The Ties That Bind (4 page)

"Graffiti," Fiona said, croaking the word,
fighting for her bearings, desperately trying to control her agitation. Another
flash of memory exloded in her mind. Oh God, she needed to run from this.

Gail continued to observe the body as Fiona again turned
her eyes away and forced her concentration on other details of the scene,
hoping to find something that Gail had not yet noted, an unlikely prospect.
Soon Flannagan and the tech boys would arrive and the body would be carted off
and studied by the medical examiner's office. She was certain that Dr. Benson
would do the autopsy.

What Fiona wanted most was to leave this place. The room
was oppressive, claustrophobic. She became aware of a growing knot in the pit
of her stomach that would not dissolve. Her hands shook and droplets of
perspiration were oozing out of her pores.

"You okay?"

It was Gail, towering over her, studying her face. Fiona
nodded, wishing that Gail would stop observing her as if she were the victim.
She hated this reaction, shamed by her own vulnerability.

Suddenly there was a ruckus in the corridor signaling the
arrival of Flannagan and his merry techs.

"Son-of-a-bitch," Flannagan cried as he stood at
the foot of the bed observing the body. "Is there no end to man's
inhumanity to woman?" Flannagan said. He was an old hand at this and had
ghoulishly kept score of how many murdered corpses he had seen in his career.

"Pushing five thousand, Fi. Another ten will do
it."

"Spare me," Fiona managed.

Flannagan eyeballed the corpse and shook his head.

"Proves that no one can ever say they've seen
everything. Right, Fi?"

He looked toward her, but she had turned away. The knot in
her stomach had risen to her throat, making it impossible for her to respond.
She thought she was about to throw up.

A police photographer took pictures, bouncing around the
room, looking for every possible angle. A uniformed sergeant, who had taken
charge in the corridor, opened the door a crack and called for Sergeant
FitzGerald.

"We got reporters crowding us," he said.

She was out of it, lost somewhere, unable to respond, her
mind groping in some dark hell. For support, she leaned against the bathroom
doorjamb, feeling she was about to break apart. An old memory was crashing
through the rusty gate of denial. She tried, valiantly tried, to hold it back,
but it came rushing out at her like an overwhelming tide.

"What should I tell them?"

The uniformed sergeant's voice was urgent.

"They're crawling all over us."

The words came at her from a distance, but she could find
no response in her brain.

"Nobody comes in here," Gail barked, the
authority in her voice absolute. Fiona felt the woman's hands on her arm,
leading her gently into the bathroom, where she closed the door quietly behind
her, pressing the button lock.

There was a glass in a plastic wrapper. Gail tore it off
and filled it from the tap, handing it to Fiona to drink. Fiona, hating the
show of weakness, needed to cup it in both hands to keep it steady enough to
bring to her lips, which she did finally, taking a brief swallow.

"It happens, Fiona," Gail said. "Happened to
me twice in LA. Comes like a shock wave, then it passes."

Fiona nodded. Not once had it happened to her. Ever. Until
now. Nor could Gail possibly guess the source.

"Take some deep breaths and try to get some more water
down."

Fiona obeyed. All personal will had disappeared. The back
of her blouse under her suit jacket was soaked through. Letting the tap
continue to run, Gail put her long, tapered fingers into the stream, then
brought them to Fiona's temples. Fiona felt the healing powers of Gail's cool,
soothing touch. Despite her embarrassment, she was grateful.

"Color's coming back, Fiona," Gail said.

Her equilibrium was returning, although she could not clear
the knot in her throat. But the clouds were dissipating in her mind.

"Would you like to rest here a moment?" Gail
asked, reaching for the lid of the toilet seat.

"No, Gail," Fiona managed to say. "Leave
it."

Her alertness seemed to be returning. Toilet seats were
often a good source of prints, especially males'. Fiona admitted a secret
thrill in finding a detail possibly overlooked by Gail.

"Back in the saddle?" Gail said with a wink.

Fiona smiled, breathed deeply, nodded, then turned the knob
of the bathroom door. Flannagan's team had bagged the body and were busy
combing the room for latents. The ropes that had held the women had been untied
and bagged in plastic, as well as the woman's clothes and other articles.

After a last minute check of the scene, Gail and a somewhat
recovered Fiona came out into the noisy bustle of the corridor. The media
goons, hoping for a juicy scandal, rushed forward with their cameras,
microphones and recorders. This was their meat, a sex murder in a downtown
hotel frequented by the power brokers, lobbyists and politicos.

"Understand it was a pretty messy sex crime,
FitzGerald?" Sam Firgus said, his voice booming above the others. Be
alert, Fiona warned herself, recovered enough to appear credible. The very word
"sex" was enough to conjure up lascivious tabloid revelations.

Fiona's immediate instinct was to offer what was expected,
the traditional "no comment." But it was obvious that the elements of
the scene and its ramifications had already begun to leak like a sieve. She
decided, instead, to be guardedly and selectively factual.

"We found the body of a woman in her twenties.
Multiple stab wounds."

"Was the woman nude?" a lady radio reporter
asked.

"Yes."

"Was she raped?"

"Can't say at this time."

"Do you think it's the work of a sex deviant?"

"Too early to tell," Fiona said. "We will
await further lab tests."

"Do you know who the woman is?" someone asked.

"Yes. But we won't be announcing it until next-of-kin
are notified."

"We understand she was tied spread-eagled to the
bed," Firgus said. There was an image that would warm the heart of the
media hounds.

"I'm not prepared to comment on the position of the
body."

"Come on, FitzGerald, level with us," Firgus
pressed.

Fiona stayed calm.

"Sorry," she said. "Nothing must interfere
with the integrity of the investigation." She noted Gail's approving nod
as she stood silently beside her.

"Any political connection?" Firgus pressed,
obviously seeking some further titillating angle that would send the story
soaring into the national and international press.

"We have no leads at this time to connect anyone with
the crime."

"Who is that woman with you, FitzGerald?" Firgus
asked. There was simply no way for Gail to be unnoticed.

"My partner, Detective Gail Prentiss," Fiona
said.

"Interesting," Firgus said. Fiona hoped that he
would not raise the gender issue. He didn't.

The questions persisted for ten minutes more, with Fiona
offering little information, deliberately trying to make her answers flat and
uninteresting. Unfortunately, this one was a standout even in the murder
capital of the United States. Worse, it had explosive implications, known only
to Fiona. But there was just enough titillation to assure the Eggplant of
further harassment, both from the media and his superiors.

In the car heading back to headquarters, Fiona could not
ignore the turbulence in her mind. Vivid memories washed over her with
hurricane force, memories she could not avoid.

"Any theories, Fiona?" Gail asked.

"Not yet," Fiona lied. "You?"

"Has the feel of a serial killer with an elaborate
modus
operandi
."

Elaborate? Fiona shrugged, determined to appear
noncommital. Could it be him? she asked herself, as the images of that day
rushed back at her.

The vividness of these images were staggering in their
similarity, especially after having been wrapped in the thick fog of denial for
nearly two decades. Not that it hadn't surfaced in different guises during that
time, mostly in unpleasant and painful recall.

On those rare occasions when the memory did surface, it
always came disguised in dreams, mostly nightmares, sometimes remembered on awakening,
the faces blank, the bodies distorted. Only the pain was chillingly real. Yet
she had learned to quickly eradicate even these fleeting remembrances from her
mind. Until now.

Farley Lipscomb was her father's lawyer then, a man of
awesome dignity, tall, confident, self-assured, the kind of man who could read
the label of a candy bar and make it seem like he was dispensing the wisdom of
the ages. Fiona's parents seemed to be in the company of the Lipscombs often.

Letitia Lipscomb was, even then, in the mainstream of Washington's social life. Wealthy in her own right, she had the wherewithal to entertain
lavishly in her lovely home off Massachusetts Avenue in the heart of Embassy
Row. She had her sights set on becoming one of Washington's most important hostesses
and was obsessive in her zeal to collect Washington's big-fish celebrities.
Fiona's father, the senior senator from New York was, of course, an excellent
trophy for her capital aquarium.

Her social goals coincided with her husband's ambitions and,
in a company town like Washington, she was able to produce an accessibility
that worked well for Farley Lipscomb's burgeoning practice.

To Fiona at the time, the social trappings of Washington were the ultimate in ostentatious phoniness and Letitia was characterized in her
mind as an authentic stiff-necked Wasp aristocrat. The idea was embellished by
her manner of speaking, an obviously contrived British accent delivered with a
nasal twang that made, to Fiona's ear, even the most sincere compliment seem like
a sneer.

As for Farley Lipscomb, Fiona had characterized him as a
man imprisoned by his wife's social ambitions.

Even in retrospect, she supposed she had a crush on Farley
and was sending him disturbingly arousing signals. At that moment in time, she
rationalized, she was in deep rebellion, performing a kind of obligatory rite
of passage she supposed, for a carefully mothered and strictly indoctrinated
eighteen-year-old Catholic girl.

She had, by then, discovered the hormonal rhythms of her
strong sexuality. Two years before, she had lost her virginity, courtesy of her
high school boyfriend on the eve of their parting for different colleges. She
to Amherst. He to the University of Virginia. It had been a rather messy
business, she remembered. Actually she had been the aggressor, manipulating the
frightened young man to penetrate her. It turned out to be more of a feat of
mechanical engineering than an act of passion. The episode ended their romance.

In time, the event had become one of those memories of happy
embarrassment, a shared secret that triggered an eruption of blushes and
giggles whenever she bumped into her old swain, who had become a popular
weatherman for a local television station. Every time she saw him on the TV she
would roar with laughter, remembering the ridiculousness of what had been meant
to be a profound moment.

By the time she had declared her interest in Farley
Lipscomb, she had acquired additional sexual experience and an exploratory
attitude that did not rule out married men. She did not consider herself
promiscuous and her choice of partners was very selective.

She thought of the activity as a kind of research into her
strong libido and sensuality and, in those days, as a way to get her karma in
balance with her nature. It was, of course, before the onslaught of AIDS,
although well into the era of advanced birth control technology. It was a time
when abstinence was still ridiculed and to be a virgin past eighteen was a sign
of galloping frigidity.

In an odd way, she decided that she had inherited a strong
sex drive from her father, who, was notoriously vulnerable to the blandishments
of other women. She was also aware that her mother considered sexual activity
as a kind of penance that had to be endured for the greater good of hearth and
family.

By then, Fiona had developed healthy, uninhibited fondness
for men and, despite the occasional disappointments, she managed to enjoy
deeply pleasurable orgasms more often than not. Her fantasy life was rich and
varied. She owned a vibrator and frequently indulged in masturbation. She
conceded to herself, there might have been some guilt and shame in such bawdy
self-indulgence, considering her upbringing and her mother's inhibited view of
sex as a necessary evil. But that attitude soon dissipated with need, pleasure
and a general feeling that being in charge of herself, body included, was also
a woman's right.

At eighteen, she militantly thought of herself as an
emerging modern woman who had arrived victoriously on the threshold of maturity
without any of the sexual hangups of her gender. At the time, she hadn't
realized that every victory had its costs.

She had begun interning in Farley's office that summer,
mostly to satisfy her father's ambition for her, which was to become a lawyer,
a profession she had little desire to pursue. She had no specific job, a little
typing, a little filing, doing research, but mostly observing the legal
profession at work.

Farley Lipscomb was enormously accommodating. He let her
sit in on important conferences, where she scribbled furiously on yellow pads
as if she were a bona fide member of the legal team. Nor did she have any
illusions about her effect on Farley. Often, she caught him eyeballing her in a
manner that was hardly platonic. That judgment led her to exacerbate the
situation by choosing revealing clothes, shorter skirts and poses that were
suggestive and seductive.

After all, she was eighteen. She felt then that she was the
center of the universe and that the world circulated around her. Effecting an
obvious reaction in men was especially exciting. To see a man like Farley
Lipscomb titillated by her charms greatly enhanced her own sexual interest in
him.

At that point it was merely a game, a kind of exciting
taunt. She fantasized about him and masturbated while imagining him making love
to her.

An explosion of lust was, of course, inevitable. He had
asked her to work late one evening, allegedly to help him with a case he was
preparing. It didn't take long for them to shed the sham of work.

Farley, it turned out, was a man of wide experience and
practiced technique in sexual matters and, although she was an open and eager
pupil, he was an amazingly adept sexual artist. For her, at the time, his
blandishments opened a whole new world of pleasure.

There was another component of their relationship that
seemed to justify her actions. Because of his socially obsessive wife, she had
the impression that Farley was needy, especially in the sexual realm. His
response certainly validated her speculation, although he deliberately eschewed
any discussion of his home life. It was as if Letitia did not exist. He had,
she had observed even then, a great talent for compartmentalization.

For about a month, they had taken their pleasure in
clandestine and often hurried couplings on his office couch or in his leather
chair and a number of times on the big shiny conference table in the firm's
enormous conference room. Once they had made love in the bathroom of her
parents' house during a dinner party at which Farley and his wife were guests.
The danger of discovery added to the excitement.

Such risks bonded them. Together, they shared this
stupendous secret. In effect, he was playing Russian roulette with his high
profile life, gambling his future, his continuing and certain climb to success,
by a sexual dalliance with an eighteen-year-old girl. Against his losses, if
they were found out, hers would be minimal.

He had even admitted to her that she had become an
addiction, that every cell in his body demanded her, that there was no getting
enough of her. She was certain that the addiction was mutual.

She knew, too, that there was more to it than sex. What had
started out as a kind of exciting adventure was becoming, in her mind and
heart, a love affair. She was convinced that what she felt was the real thing,
that what her body yearned for was psychic as well, that a profound love had
entered her life.

She wondered if it was hero worship, infatuation or
romantic daydreaming. She hadn't wanted it to go beyond sexual games. After
all, she was nearly twenty years his junior and he was locked into marriage by
ambition, connections and money. It didn't seem possible that he would throw
over his wife for an eighteen-year-old girl, no matter how emotionally involved
he was.

But love and inexperience, as she later learned, could
conspire to create powerful wish-fulfillment possibilities. The opportunity
opened in her mind. Love, she reasoned, could make anything happen. Although
she was too frightened to declare herself, afraid that it might put an end to
the affair, she held out the hope that the feeling was mutual. To her, at that
moment in time, Farley was her life or, as they say, the sun and the stars.

She could not recall exactly when the idea emerged. In
retrospect she knew he had put it there, inserted it, as a missive is put in an
envelope. She could recall an exchange they had one day as they lay on the
leather couch in his office in post-coital bliss.

"Will you do anything for me, Fiona?" he had
asked.

"Of course."

"Anything"

"Absolutely," she replied with sincere and total
commitment. She considered this consent the opportunity to prove her love and
by so doing capture him forever.

"No matter how strange it seems at first?" he
pressed.

"If it's important to you, I'll do anything you say,"
she had replied.

"Yes. It is important," he told her.

Did this mean that the feeling was mutual? Was it possible?

"Is this a game?" she asked.

She remembered that he seemed to be carefully framing an
answer.

"More than just a game, Fiona," he told her.

"I'll do anything you ask, Farley," she had
replied, with fervent sincerity.

"It's very important to us, Fiona," he said.
"It's the way we'll prove how much we care, how much we trust each
other."

Her heart jumped to her throat. This was pretty much what
she wanted to hear and the idea spurred her excitement. She agreed without
reservations. If it was important to him, it was doubly important for her. She
loved this man. Her heart sang. Of course, she would do anything he wanted,
anything that made him happy.

"I'll arrange everything," he told her. She
wasn't certain what that meant, except that it seemed wonderful. He would be
thinking of her, arranging things for them. For days before the Saturday he had
designated as D-Day, she was in a constant state of excitement.

He instructed her to pick him up in her car on a street
corner a few blocks from his office. She was delighted to follow his strict
orders on everything. Despite the occasional risks, which he characterized as
an irresistible compulsion, their trysts took place mostly in the safety of his
office, where his time and whereabouts were controllable. Publicly, he treated
her as any other young intern.

She knew that he was, despite the risk-taking, paranoid
about Letitia discovering their affair, and Fiona cooperated with alacrity. In
public, she addressed him, always, respectfully as Mr. Lipscomb. And in the
presence of others he affected a pose of fatherly interest in her.

When Fiona was in Letitia's presence, she was particularly
friendly to her and equally as respectful, representing herself as a naive,
wide-eyed innocent. But this newly arranged assignation seemed to be an
escalation of risk-taking. Perhaps he had it in mind to publicly declare
himself. His words tossed repetitively in her mind: I love you, Fiona. I love
you, Fiona.

As Fiona's car reached the appointed rendezvous, she didn't
see him, that is, until he moved toward her car. He was wearing a peaked
baseball hat and khaki workpants and toting a carry-all around one shoulder.
Recognizing him finally, she opened the door and he jumped in. Although still
puzzled by his action, she accepted the theatrics as part of his general plan.
Besides, it seemed like exciting fun.

He directed her to a high-rise motel not far from the
airport, explaining that he wanted a well-constructed place that was more
soundproof than those old-fashioned one-story motels constructed years ago with
paper-thin walls. The comment had aroused her curiosity, but she did not lose
confidence in his trust.

As she pulled into the parking lot, he explained that he
had reserved a room in the name of M. Worth from Philadelphia. He gave her an
address and zip code and instructed her to pay cash for one night in advance,
then to come out and give him the room number and he would meet her upstairs.

It was, she remembered, terribly exciting, wonderfully
secretive and intriguing. Nor did she question his instructions, following them
with obedience and dispatch, a willing conspirator. The mystery surrounding the
process was arousing and, by the time they were together in the room, she found
herself sexually stimulated and ready for anything he might suggest.

Anything!

She was hardly prepared for what came next. He opened the
tote bag and emptied the contents on the bed. There were lengths of rope, a
riding crop, a flat racquet of the kind used for paddle tennis, a leather
garter belt, black silk stockings, spiked-heel shoes and what looked like a
leather jock strap and another strip of leather. She wasn't sure of its
purpose.

There were also some items of makeup—cherry red lipstick,
black eye-liner and rouge. She was confused by the odd array of equipment and
giggled nervously.