Death of a Washington Madame (23 page)

"Boundaries!"

The word, its image and implications resonated in her mind.
Boxes within boxes. Closed compartments. Locked vaults. Guarded secrets. It had
a touch of the gothic. Yet, her world, the mysteries inherent in her work,
dealt with secrets, hidden shames, private agendas, and often bizarre
motivations.

Could Roy have been the person who put this horror in
motion? She studied him now, a cornered figure, his hidden world exploded. She
let various scenarios penetrate her mind, rejecting them all. No, she decided,
trusting her instincts. No way.

But Gail continued the quest, apparently still unconvinced.

"Roy. Do you know there is very little value left in
Mrs. Shipley's estate?"

He shrugged his indifference.

"I told you. It was of no importance."

"Did you ever discuss it?"

He hesitated for a brief moment, then shook his head.

"Surely, if you were that intimate, she would have
told you about the condition of her finances?" Gail pressed.

"I never asked and never cared. I still don't
care."

"Have you any money?"

"Very little. I have no need for money."

"Roy, face reality. Mrs. Shipley left you and Gloria
the house. They're going to sell it and all the contents, with the exception of
what William will take for sentimental reasons."

"I know. That's why I was storing the paintings. I
didn't want anyone to see the paintings. They are my treasures."

"Did you plan to return?"

"Where else would I go? I haven't dealt with
that."

"You realize Roy that you still have to answer to
charges. And then there's this possibility of a new charge. Arson."

"Maybe that will solve the problem for me," Roy chuckled wryly. "The Government will deal with my housing problem. Frankly, I
really don't care."

"There are obviously some things you care about Roy, the pictures, for example."

"The pictures are mine," Roy insisted. "No
one has any right to these pictures. Not even to see them. They're mine."

"We won't make an issue of that at the moment,"
Fiona said, inclined to go along with his contention of ownership.

"I appreciate that," Roy said.

Fiona contemplated him for a while. His energy level seemed
to be diminishing in front of their eyes. He seemed utterly helpless and
forlorn, broken, fragile, sickly.

"I'm sure Gov. Shipley could find a place for you,
Roy." Fiona said.

The suggestion had an immediate energizing effect on Roy. She saw his knuckles go white and his lips quivered.

"Under the same roof with that woman ... never. I'd
rather die."

Fiona was stunned by the vehement force of his negativity.

"That's a pretty heavy indictment, Roy."

"I can never forgive her for the misery she caused
Madame. Taking Billy away from her. Separating them. He was her life. It was
she who guided Billy's career from the beginning. It was her devotion, her
money, and her effort. Even her religion could not give her the solace she
needed. That woman...."

His voice quivered with anger. All restraint disappeared.

"I hate her. We both hated her."

Fiona and Gail exchanged puzzled glances.

"But surely," Fiona said. "She is an asset
to his aspirations. She is dedicated to his career. She has raised his
profile...."

"With Madame.... he needed no one else. That woman
pushed her away. We..." He appeared on the verge of hysteria.

Fiona stood up and got him another glass of water, which
his shaking hands could barely get to his lips. He managed a few sips before
the water slopped over his chin and he put down the glass.

"Do you think, Roy," Fiona asked with a brief
glance at Gail." That the feeling was mutual? I mean did the same attitude
exist on Madeline Newton's part toward Madame?"

Roy reflected for a brief moment.

"Absolutely," he said firmly.
"Absolutely."

"But you wouldn't accuse her of.... "Fiona began.

"Wouldn't I?" Roy interrupted. "That woman
is capable of anything."

It was, Fiona remembered, Gail who had raised the
possibility earlier. Still, it seemed far-fetched and illogical, although Roy's support of the idea, notwithstanding his emotional state and his distorted perspective,
did increase its credibility.

"Do you really think that's a possibility? Roy?"

A crooked thin smile spread across his lips. But he said
nothing further.

Fiona mulled the possibility. Roy slumped deeper in the
chair, looking exhausted.

"I'd suggest you rest, Roy," Fiona said.

He nodded weakly. His condition was alarming.

"Roy," Fiona said, "We'll call you in a few
hours. Please stay put and rest." She looked toward Gail who nodded.
"The bank people won't be back until tomorrow."

"Please keep the pictures out of their hands," he
said.

"We'll do our best," Fiona said.

They helped him to his room and directed him toward his
bed. He lay on his back and closed his eyes.

"What do you think?" Gail whispered.

Fiona contemplated the question. She studied him, a lonely,
broken man, hardly looking the part of someone who had sacrificed his life on
the altar of undying love and devotion. She could not deny an odd kinship with
the man. There was something heroic in his willingness to put his love above
all selfish concerns. Or had he been simply foolish, a victim of a wild
debilitating romanticism? It reminded her of her own dilemma with Hal Perry.
Had she taken the road to happiness or to lonely oblivion?

In a moment Roy was deep in sleep, his eyelids fluttering,
one cheek palpitating, his Adam's apple sliding up and down his neck. There was
a blanket at the foot of the bed. Fiona unfolded it and laid it over him.

They left him there, locked in his dreams. Fiona hoped they
might be more pleasant than his reality.

"That again," the Eggplant roared, when Fiona
broached the subject of Madeline Newton as the possible instigator of Martine's
murderous assignment.

"Only a theory Chief," Fiona said. They had
recounted the events of the morning including all their juicy revelations about
Mrs. Shipley and Roy Parker. They told him about the pictures that Roy was caught taking out of the house. The Eggplant seemed less than excited about the
revelation.

"Old money, old secrets. So what?"

"You're jaded, chief," Fiona said. "This is
a half a century love affair. Where is your sense of the romantic?"

"Where yours should be?" He chuckled lightly as
if he saw some humor in the remark not apparent to Fiona.

"Which is where?" Fiona asked, cutting a glance
at Gail.

"For openers those pictures could be evidence,"
the Eggplant said.

"They are, Chief," Fiona said. "Evidence of
one very hot love affair. The woman's poses were blatantly erotic."

"I'd say pornographic," Gail said.

"That would be in the eye of the beholder, Chief. The
fact is he admitted his involvement with Mrs. Shipley. The paintings were ...
well ... extraneous. Frankly, I didn't see the harm in his squirreling them
away. Besides, he could have made a good case for his ownership of them. There
is no way he could have been the perpetrator here. No way. Even the long time
love affair seems irrelevant to the case. And I really don't think they impact
one way or another on the search for the perp, whoever, he.... "She shot a
glance at Gail. "...or she may be."

"You'd love that wouldn't you?" the Eggplant
said. "Both of you."

"Love what?" Fiona asked innocently.

"Her being the one," the Eggplant said.

"Make one helluva story, Chief." She reviewed the
possibility in her mind. "Love it?" She shook her head in the
negative.

"I'd say that gives him and our star something in
common on the P.R. front." the Eggplant said.

"Only in the scandal category," Fiona said.
"He has no stake in the future only the past. The star does."

"Does what?"

"Have a stake in the future." Fiona said.
"She'll do anything to protect that stake. Hence our suspicion."

"I don't buy it," the Eggplant mused.

"But it does hang there," Gail interjected,
"like an old sheet swinging in the wind."

"You still on that kick too, Prentiss?" the
Eggplant asked. "Where is your sisterly concern. You dames can be more
brutal to each other than to my gender buddies."

Gail shot a glance at Fiona before answering.

"Last time, I was a race baiter in need of counseling.
Now I'm a female trasher," Gail said, smiling, as it to extract any bitterness
from the remark.

"I'm still holding you to counseling Prentiss,"
the Eggplant said, ignoring the gender business, always a minefield.

"I may be self-curing Chief," Gail said.
"Now that we're off this nigger in the woodpile kick."

"Very funny," Fiona said.

"Jesus, Prentiss," the Eggplant groaned.

"Proves the point. I can make blatant ethnic jokes.
I'm cured."

"Now that she has a possible white perp in her
sights," Fiona said. The bantering seemed good-natured. Even the Eggplant,
despite himself, offered a chuckle. An eavesdropper on this conversation might
have hauled all of them up on charges.

"I think your theory is garbage," the Eggplant
said. "Besides, me and the star have become kissing cousins. Called me....
"He looked at his watch. "No more than an hour ago. I'm thinking of
installing a direct line."

"What was it this time, Chief?"

"Seems that little fire caper was on her mind. I think
she caught it on the radio. The old media Cyclops, never rests, never sleeps,
stuffing the bull into its greedy maw. Anyway she wanted more information and I
gave her what you gave me."

"What was her reaction?"

"I would say ... what's the word. Bemusement. She was
bemused. Couldn't understand this never-ending saga. That's the way she put it.
Never ending saga. Even asked my advice."

"Which was?" Fiona asked.

"Pray for mayhem in other places. Keep the media
chasing Iraq, oil spills, foreign wars, terrorist bombings, drug raids in Mexico, plagues and pestilence invasions."

"Good spiritual advice, Chief," Fiona said.

"Never fear, she's a master at the game. Done pretty
good so far."

"So what you're saying Chief, is that we don't push
this path of opportunity."

"Not without better evidence than the ravings of this
senile old man and.... "He apparently wanted to say more, perhaps
something referring to the power of female envy, which seemed the logical next
step in his denial, but he stopped himself.

"They're not ravings," Fiona said. "His
comments about Madeline and the mutual hatred between her and the victim
suggest a course of investigative pursuit. That's all we're saying. It's not a
theory to be cavalierly dismissed ."

He smiled but did not take umbrage.

There was something stirring in back of her mind. It hadn't
quite surfaced, but she sensed it was on its way.

"So they hated each other," the Eggplant argued.
"So what? Lots of people hate each other and don't hire contract
killers.... some contract killer. Little bastard."

"We could always rattle Clayton's cage," Fiona
said cautiously.

"Who's Clayton?"

"The bodyguard. You met him Chief at the Shipley
place. Used to play for the Skins."

"I thought he looked familiar," the Eggplant
said.

"He might also look familiar to Martine," Gail
said.

"Isn't once burned enough?"

"He did say he thought it was a black man," Fiona
pressed."

The Eggplant stuffed the panatela in his mouth, a sure sign
of tense cogitation on his part.

"I can already hear the thundering hoofs heading my
way," the Eggplant said.

"It's a stone to be unturned," Fiona said, noting
that her chief seemed to be waffling over the idea of Madeline using Martine to
kill her mother in law with her boy Clayton's help.

"What would she have to gain, setting that kid
off," the Eggplant reasoned. "That's exactly what she would want to
prevent. Fuel for the media that associates her husband with negativity or
tragedy. Makes no sense."

"Maybe the old Mrs. Shipley had threatened to do
something, reveal something. Blow her son's Presidential ship out of the
water." Fiona was surprised at the direction her thoughts were taking, the
idea still standing at the edge of consciousness.

"Like what?" the Eggplant asked.

"I don't know. Something ... and yet it seems so
bizarre."

"How so?" the Eggplant asked.

"According to Roy, Billy Shipley was his mother's life
and apparently her life's work was to get him to the top."

"If I can't have him nobody can," the Eggplant
said, a tone of ridicule rising in his tone." Seems to me, FitzGerald. You
got two trains on a one-track collision course."

"Vivid image, Chief."

"Too vivid," the Eggplant said. "Let's leave
it on the table for the time being, capeesh?"

Fiona nodded. The Eggplant stood up, an obvious dismissal
tactic.

Fiona was getting ready to leave the squad room when the
telephone rang on her desk. It was Angus Macintosh."

"So much for keeping things out of the media," he
said. He did not sound upset.

"I heard," Fiona said.

"That's the bad news," Macintosh said. Unlike her
previous exposure to him, he sounded downright playful.

"Okay, I'll bite. What's the good news?"

"All over. No auction necessary. That one buyer flew
in the transom. We're all off the hook. I just called to thank you for your
help."

"Who was it?"

"Believe it or not. Madeline Newton. Mrs. Shipley's
daughter in law. All debts paid. Her own money and lots left over."

"How much?"

"Two hundred thousand dollars."

Fiona was confused.

"Why wasn't it done earlier? Might have spared
Gloria's life."