Suspicion (33 page)

  Kate blinked in surprise. She had always thought of Douglas and Rose as the perfect couple. Douglas’s confession regarding his one-afternoon fling with Maddy Mays hadn’t changed that opinion. "But why?" she asked incredulously. "Don’t you love him anymore?"

  "Oh, of course I do. It’s just that…" She took a deep breath as if the words she was about to say weighed

  heavily on her heart. "Douglas and I no longer have sexual relations."

  Kate lowered her fork as she once again recalled Eric’s remark about his parents’ lack of intimacy. He’d been right after all. "I’m sorry," she said.

  Rose’s eyes filled with tears. "He would kill me if he knew I discussed this with you, so please, swear you’ll never mention it to anyone."

  "You know I won’t."

  Rose glanced around her before leaning forward. "Three years ago, Douglas was diagnosed with prostate cancer and had to be operated on."

  Kate sat stock-still. "But that can’t be. I would have known. He would have told me-"

  "He didn’t want anyone to know. That’s why he had the procedure done in Vail during our winter vacation."

  "Oh, Rose." The thought that her friend had gone through such an ordeal alone filled Kate with sadness. "Why didn’t you call me? You know I would have come to stay with you."

  "You don’t know how much I wanted to do that. But Douglas wouldn’t let me. To him, prostate surgery was something too shameful and embarrassing to share with anyone."

  Sensing that Rose wasn’t finished, Kate waited.

  "At the time," Rose continued, "the doctors assured us there wouldn’t be any complications. Douglas was a healthy man and there was no reason why his sexual functions couldn’t return to normal within a few months. But they never did." Her voice dropped. "He’s been impotent ever since."

  "What?" Kate felt as though she had been sucker punched.

  "It’s true. We haven’t been able to have any kind of sexual relations since the operation three years ago."

  Kate’s appetite vanished. Douglas impotent. How could that be when he had admitted to having had sex with Maddy Mays only last June?

  "Are you sure that he really is impotent, Rose?" she asked, anxious to clear the doubts that were forming in her mind. "I mean…you consulted a physician? Together?"

  "We consulted half a dozen of them. Some prescribed drugs, a few suggested alternatives Douglas wouldn’t even begin to consider, and others simply said that time would eventually remedy the problem. It didn’t. A year ago, he went through another series of tests. This time, the diagnosis was definite. Douglas’s sexual functions would not return. He was devastated."

  Afraid the expression on her face would give her away, Kate took another sip of water. Douglas had lied to her. He hadn’t had sex with Maddy on that June afternoon. Or with anyone else. He couldn’t have.

  So what had he been doing at the Europa Hotel with a woman suspected of running a call-girl ring? And why had he lied to her?

  "What’s the matter?" Rose was suddenly attentive. "You’re white as a ghost. Oh, God, I’ve upset you, haven’t I?"

  Kate shook her head. "That’s not it." She picked up her purse from the floor where she had set it earlier and opened it. "I just remembered a terribly important appointment."

  "An appointment?" Rose’s eyes widened. "Now?"

  "It’s about the Fox case," she improvised as she rose from the table. "I was supposed to meet with the U.S. attorney at one o’clock." Not wanting to waste time

  charging the meal to her credit card, Kate took forty dollars from her wallet and dropped the bills on the table. "I feel awful about this, Rose. I promise I’ll make it up to you another time."

  "Oh, you don’t have to do that." Rose extended her cheek as Kate bent to kiss her. "I know how demanding your job can be, so go on, dear." She smiled. "Do what you have to do and don’t worry about me. I’ll be just fine."

  "Thank you." Kate hurried out of the restaurant. Once outside, she started running.

  As always at this time of year, the Europa was busy, which made Mitch’s job of exploring the hotel in search of Bruno Yager relatively easy if not as rewarding as he had hoped.

  So far, his efforts, which had been confined to the underground engineering control room, hadn’t produced anything. The four men who worked the day shift had never heard of Bruno Yager. Either they had been warned to keep their mouths shut or Mitch had been wrong in assuming that Bruno worked at the Europa.

  He was about to take the elevator back to the lobby when a heavyset man in a cook’s uniform came walking out pushing a cart. A quick glance at the cart, which was loaded with thick sandwiches, coleslaw, potato salad and nachos, told Mitch the man was delivering lunch.

  "That’s quite a feast you’ve got there," he said affably. "Feeding time at the zoo?"

  The man laughed. "You wonder where they put it, don’t you?"

  Casually, Mitch positioned himself in front of the cart, making it impossible for the man to go any farther. "You work in the kitchen?"

  "Yup. I cook the food we serve in the pub." He looked up. "What about you? You’re new here, ain’t you?"

  "I don’t work here." Hands in his pocket, Mitch tried to look disappointed. "As a matter of fact, I stopped by to visit an old buddy of mine. I thought he told me he worked in maintenance, but-" with a toss of his head, he motioned toward the door behind him "-no one in there seems to know him."

  The man looked at him with renewed interest. "Maybe I know him. What’s his name?"

  "Bruno. Bruno Yager."

  "I know a Bruno, but his name ain’t Yager. It’s Ramsey."

  Ramsey. No wonder there had been no record of him. "It could be him," Mitch said with a laugh. "He always said he’d change his name one of these days. Big guy, right?" he asked, holding his hand above his head. "With a low, raspy voice?"

  "That’s him all right." The man pointed a thumb toward the ceiling. "He works up in the laundry room."

  "Where’s that?"

  "On the main floor, behind the kitchen."

  Mitch grinned. "Thanks, pal. I think I’ll go on up and surprise him."

  He would have loved to do just that, to see the look on Bruno’s face as he walked into the laundry room. But without a badge, there was nothing he could do to force him to talk. He might even scare him into taking off.

  He had accomplished what he had come to do-verify that Yager worked here. All he had to do now was go back to the station, tell Tom where he could find Bruno and let him make the arrest.

  It almost sounded too easy.

  Sitting next to Joseph in the station wagon, Alison could barely contain her excitement. Before leaving home, she had ripped the metrorail map from the phone book and highlighted her route from Melissa’s house on D Street to the Europa Hotel on Connecticut Avenue. She would take the metro at Foggy Bottom, get off at Farragut North and walk the short distance to the Europa.

  It was one o’clock when Joseph, a silver-haired man with impeccable manners and a British accent, pulled up in front of the Franklins’ home. "I’ll pick you up at three," he said as Alison jumped out of the station wagon.

  "Thanks, Joseph." Two hours would give her plenty of time to go to the hotel, solve the golden-key mystery and then return here.

  Knowing Joseph wouldn’t leave until she was safely inside Melissa’s house, she ran up to the front door and rang the bell, waiting patiently until Zina, the Franklins’ Pakistani maid opened the door and let her in.

  "Melissa not here," Zina said in her thick accent. "She at ambassador daughter party."

  Hoping the young woman wouldn’t see through her act, Alison slapped her forehead as if she had just remembered. "How stupid of me. I completely forgot." She gave Zina her sweetest smile. "Oh, well, I guess I came for nothing." She turned to leave.

  "One moment!" Zina, who clearly had her orders regarding Alison’s comings and goings, looked worried. "Where Joseph?"

  "He’s parked down the road. I wasn’t going to stay long, so he said he’d wait for me." God, her heart was beating so fast from all the lies, she was starting to get lightheaded.

  She opened the door, but Zina stayed right behind her. "I no see him."

  "He’s over there." Alison pointed toward the end of the street. "In front of that UPS van." She pulled her collar up. "I have to run. He doesn’t like it when I stand in the street too long."

  Before the maid had a chance to voice another protest, Alison was running down the steps to the street. Soon, she was out of sight and able to breathe a sigh of relief.

  Walking briskly, she reached the metro station within a few minutes. Because she and her mother were no strangers to public transportation, it only took her a few moments to get herself oriented. She reached the lower platform just as her train was pulling in.

  "The hell with a warrant!" Mitch shouted as he and Lieutenant Jarvis faced each other again. "There’s no time for that. The guy tried to kill me last night. We’ve got his fingerprints all over my foyer, and we know he’s a convicted criminal. That’s probable cause, and you damn well know it."

  "Now calm down, will you?" Jarvis said with uncharacteristic diplomacy. "Arresting this guy without a warrant would be a stupid thing to do. Maddy Mays is a powerful, well-connected woman in this town, Mitch. We barge into her hotel without the proper documents and I guarantee you that within the hour, this Bruno Yager or Ramsey or whatever his name is, will be out on bail." His smile was almost friendly. "So calm down, okay? As soon as Spivak comes back, I’ll send him to get a warrant. Yager will be behind bars before the next shift. How’s that?"

  "Where is Tom now?"

  "I sent him to Lafayette Park to investigate a shooting."

  "Couldn’t you have sent Benedetti? Or Haskell?"

  At any other time, a remark like that would have earned Mitch a severe reprimand. Today, Jarvis merely shook his head. "They’re both out. In case you haven’t noticed, we’re shorthanded. We always are at this time of year."

  Mitch’s hands were tied. If Jarvis had just plain refused to arrest Bruno, he would have had a legitimate reason to go over his head. But the lieutenant’s argument was justified. If they arrested Bruno without a warrant, Maddy Mays could, and would, have him out on bail faster than he could scream "unlawful arrest." And once he was out on bail, they’d never find him.

  "Go on home, Mitch," his former superior suggested with a concern that was definitely not the man’s style. "We’ll let you know as soon as something breaks."

  "If it’s all the same to you," Mitch said, "I’ll wait out in the squad room."

  As Kate walked briskly down the hall of Fairchild Baxter, the words she had repeated over and over during the short ride from the restaurant kept echoing inside her head. Douglas had lied to her. And then the question she couldn’t answer, didn’t want to answer. Why?

  Douglas’s secretary was at his desk, stacking several files into a neat pile. "Where is he?" Kate asked as she barged into his office.

  Monica had been working with attorneys long enough not to let anything, or anyone, faze her. She gave Kate a pleasant smile. "Mr. Fairchild is meeting with a client in Alexandria, Mrs. Logan. He said he’d be back by three."

  "If he calls in before that, tell him I need to talk to him, will you, Monica? It’s urgent."

  "Surely."

  Back in her office, Kate sank into her chair and dialed Mitch’s house. "Damn," she muttered as his machine came on.

  "Did you say something, Boss?" Frankie stood at the door, an inquisitive expression in her eyes.

  "I was just mumbling to myself." She glanced at her watch. "Mitch didn’t call while I was at lunch, did he?"

  "No. But Rencheck did. He’s got the evidence report you requested on the Fox case. You can pick it up any time after nine o’clock tomorrow morning."

  Kate nodded absently. "Take care of it for me, will you, Frankie?"

  "Sure, Boss." Still concerned, Frankie came farther into the room. "LuAnn Chester also called, but she didn’t leave a message."

  LuAnn. She had forgotten all about her promise to go see her after lunch. "Thanks, Frankie. I’ll call her right now."

  "Kate…"

  Feeling Frankie’s eyes riveted on her, Kate looked up. "Yes, what is it?"

  "About LuAnn. I thought she sounded strange, almost groggy. And there were some odd noises in the background. "

  Kate busied herself with the Fox case file. "Odd noises?"

  "Yes. Announcements through a loudspeaker, doctors being paged." She closed the door and leaned against it, hands behind her back. "Is LuAnn in the hospital, Kate? Did something happen to her?"

  Resting her elbows on the desk, Kate closed her eyes and rubbed her throbbing temples. She was tired of lying, tired of playing games, tired of all the secrecy. "Yes," she said without looking up, "LuAnn is in the hospital."

  Frankie pulled up a chair and sat down. "What happened?"

  "She had an accident."

  "A real accident, or the kind of accident you had in the garage last week?"

  Kate smiled. That’s what she liked about Frankie. She didn’t pull her punches.

  "I thought we were friends," Frankie persisted when Kate remained silent. "I thought you and I could talk about anything."

  "We can- "

  "Then why are you keeping secrets from me? And why did you feed me that load of manure the other day about your dropping the Lamont murder case?" As Kate’s head snapped up, Frankie’s expression turned cocky. "What? You thought that because I didn’t say anything, I bought your story?" She laughed. "In a pig’s eye. I’ve known you much too long to believe that you could be scared off. Douglas may have bought it, Maria and Tony may have bought it, but I sure didn’t." She leaned forward. "What’s going on, Boss? Tell me."