Senator Love (9 page)

"You must understand. A beautiful woman in her prime is
not like other women. My wife has many wonderful qualities. But at heart she is
a narcissist and, if you know the breed, they are totally self-centered."

"Did she have enemies? An unrequited lover,
perhaps?"

"Not to my knowledge." He thought a moment.
"Or hers. She would have told me."

"Do you love your wife, Mr. Ambassador?"

"Of course."

For a diplomat, he was surprisingly open and unguarded. But
then, his value system was outside her frame of reference. She suspected that
he was cooperating because he was genuinely alarmed and, although ambitious,
less frightened about his career dangers than the Senator and his men.

"I assume each of you has considered and discussed the
other scenarios," she said. Their silence told her that they had,
encouraging her to continue.

"If she's been kidnapped for ransom, you'll hear. If
she's been taken hostage you'll hear that, too. If she's been kidnapped for
other aberrational reasons, sex, for example, you'll probably never know until
she's been released." She paused for a long moment, repressing something
she wanted to say, then continuing. "That is, if she's released." She
said it quickly, not willing to linger over the point. "On the other hand,
this may be all her doing and since she knows it is highly unlikely that you
would contact the authorities, she might simply, barring those behavioral
patterns that the Ambassador rejects, be enjoying some self-motivated bizarre
type of freedom. Freedom from her own identity. It happens."

Fiona shrugged. She had tried to be precise. Of course
there was a puzzle here and they all knew it. But she clearly understood the
role that Monte had cast her in and which she had accepted. She was here for
reassurance.

"So we wait," Monte said.

"Was there ever another choice?" Bunkie said morosely.

"I just want her home," the Ambassador said. It
was the nearest thing to a cry he had uttered.

"I'm sure it will turn out just fine," Monte
said, much like the boy whistling in the cemetery.

Ambassador Kessel got out of the car and ran through the rain
to his own. Monte maneuvered the car out of the Seven-Eleven lot and drove
south down Wisconsin Avenue.

During the drive back to his house, Bunkie dozed and Fiona
stared straight ahead, mesmerized by the steady hum of the windshield wiper as
it beat away the rain. It had slackened somewhat but not much. Far from over,
she told herself.

When they reached his townhouse on Capitol Hill, Bunkie got
out. Instead of making a run for it, he tapped the window on the driver's side
and Monte brought it down.

"I still think we didn't need her," he said, not
bothering to look toward Fiona. Without responding, Monte raised the window and
gunned the motor.

"How come the Senator wasn't here?" Fiona asked
when they were underway.

"He doesn't do this."

"The dirty work?"

"That's the deal."

"Even when things go sour?"

"Especially then."

She thought of her father. No way, she decided. Her father
wasn't a creation made out of straw and polls. He would have done the right
thing.

Monte headed the car back toward police headquarters. She
had toyed with the idea of inviting him home, but then he foreclosed on it
himself.

"Now I've got to hold Sam's hand," he sighed.
"But I'd rather hold yours." Reaching out, he took her hand and held
it up to his lips. "He'll be disappointed."

"How so?"

"Nothing definitive really happened. We agreed to wait
is all, hold off informing anyone. For him that's nebulous. He likes
resolution. Something happening that inspires the need to interact."

"A real man of action," she quipped as he headed
the car back to police headquarters. They drove in silence as he continued to
hold her hand. Fiona's thoughts drifted.

"In a way, he's right, Monte," Fiona said,
breaking the silence.

"Who?"

"Bunkie. About not needing me."

"Not needing you? To me you were essential. Maybe I
needed you to get me through this. I hate it. The whole idea of it. I'm a
professional. This is not part of my act. I needed you."

"I know you needed me, Monte," she said, moving
closer to him, caressing his arm. "I didn't mean that. I meant something
else."

"What?"

It had to be said. She owed him that.

"You won't really need me until the body turns
up."

"I HAD A problem," she told Cates the next
morning, explaining why she had not been there when he had gotten back from the
Hill. It wasn't exactly a lie. She could tell he didn't buy it.

She wished she could discuss it with him. It had haunted
her all night and needed airing. Had she given her promise to Monte too
eagerly? Giving one's word had always been sacred to her, even as a child. Long
ago she had made it the bedrock of her value system.

"Remember, Fiona," her father had told her, in a
preachier moment, perhaps when his own integrity had been challenged. "All
you own is your good name and your word. Everything else is borrowed."

His loans against such a wise homily had been large and
then, in one swoop, he had paid them all back. But her father was more of a
gambler than she. Thy good name and thy word shall comfort thee. For her it was
a form of religion, which was why she had concocted her "render unto
Caesar" remark. She assumed Monte had gotten it. If it was inside the law,
no sweat. But outside—another matter entirely. Which was why she had tossed and
turned all night. However bizarre the lifestyle of Helga and her husband, nobody
walks cold turkey. Something goes along.

Cates, perhaps noting that she seemed spacey, pulled out a
file from his drawer and opened it. At that moment the eggplant arrived
carrying a very wet big black umbrella, which he leaned against the wall
outside of his office. He surveyed the squad room, grunted a greeting, went
into the office and closed the door behind him.

"Foul weather. Foul mood," Fiona said. She looked
at Cates nursing his pout behind the file. "The suspense is killing me,
Cates."

"He's got a point," Cates said without looking
up. "The longer, the harder. Lots happens in thirteen years." He shut
the file. His pout had switched to an expression that meant strictly business.
"The Taylor girl's record with the committee was nothing to write home
about. She wasn't too punctual and she had more absences than she should have
had. Then one day she didn't show up."

"Anybody remember her?"

"Except for one older secretary, those that were
around then were mostly vague. The picture jogged them. They had recollections
of her prettiness. Beyond that, she barely made a dent."

"Except for the older secretary," Fiona prompted.

"She remembers more. Mostly because Betty was,
according to her, trying to pass. The woman, Miss Phillips, is one of these
faded, white, old maids. An observer type, you know, encased in fat. Not part
of the main social stream. Work is her only life. And gossip about the staff
and the House members, past and present. You know the type. Says Betty and she
were friendly when Betty first arrived. Remembers her as bubbly, enthusiastic
and pretty much able to field the young men that knocked on her door. Then
three months into it, she said Betty suddenly changed."

"In what way?" Fiona asked.

"No more bubbly. She got quieter. More secretive. Went
to lunch by herself. Became more of a loner. That was the heart of her memory.
How Betty Taylor had changed. It left an impression."

"She have any ideas why?"

"Not really. At least she didn't say. They're careful
up there. I couldn't tell if she was telling the truth. She's Hill smart.
Doesn't want to upset things for herself. She beat a fast retreat when I pushed
too hard."

Mrs. Taylor had it right, Fiona was certain. She knew what
it meant to have that kind of beauty. Some of the older cops of both races
called it high yellow, a genetic alchemy that spawned a golden complexion and
made extravagant what was already beautiful. Its mention, too, had a decidedly
erotic tone, as if the tone itself was a rare aphrodisiac.

And so the beautiful butterfly was let out of the cage. The
salivating predators, as always, were waiting. The Hill was a cauldron of
sexuality. Power, too, has its erotic attractions, its Pied Pipers of
seduction. Experts at manipulation, they could play the siren song in whatever
key was necessary. Titillating stuff, especially for a girl from the boonies, a
golden beauty just out of the cage.

"Got a list of staff and members for that year?"

"My new friend promised it today," Cates said.
His earlier annoyance had evaporated. "She's ordering a book from that
year from the Library of Congress."

Cates' thoroughness was always a marvel to Fiona. Of
course, he still needed seasoning, the kind that spiced the palette of logic,
but that would come with experience. He had been assigned to her by the
eggplant after Jefferson had been killed.

She still missed the big black bastard, which was the way
she preferred to remember him, at full strength with all the surface meanness
showing. How slyly he disguised the litmus of his sensitivity, the bigness of
his overflowing heart. Cates was different, harder in a way than Jefferson, more cerebral and under control, hiding his hurts with more skill, less volcanic
and nerve-wracking, yet equally reliable when it counted. The eggplant, a giant
mass of impenetrable complexities, was a shrewd and unerring marriage broker
when it came to partnering.

"I also checked out the apartment," Cates said,
looking into his notebook. There was, of course, an implied rebuke in the
revelation. "I was up there," he explained."It's only a couple
of blocks away."

She didn't press the point. Turf was never a problem
between them. Besides, she had failed in her search.

"Place had sixteen units. None of the existing tenants
had lived there more than six years. I spoke with the managing agents. Place
was sold twice since then. They told me to check at the District Building."

"Rots a ruck," Fiona said, remembering her battle
with the District bureaucracy. "I was diddled on the telephone
merry-go-round. What do you say we go down and kick some ass?"

They started to put on their raincoats, then heard the
eggplant's voice behind them. Later she would tell herself that she knew, even
before any words were exchanged, she knew in her gut. He crooked a finger and
summoned them into his office. But he did not sit down. Instead he went to the
map mounted at one end of the room, squinted at it then tapped a dark finger on
its surface.

"Here. Cleveland Park."

His nostrils quivered when he turned and faced them.

"I'm afraid you'll have to put the old bones on hold
for a while. We have something for you more contemporary."

They waited, not responding. He walked toward the window
and looked out of it.

"The rain, you see, it's turning the ground to mush.
And spitting up ladies."

A RETAINING WALL had given way and the ground behind it
rolled like volcanic lava to the yard behind it, stopped only by the foundation
of the house on the lower elevation. The body of a nude woman, not long dead,
popped to the surface midway between the house and what once was the retaining
wall.

Fiona and Cates had slogged to the body in high boots. The
nude body was on her back and there was no mistaking who it was.

"I figured," Fiona sighed. Cates looked at her
with bewilderment. "It's Helga Kessel, wife of the Austrian
Ambassador."

"You knew her?" Cates asked with some surprise.

"You might say we broke bread together," Fiona
replied.

"Jesus, this is big." Cates whistled.

"Bigger than you think," she muttered. Cates
cocked his head, puzzling.

Kneeling, she inspected the body. It seemed childlike,
smaller than she had appeared in life, but well proportioned in scale. She
noted that the grey nipples on the woman's breasts were larger than most she
had seen. The long blonde hair was caked with mud and the eyes were open and
slightly bulged. The head seemed unnaturally attached, indicating the probable
cause of death was through strangulation.

From the position of the body and the way in which the
ground above had broken, as if someone had bitten through a chunk of a
nut-filled caramel candy bar, it was apparent that the body had been expelled
from its burial site under a stand of trees that edged the higher property.

The similarities of disposal between this body and that of
Betty Taylor was not lost on Fiona. She exchanged glances with Cates.

"It's our week for coincidences," he shrugged.

"Mustn't jump to conclusions," she cautioned,
waving her finger in mock rebuke. She was rebuking herself as well. But it
didn't stop her mind from reaching across the years.

The technical men and the uniforms slogged through the mud
of the scene and the body was bagged and carried away through a path that ran
beside a detached garage at the end of the driveway of the lower house.
Following it, they confronted a young woman holding a baby, both dressed for the
rain. She was standing in the open side door of the garage. They showed their
badges.

"It was like an explosion," the woman said.
"Suddenly the ground gave way."

The woman introduced herself as a Mrs. Carlton. Cates
played a game with his fingers for the benefit of the baby, who smiled in
appreciation. Beyond the woman, Fiona could see cars and vans pulling up. The
media. She watched Flannagan's boys quickly load the body bag into the police
van and speed away. Watching the media swooping down on them like a wild herd,
she suddenly thought of Monte and his worst fears. Sorry, guy, she muttered to
herself. It's now Caesar's problem. To whom I render.

"Do you think we could duck in here for a
moment?" Fiona said, leading the woman into the interior of the garage and
closing the door.

"It's important that we get as much as you can
remember."

The woman nodded, apparently eager to tell her story, and
dived right into it. The baby continued to watch Cates distract it with finger
exercises. Its nose was running, the mucus dripping from its chin.

"When I heard the explosion," the woman said,
"I ran upstairs to get the baby, dressed him and got out of there as fast
as I could. I came out here and saw that my whole lawn was gone and there was a
lady's leg stuck up in the air. I swear it was unbelievable."

"Who lives there?" Fiona said, pointing to the
house visible behind the thinned-out stand of trees, a number of which,
although still upright, were denuded to their exposed roots. About half the
upper yard had disappeared into the lower one, now a mass of mud, bricks and
broken trees.

"Mrs. Gates lived there until a month ago. It's been
empty. For sale." The woman shook her head. "I never trusted that
damned retaining wall. Never. My husband used to pooh-pooh my anxiety. Wait'll
he sees this. Who knew that we would have the worst bout of rain in a hundred
years." She turned to Fiona. "You think our insurance covers
this?"

"I suppose it depends on whose wall it is," Fiona
said, sorry that she had volunteered.

"Shit. I think it's ours. It was there when we bought
the house. The fucking rain. It never stops." She hiked up the baby in her
arms, then felt his bottom and sniffed him. "Now he's made a poopoo."
She looked at Fiona with angry mouse eyes. Her hair was straggly and she wore
no makeup. "Can you blame him?"

"Did you hear or see anything uncommon coming from the
Gates' yard in the last two days?" Fiona asked. "More specifically,
the night before last?"

Cates stopped his finger exercises. She could feel him
studying her.

"All I've heard for the last few days is the sound of
the rain. God's pee. Why us?"

"Have you seen anyone around the Gates' house in the
past two days? Anyone at all?"

"On this level, all I could ever see was that damned
retaining wall."

"And from upstairs?"

"Trees. In winter I could see the house. They were a
retiring couple, the Gateses. Wasn't much outside life there."

Through the dirty garage window she could see the media
people clustered in a knot near the driveway, needling a nervous rookie
uniform, who probably had said more than he realized.

"You got a phone in here?" Fiona asked.

"No," the woman snapped in a surly tone.
"And I don't want you in the house." She looked at her mud-splattered
boots.

"A woman's been murdered," Cates interjected.

"That's her problem," the woman shot back.
"You gonna pay for my clean-up?"

"Used to be a genteel neighborhood," Fiona said.

"I know. Grover Cleveland came here for his summer
vacations. If he knew how much it costs to live here now he'd be rolling in his
grave."

Fiona looked out again at the cluster of reporters.

"No hotdogging," Cates said. She knew what he
meant. The eggplant had made an ironclad rule. No one from homicide ever talks
to the media. Except him.

They thanked the lady and moved out of the garage. Getting
to their car was like running a gauntlet. And they ran it. The reporters and
cameramen were on their heels, first cajoling, then cursing as Fiona and Cates
locked the car doors.

"No shit," the eggplant said into the car radio
after she had identified the corpse. He lowered his voice. "You're
positive?"

"I met the lady," Fiona said. Briefly, she
confronted the dilemma of her knowledge, then mentally postponed it.

"You do get around, FitzGerald."

She coughed into her fist and looked at Cates. "I'm
locked in the car and surrounded by the animals of the media." She held
the microphone pointing at the window.

"Hear?"

"You tell them anything?"

"Not me," she said in a mocking tone. "I
obey the rules according to..." She paused deliberately. He knew what they
called him behind his back.

"The eggplant," he chuckled.

"The thing is," she said, "if we don't say
anything, they'll think we're hiding something, something big."

"Makes sense," the eggplant muttered.

"So what should we do?"

He was silent a moment. Of all his duties, he loved playing
the star. Only he could be cast as Mr. Hot Dog and beware anyone who had the
audacity to steal his limelight. Fiona noted that the media people had grown
bored with their harassment and were heading toward the house.

"Tell them," he said, "that I'll be holding
a press conference up here in say, three hours." He paused and cleared his
throat. "We'll need a real positive ident before we send this one
up."

"Looks like a strangulation," Fiona volunteered.

"I'll push Benton on this one. I want every fact to be
letter perfect. Tell the world we're pros."

She knew he was already giving things a political spin in
his mind. A diplomatic murder had cachet, took the pressure off the escalating
killings in the crack wars.

"Shall we notify the Ambassador?" Fiona asked,
knowing the answer.

"Do what you have to. Come in with enough time to
brief me. I want to go out there smart as hell."

She waited for his ten-four, but it didn't come.

"Get your jollies poking around graves," he said.
She caught the shorthand. He was making the connection. Then he signed off.

The media people were huddled in a circle around the woman
and her baby. Television cameras, like small cannons, were focused on them. The
baby had started to howl.

She banged the car's horn to get their attention. They came
running and she opened the window a crack.

"Greene's running a press conference in three
hours," Fiona snapped. A barrage of questions began and Fiona gunned the
motor.

They drove around the corner and pulled up in front of the
house where the yard had caved in. Planted in front of it was a For Sale sign.
Haber and Weston, Real Estate.

Constructed mostly of wood with cupolas, gables and an
outdoor porch, the house had an expansive Victorian feel, suggesting more
leisurely times in a bygone age. It was well set back from the street with a
fence of high hedges along its property lines that assured its seclusion and
privacy. A car could easily be driven through the driveway and disappear behind
the hedges, totally out of the field of vision of neighbors on either side.

Determining that the house was locked and, indeed, empty,
they moved to the yard. A walkway of wide stone slabs led through the trees to
the point where the ground had given way.

Fiona speculated that the body was dragged along the stone
walkway to a point under the trees. A grave was dug, probably an easy job,
owing to the softness of the ground because of the rain. Then the body was
thrown into the hole and covered up. It was obvious that the cave-in had literally
buried any useful clues and the rain had undoubtedly washed away others. They
moved over the stone walkway searching for any indication that a body, a
person, a shovel had come that way. Nothing. Here, too, the rain had done its
job well.

"Good choice?" Cates mused.

"Except for the rain. Might have been here
forever."

"Nothing is forever," Cates said.

Somehow Fiona detected in this remark the very essence of
Cates' determination. Here was the black boy from Trinidad, with shiny ebony
skin stretched over Caucasian features, speaking in the clipped accent of the
island, as different from the native blacks who populated the MPD as she was,
the white woman.

Like her, he thrived on obstacles and divining strategies
to outflank them. Unlike many of his fellow detectives, he had a degree in
criminology from Florida State, although he was careful not to flaunt it.

"Being philosophical today, Cates," Fiona said,
mildly teasing, yet knowing that few remarks could penetrate Cates' uptight
sensibility when he was immersed in a case. He was too focused for idle
bantering and definitely not one for personal revelation.

Fiona knew very little about him. He was 30, had emigrated
with his mother as a teenager. He still lived with her in an apartment in Northwest Washington. He had admitted, in a rare moment, that he had a girlfriend who was
studying to be a doctor in a school in upstate New York. As far as she could
tell, Cates was faithful to her. He was also obsessed with making good at his
job, and as Fiona's junior, eager to learn anything she could impart.

"Not philosophical, Fi," Cates replied. "The
fact is that in due course everything is revealed."

"Depends how long we live."

Cates nodded, refusing to take up the cudgel, lapsing into
silence.

THEY DROVE to the Austrian Embassy and Fiona opened the
door.

"I've got to do this alone," she told Cates.

"Is that wise?" Cates asked. Despite his
deference, she knew he was questioning her motives.

"I know the man," she responded.

"Sometimes that could inhibit objectivity," Cates
responded.

"That's a pretty rigid evaluation, Cates."

Cates shrugged, obviously avoiding any confrontation.

As she left the car, she chose to turn away quickly,
unwilling to confront his expression nor her own motives. Call it a
postponement, she assured herself. Was there enough evidence yet to scuttle a
man's career?"

The receptionist was surprised when she was let in
immediately. The Ambassador, impeccable in a dark blue suit and discreet
striped tie that hung in a Windsor knot from a starched collar, came out from
behind a carved oak desk and greeted her in perfect diplomatic fashion.

He ushered her to a seat in a conversational setting in one
part of the spacious office.

"Can I get you anything?" Ambassador Kessel
asked. She could tell from the elaborate way he had chosen to illustrate his
exterior calmness that he suspected her mission. He seemed different from the
anxious person she had been with just yesterday, more polished, but calmer, as
if he had already sensed her mission. She studied him carefully for signs and
possibilities.

He had, after all, given her a picture of their marriage
that was deliberately planted to illustrate his indifference to his wife's
unfaithfulness. Perhaps all that had been merely a ploy to set up a future
denial on his part. Nevertheless, she did not wish to appear callous and
indifferent.

"I think I've found her," she said, her words
hesitant, hoping by her somber mood and delivery to telescope the message.

"She's dead," he whispered, swallowing deeply. He
had gone pale and clasped his hands between his knees. He lowered his head to
hide his eyes and shook it from side to side.

"How?" he asked. It seemed a genuine effort for
him to expel this single word.

"Strangulation, I think. The Medical Examiner is
checking as we speak." She then explained the circumstances of the
discovery. Each revelation seemed a physical blow. "Why Helga?" he
asked in a voice now muffled by grief.