Immaculate Deception (7 page)

The flag-draped closed casket stood at the far end of the
Capitol rotunda. Chairs had been placed a dozen rows deep in front it. Every
seat was filled and a respectful crowd stood behind the chairs and along the
rotunda's rim.

From her vantage along the rim, Fiona could see the grim
faces in the front row, the chief mourners. Jack McGuire sat between what were
obviously two of his daughters. Their arms were interlocked, an appropriately
grieving trio.

On either side of the daughters sat the two McGuire sons,
straw haired like their father and speckled with freckles like their mother.
The girls, in a genetic sex reversal, were beefier with darker hair and no
freckles, with cheeks flushed with rouge circles, more like their father,
although his radishy skin had been embellished by the brush of John Barleycorn.

Fiona assumed that others seated in the first row and
dressed appropriately for mourning were relatives. Also sitting in the first
row as if he, too, were a member of the family, was an ashen faced Harlan Foy.
Their eyes had drifted toward each other, engaged, then his snapped away with a
look of contempt as if Fiona's presence here was an affront to the dead lady.

She recognized the more famous political faces from both
Congress and the Executive branch. Some, she assumed, had come out of genuine
respect. Others, she observed cynically had rather obvious political motives. A
group of violinists in Air Force uniforms played dirge music as the audience
gathered. The photographers were also busy. Television cameras had been set up
to record the event.

It was a first-class sendoff, Fiona thought, remembering
her father's lonely funeral back in Yonkers, the hearse threading its way
through the clutter of cemetery angels, the sudden downpour that puddled his
open grave as they lowered his casket into the dreary dampness. No last hurrah
for this true hero. A sob bubbled out of her chest and, for a brief moment, her
eyes filmed over.

They had printed a program on glossy cover stock, complete
with Congresswoman McGuire's picture and bio and a short list of speakers.

The Speaker of the House was the first to stand before the
microphone in front of the casket. The violinists had ceased their playing.
Fiona listened to the platitudes. A good and valiant woman, taken to God in her
prime, whose contributions would be remembered by future generations, a woman,
above all, who believed with all her heart in the righteousness of her cause,
who was not afraid to speak out. The usual script.

He was followed by Harold Hoskins, the Secretary of Health
and Human Resources whose theme was conviction and compassion. He read his
speech from a little card and was properly laudatory and complimentary. Then
came the two senators from Massachusetts, one of whom, tragically, was an
acknowledged expert at funeral orations. Despite her role as mere observer, she
could not keep her eyes dry as the early trauma of the Kennedy brothers'
assassinations rose once again in her memory.

But it was Charles Rome's speech that sparked a special
interest. He was a tall slender man with a thick shock of curly grey hair, an
eaglelike nose and eyes set deep over high cheekbones. He had the
quintessential look of the distinguished stylish gentleman, the kind that might
grace a haberdashery advertisement seeking to persuade the older man.

As he moved toward the microphone, a woman in the second
row muttered something that sounded unmistakably like the word
"shame" and flounced in her seat. A man beside her patted her hand in
a comforting gesture. May Carter (who else?) Fiona decided. Charles Rome was
chairman of the committee on Labor, Health and Human Services, the enemy
according to Foy, whose picket line sat athwart the road to ban abortion
funding, a key target of the pro-lifers.

Chairman Rome had an old-fashioned rhetorical style,
complete with body and hand flourishes and dramatic phrasing, a man with
obvious powers of persuasion.

"We stood on opposite sides of a great issue," he
told the mourners, who listened respectfully, all except May Carter whose
posture was one loud harumph. Twice during his oration, she uttered the word
"shame".

"Her conviction carried the power of her personality
and intellect and those whom she represented were blessed to have such a
passionate advocate for their cause. Yes, it is true we were at opposing ends
of the great fulcrum of democracy, but the true balance was our love for this
great country. Above all, on a personal level we did not allow our opposition,
sometimes bitter and contentious, to interfere with our great friendship.
Barbara and I have lost a dear and devoted friend."

He had the ability to tap into deep emotion and to
encapsulate the essence of the political process. He spoke of human beings
compromising, giving and taking from each other to blunder through, to make the
jerry-built system called democracy work. In such a system, he told the group
with conviction, it was inevitable and certainly desirable for friendships to
be forged, for people of pure heart, as he put it, to rise above the fray.
Fiona had, of course, heard it all before. But Rome was a master presenter of
ringing patriotic clichés, and it came out of him as if it were being said for
the first time.

He was followed by a priest who offered the usual Catholic
sermon of resurrection and a ritual prayer for the dead in Latin. As the priest
droned on in a singsong tone, Fiona's thoughts drifted back to her discussion
with Dr. Benton.

He had explained that he had held back the public
revelation of the woman's pregnancy until he had a chance to discuss the matter
with Chief Greene. A pregnancy in a woman of forty-seven was not exactly a
common event. In a congresswoman who had died by a self-inflicted act or,
worse, a possible murder, it was extraordinary.

A number of logical scenarios had come immediately to mind.
For Frankie to have a child at this stage in her life would have been a strong
career negative, not to mention the physical danger. One could only assume that
she had given up any idea of more children and that a new baby would be a
massive inconvenience to a woman with other priorities. And, without question,
abortion was both politically and morally unthinkable for her. But a suicidal
way out of the dilemma was even more morally repugnant than abortion, a cruel
twist to the entire Right to Life concept ... the taking of two lives not just
one.

"Could have been the product of an extracurricular
liaison," Dr. Benton had suggested. "I've typed the fetus' blood just
in case, but even that is never conclusive and the so-called DNA print is too
experimental to be valid."

A repugnant image of the deceased woman coupling with
Harlan Foy floated into her mind. The possibility existed. It was common
practice between intimate office buddies, a neat and discreet solution to safe
infidelity. He did, after all, have a key to her apartment. National politics
was, she knew, a game which forced the necessity for squirreling away dirty
little secrets, many of which grew naturally out of the fact that
extracurricular sex was a human consequence of separation.

Such thoughts opened a musty trapdoor in her memory. Daddy
was no goody-goody on that score. A bitter female staffer, objecting to the
senator's stand on the war, had spewed her filthy confession into her mother's
ear. Tales of sexual license, highly detailed, poured out of her, only to be
hysterically recycled again by her mother to her denying husband.

Fiona, sitting in her pajamas on a step of the winding
household staircase, had heard every word, enough to rekindle memories which,
despite the passage of time, had never lost their power to sting.

"It's political vengeance," he had said,
dismissing the accusation.

"Liar," her mother had screamed. "Not only
in the office. You took her on trips. She gave me chapter and verse. It was
revolting. You've defiled me."

"Can't you see her motives?" her father had
argued, using his lawyer's skills. "And keep your voice down," he had
warned. Fiona, still virginal, had to be protected at all costs. But her
mother, usually serene, had erupted beyond control.

"I will not have it. It is an affront, worse, a sin. I
can't bear the thought of it. I will not have you consorting with whores."

"I never touched her," she heard her father say,
sensing the lie. The man was too attractive, too powerful. What her mother
undoubtedly resented most was the forced confrontation. She had always looked
the other way, making excuses to herself. Later, after more words, her mother
had dissolved into tears, folded her cards and slipped back into self-denial.
Her father, she was certain, had admitted nothing.

It was not uncommon for politicians, especially where
distance made it too difficult for frequent visits back home and even those on
the Tuesday to Thursday legislative run to actually have two families, a
mistress, sometimes with children and often complete with a cozy paid-for
separate domicile. This was the darker side of the legislative process,
revealed in the press only when it was unavoidable, like when the legislator in
question was running for the Presidency or being considered for the Supreme
Court or some such where a definition of "character" was required.

Washington was tailor-made for
clandestine lovers and being a politician's mistress was, ironically, a
reasonably respectable position for a woman. The thought brought a hot blush to
her cheeks as the unseen accusatory finger pointed square at the center of her
forehead.

Despite her cop cynicism, Fiona's early Catholic orthodoxy
came out on the side of Mrs. McGuire. Surely it was her husband, demanding his
marriage entitlement, that had done the deed. It was Dr. Benton's reaction to
that conclusion that dealt a heavy blow to the suicide theory.

"As a politician, a leader in the pro-life
movement," he had told her, "wouldn't it have been politically
glorious for her to flaunt her pregnancy? Show her commitment by example? 'Look
world, I am the recipient of an unwanted pregnancy but I will not evade my
responsibility to that unborn child.'"

"Congratulations," Fiona said, surrendering to
his view. "You have entered a politician's mind."

Still, their speculations were inconclusive. As the
Eggplant had assumed from the beginning, all was not kosher here and further
investigation was necessary.

After her talk with Dr. Benton, she had come back to the
office. Cates had come in some time later griping about folderol, his English
schoolboy word for bullshit, forcing him to beat shoe leather merely to concoct
a murder scenario for the ego gratification of the Eggplant. He had reported on
the planned ceremonies in the rotunda, then had slumped in his chair and
groused.

She had let him rant for a while, then, in flat tones, she
had told him what Dr. Benton had discovered in the woman's dead uterus. It had
stiffened him instantly. He did not need to play out the possibilities,
absorbing them by osmosis.

"So what did he know..." His head moved toward
the Eggplant's closed office door. "That we didn't?"

"That might be even more of a puzzle than the
other," Fiona had sighed. For an overbearing, egotistical,
status-conscious person like the Eggplant to be ahead of his troops was always
galling, despite its frequency.

She had motioned with her eyes to Briggs who, as always,
sat eagle-eyed and alert for anyone wishing to speak to the Eggplant. He had
shrugged his consent, meaning that the Eggplant was approachable. Then she had
knocked on the Eggplant's door.

"Come," he had snapped and she and Cates found
him, feet on the desk, showing off spit-shined tasseled loafers, puffing a thin
panatela and reading
People
magazine. He was an inveterate celebrity
worshiper. At one end of his office was a television set, playing without
sound, tuned in to the all-news channel.

Without a shred of guilt, he had draped the magazine across
his thighs and squinted inquiringly at them.

"I'm here to apprise," she had said, pronouncing
it, "apprahze." Ignoring the mimicry, he had nodded. They sat facing
him on two wooden arm chairs.

He had listened without comment until Fiona revealed Mrs.
McGuire's pregnancy. Like Dr. Benton she had strung out the revelation.

He had uncurled his legs from the desk and sat up stiffly.
The
People
magazine slipped unnoticed to the floor and he smiled a
toothy smile.

"Be damned," he had said.

Preempting what he was surely thinking, Fiona had offered
the speculations and theories that she had discussed with Dr. Benton.

"Actually it could make the case for suicide even
stronger," Fiona told him, again preempting him. Without giving him time
for comment, she had filled him in about her discussion with Harlan Foy,
although she had edited out, for the moment, the possibility that Harlan might
have been Frankie's lover. Too incomprehensible, she had decided, although the
Eggplant, listening intently, his head bowed in concentration, had undoubtedly
picked up the unspoken subtext.

He had rubbed his chin, stood up and strode toward the window.
The upper rim of a spring sun was slipping behind one of the government
buildings to the west. After a long silence, he had turned suddenly.

"That woman was murdered," he said. His tone was
emphatic, without doubt.

"But how can you be so sure?" Fiona had asked.
His surety was exasperating.

"I feel it in my gut," he had replied, punching
his flat stomach.

"This is too sensitive a case to build a conclusion on
a hunch," Fiona had said, reacting cautiously, being careful to keep due
deference in her tone.

"Great case," he had commented using the same
fist he had just punched into his stomach to pound a palm. His eyes had moved
to the silent TV set. He watched the images for a moment and, she had
suspected, he was salivating over the possibilities for his own exposure on the
tube. After a while, he had turned and looked sternly at Fiona and Cates.
"But you're right. No shooting from the hip. It's political to the core.
What I want here is textbook thoroughness, hear? You're on it full-time,
overtime and prime time. And nothing,
nothing
goes without me being
apprised. (Apprahzed.) The boys upstairs will be nervous as grasshoppers and
the mayor will have a piss hemorrhage if we make a wrong move but he sure will
love the leverage against those self-righteous Congressional bastards. Only
we've got to walk on eggshells. Those congressmen get very touchy we start
mucking about in their shit."