Immaculate Deception (14 page)

"Does Dr. Benton know this?" Fiona asked. She was
calculating how many people up to that point knew the truth. Dr. Benton, of
course, and his assistant who would have transcribed his notes.

"We had us a little talk."

"He won't hide it and you know it."

"No, he won't. If asked. But for the moment, no one is
asking."

"However you slice it that puts us between a rock and
a hard place," Fiona said.

"Worse than that. The mayor promised to keep
Congressman Rome apprised." Apprahzed.

"Sounds like a little too kissassy political to
me," Fiona said, hoping she had put a sneer into her tone.

"Shall I convey these sentiments to hizzoner?"
the Eggplant said. She looked downward, surveying her well-kept nails,
assessing her cuticles. She just wanted him to be sure that she knew the ploy.
Not that it was at all sinister. The case was a hot potato. The House
leadership had leverage over the mayor. What good was leverage if it wasn't
judiciously exerted?

"So, we're the ones on the hook," Fiona said.

"In more ways than one. More than anything, they want
suicide," the Eggplant shrugged.

She did not respond, watching him. He walked to the window
again, looked out, blew smoke against the dirty windowpane.

"No way we're going to prove that," he said, his
anger rising as he spoke. "No way. Leaves a lot of grey area. If I was
them, the pro-lifers, I'd be sitting out there watching and waiting like a line
of circling vultures. We say suicide. They say cover-up, that we're hiding an
ideological murder for political purposes. And the prochoicers. We say suicide.
They saw why, then start poking around and soon we got the press on our ass and
more troubles."

He turned from the window. No longer the poseur, he was
basic Eggplant now. Telling it the way it was. No frills, no flakery, no
bullshit.

"I hate it when they use us hardworking cops to do their
political dirty work. Okay, maybe we're not the top of the ladder prestige-wise
or money-wise. But we're out there in the front lines putting our substance
between them and the bad guys. I'm not talking causes here. Not race. Not
liberal, conservative, right wing, left wing. Not abortion, anti or pro. Not
nothing but cops."

She looked at Cates who was a mirror of her own
frustration.

"So where does that leave us?" she whispered.

He seemed to rear up like a bear on his hind legs, his
words almost a growl.

"We've got to find us a killer, preferably one who
would be relieved to confess."

Cates and Fiona exchanged glances.

"How much time do we have?"

The Eggplant looked at his watch.

"You got until high noon," he said.

"I should have expected that," Fiona said.
"I saw the movie."

Cates was visibly depressed. They were sitting at one of
Sherry's chrome, Naugahyde and Formica booths, drinking more cups of coffee
than was good for them. For him, Fiona knew, the McGuire case was a rite of
passage.

She had not been thrilled at being paired with Cates. He
had no visible street smarts. Worse, he was an idealist, which was charming,
but misplaced in his profession of choice.

He was also a bit of an esthete, a totally useless virtue
in their line of work. On the other hand, he was efficient, analytical, loyal,
trustworthy and compassionate. Not too shabby for a cop. He also moved with the
quick sureness of a panther, had a black belt, was a crack shot and fearless.

After three months together, she had stopped bullying him
and his respectful willingness to learn how to be better won her respect.
Despite the cases they had worked on, he had actually managed to keep himself
above the cynicism and disillusionment that was a natural affliction of their
work, like lung disease to a miner. Sooner or later, she knew, the affliction
would invade his cells. Unfortunately, it was destined to make him less savory
as a human being, but a greatly improved homicide detective. She wondered if
the McGuire case would see the first penetration of his immune system.

"He's putting our careers at risk," Cates said.
"We're civil servants not politicians."

"Where you been pal? Life is politics."

"Not my life," he muttered.

"That's your problem, Cates. You haven't got a devious
enough mind. You need a higher level of sophistication. It takes practice to
talk out of both sides of your mouth. The important thing is to never lose
sight of your objective."

"And what's that?"

"The truth."

Again she felt the pang of guilt about Greg and what she
had done, sharper now, an acute pain. She was a dissimulator, a liar babbling
platitudes about truth.

She and Greg had come home from Boston Sunday night and he
had dropped her off at her home.

Then he had called her first thing in the morning. He knew
her habits, of course, the exact hour she rose.

"Missed you like crazy," he said. "Just
wanted you to know."

"Mighty cold here all alone," she had bantered,
actually patting the left side of the bed which was ordinarily his place when
he stayed over.

"Doesn't have to be," he had told her.

A warning signal went off in her mind. What was he saying?
He interpreted her silence as encouragement.

"Call it a trial run," he said.

She knew, of course, exactly what he meant. Living
together. A scary concept considering what she hoped was going on in her body.

"We'll see," she said. It was what she had
dreaded most. He was rewriting the script.

"Not pushing," he said, backing off. "Just
falling in love."

"What!"

Love? She hadn't called what she felt by that name.
Attracted? Yes. Turned on? Absolutely. But love? She dismissed it from her
thoughts. Her objective here was procreation. Not love.

"Talk about it next weekend," he said. She caught
a hint of disappointment. You're making a federal case out of this, she
thought, but she didn't say it. Finally, he hung up leaving her shaken. He
wasn't supposed to do that.

She resented this intrusion on her thoughts. She had kept
it at bay all during the Eggplant's morning revelations. But it was her own
attack on Cate's lack of deviousness that had penetrated her defenses.

"Seems to me he wants to get us to push due process to
the wall," Cates said. "Find this killer at all costs. Even if we
can't make it stick. Unless, we squeeze it out of him. Maybe we get ourselves
some rubber truncheons."

"I kind of like the idea," she said. "Full
of surprises, that dude, considering that he may be better off to just lay down
and cry suicide."

"Makes sense to me," Cates muttered.
"Despite his big number about cover-up."

"Keep an open mind, pal," she teased.

"Wouldn't have been in this pickle if that
self-centered showboat would have kept his mouth shut. A mystery, he called it.
Just to satisfy his ego and vanity. No mystery as far as I can see." He
brought his coffee cup to his lips, forgetting the coffee was cold. He shook
his head and spit a mouthful back into the cup. "He was right about one
thing. You did bring back motives from Boston but nothing that contradicts
suicide."

"And you, Cates. What did your little sortie turn up
last weekend?"

"Not much."

He proceeded to tell her. He had put in long hours and lots
of shoe leather. Nobody could research a case better than Cates. He was a
stickler for detail.

Among others, he had interviewed the person who manned the
apartment house desk that night, a Nigerian. His report to Fiona was brisk,
succinct. Mrs. McGuire had switched phone answering back to her apartment when
she came home. Up to the time Foy arrived it had been a routine shift. Nor had
the man noticed any strangers coming through the lobby. He did his best to
recall but he could have missed someone. Tenants of that building were a
demanding bunch, the man had pointed out. Always needing something.

"Some security," Fiona chuckled.

"He was the night man. A full-time student. Only on
the job two months."

Foreign students who worked mostly nights were a Washington subculture. Living on the economic brink, they took lowly jobs as parking
attendants, apartment desk men, caretakers, gas pump attendants or all-night
waiters.

"But it is a prestige building nonetheless,"
Cates explained. "Ten congressmen live there. Three senators and a cabinet
member. Even our present watchdog, the eminent Congressman Rome, lives there
with his wife."

Fiona remembered Rome's words at the service. He had said
he was a neighbor.

"I interviewed the people that lived on either side of
her and across the hall. All said she was a quiet neighbor, kept to herself.
Always pleasant, gave them a ready smile and a hello. They did say, however,
that she was often seen in the building with a man. In the lobby. Coming up the
elevator. Coming out of her apartment. Chubby fellow with lots of chins."

"Foy."

"The desk man thought, at first, that he was her
husband or boyfriend." Cates paused, then smiled archly. He hadn't
completed the explanation.

"What made him change his mind?"

"It was the way he said it. A wink. More like a leer.
Highly doubtful, he told me. One night the man arrived drunk. The clear
implication of the Nigerian was that Foy made a pass."

"When?" Fiona asked.

"The man only worked there two months."

"Maybe Foy wanted the new man to think that. Sort of a
cover ploy," Fiona said. "Best there was. She could then be having an
affair with impunity."

"Impunity didn't plant that child," Cates said, a
rare joke for him.

"You didn't mention it to the Eggplant. The stuff
about the pass at the desk man."

"No." He shook his head as if to emphasize the
point. The fact was that Cates hadn't briefed the Eggplant on anything that
morning. After Fiona had made her report, he had erupted.

"It wasn't mentioned because you wrote Foy off as a
suspect, right?"

"I thought we all did," Cates said, obviously
confused by her sudden pressure. "He seems obvious to me. He's effeminate,
a pufter boy as we called it in the old country."

"You believe the Nigerian?"

"He had no reason to lie."

"He take Foy up on it?"

"He said no."

"Not like you Cates. To throw in your hand so early.
The fact is you have no proof on Foy's sex bias."

She watched his nostrils twitch. Then he shook his head and
offered a joyless smile.

"Christ, Fi. If I didn't know you better, I'd say you
were trying to make that poor bastard the killer? Deliver the Eggplant his
patsy."

She studied him, searching for some excuse to cap her
anger. The politics of the situation was getting to him.

"You got a bug up your ass, Cates," she said.

He lowered his eyes and shrugged and she sensed his
embarrassment.

"He just got me riled," he muttered.

"The point is that I'm sure as hell not writing Foy
off. Not yet. That lady died with a baby growing in her uterus. It wasn't
immaculate conception. Somebody did it. As for the man's being dubbed a gay,
never believe rumors or hearsay. Only way you know if a man is overtly gay is
if he admits it or you catch him at it. As for all the closet stuff, leave that
to the psychiatrists. I've seen lots of sissy boys who screw women and lots of
macho men who are gay. Watch out for those clichés, Cates. In our business
nothing is ever as it seems."

He needed a little more bullying, she had decided.

"All right then, let's ask the son of a bitch,"
Cates said. "Settle it one way or another."

"And if he says 'Yes, I am,' he's got his alibi."

"And if he says 'No,' he's automatically a
suspect?"

"Maybe. Unless he's some kind of a neuter, one of
these guys who couldn't care less. Lots of them around, you know." She
winked. "I've met my share."

He grew thoughtful. And she felt remorse.

"I know. I'm being a pain in the butt. We're missing
something is all I'm saying. We're also working under a severe handicap. We
need more troops on this."

"Widen the circle? Hell, he wants to keep it
contained. That way he can blame us."

Fiona chuckled.

"Maybe we should get us a little insurance on
that," Fiona said.

"Like what?"

"I'll think of something."

"Okay, let's keep Foy open," he said, somewhat
grudgingly.

"Let's keep everything open," Fiona replied.
"Stick with the objective facts here. Frankie McGuire had sex with
somebody and she took no precautions."

"Maybe she thought she was too old to conceive?"

"She probably was. Forty-seven. Normally over the hill
for that."

"Let's put it down as an accident. Passion must have
gotten the better of her judgment."

"Or his."

"It happens, I suppose," he said, lowering his
eyes. She had noted in him a prudish streak. He rarely used the "F"
word and often spoke in euphemisms when discussing sex. Like now.

"Was she a whore, you think?" she asked. "A
hardup lady on the make looking for young meat." Although his skin color
didn't show it, she knew he was blushing.

"Doesn't fit. Not from what I was able to find,"
he answered crisply, still averting his eyes.

"No way," she agreed. "She was too image
conscious, too political. She wouldn't take the chance."

"But she apparently did take the chance," Cates
countered. It was a little victory for him and it seemed to burn away any
brewing anger.

"Considering the results," Fiona said, "she
certainly did." Again the thought of Greg and her own "chance"
clashed through her mind.

"There wasn't anything the immediate neighbors said
that we could hang a hat on either," Cates continued. "Sometimes, the
neighbors told me, she would entertain, have a cocktail party. Mostly
Congressional business, constituents, colleagues, some of whom lived in the
building. She was seen a lot with the Romes, though. They were a threesome.
Occasional dinner and a show kind of thing. Squares with what Foy and May
Carter said. Cavorting with the enemy. Something like that."

She knew he was thorough, his interrogations revealing and
precise. But there was nothing in them that could satisfy the Eggplant and he knew
it. It boiled down to the same dilemma and led to the obvious.

"He's got us chasing rainbows, Fi."

"We could be overlooking something," she said. It
was the homicide detective's ultimate cliché.

"I also checked the Boston shuttle. They faxed me a
passenger roster for the week before the crime. No Grady. No McGuire."

"Doesn't matter. They both have alibis.
Airtight," Fiona said.

"I also checked out May Carter. Hell, if it was a
murder it has all the signs of a woman's touch. Poison. A female's weapon of choice."

Good point, she thought. Forty percent of murders were
committed by women. Since they weren't traditionally involved with violence and
firearms, females used other means. Poison and fire were their favorites.

"Struck out on old May, too," Cates said.
"She was at a Right-to-Life meeting in Kansas."

"So, it's back to Foy," Fiona said. She looked at
Cates and shrugged.

"Poor bastard," Cates said. The compassion was
real, despite his earlier remarks. For a moment it crossed her mind that Cates
might be gay. He was surprisingly delicate, with soft sensual thin lips and
brooding dark eyes. He was also thin, tapered. One might say he was effeminate.
But, no, he had a steady, Arleen, a nurse at the Washington Hospital Center. See, she rebuked herself, how easy it was to fall into the trap of making
judgments on appearances alone.

"Maybe we should put it to Foy once and for all,"
Fiona suggested. "Fact is he's our only suspect."

"And for your second choice?"

Fiona didn't answer.

"The Eggplant's good," Cates said, "but he's
been wrong before."

"He's not wrong," she snapped. "It's
us."

"Not me," he persisted. "You know where I
stand."

"Maybe that's what's wrong. No fire in the
belly."

"That's not it," he replied.

"What then?"

"No clues," he said. "Killers can't be
manufactured. Not even Foy."

"No they can't," she agreed. "But I've got
this theory."

"What theory?"

"Find the father. Find the killer."