Washington Masquerade (9 page)

Dolly Owens had eight for dinner at her lovely Colonial-style home in Spring Valley. She had, as usual, decorated her round antique table in the dining room with a centerpiece of a carefully designed floral arrangement in a cut-glass bowl. Her best Chinese porcelain was on display, and her patterned Tiffany silver was shined and sparkling. The Wedgwood wine and water glasses and champagne flutes were in their appropriate place, and from the kitchen came tantalizing smells of roasting meat.

A waiter in a tuxedo stood attentive in the den taking drink orders. Dolly was a stickler for the amenities and favored genuine antiques and Early American art for reasons of pride in her ancestry. Her father had been a member of The Society of the Cincinnati, which meant he could trace his lineage back to an officer in the Continental Army, and she was one of the officers of the very active Mount Vernon Ladies Auxiliary, which was restoring and enhancing George Washington's home, and transforming it into a museum.

Colonial paintings, particularly of Washington in regal poses, including two on horseback, were a feature of her and her husband's art collection. There were also numerous valuable original prints of old Washington, D.C. Dolly was from an old Virginia family, a branch of the Fairfax family. She had met Philip and Fiona when they had all been students at Sidwell Friends, the famous Quaker school in Washington, D.C.

Fiona had been a bridesmaid at Philip and Dolly's lavish wedding, which was held at the Chevy Chase Country Club, and all remained close friends. Fiona never informed Dolly of her husband's botched deflowering of her when they were seniors at Sidwell.

Dolly took her role as aiding and abetting her husband's career with furious passion. She had given up her public relations job and poured all her energy into caring for her two young children and devoting herself to her husband's advancement. She entertained frequently, always eight for dinner at her round table, intimate dinner parties designed to widen the net of her husband's power-player connections.

She was careful to mix people from across the political divide. Like Fiona, she was very aware of the political game played after hours in Washington and tried to keep partisan bickering at bay in what was becoming an increasingly hostile atmosphere. Fiona played her part of absolute neutrality and had always forewarned her various friends and lovers who accompanied her to Dolly's dinners to do likewise.

Dolly had all the stuff required to help push her husband up the ladder of political ambition: good taste, intelligence, artful conversational skills, a wide network, and above all, fresh good looks. She was always beautifully dressed and groomed, wore her jet-black hair in cute bangs that curled around her cheeks. Fiona adored her and the feeling was mutual.

Besides Fiona and Larry, she had invited an Assistant Secretary of State, Bob Newland, and his wife, and Harry McBride, a powerful Republican congressman from Texas, and his wife. Dolly took great care with her invitees. Her guests, above all, had to be good conversationalists, and it helped that they had great résumés and prestigious titles. Their political affiliations didn't matter, and she liked varied points of view to keep the conversation going. Not that she was a snob—far from it—but she was determined that people walk away from her dinner parties with the notion that they had not wasted their time.

Fiona knew that she was designated by Dolly as an “exotic,” someone in a unique occupational orbit, although she had the credentials of good ancestry, her late father being a New York senator and she, by birth and upbringing, a native Washingtonian qualified as a “cave dweller.” By day, she was a member of the down-and-dirty, nitty-gritty, mostly black Metropolitan Police Department, and by night a bona fide member of Washington's social elite. She liked the idea of leading this double life.

Dolly always introduced her guests to each other with a brief summary of their involvements and a cute light touch. Tonight was no exception.

“This is my great friend, Fiona Fitzgerald, daughter of the late Senator from the great state of New York. She's a homicide cop for the Washington Metropolitan Police Department and carries a piece in her purse. So please behave yourselves.”

The introduction rarely made Fiona uncomfortable, knowing that in the course of the evening those who met her for the first time would go through the usual “how come a cop” routine. With Dolly's guests, she was careful to react without the slightest hint of sarcasm or impatience.

“I find the work challenging,” was her stock response in this environment. It was Dolly herself who, after the appropriate niceties and introductions, informed the group that Fiona was working on the Burns case. As the ringmaster of the evening, Dolly liked to set the agenda, and this one seemed perfect and timely to get the conversational ball rolling for the evening's entertainment.

“A real shocker,” Bob Newland said.

As a consummate diplomat, he did not venture a firm opinion either way. His wife, a small woman with a fixed, dimpled smile, nodded. Fiona had her pegged as a wife who walked on eggshells and would always defer to her husband. The Congressman's wife was a big blustery woman with a face as Irish as Dublin and an attitude that Fiona immediately sensed as confrontational. Fiona had experienced many such types in her work and knew how disruptive they could be, especially when inebriated. After three or four scotches, beware, she warned herself, sizing up the Congressman's wife as a classic case. Philip Owens, as host, kept his remarks guarded, low-key, and like Fiona and Dolly herself, carefully neutral.

“How is the
Post
playing it?” McBride asked Larry. “After all, Burns was one of your own.”

“Cautiously,” Larry said exchanging a glance with Fiona. He took a big sip of Chardonnay. “Trying not to jump to conclusions.”

“Really?” Mrs. McBride said.

An opening gun, Fiona thought, sensing trouble ahead.

“With all due respect,” Congressman McBride said pointedly to the man from the state department, a Democratic appointee, “it doesn't look kosher.”

“Maybe Fiona could comment,” Mrs. McBride said, upending her third drink. The young waiter, reading the gesture by the way she held her empty glass, quickly took it from her and replaced it.

“We're working on it,” Fiona answered demurely.

“Looks like we have a tiger by the tail,” Dolly said. “In his columns, Burns was, to say the least, not exactly friendly,” she cut a glance at her husband, “to our side.”

“I'll buy that,” McBride said, laughing. “Of course, from where I sit, he was right on. No insult intended to present company.”

“A rough game these days,” Philip said, turning to Fiona. “Not like in your dad's day.”

“Once the gloves were off at the end of the working day,” Fiona responded, reiterating what had become a cliché, “political enemies would meet in harmony and good fellowship like sportsmen after the game was over. It's different these days. The game is brutal and played like a blood sport.” She turned to Dolly. “Although in this house, the old ways are still practiced.”

“Thank the Lord,” Mrs. McBride said.

The alcohol, Fiona noted, was beginning to have its effect. Fasten your seat belt, she told herself.

“I can't imagine the White House being involved in something so sordid,” Mrs. Newland said.

“I can,” Mrs. McBride countered.

It was clear that the clock was ticking on her bomb.

“Too obvious,” Mrs. Newland said. “What would he have to gain?”

“He'd shut up a critic. Best way to handle it.” She made a gesture with her hand that illustrated a beheading.

“Which would make him the prime suspect,” Mrs. Newland countered, smiling sweetly.

Passive-aggressive, Fiona thought, dangerous to outspoken drunks.

“He wouldn't be that stupid. He'd figure out a way. He may be a lousy President but he isn't stupid.”

“Hardly,” Mrs. Newland said, offering a dimpled smile. Her voice was small, but there was no mistaking the firmness behind her remark.

Her husband shot her a look of rebuke, and Fiona knew she had made the wrong call about her. This woman was clearly not under her husband's thumb.

“Have you ever read his garbage?” Mrs. McBride asked. Quite obviously she had found her foil.

“It was not my regular fare.”

“You missed out on a real education,” Mrs. McBride snickered.

“I doubt it,” Mrs. Newland shot back sweetly.

The young waiter poured another round of drinks, filling wine glasses for everyone except Mrs. McBride, who stayed with scotch. Dolly liked to keep her guests well irrigated.

Dolly, with her usual intuition, tried to steer the conversation in another direction by engaging Larry.

“What do they think at the
Post
?”

“From our perspective,” Larry said, “We have legitimate doubts as to the way Burns died, although we do recognize the possibility that there might have been some connection to his column.”

“Which you must have hated,” Mrs. McBride sneered, “considering your biases.”

“We call it as we see it,” Larry said, ignoring her accusation.

“Tilting to the left,” Mrs. McBride countered, “hard left.”

“We never mix our editorial positions with our news stories,” Larry said pleasantly. He had often been confronted with this question and always tried to keep his responses discreet.

“Maybe so,” Mrs. Newland said. “But on the Burns story you certainly are keeping the accusation flame lit. You are deliberately making people hysterical. I mean, really, the President as Mafia don? What are we coming to?”

Fiona noted a slight rosiness begin to discolor the back of Larry's neck, a sign of his anger.

“People are speculating, and we carry the speculation. It's something you can't keep under wraps.”

“Anything to stir the pot,” Mrs. McBride said, oddly allied with Mrs. Newland now. “You people have no morals. Do you really believe such crap?”

“When people speculate that this President may have something to do with Mr. Burns' death, we can't avoid covering it. Doesn't that show fair-mindedness?”

“The
Post
fair-minded? Don't make me laugh!” Mrs. McBride shot back, holding up her glass for a refill.

Larry remained silent, turning to Fiona as if for rescue. Oddly, Fiona agreed with the obviously tipsy wife of the congressman. She cast a glance at Dolly, who was calculating how far this was going.

“There will have to be a congressional inquiry,” Congressman McBride said. “We feel we have the right and obligation to question the circumstances.”

“The usual political witch hunt,” Mrs. Newland quipped. Her husband shot her a glance of disapproval.

“Bonanza for you media hotshots,” Mrs. McBride sneered. “Sells papers.”

“We're just fulfilling our mandate,” Larry said. Although he was used to such criticism outside the office environment, especially in the social world he now inhabited with Fiona, he seemed to be more uptight than usual.

“It's an open-and-shut case,” Mrs. McBride harrumphed. “He was done in by the sons of bitches at the end of Sixteenth Street.”

There was an uncomfortable silence as Mrs. McBride held out her glass for a refill.

“Open but far from shut,” Mrs. Newland said, sweetly showing her dimples, “from what I read.” She looked pointedly at Larry. “As far as I can tell, there is no hard evidence to validate that opinion.” She turned to Fiona. “Am I right, Madam Detective?” Mrs. Newland asked again, confirming how wrong Fiona had been in her assessment of her. She was surprised that her husband had risen so high in the State Department hierarchy with such an outspoken spouse.

“We have not completed our investigation, Mrs. Newland. In our business, we theorize but never conclude anything without cold, hard facts,” Fiona said pleasantly.

“If only that was the way the
Post
operated,” Mrs. McBride said.

It amazed Fiona that the alcohol she was taking on board was not slurring her speech. Nor did her husband make any remark to silence her. She looked pointedly at Larry.

“Burns was your token conservative, kept in print to prove your so-called fairness. I'll give you some brownie points for that, but for the most part your rag reads like a house organ of the Democratic Party, a goddamned nest of lefties.”

“It wasn't my call to keep him on our op-ed page,” Larry said, clearly angry. Fiona shot him a sharp look. “I would have bounced him years ago.”

“Could have saved his damned life,” Mrs. McBride said.

“That's a reach, lady.”

“Now he's gone, I suppose you're celebrating,” Mrs. McBride said.

“We don't celebrate the death of a colleague,” Larry said, avoiding Fiona's disapproving glance.

“One never knows about suicides….” Bob Newland began, clearly attempting to lower the heat of the conversation. He recounted a long story of what had happened in his old hometown when the just-elected mayor with everything to live for just blew out his brains for no apparent reasons. “To this day, everybody is baffled.”

“Was there a note?” Fiona asked, wanting to keep the anecdotal tale in play and avoid any further confrontation. She could tell that Mrs. McBride and Larry were fuming.

“Yes, there was, a simple one. It read: ‘I can't go on.' Figure that?”

“There was no note because Burns didn't commit suicide,” Mrs. McBride said, upending another drink. “The man was murdered, and we—”

The waiter came in to announce that dinner was served.

Dolly seated Newland to her right and McBride to her left, seats of honor in the proper protocol of Washington, ranking official to her right, second rank to her left. Larry sat between Mrs. McBride and Mrs. Newland, and Fiona between Philip and Mr. Newland. Fiona noted that poor Larry sat between sparring partners and both had tried to beat him up.