Murder in the White House (Capital Crimes Book 1) (23 page)

Gabe shook his head. “I’m sorry, but I can’t help thinking we’re getting a bit melodramatic. There has to be some other explanation, some logical explanation—”

“We’re civilized, is what we are,” Jill said. “Here we sit—three smart lawyers who don’t think in terms of doing violence on people, who look always for the rational solution. But let’s not lose sight of a basic, Gabe—we’re investigating a murder—”

“I’ll tell you what I want to—” Ron began, and was interrupted by a buzz on his telephone.

The President. He had gotten Ron’s message and was asking if it was really necessary for Ron to see him this
evening. Ron said it was and that he thought Mrs. Webster should be on hand too. To convince, he told the President he thought he had a good idea who had killed Blaine. The President promptly said he would see him in half an hour and hung up.

“I think you’re being a little premature, Ron,” Jill said. “Are you really going to meet the Websters and accuse their long-time friend Gimbel of murder?”

“Or are you going to accuse the President himself?” Gabe put in.

“I don’t know,” Ron said. “I’m going to put what I know in front of them. Maybe then they’ll tell me what they’ve obviously held back.”

“Eight to five that when you come back down here tonight you’ll be an ex-chief investigator,” Gabe said. “And probably an ex-counsel.”

“I didn’t ask for the job.”

“Are you going to tote that pistol upstairs in the White House?” Jill asked.

Ron looked sheepish but didn’t say otherwise. “Something else, you two, I want you to take some record of what we’ve found and think out of the White House. At the least, take a Dictaphone tape. I’m going to make a tape now. I’ll make two. Be sure you get them out of here. Take some of the files. Go separately—”

“Ron—” Jill began to protest.

“Maybe I’m crazy,” Ron said sharply. “I know that. But do what I ask anyway.
Now
, please.”

The President kept a small private office in a room across the hall from his bedroom—a small room other First Families had used as a guest room. It was furnished with a desk that had once been in the Oval Office—Ron forgot which President had used it there—and President Webster’s high-back leather chair from the Senate. There were two overstuffed armchairs and a couch, all upholstered in a nubby, cream-white material. There were few books on the bookshelves; most of the space was taken up by family photographs, including pictures of the President’s parents and grandparents. It was the President’s private untidy office… stacks of file folders and briefing books covered the desk. With the elaborate telephone on the desk he could pick up any of twenty lines, and by pressing a button could dial any of forty numbers held in the instrument’s electronic memory.

Ron had often met with the President in this office, had sometimes found him here in faded blue jeans and a cashmere sweater, once in white tennis shorts. The office was never photographed. Outsiders never were allowed here. Ron had often seen Gimbel here and occasionally Blaine. Members of the President’s personal
staff were brought here from time to time, but except for Blaine no cabinet member ever came here and no member of Congress had ever seen this office.

The light in the room was dull gray when Ron came in. The sun in the west did not shine on this room’s one window, and the President and Catherine Webster were sitting in the gloom talking quietly when Ron arrived. It was Catherine who got up and switched on the lamp on the President’s desk, and the light shining through the top of the lampshade fell on a painting Ron had always wondered about—uncharacteristic of this president, he would have supposed, and out of place among the other furnishings of the room: a nude of a young girl, by Edvard Munch. Ron had never had the nerve to ask if the painting was on loan or owned by the Websters. It symbolized for him a contradiction in this president’s character.

There had apparently been an early dinner, probably with guests since the President was still dressed in a dark gray suit, white shirt, and tie, and Catherine wore a dark blue knit blouse and a full white, green, and blue skirt. Both of them, in Ron’s experience, were likely to be more casually dressed in the middle hours of a summer evening.

The President opened with, “You say you think you know who killed Blaine?”

“I can’t prove it,” Ron said, “but everything I know so far seems to point to one man.”

The President sat down on the couch beside Catherine, pointed to one of the armchairs for Ron. “Go ahead.”

“Before I tell you what, who, I suspect, let me tell you why I suspect it. Otherwise, it’s
very
hard to believe.”

The President nodded.

Ron glanced apprehensively at Catherine, then back to the President. “I’ve tried to stay away from it as much as possible, Mr. President, but every way I turn I keep coming back to that… confrontation between you and Blaine when he, as I understand it, threatened to reveal some personal secret of yours… I’ve of course accepted your word that that could have nothing to do with Blaine’s death, but still, it keeps coming up—”

“Blaine wasn’t killed on account of that,” Webster said flatly. He scowled and looked away from Ron. “If he had, I’m the one who would have killed him—”

Catherine broke in. “How does it keep coming up, Ron?” She glanced at the President, apparently annoyed by his obvious impatience. “Who brings it up?”

Ron was watching the President, who was still staring angrily at the wall.

The President, apparently sensing that Ron was hesitating, glanced around. “Go
on
,” he said.

Ron took a deep breath. “Blaine was killed in the White House. Here, and by someone who had access to the second floor. We also know that Blaine had been bribed by several people over the years, mostly over things of no great importance. But lately he’d taken a good deal of money, more than ever before, and he’d promised the people who paid him that he could kill the multilateral trade agreements. Failing that, he’d promised, he at least could get exemptions from the restrictions for the people who were paying him… exemptions for Japanese cars, for example. So—”

“So he was killed by some greedy murderous people who were paying him,” the President interrupted. “That has
nothing
to do with our personal lives—”

“I’m sorry, sir, but there’s sort of a link.”

“Let Ron talk, Bob,” Catherine put in.

“We’ve called the group of people involved in bribing Blaine a consortium,” Ron said. “He took their money and couldn’t deliver. But I’m not so sure they would kill him for that. It would, they might figure, be against their interests to kill the only prominent member of this administration who was opposed to the agreements. Of course, they might have been afraid Blaine would crack under pressure from you and compromise them—which would mean disgrace and perhaps jail sentences here or at home… Anyway, if they were behind it they still had to do it through someone inside the White House. Blaine wasn’t killed by a Japanese influence buyer or a British gambler. He was killed by someone with free access to the second floor of the White House.”

“Yes…?”

“There’s a link,” Ron said quietly. “One person who links the consortium to the White House insider. A woman. Blaine was involved with her too.”

“Another one of Lan’s women,” Catherine said glumly.

“Her name is Martha Kingsley. She calls herself a prostitute, but I’d use another word… she’s a courtesan in the old sense. She is
very
knowledgeable. She knows her way around Washington. She knows, in fact, too much, things I’ve had to work very hard to find out. The FBI links her to Senator Walter Finlay. Finlay is a hired hand of the consortium—”

“No surprise there,” said the President.

“One of her… clients was Lansard Blaine. I realize Blaine was an intelligent man, brilliant, with some marks of greatness. But it means he had a side he didn’t control
too well… he could drink too much, sometimes talked too much to Martha Kingsley. Unfortunately for him, confidences were… are her stock in trade. She sells the information she gets… she was selling it regularly to someone here, in the White House…”

“And you know who?” Catherine said.

“In a moment… Blaine told her about the favors, bribes, he was taking. She reported that to her contact here at the White House. Her contact has known for months that Blaine was being paid to scotch the trade agreements. I have to ask you a question, Mr. President. Did anyone ever report to you that Blaine was being paid to argue you out of the trade-agreement program?”

“I suspected it—”

“But did anyone
tell
you?”

The President shook his head.

“On the night when you had the blowup with Blaine, he was very upset. He went to Martha Kingsley for consolation, spent the night with her. And he told her—I’m sorry to tell you this—what he had threatened you with. She knows your secret…”

The President reached quickly for Catherine’s hand, shook his head and looked closely at her. She lowered her head for a moment, then drew a deep breath and looked up at him.

Ron watched them for a moment, then turned away. His impulse was to leave the room, to give them their privacy; but to get up now and leave would be awkward and perhaps hurtful. He heard them speaking very quietly and was glad he couldn’t make out what they said. He tried to be absolutely still, wished he could make himself invisible.

Finally, after a minute or so, the President told him to go on. “But tell us who it is. No more prologues.”

“Mr. President,” Ron said quietly, “Mrs. Webster, after every conversation with Blaine, Martha Kingsley called the White House and reported to Fritz Gimbel—”

“
Fritz
… yes, you suspect Fritz… you have from the beginning—did from the beginning.”

Ron was determined not to be intimidated. “If you can tell me, Mr. President,” he said, “that Gimbel reported to
you
what Martha Kingsley reported to him, then my suspicions become a lot less valid.”

The President looked hard at him.

“Bob…” Catherine whispered.

The President shook his head… “It doesn’t prove… Fritz wouldn’t necessarily report something to me he’d been told by a prostitute… anyway, how do you know she told him anything? Who says she did?”

“She does—”

“So we’re to accept her word? Suppose I call him in here and he denies it?”

“I would appreciate it if you wouldn’t, sir. Not yet… Mr. President, it’s my job to report to you what the evidence indicates. I admitted I couldn’t
prove
my case… yet.”

“You’ve talked to this woman?” Catherine Webster asked.

“Yes, twice. Saturday morning and this afternoon. After the first meeting she called Gimbel and reported what I’d asked her—”

“According to
her
,” the President said.

Ron nodded. “According to her.”

Catherine said, “Are you sure Lan told her…?”

“She told me he did.”

“But she didn’t tell you what?”

“No.”

Catherine reached for her husband’s hand, then looked at Ron. “Do you feel you must know the story to finish the investigation?”

“I’m not sure. There are other reasons for suspecting Gimbel. I think he arranged my automobile accident Saturday night, but I’m not certain why. Is he in the pay of the consortium too? Even if he is, why would they kill Blaine in the White House? Why not at his home or somewhere else? So what other motive? Maybe—to be entirely frank—to protect your secret. It all keeps coming back to that… Gimbel is one of the very few who knows Blaine threatened you. Even the Attorney General, who knows Blaine threatened you, doesn’t know what he threatened to tell. Is it something important enough, damaging enough, Mrs. Webster, for Gimbel to have killed Blaine to prevent him telling…?”

“We are
not
going to tell you,” the President said bluntly. “If we have to deal with this woman—pay her, or whatever—we will do that. But I tell you it has nothing to do with the murder of Lansard Blaine. And Fritz did not kill Blaine. I just don’t believe it.”

Catherine shook her head while the President was talking. “I think you’re making a mistake, Bob.”

Ignoring her, he said to Ron, “Blaine made his threat in a burst of temper. I admit I took it seriously at the time but… I
told
you this… he came to us and apologized and said of course he wouldn’t reveal a personal matter. He said he was deeply ashamed even to have mentioned the notion… He promised to keep our confidence, just as he had for more than twenty years. We
felt we could trust him to keep it in the future, in spite of his momentary tantrum. He offered me his resignation then, and I accepted it. He asked for time, I gave it. The incident was closed. And Fritz heard it all. If Fritz ever thought of killing Blaine to keep him from telling our secret, that motive evaporated.” The President shook his head. “No. It’s your damn
consortium
that killed Blaine. And you haven’t linked Fritz to that.”

“Martha Kingsley links him to it,” Ron said.

The President was about to say something in rebuttal when the telephone buzzed. He went to his desk and picked it up… “I’ll have him call you,” he said after listening for a moment. “As soon as he can.” He turned to Ron. “Your office. But let’s finish this. As I hope I’ve made clear, I’m not ready to accept your accusation of Fritz—you don’t really have very much to back it up, and it doesn’t make any sense to me…”

“I’m sorry, sir, but the investigation still seems to focus on him—”

“We’re about to lose control of the
investigation
,” the President said impatiently. “It’s ready to break out in all directions—”

“Do you want my resignation?”

The President shook his head. “You have an impossible job, Ron. I knew it might be, and so did you… God, I guess it
might
be Fritz. To be honest, we’ve thought of it too… and if Fritz did have anything to do with it it will bring down the Administration. Blaine… then Fritz… everything we’ve worked for… Find me somebody else, Ron. God, let it be somebody else…”

Ron, stunned by this naked show of emotion by a president admitting his vulnerability, asking for help,
putting himself and his presidency in his hands, tried to get out something reassuring, and was abruptly stopped by the President’s next words.