The Witch of Watergate (4 page)

For whatever reason, fame, money and power were no longer a
palliative against real or imagined outrages. Death as a temptation had become
tantalizing.

A rope lies waiting. Earlier the woman had chosen it as the
weapon of choice, a common idea with a familiar history. It has lain in
readiness, coiled like a snake, the hangman's slipknot awaiting its weighted
prize.

Then suddenly, at the appropriate moment, the bewitching
hour, the reaction takes place, the explosion that prods the mind to take
action. The woman reaches for the coiled rope. This she has done before, many
times, perhaps fitting the noose over her head, pulling it taut around the
neck, waiting, summoning the courage that had not come. Until now.

She fastens the unknotted end around the cement tooth of
the railing. It has already been rehearsed, tested, imagined. She lifts the
hoop of rope over her head yet again, pulls the heavy knot against the
vertebrae of her neck, makes a path by upending the two potted trees, then
rolls over the side. Hardly a gurgle upsets the balance of the soft night.

"No note in sight," Evans said, interrupting
Fiona's thoughts. She had come back from the bedroom.

"The computer key?"

"It fits. Custom made. She had her own method of
computer security. Has two hard disks instead of the usual slots for soft
ones."

"What's your assessment, Evans?" Fiona asked in
her most official manner. She knew she had interrupted Evans, who was on the
verge of saying more about the computer. It was a deliberate deflection and
Evans complied.

"An obvious conclusion. Murder by hanging is
statistically rare."

"You've studied it, have you?" Fiona asked.

"The better informed, the more options
available," Evans said, exhibiting a self-proclaimed superiority that
embellished her arrogance.

Smartass, Fiona thought, longing for Cates whose humility,
which often infuriated her, now seemed refreshing.

"Note the slippers," Evans said, pointing to the
slippers placed just outside the terrace door. "The woman walked to the
terrace, took off her slippers, put the rope around her neck, anchored it and
jumped."

"That's the way you see it, do you?" Fiona asked.
Evans had offered a perfectly logical explanation. It was the hasty conclusion
that irritated Fiona.

"For starters, yes," Evans said through tight
lips.

Fiona offered only a grunt in reply and started to explore
the apartment. In the bedroom, she inspected the bed. It was turned down, but
too neat to be slept in. On one side of the bedroom was an alcove with a desk,
a computer and bookshelves. Where she worked, Fiona assumed.

"This the computer?" Fiona asked.

"That's it," Evans said.

Fiona nodded and turned her attention elsewhere. She
studied a forest of pictures on the bureau: Polly with familiar faces, Polly
with youngsters, Polly with Harry Barker, the Editor-in-Chief of the
Post
,
Polly with Mrs. Grayson, who owned the paper. "To the best in the
business," an inscription at the bottom of the Grayson picture read, and a
signature, Sally Grayson. No Polly as a child, Fiona noted. No sign of Polly
with parents.

She carefully opened drawers, looked in the closets, the
bathroom. Where had the rope been stored? Fiona wondered. The closets were
exceptionally neat, carefully compartmentalized: dresses, slacks, blouses,
belts, shoes, were all carefully hung on identical wooden hangers.

In the drawers, underwear, panties, bras, pantyhose, all
folded as if awaiting a military inspection. There were no signs of a man, not
even the hint of a toilet article nor a sign of the sex act, not a vestige of
its contemplation, like a dial of birth control pills, a diaphragm, condoms,
spermicides, the safety equipment of the sexually active.

Evans held up a plastic case that she had discovered in the
cabinet under the vanity, hidden behind boxes of tampax, tissues and a mound of
toilet paper.

"She got it off with this," Evans said, holding
up a red dildolike vibrator of generous size.

"What does that tell us, Evans?" Fiona asked with
a deliberately patronizing air accompanied, she hoped, with a sneer of sarcasm.
At the same time, she detested her own attitude. But the woman, her manner, her
humorless demeanor, her blatant arrogance, her superior airs, was, to Fiona,
aggressively offensive.

"It tells us..." Evans paused, raising a
pugnacious chin toward Fiona as her eyes narrowed. "It tells us that the
lady was..." Again she paused. This time her lip seemed to curl in
contempt. "...An independent, self-contained."

"What the hell does that mean?" Fiona snapped,
wanting to hear it said aloud.

"She did not need men." She held up the vibrator
as if it were a weapon. "She pleasured herself."

"Mistress of herself," Fiona snickered. Tells me
a lot about you, Evans, Fiona thought. To characterize the possession of such
an instrument as a total substitute for men was revealing. Fiona owned one, but
it was strictly an alternative, not a first option.

"Maybe she didn't want complications," Evans
said, confirming Fiona's speculation.

"Lot of good it did her."

Evans activated the vibrator. A muted whirring sound cut
the air. Then she shrugged, cut it off, replaced it in its plastic box and
shoved it back where she had found it.

They inspected the other rooms. Next to the bedroom was an
alcove, also neat as a pin, with everything in its place. There was a computer
and a printer on a desk and various plaques and prizes hung on the walls,
including a Pulitzer Honorable Mention.

"Seems uncommonly neat for a journalist," Fiona
said.

"Not for this lady," Evans said.

"How so?"

"She was obviously controlled, obsessively organized,
tightly focused, compulsively tight-assed and secretive."

You must know the turf, lady, Fiona thought.

"Did you know who she was?"

"I read the papers."

At that moment, there was a sound at the door and the
Eggplant strode in, looking surprisingly chipper, dressed to the nines in the
dark tan suit he wore for television appearances. He sported a beautiful blue
paisley tie on a light blue shirt and his shoes were mirror-shined.

"What have we got, ladies?" he asked, his eyes
flitting from one face to another.

"Polly Dearborn," Fiona said crisply.
"Female, about forty, Caucasian, prominent journalist. Looks like death by
hanging."

"Self-imposed?"

Fiona exchanged glances with Evans, who had remained
silent, deferring to Fiona, following the protocol of seniority.

"Maybe," Fiona said hesitantly, quick to sense
what a bonanza this case meant for him. It could serve as a decoy, force
people's attention away from the killing fields of the drug wars. The deceased,
after all, was a prominent newspaperwoman who had thrown more people of
prominence into the garbage heap than any journalist around. In that respect, she
was the champ, the numero-uno nutcutter, a world-class investigative reporter.
Her death, any which way, had the makings of a media feast.

The method of her demise was compellingly bizarre, the
image vivid. The bitch goddess of Journalism hanging from the balcony of
fucking Watergate, for chrissakes. Fucking Watergate, the physical place and
the genre, symbols of corruption and cover-up, the biggest political story of
the century, bar none.

This eclipsed mere drug-related gang wars. This was
whitey's turf. No wonder the Eggplant looked as if the weight of the ages had
been lifted from his breast.

"No note?" he asked.

"None."

"Any sign of foul play?" he asked hopefully,
looking around the room. His gaze rested on the overturned potted trees visible
on the terrace.

"She could have done that herself," Fiona said.
"To get over the wall."

"Or they could have fallen when she was thrown
over," the Eggplant said. From his point of view, murder would give the
story more legs.

"This is a lady with a lot of enemies," Fiona
said, deliberately feeding the Eggplant's hope.

He began to pace the living room floor. By now the sun was
poking above the horizon, throwing glints along the slate surface of the Potomac.

"Somebody might have bit back," he said. He
suddenly stopped pacing and looked around the room. "Lady lived the good
life here. That's real money on the walls and you can't knock the view. Are you
dead certain there's no note?"

She looked toward Evans for some support to buttress the
fact. She was used to Cates interjecting himself when the Eggplant interrogated
them. There was a faintest hint of a smile on Evans' lips, one of those
secretive cryptic Madonna smiles. But the woman kept her silence.

"Unless one shows up somewhere," Fiona replied.
"She might have mailed a note to someone."

He stroked his chin while she tracked his logic. Without a
note, a judgement of suicide could be merely a subjective call. An
investigation, on the other hand, would stir up the media, create a mystery
good for a running story of many days' or weeks' duration. A note would preempt
such a possibility. If they flushed out a true murder so much the better. If
they solved it? Bingo.

"Barring such a note, I'd say we have our work cut out
for us." His exhilaration bordered on ecstasy. "Considering all the
big shots she's shot full of holes, I'd say we'd have a suspect list as long as
an ape's arm."

"Lots of grist for the mill, Captain," Fiona
said. No point in being coy about it. More fun in it than doing naturals.
Again, she looked at Evans, who had maintained her Madonna smile. Of one thing
Fiona was certain. She felt no comraderie with this woman, no sense of sharing
or partnership. She debated asking him at that moment for Cates, but held back.
No sense raining on his parade.

"We'll run a tight ship on this one, FitzGerald."
The statement was barked out as an order, setting the parameters. His eyes
shifted to Evans, then back again to Fiona. "We three. No outside
verbalizing." He pronounced it "verbalahzing." She took the
hint.

"You'll be apprized of every detail, Captain."
She pronounced it "apprahzed."

If she was voting at this moment, she'd vote suicide. But
that was too pat. She'd been through that before, only to be fooled. Clever
killers could make things look like a suicide. Unless an autopsy revealed that
the woman was dead before she went over. That would be another ball-game
entirely.

The Eggplant started to pace the room again. She could tell
he was still mulling it over, considering possibilities.

"You found no sign of a struggle?"

"Only that." She moved her head in the direction
of the overturned pots.

"Any theories come to mind?"

"Not yet," Fiona said, turning once again to look
at Charleen Evans. She seemed to be watching and listening to their exchange
with detached bemusement.

"They hear she died, they'll be dancing round the
flagpole," the Eggplant said. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a
panatela but he didn't light up. "I've asked Doc Benton to do the autopsy
himself. Considering the traffic, I'd say that was an accommodation."

"He's that kind of a man," Fiona said. Dr.
Benton, the Medical Examiner, was her friend, mentor and confidant. No one
could learn more from a corpse than Dr. Benton.

"This is your turf, FitzGerald—I want you to really
give this one a ride." For the first time in the conversation he turned to
Evans. "And a real opportunity for you too, Evans. Let's show them what
the girls can do."

Shit
, Fiona thought. Why go
and spoil it? Here she was playing the game exactly as if he had scripted it
himself and he goes back to the macho-pig business. She pulled a face to show
her obvious displeasure. If he saw her reaction, he didn't let on. Instead, he
looked at his watch.

"I'm going to hold a press conference downtown in a
couple of hours. Meantime I want everything you can get ... without, I repeat,
without spilling the beans on the lady's identity. Not till we've had our say.
I want those bastards to understand that they're dealing here with a
first-class police department. Capish?"

"You'd better put a lid on the doorman," Fiona
said. "He's a real glory hound."

"Him? We've got him on ice downtown. Taking his
statement. Loves to talk."

When he was purring, the Eggplant was, most of the time, a
step ahead of her.

"And the old folks downstairs?"

"Likewise."

In his sly way he had bounced it against her for
confirmation that he was taking his best shot. She knew why he was waiting the
two hours, but saw no harm in it. It would be at least two hours before the
reporters and TV crews would be up and running. He was an old hand at media
manipulation and public relations and he knew how to work it out for his
benefit.

So fortune has smiled, Fiona thought. She could see his
reasoning. Throw them a nice tasty bone to keep them all occupied in another
direction. Made sense. She'd go along up to a point. Could she honestly search
her intelligence and her gut and still find room for doubt about a suicide?
Stay with maybe, she decided. Murder would be a lot sexier. No doubt about
that.

With a look of satisfaction, the Eggplant lit his panatela,
inhaled and puffed smoke out of his nostrils. He nodded and his mouth formed a
broad sunny smile. She hadn't seen him do that for months. He started toward
the door.

"I don't think it was murder, Captain," Charleen
Evans said quickly, before he was out of earshot.

The Eggplant stopped, cocked his head, but did not turn.

"It's a clear case of suicide, Captain," Evans
said. "Any objective analysis will tell you that hanging is the weapon of
choice for a certain pattern of suicides. It is quite common. This is a
textbook case. We check hard enough we'll find the place where she bought the
rope and where she stored it in this apartment. Hanging is the rarest form of
modus operandi for a murder. There actually hasn't been a murder by hanging in this
city for nearly three decades."