Firebird (15 page)

Alexandra spun around.

Anthony Rhodes, Eve’s third husband, stood behind her, towering and dark, holding a black umbrella above his head.  He stepped closer.

“Sorry, Alexandra.  I didn’t mean to scare you.”  He shifted the umbrella to shield her.  “Here,” he smiled as he bent toward her.  “Come in from the rain.”

His lips were warm against her cold cheek.

“Hello, Anthony.  How did you find me?”

“Mary said you’d gone out for a walk.”  He gazed down at the angel with clouded eyes.  “Who will grieve for this woman?  Where else would you go?”

She stared unseeing at the wet stone.  “I still can’t believe it,” she whispered.  “Everything my sister was – her beauty, her passion and fearlessness, that mercurial free spirit – suddenly
gone
!   Just… gone, in the blink of an eye.”

He gazed down at her.  “Everyone tells me it will get easier.”  He smiled softly.  “But when was anything ever easy with your sister?”

She returned his smile.  In his early sixties, Anthony Rhodes was tall and gaunt, with the lean patrician face and strong, hard angles usually found on a Greek coin.  Long silvery hair was swept back above eyes the color of blue rain.

He took her arm, his fingers firm and reassuring. 
No need to pull away
.  As she looked up at him, the rain hood fell to her shoulders.

“My God, Alexandra!  What have you done to your hair?”

Her fingers pushed at the short jagged spikes as she grinned weakly.  “To borrow a phrase from your step-daughter, I’ve empowered myself.”

“Don’t give up your day job, my dear.”  The low chuckle was comforting.  “And speaking of my wayward step-daughter, I want to thank you again for finding Juliet in Maine.  That girl is a real handful.  I trust she’s back at St. Theresa’s?”

“For the moment,” Alexandra said with a roll of her eyes.

“I’m glad you’re here.”

“I needed to come.”

His intense gaze fastened on her.  “Your face has been one of the enduring pleasures in life these last few years.  Eve was always - different - when you were around.  Easier.”

“Was she?”

“Of course.  How could you not know that?  I miss her,” he said quietly.  “Every night.  She had a light inside her...”  His long fingers touched the rain-washed stone.

She stared at his hands, caressing the angel’s face like a lover, and felt a strange, fierce longing trip in her chest. 
What
, she wondered,
would it be like to be loved like that
?  She would never know...

He turned away abruptly.  “Let’s go home.”

“No, not yet.”

“What is it, Alexandra?  I welcome your visit, surely, but something is on your mind to bring you back so soon.  It must be serious, if you didn’t bring Ruby with you.”  He stood silently, looking down at her, his silver brows arched like waves.

She took a deep breath.  “I’m not sure Eve took her own life.”

She watched his eyes turn to stone.  “Don’t do this, Alexandra.”

“I don’t believe it was suicide.  I don’t want to hurt you, Anthony.  But Eve loved you, she loved Juliet!  She
never
would have left her child.  I have too many questions.  I’ve come back to Washington to find out the truth.”

“What questions?  Why would you think such a thing?  Tell me what you know.”

“I don’t
know
anything, yet.”

“The investigation is closed, Alexandra.  Without proof, you have nothing.  Just let it be!”  His voice was hollow and full of anger.  “She’s gone.  Let her rest in peace.”

“Peace?  Dammit, Anthony, everyone thinks she committed
suicide
.  Including you.  But what if she
didn’t
take her life?  That means someone else did!”

“Good Christ, Alexandra!  The investigators labeled Eve’s death a suicide.  Not a murder.”

“Don’t we owe it to her to find out the truth?”

“Your sister
chose
to end her life.  You saw the note she left, for me and Juliet, saying how sorry she was.”

But no message for me.   “Yes, she was sorry.  But for what?”

“For leaving me, leaving all of us.  For all the problems she couldn’t surmount.  We’re all suffering survivor’s guilt now, Alexandra, but suicide is what all the evidence said.  Why would you believe anything else?”

“Because there was no
reason
, Anthony!”

“My rational Alexandra, still looking for motive.  Eve was drinking again, taking sleeping pills, strong anti-depressants.  I found the drugs, the empty liquor bottles hidden in her bedroom.”

“What do you mean, drinking
again
?”

“She’d been sober almost a year.  After she returned from the Betty Ford Clinic in January, she -  what’s the matter?”

“Eve never told me about the clinic.  Juliet swore her mother wasn’t drinking, but I didn’t believe it.  Didn’t believe
her
.  I didn’t know,” she shook her head helplessly.

“Evangeline kept her secrets from all of us, my dear.  Good and bad.  Sometimes I think she knew she would fall again, and couldn’t bear to see the disappointment in our eyes.”

“Eve started drinking when she was fourteen, Anthony.  And taking drugs not long after that.  Disappointment doesn’t
begin
to cover it.  But substance abuse never made her suicidal before.”

“What’s happened to put this doubt into your head?”

Alexandra turned her face away to gaze at the angel.  “You told me a moment ago that I’d need proof to reopen the investigation.  What if I told you that her death may be connected, somehow, to Charles Fraser?”

“Fraser!”

“Yes, the Senior Advisor to the President. 
That
Fraser.”  She saw the shock flare in his eyes.

“Let it go.”  He spoke slowly, as if to a child, his voice cold and hard.

“No.  I’ll understand if you won’t help me, but I can’t just ignore -”

“Dammit, Alexandra!  You’re opening a Pandora’s Box.  Tell me what you know about Fraser.”

“Eve had some connection to him.”  

“What connection?  Tell me.”

She hesitated, unwilling to hurt him.  “Eve discovered some secret involving Charles Fraser.  He met with someone, late one night at his apartment.  If I could just talk to Fraser, ask him - ”

“
Talk
with him?  Good God, didn’t you read about Fraser in the papers?”

She stared at her brother-in-law.  “I’ve been working twelve hours a day at the gallery.  Then I rush home to spend time with my daughter before I fall asleep on the sofa.  I haven’t seen a newspaper in weeks, Anthony.  What happened?”

“Charles Fraser is dead.  He died just days before Eve, in a terrible automobile crash.  His body was burned beyond recognition.”

CHAPTER 16

“...imperial friend - or the most agonizing spy...”

Emily Dickinson

“There are things you need to know,” said Anthony Rhodes.  “Things I’ve kept from you.”

He put his arm around her and drew her away from his wife’s grave.  Together they walked slowly up the hill toward the chapel.

Alexandra moved away from the comfort of his arm.  “What things?”

“Let’s go back to the townhouse, get dry, have a brandy and talk in the warmth of the study.”

“No.  Tell me now, Anthony.”

“What I know could destroy us all.”  He looked out over the blurred monuments.  “Charles Fraser and I go back a long way.  We met years ago, at the State Department.  Posted in Europe together, had many of the same friends.  I introduced him to Eve, God help me, at a press party here in Washington three years ago.  Just after we were married.”

“You liked him?”

“Highly.  A brilliant ivy-league lawyer with an international affairs background.   I opened doors for him.  Introduced him to the President - ” 

Rhodes stopped speaking and raised a hand to the bridge of his nose, as if it hurt to remember.  “Just over two weeks ago, Charles called me.  He was distraught -”

“Why did he call
you
?”

“Old statesmen never die, my dear.  They just - perform favors.  Charles was like a younger brother to me.  He relied on my advice.  I was his ‘Rabbi’ - his mentor.  I recommended him for his White House position.”

The rain dripped off the black edges of his umbrella.  “When Fraser called, he was frightened.  He told me he was involved in a dangerous White House investigation - and he warned me that Eve could be implicated.”

“Good God.  In what?”

Rhodes shook his head.  “He disconnected abruptly, as if he’d said too much.  It was the last time we spoke.” 

“Oh, Anthony!  The car accident?”

“Yes.  He wrapped his Porsche around a tree the same night.”  Rhodes raised a hand to brush the rain from his face.  “I would have helped him, Alexandra.  In spite of - everything.  But perhaps Charles chose his own way out.”

“In spite of what?  What does all this have to do with Eve?”

Rhodes looked away.  “Eve and Fraser were lovers, Alexandra.”

She closed her eyes, remembering the words in Eve’s recording. 
I was at Charlie’s, late at night.
  “But she loved
you
, Anthony, I know she did.”

“Yes, she loved me.  Once.  But - as sophisticated as she was, Eve was always trying to fill the emptiness.  Of course I knew about her affairs before we were married.  I thought I could change all that.  But she was like an exotic bird, Alexandra.  And I made the mistake of trying to keep her caged.”

What had Garcia said to her?  Bird or statue.  She said softly, “I’m sorry.  You didn’t deserve to be hurt.”

“I blame myself, more than Charles.  I had no illusions when I married your sister.  She was almost two decades younger than I...  I could have been her father, we all know it.  But she was so vibrant, enchanting.  Everyone who met her fell a little bit in love with her.”

“That was always true,” murmured Alexandra, lost for a moment in her own memories.

“We had separate bedrooms for the last year.”  At the shock in her eyes, he smiled grimly.  “She didn’t tell you that, did she?  No, of course she wouldn’t.”

“Anthony...”

“I think she continued to love me, in her own way.”  His face twisted with pain.  “You’ve got to let this go, Alexandra.  Charles and Eve are dead.  Now, we just need to protect Eve’s memory.”

“Protect her?”

“Yes, and Juliet as well.  My stepdaughter has suffered enough.” 

“But - ”  Alexandra spoke slowly, to herself, trying to understand.  “It doesn’t fit.  Eve had her first affair when she was seventeen.  Guilt just wasn’t her style.  She would never have taken her own life because of another man.”

They’d come to the Renwick Chapel at the top of the hill, and Rhodes stopped in front of the carved door.  “You’re right,” he said quietly.  “But she had another reason.  Your sister was being blackmailed.”

* * * *

The tiny chapel, dark and cold, smelled of old incense and damp stone.  Alexandra watched Anthony walk away, to stand alone in front of a small sanctuary candle.

Alexandra stared at him with disbelief.  “Blackmailed?  How is that possible?”

Rhodes’ voice dropped, edged with despair.   “Charles was a radical leftist in his youth.  He spent several years in the old Soviet Union as a student, and later as a State Department lawyer.  He’s  - he
was
- an expert in Russian politics and history.  Spoke the language fluently, had many dissident friends who still live in Moscow and St. Petersburg.  As an Intelligence advisor, his clearance was top-secret.  He had the President’s ear, encouraging what we call a ‘soft’ policy on the current Russian leadership.”

“I don’t like where you’re going with this.”

Rhodes smiled sadly.  “Your sister was the married lover of the President’s top advisor.  A man in a position to help determine U.S. policy.”

“Married women sleep with powerful men every night in this city.”

“True. But Eve went to Russia and Eastern Europe twice in the last year on feature assignments, attended countless receptions at the Embassies here in Washington.  We’re a small community, and she knew virtually everyone.  She made contact with several old-line Stalinists more than once.  I’m afraid there were several substantial, unexplained deposits in Eve’s bank accounts.  And... she was keeping secrets.  Lying.”

Alexandra thought of Eve’s recorder, now hidden in the Baranski Gallery safe.  So many secrets.

“Apparently,” said Rhodes, “she met Charles in St. Petersburg and they connected with his old friends at his favorite rendezvous sites - a dissident’s cafe on the banks of the Neva, Pushkin’s Bronze Horseman, Dostoevsky’s grave.”  Rhodes shook his head.  “Charles always did have a scholar’s appreciation of irony.”      

“That proves nothing, Anthony.  Eve would never – ”

His hand cupped her chin, drawing her face around to look at him.

“Alexandra,” he said gently.  “There are photographs.  Of Eve and Fraser together.”  He closed his eyes for a moment.  “And others, of Eve in Russia.  They show her passing information, supposedly obtained from Charles Fraser, to a man in St. Petersburg.  A man with ties to the current Russian regime.”

“You can’t believe that she would do that!”

“Of course I don’t believe it.  She was set up, I know that.  And now so do you.  My God, Alexandra, she must have felt so trapped.  And frightened!  If only she had come to me...”

“She was too smart to let blackmail scare her, Anthony.  There has to be something more!”

“Her secrets died with her.  But I found the remnants of photographs among the ashes in her bedroom fireplace after - after the suicide.”

“Remnants?  Then there is no proof.” 

“A duplicate set of photographs was delivered to my office.  God knows how many more copies there are.  Good Christ, they’re damning!  Those pictures could have destroyed Eve’s future.  And
mine
.”

“Oh, Anthony, no.”

“Welcome to real politics, Alexandra.  Your sister understood Washington, understood that such a scandal would have destroyed everything I ever worked for.”