Washington Masquerade

by Warren Adler

  “Are you saying, Mrs. Burns, that he might have been involved in something that kept him from his parental chores?”

  “Did I say that?” Mrs. Burns asked.

  “You said that at some point he was not as diligent in his carpooling duties, for example. Looking back, when did this lack of diligence begin?”

  “Let’s see. The girls start practicing in August, goes to November, I think. It’s impossible to pinpoint, maybe the end of last season. I can’t be sure.” She continued to calculate. Then she looked up, and her eyes met Fiona’s.

  “I really can’t be sure. Why should it matter?” she said.

  “Was there much carpooling between soccer season?” Fiona asked.

  “It wasn’t that intense. Some. He would do his share.”

  “He never missed?” Fiona asked.

  “Sometimes. I told you, we’re all busy people.”

  “More than usual?”

  She seemed exasperated, but there was something suddenly hesitant in her response.

  “I just don’t understand….”

  “We’re trying to pinpoint how long he was….”

  “When you think his behavior changed?” Mrs. Burns shot back. “Frankly, that is absurd. Nothing changed in his character, in his behavior, in his way of life. What is the point of all this?”

  Fiona cut a glance at Izzy, who nodded and winked. Fiona pressed on.

  “But something occurred in your husband’s life… in his work… that forced some changes in his schedule about ten months ago, something that forced him to make adjustments in his parenting chores.”

  “I suppose.” Mrs. Burns was becoming reflective, her eyes glazing, as if they were turning inward, poking around in hidden thoughts.

  “How did it affect your daughter?”

  Fiona had to repeat the question to rekindle Mrs. Burns’ attention.

  “She seemed understanding, knowing that her dad was involved in significant work. He was a national figure, after all. She knew that. Not that it mattered. To her, he was Daddy, just Daddy.” She paused. “She was not overjoyed when he didn’t show up for a soccer game or practice, and she was not bashful in registering her complaint. She liked him to be there watching her. I think she felt the same way about me observing her, but for her, well, her daddy was the apple of her eye.”

  The idea of jealousy as a motive for murder stirred Fiona’s interest. It was a stock motive, a universal killing idea, high up on the charts. It was, Fiona thought, cutting another glance at Izzy, worth hot pursuit.

  “And that bothered you?”

  “Bother me? Don’t be ridiculous. You can’t be serious. Having a crush on one’s father is one of the most natural emotions for a young girl. It was the same with our older daughter. Sure, they love their mom, but to be loved by their dad, that is the grand prize for a young girl.” She turned suddenly to Fiona. “How did you feel about your father, Sergeant Fitzgerald? I have since learned he was an important Senator.”

  Fiona felt her own pull of nostalgia, which, for a brief moment, almost overwhelmed her.

  “I worshipped him,” she said, her voice suddenly giving way. She had to clear her throat to speak. “My father was my sun and my moon. I know the feeling. Not that I didn’t love my mother.” Suddenly the old feelings of guilt surfaced. “It was no contest. My father was numero uno in my life. Even now.”

  “Well then, no further explanation needed. My dad is a doctor. I adore him. We talk often. So you see, Officer Fitzgerald, not all families are dysfunctional, and many daughters do love their dads. So let’s agree not to read any nasty thoughts into such a relationship,” Mrs. Burns said. Fiona felt her reaching out to their commonality. “The truth is that Lisa was very upset when he wasn’t there, when he had to change his schedule. I won’t deny it. She told him so in no uncertain terms. He was very contrite and apologetic.”

  Why, Fiona wondered, is she dwelling on this?

  “But he continued breaking his schedule?”

  Again, she seemed to turn inward, obviously pondering the situation, like walking into a room where the furniture had been rearranged.

  “It doesn’t change the conclusion. He was obviously involved in something very, very important. To disappoint his daughter in anything required something of major, major significance.”

  “Something secret, very secret,” Fiona said.

  Mrs. Burns nodded, her mind obviously churning over other observations that fit the hypothesis.

  “I lost my husband to power-mad people thirsty for revenge,” she said emphatically, too emphatically. The dramatic language was laden with unmistakable conviction.

  The telephone rang again. She looked at it, resisted picking it up, then turned again to Fiona.

  “I have business, Officers. We’re living on one paycheck now.”

  It was clearly disingenuous. Economic sustenance did not appear to be a problem, considering what Burns’ income had been. It was, Fiona knew, a signal for the interview to end.

  Fiona and Izzy stood up.

  “Thank you for your time, Mrs. Burns,” Fiona said, beginning to tote up what they had learned.

  “If Freud was still in fashion,” Izzy said, “you could lay the deed on her doorstep. Ergo, she could not abide her husband’s lust for their daughter, a classic dilemma. Incest, according to our Jewish sages, is an abomination. It is implied in the commandment on adultery.”

  “Jesus, Izzy!”

  “Jesus, one of ours, terrific carpenter.”

  “Beware, Izzy. In certain circles, them’s fightin’ words.”

  Beyond the badinage was a pregnant idea. She had encountered it before in her own homicide career and the books were full of it. It was not a farfetched motive, except that Jane Harrington, to whom she was showing a house, had confirmed Mrs. Burns’ whereabouts at the fateful moment of her husband’s demise, which was locked into a specific time frame.

  ***

  They had coffee at a Starbucks outside the Post building. They had set up another appointment with Charlotte Desmond and were waiting for her to show up. She hadn’t wanted to meet them in the Post City Room, and they had determined that instead of being eager to assist them, she was now a reluctant witness.

  “Okay, we did confirm a change in parenting, give or take a year,” Izzy said. “But she avoided mentioning any change in her relationship with her husband.”

  “Like what?”

  “What goes on between a husband and wife? The little things that indicate a weather change—short temper, change in attitude, long silences, angry exchanges, little dissatisfactions—you know what I mean, Fi? Observed nuances, a forgotten kiss good-bye….”

  “Sex?”

  “That, too.”

  “Like a reduction in couplings?”

  Izzy laughed.

  “Say down to zero,” he said, “now that would tell us a great deal.”

  “Like there was nothing left to keep the home fires burning?”

  “Or yearning.”

  “Always a possibility in this town,” Fiona sighed. “No matter how many are outed for these sexual discretions, they cannot stay away from it, top to bottom. What did Clinton say in his book when dealing with the Lewinsky episode: Because it was there. They all know it could be a career breaker but still go at it like rabbits in heat. Years ago, the media would never touch that stuff.”

  She thought suddenly of her own needs in that department. To a woman, the signs of a man’s diminishing interest were obvious. Desire, she had learned, was directly proportional to hydraulics, and vice versa. She smiled inwardly at the idea. Time and longevity had their own special effect, and a long marriage could be characterized as same old, same old.

  “Hey, Fi, this was a columnist, a media celebrity. Who would give a damn about his sex life?”

  “His w
ife for starters,” Fiona said. An idea had popped into her mind. She let it hang there.

  At that point, Charlotte Desmond arrived, looking very unhappy. She joined their table, refusing any coffee, and fell heavily into her chair like a sack of potatoes.

  “I’ve told you everything I know,” she said. “I would not have come, but my bosses said to be cooperative, so here I am.”

  “Thanks, Charlotte,” Fiona said, forcing herself to be ingratiating. The woman’s face expressed arrogance and extreme displeasure. She looked as if she had been abruptly awakened from a deep sleep. “We’re just trying to clear up loose ends.”

  “There are no loose ends,” Charlotte snapped back, her voice edgy with annoyance.

  “When Mr. Burns was absent from the office, did he keep you informed of where he was going?” Fiona asked, plunging ahead, forgoing small talk.

  Before she replied, Charlotte sighed with exasperation.

  “That again,” she sighed again with impatience. “Not all the time, it wasn’t necessary—when he needed me, he would call me at the paper. And he had his cell phone.” She hesitated for a moment. “Didn’t we deal with that earlier?”

  “So he was reachable at all times if you needed him?”

  “Not all. Sometimes he shut off his cell or there was no signal.”

  “Like in the subway?” Fiona pressed.

  “I guess.”

  “Did he take the subway often?”

  “How would I know?”

  “Did he call in often,” Fiona asked, “when he left the office?”

  She hesitated, smirking and shaking her head again, looking at Fiona as a mother might look at a recalcitrant child.

  “Most of the time,” Charlotte shrugged, but Fiona, despite her attitude, could read beneath the façade. She was showing signs of confusion.

  “Most?”

  “I was his assistant, not his mother.”

  She was getting surly now, which indicated to Fiona that she was fast approaching a sensitive area.

  “Would ‘most of the time’ characterize the weeks, even days, leading up to your being transferred?”

  Charlotte frowned, expelling a whispery obscenity.

  “In other words,” Fiona followed up swiftly, giving her little time for reflection. “Were you having difficulty communicating during the last few months as his assistant? As if he didn’t want you to know what he was up to?”

  Charlotte cut a glance at Izzy, as if she was looking for any ally.

  “When he was needed for some reason, I could track him down.”

  “Could you?” Fiona asked. “Always?”

  She was showing increasing signs of angry discomfort.

  “Where is this going?”

  “All I’m asking, Charlotte, is were you always in touch? Did you know where he went when he was not in the office? Did you notice a change in the few weeks before you were transferred? Was he more secretive than usual?”

  “I can’t really remember,” she said, stonewalling now.

  Fiona piled on more pressure.

  “You knew where he was some of the time, right? Playing squash with Mr. Perkins, carpooling his daughter to school, especially to her soccer practice and games. You knew that, of course?”

  “Damn it, I told you I did.”

  “But you said sometimes his daughter would call and ask where he was. Isn’t that what you said?”

  “Sometimes. So what?”

  Fiona cut a glance at Izzy who nodded, acknowledging that she was honing in on an idea to which both subscribed.

  “So did you know where he was when he was not carpooling his daughter?” Fiona pressed.

  “I was only his assistant. I mean, I didn’t know where he was every minute. For crying out loud, neither did Mrs. Burns.”

  “How did you know that?” Izzy intervened, as if he was obeying some mysterious cue that passed to him from Fiona.

  She let him take the question tiller.

  “I… she must have called on occasion. I can’t give you chapter and verse.”

  “When he didn’t show up for his parenting chores?”

  “That wasn’t on my résumé. It was Mr. Burns’ personal business.”

  “We do understand that, Charlotte,” Izzy said. “But you did say you knew his whereabouts most of the time like any efficient assistant.”

  “Except for personal business.” She looked at him belligerently, which seemed to prod him.

  “Personal business, of course. Did you know he kept his so-called disguises in one of his desk drawers? The one he kept locked. Were you ever curious as to what he had stashed there?”

  “No. Besides, I also had a desk drawer that I locked with personal things in it.”

  “You were never curious about what he put there?”

  “Why should I have been? It was his personal stuff.”

  “So you knew nothing about his false moustaches?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Did you see any physical signs? Ever? Say some glue residue on his upper lip?”

  Something seemed to light up in her eyes, perhaps a recalled memory. Then she shook her head, but a moment too late.

  “You did see something of the sort, didn’t you, Charlotte?” Izzy said.

  “It could have been a cold. You know when the nostrils get irritated from blowing too frequently.”

  “Come on, Charlotte,” Fiona interjected, “drop the pretense. You were pissed off when he canned you. Why the charade? We are trying to get to the bottom of why he… you know what I mean? Why are you protecting him?”

  “From what? He’s done nothing wrong except to get himself killed.” Charlotte offered an expression of disgust. “You people,” she said with a sneer.

  Fiona and Izzy exchanged glances. He was throwing the ball back to Fiona.

  “Charlotte….” Fiona paused, staring into the woman’s eyes, the pupils of which seemed to be expanding like small balloons, “did you suspect that Mr. Burns was having an affair?”

  A shot in the dark, she knew, but Fiona was detecting something in Charlotte’s defensiveness that seemed beyond mere loyalty, something deeply emotional, perhaps jealousy. It could not be ruled out.

  “Absolutely not,” she answered, raising her voice in indignation. “What are you trying to do?” She stood up. “I will not answer such dirty-minded questions.”

  Customers at other tables suddenly looked up.

  “Please sit down, Charlotte,” Fiona ordered. “Or would you rather that we asked these questions back in headquarters?”

  Charlotte’s face flushed with anger and frustration. Breathing heavily, she sat down, looking fiercely at the curious customers, who turned their heads away in obvious embarrassment.

  “You people are awful, awful,” she said between clenched teeth.

  “So you completely rule that out,” Fiona said, “about Mr. Burns having an affair?”

  “A pack of lies. He was an ardent family man, totally committed to his wife and children. He would never, ever. No way, not him.” She was adamant, borderline hysterical.

  “You don’t think it’s possible?”

  Something in the woman’s passionate protestation was working inside her, burrowing into her bone marrow.

  “I told you, not him.”

  “How can you be so sure?” Fiona directed the question as a challenge.

  “I was his assistant, damn it! I knew him. Maybe better….” She stopped abruptly in midsentence.

  “You weren’t curious why he suddenly stopped showing up on those carpool days in which he was scheduled to take his daughter and her schoolmates to their soccer practice and games? When that happened, were you the one who called to get someone else to take his place?”

  “Of course, I did,” she replied dismissivel
y. “I was his backup. That was my job.”

  “Whom did you call?”

  “My God,” she snickered. “I had a list of other parents. I went down the list. Sometimes they called him when someone couldn’t make it.”

  “He didn’t tell you why he could not make it?”

  “No, he did not.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it was none of my business!”

  “So what excuse did you use when you called the other parents?”

  “Business mostly. They knew what he did. He was a celebrity parent.”

  “But you didn’t know exactly what kind of business? It could have been personal, right?”

  “I guess so.”

  “You weren’t curious?”

  Again she stood up.

  “Just what is going on here? You are trying to smear him. Who put you up to this? I know, you’re part of the conspiracy to ruin his good name. I know what you’re up to. You’re on their side, with them. Damn you! Adam Burns was a good man, a good man.”

  “And you cared a lot about him?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “You suspected him of having an affair?”

  “He would never, never.”

  “But it crossed your mind?”

  “Maybe,” she seemed suddenly horrified at what she had said. “No, not him. He… he wasn’t interested.”

  “How would you know that, Charlotte?” Fiona said, upgrading the implication to an accusation.

  “Because I knew. I knew.”

  She had become militant. More here than meets the eye, Fiona thought, looking about her at the startled customers.

  “Sit down,” Fiona ordered.

  “Fuck you both!” Charlotte cried, storming out of the place.

  Fiona and Izzy watched her leave then looked at each other.

  “Obvious,” Izzy said.

  “She had a crush on him. I’ll bet on it. Unrequited love,” Fiona sighed, “is powerful stuff.” Been there, done that, she wanted to say, but held back, remembering the emotion but not the cast of characters.

  They finished their coffee and drove back to headquarters.

  “Did you notice, Fi? No mention of the big enchilada, the conspiracy theory that is rattling everybody’s cage, especially at the Post. She didn’t mention it.”