Death of a Washington Madame (17 page)

"But suppose we're wrong about Lionel?" Gail
asked.

"Wrong? The man hasn't been indicted yet. The point is
that we're doing our job. Time is on our side, ladies. The media will flit like
the bumblebee to other flowers. Give us a respite. Get the Guv and the star off
our backs."

"That's pretty cynical, chief," Gail said.

Fiona watched the beginning of his fulminations. He ripped
apart the cellophane on the panatela and shoved it in his mouth. Then he patted
his jacket pocket as if he were looking for a match, seemed to remember that he
had given it up, then champed down on the end.

"Cynical, Prentiss," the Eggplant said.
"Cynical? Moi cynical?" He pulled the panatela out of his mouth and
pointed it at Gail. "We got here a can of high profile turd. An inside
job. No question. Lionel is still a good bet. The star knows we got a movie
with ... what do they say ... legs. As she sees it her job is cut the legs off
at the knees. Our job ... get along and go along. She don't mess with our rap,
I don't mess with hers. Capeesh."

At that moment the telephone rang.

"Barring the unforeseen, we buy the kid's ident."
the Eggplant said. "Okay?"

Barring the unforeseen, Fiona mused, seem to mean that he
wasn't totally convinced. She looked at Gail who shrugged consent.

The telephone rang again.

"Yeah," the Eggplant barked into the phone.

Fiona could hear the muffled tones of the speaker. The
Eggplant's face grew slack as he listened.

"Damn!" he shouted, slapping the table with the
palm of his hand. It sounded like a gunshot. He champed down on his panatela,
staining his underlip. Then he hung up, slamming the instrument into its
cradle.

"Get your asses down to Shipley's house," he
shouted, tight-lipped and angry. "Gloria Carpenter is dead."

They found Gloria in her bathtub, a graying corpse in a sea
of crimson. With an eye toward modesty, she had worn a nightgown, which clung
to her ample body. She had used a single razor blade to open the veins of both
wrists.

"Suppose we were wrong about Lionel," Gail said,
obviously unable to sustain the emotional distance required of a homicide detective.
She was clearly moved to an unacceptable level of guilt. "I'm the one who
pushed it."

"You did your job, Gail," Fiona said. "She
did this ... to herself."

"I set him up," Gail protested. "The boy
could have identified him for all the wrong reasons."

"What's that got to do with it?" Fiona said.
"Either he was or he wasn't. Anyway, it will all come out in the wash. It
usually does."

"Maybe if we showed more doubt this might not have
happened."

"Stop feeling responsible Gail. Gloria made her own
decision."

"All I'm saying..."

"I don't care what you're saying. It doesn't change
things. Besides ... you're really getting to be a pain in the ass."

"Don't you see?" Gail said. "We rushed to
judgment."

"Stow that old turkey. We're cops, not judges. We
theorize,deduce, gather evidence, interpret. Criminology 101. We are not
responsible for the actions of others."

She did have a point, Fiona knew. Martine's identification
of Lionel fit everyone's agenda, if not their preconceptions. And there was the
matter of giving Gail her head, pushing her to rise above her anger,
encouraging her to prove her racial objectivity.

"Maybe if we hedged, waited, not jumped so fast."

"Good advice, Gail. Take it."

"I don't understand."

"How do you know that this thing with Lionel set her
off?"

"Because it's obvious."

"You're experienced enough to know, Gail," Fiona
said, with the kind of deliberate patience one displays with a child.
"That in this business, beware of the obvious."

"I wish you would stop lecturing me."

"You're right. It doesn't seem to help you worth a
damn. And I'd appreciate it if you stop beating yourself up. It's getting
boring."

She watched Gail's nostrils quiver with anger. Fiona felt a
sloping wave of precognition begin to curl over her. She had no time to brace
herself for the onslaught.

"Trouble with you Fi. You're a hard case. Fiona
FitzGerald wouldn't crack. No way. Not thick white skinned Fiona, standing on
the mountain watching us Ubangis do our tribal dances."

"You know what you need, Gail." Fiona said, her short
fuse ignited. "You need to get laid. I hear a good screwing is the best
remedy for hysteria."

"Hasn't seemed to have done much for you," Gail
shot back. The remark, despite its bite, seemed to indicate that Gail was still
somewhat in charge of her tongue, a good augury for her emotions.

"Hey good comeback, Gail."

"Offense intended," Gail said, shaking her head,
as if to illustrate impatience with her herself. "But not sincerely
meant."

They eyed each other in silence for a long moment.
"Now can we get back to the job or do I have to listen to your whining for
the rest of the day?"

They turned away from each other and began to do what
detectives do, inspect the premises, check for clues.

"Find any suicide notes?" Fiona asked after
awhile.

"Negative."

"That's a help," Fiona mumbled. The absence of a
note made it more difficult to declare a definite suicide. From all visible
signs, it appeared, however, that this was a classical female suicide. For some
reason, the modus operandi, opening wrist arteries in the bathtub, appeared to
be the method of choice for females, borrowed, perhaps, from Hollywood, which
portrayed the method in countless movies.

Roy Parker had discovered Gloria's body at about ten thirty
in the morning. After checking the scene and inspecting the corpse, Fiona and
Gail left the work to Flanagan's techies and moved to the kitchen where Roy was waiting for them. His complexion was ashen and more flesh seemed to have melted
from his face since they had seen him last.

"I saw her this morning," Roy said. "About
seven thirty as always. She had made breakfast for me.... "His eyes welled
for a moment, then he cleared his throat and continued. "Used to be, she
would always have breakfast with me, then she would make breakfast for Madame
and bring it up to her. Maybe I should have seen something different this
morning. She made me breakfast, but not for herself. I asked her why. She said
she was too upset to eat."

"You saw no signs of extreme depression ... no hint of
suicidal intent."

"Extreme depression? I would say that was the malady
we both suffered from. As for suicidal intent. How does one notice that in
others?" He shook his head in despair. "Can you see it in me?"

"As a matter of fact," Fiona said studying him.
"No."

"I do think about it, though. But I don't believe I
would have the courage."

"Did she say anything that might indicate this
intention?" Gail asked. "Since only a couple of hours elapsed since
you saw her last and her ... suicide."

He appeared to concentrate as if focusing inward to
reconstruct their last moments together. After a few moments he shook himself
alert to the moment at hand.

"She said she was up all night thinking about things.
This business with Lionel was eating at her. She didn't believe it."

Gail looked toward Fiona, her expression clearly regretful.

"What did she believe, Roy?" Fiona asked. Roy frowned in confusion. He folded and unfolded his hands. Fiona noted his swollen
knuckles and the missing tip of his little finger.

"That Lionel had nothing at all to do with Madame's
death."

"Aside from Martine's identification, there's a lot of
weight on the side of Lionel's guilt. He knew the routine of this household. He
worked here, remember. He knew the layout of the house. He knew when Gloria was
off, when she came home ... and did you wear those hearing aids ten years
ago?"

Roy lifted his arm and touched his
right hearing aid. He nodded.

"And he probably knew you slept without them."

"Anyone around people with hearing loss would know
that."

"And I'm sure Gloria told him that Marshall had
died." Another thought suddenly intruded. "Did he know about the
security system?"

"He was here when it was put in," Roy said. "Knew how it worked better than I did."

"So he wouldn't be far off if he had learned from
Gloria that it had been deactivated and the household was depending for
security on Marshall. He could have calculated that the system was put in so
long ago that you wouldn't remember how to activate it?"

"I suppose."

Fiona looked toward Gail.

"A stretch but possible," Fiona said.

"Okay ... so Lionel knew things. But others did as
well. It wasn't exactly a secret that Marshall had died. Or knowing the layout
of the house. And me sleeping without my hearing aids."

"Like who, Roy?" Fiona asked.

"Billy, his wife. Others. Gloria's sister, her
children.... "He stopped abruptly. "No. None of them could do a thing
like this. You might as well accuse everybody." He looked at Fiona through
lugubrious eyes. "Me, for example. I knew all those things."

"Did you know about the inheritance?" Fiona
asked.

"What inheritance?"

"Mrs. Shipley's inheritance. The one that you and
Gloria were to share fifty-fifty."

"None of that ever mattered to me."

"But you knew you had it coming?"

"I never thought about it."

"But you knew?"

"I don't see what that has to do...."

"Everything, Roy," Fiona said. "It gives
Lionel a motive. He had expectations of being helped by Gloria's sudden good
fortune." She paused and studied him." In a crime like this, one
always asks the same question first."

"Who benefits?" Roy said.

His response surprised her, again validating his knowledge
and intelligence far above his station.

"Well who?" Fiona prodded.

Roy grew thoughtful.

"If you use that as a measure, you might say that
everyone in Gloria's family would have benefited. Gloria was the big sister to
all of them. She always helped them out. Not just Lionel. Gloria never believed
that the people she cared about were capable of doing evil things. She spent
her life forgiving those she loved. That was Gloria."

"So Roy," Fiona asked. "If it wasn't Lionel,
who?"

"Maybe me," he said bitterly." Aren't I a
good bet? And now you have me benefiting."

He put his arms in front of him as if he were to be
handcuffed.

"Then arrest me. I fit the criteria. I know everything
that Lionel was supposed to know. By your criteria, I'm the perfect suspect.
Put me in front of that boy. Give him his chance to get even."

"I'd say he had his opportunity.... in the wine
cellar."

"Too bad," Roy said. "I'd love to confront
that little bastard again. What I don't understand is how you could possibly
believe anything that little murdering monster says?"

"So you discount his identification completely?"
Fiona asked.

"I wouldn't believe that boy under any circumstances.
Don't be fooled. He may be on the retard border, but he's got a Ph.D. in street
smarts. Hell, even he could have figured out when the best time would be to
make a hit on this house. He lived in the neighborhood. They watched us, these
little bastards who hang out around here looking to score something. He would
have known Marshall was gone. As for me being able to protect the house? I'm an
old man. Maybe he discounted the possibility. As for getting into the house, or
the actual layout, any moron could figure that out."

"Looks to me..." Fiona said. ".... as if you
reinforced her idea to fight for her brother?"

"Sure I did, if that's what you're asking. I told her
to get herself a good lawyer, the best in the business."

"And she agreed?"

Roy nodded.

"Doesn't sound like someone who would commit suicide
sometime within the next two hours."

"No, it doesn't," Roy said.

Fiona shot Gail a reassuring glance.

"What did you do after breakfast?" Fiona asked.

"Chores. Old habits die hard. I watered the grass in
the front. Its April you know. Starting to grow. Madame liked a nice neat patch
of green at the entrance. Then I came back into the kitchen and started
polishing the silver. Madame liked the silver nice and shiny. Gloria usually
helped. In fact we always did it on Wednesdays. And today is Wednesday."

It struck Fiona as odd that they were continuing to follow
the routine of the household as if Mrs. Shipley was still alive. Yet, in a
weird way, it had a certain logic to it. They both probably speculated that
they were going to inherit the house where they had worked a combined total of
nearly one hundred years. As Roy had said; old habits die hard. Perhaps they
intended to follow this same routine for the rest of their lives.

"When she didn't come down to the kitchen," Roy continued, "I called her on the intercom. There was no answer. I went to her room
and knocked at the door. No answer then either. I went into her room. The
bathroom door was closed. I knocked, called her name. Finally, I opened the
door ... God it was awful."

Suspicion rose naturally in Fiona's mind. But she hastily
eliminated the idea. She had seen enough suicides to know that this was exactly
that, a self-inflicted death. But that did not mean that Roy was entirely free
of blame. Perhaps he worked on her mind, brutalized her with the power of suggestion.
Roy, she had learned, was a man of shrewd intelligence, his intellectual
assets far superior to the role he had chosen for himself for half a century.

"Is that the extent of your conversation this
morning?" Fiona asked. "She told you she intended to fight for
Lionel."

"This morning yes. But then we had discussed that last
night."

"Last night?" Fiona prodded.

"Actually, we stayed up a long time talking," Roy said. "Gloria needed to talk. Billy's call had upset her. Did I tell you Billy
called last night?"

"Yes."

"From what Gloria said Billy felt certain that Lionel
was probably the guilty party."

"Makes sense," Gail interjected. "He was
black."

"That again," Fiona said, sighing with
frustration. "You're beginning to sound bi-polar."

"Not Billy," Roy said. "He was not a man of
prejudice."

"Besides, he was a politician in Virginia." Fiona
said, turning to Gail. "It's the capital of the old dominion. Blacks are
numerous and they vote."

"He'd never admit it, of course," Gail sneered.
"But his wife.... "Fiona again noted that she was skirting the edges
again and threw her a sharp look of rebuke. It seemed to do the trick. She
raised her hand to signal that she had understood.

"That's another story." Roy said bitterly.

"Madeline Newton didn't seem to have many fans in this
house."

"No," he mumbled.

"Why were you all so down on her?" Fiona asked.

"Because she totally captured Billy." His anger
was tangible, his expression no longer impassive. "She dominates him
completely. He is incapable of acting without her approval. He's become a
completely different person."

"Apparently Mrs. Shipley seems to have shared your
view."

"It was Madame's view and she was right," Roy muttered, his anger accelerating. "She controls Billy, mind and heart. She turned
Billy against Madame. She is an evil, selfish woman. With her, its how does it
play. The human aspect is ignored."

Fiona was surprised at the extent of his concern and the
venom it generated. His hate of Madeline Newton was palpable.

"She's playing for big stakes," Fiona said,
"With her help, he's become a household word, a serious Presidential
contender."