Immaculate Deception (17 page)

"I called her from the airport. I was quite
determined, you see. We had never met and when she answered the phone I
identified myself and there was a long pause. Please Frankie, I must see you, I
told her, explaining that I was in town. I don't want to embarrass you in any
way but we must talk woman to woman. At first she refused. But people do have a
way of reaching across animosity and hatred. Finally, she did relent. But,
bless her memory, she was still the politician, still protective of her image,
still a bit fearful that I might be concocting something to deliberately
embarrass her. She told me to have the cab drop me off at Wisconsin and M Street
and she would pick me up there. True to her word she was there waiting and she
drove the few blocks to the apartment house. We went in the garage you see. I
didn't realize it until later, but obviously she did not want me to go through
the lobby. Probably wanted to keep me a secret, something like that. When I
found out about what happened..." She looked at McGuire. "We thought
that her taking me through the garage was a blessing in disguise." She
shrugged. "We were wrong as you can see. Anyway we went up to her
apartment. I remember nobody was in the elevator. Inside she made some coffee
and we talked."

She had been holding the glass of water as she talked, the
words tumbling out of her, as if it were necessary to expel them as fast as
possible. She raised the glass to her lips, finished the water, and gave the
glass back to McGuire. He, too, appeared to be approving and relieved. Only
Curran remained stolid and emotionless. All this was apparently news to him as
well.

"We chatted for a long time, circling the subject. I
told her how much I respected all she was doing on those issues that were
important to me, especially on the issue of abortion. I would never, ever,
contemplate such a thing. Never. She touched her belly with both hands
caressing it. I told her how much I loved Jack..." She paused, her voice
breaking. Gathering control, she cleared her throat and continued. "...how
much it meant to me to have his child. Tears came into her eyes. She told me
that it had been impossible to hold her marriage together considering her role
in politics. Nor could she blame Jack. Early on, she said, it had been a good
marriage, that both she and Jack had respected each other and that she
appreciated Jack's willingness to go through the charade, she used that term 'charade,'
when it counted for her career. She was not the unfeeling bitch I had once
thought she was. She was very kind, very thoughtful, very understanding and we
had a good cry together. Finally I asked her why she had changed her mind after
she had agreed to the divorce. She grew very depressed. The color drained from
her face. Her lips trembled and for a moment she could not speak. I was very
alarmed, afraid she was about to faint or something. Finally, she said..."

Beatrice looked up and turned for a moment to briefly face
each one that was listening.

"I swear this to you. May God strike my baby dead, if
I am not telling the truth. She said: 'I give you my consent and I give you my
blessing.' I swear it on my baby's life. She said that she would call her
lawyer in the morning and told me to tell Jack to do the same. She said they
would explore the quickest way to do it. Then she took me downstairs and drove
me to the airport. We kissed in the car. I told her that I was eternally
grateful..." At that point she faltered. Her chest heaved and her
shoulders shook as she covered her face with her hands. After awhile, she
removed her hands and wiped her tear-stained cheeks with tissues. McGuire had
hurried out of the room to bring her a box of them.

But she wasn't finished yet.

"When I came home I was so happy. So happy, Jack was
upset with me, of course. I couldn't blame him. He had been terribly worried
and he had called Frankie. You know the rest. That man Foy called. I can't
believe it. I just can't believe what happened. She was so kind and
considerate. I had no idea that she would do that. No idea at all. I tell you
it will haunt me all my life."

"You can't blame yourself," Fiona said. She had
been deeply moved by Beatrice's story.

"It's been a terrible burden for us, FitzGerald,"
McGuire said, turning to Curran. "Can you ever forgive me, Billy? I should
have told you the whole story. But I was so afraid for Beatrice. So afraid that
they would accuse her of doing this to Frankie."

"What do you think, Bea?" Curran asked. He did
not look at Fiona.

"I tell you she was perfectly content when she left me
at the airport," Bea said. "I keep thinking that maybe after she got
home, she mulled it over, felt some sense of overwhelming unhappiness and did
away with herself."

"I can understand sleeping pills, some other overdose,
but cyanide." Curran shook his head and finally looked at Fiona. Although
his face was still expressionless she could sense that the hostility had
dissipated.

Fiona turned to Bea.

"What Chief Curran means is that the type of poison
used implies planning. No one has cyanide lying around the house."

"Unless she was contemplating suicide for a long
time," Curran said. "Then, of course, she would have to obtain the
cyanide, have it handy. It's not something that lies around the medicine
chest." He turned to McGuire. "I never knew Frankie to manifest the
slightest tendency to suicide. Unless she just flipped out."

"Not Frankie," McGuire said. "Frankie was
always in control."

"I don't know what to make of it," Beatrice said.
"I've just been holding myself together for the sake of the baby. I'd
never forgive myself if I caused her to do that. Never."

"I keep telling her," McGuire said. "She
can't blame herself. We were hoping to keep a lid on this. Never works."
He turned to Fiona. "I hope you can keep this out of the media. Be messy
for all of us."

"Certainly we'll do our best."

She was tempted to tell them about how the mayor and
important members of Congress were trying to do just that, but she held her peace.

"There are still some questions," Fiona said. She
turned toward Curran and detected the faintest nod of approval.

"I told you the absolute truth, Sergeant
FitzGerald," Beatrice said.

"It's just that these questions must be asked,"
Fiona said. Beatrice sighed and nodded. "Do you recall touching anything
in the room?"

Beatrice grew thoughtful.

"Certainly the coffee cups."

"Apparently she washed those," Fiona said.

"I went to the bathroom," Beatrice said brightly.
"Being pregnant you know. Yes, I went to the bedroom and used the
bathroom."

"There was a guest bathroom. Why not that one?"

"She said it would be more comfortable for me to
freshen up in the bedroom john. Better lighting. Things like that."

"Did you touch anything?"

"Of course. How could I do otherwise?"

"That's been the problem. The absence of prints."

"Believe me, Sergeant FitzGerald. I used the bathroom.
I was there."

"In light of your story, Bea," Curran said
gently, "they would want to establish that you were there, corroborate
it."

"And if they did?" McGuire asked.

"Be a question of who believes what," Fiona
shrugged.

"That's why it seemed that the best way would be to
deny that she was in the apartment. If the police couldn't place her there what
was the point of her telling everyone? Just because she was on the plane
doesn't mean she was at Frankie's place."

Beatrice patted McGuire's hand.

"I'm happy I told them, Jack. Very much relieved. It's
the truth, the absolute truth. You can't go wrong telling the truth."

"The car," Curran said suddenly. "Frankie's
car."

"Of course," Fiona said, reacting instantly.

"They brush the car for prints?" Curran asked. He
was all police professional now.

Her hesitation gave him his answer.

"We might have missed that, too," Fiona said, a
bit ashamed of the oversight.

"That will prove it then," Beatrice said. "I
didn't wear gloves." She looked up and smiled at them.

"On the one hand it will indeed corroborate your
story," Curran said looking at Fiona. She picked up the message. They were
a team now, two detectives on the job.

"And prove she didn't sneak in to Mrs. McGuire's
apartment with bad intentions," Fiona said hopefully. She felt herself
fully in their corner. "Unfortunately, it still wouldn't explain the
absence of prints, or anything else to place her in the apartment. That could
be a negative."

"How so?" McGuire asked with some concern.

"Could be argued that she wiped away the evidence.
Forgot about the prints in the car," Curran said. He looked at Beatrice.
"It's all right, Bea. Just cop speculations. Nothing to be alarmed
about."

"Maybe we should have kept quiet," McGuire said.

"I couldn't live with it, Jack," Beatrice said
firmly. "I don't care what they think."

"Suppose they just don't believe her?" McGuire
asked.

"Don't worry, Bea, it's not enough to make a
case," Curran said.

"I told the truth. That's all that matters,"
Beatrice said, turning to Fiona. "Do you believe me?"

"Without a shadow of a doubt," Fiona said.

At that moment McGuire bent down and kissed her hair. It
was odd, Fiona thought. Her first impression of McGuire was that he was shrewd,
devious and corrupt, all of which he probably was. But she was quite touched by
his display of loving affection. Suddenly she thought of Greg. Perhaps loving
covered a multitude of sins. Perhaps she had been too judgmental, too willing
to see his public life of dissimulation and insensitivity as an extension of
his private life.

Suddenly the room grew silent, each of its occupants lost
in his or her own thoughts. It was the moment, Fiona decided. There was no way
around it. They needed to know.

"Mrs. McGuire was pregnant," Fiona said quietly.
No need for her to raise her voice. The information seemed to hit them like an
earthquake.

"Frankie?" McGuire responded hoarsely. Even
Curran, for the first time that morning, showed signs of emotion. His mouth
hung open.

"How could she? She was..." Beatrice began.

"Forty-seven," McGuire said turning to Fiona.
"That has got to be pure bullshit."

"This is an M.E. confirmation?" Curran asked, his
voice strangely hoarse.

"There is absolutely no question about it," Fiona
said. "Six weeks according to Dr. Benton, our M.E." She turned to
McGuire. "She was in superb shape."

"Frankie preganant?" McGuire said again.
"Involved with a man? Jesus." He turned to face Fiona. "Who was
it?" he looked down at his hands, then at Beatrice. "I can tell you
this much. It wasn't me." Beatrice smiled briefly.

"That explains why she changed her mind," Curran
said.

"Poor Frankie," Beatrice said. "Oh God, I
hope I didn't push her to it." She stifled a sob.

"You didn't," Fiona said emphatically. An idea
was forming in her mind, taking shape.

"How can you be so sure?" Beatrice asked.

Fiona pointed to Beatrice's belly.

"Would you kill that baby?"

"Never. Absolutely never." She shook her head
repeatedly. "No way."

"Find the father..." Curran began.

"...find the murderer," Fiona said. It came as a
pronouncement, without strings or doubts.

The Mayor was livid with rage. The Eggplant had played his
card. He had just revealed to him and Charles Rome that Congresswoman McGuire
was pregnant.

"Why wasn't I told this earlier?" he shouted.

He turned in his big leather chair and looked at
Congressman Rome, whose unruffled dignity contrasted severely with everyone in
the room, including Fiona. The Eggplant, although immaculately groomed in his
tan suit, chocolate brown tie with yellow stripes and cordovan tasseled
loafers, was, she knew, fighting with himself to appear unruffled. Cates's
complexion had turned to the color of clay.

"Frankly, it was such explosive information, I did not
want to compromise you." He paused and glanced toward Congressman Rome.
"Either of you." Rome had the air of a man for whom there were no
surprises. Discipline and dignity were apparently the key to his persona. Quite
obviously, he had harnessed these traits to the service of his political
career.

"That was for me to judge, Captain Greene," the
mayor said, somewhat mollified by Rome's controlled reaction.

"We needed to be sure because of the political
implications. In this case, suicide might have been considered a rather crude
form of abortion," the Eggplant said, turning to the congressman. "It
wasn't the issue itself. The credibility of a dedicated congresswoman was at
stake. I wanted to be sure before I reported it."

There he was doing his little jig for the powers that be,
Fiona thought, resolving all her guilt about her overuse of the derisive
Eggplant monicker.

"Sure about the suicide?" Rome asked.

"Yes. I wanted to be sure."

"So, it was a suicide," the mayor said hopefully.

The Eggplant looked at him, then shifted his gaze to Fiona.

"We don't think so," he said.

"Shit," the mayor muttered through clenched
teeth. Rome shook his head slightly and lowered his eyes.

The mayor was a big man whose former image as a street-wise
protestor had been considerably softened by his three years as mayor. This
latter incarnation might have been more to the point. The mayor, whose father
had been a prosperous dentist in Pensacola, Florida, had majored in English Lit
at Florida State. His ghetto intonation was a learned affectation for him,
although the southern accents of the Florida panhandle were a good beginning
for this argot tongue.

When calm, he was remarkably dignified with his grey
cottony hair and eyebrows and penetrating green eyes. He was not calm now. A
thin moustache of perspiration had popped out on his upper lip. On the surface,
he was attempting to impress Congressman Rome with his sincere desire to keep a
lid on this explosive scandal-ridden case. Congress was, next to the overwhelming
black majority of the nation's capital, his most important and affluent
constituent.

This had been billed as an informational meeting. The
police chief was deliberately kept out of it. It simply confirmed what Fiona
had divined. If down the line, they needed scapegoats, the Eggplant, Cates and
she would fit the bill nicely.

They were lined up in a semicircle in front of the mayor's
highly polished ornate desk framed by a standing American flag and one bearing
the insignia of the District of Columbia.

The Eggplant, as man of authority and spokesman for the
homicide division, then reported on Fiona's meeting in Boston with the new Mrs.
McGuire. He was laying his case out carefully, knowing it would be unpopular.

But he had bought Fiona's assumptions that Mrs. McGuire had
no intentions of committing suicide, assumptions based totally on Beatrice
Dellarotta's observations of Frankie's state of mind shortly before her death.
They had, indeed, found her fingerprints inside Mrs. McGuire's car, concrete
evidence that Beatrice's story was, at least, partially provable.

Under normal circumstances, the Eggplant would have been
completely skeptical, but Fiona knew that the assumptions she had made meshed
nicely with his own instinctive belief about the manner of Frankie's death.

Now she was feeling slightly guilty for creating the
Eggplant's predicament, wondering if she hadn't relied more on the emotion of
sisterhood than the cooler reason of a seasoned detective.

Had she overreacted to Beatrice's story? Had she related
too deeply, too personally, to Beatrice's motives? Were her instincts
overpowering her logic? Had she taken advantage of the Eggplant's own gut
feeling that Mrs. McGuire had been murdered? Had she manipulated him into going
along with her arguments because Beatrice had touched something deep within
her? Of course, she had, a conclusion that added to her present discomfort. She
hoped she was right. For both their sakes.

"But what does that prove?" the mayor asked with
some sarcasm, after the Eggplant had finished. "Merely that this Beatrice
was in the congresswoman's car. How is that in conflict with a judgment of
suicide?"

"We have a theory about that, Your Honor," the
Eggplant said. They hadn't, after all, expected the meeting to go smoothly.

"They got theories," the mayor snapped with some
contempt, swiveling toward Charles Rome, as if to solicit approval for his
reaction. The congressman remained stoic and serene, blinking his eyes, a
gesture that might be interpreted either as a signal to continue as well or a
sign of approval.

The mayor swivled back to face the Eggplant. "Seems to
me that you've got a real problem here. Okay, you've got the lady in the car.
But you admit you can't find any evidence to place her in Mrs. McGuire's
apartment. Not a shred. What does that mean?" He lifted his hand to stop
any reply. "It means that the woman was never inside the apartment. In
fact, you have no proof that anyone at all was inside Mrs. McGuire's apartment.
Ergo..." He paused now awaiting a reaction.

"With respect, Your Honor," Fiona interjected.
She looked at the Eggplant who nodded his consent. "We're theorizing that
there were no prints belonging to Beatrice ... the second Mrs. McGuire
because..." She sucked in a deep breath. "The murderer wiped them
out."

"Theories again," the mayor croaked, shaking his
head. "And how would he know exactly where they were ... these
prints." He turned toward the Eggplant. "Really, captain, the logic
is awry." He swiveled back in his chair and looked at the ceiling.
"Try this on for size. The lady, does indeed, tell her story to the
congresswoman, who is shocked, appalled and guilt-stricken, her nerves worn
thin because of her own condition. Her marriage has failed, her political
career is in jeopardy, her personal beliefs make it impossible for her to abort
her child. She is at the end of her tether. The other woman has been the
catalyst for her final decision. Suicide. No question in my mind." He
turned toward Congressman Rome.

No, she decided, the mayor was no dummy. Certainly a case
could be made for his theory, despite their own rejection on it. She cut a
glance to the Eggplant whose expression appeared to echo her thoughts.

"With respect, Your Honor, we speculate," she
continued, "that Beatrice was telling the truth about her visit to Mrs.
McGuire's apartment. We must assume, too, that she might not have actually
touched many things. She said she and the congresswoman had coffee together.
Well, the coffee cups were all washed. She said she did go to the bathroom, but
had used Mrs. McGuire's, the one in the master bedroom. No prints were found
there, either. Our technical staff was quite thorough ... which indicates that
someone had wiped them away."

"Did it ever occur to you, sergeant," the mayor
asked, "that she might have done so herself..." Suddenly he stopped
himself, realizing that he was adding fuel to the murder theory with the new
Mrs. McGuire as the chief suspect. "Now you're making me crazy. The fact
remains that there is absolutely no proof that the woman was in the apartment.
None whatsoever. I really think I've heard enough." He looked at his watch
and started to rise.

"Don't you think we should hear her out?"
Congressman Rome said.

The mayor shrugged and settled back in his chair.

"If you think so," he said grudgingly.

"Our theory..." Fiona paused and looked at the
mayor. "I'm sorry Your Honor, but there's no other way to describe it. We
think that Beatrice did indeed get the congresswoman to promise that she would
grant Mr. McGuire his freedom, that she had every intention to carry out this
promise. We believe that her original promise to do this had been broken when
she discovered that she was pregnant."

"I don't understand," Congressman Rome said.

"Theory again," Fiona continued. "When she
found out she was pregnant by a man other than her husband she broke the
promise because she did not want her child to be born out of wedlock. Bad
politics. Especially for her constituency. And she couldn't by belief or
conviction have an abortion under any circumstances."

"Good politics, considering her constituency,"
the mayor interjected. "But odd reasoning. Why then would she make another
promise to this Beatrice woman? She was still pregnant?"

"Because she was a decent compassionate woman,"
Fiona said. "She was doing what was right. Not necessarily political, but
what was right."

People do that, she told herself suddenly remembering her
father's excruciating dilemma over Vietnam. Like you Dad, she heard a voice
within her say.

"Right for who?" the mayor asked.

She could feel the subtle patronizing that lay beneath the
question, just as it lay beneath the surface of this overbearing male police
culture. How they hated any pushy woman, especially one who raised the banner
of feminist political courage. This is one for sisterhood, she heard her voice
echo in her thoughts. Only a woman had the biological capacity to be in a fix
like that. Therefore, she told herself, only a woman could understand such a
plight, such painful decision-making. The idea buttressed her courage.

"For her, of course," Fiona replied in a
deliberately respectful tone. She would not, she promised herself, blow this
out of pique.

"You've lost me," the mayor said. Rome remained quiet and noncommittal but obviously interested. Their silence meant that
she should continue.

"When she got back to her apartment, she called her
lover and told him the news. It did not sit well with him. Don't ask us why.
None of us are certain. Not yet."

"The hole in the doughnut," the mayor snickered.

"At that moment," Fiona answered slowly, nodding
in tandem for emphasis. "It's only a question of time." It was always
impossible to transfer one's instincts without raising hackles. She glanced at
the Eggplant and grew silent.

"May I ask you a question at this point?" Rome asked. Of course, he could. The man exuded an air of distinguished solicitude and
fatherly confidence.

"I think your theories are commendable," he
began, rubbing his smooth strong cleft chin with well-manicured fingers.
"Very imaginative and resourceful, sergeant. But with due respect for your
professional experience, you're also presenting a scenario that could trigger a
suicide," he said. "My first thought ... when I heard poor Frankie
had died ... was that she couldn't possibly have taken her own life. For what
reason? She was still young, successful, effective. She had everything to live
for." He continued to rub his chin and studied Fiona. "Now you've
given me a plausible reason that I understand. If you're theorizing, why not
suicide? The absence of evidence, it seems to me, makes that theory more
plausible." He looked toward the mayor. "Don't you think so,
Bob?"

"As I've said, so far I've heard nothing that makes me
think otherwise," he said agreeably.

Then there's the question of the cyanide," Fiona
interjected. These were tough men, used to being prevailed upon, used to all
the tricks of persuasion. More important, they were used to saying
"No." "Why would she have had cyanide lying around the house?
Makes no sense. She had a bottle of sleeping pills in her medicine cabinet. She
could have chosen a nice sleepy way of dying. A certain knowledge of poison is
required to make such a choice. Cyanide is not even commonly available."

"I'm not so sure about that either," Congressman
Rome said. "You'd be surprised what a resourceful intelligent person with
strong desire can do. Especially a person like Frankie. As for information on
poisons, we have available to us the greatest library in the world."

She glanced toward Cates, whose research and thoroughness
was always impeccable. He smiled thinly. "My partner here, Sergeant Cates,
checked the Library of Congress to see if her office had inquired about
cyanide. Nothing. As a matter of fact we checked to see if any member of
Congress had inquired about cyanide in the past year. We found only one inquiry
and that was appropriate enough, a research assistant for a committee that
dealt with mining." She looked toward Cates.

"It's used in gold mining. Beyond that there's not
much use for it. Not in Washington," Cates said, then picked up on her
explanation. "We also checked all obvious sources of information about
cyanide. Libraries, computer banks, druggists, not for information about the
substance per se. We just wanted to know if anyone had requested any
information about it for the past year. Turned up zero of consequence. In other
words we could find nothing linking Mrs. McGuire to the substance in any
way."

"Nor anyone else," the mayor said.

"That's true," Cates pointed out. "But our
theory..."

"Fucking theories," the mayor snapped in
exasperation.

"The point is," Cates continued with some
determination now that he had the floor, "that the use of cyanide implies
some planning."

"Yes, it does." the mayor said. "She could
have been planning this suicide for a long time."

"She could have been," the Eggplant interjected
suddenly, obviously worried that his department's speculations were not cutting
any ice with the mayor and the congressman. He glanced helplessly toward Fiona
who had briefly retreated into her own thoughts. Poor old Eggplant, she
thought. He had bought her theory with such enthusiasm. But the mayor and the
congressman did have a point. It was all theory.