Immaculate Deception (5 page)

She had never quite hardened to the corpse identity
process, although she was tolerating it better than the first time when she had
thrown up and fainted. But the man's head had been crushed by a six-wheeler and
the wife had also been carried out. Since then, she had seen equally horrible
corpses, broken, mutilated, dismembered and decapitated. It was not exactly the
sight of the corpses that made her queasy. It was the reaction of the next of
kin. For them it was always awful and it was for them that she bled, although
she no longer threw up or fainted.

Jack McGuire, was a big man, puffed up with Irish pride,
although this wasn't the moment to judge him on that score. He was red-faced,
veiny around the nose, which meant long acquaintance with John Barleycorn, and
he had smooth grey hair combed with a dead-straight part about two inches above
his left ear. His eyes were chocolate brown, the whites covered with a network
of red lightning bursts.

He wore a well-fitted grey suit, rumpled from his morning's
travels, and an appropriate black tie. And he made no effort to be
ingratiating. He shot Fiona a glance that clearly meant that he was used to power
and command.

On the surface, he did not look like a grieving man, more
like a man annoyed to have to suffer this interruption in his busy life. He was
getting increasingly impatient and nasty, despite their attempts to soothe him
with condolences and testimonials to his deceased wife. His reaction was merely
to acknowledge their words with a grunt. He was not interested in conversation.
Fiona and Cates were obviously perceived by him as mere functionaries with whom
he was not obliged to have any peer dialogue.

She and Cates were stalling him in the outer office,
waiting for word that Mrs. McGuire had been "reassembled" and
returned to the icebox, a large whitewashed room with refrigerated drawers
which stored the bodies until disposition.

"You didn't have the right to move her here," he
muttered. "No right." He looked directly at Cates, then gazed around
the room. Various official personnel passed through.

"Standard procedure," Fiona said. It wasn't quite
standard, but standard for a case of this sort, an ambiguous suicide.

"Shithouse," he grumbled. "Whole goddamned
city. Bunch of dummies. Do nothing but fuck up the country." He lowered
his voice to barely a whisper. Fiona heard it. "Mau Maus." If Cates
heard it he did not acknowledge it.

She had opted for tact, knowing that this was to be a
traumatic moment. She had wanted to ask many questions, but she had
deliberately demurred, postponing them until he had recovered from the
aftershock still to come. All efforts to engage him in conversation ended in failure
and finally they let him stew in his own anger.

"Ready now."

It was Melanie herself, dressed in a crisp white smock that
led the way to the cold room. She was a small woman who knew her job. Along
with the smock, she had donned the appropriate expression for the deed. She had
often done this chore and was remarkably inured to it. "My father owned a
kosher butcher store in Brooklyn," she had explained, although the
comparison, when dredged up in memory, always gave Fiona the willies.

Accompanied by Cates and Fiona on either side of him, they
followed Melanie to a drawer. She bent toward it and rolled it out, a slab on
which was a sheet-covered corpse. Fiona kept her eyes fixed on McGuire. The
bright lights picked out the crimson network of veins on his nose.

Waiting for the dead face to be uncovered, his breathing
became labored. She had seen it before. A man steeling himself, anticipating
the pain, holding on to control. This could not be an easy chore, even for the
Jack of Diamonds.

Melanie drew down the sheet to the neck of what had once
been Frances McGuire. Surprisingly, she appeared even younger than she had
looked on the bed, the bones beneath the skin more clearly defined, the
freckles faded. They let the spectacle sink into Jack McGuire's consciousness.
He was clearly moved. He crossed himself. His forehead rippled and tics began
in both cheeks. His eyes moistened and fluttered and his lips trembled.

"Is this your spouse Frances McGuire?" Cates
asked.

"That's Frankie," he whispered, bowing his head.
When he lifted it finally all the crimson network on his face had turned blue
and his complexion matched the sheet. Melanie quickly slid the drawer closed.
McGuire stood there for a moment, looking mutely at the drawer's metal
faceplate. Then he shook his head and walked slowly out of the room.

"Goddamn," he said when they had returned to the
waiting room. "She didn't have to do that."

"Do what, Mr. McGuire?"

The Irishman lifted his eyes. The blood had returned to his
face, filling the veiny tributaries and putting color back into his skin.

"What the hell does that mean?"

"I'm sorry, Mr. McGuire," Cates said. "These
questions have to be asked."

He looked directly into Cates's eyes, narrowing his own,
attempting to stare him down.

"You mean you don't think she committed suicide?"

"I think we'd all be better off if we sat down quietly
in that office," Fiona said, pointing to the empty office off to one side
that was reserved for such discussions. McGuire hesitated, looking confused,
but he followed Fiona into the room. Cates joined them. Fiona pulled out the
chair from behind the desk and the three of them sat facing each other.

"There was no note found in her apartment," Fiona
began.

"Did you receive one?" Cates asked.

He looked at them and shook his head.

"You may get one in the mail in a couple of
days," Fiona said. "That should dispose of the matter. Any of your
children receive a suicide note from their mother?"

"No. They would have told me."

"That's a drastic step, suicide," he sighed.
"Can't understand it."

"The thing is, Mr. McGuire," Fiona said, "we
can't be sure."

"Not sure."

"We might have a better idea when we receive the
autopsy report."

"Autopsy?"

He rose to his feet, seething, his face blood red with
anger.

"Autopsy? Who the fuck gave you permission to perform
an autopsy on my wife?"

"We have that right, Mr. McGuire," Fiona said,
gently. She had been through this before.

"We'll see about that," McGuire said, standing
up, pointing a pudgy finger in Fiona's face. She noted a ring with a diamond on
his pinky. Royal Order of Hibernians. She recognized the symbol. "I want
your badge number." He shifted his attention to Cates. "Yours, too.
There'll be hell to pay. I swear it."

They swiftly withdrew their card cases, Cates from his
pocket and Fiona from her pocketbook. On each was the person's name, the
homicide division, address, telephone and badge number. He seemed startled by
the speed of the reaction, took the cards and put them in a side pocket of his
jacket.

"We have to ask questions, Mr. McGuire. You can't
blame the messenger," Cates said.

He muttered and grumbled, then began to pace the little
room. He was a strong bulky man, rough-hewn. Probably hell on his workers.

"Did she have any reason to commit suicide, Mr.
McGuire?" Fiona asked.

His reaction was silence, but she wasn't sure he was
stonewalling, just unsure and confused.

"Did you notice anything different about her
recently?" Cates asked.

"Different?"

"Was she depressed?"

"Depressed? Frankie? Hell, no. Not her. She got angry,
but never depressed."

Fiona caught the undercurrent, the unmistakable hint of
sarcasm. She cut a glance at Cates.

"Why not her?" Cates pursued.

"Too tough, Frankie was, to let herself get down. She
could shrug things off. Nothing bothered her. Not Frankie."

Again she caught an undercurrent. This time a tinge of
regret, as if he would have welcomed a streak of vulnerability in his wife.

"In a suicide," Cates said, measuring his tone,
"something usually bothers a person who commits it."

McGuire seemed to draw into himself, reassessing his words.
Then he shrugged and responded.

"What the hell reason would she have? She had it made.
Hell, she was a member of Congress. Her father was a bartender for crissakes.
Her mother was a maid, a chamber maid for Hilton. She had dough. Four kids. All
grown now. She was a celebrity. She had clout. What the hell else did she
want?" He stopped pacing abruptly and stared into space. His eyes glazed.
"All in all a good woman. A good mother. A God-fearing woman." He
paused for a long time with that glazed spacey look, then slowly got hold of
his sense of place again. "She had no good reason to do this. None. She
was master of her fate. No good reason."

"Are you implying that someone else did it?"
Fiona asked gently. It was in essence the same question that they had asked
Foy.

"Someone else?"

"A murderer," Fiona emphasized.

"Frankie murdered?" He seemed aghast. "Why
would anyone want to murder Frankie?"

"Could have been for ideological reasons. She was the
number one enemy of the abortion gang," Fiona said, her tone implying a
commitment. Do I really feel like that? she wondered. At that moment, she fully
comprehended the power of the issue's politicization. What would it take for
her to abort her own child? She shivered at the prospect. And other women? What
did it take for them? Was that the issue? It was so personal, so intimate. She
shrugged it away.

"Politics is politics," McGuire said. "I've
seen some bruising scraps in my day. But murder..." He shook his head.

"Then you are convinced it was suicide."

"Looks like it, doesn't it?" he said after a long
pause, speaking the words through clenched teeth. By then, he was in full
control of himself again, his obviously shrewd mind working in high gear.

"Did you have any hint of it?" Fiona asked.

"Hell no. She was always a lady in charge of herself.
She was tough, headstrong. She always knew where she was going."

"Then it is out of character," Fiona coaxed.

"Yeah. I'd say that," McGuire said. "But
people have been known to..."

"Snap," Cates said helpfully.

"Listen, she was my wife of twenty-seven years. I
married her at twenty and we had five kids together. They're all busted up
about this, I can tell you. It wasn't very white of her to do this to them.
Hell, we could have helped her. But how the hell do you get a hint of it. How
the hell do you do that?"

He started to pace again, genuinely troubled. As he walked
his lips moved, as if he were cursing silently to himself.

"What was your marriage like, Mr. McGuire?" Fiona
asked suddenly.

He bristled at that one.

"None of your fucking business what my marriage was
like. I won't have our personal lives explored by anyone. That was our
business. Next thing you know you'll be accusing me."

"Of what, Mr. McGuire?" Fiona asked.

"It's unthinkable. You oughta be ashamed."

"You're jumping to conclusions, Mr. McGuire,"
Cates said.

"Next thing you know you'll actually be asking me
where I was last night."

He was sputtering off again into a temper tantrum. They let
it work itself out.

"It would be a legitimate question under any
circumstances, Mr. McGuire," Cates said. "Look, we're investigating
the possibility of foul play. A routine investigation. Also if your wife
committed suicide she had to have her reasons. We need to get close to that as
well. Wrap things up. A domestic motive is quite common. She must have been
unhappy about something. The first question that always comes to mind in a case
like this is: Was she happy in her marriage?"

Of course he was uncomfortable with the question, but Fiona
could feel the wheels working to devise a proper answer. He had already
telegraphed the message. How could anyone be truly happy in a marriage where
the partners were separated most of the time? That was more like an
arrangement. Perhaps, she thought, the proper question would be: Was she
unhappy with the arrangement? It was a question that quickly found her voice.

"Arrangement?"

"Did you spend much time together?"

"No we didn't. How could we? She was in Congress and I
had a construction business to run. No way we could. But we've been doing that
for years so it was no hassle. We got together when she came back to Boston."

"Like how many times?" Cates asked.

"I don't count things like that." His
defensiveness telegraphed another message. This was no happy marriage. She had
to come up to service her district. Probably quick trips, except during
campaigns when the family banded together to help her get reelected. All part
of the game.

"Was she happy with this arrangement?" Fiona
asked, pressing forward now, watching McGuire marshall his defenses.

"She didn't complain," McGuire muttered.
"Besides we did talk on the phone." He bit his lip, then in a
strangely swift change of mood, his eyes seemed to catch fire. It reminded
Fiona of those comic strip drawings where a light bulb suddenly appears above a
character's head saying "bright idea."

"It was me that tried getting her last night. Hell,
just check with the apartment lobby desk. I must have called four, five times.
I finally had to call Foy." His head rose in a repetitive nod of self-confirmation.
"Yeah. We talked on the phone."

"And you?" Fiona pushed. "Were you happy
with the arrangement?"

He shook his head and smiled sardonically.

"I don't get the point of all this. I'm the victim
here. I just lost my wife. It looks to me like she committed suicide. Whatever
the motive, she's dead and while I'm in mourning I really think it's an
imposition for you to ask those questions. I'm leaving." He started toward
the door and turned. "And I want my wife's body to be sent to the Capitol.
Foy is handling it all. There's going to be ceremonies day after tomorrow in
the rotunda to honor her. We don't need to be harassed by questions about our
personal lives. If you think that Frankie was murdered, it's up to you to make
a case for it. Personally I couldn't believe that in a million years. Frankie
snapped is all. She pushed herself too hard. It's a damned shame that we didn't
see it coming. Maybe she was just too sick at heart about what she was about to
do to write a note. Thought this would be the best, the easiest way out. If
that was her wish, then we must respect it. Just don't subject me to this. I
don't need it in my life and my kids don't need it either. Frankie was a great
lady and in two days we'll honor her memory in the Capitol of the United States, then I'll take her home and bury her next to her folks in our family plot in South Boston."