Death of a Washington Madame (18 page)

Roy turned away and focused instead
on the kitchen wall.

"If he becomes President, the real power will be in
her hands," he said bitterly. "Nothing's been the same since she came
into his life. Nothing."

Fiona felt that his sudden puzzling outburst on the subject
of Madeline was forcing the interview in the wrong direction. She needed to
bring it back into focus.

"So Gloria was angry that Billy believed Lionel was
the guilty party."

"Very."

"And she was convinced that Lionel was innocent?"

"I told you that. We both are.... were." He shook
his head obviously realizing he was having trouble with his tenses now that
Gloria was gone.

"Did you often have these little heart to
hearts?" Fiona asked.

"You mean did we confide in each other?"

"More or less."

"We worked together all those years."

"People could work together and still keep themselves
at arm's length."

"The thing we shared most was our devotion to
Madame."

For some reason, she sensed that he was fielding her
questions too glibly, deflecting any relevant information.

"Roy," Fiona snapped. "I get the feeling
that you're holding something back."

"I can't help that, Sergeant. I'm trying to answer
your questions as best I can."

"Your answers stink of evasion," Fiona shot back.

"I'm sorry if you think that," Roy said. She
could sense that he had drawn a line in his mind.

"Did Gloria ever discuss this business of the
inheritance with you?"

He hesitated for a moment, then nodded his head.

"In passing."

"What does that mean Roy?"

"Gloria thought about it more than I did. I wasn't
interested in Madame's money."

"Roy, as you acknowledge, you're an old man. What was
wrong with Mrs. Shipley making provisions to keep you secure for the rest of
your life after a half century of loyal service? Are you telling me you won't
accept her largesse?"

"I'd prefer that we didn't discuss this," Roy said, growing agitated. A flush rose in his cheeks.

"Why?"

"I don't have to answer that," he said angrily.
"You're here to discuss Gloria's suicide, not my private life."

Private life? Fiona was puzzled by the reference. Was it
possible that this intelligent and oddly articulate, arthritic old man, a
loner, who had devoted his entire life to one female employer, had what he
called a private life? A family, perhaps? Children? How old was he? Late
seventies she remembered. Postponing further speculation, she continued her
interrogation.

"Roy, I think you've got a misapprehension here. We
have a murder and a suicide. We have a confessed killer...."

"Thanks to me," Roy said, his voice rising.

"And a man who could be the real instigator of the
crime."

"I'm well aware of that Sergeant. All I'm saying is
that I resent your prying into my private life."

"You think maybe we rushed to judgment, Roy?" Fiona asked, again exchanging glances with Gail.

"Somebody did," Roy said. "Lionel is a sad
man, but he isn't stupid. If he was known to the boy why would he approach him
in the first place?"

"Maybe he never thought the boy would get caught and
be forced to tell the tale," Fiona said pointedly.

"Caught by me. Forced by me," Roy muttered.
"For which I am being persecuted."

"We were talking about Lionel," Fiona pressed.

"Give me another fifteen minutes with that little monster
and I'd get the truth out of him."

"Maybe Lionel took his chances," Fiona said.
"Maybe he didn't count on your zeal in finding the boy and...."

"Torturing him," Gail shouted.

Roy looked at her with blazing eyes
and blew air between his teeth in an expression of derision.

"Why would Lionel put himself at that little bastard's
mercy?"

"Maybe the risk was worth the reward," Fiona
said.

She watched Roy Parker's face looking for signs of his own
discomfort. After all, he, too, was slated to benefit from Mrs. Shipley's
demise. It was not inconceivable, Fiona thought, for Roy to have induced a
third party to target Martine or to do it himself in disguise, which would
explain how quickly he had found him.

Even his defense of Lionel could be a ploy to evade suspicion.
A multitude of possible scenarios were spinning in her head. She decided to
keep this latter possibility to herself. It was certainly not ready for Gail's
consumption.

"Roy," Fiona said, wishing to get to the end of
this interview, wondering if it was more of an exercise for Gail's
benefit." Do you think she killed herself because of this thing with
Lionel or what Billy had said or was it something else?"

"I wish I could answer that," Roy said.

"Something must have set her off..." Gail mused
aloud, as if she had found a path out of her dark tunnel of guilt.
"Something so ... so terrible ... that, considering all that was coming
down on her, she just couldn't cope with it."

"Perhaps she talked with someone whose revelations
became the straw that broke the camel's back," Fiona said. A path of logic
seemed to be opening up.

Roy shrugged, remaining silent,
offering no suggestions.

A suicide note would have shed some light on the reasons
for Gloria's drastic action. Absent that, they were left to speculate wildly on
what had triggered the compulsion to kill herself.

"What was the dominant obsession in her mind?"
Fiona asked as they drove back to headquarters.

"Lionel," Gail said.

"Not just Lionel."

"Let's say then that it was the accumulation of events.
Everything coming at once. Human beings are very fragile, Fi."

Fiona knew the reference had a personal connotation. Doubt
about Lionel's guilt had erased the euphoria of the night before. At least Gail
wasn't tail spinning again into the racial morass.

"We're missing something." Fiona said,

Back at headquarters, Gail began the process of checking
with the telephone company to find out if Gloria had spoken to anyone that
morning while Fiona reported to the Eggplant who appeared in a foul mood.

"Apparently Gloria Carpenter hired a hotshot lawyer
for her brother," the Eggplant said. "Haskell Fremont."

Fiona was stunned.

"How could she do that, she's dead?"

"Maybe before she died. Sometime this morning. He's
been interviewing Lionel for hours."

Fremont was a member of the firm
once headed by Edward Bennet Williams, a Washington icon who defended those who
often looked as if they were hopelessly guilty and who subsequently, through
his clever ministrations escaped the full brunt of the law.

"The man demands a fat retainer," Fiona said.
"Gloria must have tipped him off on the expected inheritance. Now that
she's dead, it goes to Lionel. If he sticks with the case, he must be well
aware of the revenue flow."

"That slimeball is not known for his charity,"
the Eggplant sneered.

He had good reason for his attitude. Fremont had turned
around many cases that Homicide and the prosecution had considered airtight,
beyond reasonable doubt. It was one of the great frustrations of their job.

"Won't be much left of the inheritance after he gets
through with him," Fiona said.

"With those sons of bitches, the case could be well
worth its weight in publicity gold as well. That's what they live for. And Fremont is a real hot dog."

"Madeline Newton will go ballistic,"

"She already has." He drew in a deep breath and
let it out as if he had ingested poisoned air. "I already got the call
from ol' violet eyes."

From his expression, Fiona could tell there was a storm on
the horizon. She knew better than to make any comment. He drew out a panatela,
ripped off the wrapper and shoved the unlighted digit into his mouth.

"Seems that Gloria called the Governor this
morning..."

"So it was Shipley who set her off."

"Not him. According to her, she took the call."

"And Gloria told her that she believed Lionel was
innocent and intended to fight the idea that he was the one put the kid up to
it..."

"So it was Madeline that lit the fuse," Fiona
interjected.

"She lit my fuse, that's for sure. She was really
pissed. Said we had mishandled the case."

"In what way?"

"The domino effect. If we hadn't jumped the gun on
Lionel, there would be one less flashpoint for the media."

"I thought the Governor and his lady liked the idea
of.... of Lionel being the one."

"When it was going their way, they did," the Eggplant
said, champing on his panatela. "But she hadn't reckoned on Gloria's
hiring that shylock. Now she's got to reverse the spin."

"And she's blaming us?" Fiona asked.

"More or less," the Eggplant cried. "The Fremont hire was inflammatory. Fremont has a gold star in media manipulation. For her,
that's real competition. Remember how many times he's pissed on us."

When in doubt, Fremont found a way to accuse the police of
screwing up.

"She's right to be worried," Fiona said, relieved
not to have Gail in the room. Nevertheless, she lowered her voice, telescoping
the controversial aspect of her forthcoming comment. "Fremont is perfectly
capable of playing the race card, Chief, making Mrs. Shipley look like a slave
owner. Portray Lionel and Martine as black victims of the evil white
conspiracy. Hell, there isn't even a record of wage payments to Gloria, as if
she were being paid by Mrs. Shipley's whim, a virtual slave. A clever bastard
like Fremont could make something of that. I'm sure it's thoughts like that that
are making the star crazy."

"That's why she wants us to reconsider."

"Reconsider what?"

"Back away from Lionel, discount the kid's
identification. Show him up as a liar. Maybe even publicly apologize."

"And thereby remove Fremont from the picture."

"Woman knows the PR game plan," Fiona said.
"What did you tell her?"

"What I wanted to tell her or what I told her?"

"Come on Chief...."

"I gave her a big fat maybe. It was too early in the
day to tangle with the pushy bitch."

"Chief," Fiona said. "Keep it low. The
ladies will be on your case for misogyny."

"First step on the journey to sexual harassment,"
the Eggplant mused bitterly. His eyes met Fiona's. He offered no words but she
got the message. "I trust you Fiona." At home, she knew, he was
persecuted by a woman: his wife, from an old-line gold coast black family, to
whom a male cop, unless he was Chief Cop, was merely a blue-collar flunky.
Their snobby pecking order would put the lily white social hierarchy to shame.

It was a prejudice, Fiona had learned from Gail, that was
bred into the black female of that social class who proudly considered
themselves to be the real aristocrats of their race and gender, and, therefore,
superior, stronger and more snooty than their male counterparts. And they did
not shrink from exhibiting their attitude and exercising the considerable power
they wielded in their circles.

The bottom line for the Eggplant, clearly manifested in his
working life, was that he did not take kindly to being pushed around by females
of any race outside the home. Knowing this was an advantage to Fiona who tread
lightly when she observed the phenomena at work. Like now.

The Eggplant shook his head and jammed the panatela into
his mouth. Was this some symbolic macho gesture? Fiona wondered. A flaunting of
phallic penetration? She smiled inwardly at the Freudian psychobabble.

"Did Madeline Newton's call come before.... or after
Gloria's swan song?"

"Before."

"And when she learned the news...?"

"She was not shy. She called again." He bit hard
on his unlit panatela. "...demanding to know why Gloria committed
suicide."

"As if we were to blame for that as well."

"She didn't say it. She didn't have to. But I did tell
her that it looked like Gloria might have been depressed about her brother. I
guess that put some gasoline on the flames."

"She's blaming us, right."

"Big time. She's got a mouth," the Eggplant said.
He smashed the panatela into his cigar leaf littered ashtray. "Said that
we were causing the domino effect. If we hadn't burned Lionel, then Gloria
would be alive. She wondered aloud if someone, some magic force, was putting us
up to it."

"Meaning a political enemy. Someone who wanted to rain
on their Presidential parade."

"I'd say that was her gist," the Eggplant said.

"What will they do?"

"She threatened dire consequences."

"If we didn't walk away from Lionel."

"She didn't say it."

"But she meant it. You could tell."

"Not just tell. Smell."

At that moment, a knock sounded on the Eggplant's door. It
was Gail.

"Gloria called three numbers," Gail said.

"Haskell Fremont," Fiona said. "First
call."

"Are you psychic?" She paused. "Who's on
second?"

"The Governor again, insisting that she speak to him
and not the star."

"Very good," Gail said. "But that one was
logical. She probably told him, no matter what that she was going to fight for
Lionel, that she had hired the fancy lawyer."

"Now who's showing off," Fiona sighed.

"And the third call?" the Eggplant demanded.

"Riggs Bank."

They all exchanged glances.

"Now why didn't we think of that?" Fiona said.

They were in the reception room of the Riggs Bank trust
department in less than a half hour. A tall lean fortyish man wearing a blue
blazer and charcoal gray pants came out to greet them. He was brown haired,
gone slightly to gray with a ruddy outdoorsy complexion accentuated by a cherry
red bow tie.

"I'm Angus Macintosh," the man said, holding out
his hand and offering a toothy smile. He ushered them into his office, a dark
paneled room festooned with golf mementos. He sat them on a couch to one side
of his office and faced them on a leather chair.

"We understand that sometime yesterday you had a
conversation with Miss Gloria Carpenter ?" Fiona asked.

"Yes. We did have a chat," he answered. From his
attitude it was obvious that he had not yet learned of Gloria's suicide.
"Very nice lady."

"Undoubtedly it was about Mrs. Shipley's estate."

He nodded, put on a pair of half-glasses and took a file of
papers from the table next to him and opened it.

"Yes. Terrible tragedy. I did discuss with Miss
Carpenter some of the details of the estate in general terms. Unfortunately
there is much information still privileged, but I'll be happy to help you with
whatever I can."

"As we understand it from Mr. Brewer, the
beneficiaries of the estate are Roy Parker and Gloria Carpenter."

He looked over the papers.

"Yes. That is so. They are the sole heirs. Except for
heirlooms and objects of emotional meaning to her son." He lifted one of
the papers from the folder and read the contents. "Mr. Shipley signed a
waiver."

"Which means he won't challenge the estate."

"That's correct."

"No other behests?" Fiona asked.

"As far as I can see none."

"May I ask the value of the estate?" Fiona asked.
"I mean after everything what can they both expect ... in general
terms."

"As I told Miss Carpenter it is impossible to be
completely accurate, especially considering the various loans and mortgages and
any other claims against the estate. Some rather complicated calculations must
be made."

"All we want is a rough idea," Fiona said.

"There are a great many things to be considered
here." He looked up from his papers and coughed discreetly into his fist.
"When we took over ten years ago, Mrs. Shipley's holdings were still in
quite good shape."

"What does that mean?"

"There was the house, of course. The artwork, the
antiques, jewelry. Some stocks. Bonds."

"Yes."

"We..." He cleared his throat and put a finger
around his collar to loosen it. For some reason, he was finding the interview
painful. "We received the account from a Mr. Brewer who she thought was getting
senile." He paused. "We did our best."

"What are you trying to say, Mr. Macintosh?"

"The value of the estate, provided we can get a fair
price for the real estate and the contents might, I say might, reach,
perhaps..." He paused, as if he were calculating in his head. "It's
hard to come up with a hard figure."

"How about a soft one?" Fiona asked.

"She was very generous," Macintosh continued,
obviously evading the question." She funded trusts for her son and, early
on had been one of Washington's great hostesses. Such a lavish lifestyle
unfortunately exceeded her income. Even in later years...."

Macintosh paused as if he was unsure whether or not to
proceed.

"At one point, she insisted that we up her cash
allowance. It seemed rather extravagant, but we had no choice."

"When was this?"

"I'd say six, seven years ago."

"What did she do with the extra money?" Fiona
asked.

"That was her business."

"It never went through her checking account."

He shook his head.

"As I said it was a cash allowance."

"Which accelerated the depletion of her
resources."

"Dramatically."

Macintosh raised his eyebrows and rubbed his chin.

"We had advised her a few years ago to sell the house
and auction the contents. She preferred to borrow against them."

"Whom did she borrow from?" Fiona asked.

"Mr. Farnsworth our former late Chairman was ... a
dear friend."

"Who is holding the debt, Mr. Macintosh?"

"The bank."

"Which bank?"

"This one."

"Which means?"

"That the house and contents will have to be sold to
pay off all debts before the heirs could receive anything. The bank has already
set things in motion. We'll auction the contents first, meaning the interior
items not claimed by her son. We're hoping we can find a single buyer who can
carry the full load."

"Back to square one, Mr. Macintosh. What will be
left?"

"As I told you, I think ... according to my
calculations ... if we are prudent and the auction is successful ... we might
come out after probate say with ... as much as." He paused and swallowed
hard. "Maybe ten thousand."

"Ten thousand!" Fiona exclaimed. "I thought
Deb Shipley was a wealthy woman."

"She was ... once."

"I can't believe it," Fiona said.

"That's exactly what Miss Carpenter said,"
Macintosh sighed, taking off his half glasses. "She was very agitated. At
first I told her that it would be better if she came into the office to discuss
this, but she was quite insistent and I did feel she was entitled to the
information."

"And when, pray," Fiona asked. "Will this
vast sum be available?"

"That would depend on how long it would take to
dispose of the property, finish all the legal and accounting." He tapped
his teeth, ruminating. "With a little luck six months to a year."