Washington Masquerade (4 page)

“He gave no reason for getting rid of her?”

“As I said, he told me he preferred working alone. I didn't inquire further nor did I give it much thought. And I was happy that Charlotte landed well. You see, my husband and I have… had… separate careers.” She grew silent for a long moment before she spoke again. “A false moustache and useless glasses. It seems so out of character,” Mrs. Burns mused. “It's hard to associate Adam with such a….” She searched for a word. “…a prank.”

“Maybe so, but it is a fact. And for purposes of absolute secrecy, the tools he used seemed so… if he wanted to disguise himself… ineffective. And there's more.”

“More?” Mrs. Burns squinted suspiciously.

“He carried no identification—no wallet, no credit cards, just a bit of cash and a Metro ticket. My partner is checking his office.”

Mrs. Burns' face seemed to go blank as if she was having trouble processing the information.

“He… he must have had his reasons,” she said, after a long silence.

“That's what we are trying to decipher, Mrs. Burns. Prank does not fit with the circumstances. If his personal effects—the wallet, for example—are not found at his office, we'll have to search your home.”

“Be my guest.” Mrs. Burns seemed to ponder the idea further. Fiona could almost see the internal wheels at work. “Have you ever considered that it was all part of a plan to make my husband seem ridiculous? Along with his life, they would want to assassinate his persona, make it seem that he was unbalanced and his columns the words of a raving maniac. You're dealing with very clever people, Officer. They will stop at nothing. They all hated him and wanted him out of the way. If I were you….” Mrs. Burns paused, her probing glance focusing on Fiona like a laser. “I'd start at the top. Go to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Speak to the head murderer.”

“And you seriously believe that?”

“I do,” Mrs. Burns said firmly.

Fiona remembered what Izzy had said at the Eggplant's office earlier: Who benefits? It had a peculiar logic, but it was too bizarre in this instance to take seriously. Reactionary critics were an essential part of the system. Silencing them by murder would be too obvious and naïve a ploy by a president in power. Of course, it was quite possible that an overzealous supporter might cross the line, a theory not to be discounted.

“Conversely,” Fiona said, a sharper edge in her tone, “using your own idea, it could be a deliberate ploy by the opposition to make it look like your husband's death had an administration footprint.”

“Whose side are you on?” The tone was deprecating.

“No side, Mrs. Burns.” The woman was beginning to irritate her, reminding Fiona how much she detested these types in their younger days. “My role here demands neutrality. The issue for us in homicide—whether a victim's death was caused by accident, suicide, or murder—is to discover the truth. Let the chips fall where they may.”

“You are baying at the moon, Officer. You will never solve this case. They are masters of deceit and cover-up. Your path will be strewn with red herrings. You'll see. All doors of inquiry will be slammed in your face.”

“Then we will have to find a way to open them.”

“Fat chance,” Mrs. Burns muttered, turning away.

Despite the woman's outward calm, Fiona sensed she was in deep pain, and she hesitated, trying to summon up the courage to ask the essential question.

“I must ask you this, Mrs. Burns. It will be one of the most-asked questions in the entire investigation. I'll apologize in advance, not only for the question but the timing so soon after this terrible shock.” Fiona paused. “Where were you at two-thirty today?”

Mrs. Burns' lips curled in a derisive smile.

“Bravo! So you stand with me, rejecting your silly suicide idea.”

“I would be remiss if I had not asked it.”

Mrs. Burns grew thoughtful, her eyes narrowing.

“I was showing a house in Georgetown to a Mrs. Jane Harrington,” she said calmly. “Going about my business while Adam….” She choked up for a moment, recovered quickly, cleared her throat. “She seemed interested.”

Fiona felt a sudden rush of sympathy. She was certain that under the cold façade Sally Burns was devastated.

“It will be all for naught, Officer. They will block you at every turn. My husband was assassinated. There can be no other explanation.” She sucked in a deep breath and lifted her chin in a pose of aggressive defiance.

Fiona stood up and handed Mrs. Burns her card.

“If you can think of anything helpful, I'd appreciate your calling me.”

The woman studied the card for a moment. She remained seated.

“I shall, Officer Fitzgerald. Not that it will matter.”

***

Izzy dumped the contents of a briefcase onto his desk in the squad room. There were a number of plastic bags filled with paste-on moustaches of many shapes and sizes and a dozen or more pairs of store-bought glasses. There was also Burns' wallet, which contained his credit cards, driver's license, the usual, including a metal money clip and a number of keys on a key ring, as well as a thick clasp envelope.

“They were in his locked desk drawer. The editor, Jack Brady, and Donald Grant, the publisher were also baffled, they too, strongly hinted that it was probably his writings that got him killed.”

“An assassination plot?” Fiona asked.

“They were not exactly bashful about raising the possibility.”

“The spouse accused the President in no uncertain terms.”

“The implication was clear at the
Post
, but they were careful about any specific accusations. Remember the
Post
supports the President. But they gave the impression that the possibility existed. Brady remarked—if I remember correctly—that the news business was full of surprises. As he put it, ‘Hell, surprise is mother's milk to the press.'”

“Did they see the contents of the drawers?” Fiona asked.

Izzy nodded.

“They were as confused as I was. Grant speculated that Burns was on the trail of some big story à la Watergate. Hell, those Watergate hotshots, Woodward and Bernstein, met late at night in a parking garage. Brady said Burns might have been playing gumshoe. He also admitted that he had gotten calls from someone at the Secret Service. Sounded like one of his friends making inquiries. They asked me what I made of it.”

“And you said?”

“The usual. Can't comment. That's the Chief's prerogative.”

“I'm surprised he hasn't instigated a press conference.”

“He will,” Fiona said. “He probably wants to be certain of his grounds. With the world watching, he wants more raw meat to throw on the stoop, would be my guess. Note that he's not increasing the force, leaving it to little us. Keeping it tight between us—you move too far out on this one, you get your fingers chopped off.”

“I talked to some of Burns' colleagues,” Izzy said. “It was obvious that they could not get their head around the idea that the Administration was involved. Although one got the impression that the idea was loose.”

“Loose. Nice. It is very loose, the unthinkable,” she said.

“At least, that was my intuitive impression.” Izzy shrugged and consulted his notes. “Most said that Burns was a loner. Pleasant, but you couldn't get close. Brady did say he talked to him about his column going too far, warned him that too much bile might hurt his credibility, but apparently he did not push too hard. Agreed with Burns that his point of view was the most popular with those readers who were not well-disposed to the President.” Izzy looked up from his notes. “Now there was a revelation,” he said sarcastically. “They were all pretty upset. I also inferred that few believed the suicide theory.”

“Neither did Mrs. Burns. Did you speak to his former assistant?”

It was a base she was certain he had covered. He was extremely thorough and detail-oriented.

“Charlotte Desmond. Worked for him up until about a year ago. Actually nearer ten months. I talked to her. Couldn't understand why she was transferred. She thought she had been very efficient—kept his calendar, did research, fielded his calls. He told her he would prefer to carry on alone. She was quite upset at the time. Made the point that she believed Burns' columns were right on. I got the impression that she liked him a lot.”

“Meaning?”

“Respected him for his views. If there was more to it, I didn't see it. She was a bit on the hefty side.”

“So? Remember Clinton and Monica,” Fiona snapped. “No one can judge the mysteries of attraction.”

Izzy snickered.

“No insult intended. I was merely being descriptive. She, too, thought suicide was the wrong conclusion, but then most of those I talked to did as well. Hell, this man was very much admired for his courage and his views. Everyone up there acknowledged that his loss was a blow. Foul play was suspected by one and all, just as we figured.”

“Did his former assistant make any comments about the home front? The wife and kids?”

Izzy rubbed his chin and nodded.

“I asked. She said the missus was a high-powered real estate lady, and they seemed to have a good, solid relationship. He doted on his kids.”

“Solid? Was she upset by such a characterization, as if she cared? Did she put it that way, Izzy?”

“If you're asking whether she was interested in this man sexually, I didn't see it. You'd have a better take on such things than me. She characterized him as a good family man—had a picture of the whole family, him included, on his desk. Said he carpooled the kids frequently and attended all of his younger daughter's practices and soccer games. The daughter was a student at the National Cathedral School. The older one was away at school—Harvard, like our victim. The cult of the upwardly mobile.”

“What else?” Fiona posed, with clear distaste.

Fiona had graduated from Georgetown, a Jesuit institution. Washington was awash with fast-track Ivy Leaguers who looked down at graduates from any other school not in the charmed circle. Even Georgetown, a reputed university, was considered a cut below in the pecking order. She could never quite get over her resentment at their attitude.

She thought suddenly of her current flame, another Harvard man. In her mind, most were snotty frat boys and snobby sorority girls: full of themselves, narcissistic, and entitled. When Larry ridiculed this assertion, she reverted to a cliché. All life is a compromise, she would reply.

She checked herself, remembering that the President was one of the club. She chuckled internally, recalling that some of America's best Presidents had never even gone to college: Washington, Lincoln, and Truman. Unaccountably, her mind had wandered. She forced herself back on track.

“Did he have a Rolodex or a contacts list on his computer?”

“There's the rub, Fiona. His computer was removed.”

“By whom?”

“Management.”

“On what grounds?”

“They said it was their property.”

“We'll have to subpoena it.”

“Unless the Feds get it first.”

“Wheels within wheels,” Fiona sighed.

Izzy glanced at his notes. “Oh yes, he did have a twice-weekly squash game at the Army and Navy Club, always a twosome. His playing buddy was Jack Perkins, administrative assistant to some senator from New Jersey, a Democrat. Bauman, I think his name is. The game is twice weekly in the morning. I tried to get Perkins, left a message on his cell. So far no response.”

Bauman had been elected after her father had died, but she couldn't place Perkins.

“I'll follow up,” Izzy said. “And you?”

She went into detail about her meeting with Mrs. Burns. “It's a universal appraisal. The Administration pushed the button, offed the guy. Sounds awful when you say it out loud.”

As they compared notes, Chief Hodges came out of his office and beckoned them. They exchanged glances and followed him outside into the cool fall evening. He led them to a small square of a park a few yards from the building. After a sweeping glance around the area, he began to speak in a low tone.

Fiona had been through the drill before when investigating a sensitive matter of special interest far from prying electronic ears. Electronic surveillance, like some new virus, had infected everyone in official Washington with galloping paranoia.

“The Feds are on our case,” the Chief began.

“How involved?” Fiona asked.

They did not sit on a bench but huddled near a tree standing on a carpet of fallen leaves.

“Big time,” the Chief responded.

Fiona was aware that he had contacts throughout the intelligence and federal police establishment, not to mention the formidable black network in government circles on every level. Everyone in her business had a network, and she knew better than to ask the source. Besides, she had her own. One of her former boyfriends was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, Philip Owens, who had started his career in her father's senatorial office. Theirs was an adolescent fling that went awry, but they had maintained their connection and met frequently on the dinner and cocktail circuit. Besides, Philip's wife Dolly was one of her best friends. Philip, whose grandfather had been in the Eisenhower cabinet, was from a cave-dweller family. In Washington, the cave-dwellers were the permanent upper-tier residents, all
former
s and
used-to
s still connected with the power elite, a network of networks.

“Burns was a pincushion for death threats. After a while, he stopped reporting them to management.”

“Mrs. Burns confirmed the threats,” Fiona said.

“There is a sense,” Hodges said, “that his death was connected to his columns.”

“A sense, Chief? It's a conviction,” Izzy said, not yet tuned in to the Chief's oblique humor. He cut a glance at Fiona, who smiled.