The Ties That Bind (22 page)

She shot a glance at Gail, hoping she might get some
further encouragement from her reaction. Wisely, Gail, too, showed no emotion.

As Fiona had expected, the idea of proving his closeness to
Lipscomb seemed to challenge him. Without commenting, he looked up a number in
a leather notebook, then picked up the phone and dialed.

"In session. Terribly sorry. I forgot," he said,
instructing the person at the other end of the phone to give Justice Lipscomb
the message to return his call.

When he hung up he glared at Fiona.

"Anything else to satisfy your claim to intrepid
police work?"

"I appreciate your cooperation," Fiona said.

"I don't," Herbert replied.

In the car going back to headquarters, Gail admitted the
possibility that she had been wrong.

"You don't have to, Gail," Fiona said.

"I feel awful about that boy," Gail said.

"It wasn't your fault."

"I could have sworn..."

"Even I was getting there," Fiona said,
"despite what I felt in my gut."

"I was there. Now I'm not so sure," Gail said,
still on the edge of belief, but tottering fast. "But this relationship
with Lipscomb. It does make one think."

"It's impossible for me to be objective," Fiona
said. "Subconsciously, I was convinced from the beginning. Herbert
connected them. I feel a lot better about the logic of my gut."

"But there's not a shred of evidence. Not even
circumstantial."

"I told you the bastard was clever. The only chance we
have is to get him to react and hope he'll make a fatal mistake."

"Sounds like a long shot to me," Gail sighed.

"I got him to react once before. He needs to feel
threatened."

"Alright, Fiona. Herbert's call pushes him ... but to
do what?"

"To come calling, Gail. He needs to come
calling."

Gail shook her head.

"Then what?"

"We get to his weak spot," Fiona said, a plan
forming in her mind.

Herbert connected them. I feel a lot better about the logic
of my gut."

As they headed to police headquarters, Prentiss called her
father on the car phone.

"Is it any better, Dad?" she said, silent as he
replied. "I'll be with you tonight. Sorry about last night." She
looked at Fiona. "Something came up. I know, Dad. Just do your best. Of
course. See you later."

She hung up.

"Fathers and daughters," she sighed. "Why
can't all men be like our fathers?"

"Good question," Fiona said. She, too, had adored
her father. "Perhaps they just can't measure up."

"No way," Gail said, patting Fiona on the
shoulder. The gesture presaged what they would be sharing as friends and how
much they had in common.

When they got back to the squad room the Eggplant was
fuming, apoplectic. With a crook-of-the-finger sign, a very bad omen, he
summoned them both into his office. His ashtray was piled high with unsmoked,
chewed-up panatelas and there was a half-filled bottle of liquid Maalox on his
desk. When he was in that state, Fiona knew, there was nothing to be done but
ride out the storm.

"I have spent the morning being pilloried by the
mayor, abused by the police commissioner and reviled by Tom Herbert. In a very
real sense, you have both fucked me over."

He stretched out his hands palms upward in an exaggerated
pose of supplication. "I have sympathized and empathized with the special
problems of your gender. Have I not understood this? Have I not been fair to a
fault? Have I not been decent, open, honest, supportive?" He turned to
Gail. "You, Prentiss. Have I not sponsored you, been your rabbi? Just to
get you into this division required special dispensation."

Gail nodded, her yellow-flecked eyes alert but troubled.
"Do you know what it means to have to justify the actions of your troops,
to be second-guessed by others? Who was it that insitituted this experiment in
the first place? Well, my little foray into social engineering has been a
fuck-up."

He shook his head, unwrapped another panatela and jammed
it, unlit, into his mouth.

"Now," he said, his nostrils quivering.
"Whose bright idea was it to get an associate justice of the Supreme Court
involved in this case?"

Fiona was about to answer, but Gail spoke first.

"Ours, Chief," she said. "It was merely an
inquiry, not an involvement."

"When is an inquiry not an involvement?" the
Eggplant shot back.

"It was purely routine," Gail argued. "We
simply wanted to be certain that we had touched all the bases before we closed
the case." She looked toward Fiona.

"I take full responsibility," Fiona interrupted.
"I thought we should take out a little insurance."

The Eggplant held up his hand.

"Let's back up here. We have a man who admitted being
in the room with the lady very close to the time of her death. He has a string
of accusations against him about violent sexual conduct. He admits lying to us.
He commits suicide with an apology..."

"Not an apology for the crime," Fiona said.
"That's the missing link. 'Sorry' could have meant that he was sorry for
creating any problems for those left behind."

"Clairvoyance, FitzGerald, is a dangerous indulgence
for a homicide detective."

"It's not that," Fiona protested, unable to bring
herself to the point of personal revelation. It was something she simply could
not share with the Eggplant.

"I happen to agree with her," Gail said,
illustrating to Fiona the strength of their bonding.

"Do you? What spilled between the cup and the lip,
Prentiss?" He cut a look at Fiona.

"I no longer believe that Phelps Barker was the
man."

"I searched his place, Chief," Fiona interjected.

He appeared to be winding up for an angry reply.

"I doubt if we needed a warrant. All part of
procedures, Chief. I found nothing to indicate that he was into..."

"I don't want to hear this, Sergeant," the
Eggplant fumed. "I don't want anything to suggest that we can't close on
this one."

"Even if we're wrong?" Fiona asked, her tone
ominous.

The Eggplant's eyes roamed their faces as his anger abated.
Despite his constant battle to maintain credible closing statistics, an almost
impossible task, and his many other foibles, he had a moral commitment to
fidelity. He could not abide even the slightest hint that an innocent man had
been railroaded to make a statistical impression. As Fiona knew it would, her
question had calmed him.

"So we keep this case open forever and I take the
poker up the kazoo from the powers that be..." He stopped abruptly and
shook his head in disgust, perhaps realizing that this was the wrong image to
project at this moment. "All that aside, it does not excuse putting the
name of a respected Supreme Court justice into the hopper. Herbert, it seems,
under pressure from both of you, called the man to inquire whether his daughter
had spoken to him or visited him while on her ill-fated mission to the murder
capital of the U.S. of A."

"Yes. We were there," Fiona said. "He left a
message."

"And the message he got back from the justice was a
scathing indictment of the methodology. If the girl had called him, he
certainly would have come forward on his own. It would have been his solemn
duty. He was, according to Herbert, quite put out. Who could blame him? A
Supreme Court justice is the ultimate untarnished icon."

He smashed out his unsmoked panatela, stabbing it into the
pile in the ashtray. Fiona's eyes shifted toward Gail. Obviously, Farley's
response indicated that he was reacting. Outrage was exactly the response Fiona
had wanted.

"So I am standing here with my pants down,
girls," the Eggplant said, "The mayor and Herbert want us to declare
the case closed, Herbert because he believes Barker was the guilty party, and
the mayor because he doesn't want the hassle. And to buttress their position,
our vaunted arbiter, the media, will surely interpret the suicide as an
admission of guilt."

"So it's the media that makes our decisions now,"
Fiona said, shaking her head to deliberately exaggerate the point. "That's
not like you, Chief." She was unloading her entire arsenal of
guilt-inducing weaponry. In the Eggplant's paranoid world, the media was the
archenemy.

"Know when to hold. Know when to fold. On this one we
fold," he said with an air of finality.

"And you believe, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that
Phelps Barker is the perpetrator?" Fiona asked.

His hesitation was testimony enough. He was doing the
bureaucratically correct thing. In the absence of Fiona's revelation of her
past experience with Farley Lipscomb, what was he to conclude?

"All parties will be satisfied," the Eggplant
sighed. "And we get to add another millimeter to our miserably short bar
graph showing closed cases. Perhaps, too, the harassing armies that surround me
will retreat for a day or so. Give me time to polish my protective armor."

"But we can't," Fiona began.

"Can't? Can't? Is that the response I can expect from
my lady detective team?" Fiona caught the double meaning of his sarcasm. Although
he had decreed an end to the Herbert case, he had not closed them down as a
team.

She wanted to explain to him that this was a miscarraige of
justice, but then she would have to tell him the truth behind her assertion.
Looking toward Gail, he saw a mirror image of her own disappointment.

"But your are in luck, ladies. We have another one
that fits your agenda. Female, black, young, raped, apparently tortured. Body
is with the medical examiner."

"You won't reconsider on the Herbert case,
Chief?" Fiona asked.

"The fat lady has sung," he said, jamming another
panatela in his mouth. Then he swiveled around in his battered chair and showed
them the back of his head. Fiona knew his method of dismissal well and left him
to contemplate the view of the historical landmarks he could barely see through
the grime of his window.

After the disappointing meeting with the Eggplant, Fiona
and Gail huddled in a corner of the deserted squad room.

"Don't blame yourself," Gail said. "In your
place I wouldn't have told him either."

"I'm not too happy with myself, Gail, but I know that
if I did tell him, things could change between us and probably hurt my
relationships in the department. Bad enough to be female and white. Add kinky
to that and it goes downhill from there."

"And, even if he kept the case open, there would be no
guarantees that we could nail Lipscomb," Gail said.

"Nobody said life was fair," Fiona sighed.
"It just bugs me to see Farley get away with it." She realized that
she had circled the wagons around her conviction and was protecting it against
attack. "The worst part is that I can't shake my absolute certainty. In
the face of no evidence, no real proof, I still feel it's him."

"I hope your instincts are better than mine,"
Gail said sadly.

"Now who's shouldering blame?"

"I should have seen Barker slipping over the
edge."

"In this business, every move you make has
consequences. Not to mention all the moves you don't make."

"Damned if you do, damned if you don't," Gail
muttered in frustration.

Fiona knew that abandoning her pursuit of Farley would be a
long-term, perhaps ultimately debilitating, irritant for her. If it were an
ordinary case, she might have gone along with the Eggplant, preferring to
accept what looked to be unanimous verdict by everyone, including the media.
But her personal involvement severely complicated the issue, which made the
case for those who believed that only the most dispassionate view of people and
circumstances was the hallmark of a great homicide detective. Under the
circumstances, she definitely did not qualify.

She'd just have to live with it, she decided. Like having
to bear unrequited love. About the only satisfaction she could derive from this
episode was that on a strictly legal basis the death of Phyla Herbert could be
characterized as a case of involuntary manslaughter. More like an accident than
a planned murder.

At least she hoped so. It wouldn't do, wouldn't do at all,
if the perpetrator had set out to murder Phyla Herbert, knowing that the
physical shock that he had engineered would trigger a fatal asthma attack.

She allowed such a thought to dissipate. She would not have
folded her cards so quickly if this was a case of premeditated murder. Not that
Farley could, in her mind, ever be absolved of guilt. Worse, he would now be
free to do this to other women. It was galling to think he was going to get
away with it.

"Well, we did rattle the bastard's cage," Fiona
said.

Fiona punched in the computer to look at the new case the
Eggplant had served up. She read the details.

"Like shoveling shit against the tide," she said.
She pushed the print button and got the specs, putting the paper on Gail's
desk. Then she looked at her watch. Their shift was over.

"My daddy told me there would be days like this,"
Fiona said, suddenly feeling spent, tired. She looked at Gail Prentiss and
smiled. "New adventures await."

They left headquarters and walked together to the official
parking lot where their private cars were parked. They kissed each other on the
cheek before they got into their respective cars and sped off into the night.

Back home, Fiona checked her messages. As she expected,
there was one from Harrison Greenwald. With trepidation and some reluctance,
she called him back.

"You're driving me crazy, Fiona. Is there a future in
this? If so, when? If not, why?"

She noted his agitation, but what could she do? Give me
time, she begged him in her heart. At the same time she searched for a response
that might defuse his irritation.

"As Scarlett said, 'I'll think about it in the
morning.'"

"Which morning? Tomorrow morning?"

"I'm not sure," she answered.

"Are we over, Fiona?" he asked after a pause.

"No, darling. Far from it."

"Keeping me on the hook, eh, Fiona?"

"I hope so, darling," she paused, knowing she was
courting the danger of losing him. "I can see the light at the end of the
tunnel," she said feeling foolish.

"What tunnel?" he asked. "It's not like you,
Fiona. Let me in on it, please."

"Not now, darling."

"If not now, when?"

"Trust me," she sighed, feeling hollow, defeated.
He mumbled a response that she could not make out and hung up.

She was exhausted and, once again, put this crisis with
Harrison on hold. Soaking in the tub, she tried to empty her mind, squeeze all
tension out of her thoughts, hoping that the heat of the water would chase it
out of her mind and body. Rubbing herself down with a towel, she flopped naked
into bed and was asleep the moment she hit the pillow.

Unfortunately, a dead sleep was not in the cards. The door
chimes were persistent. Whoever it was had no intention of going away. She
looked at the digital clock. It was a little after eleven and she calculated
that she had been asleep for four hours. It was hardly enough.

Still fatigued and slightly disoriented, she moved down the
stairs cursing people who would have the temerity to visit at that hour. It was
not unusual for a uniform to show unannounced on orders from the Eggplant and
drag her to a murder scene, which was what she expected as she carelessly and
without thinking flung open the door.

It was Farley Lipscomb. One look and she was instantly
awake.

"You."

"Me," Farley said. She backed up as he came in,
discovering that she had left her piece upstairs. He was, she noted, dressed
without any thought of disguise, a topcoat and no hat. When he opened his coat,
she noted that he was wearing a tuxedo. Obviously, he had just come from a
formal event.

"This is an appeal, Fiona. Please don't feel
threatened."

"I don't," she lied, heading into the den. She
heard him following behind her. In the den, she turned to face him.

"Drink?" she asked.

He shook his head and remained standing. She went to the
wet bar and poured herself two fingers of Scotch, taking a deep sip. She sat
down on the couch. As she did so, her dressing gown had split showing her
thighs. Noting his eyes, she quickly pulled the edges together.

"Does Letitia know about these nocturnal visits,
Farley?"

"I'd appreciate if you leave Letitia out of
this."

"Still frightened that she'll find you out?"

"She's not part of this."

"No. She never was. I remember to what lengths you
went to hide your little ... peccadillos."

"I would never embarrass her. You know that,
Fiona."

"I've always been curious, Farley. Does she know ...
about your ... preferences?"

"She's an innocent in this, Fiona. Leave her out of
it. She's been my wife and helpmate for more than thirty years."

"Helpmate? Now there's an old-fashioned word. Yes she
has, Farley. She certainly has blazed a trail for you."

"For which I am grateful. I also still love her."

"That's another hard one to swallow, Farley."

And yet, studying his face, he seemed to radiate sincerity.
Despite his age, he was still enormously handsome. He looked exactly like what
anyone would want a Supreme Court Justice to look like.

Fiona had always characterized Farley's marriage as one of
convenience, so prevalent in Washington. An ambitious woman devotes her entire
life to promoting the career of her husband, thereby reaping the social rewards
of status. Letitia Lipscomb certainly qualified in that department.

"I promised myself years ago that I would never
embarrass her. Never. That has always been my principal fear, Fiona."

"And, of course, nothing to do with your career."

"It's all the same thing. I am her life. Anything that
happens to me, careerwise, happens to her."

Was he trying to make Letitia the issue in this? She was
hardly worthy of sympathy. Was he really attempting to portray himself as a
good family man, a devoted husband? Did he seriously believe that she would buy
that?

"I don't appreciate what you did today, Fiona. Getting
me involved in this ... this spectacle. I told you the other night. I was not
with this woman. I am not a liar. Why do you persist in trying to implicate me?
It is a very destructive tendency on your part and I resent it. You are out to
destroy Letitia and me."

"I am out to prevent a miscarriage of justice. And I
think we can dispense with this Letitia business. It's you..." She stopped
herself, hoping he would see her as coldly logical rather than obsessive. By
his very presence, she had already determined that she was on target.

"After all these years..." He sighed, taking a
deep breath. "As I understand it, the guilty party committed
suicide."

"I'd say the guilty party is standing here in front of
me."

He shook his head in resignation, as if he pitied her.

"Poor Fiona," he whispered. "Corroded by a
desire for revenge. What can I say to you that will convince you that you are
wrong?"

"Nothing. My memories preclude ever believing you. I
saw that woman. I remember myself."

"I've admitted that what I did to you was ... beastly.
I went over the line. I betrayed your trust. I was out of control."

She studied him.

"You were a very bad boy, Farley," she said,
crossing her legs, the edges of the dressing gown opening slightly.

"I admit that," he said. She watched the shift in
his eyes.

"And you're still a very bad boy, aren't you,
Farley?"

He seemed to hesitate, showing a brief tremor of confusion.

"I ... I..." He groped for a response and cleared
his throat. She tapped one of her slippered feet impatiently.

"I don't believe you, Farley. Nothing you can say will
ever make me believe you."

He shook his head and looked at his hands.

"I know myself, Fiona. I'm not a fool. And we both
know my ... my interest. I am an associate justice of the Supreme Court."

She continued to tap her foot. Finishing her drink, she put
the glass on the table and stood up.

"You're filth, Farley. Trash."

She hoped her tone showed just the right level of contempt.
As she moved forward toward him, he took a step backward.

"You'd love me to, wouldn't you, Farley?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," he
mumbled.

"Oh, yes, you do, Farley. You'd love me to punish you,
wouldn't you?"

"I swear it's the truth about that girl. I
swear."

"But you deserve to be punished, right, Farley?"

"I might, yes. But not about her. Not her."

"But you have been bad from time to time?"

As she advanced toward him, he kept moving backward until
he was against the wall. Was he fighting it or faking it? She wasn't certain.
She was trying to pick up the rhythm of the remembered theatrics. His response
did not surprise her. For her part, she knew she felt no emotional or sexual
excitement. But was she fooling him? Apparently.

"It's awful. Having to hide my identity, appearing in
disguises in strange cities. Not often, Fiona. I swear. And never, never to
hurt someone. Indeed, most of the time, I am a bottom, needing the discipline,
the punishment." He looked at Fiona imploringly. "My God, Fiona, it
is the only way I can keep my sanity."

Fiona paused and studied him. He looked genuinely involved.

"That part I understand, Farley," she told him
gently. "But the other..."

"What can I say that will convince you?"

"I'm not sure if you can, Farley."

From his expression, he seemed to be traversing a galaxy of
emotions. On the surface, he was falling into the pattern of a bondage and
discipline addict. He was responding to that. But she sensed that another part
of him was fighting it, resisting, but not successfully.

No one would believe this, she thought. An associate justice
of the Supreme Court. Yet, remembering what he had done to her and what she
believed he had done to Phyla Herbert, she drove herself forward.

"It's not fair. I mean ... you must know my record on
the Court. I am considered the linchpin, the balance, neither too liberal nor
too conservative. My decisions concerning women are the most enlightened in the
history of America. I am refocusing agendas, creating new ways to look at the
modern world. I'm good, Fiona, articulate, compassionate, magnanimous. My interpretations
are a model of clarity. Don't you understand? I'm important. If my health
holds, I could be good for another twenty years. What point would there be in
bringing me down?"

He was whining, begging as if she were someone
all-powerful. He was appealing to what he perceived was her power. Then she
felt her effort at dominance begin to dissipate.

Was she wavering? Perhaps Phelps Barker was the
perpetrator. Perhaps she was being motivated by a false premise, a disorted
mindset, based on her own unique experience. But Phyla Herbert's corpse told
her it wasn't unique. Phyla's experience was a mirror image of her own. Except
that she had not died. Phyla Herbert had been unhealthy, was an explosion
waiting to happen. Anything could have triggered it.

Fiona's mind became a jumble of possibilities. Was her
attitude softening? She searched her heart for the slightest hint of
forgiveness, forgiveness for what he did to her, forgiveness for what he did to
Phyla.

Was it for herself or Phyla that she was expending such
energy? She felt unfocused, her certainty shaken.

"Please, Fiona. Any connection with this would be a
calamity for me. Letitia will be devastated. I will be hung in the media, the
butt of ridicule, my reputation destroyed. The Court, judging, is now my life's
work. For what I did to you, I am genuinely sorry. But I can't take back what I
did. All I ask is that you believe me now. I am contrite. I deserve your
punishment. I prostate myself before you."

Seeing him in this state restored her resolve. She would
make him confess.

"You are scum," Fiona roared, her voice snapping
into a dominating mode.

He looked at her. He seemed to be making up his mind.

"Down, boy," she snapped. She wished she was
wearing leather and was equipped with other accoutrements of his aberration.

"What?"

"On your knees, dog."

Her voice was commanding as her role defined itself. It
seemed to be happening of its own accord as if she were outside herself. He
looked at her as a supplicant, then dropped to his knees.

"Crawl over here and kiss my feet, you bastard."

He did so obediently. She did not question her actions or
his reaction. Research and her earlier experience had taught her the game plan,
the roles and rituals. She felt totally clinical, pushing him.

"Forgive me, mistress," he blurted.

"For what?" Fiona sneered.

"For being arrogant and proud."

"Mistress."

"Mistress," he whined.

Her mind became cluttered with possibilities. She wanted to
see him humiliated, groveling, his overbearing, arrogant ego destroyed. Above
all, she needed him to confess.

"Into into that corner, you slimy bastard," she
commanded, watching him crawl into the corner. When he reached it, he put his
head down on the floor like a dog and turned to look at her. Her dressing gown
had opened, revealing her nakedness. She made no effort to close it.

"Don't look at me, you filthy monster."

He burrowed his head into the corner. A menu of ideas
presented themselves. She realized that she had the power to make him do the
most disgusting things that her mind could devise.

"You'll do anything for me, you turd," she cried,
testing the power, knowing it was theatrics, yet realizing that she was feeling
genuine anger now. Such feelings, she knew, were not supposed to be part of the
compact.

"Yes, mistress. Yes, mistress," he whined.

Suddenly, a wave of disgust washed over her. Despite her
own experience with him and all she had read subsequently, she felt
dehumanized, unclean and, finally, appalled by his reaction.

On an abstract level she could be tolerant and
understanding, but as a participant she could not accept either the premise or
the psychological explanation for its occurrence. Besides, he had violated the
compact, inflicting terrible physical and psychic pain on her, and, she could
not be convinced otherwise, causing the death of Phyla Herbert. Nor was there
any way of knowing how many others had truly suffered at his hand.

At this point, she could not bear the sight of him.

"Get out of here," she shouted.

"What?" He appeared confused.

"Get out of my sight," she screamed.

"Yes, mistress," he said, crawling out of the
room. Who would believe this? she thought. It was beyond most people's
experience or understanding. When he reached the entrance to the den, he
turned.

"It's over for now. Get up and leave." Her use of
the word "now" surprised her. She wasn't quite sure what it meant.
What she actually wanted most at that moment was to be rid of him forever.

"Thank you," he said as he rose. "Perhaps
next time..." His voice trailed off. Fiona could see he was back into his normal
mode, wearing his judge's mask. Looking at her, he smiled.