homily had been large and then, in one swoop, he had paid them all back. But her father was more of a gambler than she. Thy good name and thy word shall comfort thee. For her it was a form of religion, which was why she had concocted her "render unto Caesar" remark. She assumed Monte had gotten it. If it was inside the law, no sweat. But outside—another matter entirely. Which was why she had tossed and turned all night. However bizarre the lifestyle of Helga and her husband, nobody walks cold turkey. Something goes along.

  Cates, perhaps noting that she seemed spacey, pulled out a file from his drawer and opened it. At that moment the eggplant arrived carrying a very wet big black umbrella, which he leaned against the wall outside of his office. He surveyed the squad room, grunted a greeting, went into the office and closed the door behind him.

  "Foul weather. Foul mood," Fiona said. She looked at Cates nursing his pout behind the file. "The suspense is killing me, Cates."

  "He's got a point," Cates said without looking up. "The longer, the harder. Lots happens in thirteen years." He shut the file. His pout had switched to an expression that meant strictly business. "The Taylor girl's record with the committee was nothing to write home about. She wasn't too punctual and she had more absences than she should have had. Then one day she didn't show up."

  "Anybody reme
mber her?"

  "Except for one older secretary, those that were around then were mostly vague. The picture jogged them. They had recollections of her prettiness. Beyond that, she barely made a dent."

  "Except for the older secretary," Fiona prompted.

  "She remembers more. Mostly because Betty was, according to her, trying to pass. The woman, Miss Phillips, is one of these faded, white, old maids. An observer type, you know, encased in fat. Not part of the main social stream. Work is her only life. And gossip about the staff and the House members, past and present. You know the type. Says Betty and she were friendly when Betty first arrived. Remembers her as bubbly, enthusiastic and pretty much able to field the young men that knocked on her door. Then three months into it, she said Betty suddenly changed."

  "In what way?" Fiona asked.

  "No more bubbly. She got quieter. More secretive. Went to lunch by herself. Became more of a loner. That was the heart of her memory. How Betty Taylor had changed. It left an impression."

  "She have any ideas why?"

  "Not really. At least she didn't say. They're careful up there. I couldn't tell if she was telling the truth. She's Hill smart. Doesn't want to upset things for herself. She beat a fast retreat when I pushed too hard."

  Mrs. Taylor had it right, Fiona was certain. She knew what it meant to have that kind of beauty. Some of the older cops of both races called it high yellow, a genetic alchemy that spawned a golden complexion and made extravagant what was already beautiful. Its mention, too, had a decidedly erotic tone, as if the tone itself was a rare aphrodisiac.

  And so the beautiful butterfly was let out of the cage. The salivating predators, as always, were waiting. The Hill was a cauldron of sexuality. Power, too, has its erotic attractions, its Pied Pipers of seduction. Experts at manipulation, they could play the siren song in whatever key was necessary. Titillating stuff, especially for a girl from the boonies, a golden beauty just out of the cage.

  "Got a list of staff and members for that year?"

  "My new friend promised it today," Cates said. His earlier annoyance had evaporated. "She's ordering a book from that year from the Library of Congress."

  Cates' thoroughness was always a marvel to Fiona. Of course, he still needed seasoning, the kind that spiced the palette of logic, but that would come with experience. He had been assigned to her by the eggplant after Jefferson had been killed.

  She still missed the big black bastard, which was the way she preferred to remember him, at full strength with all the surface meanness showing. How slyly he disguised the litmus of his sensitivity, the bigness of his overflowing heart. Cates was different, harder in a way than Jefferson, more cerebral and under control, hiding his hurts with more skill, less volcanic and nerve-wracking, yet equally reliable when it counted. The eggplant, a giant mass of impenetrable complexities, was a shrewd and unerring marriage broker when it came to partnering.

  "I also checked out the apartment," Cates said, looking into his notebook. There was, of course, an implied rebuke in the revelation. "I was up there," he explained."It's only a couple of blocks away."

  She didn't press the point. Turf was never a problem between them. Besides, she had failed in her search.

  "Place had sixteen units. None of the existing tenants had lived there more than six years. I spoke with the managing agents. Place was sold twice since then. They told me to check at the District Building."

  "Rots a ruck," Fiona said, remembering her battle with the District bureaucracy. "I was diddled on the telephone merry-go-round. What do you say we go down and kick some ass?"

  They started to put on their raincoats, then heard the eggplant's voice behind them. Later she would tell herself that she knew, even before any words were exchanged, she knew in her gut. He crooked a finger and summoned them into his office. But he did not sit down. Instead he went to the map mounted at one end of the room, squinted at it then tapped a dark finger on its surface.

  "Here. Cleveland Park."

  His nostrils quivered when he turned and faced them.

  "I'm afraid you'll have to put the old bones on hold for a while. We have something for you more contemporary."

  They waited, not responding. He walked toward the window and looked out of it.

  "The rain, you see, it's turning the ground to mush. And spitting up ladies."

  10

  A RETAINING WALL had given way and the ground behind it rolled like volcanic lava to the yard behind it, stopped only by the foundation of the house on the lower elevation. The body of a nude woman, not long dead, popped to the surface midway between the house and what once was the retaining wall.

  Fiona and Cates had slogged to the body in high boots. The nude body was on her back and there was no mistaking who it was.

  "I figured," Fiona sighed. Cates looked at her with bewilderment. "It's Helga Kessel, wife of the Austrian Ambassador."

  "You knew her?" Cates asked with some surprise.

  "You might say we broke bread together," Fiona replied.

  "Jesus, this is big." Cates whistled.

  "Bigger than you think," she muttered. Cates cocked his head, puzzling.

  Kneeling, she inspected the body. It seemed childlike, smaller than she had appeared in life, but well proportioned in scale. She noted that the grey nipples on the woman's breasts were larger than most she had seen. The long blonde hair was caked with mud and the eyes were open and slightly bulged. The head seemed unnaturally attached, indicating the probable cause of death was through strangulation.

  From the position of the body and the way in which the ground above had broken, as if someone had bitten through a chunk of a nut-filled caramel candy bar, it was apparent that the body had been expelled from its burial site under a stand of trees that edged the higher property.

  The similarities of disposal between this body and that of Betty Taylor was not lost on Fiona. She exchanged glances with Cates.

  "It's our week for coincidences," he shrugged.

  "Mustn't jump to conclusions," she cautioned, waving her finger in mock rebuke. She was rebuking herself as well. But it didn't stop her mind from reaching across the years.

  The technical men and the uniforms slogged through the mud of the scene and the body was bagged and carried away through a path that ran beside a detached garage at the end of the driveway of the lower house. Following it, they confronted a young woman holding a baby, both dressed for the rain. She was standing in the open side door of the garage. They showed their badges.

  "It was like an explosion," the woman said. "Suddenly the ground gave way."

  The woman introduced herself as a Mrs. Carlton. Cates played a game with his fingers for the benefit of the baby, who smiled in appreciation. Beyond the woman, Fiona could see cars and vans pulling up. The media. She watched Flannagan's boys quickly load the body bag into the police van and speed away. Watching the media swooping down on them like a wild herd, she suddenly thought of Monte and his worst fears. Sorry, guy, she muttered to herself. It's now Caesar's problem. To whom I render.

  "Do you think we could duck in here for a moment?" Fiona said, leading the woman into the interior of the garage and closing the door.

  "It's important that we get as much as you can remember."

  The woman nodded, apparently eager to tell her story, and dived right into it. The baby continued to watch Cates distract it with finger exercises. Its nose was running, the mucus dripping from its chin.

  "When I heard the explosion," the woman said, "I ran upstairs to get the baby, dressed him and got out of there as fast as I could. I came out here and saw that my whole lawn was gone and there was a lady's leg stuck up in the air. I swear it was unbelievable."

  "Who lives there?" Fiona said, pointing to the house visible behind the thinned-out stand of trees, a number of which, although still upright, were denuded to their exposed roots. About half the upper yard had disappeared into the lower one, now a mass of mud, bricks and broken trees.

  "Mrs. Gat
es lived there until a month ago. It's been empty. For sale." The woman shook her head. "I never trusted that damned retaining wall. Never. My husband used to pooh-pooh my anxiety. Wait'll he sees this. Who knew that we would have the worst bout of rain in a hundred years." She turned to Fiona. "You think our insurance covers this?"

  "I suppose it depends on whose wall it is," Fiona said, sorry that she had volunteered.

  "Shit. I think it's ours. It was there when we bought the house. The fucking rain. It never stops." She hiked up the baby in her arms, then felt his bottom and sniffed him. "Now he's made a poopoo." She looked at Fiona with angry mouse eyes. Her hair was straggly and she wore no makeup. "Can you blame him?"

  "Did you hear or see anything uncommon coming from the Gates' yard in the last two days?" Fiona asked. "More specifically, the night before last?"

  Cates stopped his finger exercises. She could feel him studying her.

  "All I've heard for the last few days is the sound of the rain. God's pee. Why us?"

  "Have you seen anyone around the Gates' house in the past two days? Anyone at all?"

  "On this level, all I could ever see was that damned retaining wall."

  "And from upstairs?"

  "Trees. In winter I could see the house. They were a retiring couple, the Gateses. Wasn't much outside life there."

  Through the dirty garage window she could see the media people clustered in a knot near the driveway, needling a nervous rookie uniform, who probably had said more than he realized.

  "You got a phone in here?" Fiona asked.

  "No," the woman snapped in a surly tone. "And I don't want you in the house." She looked at her mud-splattered boots.

  "A woman's been murdered," Cates interjected.

  "That's her problem," the woman shot back. "You gonna pay for my clean-up?"

  "Used to be a genteel neighborhood," Fiona said.

  "I know. Grover Cleveland came here for his summer vacations. If he knew how much it costs to live here now he'd be rolling in his grave."