Death of a Washington Madame (22 page)

"No," Roy cried, stepping forward and reaching
for her. With a quick thrust, Gail reached out and swiftly restrained him. He
struggled briefly, then quit.

"What's going on here?" Fiona cried finally
getting one of the paintings outside of the car and leaning it toward the
light.

"My God."

It was a lush nude, remarkably life-like and detailed,
clearly sexual, the legs parted, almost pornographic in its depiction of the female
form. The subject's eyes glazed with sensuality as she reclined expectantly on
a bed. There was little doubt about the identity of the model. The woman was a
much younger version of Deb Shipley.

"You painted this, Roy?" Fiona asked, stunned by
the revelation.

Roy had lowered his head to evade
her glance.

"Not bad," Fiona whispered.

Roy lifted his head, his eyes
viewing her coldly.

"Of course I painted them."

Fiona moved quickly through the process of sliding out the
other paintings, leaning them against the outside of the Cadillac. More of the
same. Deb Shipley posed in ways that reminded Fiona of the gymnastic and
clearly sexual nudes of the sculptor Rodin. There was another curious detail
that Fiona noted. The woman subject was not frozen into a particular age.
Indeed, one of the smaller pictures uncovered was clearly of an older woman
with a well-preserved body.

The paintings revealed a great deal more than was
immediately apparent. The artist.... it was still difficult to identify this
shabby broken man as the creator of these paintings ... was obviously moved and
wildly appreciative of the woman's charms.

To her unschooled eye, the paintings were extraordinary.
Fiona envied the subject and could secretly understand that the model in each
pose clearly illustrated robust and explosive sensuality.

Roy watched her with a sense of
resignation as she inspected the paintings.

"They're not signed, Roy," she said. Although she
hadn't meant to, her observation seemed to be question their authenticity as Roy's work.

"On the back," he said, his artist's pride
stirred.

Fiona looked behind one of the pictures. There it was in
neat little letters. Roy Parker and the date.

A quick survey of the backs of the paintings confirmed what
the paintings themselves revealed. They covered a span of many decades.

"So now you know," Roy muttered.

"Know what?" Fiona asked. She knew she was being
deliberately ingenuous. Was Deb Shipley more than just a model for Roy Parker's
painting? Considering the intimacy of the paintings it was a good bet.

Roy shrugged and let the question
hang in the air.

"May we put her back...?" Roy asked, as if
somehow her exposure was a violation of the woman's modesty, which it was.
Fiona and Gail exchanged glances, then they stacked the paintings in the back
seat where they had been. They had taken the ignition keys. Fiona was at that
moment uncertain about their present fate.

"Where were you taking them, Roy?" Fiona asked.

"Away from here. From them. Those people who plan to
sell everything."

"But where?"

"A storage place. I've made arrangements."

"At this stage, that could be interpreted as theft, Roy," Gail said.

"I told you. They're mine. They belong to me. To no
one else. Not even to Madame. They were mine. A gift to myself."

"No one is denying that Roy," Fiona said.

"I don't believe we have the authority to authorize
them leaving the premises," Gail said.

"Please," he pleaded. He was begging. It was
agonizing to see his pain. "No one need see them. They mean little to
anyone but me. Why expose her to.... people couldn't understand. Surely, it
can't have anything to do with what happened. Where's the harm?"

"And if we agree..." Fiona began, looking at
Gail, who nodded her consent.

"I'll tell you everything," Roy said. "I
promise."

Gail locked the car doors and they moved with him across
the alley.

Inexplicably he stopped for a moment and studied the little
pet cemetery where engraved plaques marked the graves. Fiona noted that one of
the markers seemed newer than the others. "Marshall," it said.
"A true and loyal friend."

"Might have been different if he had lived," Roy sighed, moving through the back door, and into the kitchen. He slumped in a chair,
exhausted. His face was ashen, sunken.

"May I have a glass of water?" he asked.

Gail got up and filled a glass from the tap. He took it
with both hands, the finger with the missing tip held stiffly barely touching
the glass.

Fiona noted his Adam's apple slithering up and down in his
scrawny wrinkled neck as he drank. Then, with his hands still shaking, he put
the empty glass on the table and wiped his lips with the back of his hand. He
sucked in a deep breath, as if to steady himself.

"Will you let me keep them?" he asked, his voice
reedy.

Gail looked toward Fiona.

"I can't see how it would hurt," Fiona said, searching
for reasons that might justify the decision.

"Me, neither," Gail said.

He nodded and seemed relieved. They waited though a long
silence. There was a sense that he was gathering his thoughts for some
momentous revelation. They were not disappointed.

"She was my life," he said.

"You were lovers?" Fiona asked gently. With the
paintings as obvious evidence of having been composed from life, she had little
doubt of the contention.

Roy hesitated and in his
expression, Fiona could see the mechanics of his mental processes. For some
reason, far out of context of the moment, Fiona was reminded of a chicken about
to lay an egg. It was purely a fictional observation, since she had never seen
it happen. At any moment, she expected to hear a cackle and the flutter and
flap of useless wings.

"Yes..." His eyes moistened and reddened and his
nose began to run. "God. I loved her."

"Incredible," Gail whispered.

Why incredible? Fiona asked herself. Deb Shipley had lived
with a public persona that eschewed any intimate relationship with men. But
privately, she had what she wanted, needed. No, not incredible at all, Fiona
militantly insisted to herself. She knew what it meant to have a demanding
sexuality, understood the prospect of a barren life without the ministrations
of a partner. Hadn't Fiona, like many women, yearned for her very own secret
lover?

Gail, she knew, would never admit to such a fantasy.
Perhaps it never occurred to her. Early traumas, Fiona knew, could numb
sexuality. It certainly appeared to have done so to Gail.

Lust, Fiona had concluded in adolescence, despite her
mother's admonitions, was a healthy instinct, which needed disciplined but
resourceful management. She had not always been successful in that process, but
she had been lucky enough to escape unwanted pregnancy and disease. She felt
suddenly deeply bonded with Deb Shipley, envying her secret life.

"I had no idea you could paint like that," Fiona
said.

"That's how it began," Roy sighed, nodding as if
he had obtained some inner consent. "Madame hired me to paint her dog.
Back during the war." He paused and grew reflective. "I was so lucky
to have found the great lady of my dreams."

"She was a widow, Roy. Why did it have to remain such
a closed secret?"

He folded his shaking hands on the table, showing knuckles
and joints misshapen and swollen with arthritis. It took a great leap of the
imagination to see him as the handsome young lover of the wealthy widow.

"We chose to live that way," Roy said, averting
his eyes. "The world was different then. Her aspirations were to reach
great social heights and to enjoy all the influence that such a position
rendered. That might not seem important now. It was then ... to her. And later
to her plans for Billy. Very important. She preferred to appear ... unencumbered."

Snobbery, Fiona decided, agreeing with his assessment that
the world was, indeed, different then. She had seen it growing up, the
stratification of Washington society. The importance of "position"
and "family," the imperfect alliance of the "meritocracy"
with the "aristocracy."

It struck Fiona suddenly as comparable in a bizarre way to
Gail's laddered world of social structure, the Gold Coast snobbery of the
elitist segment of the black community, the obvious source of her guilt.

"For all that time?" Fiona prodded gently.

Considering her own experience with the lack of longevity
in her own relationships the question seemed more germane to her own life than
his. She studied his face as he searched his mind for an answer. She could
understand his hesitation. The evidence pointed to a long secret life, to
massive subterfuge and denial, to the complicated interaction between truth and
fiction.

Again, his eyes seemed to provide the answer. She could
feel Gail's gaze leveled on her, not Roy, and could sense the tension building
inside her. Then, suddenly, the dam broke.

"At the time of her murder, were you still lovers,
Roy?" Gail asked.

It was, of course, considering the circumstances, an
appropriate question, one she should have asked. Her detective's curiosity had
been temporarily blinded by events in her own life. The blatancy of the
question seemed to stun him temporarily into a kind of disorientation. He
seemed to fall in upon himself.

"Roy, you can't avoid the answer." She turned to
Fiona. "It does impact on the case."

"I ... I loved her," Roy whispered.

"We understand that Roy," Gail pressed. "Did
she return that love 'till the very end?"

He took deep breaths as if he were hyperventilating.

"Take your time, Roy," Fiona said.

Roy seemed to gather his strength.

"I know what you're getting at," he said finally.
"Yes, the answer is yes. We are ... joined together.... still.
Through..." He cleared his throat. "...All eternity."

"I was referring to the physical aspect," Gail
said.

"That part of it had greatly diminished."

"Ceased, you mean?" Gail pressed.

He nodded.

"Did anyone else know? Gloria? William? Anyone?"

"Discretion was our watchword," Roy said without
embarrassment. "To keep this secret was ... to her ... to us ... the most
important priority of our lives."

"Are you saying," Gail asked. "That no one,
no one in fifty years ever found out that Mrs. Shipley and you were
lovers?"

"We were never confronted," Roy said.

"You mean nobody acknowledged that they might have
suspected?" Fiona asked. "Not Gloria or William?"

"I told you," Roy said. "Our priority in
life was to keep this secret."

"You never occupied her bed?" Fiona asked, her
mind awash with the gritty details of what it meant to conduct a clandestine
affair.

"Her bed? If you mean the bed in her master bedroom,
never," Roy said. "This must seem very strange to you. In fact, it is
strange to me. I've never discussed this with anyone." He looked upward.
"Forgive me Madame." He smiled. "We had our room, our sanctuary.
Our bed."

"The one you burned?" Gail asked.

He nodded.

"And no one but you and ... and Madame.... ever went
into that room in fifty years?"

"Madame declared it her sanctuary, her private place.
Oh I tidied it when it needed it. I painted her there. There were only two
keys."

"And Gloria had no idea?"

"It was never discussed."

"When did you remove the pictures, Roy?" Fiona
asked.

"About ten years ago, she had her religious
conversion. That's when our physical relationship ceased. She wanted the
pictures removed. I obliged." A strange sound rattled in his chest, a kind
of sob. "I told her I destroyed them. It was the only lie I ever told
her."

"So one might say that ten years ago some of the
intensity went out of it? It was, in some way, over." Gail pressed.

"Over? Our love? Not at all. She tried to find solace
in the church. She developed a different view of what constituted sin. I
respected that. Besides..." He studied the faces of the two women seated
opposite him. "Love evolves with the rhythm of aging. The calibration may
change, but the energy fights to endure. My love for Madame was the most
important and satisfying part of my life." It was obvious he had thought
about this for a long time. "I'm not sure either of you can understand
what I'm saying. You see me as a broken down old man, which I am. What you
might not see is the light that still shines inside of me. I spent my life in
joyful dedication to Deb Shipley. I would not change a minute of that life. Am
I making myself clear?"

"Not completely," Gail admitted. "I can
understand the last ten years which you admit was a time of.... well
abstinence. But before. How was it possible to live this secret life?"

"If I may," Fiona interjected. "What we mean
is how ... the mechanics of it. How could Gloria not have known?"

"We cherished our Thursdays," Roy sighed.
"And if she suspected, she would have put it out of her mind."

Fiona remembered Gloria's defense of Madame's privacy.

"What about William?" Gail asked.

"Yes, Billy," Roy said. "We worked it out.
Billy as a child had his own life. Nannies. Boarding schools. Later college.
Then, of course, he left home to marry. Madame would never allow our
relationship to be known to the boy. That was her greatest fear, that our love
would demean the name of his heroic father. That would have been the end for
us. Never." His voice rose, his defense of this position adamant.
"She lived for his future."

He grew silent suddenly as if he were editing any further
comment.

"Children are curious," Fiona said.

"Madame made it clear from the beginning," Roy said. "She drew.... boundaries. Don't you understand? We all had boundaries in
this house."