Fair Game (6 page)

He was relieved when the music ended.

They turned to find that Dillon was watching them. Martin walked away and Ashley returned to her date.

“What were you doing dancing with that guy?” Dillon demanded.

“Phil Kennedy was drunk and he asked me to dance. I couldn’t get away from him, and he was practically maiming me on the dance floor. Lieutenant Martin saw what was going on and rescued me. What happened to you?”

“Oh, Dave Clinton got my ear about some legal problem he’s having. I don’t know why people always think I’m conducting office hours at these parties.”

“Occupational hazard,” Ashley said.

“I think it’s going very well, don’t you?” Dillon asked, referring to the party.

“Yes, very well.”

“When is Joe arriving?”

“He should be here any time.”

They mingled for a few more minutes until a stir of excitement at the door indicated that the Senator had arrived. He passed through the backslapping crowd and ascended the musicians’ dais, adjusting the central microphone to his height as the rest of the guests filed into the ballroom. Martin saw Capo standing off to the side as the candidate made his speech, which was punctuated by enthusiastic cheering at various points and wild applause at its conclusion. As if by some unseen command, the throng, led by the Senator and his wife, filed out of the ballroom and back to the buffet.

“Some circus, huh?” Capo said, moving next to Martin as the crowd passed.

“What did you make of the speech?” Martin asked, grinning.

“Rah-rah,” Capo replied. He nodded to Dillon, walking with his arm around Ashley. “You think that guy dyes his hair?”

Martin laughed.

“Barbie and Ken,” Capo observed. “They ought to come as a matched set, with a little wardrobe for each of them in the box.”

“The girl’s a good actress, anyway. I don’t think she’s having a much better time than we are.”

“What gives you that idea?”

“Something she said.”

“Then why is she here? She took a leave of absence from her job to do this.”

“Capo, the guy’s her father.”

“He has other kids. Where are they?”

“They’re young, still in school.”

“Did you see the wife?” Capo asked. “She’s only about ten years older than his daughter.”

“Yeah, Ashley’s mother died when she was a kid.”

“Ashley, is it?”

“That’s her name.”

“You’d better not let her hear you calling her that. It’s ‘Miss Fair’ to you, bub.”

Martin made no reply, following Capo back to the dining room.

* * * *

Two hours later, everyone had eaten and the party was winding down rapidly. Senator Fair came up to Ashley and Meg where they were talking in a corner and slipped his arm around his daughter’s waist.

“How’s my girl?” he said.

“Fine, Dad,” Ashley replied.

“You look tired, honey. Maybe you should skip the meeting tomorrow morning and sleep in, let Meg fill in for you.”
      

“Meg is just as tired as I am, and she doesn’t know the fund-raising roster as well as I do. I’ll be there.”

“Do you have all the major events lined up?” Fair asked.

Ashley nodded. “I just have to work out a few minor details and we’ll be ready to roll. I’ll have the calendar fixed by the end of the week.”

“All right, baby. Oh, there’s Bill Sanders. I’d better go and talk to him. I haven’t seen him all night.”

The Senator moved away and left the two women standing alone.

“How did Sylvia hold up tonight?” Ashley asked, nodding to her stepmother, who had joined her husband and was visibly wilting.

“All right,” the Senator’s assistant said. “We had a long, stimulating conversation on whether Choate or Wilbraham Academy would be more appropriate for little Joe.”

Ashley shook her head wearily.

“At least it kept her from talking to anybody else,” Meg said. “Last week I heard her ask Judith Clinton if the Bay of Pigs was a Mediterranean resort.”

“Oh, God.”

“I got her away from Judith as quickly as possible, but I’m trying not to take any more chances.”

“Can’t we give her some more books to read?”

“I’ve given her the contents of a library already. Either she’s not reading them or nothing stays with her. I don’t know.”

“I’ve tried to talk to my father, but you know how he is about her. He says things like ‘she’s a wonderful mother,’ which is not in dispute. Plus I’m not the best person to undertake that mission. He still thinks I resent her for sending me away to boarding school.”

“Do you?” Meg asked, turning to look at her.

Ashley shrugged. “It’s all water under the bridge now. I can see how I would be in the way when she wanted to have her own kids and her own little family. I was a living, breathing reminder of the previous marriage, of the paragon first wife everyone, including my father, remembered so fondly.”

Meg nodded as her eyes roamed the room. They stopped moving as she said, “Look at that cop.” She was staring at Martin, who was gazing past them with a fixed, intent expression.

“Every woman here has been looking at him. He’s causing something of a stir.”

“Have you seen him smile yet?” Meg asked.

“He almost smiled once tonight. I should have taken a picture.”

“Well, he may not be jolly, but he does radiate confidence. I have a suspicion he can handle whatever comes his way.”

“I wish Jim felt like that. He’s not exactly thrilled with the police presence, if you know what I mean.”

“That doesn’t surprise me,” Meg said.

Ashley looked at her.

Meg shrugged. “You’ve been turning down his proposals regularly, and all of a sudden that”—she stabbed her finger at Martin—“shows up to become your shadow day in and day out? If I were Jim, I wouldn’t be too happy either.”

“Lieutenant Martin is on assignment. Jim’s reacting completely irrationally.”

“He’s reacting emotionally. He’s in love with you.”

Ashley took another sip of her drink, which was now melted ice, and watched her father laughing at a crony’s joke.

“So when are you getting married?” Meg said brightly.

“Meg, don’t start that. I’m tired.”

“Is that what you say to Jim?”

Ashley shot Meg an exasperated glance.

“Okay, okay, enough said. I think we’d better get out of here. You have a tour of Ardmore Elementary School scheduled for eleven a.m., right after the staff meeting.”

Ashley groaned. “You didn’t tell me about that.”

“I certainly did.”

“An elementary school?”

“Roger’s idea.” Roger Damico was the Senator’s press agent.

“I don’t think I can handle it after this.”
 

“You’ll handle it.”

Dillon approached on Ashley’s left. “Ready to go?”

Ashley glanced at her father.

“He’s leaving too,” Dillon said. “None of them will go home until we do.”

“That’s my cue,” Meg said. She put down her drink and left, going to stand with the Senator and his wife.

“I’ll get your wrap and call for the car,” Dillon said to Ashley. She saw him signal to Martin as he passed, and the policeman began to drift unobtrusively in her direction.

“Everything okay?” Ashley said to him when he arrived.

“Seems to be,” he replied.

“No subversives lurking in corners?”

He examined her, suspecting sarcasm, not answering.

“Sorry,” she said. “I guess that isn’t very funny, is it? I must be getting punchy. It’s been a long day.”

“You’ll be home soon,” Martin observed neutrally.

“Home? If you call a hotel home. I haven’t seen my apartment in Georgetown since January.”

Dillon returned with her shawl and they made their way to the Marshalls to say good-night. Once they were outside, the crisp evening air began to revive Ashley, and she said to Martin, “I hope I didn’t sound like I was complaining back there, Lieutenant.”

“No, ma’am, not at all,” he replied, avoiding her eyes.

“Lieutenant, I promise that if you look at me you will not turn to stone,” she murmured in an aside as she passed him to take Dillon’s arm.

Martin stopped, startled, and then walked on as if he hadn’t heard.

Ashley got into the car. Dillon slid in beside her, and Martin climbed in with the driver. They waited until the Senator’s car pulled up behind them, and then both limos pulled away at once.

It was after one in the morning when they got back to the hotel. The Senator and his daughter retired to their respective rooms, and the two cops were left alone.

“Not so bad,” Capo said, yawning. “A snore, more than anything.”

Martin lit a cigarette. “Did your car go on to take the wife back to Harrisburg?”

Capo nodded.

“Odd setup, don’t you think?”

Capo shrugged. “Who knows, with this outfit? I’m just going to put in my time and go home, hope nothing happens to the Senator in the meanwhile.”

“I think they try to keep the wife under wraps as much as possible. She’s a little light in the brains department.”

“Yeah, well none of ‘em are Rhodes scholars, if you ask me. Who says you have to be smart to have money?”

“Not I,” Martin answered softly.

“And how do you know about the wife? You didn’t even talk to her, did you?”

“No, but I can tell. The daughter is filling in for her. What I can’t understand is why. There appears to be no love lost between them.”

“The kid’s doing it for her father; you said so yourself. What’s the difference, anyway?”

Martin shrugged.

Capo peered at him. “Did something happen tonight?”

Martin shook his head.

“Speak to me, Timmy. You’ve got that look.”

“What look?”

“The look that means something is on your mind. I can recognize it by now.”

“It’s just...”

“What?”

“The Fair girl. She was different tonight, different from this afternoon, I mean. Tense, a bit edgy. Like the mask of perfection was slipping a little.”

“Maybe she was nervous about the evening. It was a big deal for her father.”

“I don’t think she’s too crazy about me, to tell you the truth,” Martin sighed.

“So then you’re even. I wouldn’t worry about it. Hey, I’d better get next door, I’m out on my feet. See you in the morning.”

“Yeah, good night,” Martin replied, exhaling a stream of smoke as Capo went through the connecting door to the Senator’s suite.

Martin kicked off his shoes and loosened his tie, stretching out on the sitting room’s convertible couch without opening it. He switched off the light and lay staring at the ceiling, smoking methodically.

He was too keyed up to sleep; the evening spent in the company of the glitterati had been unexpectedly stimulating. The relationships in the Fair clan alone would be enough to keep him from boredom. The daughter was the true enigma; she was giving up a year of her life to campaign for a father she treated with a deference that hardly seemed familial, and was keeping steady company with a man she didn’t love.

It was none of his business, of course, and by summer he wouldn’t be seeing any of them again. But he’d had nothing to do all evening but study the girl and her behavior, and he couldn’t understand why she was with Dillon.

Or maybe Martin was mistaken about her feelings. Perhaps he had a bourgeois idea of emotional involvements, informed by his experience with Maryann. In their courting days they hadn’t been able to keep their hands off each other. But then, they were younger, and entirely without aristocratic restraint.

His father had liked Maryann, Martin remembered. His dad had been a precinct captain during the fifties and turbulent sixties, a close companion of Gerald Rourke. And his immigrant grandfather had walked a Mayfair beat in the twenties. Martin was third generation in a police family, and he didn’t pretend to grasp the vagaries of the idle rich.

He lit a second Camel from the stub of the first one and inhaled deeply. His only previous experience with wealth was meeting the son of a Connecticut tobacco heir who had served in his unit in Vietnam. Martin was astonished to find the kid there in the first place, since the upper classes always managed to get college or medical deferments for their draft-age sons. But he later found out that the boy had volunteered to get back at his old man, and they became quite friendly, being the same age, eighteen, and equally terrified. But Jack had caught a sniper’s bullet during the Tet offensive, ending the friendship as well as his life. Martin had always remembered his stories of prep schools and skiing at Kitzbuehl and summer houses on Hobe Sound. Now that he found himself in the milieu he’d once heard described, he was remembering Jack, and the war, once again.

He shook his head and sat up abruptly. It wasn’t a good idea to dwell on ‘Nam before retiring. It led to nightmares. And reminiscing about Maryann wasn’t much better.