Fortune is a Woman (57 page)

Buck shrugged, "Thanks, no. It's just that I knew him, it's a shock...."

"Surely, sir. I'm sorry about that, Senator Wingate. I guess you'll feel better though, sir, now they've arrested the woman. Between you and me they are pretty sure she did it."

Buck unclenched his hand from the compact as relief sagged through him, he was crazy to think what he had been thinking. Of course it was one of Harry's women, some poor rejected girl....

"Everybody knew how he and his sister hated each other," the officer continued. "That Harrison family's been feudin' for more than thirty years. She always claimed he killed her son and I guess it was only a matter of time before she got her revenge."

Buck stared at the man, his face blank with shock. "What are you saying? Who has been arrested for Harry's murder?"

"Why, his sister, sir." The officer looked concernedly after him as Buck turned on his heel and strode away.

He almost ran back down the hill to Aysgarth's, head down, hands in his pockets, his mind full of horrifying images of Francie being arrested, Francie terrified and alone, Francie in jail for Harry's murder. A murder he knew for sure she had not committed.

Maryanne was sitting on the same chintz sofa, wearing the same peach peignoir she had last Wednesday night. She looked up from her book and gave him a relieved smile. "Darling, I've been so worried about you," she said. "Where on earth have you been?"

He took the jeweled compact from his pocket and held it out to her. "I've been to get this," he said, his voice tight with anger.

She looked at the compact and then at him. "Oh my goodness," she said shakily, "I wondered what had happened to it. Did I drop it downstairs somewhere?"

"You left it at Harry's," he said evenly. "On Wednesday night."

"On Wednesday night? Don't be ridiculous, we were at Harry's Tuesday, not Wednesday," she said, flustered.

"We
were at Harry's Tuesday.
You
were at Harry's Wednesday. The night you lost your keys and the room waiter had to let you in. Remember, Maryanne?"

She pushed a nervous hand through her immaculate hair. "Wednesday? Surely you're wrong. Wasn't I here, alone with you?"

"What was going on between you and Harry?" She put up a protesting hand and he said, "No. Don't lie to me. I want to know what you were doing there."

She shrugged her slender shoulders, defeated. "Harry was blackmailing me," she said quietly. "Over you and his goddamn sister. I've been paying him off for years—oh, not from my own purse, so to speak, but managing to get nice little deals put his way.... through my family and you, Buck, though you never knew it." She glared furiously at him. "It's all your fault, if you had never had that stupid little affair none of this would have happened." She looked up at him, her eyes hard. "She's threatened him all these years, he told me so. And now they've arrested her for his murder. And if she hadn't killed him then one day he would have killed her. They're two of a kind."

"Francie didn't murder Harry," he said, grabbing her roughly by the shoulders.

She smiled at him, that girlish innocent smile she could do so well. "Why, of course she did, Buck. You just don't want to believe it. Harry told me himself she had accused him of killing her son in a fire. Don't you think this was the perfect way to get her revenge? Another fire? It's quite biblical really, an eye for an eye, a fire for a fire—"

"You lying, scheming little bitch," he said, letting her go.

She dropped thankfully back onto the sofa, thinking Buck really looked quite frightening with that wild gleam in his eyes. "It's all so long ago, Buck," she said in a coaxing conciliatory voice. "You finished the affair and that was that. And after all, I'm the one who's had to pay the price." She shuddered delicately. "Harry was such a... such a scoundrel...."

"I did not finish with Francie," he said stonily. "You did it for me. Just the way you tried to manage the rest of my life. I didn't want to leave her, I loved her—"

She latched quickly on to his use of the past tense of the word "love." "Well, there you are then," she said. "You loved her, it's all over, and now she's gotten herself into this mess. I'm sorry, Buck, but we can't let it affect our lives, not now with so much at stake."

He stood quietly, his hands in his pockets, looking at her and he knew the stakes had gotten too high for Maryanne. He thought of the cool impervious beauty he had married and of his alienated children, he thought of his brilliant future and knew it was just ashes. Maryanne had burned their lives away just the way he knew she had burned Harry's house on Wednesday night.

He turned and picked up his overcoat. "Where are you going?" she said, clutching her silk peignoir to her throat, frightened.

"I'm going to see Francie. I know she didn't do it—she has the perfect alibi. She was with Senator Buck Wingate Wednesday night—while you were at Harry's."

"No! No! It's not true."
He walked to the door and she ran after him, tripping over the hem of her peignoir.

"You've always been a woman who got what you wanted," he said, "but not this time, Maryanne."

"I did it for you, Buck," she screamed, clinging to his arm. "I did it for you... for
us."

"Whatever you did, you did for yourself," he said bitterly, "just the way you always have. Only now you have to live with it."

She watched aghast as he strode through the door. A little sob escaped her lips and she put her head in her hands, trembling. After a while she pulled herself together and walked into her room. She sat at her dresser, staring in the mirror at her disheveled hair and her own frightened eyes, thinking of how nearly she had brought it all off. She knew Buck would have been in the White House one day and she contemplated the power, the prestige, the acclaim that would have been hers. She would have had it all if it were not for Buck's stupidity. She wondered what he would do about Harry and decided she wouldn't worry about that; it was only Buck's word that the compact hadn't been left behind on the night of the dinner party. There was no way he or anyone else could prove anything. She was safe. And when he came back this time she would make him pay for it. She would surely make him pay for all he had put her through this week.

She combed her hair and powdered her nose, changed her torn peach peignoir for the blue panne velvet robe and lay down on the chintz sofa to wait for him.

***

The desk sergeant jumped hastily to his feet when Senator Buck Wingate walked in and asked to see the police chief. "Surely, sir... Senator Wingate. I guess he'll be home, Senator. I'll call him for you, right away, sir."

Buck waited fifteen minutes in a cluttered brown office. A green-shaded lamp burned over the desk, mountains of files spilled from the shelves and there were two old wooden chairs with the brown paint peeling off.

"Senator Wingate. Good to see you, sir. What can we do to help you?" The police chief was a burly man with an intelligent face, red from hurrying.

Buck took a seat. He looked steadily at the police chief and said, "I'm here about Francesca Harrison."

"The Harrison case?" He looked surprised.

"I'm here to tell you that Miss Harrison did not commit that murder, Chief Rawlins. She couldn't have. You see, she was with me that night."

Rawlins drew in a surprised breath; he saw and heard a lot in his job—scandals were scandals, but this was a big one. He sighed, thinking sex could really screw up a guy's head; whether he was a senator or a janitor, it was all the same. But this was an important man, a very important man. And his wife's family were almost royalty, if this country had such a thing....

"Are you sure you want to say this, sir?" he suggested delicately, offering a way out.

"I'm certain. Miss Harrison is innocent and I am prepared to sign a statement saying she was with me. If necessary I will go to court and stand as her witness."

Rawlins shook his head quickly. "That won't be necessary, Senator, of course not. I'm quite prepared to release Miss Harrison on your say-so. There would be no need for any statement sir. No one need ever know." He looked at Buck and smiled, thinking cynically that his sort always got to keep their cake and eat it too.

Buck said briskly, "I want to make that statement, Rawlins. And I want it released to the press. I want everyone to know that Miss Harrison is not being let off this serious charge on a mere technicality. I want them to know without a shred of doubt that she is innocent. What I don't want is to leave any suspicion the media can build into another scandal she doesn't deserve."

The chief looked nervous. "I'm just worried about your own situation, Senator. How's it gonna look for you?"

Buck shrugged. "I've thought of all the implications, Chief Rawlins."

"If you'll just write your statement then, sir, I'll witness it. Then I'll send the sergeant for Miss Harrison. She's in an interview room down the hall."

The terrible vision of Francie in a grim prison cell dissolved in his mind and he picked up a pen and quickly wrote his statement. He signed it firmly and the chief read it and added his own signature as witness.

There was a knock on the door and the young sergeant held it open and Francie walked in. Her head dropped and her eyes were dark with fatigue and shock; he thought she looked like a frightened fawn. She looked from him to the police chief, saying nothing, and he knew that even now she was prepared to protect him and his family and his political career. His wonderful career that he had sacrificed their happiness for.

He smiled at her, his face full of love. "It's all right, Francie," he said. "Chief Rawlins knows you were with me the night Harry died. You're free now."

She looked at him, then she lifted her chin proudly. "Free?" she said. And he knew what she was asking.

"Yes," he said, taking her arm and putting it through his as they walked from the cluttered, drab office. "We both are," he told her, smiling.

***

Maryanne read the sensational story of Francie Harrison's release in the
Examiner
the next morning; and the announcement, under his picture, of Senator Wingate's rumored retirement from politics.

White with anger she tossed the newspaper to the ground and stamped on her husband's handsome face, then she called the maid and ordered her bags packed. She dressed carefully in her silver-gray woolen dress, her mink-lined cape and matching hat. She added a touch more lipstick than usual, checking her appearance in the long mirror. Then she went downstairs to face the press camped in the street outside Aysgarth's, waiting for her.

"Mrs. Wingate," they shouted, surging toward her as she walked down the steps to the waiting limousine. "Mrs. Wingate, what do you have to say about Francie Harrison and your husband? What about his resignation, Mrs. Wingate—?"

She turned, one foot in the limousine, and gave them a plucky little smile. "Gentlemen, gentlemen," she called amid a flurry of flashbulbs, "thank you for your interest, but I am sure you can appreciate that this is a purely personal matter. And of course, we Brattles never talk of such things outside the family." And with a final brave little smile and a wave she stepped into the car and was driven to the airport where she took a plane to New York to consult her lawyer about a divorce.

***

Annie Aysgarth watched Maryanne from the top of the steps as she gave her farewell performance as Senator Wingate's beautiful wife and she sighed with relief when she finally left. Between them, Harry Harrison and Maryanne Wingate had conspired to wreck the lives of those around them. Maryanne and Harry were alike: they were both selfish and unscrupulous, they took without giving and they stopped at nothing. Not even murder. Now Harry was dead and Maryanne had created her own personal hell and she would have to live with it.

The reporters and photographers had disappeared, eager to scoop the story of Maryanne's dramatic departure, and Annie walked down the steps into the street and turned to look up at her hotel. She had created this place, and all the others. Aysgarth's was her own world and she loved it. She had shared in Francie's children, just the way she had with Josh when he was small and though she had never had a husband and a child of her own, she was fulfilled. She ran back up the steps into her world. Through all the tragedies, fortune had smiled on her and she was a happy woman.

***

Francie and Buck were at the ranch. There were so many things to be said between them that would never be discussed. They didn't need to. He had said it all when he had told her they were free.

Buck had not resigned immediately after the scandal broke. "If I do, they'll either think you are guilty—or I am," he told her. "You'll see, we'll be a nine-days' wonder and then a new scandal will take our place. Besides, they have to figure out who they're going to appoint to replace me. I can't just leave all those people who are depending on me up in the air."

Of course, he was right. He was well liked in Washington and when he tendered his resignation a month later, the political columnists were eager to sing his praises. "The world of politics loses a good man," they said. "But it's by his own fair choice and not any puritanical pressure. While it is hoped he enjoys his retirement and his new life, the Republican Party would be foolish to let him go entirely and the word is that he is available in an 'advisory' capacity, which his boundless experience more than qualifies him for."

When he'd finally met Lysandra he had taken her in his arms and kissed her and told her he was the old friend of her mother's she had spoken to on the phone. He'd crouched down so their eyes were on a level and she had stared silently at him, then she said, "You're the one, aren't you? You are my father?"

Francie had gasped, afraid of what she would say next, but he had smiled gently at her and said, "That's true, Lysandra. I hope you'll forgive me for not being around for the first seven years, but you see, I didn't know about you."

"Are you gonna stay around now?" she asked wistfully, her head on one side.

"If your mother will let me," he replied with a glance at Francie.