Murder at the Watergate (15 page)

Elfie took her coffee and freshly baked cinnamon roll on a rear terrace. She’d arrived in Mexico City the previous night on a British Airways flight from London, and
was driven the three and a half hours to San Miguel by a uniformed chauffeur always at her disposal when in Mexico. She’d slept soundly in the mountain village’s customary nighttime coolness. Now the sun had risen, warming things, including the spirits—and memories.

This house had been purchased in 1974, the second year of Elfie’s marriage to Charles Frampton, special White House counsel. Frampton had come to Washington from New York brandishing a distinguished family name. His father, Charles Frampton—tacking “Junior” onto a son’s name was anathema to the family—earned his fortune manufacturing railroad equipment in upstate New York, and had made the preordained move from industrial success to political influence, never holding public office but wielding power behind a variety of thrones: confidant to governors, advisor to congressmen, banker to those whose conservative, Republican political directions agreed with his map of the world.

Elfie Dorrance and Charles Frampton met at a fund-raising party for the National Symphony. Washington rumormongers had much to say about this new couple. One popular topic had to do with opposites attracting. Elfie stood a foot taller than Frampton, which made more of a point of her natural, graceful, somewhat ample beauty. Frampton was slender and slightly bent, and wore his mouse-colored hair longer than would be expected of a White House counsel. Pale blue eyes, magnified behind quarter-inch-thick glasses, were perpetually wet, causing him to frequently wipe them with a handkerchief: “The Weeper” was his very unofficial nickname.

What Charles Frampton lacked in physical stature,
however, he made up for in intellect. He was considered a brilliant lawyer, with an ability to shape arguments into such irrefutable positions that it was difficult, often impossible, to effectively attack them.

Frampton had two children from his previous marriage. They lived with their mother; that their father existed was more myth than tangible reality for them, so seldom did he visit, or otherwise acknowledge their existence.

Elfie and Charles married at a small, quiet ceremony at St. John’s Episcopal Church on Lafayette Square, across from the White House, the “church of presidents,” or some presidents, at least. Neither bride nor groom were represented by family. A cocktail reception for close friends followed at the Mayflower Hotel.

Elfie had been living in a relatively modest Georgetown row house since coming to Washington following the death of Dieter Krueger, enticed there by the wife of the British ambassador, who claimed that America’s staid capital needed a dose of Elfie’s spice and verve. Once married to Frampton, she set out to find a house befitting their status, falling in love immediately with the stately sixteen-room home near Dumbarton Oaks. Although she’d conferred with her new husband, she really didn’t have to. It mattered little to him where he lived. His schedule at the White House left him no time to enjoy a home, and he gladly gave his bride a blank check.

The home in San Miguel was not as easily won.

She’d made many trips to Mexico at the invitation of well-placed Mexican friends, including Central Bank president Antonio Morelos, whose vacation homes included a secluded hilltop villa in San Miguel de Allende.
One trip there was all Elfie needed to contact a real estate agent and snap up the house near the park for the price of a modest tract house in the States.

“Fine. I have no intention of spending time in Mexico,” Charles Frampton said when she informed him of her purchase. He was preparing to leave his post with the Ford administration to join a stalwart Washington law firm.

“It will be a good place to escape,” she countered. “Now that you won’t be at the president’s beck and call, you’ll have some time to relax. It’s beautiful there, Charles, bursting with art and history. It’s been designated a national monument, no traffc lights or neon signs or dreadful fast-food places. The weather is perfect, the people charming, and—”

They’d just settled in for their customary martini before dinner. He reacted to her litany of San Miguel virtues by dropping his glass to the marble floor, removing his glasses, and bringing his small face close to hers. He was red; his lips quivered. He growled, “I will not set foot in that filthy, disgusting country. That’s the end of it, Elfie. Case closed.”

Her husband had a sweet side to him, which he exhibited from time to time, usually when presenting her with a piece of jewelry—or when wanting her to come to bed after having soaked and scrubbed her feet so he could fondle and kiss them. But he’d also begun displaying a temper, generally fueled by the third or fourth martini. He’d been identified by political pundits as one of Nixon’s favorite Oval Office drinking companions, which was true.

A few months after their blowup, Elfie announced she was going to Mexico for an extended stay to oversee renovations.

“How long will you stay?” he asked.

“As long as it takes to put it in order. I want it to be perfect, Charles, for you, because I know you’ll come one day.”

He displayed an infrequent smile. “Perhaps I will,” he said. “When it’s perfect.”

Although Elfie made the house as nearly perfect as time and money could—she spent almost a million dollars redoing it—Charles Frampton never did see it. His drinking reached alcoholic proportions. He walked as though each step was searching for the ground, and was faced each morning with the choice of drinking vodka to steady his trembling hands and being drunk when he went to the office, or not drinking and shaking like a man with Parkinson’s disease.

Elfie eventually stopped pointing to her husband’s condition because it triggered angry outbursts. As with her second husband, Dieter, Elfie and Charles settled into a negotiated coexistence in their Washington home, with separate quarters and even more separate lives. She spent much of each year in London or Mexico. When in Washington, she threw herself into social and charitable causes, while her husband continued down his self-destructive slide.

Charles Frampton’s funeral was held almost ten years to the day from when he and Elfie married. It drew a sizable crowd, and some genuine mourners. Those who’d worked with him in government and private practice were there to pay their respects. Elfie’s multitude of friends also showed up and delivered customary expressions of sorrow, although they were well aware that any close emotional attachment to Charles Frampton had
dissipated, then vanished—and that Charles had left his already wealthy widow with another small fortune to ease the pain of loss.

She flew to Mexico the day after the funeral and stayed a month, long enough to meet and fall in love with Jeremy Mahon, sixty-four, tall and lanky, distinguished, compellingly handsome, married, and on the
Forbes
list of the five hundred richest Americans. This last distinction was thanks to his worldwide construction firm, which had hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts with Mexico’s ruling PRI to improve the country’s infrastructure, and the income of Mexico’s elite.

He divorced his wife in California, married Elfie the day after it became final, and the new Mr. and Mrs. Mahon swelled the ranks of jet-setters as they flew the globe together, a comely couple at the top of their game. Mahon’s new wife introduced him to Washington’s corridors of power, which not only provided him with psychic satisfaction; it was good for business. From Elfie’s perspective, she was now “legitimate.” She was a married woman again, no threat to her female friends, and had an elegant man on her arm.

But there was more than that. Finally, she’d met someone for whom her love was complete, physical and emotional, sent from heaven but hardly angelic: Mahon’s sexual appetite and stamina hadn’t heard of his sixtieth birthday. Elfie Dorrance’s knight had arrived.

By eleven, Elfie was showered, exercised, massaged, dressed, and conferring with the chef and his staff brought in for that evening’s dinner party for the U.S.
ambassador to Mexico, his wife, and a dozen other guests.

“The ambassador is fond of lamb,” she told the chef, “but his wife—a sour woman but harmless enough—is partial to salads and vegetables. I mean, she’s not a strict vegetarian—I have a vegetarian friend who simply can’t give up her bacon—but she is happier when her plate is filled with leafy green things.”

“But she does eat some meat,” the chef said.

“Oh, yes.”

“The rack of lamb should be perfect,” he said. “A small portion of meat surrounded by …” He laughed. “Surrounded by leafy green things.”

“Splendid. Now, for Senor and Senora Zegreda …”

By noon, everything had been agreed upon for the evening. The chef was a young Californian who’d won accolades in two restaurants there, but who’d moved to San Miguel de Allende to establish its only gourmet catering service. With as many as four thousand Americans and Canadians living there, he was seldom without a commission. He went to work with his sous chef and pâtissier in Elfie’s large, professionally equipped kitchen. The serving staff made its preparations under the watchful eyes of Elfie’s live-in Mexican husband-and-wife team. The evening’s liquor supply had been delivered, the gardeners had spruced up the front courtyard, and Elfie was free to go to lunch with the wife of the governor of Guanajuato, the state in which San Miguel was situated. They met in the stunning, lush garden restaurant of Casa de Sierra Nevada, proclaimed one of the world’s finest small hotels.

“Buen provecho!”
Elfie said, raising her glass of
agua de jamaica
in a toast to her luncheon companion.

“Salud!”

Corita Mendez and Elfie touched rims over the candle on the table, causing the purple hibiscus drink in their balloon glasses to twinkle.

“I wish you and Junipero could join us this evening,” Elfie said.

“I wish that, too, but these plans were made months ago. We leave at four. Silao, Dolores Hidalgo. Campaigning is not fun for me.”

“I suppose Junipero has to do it, Corita. The elections are days away. But—”

“He has done more of it this time. He says things are not as certain as they were. Who is coming tonight?”

“Fourteen people. The ambassador and his wife. Senor and Mrs. Zegreda. Antonio Morelos. His wife is ill. Viviana Diaz will be his table partner.”

Corita Mendez laughed. “Lucky Antonio. Did he arrange for his wife to be sick?”

Elfie, too, laughed. “I suspect it wouldn’t be the first time.”

“And you?”

“Martin. Good old Martin, getting old but still a decent conversationalist. His wit is as brittle as ever.”

Over a lunch of
antojitos
—appetizers known in Spanish as “little whims”—and a cup of onion soup for Elfie that she considered the best in the world—she’d had it flown to Washington for special occasions—they chatted about many things, mostly gossipy items about Mexican social and show-business notables. Then their conversation
turned to more tangible politics, and the upcoming elections.

Corita’s husband, Junipero, had been governor of Guanajuato for fifteen years, a PRI party kingpin whose reelection had never been in question.

Until now.

“What does Junipero say about the elections?” Elfie asked.

Corita’s broad, smooth, copper face turned sober. “There could be changes this time,” she said, “especially in Mexico City. Cardenas and the PRD look strong there. At least that is what Junipero says. He says governorships in Nuevo León and Querétaro could go to the opposition. Of course, I do not know any of this personally. Politics mystify me.”

Me, too, Elfie mused, especially Mexican politics. “What about Junipero?”

“He says he is confident.”

“I’m glad to hear that.”

“I read that President Scott is concerned,” Corita said.

“He certainly is. Cardenas is a leftist.”

“The whole PRD, I think.”

Elfie sighed and sat back, took in a huge tapestry and terra-cotta masks that decorated a facing salmon-colored stucco wall. Their two waiters stood poised to respond to their needs. Corita and Elfie were familiar faces at Casa de Sierra Nevada, and their respective positions in Mexican-American circles were known, and acted upon.

Elfie said absently, “A drastic change in government could be devastating to the economy.”

“That’s what Junipero says. He says the leftists will
undo what has been established between your country and ours, the trade, jobs. There will be many reforms.”

“Yes,” Elfie said, thinking that Vice President Joseph Aprile would welcome those reforms, along with a weakening of the PRI’s grip.

Coffee was strong and hot.

The two handsome women crossed the lobby, stopping to say good-bye to Gabriela, the hotel’s multilingual concierge, who’d kept a watchful eye on them during lunch, waved to Mannix, the bartender—“The drink was heavenly,” Elfie said—and went through the massive, heavy double wooden doors leading to the street, which was immediately beyond the door, separated from it only by a narrow cobblestone sidewalk.

“You will give my best to the ambassador and his wife,” Corita said, taking Elfie’s hand.

“Of course. Better your best than mine. He’s an insufferable little man, don’t you agree?”

Corita smiled. She knew her friend had set her sights on being ambassador to Mexico for years, ever since marrying Jeremy Mahon. Her disdain for the current American ambassador was worn on her sleeve—except, of course, when she was with him.

“Have a wonderful party,” Corita said. “But of course, you always do.”

“And campaign successfully. One thing we don’t need is a change in leadership here.”

Russell Cadwell, American ambassador to Mexico, and his wife, Priscilla, arrived in the ambassador’s official car and were greeted warmly by Elfie in the expansive foyer. She led them to a room at the rear of the main wing
where concertos by Boulez, Kurka, and Milhaud that featured the marimba came from speakers hidden in large plants. Other guests had already gathered.

“Good evening, Mr. Ambassador,” businessman Manuel Zegreda said, coming to them and extending his hand. “Mrs. Cadwell.” He bowed.