"Detective FitzGerald has just explained to us, Mr. Ambassador, that any missing report would go into a data bank, accessible to any official
group."
"Internationally as well?"
"Of course. In the case of your wife, Interpol will hop on it. Not that this means that anything will be done. Although in this case, the impetus will be there. For the press as well."
"It will be like being up against a firing squad," Bunkie muttered.
"Wonderful," the Ambassador said gloomily. He had lowered his head. Suddenly he looked up and turned to Bunkie. "For your Senator as well." In the darkness, she could see Bunkie's eyes, which seemed to suck the greenish light into them. It made him look ominous, hateful. Iago thwarted, she thought suddenly. His aura stank of resentment. Incompetent strangers, he must be thinking, had pissed on his dream.
"You never had words over this … this affair … with your wife?" Fiona asked.
"Angry words?"
Fiona nodded.
"No." He sighed. "We have a rather unique marriage."
"Did she have any other lovers?"
"I doubt it. She genuinely adored the Senator."
"She told you this?"
"Of course."
Gamey stuff, Fiona thought. Maybe it was a turn-on for both of them.
"Wasn't this … politically speaking … the affair itself … dangerous?"
She marveled at his value system. Was it decadence or naivete?
"One expects discretion in these things," he said simply. "It is the danger that provides the interest."
She stole a glance at Monte, whose eyes looked upward in exasperation.
"Did you know about Mr. Farrington's visit?" Fiona asked.
"Yes," the Ambassador said.
"Your wife told you?"
"Yes."
She turned to Bunkie.
"Did you know she told her husband?"
"Not until he told me," Bunkie said.
"Did the Senator know?"
"We keep him out of this," Bunkie said. He talked in the direction of Monte. "Leastwise you could have clued her in."
"The point is we, the Ambassador and us, are in it together," Monte explained. "Everything is on the table now."
"Allies for the common good," Fiona said, hoping her revulsion didn't show. Self-interest makes strange bedfellows, she knew. It was a cliche of the political life. Unfortunately the human side of it was repelling.
Helga's elegant question-mark posture materialized in her mind. She saw her bejeweled and graceful as she danced, melding into the body of Sam Langford, gliding with him in a sensual pas de deux. If it was love you wanted, lady, you should have steered clear, she told her silently, remembering her own titillation.
"Have you checked everywhere?" Fiona asked the Ambassador. "Friends? Relatives? Even acquaintances?"
"I have been on the phone for twenty-four hours. I've used every euphemism I know, stretching discretion to its furthest point. I have racked my brains for some sign of this action coming. Anything. There was simply nothing to predict this. No harsh words. No subtle hints. Yes, we went our separate ways. Our only rule was discretion. We understood our responsibilities completely. I am absolutely certain that Mr. Farrington's explanation was accepted with total understanding. We are quite mature about these things. The fact is that I'm baffled. She had no reason to disappear. Not on her own."
"When did you see her last?"
"I told you. Yesterday morning."
"When?"
"At breakfast."
"How was she dressed?"
"Her dressing gown."
"What did you talk about?"
He thought for a moment.
"Events of the day," the Ambassador said. "We read the papers at breakfast."
"How do you read them?"
She was trying to get a picture of that last moment of his observation.
"I start with the _New York Times_. She starts with the _Washington Post_. We sit in the breakfast room. Our cook serves us and leaves. We have a pleasant view of the garden through a bay window."
"Now you're getting it," Fiona said.
"What sections does she read first?"
"Style. Women love the style section. My wife is a social animal. She likes to read the pay coverage, the reviews. I have to read the more serious material. The editorials, for example."
"Does she read the more serious material?"
"Not often."
"Is this important?" Bunkie asked.
"Probably. She is a trained interrogator," Monte said.
"I don't mind. Really," the Ambassador said. He was quiet for a moment and she let him think.
"I'm trying to get you to remember that last moment. What was on her mind?"
"Real estate," he said suddenly. "Real estate was on her mind. It is a topic of conversation in Washington, the value of real estate. The extraordinary appreciation. She was thinking of investing in real estate." He paused again. "Yes. She always read the classified for the real estate."
"Had she made any investments?"
"Actually, no. But she was interested. Occasionally she mentioned having gone to look at something." He shrugged. "You see, the wife of an Ambassador has a problem. She cannot work, except as a volunteer. In Austria she owned a fashion boutique, but sold it when we married. She liked the idea of travel, the diplomatic life, but she was an active woman. She had a head for business. Real estate interested her." He nodded. "Yes, I remember. She did read the real estate classified yesterday morning as well."
"And then?"
"I left the table, showered, dressed and went off to the Embassy."
"You never saw her again that day? Or spoke to her on the phone?"
"No. It was quite a busy day."
"You don't know where she went?"
"No. Nor did any of the servants."
"She didn't take the car?"
"No."
"Have you found her wallet? Do you know what she wore?"
"I did not find her wallet. And, frankly, I did not keep track of her clothes. She went out. That is evident. Then she disappeared."
She heard the rain dancing on the car roof, Monte breathing heavily beside her.
"Sometimes we never know what motivates people," Fiona said. "Even those we love most."
"I think she just got fed up about something," Bunkie interrupted, "and decided to jump ship. Maybe she had it up to here with everyone. With all of us. Maybe the only person she was comfortable with was herself. She'll either come back in her own time or she won't. Doesn't mean we have to call out the cavalry."
Despite her distaste for Bunkie, he a ppeared to have the most logical
attitude on the subject. Never trouble trouble till trouble troubles
you.
"Got the picture, Fi?" Monte asked.
Like a half-developed Polaroid, she thought. There were unseen complexities here. Wheels within wheels.
"Who else knew?" she asked. Kessel and Bunkie exchanged glances, revealing a commonality that had escaped her. Was it a subtle conspiracy? Or simply the kinship of fear? No explanation necessary. They knew what she meant.
"No one," the Ambassador said. "Only me."
"That's difficult to do," Fiona pressed. "People observe. They have eyes." She shot a glance at Bunkie. "Where did they see each other?"
"My place," Bunkie said.
"There are neighbors, repair people, delivery men."
"Is this relevant?" the Ambassador asked.
"I'm not sure."
"Then why ask?" Bunkie snarled.
"Because it's important," Monte snapped.
"Okay, you want to know," Bunkie said with exasperation. "We had this routine. I have one of these garages. Electronic doors. I picked her up in different places. I got this one-way reflective glass in my car. No one can see in. I just drove her into the garage. The Senator walked the two blocks. They did what they did and I picked her up and dropped her off."
She
looked at Kessel, who showed no reaction.
"You really had it down," Fiona said with grudging admiration.
"Bunkie thinks of everything," Monte said with sarcasm.
"Politics teaches. Remember Gary Hart," Bunkie said.
"If it was such a good system why stop?" Fiona asked Bunkie, who ejected a bitter laugh.
"When the mia turns on its brights, even the cockroaches scramble," Bunkie said. "Nobody's perfect. Everybody gets careless. Worse, they were beginning to have ideas."
"Romantic notions?"
"More or less."
"You saw that?"
"Part of the job," he said with surly arrogance.
Again she looked at Kessel. Again no reaction.
"And did you also see that?" she asked Kessel, only gently.
"She is a romantic," the Ambassador said. "But, above all, practical. She also understood the security aspects. I am certain she told no one."
"Surely they used the telephone," Fiona said. "Embassies are often tapped."
"We have a safe line," the Ambassador said, showing the briefest glimpse of international intrigue. It crossed her mind that perhaps the Ambassador and his lady had conspired in this for reasons that had more to do with the relations between governments than people. In that case others surely knew. Many others. Intelligence agencies and their ubiquitous agents. The CIA. Fantastic scenarios suggested themselves.
"Maybe your government was tapping," Fiona said.
"I am quite sophisticated about these matters, Detective FitzGerald." She saw his face flicker into a small smile. "Security is sometimes a double-edged sword for a diplomat. It can actually strengthen the ramparts of discretion. Mrs. Kessel was also sophisticated in this and I assure you that I had no knowledge of the mechanics of her liaisons. Nor would I inquire. She was free to indulge as long as it did not interfere with my mission or our marriage."
"Sounds like a conflict of terms," Fiona said.
"I know," the Ambassador answered. "But you would be surprised how common such arrangements are."
Not as much surprised as offended, she offered silently. By rights, considering her experiences with politics and the police and the social hurly-burly of the Washington high-life, she should have been more jaded, more cynical, more tolerant of such oblique values. It surprised her that she wasn't. Happily so, she told herself.
"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 lo 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?"
Adler, Warren - FitzGerald 03 - Senator Love Page 8