by Warren Adler
"Unfortunately, Mr. Herbert," Fiona said. "We can't accept the case as closed." Fiona had no illusions as to how the Eggplant would react to such a suggestion.
"We? Come on, girls. This is bullshit."
"Maybe so," Fiona said, determined to be patient, "But wouldn't you at least concede that you could be wrong? I mean as a lawyer, in the face of no real proof..."
"As a lawyer," he said, "I will always leave room for a big fat maybe. As a father of a victim, I reiterate my comment. Bullshit! Barker did it. No question about it. I hope he is rotting in hell at this very moment."
Fiona had seen relatives of loved ones who had been murdered deliberately defy logic to accept the concept of vengence. Revenge, despite moralizing opinions to the contrary, was therapeutic, cleansing, a catharsis. She could understand why Herbert clung to the idea.
"We need to continue this investigation, Mr. Herbert. And, unfortunately, we may need your help."
"I gave you my help. I spent money on my own investigation, which proved my theory. What more can I give?"
Again, she could detect the tiniest concession to the idea that he could be wrong, although it was unlikely that he would ever admit it, even to himself.
"I need to know who else she might have known well enough in this town to contact."
"This is really stupid. Hell, she knew lots of people here. We've entertained many of them in our Minnesota place."
"Such as?"
"You're really serious about this, aren't you?"
"Very." Fiona paused. "How would you like it if—this is purely hypothetical, mind you—a man was still at large who could do this again?"
She studied Herbert's face, saw the briefest twitch of doubt.
"There is no downside for you on this, Mr. Herbert," Gail said. "We'd be less than thorough if we just declared Barker guilty, even if he was, without..."
"You people," Herbert shrugged with contempt. "Alright, what the hell." He turned towards Fiona. "Yes, we entertained important people. Let's see ... Both our Illinois senators. The now Vice-President. Two sitting members of the Supreme Court." Gail shot Fiona a quick glance, apparently unnoticed by Herbert. "We're plugged in. I am very involved politically."
"Did Phyla set up any appointments with these people?" Fiona asked.
"She knew them. She could have. Frankly, she preferred to do this on her own. I could have gotten her a job anywhere, but she wanted to find one on her own. Eventually she would have gone into the firm."
"Was she close to any of them? Like, who among them did she respect the most?"
Herbert stood up and looked out the window, which offered a clear view of the White House shining in the morning sun.
"I know she corresponded with a number of them and they were enormously solicitous of a young girl with a very bright future."
He had turned around, then as his eyes began to well with tears, he spun around again. They waited until he got himself under control. When he turned again, he showed more belligerence.
"Are you pointing an accusing finger at these people? Really, how can you possibly think that any of them could be responsible for such a base act? Just the idea of it is repulsive. This is crazy. How do you people justify your jobs?"
Fiona watched him calmly, proud of her own restraint. He apparently needed this little tantrum to preserve his equilibrium.
"By doing it, Mr. Herbert," Fiona said. He did not respond, turning around once again to face the view.
"Okay," he mumbled.
"I was asking if there was anyone special that she was particularly fond of, respected deeply. Someone she might have called or seen when she came here for wise advice. We've interviewed three people who she met with formally. What we are looking for is someone she might have talked with who could have referred her to others."
"She was very fond of the Vice-President. We knew him when he was a senator. The man had a daughter her age and they were friends. She might have called him."
Gail took out her notebook and began to make notes.
"Anyone else?"
"She corresponded regularly with Justice Farley Lipscomb."
Peripherally, Fiona saw Gail freeze. She needed all the self-discipline she could muster to maintain a calm demeanor. But her heart was pounding in her chest.
"Did you ever see any of that correspondence?" Fiona asked, without missing a beat.
"Of course not. Occasionally, she would read me some passages. Usually they referred to some points of constitutional law about which she was seeking clarification. He was remarkably cooperative. She could inspire that kind of relationship."
Fiona masked her excitement with a cough.
"And was he ... and Mrs. Lipscomb ... one of your regular visitors at the lake?"
"Yes, they were. He loves fishing. When Margo was alive they came up every summer. It's been more sporadic since she's gone." He had turned to face her, then turned again, to hide his emotions.
"Any other long-term visitors?"
"Our two senators came up regularly with their wives. The governor." He reeled off a list of titles. This was a man who knew how to ingratiate himself with powerful people, especially those with official titles.
"Were you always present when your guests came up to visit?"
"I tried to be," he said, clearing his throat and turning to face her again. "What are the implications of these questions, Sergeant? They make little sense to me. Besides, my patience is being strained."
"Sometimes they came to stay with your wife while you were away?"
"I have a very busy practice."
"But Phyla and your wife were around to host your guests?"
"Yes. When Phyla was in from school."
"And you don't know if she called or saw any of those people who you entertained?"
"If you were thorough investigators, you would have checked the telephone log of the Mayflower."
"We did," Gail said, reading from her notebook. We considered the calls routine. No, she did not call any of your powerful friends, Mr. Herbert. She confirmed her appointments. She checked on her airline reservations. She called some old friends who lived out of town." Gail paused. "There's also no record of her calling Justice Lipscomb. Not from the Mayflower," she said pointedly, again exchanging a quick glance with Fiona.
"Phyla was headstrong," Herbert said. "Maybe she wanted to show me she could do it on her own."
"But her relationship with Justice Lipscomb was..." Fiona paused. "More fatherly. Wouldn't she have made it a point to call him?" Fiona asked blandly.
"Her prerogative," Herbert shrugged. "I don't understand where you're going."
"All I'm trying to do is explore all the possibilities. She might have actually gone to see him. There might have been a referral. You know, Justice Lipscomb might have passed her along to someone who might have helped."
"I got a long condolence letter from him in Chicago, handwritten, telling me how much he admired Phyla."
Fiona felt heat rush to her face. She hoped the flush would not catch Herbert's eye. It didn't.
"Did the letter say he met with Phyla while she was in town?" Fiona asked casually.
"No. It made no mention of that."
"Did she ever inquire about a clerkship with him?" Fiona asked.
"If she did, he'd have given it to her without question," Herbert said.
"It might be helpful to know," Fiona asked.
"Know what?"
"If they were in touch. Phyla and Justice Lipscomb."
"Why?"
"She might have said something to him, told him what her plans were, who she was seeing in town..."
Fiona knew she was taking a chance. She hoped that Herbert's overbearing vanity, his political star-fucking, would goad him to call Lipscomb, the object being to apply pressure, unnerve him, force him to deal with Fiona.
She shot a glance at Gail, hoping she might get some further encouragement from her reaction. Wisely, Gail, too, showed no emotion.
&
nbsp; As Fiona had expected, the idea of proving his closeness to Lipscomb seemed to challenge him. Without commenting, he looked up a number in a leather notebook, then picked up the phone and dialed.
"In session. Terribly sorry. I forgot," he said, instructing the person at the other end of the phone to give Justice Lipscomb the message to return his call.
When he hung up he glared at Fiona.
"Anything else to satisfy your claim to intrepid police work?"
"I appreciate your cooperation," Fiona said.
"I don't," Herbert replied.
In the car going back to headquarters, Gail admitted the possibility that she had been wrong.
"You don't have to, Gail," Fiona said.
"I feel awful about that boy," Gail said.
"It wasn't your fault."
"I could have sworn..."
"Even I was getting there," Fiona said, "despite what I felt in my gut."
"I was there. Now I'm not so sure," Gail said, still on the edge of belief, but tottering fast. "But this relationship with Lipscomb. It does make one think."
"It's impossible for me to be objective," Fiona said. "Subconsciously, I was convinced from the beginning. Herbert connected them. I feel a lot better about the logic of my gut."
"But there's not a shred of evidence. Not even circumstantial."
"I told you the bastard was clever. The only chance we have is to get him to react and hope he'll make a fatal mistake."
"Sounds like a long shot to me," Gail sighed.
"I got him to react once before. He needs to feel threatened."
"Alright, Fiona. Herbert's call pushes him ... but to do what?"
"To come calling, Gail. He needs to come calling."
Gail shook her head.
"Then what?"
"We get to his weak spot," Fiona said, a plan forming in her mind.
Herbert connected them. I feel a lot better about the logic of my gut."
17
As they headed to police headquarters, Prentiss called her father on the car phone.
"Is it any better, Dad?" she said, silent as he replied. "I'll be with you tonight. Sorry about last night." She looked at Fiona. "Something came up. I know, Dad. Just do your best. Of course. See you later."
She hung up.
"Fathers and daughters," she sighed. "Why can't all men be like our fathers?"
"Good question," Fiona said. She, too, had adored her father. "Perhaps they just can't measure up."
"No way," Gail said, patting Fiona on the shoulder. The gesture presaged what they would be sharing as friends and how much they had in common.
When they got back to the squad room the Eggplant was fuming, apoplectic. With a crook-of-the-finger sign, a very bad omen, he summoned them both into his office. His ashtray was piled high with unsmoked, chewed-up panatelas and there was a half-filled bottle of liquid Maalox on his desk. When he was in that state, Fiona knew, there was nothing to be done but ride out the storm.
"I have spent the morning being pilloried by the mayor, abused by the police commissioner and reviled by Tom Herbert. In a very real sense, you have both fucked me over."
He stretched out his hands palms upward in an exaggerated pose of supplication. "I have sympathized and empathized with the special problems of your gender. Have I not understood this? Have I not been fair to a fault? Have I not been decent, open, honest, supportive?" He turned to Gail. "You, Prentiss. Have I not sponsored you, been your rabbi? Just to get you into this division required special dispensation."
Gail nodded, her yellow-flecked eyes alert but troubled. "Do you know what it means to have to justify the actions of your troops, to be second-guessed by others? Who was it that insitituted this experiment in the first place? Well, my little foray into social engineering has been a fuck-up."
He shook his head, unwrapped another panatela and jammed it, unlit, into his mouth.
"Now," he said, his nostrils quivering. "Whose bright idea was it to get an associate justice of the Supreme Court involved in this case?"
Fiona was about to answer, but Gail spoke first.
"Ours, Chief," she said. "It was merely an inquiry, not an involvement."
"When is an inquiry not an involvement?" the Eggplant shot back.
"It was purely routine," Gail argued. "We simply wanted to be certain that we had touched all the bases before we closed the case." She looked toward Fiona.
"I take full responsibility," Fiona interrupted. "I thought we should take out a little insurance."
The Eggplant held up his hand.
"Let's back up here. We have a man who admitted being in the room with the lady very close to the time of her death. He has a string of accusations against him about violent sexual conduct. He admits lying to us. He commits suicide with an apology..."
"Not an apology for the crime," Fiona said. "That's the missing link. 'Sorry' could have meant that he was sorry for creating any problems for those left behind."
"Clairvoyance, FitzGerald, is a dangerous indulgence for a homicide detective."
"It's not that," Fiona protested, unable to bring herself to the point of personal revelation. It was something she simply could not share with the Eggplant.
"I happen to agree with her," Gail said, illustrating to Fiona the strength of their bonding.
"Do you? What spilled between the cup and the lip, Prentiss?" He cut a look at Fiona.
"I no longer believe that Phelps Barker was the man."
"I searched his place, Chief," Fiona interjected.
He appeared to be winding up for an angry reply.
"I doubt if we needed a warrant. All part of procedures, Chief. I found nothing to indicate that he was into..."
"I don't want to hear this, Sergeant," the Eggplant fumed. "I don't want anything to suggest that we can't close on this one."
"Even if we're wrong?" Fiona asked, her tone ominous.
The Eggplant's eyes roamed their faces as his anger abated. Despite his constant battle to maintain credible closing statistics, an almost impossible task, and his many other foibles, he had a moral commitment to fidelity. He could not abide even the slightest hint that an innocent man had been railroaded to make a statistical impression. As Fiona knew it would, her question had calmed him.
"So we keep this case open forever and I take the poker up the kazoo from the powers that be..." He stopped abruptly and shook his head in disgust, perhaps realizing that this was the wrong image to project at this moment. "All that aside, it does not excuse putting the name of a respected Supreme Court justice into the hopper. Herbert, it seems, under pressure from both of you, called the man to inquire whether his daughter had spoken to him or visited him while on her ill-fated mission to the murder capital of the U.S. of A."
"Yes. We were there," Fiona said. "He left a message."
"And the message he got back from the justice was a scathing indictment of the methodology. If the girl had called him, he certainly would have come forward on his own. It would have been his solemn duty. He was, according to Herbert, quite put out. Who could blame him? A Supreme Court justice is the ultimate untarnished icon."
He smashed out his unsmoked panatela, stabbing it into the pile in the ashtray. Fiona's eyes shifted toward Gail. Obviously, Farley's response indicated that he was reacting. Outrage was exactly the response Fiona had wanted.
"So I am standing here with my pants down, girls," the Eggplant said, "The mayor and Herbert want us to declare the case closed, Herbert because he believes Barker was the guilty party, and the mayor because he doesn't want the hassle. And to buttress their position, our vaunted arbiter, the media, will surely interpret the suicide as an admission of guilt."
"So it's the media that makes our decisions now," Fiona said, shaking her head to deliberately exaggerate the point. "That's not like you, Chief." She was unloading her entire arsenal of guilt-inducing weaponry. In the Eggplant's paranoid world, the media was the archenemy.
"Know when to hold. Know whe
n to fold. On this one we fold," he said with an air of finality.
"And you believe, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Phelps Barker is the perpetrator?" Fiona asked.
His hesitation was testimony enough. He was doing the bureaucratically correct thing. In the absence of Fiona's revelation of her past experience with Farley Lipscomb, what was he to conclude?
"All parties will be satisfied," the Eggplant sighed. "And we get to add another millimeter to our miserably short bar graph showing closed cases. Perhaps, too, the harassing armies that surround me will retreat for a day or so. Give me time to polish my protective armor."
"But we can't," Fiona began.
"Can't? Can't? Is that the response I can expect from my lady detective team?" Fiona caught the double meaning of his sarcasm. Although he had decreed an end to the Herbert case, he had not closed them down as a team.
She wanted to explain to him that this was a miscarraige of justice, but then she would have to tell him the truth behind her assertion. Looking toward Gail, he saw a mirror image of her own disappointment.
"But your are in luck, ladies. We have another one that fits your agenda. Female, black, young, raped, apparently tortured. Body is with the medical examiner."
"You won't reconsider on the Herbert case, Chief?" Fiona asked.
"The fat lady has sung," he said, jamming another panatela in his mouth. Then he swiveled around in his battered chair and showed them the back of his head. Fiona knew his method of dismissal well and left him to contemplate the view of the historical landmarks he could barely see through the grime of his window.
After the disappointing meeting with the Eggplant, Fiona and Gail huddled in a corner of the deserted squad room.
"Don't blame yourself," Gail said. "In your place I wouldn't have told him either."
"I'm not too happy with myself, Gail, but I know that if I did tell him, things could change between us and probably hurt my relationships in the department. Bad enough to be female and white. Add kinky to that and it goes downhill from there."
"And, even if he kept the case open, there would be no guarantees that we could nail Lipscomb," Gail said.
"Nobody said life was fair," Fiona sighed. "It just bugs me to see Farley get away with it." She realized that she had circled the wagons around her conviction and was protecting it against attack. "The worst part is that I can't shake my absolute certainty. In the face of no evidence, no real proof, I still feel it's him."