Paper Doll (16 page)

“Cornmeal mush?” Susan said.

“We gourmets prefer to call it polenta,” I said.

I put the whisk down and picked up a wooden spoon and stirred the cornmeal more slowly as it thickened.

“What are those crumby things on the platter?” Susan said.

She was sitting at my counter going through a glass of Gewurztraminer at the speed of erosion. She was wearing a pair of fitted tan slacks, a lemon sweater, and a matching tan coat that was part of the outfit and reached to her knees. She looked like Hollywood’s vision of the successful female executive.

“Those are chicken breasts pounded flat and coated with cornbread crumbs,” I said. “And flavored with rosemary.”

“Will you fry them in lard?” Susan said.

“I will coat a fry pan with corn oil and then pour it out, leaving a thin film in the pan, then I will gently saute the breast cutlets until golden brown,” I said.

“Exactly,” Susan said.

“And for dessert,” I said, “there’s sour cherry pie.”

She poured a teaspoon more wine into her glass. Pearl reared up beside her and put her front paws on the counter and made a try for the chicken cutlets. She missed and I picked up a scrap from the cutting board and gave it to her.

“You are rewarding inappropriate behavior,” Susan said.

“Yes.”

Pearl dashed into the bedroom to eat the chicken scrap. I kept stirring the polenta waiting for it to be right.

“You haven’t said a word about things in Alton,” Susan said.

“I know. I need to think about it,” I said.

“Before you talk to me?” Susan said.

“Yes.”

Susan raised her eyebrows and widened her eyes.

“You know,” I said, “since I saw you in that guidance office in Smithfield in 1974, I have never looked at you without feeling a small thrill of electricity in my solar plexus.”

The polenta was done. I took it off the stove and let it rest on a trivet on the counter.

“Even first thing in the morning when I don’t have my face on and I have my hair up?” Susan said.

“Even then,” I said. “Although in those circumstances I’m probably reacting to potential.”

Susan leaned forward over the counter and kissed me. I kissed her back and felt the residual darkness of that atrium room begin to recede. She pressed her mouth against mine harder as if she could feel my need and put her hands gently on each side of my face and opened her mouth. I put my hands under her arms and lifted her out of the chair and over the counter. It knocked her wineglass over and it broke on the floor. Neither of us paid it any attention. The feel of her against me was rejuvenating, like air long needed, like thirst quenched. We stood for a long time, fiercely together. We never made it to the bedroom. We did well to make the couch.

Afterwards we lay quietly with each other, and Pearl, who had managed to find room on the couch where I would have said there was none.

“In front of the baby,” Susan said.

Her voice had that quality it always had after lovemaking. As if she were on her way back from somewhere far that she’d been.

“Maybe she showed a little class,” I said, “and looked away.”

“I seem to recall her barking at a very critical juncture.”

“For heaven’s sake,” I said. “I thought that was you.”

Susan giggled into my shoulder where she was resting her head.

“You yanked me right over the counter,” she said.

“I didn’t yank,” I said. “I swept.”

“And spilled the wine and broke the wineglass.”

“Seemed worth it at the time,” I said.

“Usually I like to undress and hang my clothes up neatly.”

“So why didn’t you resist?” I said.

“And miss all the fun?”

“Of course not.”

“When do you think you’ll talk about Alton?”

“Pretty soon,” I said. “I just have to give it a little time.”

Susan nodded and kissed me lightly on the mouth.

“Let’s leap up,” she said. “And guzzle some polenta.”

“Guzzle?”

“Sure.”

“We gourmets usually say savor,” I said.

Susan nodded and got off the couch and got her clothes rearranged. Then she looked at me and smiled and shook her head.

“Right over the goddamned counter,” she said.

Susan and I sat near the back of the small plain church, while the minister blathered. It was probably not his fault that he blathered. Ministers are expected to speak as if death were not the final emperor. But it came out, as it usually did, blather. Farrell sat with a guy that looked like him, and a woman and two small children. Brian’s mother and father sat across the aisle.

There were maybe eight other people in the church. I didn’t recognize any of them except Quirk, who stood in the back, his hands folded calmly in front of him, his face without expression. The church doors stood open and the gray rain came bleakly down on the black street. Susan held my hand.

After the service, Farrell came out of the church and introduced us to the guy that looked like him. It was his brother. The woman was his brother’s wife, and the kids were Farrell’s nephews.

“My mother and father wouldn’t come,” he said.

“How too bad for them,” Susan said.

Quirk came to stand beside us.

“Thank you for coming, Lieutenant,” Farrell said.

“Sure,” Quirk said.

Farrell moved on with his brother on one side and his sister-in-law on the other. His nephews, small and quiet, frightened by death, probably, each held a parental hand.

“Tough,” Quirk said. “You back from another visit to South Carolina?”

We were standing under an overhang out of the cold rain, which came grimly down.

“Yeah.”

“You got anything?”

“I don’t know yet.”

Quirk frowned.

“What the hell does that mean?” he said.

“Means I don’t know yet.”

Quirk looked at Susan. She smiled like Mona Lisa.

“Christ,” Quirk said to her. “You get better every time I see you.”

“Thank you, Martin,” she said. He looked back at me.

“Call me when you know,” he said, and turned his raincoat collar up and went down the steps to an unmarked police car and drove away. I turned up my collar too, and took Susan’s hand, and walked down the steps and away from the church in the rain, which was cold and hard and without respite.

“It bother you that Stratton was so interested in this case?” he said.

“He wants to be President,” I said.

“And all he was trying to cover up was adultery?”

I shrugged.

“The cover-up was more dangerous to him than what he was trying to cover up,” Farrell said.

“Guys like Stratton don’t think that way. They think about fixing, about putting a new spin on it, about reorganizing it so it comes out their way.”

“He stole most of the Tripps’ money,” Farrell said.

I sat back in my chair.

“Why do you know that and I don’t?” I said.

Farrell was carefully prying the plastic cap off his paper coffee cup, holding it away from him so it wouldn’t spill on him. He got the cover off and blew on the coffee gently for a moment, and then took a swallow. His face was still tight with grief, but there was also a hint of self-satisfaction.

“You been thinking about who killed the woman,” Farrell said. “I been thinking about other stuff like Stratton, like what the hell happened to all that money. Everybody says Mrs. Tripp spent it all, but on what? It’s hard to go through that kind of money at Bloomingdale’s.”

“So you chased Tripp’s expenditures,” I said.

“Yeah. Checks written by him, or her. They had a joint account. His didn’t show us anything unusual. He kept writing them even when there was no money. But you already knew that.”

“Mine bounced,” I said.

“There’s a clue,” Farrell said. He drank some more coffee. “Her checks were more interesting.”

“I didn’t see any of hers when I looked at his checkbook,” I said. “But she’d been dead awhile, probably hadn’t written any.”

“Good point,” Farrell said. “I went back about five years.”

“Tripp didn’t object?”

Farrell shook his head. “Didn’t talk to him,” he said. “I went through the bank’s records. She wrote regular, like monthly, large checks to an organization called The Better Government Coalition, which is located in a post office box in Cambridge, and headed by a guy named Windsor Freedman. We’re having a little trouble locating Windsor. He lists his address as University Green on Mt. Auburn Street. It’s a condo complex, and nobody there ever heard of him. But the Mass. Secretary of State’s office lists The Better Government Coalition as a subsidiary of The American Democratic Imperative in D.C. And the president of that operation is a guy named Mal Chapin.”

Farrell paused to drink coffee. He looked at me while he swallowed.

“I know that name,” I said.

“So did Quirk,” Farrell said. “You remember where you heard it?”

“Motel room in Alton, South Carolina,” I said. “Mal Chapin is in Stratton’s office.”

“Pretty good,” Farrell said. “Of course I mentioned that Quirk knew it too; that was a clue.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I’m excited. Usually when I get a clue, I trip over it, and skin my knee.”

“Quirk’s talking with somebody in the FBI, see about getting one of their accountants to check out The Democratic Imperative, see what they do with their money.”

“You figure it supports Stratton.”

“Sure,” Farrell said. “A charity with no offices, wholly owned by another charity, with no offices, headed by a guy works for Stratton. What do you think we’ll find out?”

“That it supports Stratton,” I said.

“That’s what we’ll find out,” Farrell said. “Maybe there’s a motive in it. Maybe Olivia Nelson knew what was going on and they had a lover’s quarrel and she was going to blow the whistle on him.”

“And he got a hammer and beat her brains out one night?”

“Maybe he had it done.”

“By somebody that would use a hammer?”

“Possible.”

“Sure,” I said. “But likely?”

Farrell shook his head slowly.

“Not likely.”

“Stratton know you’ve been investigating him?”

“Shouldn’t,” Farrell said.

“I’d like to bring them all together and confront him with it.”

“All of who?”

“Tripp, his kids, Stratton, see what comes out of it.”

Farrell stared at me for a couple of long moments. Then he shook his head slowly.

“You’re still trying to fix that family,” Farrell said. “You just want to shake the old man out of his trance if you can.”

I shrugged, drank some coffee.

“You could just stick to finding out who killed the woman?”

“Might make sense to bring them together,” I said. “Something might pop out. No harm to it.”

“No harm to you,” he said. “Might be some harm to a detective second grade who accuses a U.S. Senator of a felony without all his evidence in yet.”

I nodded.

“Be stupid to do that,” Farrell said. “Especially if being a gay detective second grade made command staff ill at ease anyway, so to speak.”

I nodded again.

“Unless, of course, you made the charge,” Farrell said.

“Without saying how I knew it,” I said. “And you simply called us together to give the Senator a chance to respond privately, before any formal inquiry began.”

“A chance to lay these baseless charges to rest,” Farrell said.

“Sure,” I said.

“Want to meet here?”

“I’m the guy making the baseless charges,” I said.

“Okay,” Farrell said.

There was silence while we both drank the rest of our coffee. Then Farrell put his cup in my wastebasket and stood.

“I’ll be in touch,” he said.

“I know you are going out a little ways on a limb,” I said. “Thanks.”

“Nice of you to come to the funeral,” Farrell said.

Stratton looked at neither Farrell, nor at me. He shook hands with Loudon Tripp and put a hand on his shoulder while he did it. Unspoken condolence. Then Stratton shook Chip’s hand and they gave each other a manly hug and clap on the back.

“Great to see you, Bob,” Chip said. He wasn’t very old and you could tell he liked calling a U.S. Senator by his first name.

We got arranged. Stratton and Loudon Tripp in the two client chairs. Farrell leaning on the wall to my left. The two Tripp children to my right, a little back from the group. Chip looking aggressive, ready to slap a half nelson on someone, Meredith looking passively at the floor.

“Okay, gentlemen,” Stratton said. He smiled at Meredith, who made no eye contact. “And lady. Let’s get to it. You called us together, Officer. What have you got?”

Stratton looked tanned and healthy. His hair was perfectly trimmed and trying its best to look plentiful. His pinstripe suit was well cut. His white shirt crisp and new. He still wore his trench coat, unbuttoned, the belt tucked into the pockets. All in all he was direct, competent, square dealing, straight shooting, judicious, and nice.

Farrell looked edgy and tired.

“Spenser here came to me with some allegations which I thought we’d best confront privately, Senator.”

Stratton’s glance shifted to me. The pale blue eyes as hard as chrome.

“Allegations?”

“Involving the Tripps,” Farrell said.

Stratton continued to stare at me.

“You are becoming something of a pain in the butt,” he said, “Maybe I should have put you out of business a while ago.”

“Being a pain in the butt is my profession,” I said. “What’s the first word that comes to mind when I say The Better Government Coalition?”

Stratton’s eyes became more opaque.

“The American Democratic Imperative?” I said.

Stratton didn’t speak.

“Mal Chapin?”

Stratton stood up.

“That is just about enough of that,” he said. “I am not going to sit here and listen to some cheap private eye trolling for some way to make a name for himself at my expense.”

“I’m cheaper than you think,” I said. “The only check I got for this job bounced.”

Stratton turned toward the door. Farrell went and leaned against it.

“Why not hear him out, Senator, in front of witnesses. Maybe he’ll do something actionable.”

“You get out of my way,” Stratton said.

Farrell’s voice was soft. He was standing face-to-face with Stratton.

“Sit down,” he said.

“Who in hell do you think…?” Stratton started.

“Now.”

Stratton stepped back from the force of the single word.

“I’m sick of you, Stratton,” Farrell said. “I’m sick of the phony macho. I’m sick of the self-importance. I’m sick of the way you comb your hair over your goddamned bald spot. Sit and listen or I’ll bust your stupid senatorial ass.”

“What charge?” Stratton said.

But it was weak. The game was over the moment Stratton stepped back.

“Violation of no-dork zoning regulations,” Farrell said. “Sit down.”

Stratton sat.

“What’s the first word that comes to mind,” I said, “when I say The Better Government Coalition? The American Democratic Imperative? Mal Chapin?”

“Mal works for me,” Stratton said. His voice shook a little. “In my office. I don’t know those other things.”

“Mal work for you full-time?” I said.

“Yes. He’s my chief of staff.”

“Hard job?”

“Hard.” Stratton began to make a comeback. He was on familiar ground. “And thankless. We are involved in very many crucial national and international issues. Mal works ten, fifteen hours a day.”

“Not much time for another job,” I said.

Stratton realized he’d been led down the path. He tried to backtrack.

“Certainly he works hard, but what he does in his off-hours…” Stratton shrugged and spread his hands.

“He’s listed as the President of The American Democratic Imperative,” I said. “A charitable organization based in Washington.”

Stratton shook his head in silence.

“Before her death, Olivia Nelson regularly made large contributions to The Better Government Coalition, in Cambridge. The Better Government Coalition is listed as a subsidiary of The American Democratic Imperative, which is headed by your chief of staff.” Stratton stared straight ahead.

“And you have told me directly that you were intimate with Olivia Nelson,” I said.

The words hung in the room, drifting like the dust of ruination.

Then Loudon Tripp said, “Enough. I’ll hear no more, Spenser. I’m responsible for all of this. I hired you. I brought you and your dirty mind and your gutter morals into all of this. And now you contrive to dirty my dead wife and my friend with one lie.”

“He’s not your friend, Mr. Tripp,” I said. “He slept with your wife. He stole your money.”

“No,” Tripp said. “I’ll hear no more.”

He stood up. Chip stepped in beside him.

“You can’t stop me,” he said to Farrell. “Come on, kids.”

“Last chance,” I said to Tripp. “For all of you. You’ve got to look at this. You’ve got to stop pretending.”

“Get out of my way,” Tripp said again. His voice sounded strangled. “Not my wife, not with my friend.”

He moved past Farrell toward the door. Chip went with him, knotted with excitement, frantic to explode. Meredith stared at him with her mouth half open, motionless.

“Come along, Meredith,” Tripp said. Except that his voice was strangled, he spoke to her as if she were dawdling by a toy store.

“He’s… not… your… friend,” Meredith said.

“Meredith,” Tripp said. The squeezed-out voice was parental-exasperated, long-suffering-but not unloving.

“For crissake, Mere,” Chip said.

“He… was… fucking her,” Meredith said.

Tripp flinched. Chip’s face reddened.

“He was fucking me,” she said in a rush. “Since I was fourteen and he came in my room at one of those big parties.”

The silence in the room was stifling. No one moved. Meredith was rigid, her hands at her sides, a look of shock on her face.

“Jesus,” Chip said. “Mere, why didn’t you…?”

“Dr. Faye says I was getting even with Mommy, and I wanted Daddy to…” She put both her hands suddenly over her mouth and pressed them, palm open, hard against her face, and slowly slid her back down the wall until she was sitting on the floor, her legs splayed in front of her. Chip looked at his father, who seemed frozen in time, then he went suddenly to his knees beside his sister and put his arms around her and pressed her head against his chest. She let him hold her there.

Loudon Tripp stared for a moment at both of them, and then, without looking at anyone else, he walked across my office and out the door and down the corridor past the two guys in their London Fogs. They looked in the office uncertainly. Farrell shook his head at them and they stepped away from the door.

Stratton continued to sit in his chair with his head down, staring at the floor, contemplating his ruin.

Human voices wake us, and we drown.