Death of a Washington Madame (12 page)

She turned and walked regally out of the room. When she was
gone, Fiona shrugged and offered an explanation.

"We're only human. Tension builds. She's been under a
strain. She's a fine person, a good cop. This is an aberration." Fiona
groped for some logical excuse, but finding none said simply: "It happens
in our business."

"We were trying to be cooperative," Shipley said.

"We shouldn't have allowed this William,"
Madeline retorted. "Let your guard down with these people and they'll pull
out their knives."

"She's not like that, Mrs. Shipley," Fiona
protested.

"Like what?"

Fiona searched for an answer that would not set her off.

"Over the top," Fiona shrugged. "She
probably needs counseling. It's not uncommon in our work."

"Big time," Madeline said imperiously. She turned
to her husband. "Excuses notwithstanding, Sergeant, I think her conduct is
actionable. It was rude, aggressive, antagonistic and highly
unprofessional."

"My wife has a point," the Governor said.

"She did apologize," Fiona said. "I hope you
can show some understanding."

"Well now," Madeline said. "We've become the
culprits in this little charade."

"Look, Mrs. Shipley," She turned from her to the
Governor and back. "There's no need for this to go beyond the confines of
this room. These incidents can backfire."

"Is that a threat, Sergeant?" Madeline snapped.

Fiona shrugged and turned to the Governor.

"I'm trying to be reasonable, Governor. You know my
background. I understand your world. If you initiate action against her, you'll
be bringing up the obvious. Things were said here in anger..."

"More threats," Madeline cried.

"Please, darling," the Governor pleaded.
"Let's leave well enough alone."

"You let people get away with things and it comes back
to haunt you," Madeline pressed. She stood up and paced the room, settling
in front of the fire, where she continued to glare at Fiona.

"Let's sum this up, Fiona," the Governor
said." Fact is, I don't think we can be of much help in any event. Mother
ran her life the way she saw fit. I loved her dearly and will miss her terribly
for the rest of my life. She was, indeed, my inspiration. I can also say for
both of us that she respected Madeline and Madeline had a deep and abiding
respect for her. Strains there were. Natural strains. But hardly relevant in
the context of these events. Nevertheless, Fiona, we both stand ready to cooperate
with your investigation to the best of our ability."

He spoke in a soothing cadence, but it was unquestionably
an exit speech by a very fine political actor and after it was delivered he
stood up forcing Fiona to do likewise. The interview had gone badly and she
wondered if they had learned anything of value. So there were strains between
Madeline Newton and her mother-in-law. In the absence of any evidence, that was
hardly grounds for any inordinate suspicion.

"Thank you for your help," Fiona said, putting
out her hand. The Governor took it and and pumped it strongly. Fiona glanced
toward Mrs. Shipley, who averted her eyes. "I hope we can let the other
matter rest," Fiona said, then turned and left the room.

"Clayton," Shipley said. "Show the officer
out.

"She's waiting in the car," Clayton said as Fiona
followed him to the door. His voice, she noted, was soft, an unlikely sound in
what was a fierce looking face, expressionless, probably intentionally so, for
greater effect. He was huge, blotting out the light ahead as he moved forward,
with remarkable effortless grace, down the long hallway toward the front door.

"Football, right?" Fiona asked.

"Redskins."

"Clayton," Fiona said remembering. "The
granite wall. Offensive tackle." Seven eight years ago, she calculated.
The Skins had a good two-year run. She seemed to recall an injury, vertebra,
something with the back.

"Got that right," Clayton turned to look at her
then continued on.

"Still protecting the quarterback," Fiona said.
Only it wasn't football and there were two of them. Clayton nodded his
response.

"Been with them long?"

"Since the first campaign," Clayton mumbled as
they moved out into the bright April sun. From where she stood, Fiona could see
the incredibly beautiful rolling hills of the hunt country stretching into
infinity. The air was tinged with the scent of the quickening earth and the
oddly pleasant pungency of horse manure.

"Good duty?"

"No complaints."

She turned toward him, looking upward into his dark face.

"Talkative guy."

His expression softened somewhat and his lips curved in a
thin smile.

"Talk is not in my resume."

Fiona shrugged and walked toward the car and what was sure
to be an uncomfortable drive back to Washington.

They remained silent along Route 66, a good forty-five
minutes of solid silence. Gail drove with a heavy foot, fifteen miles above the
limit.

Fiona assumed it was her way of letting off steam. She made
no comment not wanting to start the inevitable conversation on a note of
rebuke. She chose to wait instead until she had time to turn over in her mind
Gail's probable responses, all of them emotional and certainly race-based and
essentially unarguable.

In her years with the Department Fiona had been through
every conceivable scenario concerning the unavoidable issue of race. She knew,
or thought she knew, all the racial hot buttons, all the hidden sensitivities,
conflicts and motives, running the gamut from pride to paranoia. She had
accepted the political conditions of the job and determined to remain open,
understanding and sympathetic.

In her heart and soul, she was determined to remain
color-blind, often invoking the ideas expressed so admirably by Martin Luther
King about people being judged on the content of their character and not the
color of their skin. Unfortunately, it was an idea currently in disfavor, not
because of its obvious and inherent truth, but because of the fact that the
black American dream was, for many, still far from the reality. Yet she was no
pushover when it came to resisting the inevitable hostility of some of her
colleagues who saw the enemy in every white face.

She knew, too, that she was a lightening rod of disputation
on a number of obvious counts. She was a multiple minority, white, a woman,
attractive, of an obviously upper economic strata and, by birthright, a stitch
in the social fabric of Washington's elite. A very conspicuous white flower
misplaced, some would say, in a jet black bower.

When confronted, which was on a regular basis, she had
developed a line of formidable defensive verbal weapons, often in street
vernacular. There was little in the way of what was legally or departmentally
actionable that she had not been exposed to and that included most permutations
of sexual, gender or racial insult. But she had vowed never to take the dubious
step of initiating legal proceedings, which she thought demeaning and
destructive. Human nature, she she felt certain, had its own sure way of
handling such matters.

Deftly she had made her personal stand on these issues and
she held a deserved reputation among her colleagues that to screw around with
Fiona FitzGerald was to risk the slice of a serrated wounding tongue and, at
times, in the case of men, a purpling kick in the privates. But whatever minds
and hearts she had won among her colleagues, and there were plenty, it was
based on her skill and competence as a homicide detective. She had built a
deserved reputation as someone who could cut to the quick and leave the
extraneous and emotional sideshows to others.

She had often discussed these issues with her confidante,
father figure and guru, Dr.Benson, and had built her strategy and work
philosophy on the rock of his Cajun wisdom. When confronted with the grim
reaper, he told her often, the blade did not discriminate against race or
creed, gender, economic circumstances, regional or geographic differences,
religion or membership in a specific tribe, clan or nationality and,
especially, did not distinguish between good and evil.

Like it or not, he had intoned often, we are all siblings,
related creatures of molecular similarity designed through evolutionary
atomization or divine will ... take your pick. The manner of creation had no
bearing on the result.

In fact, she enjoyed the contention and the glory of her
life in this place, the challenge of confronting the insult, the untangling of
webs of lies and deception, and the excitement involved in dismantling
mysteries. A private fantasy was that she was the star of a great morality
drama, played out against the Greek chorus of the weird Capitol city of the
fabulous America.

It was exactly such revelations, explanations and
arguments, she told herself as if waking from a reverie, that she must convey
to Hal Perry. Unfortunately their eloquence came at odd times, like now,
sliding into her consciousness obliquely, usually when he was not around, nor
did she feel she could, when push came to shove, really do justice to the idea
that described her work as equal in importance and challenge to his.

"Alright Gail," she said abruptly, pulling
herself back into present tense, as Gail the skyline of Washington drew near,
"Let's get it out in the open."

Gail's nostrils dilated.

"You may not like what you hear," she muttered.
Fiona could see that she was spoiling for further confrontation, smoldering
embers waiting for the puff a fresh angry breeze.

"That's a given."

Gail seemed to suck in a deep breath. Obviously what was
coming was the result of deep thinking and agitation on her part.

"You heard her. The woman is a bigoted bitch."

"You pushed her. She overreacted. Besides, we're not
here to fight bigotry. I had my hands full just to stop them from going after
your ass, Gail."

"Let them. I'll blow them out of the water. Hell, Fi,
you're my witness. She called me an arrogant Amazon and a black bitch. Did you
want me to stand there and take it?"

"You provoked her. And you gave her back in
kind."

"I did, didn't I?" Gail smiled. "Good. Maybe
I should be the one to initiate charges."

"Christ, Gail. We're talking about the wife of the
Governor of Virginia. She backed off. And she's probably not as bad as she
sounded."

"Birds of a feather," Gail muttered.

"Come on Gail. Get off that kick. We've got enough on
our plate without this race hubris. Let it go. And let's hope they do. It's a
sideshow."

"Not to me. There's a bigger picture here. And I'm not
talking about the good Governor and his uppity egotistical trophy wife."
Her anger was starting to accelerate again.

"Bring it down Gail. Enough venting for one day."

Her words seemed to have found their mark. Gail, seemed to
fight herself to regain some equilibrium. Suddenly she smiled broadly and shook
her head.

"I guess I did lose my cool," Gail sighed.

"To put it mildly."

"But two wrongs don't make a right."

"Now we're getting into clichés."

"What I mean to say is that there is an institutional
canard embedded in our police culture. It's a knee-jerk reaction. Suspicion is
heavily weighted on the black side of the equation. We are too quick to assume
that a black person did it."

"There could be some truth to that," Fiona
agreed, determined to be compliant. Above all she wanted to preserve her
relationship with Gail, both as friend and colleague. "Inasmuch as the District of Columbia is statistically more weighted on the black side, I think you might
get a much different take on the issue if you checked out Minneapolis for
example or cities in Montana, Wyoming or Utah for starters. In Oklahoma you might come up with Indians as the weighted group."

"I don't live in those places," Gail said.

Fiona paused, trying to offer the most studied response she
was capable of.

"Gail, why are we having this discussion ... why
now?"

"Because this case has made it clear."

"This case? Christ Gail. The killer is a black
juvenile of dubious mentality."

"Whose confession was beaten out of him by a white man
who thought he had the right to pluck this kid off the street and beat the
bejesus out of him."

"For which he was duly charged."

"That's beside the point. He felt empowered to do
it."

Fiona was having a hard time following her logic.
Nevertheless, she persevered.

"But you don't deny the evidence? This crime was
perpetrated by a fourteen year old boy who apparently still cannot distinguish
between right and wrong."

"Where did right and wrong ever get him?"

"Do I have to invoke the social worker theme again,
Gail? We are not in that business."

"This boy was created by decades of white bigotry,
hate, prejudice and indifference."

"Too bad Deb Shipley no longer has a chance to vote on
that contention."

"But she did vote. And her vote, like yours,
perpetuated the system."

"Pardon me, Gail. Are you suggesting she had a hand in
her own demise?"

"Indirectly. Yes."

"Is this Gail Prentiss talking? The privileged black
Princess, elite of elites, the best of the better. Come on Gail. Don't hold me
hostage to your guilt. I'm not putting down your epiphany, but you don't have
to lay it on the rest of us."

Fiona felt the heat of her anger, her attempt at cool
understanding demolished. It occurred to her suddenly that this was a no-win
argument. Gail was in thrall to an irrational certainty that led nowhere.
Surprisingly, Gail held her temper as if she had calculated just such a
response from Fiona.

"Never too late to discover truth."

"The boy did it Gail."

"And you had better heed his message. There are
battalions of them being created."

"Who creates the white killers, Gail?" Fiona
sighed.

Fiona was sorry now that she had opened this Pandora's box.
There seemed no point to further discussion on the politics of race with Gail,
and Fiona clammed shut until they arrived back at the headquarters parking lot.
Then suddenly Gail spoke. Fiona noted with relief that some semblance of reason
and concern had returned to her tone.

"You think they'll press a complaint?"

"They were pretty hot."

"I guess it's something I have to work out in my own
head."

"I told them you should seek counseling," Fiona
said.

"Do you really think so, Fi?"

"Like chicken soup. It couldn't hurt."

"It wasn't only the race thing that lit my fuse,
Fi."

"You could have fooled me."

"I was in LAPD for three years remember. I had it up
to here with Movie Kings and Queens. Most of them were stupid, narcissistic,
cruel and ambitious, ready to offer themselves to anyone, male, female or
gorilla to give them a career boost. They're sponges for celebrity, sucking up
adulation to fill these big empty holes in themselves. Their life is a
delusion. And if they stepped out of line, they couldn't understand why they
were treated the same as the rabble and a herd of paid protectors came in for
the quash."

"O.J. and spousal abuse," Fiona opined.

"Tip of the iceberg. DUI was a biggie. Also
accidentals, lots of accidentals. Rape was another. I had one myself. Boy said
he was raped by this big action hero. He was big all right. You should see how
he tore apart the boy's underside. Protectors came, paid off big and that was
that. The problem was keeping it away from the media. Sometimes the industry
boys had clout enough for that as well, but less so, they tell me, than it had
been in the early days."

"That was L.A. Gail. You can't hang the woman for the
sins of her industry."

"I suppose," she sighed. Fiona wondered if all
the heat had passed out of her. She took a chance.

"Well we did discover some things out of that mess.
Lionel Carpenter for starters." She watched Gail's face and saw no sign of
an impending storm. "A logical prime suspect, the fired employee."

"Maybe," Gail muttered.

"That's all I'm saying. Dealing with maybe."

Gail grew reflective and made no move to leave the car.

"Nevertheless," she said, drawing it out.

"Nevertheless what?"

"Let's not discount the obvious."

"Meaning?"

"Our superstar hated Madame."

"Wishful thinking, Gail."

Fiona remained silent as they unbuckled their seat belts
and got out of the car.