Murder on Capitol Hill (19 page)

There was a pause as he played with the broken pencil, slapped it down on the desk, took out his pocket watch and looked at it, not as someone checking the time but almost as though it were an object in which he could hide. The watch still in his hand, he said, “I’ve told you this much, Lydia, I might as well go all the way. You’ll remember when we had drinks that I mentioned there had been a problem in the family that developed from my brother’s relationship
with Jimmye. I suppose ‘relationship’ is the appropriate word. Jimmye and Mark Adam had become involved long before he joined the cult. It was the sort of thing any family would try to sweep under the rug. Imagine the reaction inside a family like ours. Here’s a United States senator, and a wife who is one of the leading patrons of the arts in America. They take in an infant girl who’s related to the wife and bring her up as a daughter, giving her every advantage, treating her as an equal to their two natural sons. What does she end up doing? She ends up climbing into one of the sons’ beds, not just once but on a regular basis.”

Lydia felt very sorry for Cale at that moment. His eyes asked for understanding, not only of the story he was telling but of the difficulty he was having in putting it into words.

He then moved into a long monologue, a sort of stream-of-consciousness recall of the events in the Caldwell household that centered around the discovery that Jimmye and Mark Adam had been intimate. “You’ve got to understand that Mark Adam is a very intense person. Sure, especially a young woman, might feel this was a dynamic quality, be drawn to it. And, sad to say, along with the pleasure of it, our Jimmye’s ambitions were not unreasonably keyed to the older, firstborn Caldwell…

“…I’ll never forget for the rest of my days that moment when Mother walked into Jimmye’s room and saw them together in bed. God, Lydia, it was the beginning of a nightmare in our family—”

“What did your parents do? Surely they must have tried to put an end to it.”

“Of course. They counseled, pleaded, threatened—the works. There would be long stretches where it appeared it was over. During those times the family almost seemed to return to the normalcy it once had. But then it would surface again and all hell would break loose.”

Lydia slumped in the chair. She couldn’t escape the mental images of the stocky, brooding Mark Adam Caldwell with Jimmye McNab… She’d really not known Jimmye very well, though the occasions when they had been together had been pleasant, and Lydia recalled that each time she was quite impressed with the young journalist. No question, Jimmye had been an extremely beautiful girl—tall, slender and lithe. Her hair was more a mane, and she wore it loose, which gave her a hedonistic quality to men.

Lydia also recalled that Jimmye’s ambitions were nearly as different as her appearance—not necessarily a bad quality; in fact, it made her seem sort of disarmingly frank, honest. Veronica had wryly observed on occasion that Jimmye would undoubtedly become
whatever
it was she wanted—the top network anchorwoman in America, or the world’s leading brain surgeon. The girl was bright, talented and, above all, goal-directed…

“It must have been an awful thing to live with,” Lydia said, and meant it.

“It tore us apart,” Cale said. “I suppose every family is tested. Well, this was our supreme test. In a way, it showed that the Caldwell stock is a strong one. Lots of people I know would have folded under the pressure.”

“What happened when Mark Adam joined the
cult? One would think that would have put an end to it.”

“No. It
seemed
to have ended before that. Jimmye had left the house and was involved with other men. We still suspected that Mark Adam was seeing her on occasion, but nothing was ever said about it. Usually, brothers are close enough to share those kinds of secrets, but there was never any of that between Mark Adam and me. It was as though we were from two different worlds. Two very different people. We may share some genes, but they sure worked in wondrously different ways in us… Of course, we could only speculate that the experience with Jimmye had, in some way, helped provoke the psychic break that led my brother to go for a life in a religious cult. Who knows what guilt he carried with him? Whatever it was, it was enough to drive him to kill Jimmye—who I guess he came to see as some evil force he had to exorcise, or whatever their damn jargon is.”

“What about Jimmye?” Lydia asked. “Didn’t she feel guilty about what had happened? It would seem to me that a young woman in her position, having been taken into a loving family and treated as an equal to that family’s natural children, would have
some
sense of honor, some commitment to that family.”

“I’m afraid Jimmye wasn’t bothered by such restraints. We all loved her very much, and in her own way I suppose she loved us. But… well, we’ve all known ambitious people, but Jimmye’s ambition had crossed the line into ruthlessness. I don’t know whether you were aware of that.”

“No, I wasn’t. Not to that extent. I knew that she
was hard-driving and determined to succeed, but… frankly, Cale, all of this comes as a shock. I’m not sure I’m able to absorb it all at this moment, put it into perspective.”

“You may never be able to, Lydia. I haven’t.”

As Lydia prepared to leave his office, she asked him why he had decided to take her into his confidence this way.

“As I said when you first came in, Lydia, the Caldwell family has been embarrassed and hurt enough by Jimmye’s actions. Mark Adam did obviously manage to see her again after joining the cult—or
she
managed it. He’s also told me that Jimmye threatened to go to our mother and father and demand cooperation—”

“‘Cooperation’?”

“Money. I told you, Jimmye had crossed over the line to ruthlessness. Of course, my brother… not exactly stable… tragically overreacted. We’d dealt with so many problems with Jimmye that this would not have been as monumentally important as he felt. I’ve no doubt that that cult and its mysticism helped push him to the act, too. Who knows, he may have seen himself not as the family savior but some kind of avenging angel. That cult helps them think in those terms, it seems… The point is, Jimmye is dead and my brother, God help him, killed her. There are very few people I’d have shared all this with… I know it will stay with you.” His expression made the point that to violate his faith would not be taken lightly.

She asked, “Does your mother know you planned to tell me this?”

He hesitated, then said, “Yes. And she approved.”

“What about the rumors that… well, that your father had had an intimate relationship with Jimmye, too? I’m sorry to ask but since we’re getting everything out—”

He threw his hands up into the air. “It’s nonsense, Lydia. It’s cruel gossip. I’m not going to protest too much, because that will only add to it. No, the only Caldwell—and one is too many—who got involved was my brother.”

Lydia stood, picked up her briefcase and took a few steps toward the door. She stopped, turned. “Thank you, Cale. I’m pleased that you think enough of me to trust me with this.”

He came around the desk and shook her hand. “Mother and I both felt that you
deserved
to know. And we have the ulterior motive of hoping, by this full disclosure, that you’ll agree there’s no need for any of this to become part of any further investigation or any report by your committee.”

Lydia nodded. Under the circumstances, it was the least she could do. But she also did no more, quickly departing.

***

After Lydia had left, Cale Caldwell picked up a private telephone and dialed his mother’s office number.

“How did it go?”

“Just fine, Mother. I think Lydia
finally
understands that there’s no need to expose our family secrets. She’s a friend, Mother, and I believe a good one.”

“Yes, I’ve always known that,” Veronica Caldwell said. “I would never have considered her for the special
counsel’s spot unless I at least had been confident of that. Well, thank you, Cale. I feel a little better. Maybe all of this will
finally
be over.”

“It will, Mother. You know, as I talked to Lydia, I felt a renewed pride in being a Caldwell. Something I caught. You…”

His mother sighed. “That is, at bottom, all
anyone
has, Cale, pride in one’s family…”

***

It was not until late that night, after Lydia had returned to her apartment, taken a long, leisurely hot bath and finally settled in to watch the late news on television, that she was able even to begin to sort out her reactions to what Cale Caldwell had told her. She did feel a sympathy for everyone involved, with the exception of Jimmye McNab. But now there was another reaction. She was about to give it equal time when the phone rang.

“How are you?” Clarence asked.

“Confused. You?”

“Okay. I hope I didn’t wake you.”

“No, I was just thinking, which isn’t recommended recreational exercise.”

“Right. Well, I spent the afternoon at the health club.”

“Sounds a lot better than the way I spent mine.”

“Join up, Lydia? Yoga, exercise, dance classes… tones up the muscles where they count, and so forth.”

Lydia couldn’t stop her mind from racing. When she didn’t say anything Clarence asked, “Hey, are you there?”

“Yes, I’m sorry. I was just thinking of what you said about your club having dance classes… you know, I think it’s possible I’ve been dancing all day.”

He laughed, and she cut him off.

“I mean it, Clarence. It just penetrated that I just might have been choreographed into a Caldwell ballet. Then again, all this unaccustomed life-and-death action may be making me into a paranoid. Maybe I should get me to a cult, too…”

“You do, sweetheart, and I’ll kill you. With love, of course.”

“Good night, Clarence. I think you’ve finally given me something to dream on.”

“Get up,” John Conegli’s wife thundered from another room in their small tract house in Rockville, Maryland.

He got up in stages, knowing he needed to be on time for his client this morning.

Marie was in the kitchen.

“Good morning,” John said through a long yawn.

“Out all night again—”

“Don’t start now, Marie. It was no different when I was on the force.”

“When you were on the force you had days off. When you were on the force we got a steady check. So you had to get yourself kicked off the force and be a big-shot private detective.”

He started to argue with her, then thought better of it.

When he’d finished dressing he asked, “How do I look?”

She turned from the sink where she’d been scrubbing the baked-on remains of lasagne from a pan, narrowed her eyes and took him in. “You look tired.”

“I am. If I didn’t have this client meeting I wouldn’t get up this morning.”

She wiped her hands, came up to him and kissed him on the cheek. “You’ll kill yourself with no sleep.”

“Yeah, I know, but it’s a living, huh?” He returned the kiss and felt much better now that he knew he would leave the house on a pleasant note.

***

He had a lot of time to think during the long ride from Rockville to his destination in Virginia. He’d only met the client once, and that was when he’d initially been hired. At first Conegli had debated turning down the assignment. Ever since starting his own detective agency he’d tried to operate under a set of principles. In fact, he’d turned down the first case ever offered him—a wife who wanted him to bulldog her errant husband. “No matrimonials,” Conegli had told her. He took the next case that came through his door, however, a husband who wanted his wife followed. Somehow that was different, Conegli told himself. A guy had a right to a little on the side, but not a married woman. Besides, the rent was due on his tiny office, he needed the money. Soon he took most anything that came through the door, including matrimonials, never mind who was doing what to whom.

This case was different. He’d wanted to turn it down, but again money talked. He’d asked for a fee far in excess of what he usually charged per day, and the client hadn’t batted an eye.

He thought about his client and what he represented, and some of his initial misgivings returned as
he continued south. As a cop, he’d followed the basic rules: it was okay to take from prostitution, gambling and other pursuits that did nothing more than prey on man’s natural need for diversion. Who gets hurt? was the way it was always put. Drugs were another matter, however. Every cop had kids of his own, and Conegli was proud that he’d never taken a cent from a pusher. That’s why he considered his dismissal from the Washington MPD to have been so unfair. He’d taken “clean” graft, which was more than some of those judging him could claim.

But that was long ago. No sense crying over spilled milk. His wife did enough of that for both of them…

He followed a narrow road through gently rolling farmland, then proceeded along Occoquan Creek until reaching a narrow entrance to the Center for Inner Faith. Some of the bald, white-robed members stood in front of the main house. “Bunch of weirdos,” Conegli mumbled to himself as he stopped his gunmetal gray sedan in front of the house. He struggled from behind the wheel, slammed the door and lumbered toward the house. He was intercepted by two young men who asked the purpose of his visit.

“I’m supposed to meet Mr. Jewel,” Conegli said, angry that he had to explain himself. He felt the heft of the .38 caliber police special he carried on his right hip and wished, for a moment, that he could use it.

He was kept waiting in the foyer for ten minutes. Finally, a young man came through the doors immediately to Conegli’s right, quickly closed the doors behind him and said, “Come with me, please. Mr. Jewel will be detained for a few minutes.”

He was led to a small, sparsely furnished office at the rear of the house, with one metal desk, three folding metal chairs and a row of battered file cabinets. The young man closed the door, leaving Conegli alone to take in his new surroundings. He went to the window. One pane was cracked and held in place with Scotch tape. An elaborate spiderweb spanned a set of dirty drapes. Conegli looked outside. There was considerable property in the rear. He saw members of the cult performing chores around the outbuildings.