by John Lutz
“But you couldn’t just keep quiet about it. You didn’t feel right about that either,” said Addleman, in a soothing tone that surprised Harper. He sounded like a shrink who treated Upper East Side neurotics rather than a criminal psychologist who dealt with psychotic killers.
Sherman nodded. “This isn’t hot information, believe me. It all happened a long time ago. In a way, I hate to bring it up again, certainly not with the police, who’d be sure to leak it to the media. I’m paid to keep secrets, gentlemen. If my clients saw my name in the papers, read about what I’d told—”
He broke off, swallowing nervously. “I’ve been following the investigation, waiting for proof of Markman’s death to surface. Because then there’d be no reason to bring up this old story. And the FBI says he’s dead; everybody says so, but you, Mr. Harper—you’ve kept silent. When I heard that you were in Washington, I—”
“You’re not off the hook, Mr. Sherman,” said Addleman. “Sorry.”
“Markman is alive,” said Harper. “He’s probably in Washington right now, setting up his next bombing.”
Sherman looked down and sighed heavily. But he wouldn’t have been a Washington lawyer if he hadn’t known how to handle bad news. So after a moment he began to tell his story.
“Thirty years ago, I was an associate at Wyland Nave, the leading law firm in St. Louis. Markman Manufacturing was one of our clients. And—well, to make a long story short, I ended up handling the divorce of Lucas Markman. Anthony’s father.”
“Did you?” said Harper, with keen interest. He remembered Hayden, in St. Louis, talking about the divorce.
“Yes. We were a corporate law firm. We didn’t do marital work as a general rule. But the Markmans had been clients for years, so—” He shrugged.
He seemed to have stalled, so Harper prompted him. “It was a bitter divorce, I understand.”
“Very. In my career, I’ve handled much more important matters. Billion-dollar cases. But there’s not one I remember as clearly as this one.” His eyes narrowed and his lips set. Harper thought he was going to dry up again, but after a moment he went on.
“The wife, Joanna, was a good deal younger than Lucas Markman, and from—well, from a very different background. But she was beautiful and he was infatuated with her. It went very much the way you would expect. By the time of the divorce, they hated each other. She intended to make him pay—literally. She wanted the house and a large cut of the family fortune, including an ownership stake in the firm. They were absurd demands, but I think Lucas would have accepted them, if she hadn’t demanded custody of Tony, who was twelve at the time.”
Sherman paused, looked down, got going again. This was getting harder for him. “Joanna’s lawyer was greedy and unprincipled. It was impossible for me to deal with him. That was why I had to resort to—why I did what I did.”
“You threatened to accuse her of sexually abusing her son,” said Addleman. Harper looked over at him in surprise.
Sherman looked down again. In the course of this meeting they’d seen as much of his silver hair as of his face. In a long drawn-out sigh he said, “Yes. And It wasn’t an empty threat, or one I would have made lightly. Lucas was quite sure of what was going on. I will always remember the day he told me, how bitter and ashamed he was. I only wish I’d been more understanding. It seemed shocking to me. Monstrous. You have to remember, this was thirty years ago. Incest was still the darkest and deepest of secrets.”
“And the threat worked,” Harper said.
“Oh, yes. She gave up all claims on Tony—in fact, she never saw or spoke to him again. We paid her off and she left town. A few years later she was killed in a car wreck.” Abruptly Sherman got to his feet. They looked up at him. “This is one case in my legal career that I’m not proud of,” he said. “If it’s not important, I trust you won’t make it public.”
“It’s important,” said Harper.
Addleman looked at him. But Sherman didn’t seem to have heard. He picked up his slim leather briefcase and got out of the room as quickly as he could. It was as if he believed he had rid himself of this unpleasant memory once and for all. Now he was eager to return to his posh law office and his comparatively sanitary billion-dollar cases.
As soon as the door closed on him, Harper said, “We need a picture of Joanna Markman.”
Addleman didn’t ask why. He picked up a manila folder bulging with printouts and clippings that was resting on the coffee table and began to leaf through it.
“You already knew he’d been abused,” said Harper.
Addleman replied without looking up. “No. But with this kind of personality disorder, you’re always alert for the possibility of some kind of mother complex.”
“You didn’t mention the possibility to me.”
“You seem to have limited patience for psychological speculation unbolstered by evidence. Here we go.”
He held up a page clipped from last week’s issue of Time. Under the caption A PRIVILEGED CHILDHOOD were several photos of Markman as a boy. In one, he was an infant in his mother’s arms. She was lovely, as Sherman had said, compact, and smiling in a way that dared. She had a dancer’s tight, shapely body.
“Yes,” Harper said.
“You’ve seen this picture before?”
“No. I’ve seen another one. At Markman’s house. Framed, near the television.”
“He probably has pictures of her everywhere,” said Addleman. “He’s probably in denial about the incest. Has deep and conflicted feelings about her. Anger. Guilt. A sense of betrayal he doesn’t understand. A sense of loss, too.”
Harper was up and pacing, returning in his mind to that strange meeting with the killer in his living room. “He kept talking about how celebrities seduce people. How they win people’s trust and then use them.”
“He’s really talking about his mother, of course. Why didn’t you tell me about this picture before, Will?”
“I guess I forgot. I didn’t think it was important. It wasn’t the sort of picture a guy usually keeps of his mother.”
“It was sexual?”
“I guess, in a way. I thought at first it might be a picture of a girlfriend. She was young in the shot, in her early thirties. She was seated at a dressing table and was smiling, and she was wearing lingerie, something silky and white that showed a little cleavage.”
“Lingerie? Blond, with a dancer’s body?” A strange, intent look came into Addleman’s eyes. Then he was up, grabbing the Washington Post he’d been perusing before Sherman came in.
“What is it?”
But Addleman paid no attention. He tore through the pages until he found the one he wanted. Folding the paper, he thrust it in front of Harper.
He recognized the woman in the picture immediately. It was, after all, one of the most famous faces in the world. This picture, like many of the ones he’d seen of her, showed her with her hands on her hips, grinning beautifully and defiantly. She wasn’t wearing lingerie in this shot, but she had in plenty of others. The caption said she had arrived from Buenos Aires that day at Washington’s Dulles Airport.
“I don’t see—” Harper started to say.
Then he did see.
It was the very familiarity of the person that had prevented him from seeing the resemblance at first, but there it was: the blond hair, the compact, dancer’s figure, the erotic challenge in her grin and her stance. She was no doubt the most famous and recognizable woman in the world. And perhaps the ultimate celebrity.
“She’s going to be his last victim,” Addleman said.
Harper nodded. It had to be.
Delilah! Singer, dancer, actress, self-promoter, and rock star turned cultural icon.
And mother.
41
Harper hadn’t been in a helicopter in many years. The pilot seemed to be flying very fast and low. The Potomac flashed like a mirror as they crossed it. Harper had a glimpse of Arlington Cemetery—green lawns and long, orderly rows of white crosses—and the
n there was only suburban sprawl that seemed as if it would never end.
It did end, though, and they were flying over woods and fields toward the Blue Ridge Mountains. Occasionally Harper glimpsed the roof of a big house, or a cluster of horses grazing on a sun-streaked greensward. This was Virginia’s foxhunting country, where many members of the capital’s elite had their weekend places. Delilah and her entourage were staying at a rented estate here.
It wasn’t the sort of place he associated with the rock star. Not at all. But throughout her long career there’d been a New Delilah every couple of years. The latest transformation was the most complete. She’d become a mother a year or so ago, and ever since she’d been staying out of the spotlight as much as a superstar could. Some said it was just an extended maternity leave, and she was going to be back soon, just as outrageous as ever. But others insisted that she was going to abandon the whole rock scene to become a serious movie actress, and still others said she was going to quit show business entirely. Her visit to the Washington area had naturally stirred rumors that she was becoming interested in politics. These rumors, absurd as they seemed, had brought fulminations from the Christian Coalition.
Harper had rented a helicopter for this trip not only because it was the fastest way to get to the country but because he wanted to make an impressive arrival. He doubted, now, that anybody’d be impressed. There were numerous helicopters in the air around him: homeward-bound Washington power brokers, for whom the helicopter was a commuting vehicle.
The pilot was talking on the radio. Harper couldn’t hear, but he must be obtaining permission to land. They were slowing and descending. They passed over a mansion on a hilltop, and Harper saw a columned portico and a vast slate roof with a long row of dormers and numerous chimneys. Then they began to drop toward a helipad.
Abruptly the descent ceased. The craft hovered. Leaning toward Harper, the pilot shouted over the racket, “They won’t let us land. Sorry. You want me to set down at the nearest airport, or go back to D.C.?”
“Go ahead and land,” shouted Harper. “I’ll take the responsibility.”
“Sorry, sir. I could lose my license.”
“Just set it down!”
The pilot shook his head. The helicopter pitched and went into a wide turn, picking up speed and altitude.
Leaving Delilah behind.
Harper pounded his thigh in frustration and yelled at the pilot, but it was no use.
By the time Harper made his way back to the estate it was dark. A taxi dropped him at the front gate, and he pleaded his case into the grille of an intercom, under the beady eye of a videocamera and the bright beam of a halogen light. The voice on the intercom told him to wait.
It was a long wait. He spent the time thinking about what he’d say if they let him in. Harper knew no important person who’d be willing to make a call for him. He had no credentials to show. All he had was a copy of People magazine he’d bought at the newsstand in the county airport where the helicopter had dropped him off. It had him on the cover.
He remembered what Addleman had said that afternoon, about glitzy celebrities who had fame but no real power. That was Harper. He’d become one of those people for whom Anthony Markman felt the deepest contempt. He shoved the People into the pocket of his suitcoat.
The night was very quiet and he heard the car coming down the drive a long time before he saw it. Headlights dazzled him as it approached.
The car stopped and a tall man climbed out. Harper’d been expecting a rent-a-cop in uniform, but this man was wearing faded jeans and a black T-shirt that swelled over his gut. His shoulders were broad and his bare arms bulged with muscle. A tattoo of a snake wound around his left bicep. His graying hair was pulled back in a ponytail. The blunt-featured, deeply-lined face wasn’t friendly.
He didn’t open the gates but walked up to talk to Harper through the bars.
“Now what are you on about, mate?” The voice was deep, the accent British, or possibly Australian.
Harper said, “I have to talk to Delilah.”
“Not a chance.”
“Do you believe I’m who I say I am?”
“Oh yes, Mr. Harper. I believe that. I already called the FBI about you. They say you’re barmy.”
“You ought to consider the consequences if the FBI’s wrong.”
The big man folded his arms and rocked back on his heels. He smiled with what appeared to be genuine amusement. “Next you’ll tell me that the person who has my job on Speed Rogers’s staff is still kicking himself because he didn’t listen to you.”
“No, she isn’t,” said Harper. “She’s dead.”
The man stopped smiling. He didn’t say anything, but after a moment he took a remote control out of his pocket and clicked it. The gates swung open.
Five minutes later, Harper was following the security chief down a hallway on the second floor of the house. They passed a few people who glared at Harper and said hello to Bobs, the big security chief.
“How come they call you Bobs?” Harper asked, trying to gain a little trust from the man.
“Name’s really Bob, but I’m big enough for two so I’m plural.”
“Got a last name?”
“Nope. Just Bobs, is who I am.”
“You work for Delilah a long time?” Harper asked.
“Off and on for three years. My regular employer’s Lord Melroy. He owns this place, but he’s out of the country so he’s lending it, and me, to Delilah.”
“His name’s familiar. Is he British nobility?”
Bobs grinned. “He’s not what you’d call a real lord, except with his group, Lord Melroy and the Mad Plaid. You saying you never heard of them?”
Now Harper did recall the Mad Plaid, and Lord Melroy. The Plaid, as they came to be known, were one of the more successful British rock groups that invaded the U.S. in the seventies. “I’ve heard of them,” he assured Bobs. “There must be a lot of money in rock music.”
Bobs rolled his eyes. “Great riches, you might say.”
Lord Melroy had taste not usually associated with aging men who’d screamed lyrics and set fire to their guitars on stage. The effects of great riches, Harper assumed. The hall had wainscotted walls and was hung with oil paintings of hunting scenes and impressionist landscapes. It ended in an ornately pedimented double doorway. Delilah would be just the other side of those doors.
Harper found himself thinking about his wife. Laura, being a nurse, was careful to eat a healthy diet and take regular exercise. She neither smoked nor drank. She had only one vice and that was Delilah. In the supermarket she would choose the longest checkout line so as to have ample time to peruse the latest magazine articles about the ever-evolving rock star.
In fact Laura had been a fan from the beginning and still had her copy of Delilah’s first hit record, “Maidenhead.” That had been in 1989. A string of outrageous hit songs had followed; what little the lyrics left to the imagination was shown in the videos. Then Laura’d had to suffer through Delilah’s flop movie, and her flop marriage to her co-star. Only a couple of years later, though, the singer made a big comeback with her Blonde on the Run World Tour. In Canada the police had almost stopped the show and arrested her. In Italy the Pope had denounced her. Then the documentary movie had come out, revealing that the goings-on backstage had been even hotter than the show itself.
Last year Laura had stayed up late watching the Oscar show, because Delilah was up for Best Actress. But she didn’t win, and some cynics said that it was disappointment and not motherhood that had led to the current hiatus in her career. The curious fact was that she’d become even more of an object of facination since she’d gone into relative seclusion.
Harper had to admit to himself that he was nervous. Now that he was about to meet Delilah, he was glad he’d never seen her naked. It hadn’t been easy to avoid the sight of her bare body over the last decade or so, but he’d managed.
Bobs threw open the double doors and stepped back. He
was going to wait in the hall, apparently. Harper went in.
It was a small sitting room with high-backed armchairs ranged around a coffee table. A bowl of brilliant azalea blossoms stood in the fireplace. There appeared to be no one in the room except a child, a little girl not much more than a year old. She was working her way around the coffee table hand over hand. It took concentration; she didn’t have this walking business down yet. She looked up at Harper with large, solemn eyes.
This must be Fatima, Delilah’s child. He smiled and said, “Hello, there.”
A blond head came into view over the chairback. The woman had been slouching there, invisible to Harper. She turned to look at him, but even then he wasn’t sure she was Delilah. He’d been expecting the masque of her stage makeup: the platinum mane, pale face, heavy black brows and bloodred lips. This was a good-looking woman with golden-brown hair, big blue eyes, and a light suntan. Her brows weren’t particularly heavy and her lips weren’t particularly full. If he’d passed her on the street, he would have turned to look at her but wouldn’t have guessed who she was.
She got up and came toward him. She was wearing a baggy T-shirt and long, tight lycra shorts of the kind European bicycle-racers wore. She had the legs of a bike-racer too, Harper thought—thin and hard-muscled, with bony knees. She didn’t say anything, just put out her hand. Harper took it.
Then she did something no one else had ever done. Continuing to hold his hand, she turned it over and looked down at it.
“I read about how you hurt your band. Scary story. Does it still hurt?”
She seemed to want a real answer, so he said, “In cold weather. Or when I’m tired or tense.”
She was still studying the hand. “Must’ve taken a lot of surgery.”
He hesitated, but no one had ever called Delilah squeamish, so he told her briefly about his treatment in the hospital. He was aware of other people coming into the room behind him, but she paid no attention to them. She was concentrating on Harper.