by Alan Elsner
A caller phoned in and started ranting about the “corrupt gay lifestyle.” (EDITOR’S NOTE: This is one of the instances that readers are remined of the era in which this narrative takes place. During this period one state after another passed voter initiatives banning gay marriage and stating that marriage must be limited to one man and one woman. Open hostility toward gays was not only tolerated but even encouraged by many politician. Happily, attitudes have changed since then.)
Plump tears eased out of Delphine’s eyes and slid down her face. This was not right. Not content with butchering him, the killers were now intent on making sure that Erik would forever be remembered as a pedophile.
Delphine slipped into her empty apartment near and locked the door. The place felt stale and unlived-in. A couple of house plants flopped from lack of water. She turned up the heating, disconnected the phone, took two sleeping pills and went to bed.
Chapter 10
The morning after Delphine’s return was cold, dark and drizzly, a good day to pull the comforter over her head and forget the world. Instead, she headed for the AFP bureau. It was only a 10-minute walk from the little apartment she rented near Dupont Circle. She found Jen-Luc Boulez standing on the sidewalk outside the office, shoulders hunched in the biting wind, sucking on a Gitane.
“Ah Delphine,” he said taking a last drag. “Good that you came in. I need your input on the Jens story. Let’s get out of this damnable weather.”
Inside, he poured them both a strong back coffee. “So, did you suspect?” he asked, smiling furtively, revealing a set of beige teeth.
“Suspect what?”
“That your straight-laced spokesman had … unorthodox preferences.”
“That’s unfair.”
“What’s ‘fair’ got to do with anything? This is a terrific story. That’s all I care about.”
“Of course I didn’t suspect. Even now I can’t believe it, poor man.”
“Don’t waste your sympathy. Such types do not deserve it.”
“Jean-Luc, I have a request. I want a transfer. Put me somewhere else – Congress, the Pentagon, the White House, even the editing desk – anything. I need to get out of the State Department and away from that Dayton woman.”
“Nonsense. You’re doing great. You’ve obviously developed important sources. Why would you want to change jobs now?”
“You don’t know what it’s like. Three deaths in the past week alone. I feel stressed all the time. I’m even hearing music.”
“Music?”
“I’ve been hearing the theme of Mission Impossible playing in my head.”
He laughed. “Delphine, you are droll. You don’t even like music; I recall you once told me you are practically tone deaf.”
“I think I may be losing my grip.”
“Nonsense! You are emotional, fatigued … you need a break, that’s all. And you shall have one. I am not insensitive. Take a week, find a Caribbean island and lie on the beach. Listen to the waves lapping against the shore and the breeze whispering in the palm trees, work on your tan. Maybe you’ll even find a man.”
Delphine glared at him.
“Well, I won’t tell you how to use your vacation. Just be back by the end of the month. Delphine, you are a lucky woman. Thousands of reporters would give anything to have your job. The coming months will be even more dramatic – a Middle East peace conference, Dayton running for President. How could you think of leaving such a position at such a time?”
At that moment, Delphine made a decision. Perhaps she’d seen ‘All The President’s Men’ too many times, but she truly still believed in the romantic ideal of the journalist as crusader, uncovering iniquity and righting wrongs. Someone had to get to the bottom of what was happening at the State Department, she told herself, and who better than Delphine Roget? If there was evil to expose, she would expose it. If someone was guilty of murder, she would make sure that person, no matter how powerful and exalted, was held accountable. She said nothing of this to Jean-Luc. Nevertheless, she left the office with a new determination, inspired by her private vow.
Delphine’s first move was to track down Lisa Hemmings. It was easy enough to get her number from one of her former colleagues. Lisa had taken refuge with her parents in Westchester County. She answered after several rings and did not sound pleased to hear from her former seat-mate.
“What do you want?”
“I just called to see how you’re doing.”
“Surviving.” Lisa’s voice seemed jumpy.
“I was sorry to hear what happened. It seems so unjust.”
A pause. Then, “It is what it is.”
“I was sad to lose your company.”
“But you survived.”
“Have you thought of suing Newsweek for unfair dismissal?”
Another pause. “We came to an agreement.”
“So what’s next?”
“Mom’s a realtor; she’s trying to persuade me to join her agency. It’s obvious I’ll never work as a reporter again. All I ever wanted was to be a journalist, since I was back in Junior High…”
“I don’t understand why they were so quick to terminate you.”
“My lips are sealed. We shouldn’t even be talking.”
There was an awkward silence. “What I said is true. I did miss you the rest of the trip,” Delphine said. “It didn’t feel the same without you sitting beside me on the plane.”
“How sweet.”
“It was a trip from hell. I was right next to Don Masters when he collapsed—and then there was that terrible thing with Erik Jens. Did you know about his sexual preferences?”
Lisa snorted.
“How do you explain the videos they found in his room?”
“It’s not my job to explain anything. It has nothing to do with me anymore.”
“By the way, what happened to that big scoop you were about to publish about Dayton?” “So that’s why you called. I was wondering why the sudden affection.”
“Of course not. I was just curious about it.” But Delphine knew she’d been seen through.
“The story is dead – as dead as Don and Erik. Under the terms of the agreement, I’m not allowed to discuss it—or anything else. Neither is my editor or anyone else.”
“If Julia Dayton is hiding something, don’t you think the world ought to know about it before she becomes President?”
“I just want to put my life back together and get on with it in peace and quiet. Given what’s happened, I’m grateful to be alive. Goodbye Delphine. Don’t call again.”
Delphine did call a week later but Lisa’s mother said her daughter had gone on a trip to Australia and New Zealand with no scheduled return date and no forwarding address.
“She left in an awful hurry, just packed her bags and went. We haven’t heard a word from her since,” her mother said.
Either Lisa was smart, Delphine thought, or she was very scared. Or both.
A few days after her return, Delphine was summoned for another meeting with the French ambassador, who received her this time in her residence, a Tudor-revival mansion in north-west Washington once owned by a mining magnate. After exchanging pleasantries, Simone de-Courcy got down to business.
“I’m anxious to know where you think things are heading,” she said.
“Off the record?’ Delphine asked, an unusual role reversal for a reporter.
“Naturally.”
“Secretary Dayton wishes to convene her peace conference as soon as possible and will shortly return to the region to persuade the parties to attend.”
“Interesting. Our own experts at the Quai d’Orsay concur,” the ambassador said, referring to the French foreign ministry. “Of course, Arab-Israeli peace is the holy grail that every American Secretary of State feels obliged to seek. In Julia Dayton’s case, the impetus to s
ucceed quickly is even stronger since she is so evidently preparing to seek the presidency next year.”
“You’ve concluded she’s definitely planning to run?”
“But of course. It’s almost a certainty. Do you disagree?”
“No. She’s running for sure.”
“What kind of a president might she make?”
“It’s too early for that,” Delphine said.
Arriving home later that afternoon later clutching supermarket shopping bags, Delphine noticed an unfamiliar red Toyota parked outside her entrance. Instantly, the hairs on the back of her neck stood up. The car door opened and Jason emerged, a bunch of tulips in one hand, a bottle of champagne in the other. She breathed easier but her guard was still up.
“Can I help?” he asked, gesturing at her bags.
Delphine rented the ground floor of an elegant Victorian row house on a quiet street only five minutes from the restaurants and nightlife of Dupont Circle. The building had a small front garden which, somewhat to her shame, she made no effort to cultivate. Her mother would have been disappointed. Delphine still remembered the care and attention she lavished on her herb and flower garden back in the village.
“I’ll manage.”
“You should get these in water,” he said as he followed her indoors.
“I know what to do with flowers. But they die on you anyway.”
“Meow! You really sharpened your claws today.”
“Sorry. I’ve been tense lately.”
“I was hoping I could take you out for dinner.”
“I’m sick of restaurant food. I was planning to cook.” Delphine began emptying the shopping and putting away.
“Was that an invitation to stay?”
She shrugged, took down a cutting board and started laying out ingredients – a couple of onions, a head of garlic, three carrots, a packet of bacon, stalks of celery, a pound of mushrooms and three large potatoes …
“What’s on the menu?”
“Bouef Bourguignon. Loosely based on my aunt’s recipe—though she would have died rather than use bacon.”
“Why? Was she Jewish?”
Delphine realized she’d given away more than she intended. “Auntie had a thing about bacon,” she said hurriedly. “Couldn’t stand it at any price.”
“Were you close to your aunt?”
Another question she didn’t want to answer. “Are you going to let me cook, or are we going to talk?” she asked.
“Cook. Let me help,” he said, picking up her biggest and sharpest knife.
Involuntarily, Delphine took a step backwards. Her face must have betrayed shock and fear because he instantly set it down again.
“What’s the matter? You’re shaking. What is it, Delphine?”
He placed both arms around her and she leaned into him. “For a second there, I imagined Erik’s face before my eyes … his throat.” Delphine shuddered.
“Poor you,” he whispered, softly stroking my hair.
“Can I trust you?” Delphine asked, thinking of the spatter of stains she’d seen on his trousers in the lobby in Jerusalem.
“I would never, ever hurt you.”
“Do you promise?”
“Promise.”
“And will you always tell me the truth?”
“Whenever possible.”
“The whole truth?”
His hand abruptly stopped its caresses. “What are you getting at?”
“I want to know what happened to Erik, what really happened,” Delphine said, their tender moment already in the past.
“Nobody knows,” he protested. “The Israelis are still investigating.”
Delphine looked straight into his steel eyes, watching carefully for his reaction as she asked her next question.
“Did one of your security agent colleagues plant those filthy videos in his room?”
“No. No way. Of course not. How could you think that?” Either he was the world’s greatest actor or he really didn’t know anything. Delphine was about to tell him she’d spotted someone who might have been a U.S. security man coming out of Erik’s room the day after the murder. Just in time, she stopped herself. If that man was the murderer, no-one should know she’d seen him. Instead, she changed the point of attack.
“What about Lisa?”
“What about her?”
“Was her arrest a set-up?”
“What makes you think so?” He was avoiding eye contact.
“You told me yourself how chummy you were with foreign security agents and how they’re always happy to do you a favor.”
He shook his head slowly in exasperation but said nothing. He wasn’t telling her everything; Delphine could smell it.
“Well?” she pressed.
“I meant favors like providing a police jeep to get us to the pyramids, not screwing over a fellow American. That’s illegal! Why would I even consider something like that?”
“Not even if the Secretary asked you to?”
“I wouldn’t do it.”
“Lisa was sure she was set up. She had a big scoop coming out about Dayton, a bombshell. After she was arrested, her editors killed the story.”
“What exactly was this bombshell?”
“I don’t know.”
“And you think someone put together an elaborate plot to stop her publishing a magazine article? Really?”
Put like that, it did sound far-fetched, even to Delphine.
Jason took both her hands and led her to the sofa.
“Be reasonable. Think about how much planning it would have taken to pull off a scheme like that. They would have to have known well in advance she was going shopping at that exact time and that exact place. How would that have been possible?”
But you did know. I mentioned it to you the day before, Delphine thought
“And they would have needed Syrian police cooperation, which would not have been forthcoming without the knowledge and approval of top government officials, probably the President himself.” Jason sighed. “I can see you’re not convinced. OK, I’m going to tell you something confidential. You can’t share it with anyone. Do you agree?”
Delphine nodded.
“There’s no easy way to put this.”
“Just say it.”
“Your friend Lisa had sticky fingers.”
“I do not comprehend.”
“She had a history of shoplifting. She was arrested the first time at college and pleaded to a misdemeanor. And she was caught again a couple of years ago trying to steal underwear from a department store. They dropped the charge.”
“And you know this, how?”
“We do a routine security check on every reporter that applies for a State Department pass. We did one on you too. Unlike Lisa, you came up clean, not even a parking ticket. Why do you think Newsweek was so quick to terminate her? They must have known too. They probably warned her she’d be fired immediately if she ever did it again. And then she did, in Damascus of all places.”
It was plausible and Delphine was half-convinced. But the timing, just before her big scoop was too convenient.
They returned to the cooking and Delphine even allowed Jason to chop the onions and mince garlic, which he did surprisingly competently. Of course, she had many other questions. The biggest was about Don Masters. Did he really suffer a heart attack or had he eaten something intended for Ira, with whom he had switched places? She decided to save that for another time.
After she’d browned the beef and sautéed the vegetables, she poured in some red wine and covered the pot. “Now it has to simmer for a couple of hours.”
“Those copper pots and pans you have hanging on the wall – they’re great, like in a real restaurant,” Jason said.
“I inherited them.”
“Fro
m your mother?”
“They are lovely aren’t they – that gorgeous burnished patina – and far superior to aluminum or stainless steel because they transfer heat so quickly and evenly,” Delphine said, avoiding answering his question.
“Did she teach you to cook?”
“Who?”
“Your mother.”
Delphine hesitated, wondering how much to tell him. These were memories she did not like to share. “Maman died when I was very young,” she said at last.
“That’s terrible. And your father?”
In for a penny, in for a pound. “He too. They went together.”
“An accident?”
“Yes.”
Jason was sensitive enough to understand from her expression that Delphine did not want to say any more about it. She poured them both some wine and they sat quietly for a while as the aroma of the stew began permeating the apartment. Jason looked through Delphine’s sparse CD collection and selected one by Vanessa Paradis.
“Have you heard of her?” Delphine asked, as the strains of ‘Joe le taxi’ filled the room.
“Nope. But it’s French like you so I figured it has to be OK.” He picked up the box, studying the singer’s curiously childlike face fringed by blond, shoulder-length hair.
The phone jangled, breaking the gentle mood that had been building. It was Andrew Cushing, calling to tell Delphine there would be a memorial service for Don Masters next morning at a church in Northern Virginia. She took down the details and promised to be there.
“I want to come with you,” Jason said after she finished the call.
“Was Don a friend of yours?”
“We were friendly.”
Ah, that crucial difference! In America, everyone is friendly, from shop assistants to hairdressers to elevator men, Delphine thought. It’s easy for the foreigner, perhaps more accustomed to the routine surliness they experience at home, to mistake such friendliness for friendship. The two could not be more different. The friendliness of an American, all too often, is like the friendliness of a dog bounding to greet you, wagging its tail, licking your hand, yapping in delight—until it realizes you have nothing to give it. Then, it turns around and your existence in its life is forgotten.