The Witch of Watergate (5 page)

She paused for a moment and the Eggplant turned and glared
at her.

"Also," she continued, her chin jutting out,
throwing Fiona a glance of clear contempt. "There probably is a
note."

"You found one?" Fiona asked, on the verge of a
blowup. This was a real lethal lady, she thought. A hard case.

"No, but I think I can and I know where and how to
look for one."

Smug bitch, Fiona thought, exchanging glances with the
Eggplant, whose complexion had turned to the grey tone displayed at the morning
meeting.

"Do you now?" the Eggplant asked, offering his
familiar grimace of intimidation.

"In the computer, Captain. If it's anywhere it's
there."

The veins reddened in his eyes. Fiona saw the great effort
he was making to repress his anger, knowing that his perception of her as a
castrating female was far more menacing than her own.

"Would you like to hear my theory?" Evans asked.

A nerve twitched in his jaw as he studied her.

"You got two hours, Mama," he said.

With a man in his command, he would have exploded in rage.
In this case, he turned quickly, bottling up his agitation as he stormed out of
the apartment.

"YOU'VE GOT A problem, Evans," Fiona said after
the Eggplant had left. Any remote hope of allegiance on gender grounds had totally
evaporated.

"So it seems," Evans responded. "He would
have been better served to hear me out."

"It's not that, lady. You've got a piece missing in
your character." It was, Fiona decided, a fully justified frontal assault.

"Do I?"

Evans was unfazed, her features a mask of indifference.

"It's called insight," Fiona pressed. "Plus
a screw loose on timing."

The woman's eyes studied her, betraying nothing that was
going on behind them.

"You want my theory or not?"

Fiona shrugged.

"How can I avoid it?"

Evans nodded, then crooked a finger, as if coaxing a
recalcitrant child to follow. Assuming that her gesture was enough of a summons
to Fiona, she moved into the bedroom. Capping her exasperation, Fiona followed,
more curious than obedient.

Evans stood facing the computer on the desk in the bedroom
alcove, her back to Fiona. Fiona looked at the computer screen perfectly
centered on the desk. Behind it was a long shelf of programming handbooks.
Beside the screen was a laser printer and on the shelf below a fax machine.

"You know computers, FitzGerald?" Evans asked
without turning to face her. Fiona caught the insult in the condescending
words, tone and position.

"Apparently you do."

She bridled at her own childish response, feeling
inadequate to the occasion, knowing that the woman was about to flaunt her
superior knowledge. Fiona's experience with computers was rudimentary, just
enough to service the basics.

"Note the passion for neatness evident
everywhere," Evans continued, her voice flat, but with a teacher's earnest
surety. The woman was lecturing now. "This is the working space of a
journalist, an important journalist. There is not a piece of paper visible. The
books on the shelf behind the computer are all programming handbooks, most of
them very sophisticated. My guess is that this woman was a computer
expert." Still not turning, she put a palm on the monitor. "It's also
obvious that the computer is her principal tool. Everything has to be in there.
Notes, research, first drafts, everything. Which suggests that she was fully
computer literate."

Evans sat down at the desk, put the key in the computer and
switched it on. Strings of amber words, numbers and symbols marched across the
monitor screen. Evans seemed totally at home, her brown fingers flying swiftly
over the keyboard keys while amber symbols raced across the screen. She said
nothing, intent on her work.

"There," Evans said. "She's hooked into a
large number of data banks." She pointed to the screen, which rapidly
scrolled lists as Evans repeatedly hit the space bar. "This is a menu of
data banks. There are scores of them. Anything a journalist might want to know
about anybody. Could even be some computer violations if we really
looked."

"Nobody is private any more," Fiona muttered,
irritated by her resort to sarcasm.

"There's a gold mine here if you want to get something
on someone."

"That was her business. No question about that."

Fiona waited as Evans worked her fingers over the keyboard,
intensely watching the screen.

"Okay, I'm impressed, Evans. You're a whiz. Now what
about the suicide note?"

"If it's here, I'll find it."

Her fingers raced over the keyboard.

"Talk about confidence. You left the impression with
the Egg..." She stopped herself. The familiar nickname was too private and
affectionate to be shared with this alien. Without insight, it was impossible
for Evans to understand the kinship of respect and ridicule many of her squad
mates had for the Chief. "...with the Captain that you were dead certain.
You posed the idea almost as a conclusion, not a theory." It was Fiona's
turn now, although she knew she was setting herself up for a crow's feast if
Evans was right, which seemed a distinct possibility.

"Just exercising logic, FitzGerald, which is the heart
of this instrument."

"I'll stick with the human variety, the one influenced
by emotion, subtlety and insight."

"Of which you believe I have none."

"If the shoe fits."

Fiona heard a sound come from Evans, a cross between a
chuckle and a harumph. She stood over her shoulder, watching the screen, which
moved too fast for her understanding.

"Takes a while to dope out her system," Evans
said, as she swung her pocketbook off her shoulder and laid it beside the
computer. She seemed to be settling in for a long, intense stay. "I'll get
it."

"You've got two hours," Fiona said.

"You needn't stand there watching me," Evans
said, dismissing her. It was infuriating. Fiona stood there, rooted to the
ground, angered and embarrassed, unable to concoct a response. At that moment
she heard a faint muffled sound.

"What the hell is that?" Fiona asked.

"What?"

It seemed to be coming from somewhere in the vicinity of
the computer. Evans stopped beating on the keys and listened. Then she opened a
drawer.

"Answering machine," she said. A telephone stood
beside the computer, but it hadn't rung. "She's got it silenced."

They watched the machine until the sound had stopped and a
red numeral one began to flash. Evans reached into the drawer and pressed the
button of the instrument, setting off the rewind mechanism. When that stopped
she pressed another button. Again she seemed to be deliberately flaunting her
electronic wizardry. But this time it triggered in Fiona a grudging respect.
Fiona would have wasted time trying to figure out how the machine worked with
predictably mixed results.

"Polly," a high-pitched, young-sounding voice
said. "Sheila here. Mr. Barker is still not happy with the last Downey segment. As I told you last night, I have a feeling that he is being pressured by
Mrs. Grayson. He seems to be having second thoughts and wants to discuss it
with you. I also have the impression that there are lawyers involved. I told
him I'd get you to call immediately. He says it's real urgent." There was
a short pause. "Seven-ten and I'm still home but will be heading to the office
in a few minutes. I wouldn't have bothered you so early if I didn't think it
was important."

"Eager beaver," Fiona said.

"No modem," Evans said. "Interesting."

"What's a modem?"

"Put it in your computer you can send something over
the telephone wires. She chose a printer and a fax instead. Tells you
something."

"What?" Fiona asked.

"That she guarded her computer. Wouldn't even connect
it to her office. That's why she has two hard disks, one for backup and dupes.
Afraid someone might copy things onto floppies. Harder to do otherwise. You
need another computer to receive the dump."

Fiona was confused, but wouldn't dare admit it. Evans
returned her attention to the computer.

"There," Evans said, pointing to the screen.
"This is her memo file. Apparently Sheila is her assistant. Woman's name
is Sheila Burns."

Again Charleen Evans' fingers raced over the keyboard. At
that moment they heard a tingling sound from an open shelf below the computer.
It was the fax machine. They waited for the paper to roll out. Evans tore it
off and handed it to Fiona.

"A message from Harry Barker." Fiona said. Harry
Barker was the editor of the
Post
, a household name in Washington.
"Jesus. He's hot." She read it aloud. "Tried calling you last
night. No answer. Sheila says she can't get hold of you this morning. Better
stop ducking me, Polly. This last Downey piece still needs work. We don't hear
from you soon, I'll get out the old blue pencil. This is not what we agreed.
I'm pissed. Harry."

"I'm afraid Polly has ducked Harry Barker
permanently," Fiona said. She remembered him as a reporter. Years ago he
had been to the house to interview her father and she would meet him
occasionally at Washington social events. Handsome leathery face, athletic
body, tough-talking. He posed as a rough-cut diamond, but he didn't fool
anybody. Under it all he was Ivy League to the marrow.

These days, as editor of one of the most important papers
in the country, he was a national powerhouse, a celebrity.

"Looks like the lady left some unfinished business,"
Evans said.

"We've got some ourselves," Fiona said.

"The man gave us two hours," Evans snapped.

She worked the keyboard again and went back into her
computer trance, staring at the screen. By now the media had been told about
the press conference, but not the subject matter. Fiona left Evans to her
search, went into the living room and continued to poke around.

No question, she decided, the woman was organized, neat,
everything in its place. She stood in the center of the room, trying to imagine
herself as Polly Dearborn, to feel like her, to understand what might have been
going through her mind. Maybe she was having second thoughts about herself, the
role of destroyer, killer journalist. Perhaps she was having a fit of
conscience, an attack of self-revulsion. Considering the ruined lives in her
wake, she might have decided that there was little left for her but judgement
day.

How long had she been doing these pieces? Ten years or
more, Fiona calculated. Her style was always witty and sophisticated and she
seemed to believe that she was presenting a balanced assessment.

Always, Fiona recalled, the stories dealt extensively with
the subject's achievements. This was the good news and it always came first, a
setup for a fall. The better the good news, the worse the bad news. Such was
the reader's expectation.

Because she had the ability to wield so much power in a
place where power was the only criteria of true achievement, Polly Dearborn was
deeply feared and coveted by those who thought that ingratiation might somehow
cause them to escape her clutches.

The memory of Polly Dearborn cozying up to Downey at the races gave the lie to such an idea. Her media killing was business, not
personal. She was like a hit man, emotionless and uninvolved, who could blow a
man's brains out and the next moment provide succor to the victim's mother.

Perhaps that was the way it was done to her. An uninvolved
hit man responding to orders. Kill the lady. Make a statement. Of course, the
discovery of a suicide note would put an end to such speculations.

Apparently Barker was referring to the third Downey piece, the one that was evidently going to run tomorrow. It occurred to Fiona that,
because of the early summons to the Watergate, she had not even read the second
installment.

She found the paper in the corridor in front of the
apartment's front entrance. As the
Post
had done yesterday, they had run
the story on the front page of the Style section. Considering the importance of
the revelations, Fiona wondered why it had not been begun on the front page.
Hell, it accused the Secretary of Defense of malfeasance in office and cast a
long shadow over his character.

She began to read. In yesterday's story Dearborn had made
her accusations. In part two she was embellishing, expanding, going into the
court records of Downey's divorce, comparing Downey's present financial
statement, filed when he was appointed Defense Secretary, with the testimony of
the divorce case and the settlement agreement with his ex-wife.

The accusation of hiding assets verified, Dearborn's story
concentrated on the accusation that Downey favored one defense contractor over
others. There was a chart showing how much business this company, Interplex,
did before Downey became Secretary with how much they got after he took over
the Defense Department. The jump in contract totals was more than two thousand
percent higher. But it wasn't until the very last paragraph in the installment
that Dearborn turned the knife.

She wrote: "There is always the argument that the
reason Interplex got the business was because it was the best company for the
job. Did the sudden upsurge in orders have anything to do with the fact that Downey's son, Robert, had become a vice-president of the company three months after the
elder Downey was appointed Defense Secretary? More on this tomorrow."

The article ended on this note. Fiona shook her head. Poor Chester Downey. Poor Robert Downey. Investigated, convicted and hung in three days. Was a
massive attack of remorse the reason for Polly doing herself in? She shook away
the idea. Not now. Not yet.

Fiona looked at her watch. More than an hour had passed
since the Eggplant had given them their deadline. Fiona went back to the
bedroom. Evans was where Fiona had left her, tranced out in front of the computer
screen, fingers dancing nonstop over the keyboard. Deep frown lines had
engraved themselves on her forehead. Obviously, her search was not having the
results she had imagined earlier.

"Anything?" Fiona asked, forcing a neutral tone.

Evans grunted, concentrating on the amber symbols moving
like soldiers in formation across the screen.

"And you still think you're right about the
note?" Fiona asked.

Evans ignored the question. Fiona had to prod her.

"You could be dead wrong," she said.

"I'm not ready to concede yet," Evans said
through clenched teeth. At that moment the sound of chimes erupted. Fiona made
no effort to move.

"A suicide wants a note to be found. One would think
it would be more obvious," Fiona said.

Evans cut a quick, almost surreptitious look at her watch.

"Will you please leave me alone?" she snapped,
her irritability accelerating. The chimes started again, persistent now, as if
someone were keeping a finger on the button. "Why don't you answer
that?"

Fiona shook her head and left the bedroom. She looked
through the glass peephole. She saw a woman's face distorted by magnification.
The eyes seemed anxious, the look confused. The chimes continued, embellished
now by a banging on the door.