Murder on Capitol Hill (12 page)

Veronica stiffened, although her voice did not reflect it. She said softly, “If you don’t see the wisdom in what I say, Lydia, perhaps a more personal approach would be more acceptable. Frankly, I’m not
sure I could stand up to another public hanging-out of Jimmye’s wash. Can you understand that?”

“Yes, of course. You’ve been through far more than most people should ever be asked to take on. I recognize, I respond to that… perhaps more than you know. The thought of opening up Jimmye’s case through the committee must be abhorrent to you. But I have to remind you, Veronica, that you were the one who pushed for a Senate committee in the first instance, and who asked me to serve as its special counsel.”

“I’m aware of that. To be perfectly candid, one of the reasons for wanting you was the faith I had in your sense of decency and taste. I’ve always known you to be an extremely sensitive woman, Lydia, a compassionate one too. I’m asking for a demonstration of that now.”

“Even if it means not doing my job?”

“We all bend at times, Lydia, in the name of decency, out of respect for our friends and their feelings.”

Lydia was confused. What Veronica had said made sense, and yet something inside her rebelled against dropping the Jimmye McNab matter. “I’m having trouble sorting out how I feel, Veronica. I’m sorry, but that’s the truth. If I promise to carefully reconsider introducing Jimmye into the investigation, will that do it, at least for this evening?”

“It will have to, won’t it?” There was frost in her voice. “Lydia… there’s more to this than I’ve indicated.”

“I wondered… I’d like to know.”

“I’d hoped I wouldn’t have to be this direct, but
perhaps the direct approach is, as they say, the kindest. Senator MacLoon is extremely unhappy over you as special counsel. He feels that you haven’t the experience in government to fully understand the meaning of such a committee and its role in Congress. As you know, he’s dead set against expanding the investigation to include Jimmye’s death. If you insist on going ahead, even though there isn’t a shred of evidence to support it, I’m afraid your position with the committee might be in jeopardy.”

“The committee job is not my life’s work,” Lydia said tightly. “I’m involved because I was asked to be by people for whom I care a great deal. I accepted the job because I think it’s important. Also because it’s a challenge. Naturally, I’d not like to be fired, but”—she shrugged and forced a smile—“if that’s what comes from trying to do what I think is right, well, so be it…”

Veronica closed her eyes and slumped back into the cushions of the couch. “Of course, you’re right,” she said so softly that Lydia had to lean forward and ask her to repeat it. “I said ‘you’re right.’ You must forgive me, Lydia, perhaps I’ve handled all this all wrong. That happens to people, I’m told, who try to act too brave in the face of personal tragedy and never allow the impact of it to be felt, to come out.” She began to cry now. Lydia sat beside her and put her arm over her shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” Veronica said.

“Don’t be. You’re right. There’s a time to let down and perhaps this is it. Cry, cry until it’s all out.”

Which she did. Fifteen minutes later the two women stood together in the foyer.

“Thank you, Veronica… for a good evening.”

“Thank you for being here when I needed you. I have to ask one thing, Lydia, about Jimmye.”

“Yes?”

“Whatever you do, please do it gently, and discreetly.”

“You can count on that.”

“I knew I could… be careful driving.”

“I will.” She kissed her cheek and left.

She arrived back at her brownstone in Washington without any memory of the trip, her thoughts totally on what had happened with Veronica. She’d driven as though on automatic pilot, making her turns by rote, unaware of the automobiles she passed or of their occupants. Nor was she aware that a gunmetal gray sedan had followed her ever since she turned onto the highway outside the Caldwell estate.

Its driver parked a block away from the brownstone and waited until she had reached her bedroom and turned on the lights. He pushed a button on a cheap digital watch; its face lit up. He noted her time of arrival on a pad, lit a cigar and drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. He would be here for the rest of the night. An assignment was an assignment. As he often told his wife when she complained about his being out all night, “It’s a living. You don’t complain when you cash the checks.”

It took Lydia two nights to read through the transcripts given to her by Chief Horace Jenkins, and she found little of overriding significance in them. Mark Adam Caldwell’s statements were the most provocative. Although he’d said nothing overtly hostile toward his father, Lydia read between the lines a festering, unsettling animosity and wondered whether Jenkins had picked up the same thing. It occurred to her to check whether the interviews had been recorded. She assumed they had been. Certainly a great deal more could be found out by actually listening to the comments than from reading them on a typed page.

She called Clarence and asked whether his interrogator had used tape.

“Yes, he did. Why do you ask?”

“No reason, Clarence.” She almost told him she had the transcripts but thought better of it. The fewer people who knew about it the better. As it stood, only she and Jenkins knew that they were in her possession. At some point, of course, she’d have to share them with the committee, but for now, there was something comforting about having sole possession.

She hadn’t decided yet about whether to press the McNab matter. She knew that if she did, she’d have to make a good case with the committee, and she couldn’t even begin to build it until she’d had a chance to examine the McNab file at the MPD.

“Time,” she muttered to herself as she sat behind her desk in the committee office and reviewed a preliminary list of potential witnesses to call before the committee once it shifted into that phase of the investigation. She had to do everything herself at this stage, though of course she’d created that situation by keeping the transcripts away from her office and staff, and by agreeing to personally review the McNab files.

She called Horace Jenkins at the MPD. He was grumpy, and when she said she’d like to spend Thursday reviewing the McNab files, he mumbled, “Just stay out of the way.”

Ginger returned from lunch, hung up her pea jacket and closed the door. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”

“Sure.”

The researcher, wearing beige corduroy pants tucked into tan cowboy boots, a heavy purple turtleneck sweater and a massive, noisy necklace made of random pieces of silver and copper, sat in a chair across from Lydia’s desk and shook her head. “The older I get, the weirder people get.”

Lydia couldn’t help but laugh. “How old are you, Ginger, twenty-eight?”

“An old twenty-eight. Anyway, just before I went out to lunch I got a call from Quentin Hughes.”

“What did he want?”

“Dinner.”

“And…?”

“And this time he’s invited me to his apartment at Watergate.”

“Are you going?”

“Only because I’m a dedicated employee of the committee.” Lydia smiled, but Ginger shook her finger. “I’m serious. Quentin Hughes is not my type. Well, I wasn’t doing anything anyway. Harold still says he needs more space to get his act together about us. So, I accepted. The point is I’d like to know just how important it is for you to know more about Hughes and his relationship with the late Jimmye McNab.”

Lydia looked down at the mass of papers on her desk, sighed and said, “I don’t know. You told me after your last dinner with Hughes that he wouldn’t admit anything about a relationship with her. Right?”

“Right. But the way he avoided it makes me feel that there was something between them, maybe even more than the rumors indicated.”

“The problem, Ginger, is that while it all might have some bearing on the Caldwell murder, I can’t justify having you pursue it. To be honest, I’d have to say that at this point it doesn’t seem to matter. If Hughes did have an affair with her, it can’t tangibly be linked to what we’re doing here. I wish I could encourage you because frankly I’m fascinated with it and have this nagging feeling that there
is
a connection between the two deaths. But I’ve been put on notice that to drag the McNab case into it might cost me my job and if I can’t—”

“Well, maybe you’re not so far wrong. This is what I really wanted to talk to you about. I had a date last night with an old friend, a nice guy who’s recently divorced. He’s really not my type, but what’s a girl to do? I won’t tell you his name because I wouldn’t want to betray his trust. Understand?”

“I’m not sure… go on.”

“Okay. Jack is an FBI man. I thought that was pretty heavy stuff until I got to know what he really does. He audits books, for God’s sake, handles records, things like that. I mean, it was a real letdown when I realized he wasn’t the one who shot Dillinger. Anyway, I told him that I was working on the Caldwell committee… I hope that’s okay… I told him, and he asked me questions about it. I didn’t answer all of them because I didn’t want to be talking out of turn. But when I mentioned Jimmye McNab, he gave me one of those wry smiles and said, get this, that the rumor was that Senator Caldwell had had an affair with her—”

Lydia raised her hand to stop what was too offensive to hear.

“I’m not joking,” Ginger said.

“How would this man know such a thing, even if it were true, which I’m sure it isn’t.”

“The pipeline.”

“From the MPD to the FBI?”

She nodded. “He wasn’t sure of the source and the circumstances, but he remembered talk about Senator Caldwell having been… how did he put it?… having been ‘intimately involved’ with Jimmye McNab.”

“Nonsense. Caldwell was her father, or like her
father. She was his wife’s niece. They’d raised her like a daughter—”

“Not legally a daughter.”

“It doesn’t matter. I knew the man and his family. It’s too farfetched even to speculate on such a thing.” Or was it? she was forced to ask herself. She’d had a feeling about a connection. But
this
…?

Ginger fiddled with a broken fingernail and gave Lydia one of those “think what you want” looks. “All I’m doing is passing on what I was told. And he
is
with the FBI—”

“Did he say anything else that might substantiate it?”

“No.”

“It’s all too—”

“Too what?”

“Too soap opera.” And Lydia immediately regretted saying it, remembering it was how Veronica had characterized her interest in the McNab murder.

“Some people say that’s what Washington is, one long-running soap opera.”

“Not to me, and not to you either. You’re too young to be a cynic.”

“Well, the point is that maybe there was a link between the murders… want my advice?”

“Of course.”

“Follow it up. Ask around. Caldwell’s sons, his wife. I think it’s true.”

“I don’t.” But of course she half did. It helped explain the feeling she’d had for so long that she couldn’t express. “Let’s go back to Quentin Hughes. You said he agreed to send over the videotape of the interview he did with Senator Caldwell.”

“That’s right. I’ll ask him about it again tonight.”

“Ginger, be careful tonight.”

“Careful? Why?”

Lydia was sorry her motherly instincts had come out. She said in a deliberately light voice, “Well, you know, he’s a lech.”

“Old leches like him are never a problem.”

Like hell, Lydia thought but didn’t say. After Ginger left the office, she thought about their conversation, especially what Ginger had said about Cale Caldwell and Jimmye McNab. “
Absurd
,” she said to no one, not really believing her own disbelief.

Senator MacLoon’s call broke in. He skipped the amenities. “Do we have a witness list yet?”

“I’m working on it, Senator. It depends on decisions made by the committee this week. I wanted to bring it up at tomorrow’s meeting.”

“I’d like to have the list finalized by Friday and release it at a press conference.”

“Press conference?”

“I think it’s time to report on what progress we’ve made. Do you object?”

“I think it might be premature. The question of the McNab murder should be resolved first.”

“You said you’d be presenting your reasons on that for the committee to consider. We’re waiting.”

“I’ll try to do that on Friday. I think any press conference should be postponed until the middle of next week.”

He made a show of patronizing indulgence. “All right, but let’s wrap up things on Friday… a witness list, the McNab thing put to rest, all of it. Is
that
agreeable?”

“It will have to be, Senator.”

He hung up, and Lydia returned her attention to the list of potential witnesses. It ran the gamut of Senate colleagues and employees, members of the Caldwell family, personal friends of the deceased and unspecified members of the Washington MPD.

She flipped through a Rolodex until coming to Cale Caldwell, Jr.’s office number, dialed it and told the woman who answered that she wanted to speak to Mr. Caldwell.

“Oh, hello, Miss James, this is Joanne Marshall. We met at Mrs. Caldwell’s house. Hold on just a moment.”

Cale came on the line. “Hello, Lydia, sorry to keep you waiting.”

“That’s all right. I was wondering whether we could get together today.”

“Today’s almost gone.”

“I know, but there’s been a shift in schedules that’s pushed up my timetable. I’d really appreciate a chance to talk, even a half hour.”

“Well, I can’t get out of here this afternoon, but I could have a drink after work.”

“That would be fine.”

“How about Hogate’s? Six?”

“Fine. Before you hang up, I was wondering whether you could put me in touch with your brother.”

“Well, I… you could call him.”

“I know, but I’d rather have you arrange a meeting between us, preferably before Friday.”

“That might not be easy, Lydia. He’s… you
know how he is, very secluded down there with his friends, very much keeping to himself.”

“Let me be honest with you, Cale. I’m making up the witness list for the committee. Naturally you and Mark will have to be on it. I thought it might be helpful for me at least to be able to pre-interview your brother before he’s subjected to the full committee’s questions. I’m suggesting it for his sake, nothing else. I want to be helpful.”