by Warren Adler
That would have stumped her. Like Frankie, her mother was a confirmed pro-lifer and this would have been too great a challenge to her hypocrisy. After all, the way the Catholics had worked it out, screwing out of wedlock was a sin, but it was never a sin to conceive in or out of wedlock.
“Then we’ll just have to make the best of it,” her mother’s voice said. Fiona also heard the echo of a sigh, her mother’s sure sign of surrender.
“So I do have your blessing, Mother?”
“Have I a choice?”
To fulfill the spirit of her plan, she would, if pregnant, have to say goodbye to Greg, cut it clean, but in a positive, civilized manner.
She dialed Greg’s number and got his secretary who told her that she was instructed to put Fiona right through.
“In a meeting, Fi,” he said. “Just hold while I get to another phone.”
He was back in less than a minute, slightly out of breath.
“You okay?”
“Working hard. This is a tough one.”
Her tone was clipped, hard-edged, the words sparse as if she wanted to prepare him for the inevitable, start the process of departure. But she was not totally comfortable with the idea. Suppose it hadn’t happened. What then? She would need him once again.
“I need to talk,” he said.
“About what?”
“Us,” he said flatly.
“Sounds ominous,” she said trying to be light-hearted.
“We’ve got to discuss the future,” he said. “Our future.”
The irony was troubling. She could sanction deception for ferreting out murders, but it was quite difficult for her private life. She looked around the shabby squad room. At that hour most of the detectives were on the street. Even the Eggplant was not at his desk. She would have welcomed the hum of activity, the familiar sounds of interrogation and cajolery, the clash of accents and the still unfamiliar sounds of the electronic telephones, the comforting voices of friends and antagonists.
“Why now?” she asked cautiously.
“It’s . . . well . . . because it’s bugging me.”
No, please, she wanted to say. You’re making it quite difficult. She was silent. What response could she give? She had used him.
“Really Greg, this is not the time . . .”
“I’ve got to see you. We’ve got to talk. I’ll be over tonight. Your place, tonight. Is that all right?”
Certain she owed him that. Besides, it was not yet time to burn the bridge.
“Not early, Greg. This case is overwhelming. Say around ten.”
“I’ll be there,” he said. But he did not hang up. For some reason she, too, continued to hold the instrument to her ear.
“Fi?”
“Yes. Yes I’m here.”
“I love you.”
Only then did she hang up the phone.
20
Fiona and Cates sat in the living room of the late Frankie McGuire’s apartment. A film of dust had begun to settle on the surfaces of the furniture and a mustiness flavored the air. They had carefully gone over every inch of the apartment. Looking for what? She wasn’t quite certain. Something that might trigger an idea, suggest a promising lead.
Nothing.
Cates had, by then, checked with almost all the tenants in the building. Many of them, especially those not associated with government, had never met the congresswoman. Even when shown a picture most had not acknowledged ever seeing her.
There were eight other congressmen in the building, including Mr. Rome, also three senators and a number of government officials. Most, like the Romes were married, and those wives Cates had managed to question told him, in one way or another, that Frankie, when she was not accompanied by Foy or the Romes, always arrived at social functions alone.
Mrs. McGuire’s apartment was on the fourth floor, at the end of the corridor, near the fire exit. The staircase ran from the roof to the lobby. With the exception of the desk man there was no elaborate security system, which was standard in most of the new buildings being erected in Washington. But this was an older building and since the burglary rate was comparatively low in the area, the building’s owners apparently did not see the need to install an elaborate system.
It was conceivable that a determined intruder could get into the building undetected. The chances were, too, that he might even get past the indifferent desk people. But getting into the apartment would be a different matter entirely. The owners had installed a modern locking system that was well secured from inside the apartment.
“An exercise in futility, right, Cates?” Fiona asked after they had poked around the apartment for a half-hour.
“I’m from Kansas,” Cates said
“Missouri. The expression is ‘I’m from Missouri.’ ”
“Same idea.”
For her part, she felt herself digging in her heels, although she did not quite understand the underlying reasons for her surety. Frankie McGuire was murdered by her lover. Find the lover, find the murderer.
“There are no secrets,” she mused aloud.
“Got to admit. That secret is the only airpocket in this case. Believe me, I’ve tried to get to it. She dealt with men all the time on the Hill. She went up to Boston every month. Every person with whom I talked put the idea down, however it was presented. Not the slightest hint, not an innuendo, not a breeze of scandal.”
“That only meant that she was clever,” Fiona said. “I never heard of a woman conceiving by herself.” She paused, felt the brief pressure of her own situation, than chasing it away said: “Well, almost never.”
She stood in the center of the living room, her mind focusing on details. Despite the dust and mustiness it was as neat as when she had first seen it. The technicians had put everything to rights according to their photographs of the scene at the time of discovery. Every chair, table and picture was in perfect placement, every knickknack carefully arranged. Nothing was out of place. The apartment was in effect, still in custody, awaiting a determination from homicide.
“It’s here somewhere,” she sighed.
Cates shrugged.
“It’ll be over in a week,” he said, as if that were a fait accompli. She ignored the comment. But she could not ignore the wealth of research he had amassed, all of it buttressing the suicide argument.
“How could she have kept it hidden from the Romes? They were her closest friends.”
“I spoke at length to Mrs. Rome,” Cates said. “She and her husband saw a great deal of Frankie.”
It occurred to her that Cates, because he lacked conviction, might not have been asking the right questions. Quite often a bias made the difference between success and failure in an interrogation. If her theory were correct then Cates, too, was missing something.
“Think Mrs. Rome is home?” Fiona asked.
“That’s easy enough to find out,” Cates said. He looked up the phone number in his pocket notebook. He was extraordinarily thorough in finding and preserving information. She knew, too, that he often transferred such information into his home computer.
Finding the number, he reached for the phone.
“Busy,” he said, looking at the useless instrument. “Let’s just go on up.”
By then, it was late afternoon. The Romes lived on the floor above on the tier facing Massachusetts Avenue. Frankie McGuire’s apartment faced New Mexico Avenue and Fiona assumed that the layout was similiar to Frankie’s although reversed. Fiona was not a fan of apartment living, although she had occasionally rented her parents’ place in Chevy Chase and had sublet an apartment for various lengths of time. Never again, she had decided. Too confining.
Mrs. Rome answered the door herself. A tall full-bodied and elegant-looking woman, she was smartly dressed, perfectly groomed and, as always, not a hair was out of place. Greying, with cheerful brown eyes and lips formed in what must be a perpetual political smile, Mrs. Rome, raised well-plucked eyebrows in surprise. Nevertheless she remained placidly calm, considering
that they had barged in on her. Normally, guests were announced by the desk man.
“I’m terribly sorry to bother you, Mrs. Rome, but my partner and I have been going over Mrs. McGuire’s apartment and would just like to clear up some loose ends.”
“Of course,” Mrs. Rome said, flashing a smile and standing aside to let them in. She was, Fiona decided, the epitome of proper conduct and reminded her of her mother, who was also always perfectly groomed and ready to admit guests to her home at any given moment.
Like her mother, too, Fiona noted, Mrs. Rome’s apartment was sparkling clean. It had a polished look. Oriental rugs graced the floors. Where the hardwood floors were visible they were shined to a high gloss. In fact, wherever she looked everything was shined to a high gloss.
English and early American antiques were everywhere. A painting looking suspiciously like a genuine Remington on one wall and smaller paintings of western scenes, undoubtedly of equally illustrious provenance, hung on other walls.
“Just came in from an absolutely marvelous luncheon at the Jocky Club,” she said as she led them through the apartment. “A sendoff for one of our foreign service wives. Her husband has been appointed Ambassador to Peru.”
They followed her through the immaculate living room to a paneled den. From what they saw of the apartment it smacked of big money, old big money.
Fiona studied the room. To one side was a wet bar lined with bottles. Behind Mrs. Rome were floor to ceiling bookcases, filled on one side with antique leather bound books and on the other with modern novels in their dust jackets. Thrillers and mysteries seemed to be favored.
“May I get you coffee or tea? A soft drink, perhaps?” Mrs. Rome asked.
They both declined politely.
Sitting in a leather chair, she waved them to two soft leather easy chairs and primly crossed her legs. Here was a woman well used to entertaining constituents and making them seem important. Her mother reincarnated, Fiona thought.
Mrs. Rome smiled pleasantly offering herself with devoted expectation.
“Really nice of you to see us without any notice,” Cates said. “But we were here and took the chance.”
“No trouble in the least,” Mrs. Rome said. “I can’t get dear Frankie out of my mind. It baffles Charles and me. Frankie never, ever appeared suicidal. Not to us.”
“Nor to anyone else,” Fiona said.
“She had everything to live for,” Mrs. Rome said.
“We met with your husband and the mayor this morning, Mrs. Rome,” Fiona said, somewhat abruptly.
“Oh, yes. It’s very hard on Charles, having to deal with the matter. But the speaker is really anxious to expedite the disposition of the case one way or the other. Somehow it reflects on all the members when something like this happens. Casts a cloud.”
“Have you spoken to your husband today, Mrs. Rome?” Fiona asked. It wasn’t, after all, her place to impart the information about Mrs. McGuire’s pregnancy.
A frown creased her forehead, although the smile remained fixed.
“Yes I have,” Mrs. Rome said.
“Then you know about . . .”
“Mrs. McGuire’s pregnancy.”
Fiona nodded.
“I’m afraid so,” she sighed. “I’m sure it’s a mistake.”
Was there a double entendre here? Fiona wondered. Whose mistake?
“Dr. Benton is the finest medical examiner in the United States,” Fiona said cautiously.
“I didn’t mean that,” Mrs. Rome said, frowning. “I can only assume that to be accurate. But it is somewhat remarkable for a woman to conceive at her age. That part of her life seemed long over. After all they have four grown children. But these things happen, I suppose.”
Something seemed off kilter in Mrs. Rome’s remarks, as if she was reacting to a totally different stream of information.
“Of course, the way they lived, with Jack McGuire in Boston and she here most of the time, it wouldn’t have been very good for the child, don’t you think?” Her brown eyes sparkled as she spoke.
“Are you saying that you think that Frankie’s husband was the father?”
Mrs. Rome raised her eyebrows indignantly and Fiona did all she could to resist exchanging glances with Cates.
“Isn’t that the usual explanation for a married woman?”
“Mrs. Rome,” Fiona responded, unwilling to let the statement go unchallenged. “The McGuires haven’t been together as man and wife for years.”
“Media nonsense,” Mrs. Rome said.
“I’m afraid not,” Fiona pressed. Mrs. Rome apparently also had her mother’s habit of evading unpleasant truths. “I’ve spoken to Mr. McGuire. He confirms it.”
“You can’t believe anything that man says,” she said fiercely. “We had them out to our ranch in Nevada. When was it? Six, seven years ago. I’m a Nevada girl, grew up there. Daddy was in the mineral business. Anyway, all that McGuire man did was booze booze booze. No wonder she wouldn’t have him ever come to Washington. I can tell you that marriage was always strained. I couldn’t imagine how she ever put up with it. I’ll say this for her, she was always quite defensive about Jack. And overly tolerant.”
“He’s already married another woman, Mrs. Rome,” Fiona said.
“Wouldn’t surprise me,” she said with a familiar huff in her voice. Yet Mrs. Rome’s naïveté in this matter seemed genuine. Fiona felt her tolerance level descend.
“Which sort of buttresses the argument that they hadn’t been living together,” Fiona said. “It also suggests that it was unlikely that Jack McGuire was the child’s father.”
“I’m sorry,” Mrs. Rome said with a smile. “This is not my expertise.”
“But surely you would agree . . .”
“Gossip is simply not my ken,” Mrs. Rome said, making an obvious effort to be pleasant.
“Surely you noticed something. Anything. Really, Mrs. Rome, this is very important. If you had the slightest hint . . .”
“Little blinders,” Mrs. Rome said mimicking someone putting on spectacles. “That’s what you wear in this town. Especially as regards those matters. I stay in my own vineyard.”
“I’m asking specifically about Frankie McGuire,” Fiona said with growing exasperation. “Did you ever have any indication that there was a man in her life?”
“Other than her husband?”
“I just told you about her husband, Mrs. Rome,” Fiona snapped. The sudden pique elicited absolutely no reaction in Mrs. Rome.
“The answer to your question is no,” Mrs. Rome said simply. “It is inconceivable.”
“But the evidence of her pregnancy suggests otherwise. Surely you have to concede the possibility of her having a lover who impregnated her. Knowing who it was is really quite critical to this investigation. You and your husband were her closest friends in town. Think back. Review it in your mind. Was there ever anyone . . .?”
“I suppose I haven’t made myself clear,” Mrs. Rome said politely.
“It’s just that . . . secrets are so difficult to keep in this town.”
“Quite true,” Mrs. Rome said. “And I’ll grant you that liaisons are, I suppose, quite common. Something about the aphrodisia of power. Any woman who leaves her husband alone for extended periods has to be mad. All those ambitious young ladies thirsting for excitement. It does go on, I’m sure. Makes for bad politics, not to mention bad morals.” Her words were emphatic but not angry and the smile never left her face.
“Goes for the gander as well as the goose,” Fiona said, studying Mrs. Rome’s face.
“I really don’t think it’s the same,” Mrs. Rome said. “I guess I’m an old-fashioned gal.”
“Apparently Frankie McGuire wasn’t,” Fiona said pointedly.
“That’s because you didn’t know Frankie,” Mrs. Rome said. “She was a hardworking, dedicated, brilliant woman. Her focus was completely on her work. My husband and she had tremendous differences. Her position on abortion, for example, is well known, as
is my husband’s.”
“Can you ever recall seeing her with another man?” Fiona asked. Her question seemed almost desperate, obviously repetitive. She cut a glance at Cates who had remained silent and deadpanned.
“Why, of course,” Mrs. Rome said calmly. “She was a member of Congress. You can’t imagine how hard devoted members work. My husband is a case in point. Up at the crack of dawn. Off to the job while most of us are still locked in dreamland. Sixteen hour days.
“I meant being with men in another context. Romantically, if you will.”
“Never. How could she find the time?”
Her smile broadened with the little joke and she showed no sign of losing patience with Fiona’s line of questioning. Undaunted, Fiona pressed ahead, although she was beginning to see this interrogation as a futile pursuit.
“When she went to a social gathering was it always alone?”
“On many occasions she went with us. There are so many events, of course. I presume she might have gone with one or another of her colleagues. But not in the way you suggest.”
“Did she spend much social time with Harlan Foy?”
“Her AA?”
Mrs. Rome’s smile broadened.
“Now really, Detective FitzGerald. Everybody knows about her Mr. Foy.”
Fiona felt herself growing increasingly frustrated. Again she looked at Cates, imagined she detected a tiny gloating smile. Go ahead, he seemed to be saying, get it out of your system.
“You can think of no one . . . no one that you can even remotely consider as her possible lover?” Fiona asked. She felt like a broken record.
“If you must know,” Mrs. Rome said with the slightest touch of haughtiness. “I can’t even think of Frankie in that light.”
“Well somebody had to be the father,” Fiona said, detecting a kind of whining tone in her own voice.
“You have my opinion, officer. Perhaps she and Jack were separated, but knowing that man . . . and Frankie . . . I could imagine him deep in his cups demanding that she meet her . . . wifely obligations. Besides, I never heard her utter an unkind word about her husband in the years that I’ve known her. Beyond that facade of the independent strong-minded woman was a very traditional and moral person. It would be unthinkable to see her in any other way.” She looked pointedly at Fiona. “Really, I don’t think that my husband or I can be of much help in concocting the kind of case you’re trying to make in this matter. Frankie was our friend and she remains our friend even in blessed memory.”