Authors: Margaret Truman
Still…
He seemed to recognize it was prudent to back off and to let her think about it a while. He picked up a menu and said, “Whatever happened to breakfast?” There was the “Dave Butz Breakfast,” a twenty-ounce steak and ten eggs for $32, and a “George Starke Stack,” twenty large pancakes for $15. They settled on smaller steaks and two eggs for him, an omelette for her.
“Tell me about New York,” he said. “Who did you see up there?”
“A couple of people.” She told him about Terry Finch, Bill Dawkins, and the Hotel Inter-Continental. He listened intently, an occasional nod or grunt his only response. “I have a couple of questions for
you
, Ross.”
“Shoot.”
“Why did they choose George Pritchard to head up SPOVAC? Director Shelton didn’t like him, and Pritchard had no interest or experience in administration.”
Lizenby shrugged and sat back as a waiter delivered their juice and coffee. “He was one of the best undercover people in the bureau,” he said,
then added with a chuckle, “The Peter Principle at work.”
“Could there have been another reason?” Saksis asked.
“Like what?”
“I don’t know, but I can’t get rid of the question. Did Director Shelton want him in headquarters to keep him close, to keep an eye on him?”
“I doubt it, but it doesn’t matter, does it? Drink your juice.”
She picked up her glass and looked at him over it. He dismissed what she’d said too quickly. She decided to go on to another topic. He obviously wasn’t about to offer more on that subject.
“Ross, what do you know about Richard Kneeley?”
“The writer? Nothing.”
“He must have a substantial file with us considering some of the books he’s done in the past.”
“Probably does. Why do you ask?”
She explained what she’d come up with so far.
“Doesn’t fly for me, Chris. I’d suggest we concentrate on more viable things.” He said it with an edge to his voice that stung her. She decided to drop that line of inquiry, too, and to simply proceed with her own background check on Kneeley. She asked about the CIA liaison, Bert Doering.
“Nothing there. There’s no link.”
Finally, when they were well into their food, she asked, “What do you know about Pritchard and Rosemary Cale?”
He was about to bring a forkful of food to his mouth. He slowly lowered it to the plate and sighed,
like an impatient parent. “Chris, what does that have to do with the case?”
She, too, lowered her fork. “They’d had an affair, and she was in the building the night he was murdered.”
“That affair was over long ago. Are you suggesting that she’s a suspect?”
“I didn’t realize that
anyone
had been ruled out.”
“I’m not ruling her out, Chris, I’m just saying that there are better places to direct energy. That affair was over long ago.”
“You’re sure of that?”
“Yeah, I’m sure. George talked to me about it. Besides, it wasn’t some full-blown thing they were into. She was one of many. What brings her up? Oh, the woman that waiter said was with Pritchard, the redhead. Pritchard was partial to redheads. Drop it.”
“Every point I’ve brought up this morning you’ve waved away, dismissed without even a modicum of consideration. Why?”
“Because I don’t have time to chase stupid leads and to run down blind alleys.”
“I didn’t consider these things—”
He grabbed her hand. “
This
is why we have to get away from Pritchard and the bureau and everything else except us.”
She wasn’t sure what to say next.
“Look, Chris, I’m sorry, but to be honest with you, I’m having a lot of trouble concentrating on Ranger. I’ll be off it pretty soon.”
“Oh.”
“SPOVAC’s been neglected since Pritchard died,
and the director wants me back on it full-time, which, frankly, is fine with me.”
“When?”
“Maybe next week. I have a meeting with Gormley this afternoon to discuss it. Chances are I’ll be out of town all next week if he decides to take me off Ranger.”
“Who’ll take over?”
“You.”
“I don’t want that.”
“You have a choice?”
“I suppose not, but I’m beginning to resent not having choices. Where will you be going next week? Phoenix?”
“Yeah, maybe, but how do you know?”
She smiled and turned her hands outward. “Well, you used to spend a lot of time in Arizona and I know there have been a number of SPOVAC conferences out there.”
“I don’t know where I’ll be.” He started to eat again. Then he looked up and said, “That’s why I want this weekend together.”
“Let’s talk about it later.”
“Okay. Tonight. Let’s have dinner and stay at my place.”
She closeted herself in her office and spent an hour writing down every thought she had about the Pritchard case. The final item on her list was Rosemary Cale.
Cale was a senior laboratory technician in the bureau’s fingerprint division. She certainly didn’t
look
like someone at home in a laboratory. Tall, voluptuous, with a thick mane of red hair that she usually allowed to fall loose down her back and to
her waist, she could easily have been mistaken for a model, or actress—anything but a highly trained and skilled researcher. She’d received her master’s degree in computer science from the University of Maryland and was halfway finished with her doctoral studies at American University. Because she was so stunning, she was always the object of rumors around headquarters, including one that she was intimate with Director Shelton. All of them remained unsubstantiated rumors, except for the one about George Pritchard. She seemed to be truly smitten with him and talked openly with a few friends about their relationship. It was said that her openness was what caused Pritchard to end it, and it was the consensus that it was, indeed, over. But Saksis’s conversation with the waiter at the Hotel Inter-Continental caused her to view it in a different light. She was hesitant to approach Rosemary Cale about it. They’d never been friends. In fact, Cale had made it obvious after they’d first been introduced that there would be no friendship. Comments had been passed to Saksis that Cale resented having another good-looking woman around headquarters. Saksis dismissed those remarks, but as time went by she wondered if indeed there was some truth to them.
Rosemary Cale had made an open play for Ross Lizenby, but according to office scuttlebutt, he’d walked away from her advances. Saksis knew, of course, that he’d been involved with other women from headquarters, but they didn’t bother her. Rosemary Cale would have.
She decided that no matter how unpleasant approaching Cale about George Pritchard might turn
out to be, it had to be done, despite Lizenby’s admonition to drop it. It was a matter of three things, she decided. One, the questions had been raised in her mind. Natural curiosity was at work. Two, she had to admit to herself that
she
wanted to be the one to solve the Pritchard case, just as she’d always wanted to finish first in the track meets that brought her public attention. She was a competitor, pure and simple, and she wouldn’t be comfortable with any other approach to life. And three, it was her job.
She stopped by the fingerprint labs at noon and was told that Rosemary Cale had taken a personal day, but would be in tomorrow. She left a note asking Cale to call her and returned to her office, where she ordered in something from the cafeteria and went back to sorting out her thoughts, and the information that had been collected to date. Lizenby poked his head in at four. “What about tonight?” he asked.
She hadn’t thought about being together. “Sure,” she said.
“I’ll pick you up here at six. Feel like Japanese?”
“That’ll be fine.”
“Good. Oh, by the way, you might as well have this.” He handed her an eight-by-ten manila envelope.
“What’s in it?” she asked.
“Some more personal effects from Pritchard.”
“More? Ross, why haven’t these things been given to us sooner? How are we supposed to—?”
“Not to question, kid. It’s junk anyway. Just put it in the safe and forget about it.”
He left and she opened the envelope. Inside
were a dozen scraps of paper, laundry receipts, a membership card for a San Francisco private club, a wallet-size faded and wrinkled photo of his daughter when she was quite young, two parking receipts from a Washington lot, and a parking receipt for the ferry that ran from Bay Shore, Long Island, to Fire Island dated six days before he’d been murdered.
“Damn it,” she muttered as she opened the safe and placed the envelope and its contents with other materials from the Pritchard case. “I don’t understand.”
She wanted to talk to Lizenby about it that night, but each time she started to raise a question about Ranger and Pritchard, he shushed her with a kiss, a touch, an “I love you.” Eventually, she was able to put the FBI out of her thoughts and concentrate on the pleasures at hand, the intense feelings that accompanied their lovemaking.
But after he’d fallen asleep, she sat up against the headboard and grappled with the confusion that had been there all day. Something was wrong, and she desperately wished she knew what it was.
Saksis awoke with a start the next morning. She’d forgotten to call Bill Tse-ay. She looked over at Ross, who was still asleep, quietly slid from the bed, and was halfway to the bathroom when he said playfully, “Get back here. I’m not finished.”
She turned and smiled.
“God, you’re beautiful,” he said, sitting up and propping his head on one hand as he took in her naked body.
“Duty calls,” she said as she continued to the bathroom.
He was anxious to make love again, but she dissuaded him in the interest of getting to work early. “We’ll have the weekend,” she said.
They had melon and coffee in his kitchen after showering and dressing. “Let’s do it again tonight,” he said.
“Ross, I’m not available tonight,” she said. “My friend, Bill Tse-ay, is in town and I owe him some time.”
He didn’t look up as he said, “What the hell is this, some kind of a game?”
“Pardon?”
His eyes were cold as he focused on her face. “That’s right, a goddamn game. You sleep with me, plan a weekend together, and then go off and sleep with your Apache.”
“I don’t believe you,” she said, incredulous.
“You’d better start. I’m serious.”
“I don’t sleep with—he’s my friend, Ross, that’s all. There used to be more, but that’s over, and he’s not—not an Apache.”
He grinned. “I thought he was. You told me he was.”
“What I mean is I resent the way you said it.”
“Great. And I resent being played with like this.”
“I told you I’m not… I want to go.”
“Go.”
“My car’s at work.”
He slammed his spoon down on the table and went to the bedroom. Ten minutes later he was back. “Come on, I’m ready,” he said.
They did not talk on their way to the Hoover Building, continued their silence on the way up in the elevator, and went to their respective offices without breaking it.
Saksis didn’t know which emotion to play out—anger or sadness, to cry or to throw the telephone through the window. She didn’t have a chance to do either because Rosemary Cale called.
“I wondered if we could find an hour together today,” Saksis said.
Cale replied with a cynical laugh. “My turn, huh?”
“If you want to look at it that way,” said Saksis. “Feel like stopping up here at my office?”
“No. I’d rather get out of the building.”
“Fine with me. Lunch?”
“No. Why don’t you stop by my apartment this afternoon.”
Saksis thought of Bill Tse-ay. She was hoping he’d be free for dinner and didn’t want anything to interfere with it. “What time?” she asked.
“Any time after two,” she said.
“Four?”
“That’ll be fine.” She gave Saksis an address on N Street, in Georgetown. “Don’t be late. I have an appointment at five.”
“I’ll be on time,” Saksis said, wondering why she’d be off so early.
Rosemary Cale’s slight southern accent stayed with Saksis for the rest of the day. She managed to reach Bill Tse-ay and apologized for not getting back to him the day before. They made a six o’clock date for dinner at Tandoor, in Georgetown. She had lunch in a local sandwich shop with Barbara Twain and Ray Okawa, the pathologist, who was leaving Ranger because there was nothing more for him to do on the Pritchard case.
After lunch, she went through the latest batch of Pritchard’s personal effects once again, put the Fire Island ferry ticket in her purse, and carefully read the computer print-out Barbara Twain had run on Richard Kneeley. It was long; the nature of
his books had certainly brought him to the bureau’s attention over the years. But there was more, a detailed section on his personal life. The report pegged him as a homosexual despite two marriages. Transcripts of conversations he’d had in hotel rooms that had been bugged by the bureau supported the homosexual allegation, although most of them dealt with mundane telephone calls concerning his business—talks with his agent, a couple of publishers and assorted friends, male and female. There was nothing in his file that touched upon government contacts he might have made to gain the classified information he used as the basis for his books.
Kneeley’s politics were left of center, and there was a page in the report about his involvement years ago with a writer’s group that had been branded “subversive” by the FBI.
For Saksis, however, the most important piece of information came from a list of all the books Kneeley had written. He’d used a variety of names early in his career, and one of them was Richard Kane, a pseudonym used for a series of paperback westerns. That item, coupled with the ferry ticket, helped make up her mind. She’d return to New York the next day, this time with Fire Island on her itinerary.
Rosemary Cale’s apartment was on the second floor of an elegant row house on Georgetown’s sedate and fashionable N Street, where the Kennedy House, a gift from Senator John F. Kennedy to his wife upon the birth of their daughter, Caroline; and Cox Row, named after Georgetown mayor Colonel John Cox, who built its string of houses in
1817, stood as understated testimony to the neighborhood’s gentility.