The Ties That Bind (11 page)

The idea gave Fiona a deeper insight into Gail Prentiss's
motivation for joining the police, namely a firm sense of moral certitude and
self-righteousness that brooked no deviation.

"How many times have we seen it in our trade,
Fiona?" Gail said. She was not backing down. "Sexual violation of the
innocent and unprotected, with murder a frequent companion. Rape. Child abuse.
Sodomy. Sadism. Masochism. The statistics are appalling and those are merely
reported figures."

Fiona could see that she was winding up for a debate,
something she wished to avoid at all costs. Her respect for Gail Prentiss was
not diminished, but the possibility of greater candor between them was. Fiona
and her lifestyle would definitely not meet with her approval. It crossed her
mind that Gail might still be a virgin.

"We both know that intuition is important, Gail,"
Fiona said. She saw the unfairness of her position, keeping from her partner
the true nature of her suspicions about the identity of the perpetrator. It was
against every caveat in police work, especially in homicide.

She was aware, too, that the moment would come when Gail
would begin questioning her about her fixation with the Supreme Court and her
constant allusions to the justices. Fiona was certain that it had not escaped
her notice and was bound to surface. She hoped it would be later rather than
sooner, when she had gotten further along in her quest, but the possibility of
revelation filled her with dread.

"I need to follow this line, Fiona," Gail said.
It was obviously eating at her.

"That's pretty obvious," Fiona replied. Where was
the harm in that, she asked herself, searching for some rational way to soothe
her guilt.

"Look, Fiona. We're partners and I'm new here. And I
really want to make it with you. I know you're good and, with all modesty, I
know I am as well..."

"It's okay, Gail. I don't need the speech. You've made
your point and I won't stand in your way."

"Stand in my way? I want you to join me. Phelps Barker
knows a lot more than he's saying."

"I just don't believe he was the one," Fiona said
with obvious conviction. "In the absence of any evidence."

"I'm not accusing him. I'm only saying he seems to be
hiding something that could be relevant."

Round and round it went. Fiona drove steadily through the
traffic. The discussion seemed pointless.

"You're probably right," Fiona sighed, swallowing
her deception and offering complete surrender. No matter how hard she searched
her mind, she could not find an acceptable way to enlist Gail Prentiss in her
pursuit of Farley Lipscomb.

"So I have your permission to follow-up?"
Prentiss said.

"You don't need my blessing, Gail" Fiona said.

"How about your help?"

"You're my partner," Fiona said, reiterating the
point, but dreading an arrangement that meant hours of nonproductive make-work
in what Fiona believed was the futile pursuit of Phelps Barker. She was more
inclined to spend her time trying to find a link between Phyla Herbert's murder
and Farley Lipscomb.

"Problem is," Fiona said, mulling a way to
disguise the deception, "we'll have to divide the labor, work different
sides of the street. Clearly, this case needs more personnel. Only there's not
enough to go 'round. While you work the Phelps Barker angle, I'll fish around
elsewhere. It won't do to get hung up on a single track."

The mixed metaphors were troubling, and Fiona knew they
needed elaboration.

"For example, I'd like to touch base with that
assistant manager again and go over the hotel guest list."

They had, of course, requested the guest list, which would
require painstaking scrutiny and, perhaps, another dead end. But it did have an
acceptable logic. Peripherally, she could see Gail's consenting nod.

"We'll stay in close touch," Fiona promised.
"The Eggplant will want daily verbals."

Fiona could not find the courage to turn from her driving
and look at Gail. It hurt her to know that she was being disengenuous. After a
long silence, pregnant with smoldering cogitation, Gail said:

"I am confused about something, Fiona," she said.

"About what?"

Fiona braced herself. She knew what was coming.

"This business about Phyla wanting to work for a
justice of the Supreme Court. It seems well ... disconnected."

"Disconnected?" Fiona replied, searching for an
appropriate answer. It was too premature for a valid answer. "Popped into
my mind. It just seemed to fit. People who have clerked for Supreme Court
justices have had hot careers. Phyla seemed a logical candidate."

"It's just ... well, you seem to have something in
mind."

"Nothing specific," Fiona lied, trying her best
to remain casual and vague. She forced herself to keep her eyes on the road,
hoping that her answers would put the matter to rest, at least for the moment.

"It just seems to keep coming up," Gail pressed.
Did she sense that Fiona was hiding something?

"Comes from growing up in what used to be called the
power structure," Fiona said. "There's lots of reflected glory in
working at the Court. And since there are only nine justices, a young lawyer
gets to enjoy a certain exclusivity that sets him or her apart in any future
endeavors."

Fiona caught herself trying too hard, rambling, a dead
giveaway. She wondered if Gail would notice.

Of course she would, Fiona decided. Gail was too smart not
to notice.

The worst part of the case was the obsessive way it had
intruded on Fiona's life. Re-intruded, she corrected. It was like a disease
long in remission that had emerged again, more destructive, virulent and
unforgiving, packing a greater fury than on its first unwelcome visit.

Tossing in her bed like a cork on a white-capped ocean, she
slept in gasps of exhaustion. Periodically she awoke in a cold, syrupy sweat as
images of that day, returning in oblique but unmistakable configurations,
swirled in her mind. Even the terrible physical pain that had been inflicted
came back to plague her body. It seemed worse in recall.

She hated being alone in her bed, yet feared that a call to
Harrison Greenwald would strike him as a summons to a sexual event in which she
simply could not participate. Even the idea of such a coupling of the flesh was
appalling. Harrison, she knew, would not take kindly to rejection, especially
without explanation.

What she needed, she told herself, was to concentrate on
ways to reach across the clueless void to find the truth. Was Farley the perpetrator
or not? It did not take much insight on her part to understand that, in her
heart, she wanted him to be the guilty party. Vengeance, she speculated, would
be sweet. Justice would be done. And she would, at last, be released from the
prison of her own guilt.

Yet she detested these feelings. They were unprofessional
and inhibiting. Besides, there was a code of ethics to uphold. Even the
perpetrator of the most beastly crimes was innocent until proven guilty.

An official confrontation with Farley Lipscomb, a man in a
position of such prestige and veneration, was out of the question. Even the
barest hint of suspicion, without good reason and foolproof back-up evidence,
would call down the wrath of the department on her head. But did this rule out
an unofficial confrontation?

She went downstairs and made herself a strong cup of tea,
hoping it might soothe her mind and stimulate those portions of the brain
involved with imagination and gamesmanship. By morning, after a couple of hours
sleep, she came up with a logical course of action.

She would have to meet Farley in a casual, nonthreatening
manner, which meant a social context, where she could observe his reactions and
attitude first hand. Any objective conclusions, she knew, would be based more
on the subtleties of silent communication than on hard information. The idea
begged comparison with Gail's gut reaction to Phelps Barker and those
mysterious messages she was picking up. Except that Fiona had the considerable
advantage of painful personal experience.

Not long after dawn, as she watched the lightening sky
against the large oaks that rimmed her scrupulously maintained property, she
got the first faint glimmer of how to accomplish her objective.

With the Supreme Court in session and the Washington social
whirl in full swing, she could, with little effort, find out at what events
Farley Lipscomb and his very social wife were scheduled to spend their
evenings. A Supreme Court justice was always a trophy guest, a fact that had
surely enhanced Letitia Lipscomb's already awesome social reputation.

At the first respectable moment of the morning, Fiona
called her friend Daisy Hodges, a former inmate, along with Fiona, of Mount
Vernon School for Girls, still a bastion for the young daughters of the power
elite. Daisy had married a real estate developer who had sold out at the top of
the breaking wave of recession and was now pursuing her own social agenda in a
huge house in Spring Valley.

Daisy had acquired clout and social cachet from her father,
a member of the Kennedy Cabinet. She had embellished it by marrying well enough
to spread her bucks like manure around the Washington social scene. Now an
accomplished hostess, Daisy's home was the scene of constant action, a
must-attend for the currently important on the Washington merry-go-round.

Fiona still maintained a place on the social circuit.
Between "relationships" she was often invited as the
"extra" girl to even up a dinner table and she received a good share
of invitations to the best houses and embassies. She entertained occasionally
as well, in the large elegant house she had inherited from her parents.

Wise in the ways of Washington, she pursued a minimum of
the social niceties just to keep her image afloat in that world and her
presence welcomed in her own right. Those that knew her profession accepted her
as a socially acceptable eccentric and let it go at that.

Many of the present Washington elite, like Daisy, were
childhood friends of Fiona. Those in her age group were rising rapidly as the
Washington cadre, meaning those who were the mainstays of social power and who
had the wherewithal to entertain the top rung of the invading armies of eager
power seekers who arrived in town with each succeeding administration.

Bonded by girlhood confidences of a most personal nature,
Fiona knew that, despite their life choices, Daisy and she would always
consider each other "best girlfriends," having pledged to each other
a fealty that would carry them through to their graves. From time to time,
although they could drift for months without contact, Daisy would avail herself
of Fiona's sympathetic ear and, once or twice, at low points, Fiona, too, had
sought out her friend for hugs and sympathy. The passage of time diminished
nothing between them.

"Daisy!" It was ten minutes before eight.
"Did I wake you?"

"Wake me? Donald already did that. He's a glutton for
a morning poke."

Knowing it was Fiona, she could let her hair down and did.
They had, back in their teenage days, confided everything to each other. With
maturity had come private secrets, which was natural. But their trust in each
other was implicit. Daisy knew about the long-ago teenage affair with Farley,
although not about the incident that ended it.

In those days, before AIDS, a sexual scalp, particularly
belonging to someone high in the power pecking order, was an honored trophy.
Daisy, who was sexually active at fifteen, a prodigious Lolita, had accumulated
an exhibit hall full of scalps. Marriage, three children and skyrocketing
social status had tamed her considerably, although there were complicated
circumstances early in her marriage.

In recent years it was Fiona, with her checkered love life
and inability to form lasting liaisons, who provided the spice to their
confidences.

"How's the flatfoot?" Daisy asked. She was one of
the few of her childhood friends who actually approved of her choice of
profession, on the grounds of it being both dangerous and adventuresome.

"Still running after the bad guys."

"Lucky you." Daisy's voice indicated that she was
stretching langorously. "I could use a bad guy right this minute."

"I could talk dirty, Daisy."

"Wouldn't be the same, Fi."

They exchanged a series of inquiries. Fiona inquired after
the health and status of Daisy's offspring and husband and Daisy pumped Fiona
on the hard facts of her love life.

"You and Harrison Greenwald still in thrall?"
Daisy asked.

"Sort of," Fiona admitted.

"Meaning declining interest?"

"I'm into a celibacy phase."

"Poor thing."

Because of her errant flippancy, the real purpose of her
call generated a twisted and inaccurate impression.

"I'm interested in seeing the Lipscombs in a social
context, Daisy."

"You little devil. I thought that was over..."
There was a short silence. "Was it fifteen years? No more."

"You're a filthy minded slut," Fiona said,
reverting to the words and intonation of their school days.

"Always was. Always will be. Who was it that
introduced you to the joys of masturbation?"

"God, Daisy."

"And the proper way to fake an orgasm."

"It's entirely unrelated to the big 'S', Fiona said,
falling into the rhythm and idiom of their teenage speech. "I'm working on
a case that could use free judicial advice, given casually, a kind of
pre-opinion that I don't want to have in an official capacity. You get my
drift."

"Ah, the joys of the traveling Washington crap game.
If the great unwashed only knew how things worked in this town. All those cute
little competing agendas. I love it."

"You're the chess player, Daisy. Move my piece into
position."

"Dear Farley. He's became very self-important and
scholarly. Still attractive. Remember how he used to flirt. He was quite a bon
vivant. I can understand how you could drop your bloomers with a guy like that.
Even today. He can turn it on, I'll say that for him.

"You ever see him do that?"

"Do what?"

"Turn it on to impress some sweet young thing."

"Are you contracting me to observe, Fi?" Daisy
giggled.

"Just curious."

"At least, Fi, you have indulged yourself with all
three branches of government, a true constitutionalist." Daisy giggled.
"But pre-Supreme Court doesn't really count, does it? I mean you didn't
exactly crawl under that black robe."

"What is it with you this morning, Daisy?" Fi
asked, noting that Daisy was into one of her wiseacre fits.

"I'm suffering from an orgasm deficit, dahling. My man
has left me bereft. He's becoming the bing-bang man," Daisy roared into a
laughing spell, obviously enjoying the lack of control and decorum normally
required of her present status and position.

"Let me know ... dahling ... when you can work me
in."

"Gotcha."

Fiona hung up, her spirits lifted. Daisy could do that for
her with her wonderfully irreverent wisegal talk. Jumping into the shower,
Fiona got ready for what she sensed might be a another dead-end day, while
looking forward to the results of Daisy's research.

The phone rang while she still dripped moisture on the
bathroom tiles. She picked up the portable that lay beside the sink. It was
Gail Prentiss.

"I'll be seeing the guy that hosted the Saturday night
party, Fiona. He's a congressional AA. We're meeting on the Hill."

"Great," Fiona said with mock enthusiasm.

"I'm heading to the Mayflower," Fiona said. It
seemed the only logical destination. She would go through the motions at her
own pace without Gail's second guessing. Perhaps, too, there might be a hidden
lead that, she hoped, could point her in Farley Lipscomb's direction.

They made arrangements to compare notes at headquarters
later in the day. Then Fiona called the Eggplant and filled him in on what they
were doing, which, while not satisfying him, led him to believe that they were
making the right moves.

"We need this one, FitzGerald," he said.

She reassured him, hating herself for dissembling. The
irony was that she had dissembled before, mostly in the interest of keeping him
momentarily placated. But this situation seemed more a betrayal, a step down
from what would ordinarily be considered a simple white lie.

As she was leaving the house, the phone rang again. It was
Daisy.

"A six-to-eighter at the State Department open rooms
tonight. I've put you and Harrison on the list."

"Harrison?"

"I just assumed..."

"Of course," Fiona said. Yes, she decided, it
would seem less official if she brought a date. "You do have clout,
Daisy."

"I've contributed enough antiques to those rooms to
furnish a palace," Daisy said. Her official day begun, she was less
playful than earlier.

"You think Farley will be a sure show?"

Names were a commodity in Washington, often used as a lure
for others to attend this or that event. On most occasions the owner of the
famous name did not show up for the affair.

"He's both a sponsor and a presenter. Some award. I
forget which."

"Will you be there, Daisy?"

"Three things on the schedule. It'll be dash in, dash
out. I'll probably miss you."

Fiona was about to say her good-byes, when another thought
intruded.

"Daisy. Have you ever heard of a Tom Herbert?"

"Herbert. Herbert," Daisy pondered aloud.
"Oh yes," she said. "That poor man. The one who's daughter. My
God was that awful."

"Yes, it was."

"What a ghoulish business you're in, Fiona. But yes,
I've met Herbert. Chicago. Very well connected. In town frequently. On the
social circuit. He's single and straight, a rare commodity. As a matter of
fact, I think I fixed him up once or twice. Fran Thompson, it was. The widow of
Senator Thompson. I think they were an item for a time, then it terminated for
whatever reason. I forget. I'm sure the fellow is a mess, considering what's
happened. She seemed like such a nice girl."

"You met her?" Fiona asked, startled by the
assertion.

"Oh, yes. Herbert brought her around from time to
time. Are you on this case, Fi?"

"As a matter of act..." Fiona replied.

"From what I've read, it was real kinky."

"Yes, Daisy. It was."

"I'm not pressing. You probably can't talk about
it."

"Not at the moment. But as soon as we catch the man,
I'll give you the blow-by-blow."

"Goody, goody," Daisy said. "You never know
about people. Herbert has to be devastated."

"He is," Fiona said, considering a follow-up, but
restraining herself.

Fiona heard another phone ringing in the background. Daisy
excused herself and hung up.

But the conversation had confirmed that Tom Herbert was
indeed plugged into the Washington social scene. In this arena it did not take
a leap of faith to find a connection between the Herberts and Farley Lipscomb.