A Vote for Murder (9 page)

“This room reopened in 1991,” she said, “after being closed for more than three years while renovations took place. Every reader desk is now wired for computers, and this soundproof carpeting was installed to cut down on any distracting noise.” She pointed up to glassed-in balconies overlooking the room. “We enclosed those areas to cut down even more on unnecessary noise.”

I took in the people in the room. Most of the desks were occupied by serious-looking men and women hunched over books they’d checked out from the main desk, or typing into their laptops. I noticed one man wearing a black cape who sat at one of the desks, a tall pile of telephone directories next to him, and wondered why he simply didn’t call Information to come up with the phone number he was seeking. Eleanor noticed my interest in him and whispered in my ear, “He’s here every day. He believes that someone placed a curse on him years ago, and he’s going through every telephone book from around the world to find the name of that person.”

My eyes went up. “Oh,” I said.

She pointed to a woman occupying a desk at the other side of the room, and said, “We call her the bride of Christ. She believes she was married to Christ, and is systematically going through every Bible, in every language, to prove her point.” She added, “While a few eccentrics add color to our day, the overwhelming majority of people using the library’s services are legitimate scholars researching important works, which will contribute to the world’s knowledge base.”

It had stopped raining during the time we spent touring the Library of Congress, and we were able to walk the short distance to Capitol Hill rather than take the vehicles that waited for us outside the library. It wasn’t my first visit to the Capitol building. Our senior senator from Maine, Marjorie Hale, with whom I’d struck up a semblance of a relationship, had hosted me there on two previous occasions, arranging for a personal tour, and gaining me access to the gallery in the Senate chamber, where I was privileged to sit through spirited debate on issues of national concern. As we approached the building this morning, feelings of awe and respect pulsated through me. Its baroque dome with a nineteen-foot bronze statue of Freedom—occasionally called
Armed Freedom
because the female figure dressed in flowing drapery held in her right hand a sheathed sword and in her left a shield—was a beacon of democracy, and the model for most of our statehouses around the country.

Although we were part of an official entourage, we were subjected to stringent security as we entered the building, where we were greeted by Senator Nebel’s press secretary, Sandy Teller. We followed him into Statuary Hall, formerly the chamber for the House of Representatives, now a showplace for statues of two notables from each of the states. Next on our tour was the Old Senate Chamber, where such great speakers as Calhoun, Clay, and Webster left their oratorical mark on the nation; it eventually became the home of the Supreme Court before that august body moved to its own building.

The tour lasted an hour and a half, and by the time we were taken to the Senate dining room, I was thankful I’d remembered to pack comfortable walking shoes. A long table had been set in one end of the room for our group, and we looked for our names on place cards before taking our seats. Christine Nebel had disappeared during the tour, her role now taken by Teller, whose smiles seemed more forced and disingenuous than on the previous night.

We’d no sooner been seated than Senator Nebel entered the room, stopping at several tables to greet Senate colleagues. When he finally reached our table, he smiled broadly and announced, “In honor of your visit, this has been declared Maine Day in the dining room. They often designate days for different states featuring food from those places. I haven’t seen the menu, but I’m sure there will be at least one lobster dish on it.

“Unlike with our British friends, liquor isn’t served here or in any of the official dining rooms of the Capitol, so you’ll have to content yourselves with soft drinks and Virgin Marys. In the Houses of Parliament in London, there are bars to which members retire for a little libation after debating weighty issues on the floor. Seems civilized to me.” We laughed along with him.

A chair had been left available for the senator, but he told us that he wouldn’t be able to stay for lunch. He wished us all a good day, thanked us for our efforts on behalf of the literacy program, came around behind Teller, placed an envelope in front of him, and left, slapping backs and shaking hands on his way out.

Teller, who sat next to me, frowned as he opened the envelope and read the note it contained. He took in the table, and when he saw that everyone was engaged in conversation, he turned and handed the note to me.

 

 

It was signed,
Warren
.

I looked at Teller, who raised his eyebrows and shrugged.

“Do you have any idea what this is about?” I asked him in a low voice.

“About last night, Mrs. Fletcher.”

“What about last night?”

He checked to make sure no one was listening, leaned over, and whispered in my ear, “The senator is really under the gun, Mrs. Fletcher. I know he asked you for a favor last night to help Mrs. Nebel through the ordeal of this week, and what happened at the house with Nikki Farlow.”

As lunch was served, I went through an internal debate. I didn’t want to become entwined in any problems Senator Nebel and his wife might be having, particularly since it now involved the death of one of his closest aides on the Hill. It had been my bad luck—and George Sutherland’s, too—to have come upon her body. On the one hand, I liked Pat Nebel and felt a great deal of sympathy for her. Clearly she wasn’t well, and I’ve not been one to turn my back on someone in need of help. On the other hand, the week promised to be strenuous and busy enough without taking on the added burden of playing what appeared to be nursemaid to her. What to do? I could, at least, go to the senator’s office with Mr. Teller and see what he was asking of me, and I could make my decision then.

At the conclusion of lunch—and without offering an explanation to the rest of the group—Teller led me from the dining room, back through the splendid, baronial halls of the Capitol, and down to the basement, where an underground rail system connected that building with all the office buildings housing members of the House and Senate. We rode one of the cars to the Dirksen Building, took an elevator up, and were soon standing in the reception area of Senator Nebel’s office. Teller opened the door to the senator’s private quarters and I heard him say, “Mrs. Fletcher’s here.”

Teller closed the door behind me as he left. Nebel, in shirtsleeves, was seated behind a broad desk on which tall piles of paper were neatly arranged. He pulled off half-glasses, rubbed his eyes, shook his head, stood, and came around the desk to shake my hand. “Thank you so much for coming, Jessica. I know this is an intrusion into your week.”

“You said last night you wanted me to assist Pat, and I assume that’s what this is about,” I said.

“Yes, it is. Please, take a seat.”

I sat in one of a pair of oversize red leather chairs across the desk from where he resumed his seat. He rested his elbows on the desk and made a tent with his fingers, which he placed under his chin. “I’ll cut to the chase, Jessica. This dreadful accident that happened last night has created all sorts of problems for me, and I’m afraid I’m going to have to be focusing all my attention to solving them. In the meantime, there is the literacy program to go forward with, and Senate business as usual, particularly with a vote coming up on the nuclear power plant proposed for outside Cabot Cove. In a sense, I suppose I’m asking you to temporarily join my staff.” He shrugged. “It’s only for a week.”

“And my duties would be?” I asked.

“Be a buddy to Patricia. I just don’t have the time to devote to her, and I feel lousy about that. She hasn’t made many friends here in Washington. Hell, that’s an understatement. It was like pulling teeth to get her to spend any time here at all. She’s very shy—almost reclusive, I might say. She loves our home back in Maine, working in her garden, cooking in the kitchen. I’ve tried to convince her that a U.S. senator needs a full-time wife here. It’s expected.” He sounded petulant, then thought better of his tone. “Well, it certainly would be helpful. But that’s not the way she is. At any rate, because she loves reading so much—God, she must go through five or six books a week—she agreed to come down here with me to launch this literacy initiative, and has done a bang-up job. But not feeling well, coupled with Nikki’s death, has really put a strain on her that I’m afraid she’s capable of breaking under. I’m not asking you to do this full-time, Jessica, just for the next few days until things settle down.”

I wondered if by “settling down” he meant the press scrutiny that had already begun to develop over Nikki Farlow’s death, and the rumor that his relationship with her might have been more intimate, and less proper, than what was expected of a senator and his aide. I didn’t ask.

“What do you want me to do?” I asked.

Nebel stared down at his desk for a moment, then looked up, his eyes pleading. “Pat is resting today at home. I have a car waiting downstairs to take you there. Will you go spend the afternoon with her? You know, be a girlfriend of sorts, chat about Cabot Cove and Maine, and all the things she loves. I think it would do her a world of good, a lot better than any doctor or shrink could.”

I thought for a moment before saying, “Yes, I suppose I can do that. I do want to clear my evening, however, to have dinner with my friend George Sutherland. You met him at your house.”

Nebel brightened. “Ah, yes, the Scotland Yard inspector. Splendid chap. I’d like to find some time with him, myself. I’m a bit of an Anglophile, always loved my trips to London and the Cotswolds. You’ll do it then?”

I nodded. “Yes, I’ll do it.”

“Wonderful.” He got up from his chair, came around the desk, and clasped my hand in both of his. “I owe you, Jessica, and I don’t forget what I owe my friends. You name it here in Washington, it’s yours. All you have to do is call me on my private line.”

If I intended to take him up on the offer, I might have asked for his private number. I didn’t.

When I left Nebel’s office, Sandy Teller was standing immediately outside the door with Richard Carraway, the senatorial aide I’d met at dinner last night. We exchanged brief greetings before Teller accompanied me to the front entrance of the Dirksen Building at First and C streets, where a black town car was waiting, its engine running. Teller opened the back door for me. When I was settled with my seat belt on, he leaned in and said, “I assure you the senator is deeply grateful for this, Mrs. Fletcher. Deeply grateful.”

With that he shut the door, and the driver, a large man with a shaved head who hadn’t yet acknowledged my presence, pulled away from the curb.

The air in the car was frigid. I leaned forward.

“Good afternoon,” I said. “Would you mind lowering the air-conditioning? It’s very cold back here.”

He didn’t reply, but reached out and with thick fingers turned a dial to raise the temperature.

“Thank you,” I said, sitting back in the black leather seat. I shivered and rubbed my arms to warm them up. But I wasn’t sure if the chill that ran through me was from the cold or from the eerie feeling I had that I was unwittingly being thrown into a potentially risky situation. Although I had nothing tangible to base it on, I couldn’t shake the notion that a paraphrased line from
Hamlet
was appropriate: Although this wasn’t Denmark, something was decidedly rotten here, and I didn’t doubt as we headed for McLean, Virginia, that I was about to get closer to the odor.

Senator Nebel must have called ahead, because the security guard waved us right through. We pulled up in front of the house; the driver came around to my side and opened the door.

“Thank you for turning down the air-conditioning,” I said as I got out.

“Yes, ma’am.”

I watched him pull away, and wondered what arrangements would be made for me to leave later in the day. I hadn’t called George to see whether he was free for dinner, and made a mental note to do that as soon as possible.

I knocked. The door was opened by the East Indian who’d spent the previous evening serving drinks, and whose angry voice I had heard arguing with someone behind the potted trees.

“I believe Mrs. Nebel is expecting me,” I said.

“She is resting,” he replied, “but she told me you would be coming. Please, madam, come inside and make yourself comfortable.”

He led me to the room in which the cocktail portion of the previous evening had taken place.

“Might I get you something to drink, madam?” he asked.

“A cup of tea would be nice, if it isn’t too much trouble.”

“Of course, madam,” he said, and left the room.

I went to the wall of windows overlooking the terrace and the Potomac and was flooded with thoughts of the dinner party and its unfortunate conclusion. The entire evening played out in my mind—the arrival at the house and my surprise at how opulent it was; the conversations during cocktails; the dinner itself and the individuals involved. And, of course, the dessert on the terrace and the fateful trip George and I had taken down the rickety wooden stairs.

I was deep into those thoughts when the serving man returned carrying a tray on which sat a teapot, a cup, silverware, a pitcher of cream, a small dish of lemon slices, a plate containing three wafer-thin cookies, and a bowl in which sugar had been perfectly leveled. He placed it on a table near the window. “Anything else, madam?” he asked, sliding out a chair.