Washington Masquerade (18 page)

“I thought I was rid of you,” Charlotte Desmond said when they met her in the reception area of the
Post
editorial offices along with a bespectacled young man who was introduced as a lawyer retained by the newspaper. His name was Arnold Sherman. “I told my bosses I was being harassed, but I agreed to meet with you here in the office as long as I had legal counsel present.”

“It was hardly necessary,” Fiona said, glancing at the young lawyer. “She is not a suspect nor have we determined any criminal intent in Mr. Burns' case. This is more or less a routine follow-up.”

“We're aware of that,” Sherman said. He was a tall, skinny man with a bony face. An Adam's apple slid up and down his throat when he talked.

“They've treated me as if I was part of the government conspiracy to knock off my ex-boss.” She was displaying arrogance now.

Fiona wondered if Burns had gotten rid of her because of an attitude problem.

“Believe me, no amount of pain, torture, or money would ever get me to work for those government bastards. You saw the paper this morning. You know where to look for the killers, right there at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.”

“Just a few more questions, Charlotte,” said Fiona, ignoring the outburst. She turned to the lawyer. “Quite benign, as you'll see.”

“That's for me to judge,” Sherman said.

Oh God, Fiona thought, another Washington lawyer wanting to win his bones.

“When Mr. Burns couldn't make the carpools for his daughter, you said it was your job to get a substitute.”

Charlotte cast a skeptical eye on the lawyer.

Fiona looked toward the lawyer, who nodded.

“I already told them that,” Charlotte said.

“Yes, you did, Charlotte. I just wanted some more specifics.”

“Specifics? Like what?”

“Well, you had a list of names, and you called them. Also, I'm sure you called Mrs. Burns.”

“Now there was a selfish woman. I'd call her on her cell. She was always showing somebody a house. A busy little beaver she was. Million-dollar round table awards every year. I could never get her to sub for him. Sometimes it wasn't easy to find a replacement, even though he agreed to fill in at certain times.”

Fiona looked at the lawyer.

“So far so good, Counselor?”

“You may proceed,” Sherman said.

“Frankly, I don't know what the hell they want this for.”

Fiona felt her anger bubbling up. She cut a glance at the lawyer.

“Do you think this is harassment, Counselor?”

“Not yet,” Sherman said, obviously to validate his assignment and appear lawyerly. “You may answer, Miss Desmond.”

“Okay, no problem. Actually, for most of my time with Mr. Burns, he met a regular schedule. He never missed, twice a week sometimes. He told me he would stay for soccer practice and always watched the soccer games in which his daughter Lisa played. The man was very devoted to his daughters. Then, a couple of months before I was transferred, he wasn't as regular. Didn't I tell you this before?” She turned toward the lawyer and directed her gaze toward the detectives. “These people are so repetitive, they make you crazy.”

“So at those times, you had to find some substitute to take his place.”

“I'm sure I told you that.”

“Was it sometimes difficult?”

“I had this list and I went down the list. Sometimes it took three calls. Sometimes four, but I always managed it. These parents were pretty dedicated.”

“Were any on the list not cooperative?”

“I wouldn't put it that way. Apparently, it happened frequently. These were busy people. The women were mostly wives of legislators, government types, high-powered ladies, political appointees with heavy social and business obligations. Of course, when one or another couldn't make it, Mr. Burns filled in. He was always very cooperative.”

“So you finally did manage to get a substitute on his schedule days?” Fiona asked.

She turned to the lawyer in exasperation.

“You see how they make me repeat myself?”

“It's their method, Charlotte,” Sherman said, showing, for the first time, a mild distaste for his assignment.

“And not harassment,” Fiona commented.

Charlotte nodded and offered a hand gesture of dismissal.

“How long is this going to continue?”

“Was there anyone never available?” Izzy asked suddenly.

Fiona was just about to ask the same question.

Charlotte grew thoughtful for a moment. “That judge… what's her name?”

“McGrath,” reminded Fiona.

“Yeah, that one, the one being talked about for the Supreme Court.”

“Deirdre McGrath's mother?” Izzy asked. “The girl with whom Lisa is feuding?”

Charlotte frowned and made no comment, as if the remark had no relevance to her.

“Whatever. She was never available to sub on those days when Mr. Burns needed one,” Charlotte continued. “I guess judges are very busy people. Actually, when I would call, sometimes a parent would say, ‘Not two? Judge McGrath also needs a sub.'”

“He never said, don't call Judge McGrath, she wasn't available?”

“Not that I remember. No, he didn't.”

“Did Judge McGrath ever call the office?” Fiona asked.

“Not while I was there. I took all of Mr. Burns' calls. And, of course, I monitored all his e-mails. I just saw her name on the list of parents.”

“You don't know if they knew each other?” Izzy asked.

“Well, if they were carpooling on the same day, they must have—or not. I've never been a parent and never carpooled. I assume they knew each other. I'm sure he knew all the parents on the list.”

Fiona and Izzy exchanged glances.

“I guess that does it,” Fiona said. “Our harassment is concluded.”

***

“Stay away,” the Chief warned her when she called to report on the latest interview. “I'm up to my ass in Feds, and the media is swarming like red ants. There will be a press conference in an hour or so. Stay tuned. One of those Mexican-firing-squad jobs.”

She knew what he meant, a lineup of suits, force-feeding the public. The Chief was telling her to stay aloof, keep chugging along, and work the case. She filled him in on the mechanical details without offering theories or insights. It did not seem appropriate to offer speculations at this point.

They stopped for a late lunch at a bar on Connecticut Avenue, where they ordered burgers and Cokes, but mostly because there was a large television set visible from their booth. The barely audible set was tuned to CNN reporting a horrific suicide bombing in Iraq.

“So what else is new?” Izzy sighed. “A world gone amok.”

Fiona bit into her hamburger and chewed without appetite, then pushed the plate away and washed down the remnants with Coke.

“Family man, doting, devoted father, fame and fortune: a litany of a good person. Was there a personal side here? That, Izzy, is the question.”

Izzy, unlike her, did not refrain from slaking his hunger. For a long time as he chewed and cogitated, he said nothing, while Fiona distilled what they had learned.

“That is the question, indeed. Repetitive. Where was he going in that getup and what was he doing?”

“Philandering didn't seem his bag,” Fiona said.

Hadn't she experienced the breed from time to time? It wasn't something she was proud of. For a single woman, encounters with predatory, attached males were a perpetual hazard. As she grew older, she was exposed to more and more men carrying baggage of past entanglements. Divorced or separated men, closet gays still on the fence, men in transition unsure about their next move and, yes, men who were philandering for kicks. Experience had taught her which was which, but it was an imperfect science and she occasionally made a wrong guess.

As her thoughts deepened and her memory sharpened, she found herself running through the catalogue of men she had bedded. Yes, sometimes even when she knew the circumstances of their attachments, she was titillated by the danger and a willing party to the deception. The risk seemed to enhance the thrill, deepen the pleasure. At times, the sheer energy and clandestine nature of the couplings was in itself an enhancer—once in a booth in the ladies room of all places, under a table in a restaurant, a mile-high adventure in an airplane restroom, in a stalled elevator, a balcony of a high-rise in broad daylight, in the back of a bus, on a picnic table in Rock Creek Park.

And weirdness—exchanging clothes down to the underwear and other strange role playing, even using her cop bracelets on bedposts and acting Mean Cop, and worse, foolish games in the not so dim past. Rutting adventures in the skin business, she dubbed it, as if she had to prove that women had wild sexual fantasies and urges burning to be satisfied or some deep explosion of inner protest. A hot blush broke out in her face.

“On the other hand,” she muttered, “the question remains open.”

“Let's say it's an idea with legs,” Izzy said. “But it does take two to tango.”

“Or three or more,” said Fiona, reflecting more repressed memories.

They tossed around more ideas. Someone on the television said a press conference was imminent. Fiona signaled the bartender to turn up the volume, which he did. She almost did not hear her cell phone's ring. Checking it, she moved quickly to the back of the bar.

“I thought you were about to have a press conference, Chief.”

“I am, but we've got a bit of outrage on our hands. Mrs. Burns—she called in and I returned on the cold cell—threatened dire action. She is demanding to know why you talked to her daughter. Better get over to her house pronto before the Feds get wind.”

“We'll miss your star turn, Chief.”

“Your loss.”

***

Mrs. Burns was livid.

“You people are impossible,” she said, her rage controlled but palpable. Fiona noted a nerve palpitating in her neck. “Why you would harass my child is beyond me. You had no right to interfere in her world. She is an innocent victim. First, her father's death, and now you people. Where is this going? I demand an explanation.”

It was going to be a chore to get her calmed down.

“We were extremely gentle, Mrs. Burns,” Fiona said, modulating her voice in a gentle, hopefully reassuring manner.

“Gentle? The child was traumatized! She played a terrible game. When I left, her team was losing badly. At half time, we talked. My God, how could you? This is actionable. I've already consulted my lawyer.”

“You asked why, Mrs. Burns,” Fiona began. “If you calm down, I'll answer your question.”

“I'm listening.”

“We have been trying to confirm when your husband's behavior changed and why—simple as that.”

“Why?” Mrs. Burns interrupted, her cool façade cracking. “Because he knew he was being targeted, that's why. That's why he needed to wear that disguise. They were after him. Don't you get it? Don't you read the papers, watch television? The story is all over the world, for crying out loud. What is in your mind that you have to interview a fifteen-year-old child who has just lost her father who was murdered for his political views? Are you people obtuse? Or are you on their side?”

Fiona listened, feeling her own rage build inside her.

“Mrs. Burns, whatever you believe, however the media is playing this story, whatever mess it is becoming, whatever the speculations and conclusions, accusations and denials spreading everywhere worldwide, one fact remains. There is not a single shred of evidence, not one iota, that your husband was murdered. Not a single shred. I'm sorry to tell you this. I know it interferes with your self-generated logic and the so-called prevailing view of nearly everyone. But that is the fact.”

The force of Fiona's sudden eloquence elicited a sneering one-word rebuttal.

“Bullshit!”

But it did quiet her for the moment, which encouraged Fiona to continue, her own rage still not fully vented.

“With all due respect, Madam, we are exploring the possibilities that there was another motive for your husband's demise….” She deliberately avoided the term
suicide
. “Like, for example, that he might have been having an affair.”

The color drained from Mrs. Burns' face. Her lips began to tremble, and her eyes blinked wildly.

“You people… you people.” She could not find the words. She had been standing, but now she collapsed onto the couch.

“People do strange things, Mrs. Burns. I'm not stating a fact, not even a theory, just a possibility. Think about it, all the deceptions. We've been over them before. Your daughter was impacted by a sudden change in his behavior. You've stated that you did not see any change. Do you stand by your assertion? Think about that. Think hard.” She watched the woman on the couch through a long silence. Her pallor remained ashen, and she closed her eyes as if she was in pain. “Think intimate, Mrs. Burns.”

The woman seemed catatonic. The last time the question was raised, she had been enraged. They waited hopefully for the woman to react. When she did, the body language spoke denial, but when words came, they told another story.

“You really think that?” Mrs. Burns whispered. “Not Adam. No way.”

“I said it was a possibility,” Fiona said, cutting a glance at Izzy, who remained silent but looked pained. Had to be done. Fiona tried to convey the idea silently.

Suddenly Mrs. Burns frowned. Her cogitation looked painful. A nerve palpitated in her jaw. Then she seemed to deflate, bit her lip, and nodded while her eyes watered.

“Yes,” she whispered. “He did show less interest in that. I mean… well, I had always done my… you know… my duty in that regard. He did his, as well. Okay, there weren't sparks, but we had a certain routine. Damn it, why must I tell you this?” Her nostrils quivered. “I hadn't thought….” She shook her head, then looked up at Fiona through eyes brimming with tears, which dripped down her cheeks. “No. Never.”