“What can I do for you?” Spencer said, only slightly more friendly.
“It’s what I can do for your cousin,” Kipp said. “Everyone in town knows about the trouble he’s in, the troubles he’s had. I read that story that cost him his job with the State Department. About the memo, and the Japanese?”
“I wrote it.”
“I know. That’s why I’ve been coming around, hoping you’d show up again.”
He paused to sip his drink. The bartender watched the two of them a moment, then moved down the bar to busy himself by the cash register.
“Some friends took me to Washington the other night,” Kipp continued. “I was in the hospital a long time, and then recuperating at home. They thought I was ready for a good time. Anyway, we went to Georgetown, to a few bars. And we heard about this party, an after-hours party. You know, just for men.”
Spencer sighed, wondering if he might have a better time if he just went home and reread the death threat he’d found in his mailbox.
“Well, it was a really fabulous party. And all kinds of famous people were there. People you read about in the magazines. I think two congressmen. And the first lady’s social secretary. And some dancers and actors. I … I don’t believe in ‘outing.’ I hate that. I’m not naming any names.”
Of course not. The first lady had thousands of social secretaries.
“And I don’t expect you to use any. Not in print. But, well, some of the people were going upstairs. To the bedrooms. One of my friends did. They charged him money.”
“I’m shocked, shocked, that such a thing could be going on in the nation’s capital.”
“What?”
“Are we anywhere near the point?” Spencer asked.
“Yes. My friend had to borrow my credit card. They had a little machine. I still have the receipt. I’m going to let you have it.” He dug it out of his wallet and set it on the bar. Spencer let it remain there.
“You’re not trying to tell me that my cousin is in some way mixed up in this?”
“Oh no. Heavens no. Don’t I only wish.”
Spencer winced.
“Anyway,” Kipp continued. “We found out later who owns the house, or rents it. It’s Peter Napier. The man whose memo you wrote about? The one who lied about Captain Showers? Dreadful little man. Double chin and a little potbelly.”
“You’re sure about this? It’s not just gossip?”
“It’s not gossip. They say he’s still with the government, or with the national committee, whatever that is. Anyway, he has this large drawing account. And he uses it to finance these parties. And then he turns around and makes money off them.”
“Do you remember the address of this place?”
“Yes,” Kipp said. “I’ll write it on the back of the receipt.”
Spencer snatched it up the instant he was done.
“I’m really in your cousin’s debt,” Kipp said. “He not only saved my life. He helped pay my medical bills and he recommended me for a job over in Upperville when I’m fully recovered. So I, well, I thought that what I’ve just told you might help him get back at those people—straighten things out. I don’t know. It could be something. I didn’t like that Peter Napier at all.”
“Oh, it’ll help, all right.” He fought to keep his utter glee from showing. If it checked out, the story he could write from this could blow people out of the saddle like a bloody bazooka, including perhaps even the almighty Robert Moody. “Right now, Mr. Kipp, I’d like to buy you a very large drink. You like brandy? I see they’ve got some five-star Courvoisier.”
Kipp eyed him strangely, misunderstanding. The bartender, thankfully, intervened. “Are you Jack Spencer?”
“Yes?”
“Phone for you.”
Spencer hurried to take it. The voice was Bensinger’s.
“Sorry I didn’t show,” he said. “I had second thoughts about being seen with you. It’s not been doing my local reputation any good, if you get my drift.”
“That’s all right. The trip wasn’t a complete waste of time.”
“It’s in your car. Under the front seat.”
“What is?”
“That little something Miss Percy wants your cousin to have. Can you get it to him?”
“I think so. Sooner or later.”
“Hope it does some good. I can’t do anything more for you for awhile.”
“Where are you?”
“Down the road. On my way home. I hope you’ll come out again when things get back to normal out here. This is God’s country, you know.”
“Yeah, right.”
Spencer didn’t bother returning to the bar. He was out the inn’s screen door and into his car before anyone else could even speak to him. There was a thick, sealed manila envelope under the seat on the passenger side. It bore only Showers’ name. Spencer hesitated, then tore it open. All that was inside was a videotape cassette, with no labels.
He was stuffing it back in the envelope when he heard a woman’s voice out his window, very near. Startled, he looked up into the lovely, fading, and very tense face of Lenore Fairbrother. The last time he’d seen her, she’d been dancing in the White House foyer with Robert Moody. She’d looked infinitely more happy then than she did now, though by no means more sober.
“I know you,” she said. “You’re David’s wretched cousin, the newspaper spy.”
“Describes me perfectly,” he said. “You must have been reading my Who’s Who listing.” He turned on his car engine.
She gripped the top of his car door with both hands, as much for balance as in any hope of preventing his swift departure.
“Why are you here?” she asked, her eyes slightly unfocused.
“Nice day for a drive in the country.” He gunned the motor once, in warning.
“Where is David? You must know. Tell me where he is.”
“Out with a horse, I’d guess. Nice day for a ride, too.”
“You bastard. Where is he? Where’s David?”
Spencer reached and jerked one of her hands from the door by the wrist, causing her to stumble backward. Then he slammed the gearshift into drive and hit the accelerator. The car lurched forward, wheels spinning in the gravel, then catching, sped away, covering her in a cloud of dust.
In the rearview mirror, he saw her make an obscene gesture, then dart away. Spencer spun onto the highway and headed north toward the interstate. A few minutes later, to his amazement, he saw the tiny dot of a dark automobile appear far back on the road behind him. It gained rapidly, increasing in size until he was able to recognize it as a Jaguar. He saw that the driver was a woman, with long hair.
Both their engines were screaming. They were well over the speed limit. If Spencer wasn’t careful, the good sheriff might soon be handing him something far more serious than a parking ticket.
A pickup truck was trundling along the road ahead of them. Though a car was approaching fast from the opposite direction, Spencer jammed the accelerator to the floor and whipped out to pass, completing the maneuver with just seconds to spare.
She was right behind him. She stayed there, close to his bumper, weaving slightly from side to side, her face almost maniacal. She was as good a driver as he—probably better—but drink and the heat combined against her.
He let the Jaguar sit there on his rear as they roared along toward the interstate, the sign announcing the entrance ramp approaching fast. Without slowing, giving no indication of his intention, he waited until the very last instant, then spun his car to the right—swerving and skidding, but staying on the ramp.
Lenore didn’t quite make the turn. He saw her careen into the shoulder lane, then disappear beneath the overpass. He hoped she was uninjured, but he wasn’t about to go back to make sure. He kept his car between eighty and ninety well into the next county, before slowing to keep pace with the other traffic. She didn’t appear again.
Lenore Fairbrother entered her husband’s house like a projectile, aiming herself fixedly d
own the great central hall toward her husband’s study and bursting through the door without pause. Unfortunately for what was to have been her subsequent detonation, he was not there. Blinking, temporarily defused, she stood wavering a moment, then relaunched herself, tearing through the rooms of the house one by one, calling out the syllables Lyn-wood in the piercing shrieks of a harpy, the sound reverberating ahead of her.
Fairbrother was standing at the head of the stairs, wearing a dressing gown over his shirt and trousers despite the heat. Startled by the sight of him, she fell silent.
“What in hell are you caterwauling about, Lenore?” Fairbrother could thunder when he was up to it. She became even more subdued, collapsing on the staircase and sobbing.
“Lenore! What’s wrong? Are you drunk?”
“Worse than that,” she said, now in a little girl’s voice. “I’ve been arrested.”
He began descending the stairs. He was barefoot, having been disturbed from a nap.
“For what have you been arrested?” he said, coming to a halt just above her.
“For driving under the fucking influence, that’s what,” she said, a little defiantly. “By one of your vulgar little sheriff’s deputies.”
“They’re not my sheriff’s deputies.”
“Well, he’s your sheriff. You paid for him.”
“I endorsed his candidacy and I made a campaign contribution. We all did. But that’s not going to be of any help to you now. Not this time. Did you have an accident?”
“Yes.”
“Was anyone hurt?”
“Only the Jaguar, and it’s a bloody shambles.”
“What did you hit?”
“I scraped it along the side of an embankment. Oh, never mind, Lynwood.” She patted the top of a stair. “Sit down, Lynwood, and comfort me. I’m so fucking miserable.”
He did so. She raised herself to kiss his foot, then crawled up to him, laying her head in his lap. She looked very woozy. Fairbrother felt stiff and uncomfortable. He had needed this nap.
“What do you want, Lenore?” It occurred to him he must utter these words twenty times a day. “Do you need a doctor?”
“I want David to come back.”
“We’ve been through this.”
She sat up. “Yes, and you promised you’d get him back.”
“I didn’t promise any such thing.”
“You asked the sheriff to have him arrested.”
“I most certainly did not! That was Cooke’s own idea.”
“Your idea, darling. You said that if charges were placed against David he’d hurry right back to clear his name.”
“Cooke suggested it. I merely gave my approval.”
“All the same, darling, in Dandytown. David’s going to hate you forever and ever.”
“I’m sorry, but I was outraged that he’d decamp like that and leave us with all this appalling disorder to contend with. Great God—murders, bombings, fires, bloodstock investigations, lurid stories in the Post. I’m not certain we’ll be able to hold the Old Dominion Cup. I’ve had inquiries from horsemen in three states asking if they should come. It’s monstrous.”
“Poor Lynnie.” She stroked his foot. He moved it away.
“David’s at the center of this scandalous business, yet he hasn’t raised a finger to put an end to it. He just vanishes. I have to answer all the damned questions. Ned Haney won’t say anything to anyone. Alixe is in the hospital and can’t talk. Everyone’s coming to me! I don’t understand how David could be so irresponsible. His father wasn’t like that. Damn good man, his father.”
He quieted a moment.
“And I’m not certain the murder charges are spurious,” he said.
“That’s rot, Lynnie.”
“The courts will decide.”
“You’re just jealous, Lynwood. It’s your only passion. You think David’s been making love to me.”
“The maid told me he’d dropped off your clothes. In a package. After that night at the inn. All of your clothes, Lenore, including your underwear.”
“Oh, for God’s sake, Lynnie. I just took them off.”
“You made love.”
“Lynnie. Poor love-starved David hasn’t touched me since I married you. Point of honor, don’t you know. You’re being a fool, comme toujours.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“I need a drink, darling.”
“No you don’t.”
“I need a new car.”
“It’s a total wreck?”
“The right side is. Altogether gruesome.”
“Did they take you to the police station?”
“No. The deputy just drove me home. But he gave me this ticket. I have to go to court. In the morning.”
“Did they give you a blood alcohol test?”
“I would not submit to such an indignity. You wouldn’t either if you had seen the man’s awful manners. You’d think I drove into that wall on purpose.”
“What on earth were you doing?”
“Just out for a drive.” She put her hand over her eyes. “Lovely day for a drive in the country. It was, anyway.”
“You’ll lose your license for refusing the test. I can get you a new car, but not a new license. It’s quite automatic. State law.”
“Can’t you do something about that?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Not? Though you can have David charged with murder?”
“No!”
“Well, who needs a silly license anyhow.”
Fairbrother started to rise. She pulled him down.
“I have to go, Lenore. Telephone calls to make. I have to meet some people in town.”
“Are they calls to get David back?”
“No. Merely business.”
“I know where he is. He’s with that hillbilly movie star. Probably in some hillbilly motel. He likes white-trash women, trashy white women. He likes to fuck them.”
Fairbrother stood up. She used him to get awkwardly to her own feet, clinging to his robe.
“Please, Lenore.”
“I’ve just had a marvelous idea, Lynnie. You know the governor. You could have David’s National Guard company activated. He wouldn’t refuse a call to active duty. You know how he is about the bloody military.”
“I never know when you’re serious anymore, Lenore.”
He started back up the stairs. She followed, for a few steps.
“I know!” she said. “Moonsugar.”
“What?”
“Your horse Moonsugar. You gave it to him but you never signed over the papers. David’s not here to take care of it. You’ve every right to bring him back.”
“Someone ought to look in on those horses. You can’t trust Alixe’s grooms with her away in the hospital. All right. I’ll send a man over.”
“I want Moonsugar brought back here, Lynwood.”
“All right, all right.”
“I’m very, very unhappy, Lynwood.”
He continued on up the stairs without her. When he had dressed and come back down again, she was lying on the hall floor, snoring.
Hours later, when Fairbrother returned from Dandytown late in the evening, his stable manager was waiting for him.
“I’ve got some bad news, Mr. Fairbrother.”
“What now?”
“We went over to the Showers place like you said. The stock all looked good. I guess Ned Haney’s had a vet come over to check up on them. In top condition, all of them. Especially Moonsugar. You’d never know he took that fall.”
“And?”
“We brought Moonsugar back with us. I put him in his old stall. He was fine when I left him, but when I came back after dinner, he was dead. Mrs. Fairbrother gave him an injection. Said it was because of his broken leg.”
Twenty-One
Like nearly all people who grow up in the country, Moody was a walker. All his life, every day, even when caught up in the pomp and power of the Maryland governorship and the White House, he ha
d found time to steal away for solitary retreats on foot. On busy days, during breaks in the president’s schedule, he’d often slip out for a quick walk on the White House grounds, following the perimeter of the security fence down to where the South Lawn ended at the roadway dividing it from the Ellipse.
In their presidency, on quiet evenings, the Bushes had liked to walk their dogs down to this spot, frequently startling the tourists who paused by the fence to stare at the White House or pose for pictures with its grand South Portico in the background.
There were a few tourists hanging about there now on this hot, sunny morning—an elderly couple, a young family with small children, a boy and girl of college age dressed in T-shirts and skimpy shorts. None of them seemed to recognize Moody, perhaps taking him for a Secret Service man. He waited for them to move on, then leaned back against the fence, folding his arms in a moment of solitary contemplation of the presidential mansion set so magnificently at the top of the long green rise.
Generations of political writers and historians had referred to this house as “the prize,” but it wasn’t that. Not a trophy or a piece of booty. No possession. Just a transitory honor, and one that all too often turned into disgrace.
As a state legislator, Moody had stood in bitter cold on the Capitol lawn at the inauguration of Jimmy Carter, had observed the pious, posed humility of the man, his saintly image belied by the conquering swagger of aides like Hamilton Jordan and Bert Lance. They had come in thumping their feet up on priceless antique desks and barking crude orders and sneering at venerated old-timers like House Speaker Tip O’Neill, proclaiming their day was done, as though the Georgia peanut warehouse man had brought forth the millennium. O’Neill had still been there when they’d left, doubtless shaking his head.
Moody had also been in Washington for the grotesque, glittering pageant that was Ronald Reagan’s inauguration. He remembered the endless limousines filled with fur-coated, bejeweled women and overdressed men, prowling the capital’s streets the way curious Nazis had the boulevards of defeated Paris in May 1940. He recalled the contempt and arrogance displayed by Reagan major-domos Ed Meese, Mike Deaver, and Don Regan—and later, George Bush’s John Sununu—as they went about wielding the all too temporal power of their office, as he had himself done, he supposed, far too often.
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