Murder on Capitol Hill (15 page)

“You said things to the police, Mark, that might be construed as being… well, as being hostile toward your father. Would you agree that you felt anger toward him?”

“Of course he did,” Jewel said. “Mark Adam’s father was hardly what you would call a decent God-fearing man.”

“Mr. Jewel, I’d appreciate it if you would allow Mark to answer the questions himself. Having you here is one thing, answering for him is another.”

Jewel pursed his lips, which drew his small nose to an even finer line. One finger stroked his cheek as he prepared to speak. Lydia didn’t wait. She went back to Mark and asked, “Do you understand why I’m asking these things, Mark? I’ve been a friend of your family for years and I want to help in any way I can. I also have a duty to attempt to get to the truth. I’d like to find that truth without hurting those people I care about, and you’re one of them.”

“No one cared about him until he came here,” Jewel said.

Again she ignored him. “Mark, some people think that Jimmye’s murder might, in some way, shed some light on your father’s death. What do you think about that?”

Jewel raised up in his chair. “Really, Miss James, is it necessary for such cruelty? The boy has lost his father as well as a sister… to bring up that unfortunate incident is, to me, unconscionable.”

“Mark, I ask you again, do you think that Jimmye’s—”

“Jimmye was a harlot, a
Messalina hetaera
.”

“What?”

“She sinned and was punished. It’s as it should be.”

“She was like a sister, Mark.”

“She was a sister of the Devil,” he said in his near-singsong voice. “She gave her body to the Devil.” He shifted in his seat and placed his large hands flat on the desk. The thick, muscular body beneath the robe began to tremble. “Those who sin against the Father must be punished.”

Or with the father? she couldn’t help think to herself…

“I think this has gone far enough,” Jewel said. He patted Mark’s forearm. “I don’t think Miss James has any further questions for you, my son. You can return to your duties.”

“No, I’m not finished,” Lydia said. “I’d like to know why he attended his father’s party after so many years of estrangement. I’d like to know about Jimmye and his relationship with her. I’d—”

But Mark Adam had already stood up, turned and left the room.

“I resent the way this has been handled,” Lydia told Jewel. “The boy seems in another world. What have you done to him?”

“We have given him peace and hope, something you probably wouldn’t understand, Miss James. He came from a family of sinners, rich and powerful people who abused their position here on earth, who defied their God every day of their lives. Here Mark Adam is with those who shun the secular, the materialistic, the sins of society. Here, Miss James, he can fulfill his Father’s wishes for him.”

“His father is dead. His father has been murdered.”

“Good day, Miss James.”

She placed her materials in her briefcase, zippered it shut and left the house, her every movement under the scrutiny of the armed young cult member.

She drove back to Washington as quickly as possible, stopped in at her private offices, where she was filled in on developments during her absence, dictated a sheaf of letters into a recorder while she munched halfheartedly on a chicken salad sandwich delivered from a local luncheonette, called Clarence but didn’t find him at home, then finally called her committee office in the Senate. Rick Petrone answered.

“How’s everything?” she asked, her mouth half-filled with chicken salad.

“Where have you been?”

“I’ve spent the morning with crazies, I’m sorry to say.”

“Looks like Ginger spent an evening with one.”

“What do you mean?”

“She was mugged and robbed last night—”

“
What
? My God… is she all right?”

“A concussion. She’s at Doctors Hospital. They say she’ll be okay. The guy hit her over the head and stole her purse. After he’d slashed both rear tires on her car.”

“Good Lord, I’ll be there in an hour. Will you be there?”

“I’ll hang around.”

“Any calls?”

“A dozen or so. Where were you this morning?”

She briefly told him of her trip to the cult headquarters.

“You ought to stay away from places like that.”

“I’m sure you’re right. See you.”

***

Twenty minutes later Senator Wilfred MacLoon walked into Veronica Caldwell’s Senate office, closed the door behind him. “This whole situation with Lydia James is getting out of hand. She thinks she’s Sam Spade and Sherlock Holmes rolled into one.”

“Why do you say that?”

MacLoon, briefed by Rick Petrone, told her about Lydia’s trip to cult headquarters and her interview with Mark Adam.

Veronica’s lips tightened. “All I can say, Will, is that if I’ve made a mistake in pushing for Lydia James to be special counsel, I meant well. I spoke with her recently and rather thought I’d gotten through to her that—”

“What did you tell her?”

“Oh… just that the committee has a limited function and that all other aspects of Cale’s death are the business of the MPD.”

“Evidently she doesn’t listen too well.”

“I’ll speak with her again.”

“Please do. I want this committee to be out of business within a month, and it never will be if I have to put up with her nonsense. By the way, did you hear about that researcher on her staff, Ginger Johnson?”

“No.”

MacLoon told her what Rick Petrone had reported.

“
Well
… I certainly hope she’s all right.”

“Oh, they say she will be… I haven’t had lunch yet. Today’s Oregon Day. They flew in salmon steaks. Join me?”

“I’d love to. Thank you, Will.”

Harold drove Ginger home from the hospital the following day. The doctors told her she’d suffered a concussion and was to spend a few days in bed. She protested but Harold insisted that she follow their orders. Reluctantly she crawled into bed while he went to the kitchen to heat up a can of tomato soup. When he came back to the tiny bedroom, she was on the phone with Lydia.

“You’re not supposed to talk,” he said in a loud voice.

She held up a finger to silence him, then said to Lydia, “I’m feeling okay, I guess. I just called to see what was going on.”

“Nothing that can’t wait. The important thing is for you to get some rest and come back to work fit as a fiddle. One thing, though, before I hang up. What about screening Quentin Hughes’s videotape of the Cale Caldwell interview?”

“Oh, right. He says we can come to the studio to see it.”

“Okay. I’ll call him and set something up. Ginger, do what Harold says, and if you need anything, just yell.”

“I will, Lydia, and thanks.”

Lydia’s call to WCAP-TV was taken by Hughes’s producer, Christa. Lydia explained what she wanted and Christa told her she’d check with Hughes and get back to her. An hour later she did and suggested that Lydia come to the station at five that afternoon…

After waiting ten minutes in WCAP’s reception area, Lydia was escorted by Christa to a small editing room in the building’s basement. Waiting there were Quentin Hughes and a young woman who, although not introduced, was obviously a tape editor familiar with the room’s dazzling array of electronic equipment.

Hughes barely acknowledged Lydia. “Ready?”

“Yes.”

“Go ahead,” he told the editor. She pressed some buttons and two TV monitors came to life.

A half hour later the videotape came to an end with Hughes saying goodbye to his viewers and thanking the Senate Majority Leader for being his guest.

“All right?” Hughes asked Lydia as the lights came on and the monitors went to black.

“Yes, thank you. It was so… sad seeing him there on the screen, so vibrant and alive—”

“Yeah, well he isn’t that now.”

“No, he’s not. I may want to see it again. That will be possible, I assume.”

“Yeah, I guess so, give a call.”

She got up and Christa returned her to the reception area on the main floor.

“If there’s anything else I can do to help you and
the committee, Ms. James, please let me know,” Christa said. “I mean that.”

As they said goodbye Lydia asked, “Were you there during the taping?”

“Yes, of course. Why?”

“Oh, nothing. There were some things about Senator Caldwell’s actions, his appearance, that seemed… well, seemed a little out of place, that’s all.”

“I don’t recall anything unusual,” Christa said.

“Probably just my imagination. Well, thanks again. I appreciate it.”

“Anytime.”

She drove directly to her Senate committee office, flicked on a tape machine and was about to dictate her thoughts about the interview she’d just seen when Veronica Caldwell knocked, opened the door and stepped inside. Lydia placed the microphone in its cradle. “Hello, Veronica. What a nice surprise.”

“I was just getting ready to leave and thought I’d stop in and see how your researcher was doing. I heard about it and was shocked. How is she?”

“Doing well, I spoke with her today. She’s home and resting.”

“Thank God. And how are you?”

“Busy… I’m just back from WCAP. I saw the interview Cale did with Quentin Hughes.”

“Oh? Why?”

“Curiosity, in part. But mostly to take every opportunity to try to better understand… This will sound foolish, I guess, but one thing that struck me… it was the first time I’d ever seen Cale less than impeccable…”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, he fiddled the whole interview at a nonexistent button on his shirt collar. Not like Cale to show up anywhere, let alone a TV show, like that…”

“Really?”

“Yes… for him to go to a TV taping with a button missing on a button-down shirt—”

“Oh, but he didn’t.”

“What?”

Veronica laughed. “Of course not. I remember that day very well. He’d just received a new shipment from Wendley in New York. He always ordered his shirts from them, they kept his measurements on file. He was so fond of their shirts, especially the button-down ones. He said he liked the slightly higher collar they had. Anyway, the day he went to tape Quentin’s show he took out a fresh shirt from the shipment. I distinctly remember because he was showing it off to me. As they say, he had all his buttons.”

Lydia laughed, too. “Well, he lost one of them before the taping. So much for that…”

“I understand you paid Mark Adam a visit…”

“Yes.”

“How was he?”

“Fine, he… oh, why am I saying ‘fine’? I was shocked at what I saw. He seemed to be drugged, or under some other sort of control. Frankly, I was appalled.”

Veronica’s face hardened, she fidgeted with her purse. “I know it must be dreadful for you to know the situation he’s put himself in. I’m so sorry…” She forced a smile. “You can never tell about children,
Lydia. You bring them up, give them all you can and do your best. Then they become adults, and, well, you just don’t matter anymore… They go their own way… Fortunately Cale, Jr., took a different direction. He made his father very proud.”

“He must have… I’m hesitant to bring this up, Veronica, but I might as well take advantage of your being here—”

She held up a gloved hand. “From the way you said that, I think I’d rather not be here.”

Lydia stifled an urge to ignore what was on her mind, but she pushed on… “I understand there was a personal problem of some sort between Jimmye and Mark Adam.”

Veronica seemed to ignore her.

“What was the problem, Veronica?”

“Lydia, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“I can’t believe that, not after what Mark himself said about her. Please, Veronica, it might put some light on what happened to Jimmye and to Cale. I’m
not
just prying, have never meant to…”

There was no masking Veronica’s anger. She stood. “I’ve made a great mistake in trusting you, Lydia. I resent the inference in what you just asked me.”

Lydia’s early embarrassment was evaporated in her own rising anger, not just at Veronica but at the whole frustrating experience since she’d joined the committee. They gave her a responsibility, then the same people who’d given it seemed hell-bent on keeping her from carrying it out. Now, as Veronica got to the door and was about to open it, she decided to go all the way… “And what about
Cale
and Jimmye?”

Veronica stopped, turned slowly. “I’ve had enough, you’ve really gone too far. For reasons best known to yourself, you’ve twisted everything decent about my family to satisfy some extraordinary need that I never dreamed existed in you. You’ve taken a public trust and betrayed it, made a scandal sheet assignment of it. I assure you you will no longer be in a position to do that.” She slammed the door behind her.

Lydia sat there, stunned. She dug her fingernails into the palm of her hand.
How could you?
Never before in her life had she acted so impetuously, spoken with such disregard for another person’s feelings. She’d been totally out of line. Veronica’s reaction was right and to be expected. She considered going after her to try to apologize but didn’t. She’d wait a day, then call…

Sleep did not come easily that night, and she woke up the next morning feeling groggy and very out of sorts. She was due at the MPD to review the Jimmye McNab file and now was tempted to cancel the whole thing. After last night…

She wrapped a robe around herself, put on the teakettle and went to the front door, where the
Post
would be waiting. She tossed it on the kitchen table and took a shower, finishing off with very cold water to clear her head. She removed the whistling kettle from the stove and made a cup of black instant coffee.

As she sat at the table and opened the folded paper to its first page, her eyes focused on the top, heavy headlines. But then she noticed a small box at the
bottom of the page, with a headline that read:
BREAK REPORTED IN CALDWELL MURDER
.

The article jumped to an interior page, but the paragraph and a half on page one gave the essence of the story.