D.C. Dead (22 page)

“So you’ve been in the White House for how long?”

“Nearly seven years.”

“It must seem like home by now.”

She laughed. “It seems like a sweatshop.”

“Will you be glad when it’s over, and Will Lee goes home to Georgia?”

“I suppose I’ll have mixed feelings,” she said.

“Any plans for after the White House?”

“I’ve got my eye on a House seat in Virginia,” she said. “I don’t think the guy is going to run again, and I think I’d be good at it.”

“And after that, what? Governowhat? Gor? Senator? President?”

She gave him a sly smile. “Who knows where the road may lead?”

The house phone buzzed, and she told the doorman to send up the food. Stone met the deliveryman at the door, paid him, and brought the big bag into the kitchen. Fair gave Stone a bottle of Chardonnay from the fridge to open, then they heaped food onto their plates and took their trays into the living room.

Fair switched on the TV. “Do you mind? I TiVo the evening news.”

“Not at all.”

They watched the news silently, and Fair spoke only when fast-forwarding through the commercials. When it was over, Stone said, “I thought there might be a mention of the Muffy Brandon murder.”

Fair shook her head. “Nope, that’s a local story. If Paul Brandon were still in the Cabinet, it might have made the national cut.”

“Since you worked for Senator Hart, you must have known his wife.”

“Milly? Sure. She was in and out of the office all the time. I liked her.”

“How about Muffy Brandon?”

“I met her a few times at dinner parties. I liked her less. She was too skittish for my taste, too brittle. She was beautiful, of course, but, as far as I was concerned, not an attractive person.”

“Any thoughts about who killed them?”

She looked at him in mock surprise. “Are you kidding? You’re the investigator: you tell me.”

Stone watched her closely for her reaction to his next statement. “I think the killer may very well work in the White House.”

She choked on her wine. “Are you
serious
?”

“I am.”

“Please,
please
tell me why you think that.”

“Things have come out in our latest round of interviews with White House people.”

“What things?”

“I haven’t reported to the president yet, so I can’t tell you.”

“Have you mentioned this to anyone outside the White House?”

“Just the people involved in our investigation.”

“Please promise me you won’t breathe a word of that to anyone else. It’s the sort of thing that the media would go nuts over, and we’d be overwhelmed for days, maybe weeks, dealing with it. It would just make it harder for us to get our work done in the months Will Lee has left in office.”

“I won’t tell anyone else. It’s just a theory, at this point.”

“Well, it’s a very scary theory,” she said. “When do you plan to wrap up your investigation?”

“We were about ready to do that, until the two women were murdered,” Stone said. “Now we’ll have to wait and see how everything plays out.”

I wish to God Will and Kate hadn’t asked you to look into Mimi’s and Brix’s deaths,” she said. “Everything that’s happened seems to be because you’re here, doing this.”

“Sometimes I feel the same way,” Stone said.

“Enough shoptalk,” she said. “I have an early day every day, so we should so we shget into bed now.” She took his face in her hands and kissed him, then she took his hand and put it inside her sweater, on her breast. “Are you game?” she asked. “I don’t have time for foreplay.”

“I’m game,” Stone said, stripping off her sweater, while she worked on his buttons. He was astonished at how swiftly she had inflamed him.

36

STONE WAS WAKENED BY AN ELECTRONIC BEEPING. MOMENTARILY disoriented, he first thought he was at home in bed, then that he was back at the Hay-Adams. Then Fair rolled over on him and brought him fully awake.

She came quickly, then made it her business to see that he did, then she was out of bed and heading for the bathroom. “Go back to sleep,” she said. “I’ve got an early national security briefing, but there’s no need to roust you out of bed.”

Stone looked at the bedside clock: just after five A.M. He felt oddly rested, then it occurred to him that they had been in bed by eight-thirty the evening before. He had had a full eight hours of sleep. He heard the shower turn on.

He got out of bed, found his clothes, and got dressed. He was combing his hair, using her dressing table mirror, when he saw the lipstick. He picked it up: Pagan Spring. He opened the cap, and it seemed almost unused. So what? he thought. It seemed to be a very popular lipstick.

He went to the bathroom door, and she was getting out of the shower. “Dry my back?” she said.

Stone grabbed a towel and rubbed her down all over, enjoying the process.

“I want to do it again,” she said, “but I’m on the clock. Start the coffee, and put some muffins in the toaster oven, will you? I’ll drop you at your hotel on the way to work.”

Stone did as he was told, and by the time the coffee was ready, she was in the kitchen, standing while eating a muffin and drinking coffee. “You’re an extremely good lover,” she said.

Stone looked at her, surprised. “Thanks. So are you.”

“I haven’t had enough sex since my last relationship,” she said. “It’s the job. There’s no time to meet anyone.”

“I’m glad to have been of service,” Stone replied.

She tossed off her coffee. “Let’s go,” she said. She led him out of the apartment, and they took the elevator down to the garage, where her Prius was parked.

“I would have thought they’d send a car for you,” Stone said.

“When I’m chief of staff,” she replied, driving out of the garage. “The president doesn’t like it when staff start ordering up White House transportation without some real need. It’s easy for me to drive myself.”

She stopped just short of the portico at the Hay-Adams. “You’d better get out here. We don’t want to be seen together at this hour of the morning.” She gave him a kiss, waited until the door was closed, then drove away.

THE MUFFIN HADN’T BEEN enough for Stone, so he ordered a full breakfast from room service. He was already eating his eggs when Shelley came out of Dino’s room, followed shortly by Dino. They sat down. “When did you get in?” Dino asked.

“Late, but I woke up early and couldn’t get back to sleep, so I ordesred breakfast.”

“And what did the evening reveal that will aid our investigation?” Dino asked.

Stone thought about that. “As far as I’m concerned, it eliminates Fair as a suspect,” he said.

“Why is that?” Shelley asked.

“She’s too normal to have murdered three people.”

“Too normal?” Dino said. “I see murders committed all the time by people who seem normal.”

“You’ll have to trust me on this, Dino,” Stone said. “I can’t prove she didn’t do it. She worked in Senator Hart’s office and knew Milly, said she liked her. She knew Muffy Brandon, too, but didn’t like her. There’s not the slightest evidence that she could have killed either of them. She does use Pagan Spring, though. It was on her dressing table in her bedroom.”

“I checked with the drugstore chain that sells it in D.C.,” Shelley said. “They’ve sold about nineteen hundred tubes of Pagan Spring since it came out a little over two years ago.”

“Swell,” Dino said.

“Since the two women were killed, my office is taking a new interest in the Kendrick deaths.”

“Great,” Stone said. “As far as I’m concerned, you folks can take over the investigation today, and I’ll go home and practice a little law.”

“Yeah?” Dino said. “I’m starting to get interested again.”

“Who, specifically, is getting interested over at the Hoover Building?” Stone asked.

“My boss, Kerry Smith.”

“Does he think you screwed up the original investigation?”