CHAPTER 5

As Fiona had expected, the television news and the newspapers were filled with the story of the murder. As if in revenge for the manner in which Madeline Newton treated him, the Eggplant was quoted as saying that Mrs. Shipley was probably raped. The headlines in the press were, as Madeline Newton predicted, lurid and sensational.

Old pictures of Mrs. Shipley at the height of her glory were displayed. There she was with Presidents and royalty, just as Roy had described it. There was an irony, too, in the fact that there were more pictures of her more famous daughter-in-law in the coverage than of victim.

The stories filled in more details of Mrs. Shipley's earlier background. Her father had been in the auto parts business in Ohio, had sold his business after his wife had died and come to Washington as a Roosevelt appointee in the NRA. He had bought the house on 16th Street and died sometime after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. Mrs. Shipley had married young William soon after. He was subsequently sent overseas and reported missing and presumed dead in 1944.

Mrs. Shipley stayed on in Washington and eventually established herself as one of Capital's prime hostesses in the fifties, sixties and seventies after which, she began to fade into obscurity until her son William, jr. became interested in politics, serving first as a Congressman from Northern Virginia for three terms, then as Governor of Virginia.

Even in citing Mrs. Shipley's background, the media was less than expansive. They seemed far more interested in the life of her daughter-in-law, Madeline Newton, her marriages, her movies, even her political views.

In the next few weeks, Fiona expected, the tabloid press would have a heyday and the speculation about Mrs. Shipley's murderer would, as Madeline predicted, reach accelerating levels of absurdity.

The day after the murder, Hal Perry woke her early. He was calling from Indonesia.

"You're famous," he said. "Your boss was quoted in the Post as saying he had his best team on the case. Named names."

"News sure travels fast."

"Over modems, Fi. The globe has shrunk to the size of a pea."

"Did they spell my name right?"

"On the money," he said. "By the way I love you."

"And me you."

"This is crazy, me being so far away."

"And me in bed here. This is where you should be. Locked in my arms."

"That's where I want to be. You can make it happen, Fi. Say the word. I'll send the jet. We can get married in China."

"I thought you were in Indonesia."

"We just took off."

"When will you be back?"

"Can't say for sure. There's only one certainty I live with. My love for you. We have to put it on the front burner, Fi."

She knew what that meant, the finality of resolution and it frightened her.

"We'll certainly discuss it," she said, hoping it would suffice to placate him temporarily.

"Will you catch the bad guy, Fi?"

"Absolutely," she said.

They talked some more, she steering the conversation to less controversial areas than their joint future. She hung up. With a force of will, she quickly filled her mind with speculations about Mrs. Shipley, her brutal murder and the people who surrounded her.

"Evidence of semen," Dr. Benson said, his hands folded in a Cathedral as he peered through them to look at Fiona with his blue eyes. His Louisiana heritage, he called it, the result of a Frenchman passing through the Bayou. "Rape is a logical conclusion."

They were having coffee and bagels in his office. Gail was doing follow-up calls in the squad room.

"Before or after she was killed?" Fiona asked.

"It would be pure speculation. I believe the events were too close together to call. The woman was stabbed only four times, but the carotid artery in the neck was the fatal blow."

"She was seventy-seven," Fiona said.

"And well preserved," he said. She knew him well enough to understand his delicate allusions, which sometimes told her more than his analysis in technical terms.

"Does that mean you think she still had an active sex life?"

"I can't speculate about her behavior. Only about the possibility. She could, indeed."

"At seventy-seven?"

He shook his head and offered a thin smile.

"Most people have no understanding about the aging process. The body can exercise the venery for a much longer time than young people think." He hesitated a moment and grew reflective. "It's a question of inspiration."

"And, for the male, Viagra."

"Ah yes, Viagra. They say it might work for women as well." He hesitated. "Although I would speculate from a careful analysis of the remains that Mrs. Shipley had no such need. I would say her organs were in very good shape and capable of excellent function in that regard."

"But you did say rape."

"I said it was a logical conclusion. I also said there was evidence of semen. A DNA match would confirm the perpetrator."

"If found."

He nodded and shrugged. His work had made him a skeptic and sometimes cynic. From his perspective, poking around in dead humans, many of them murder victims, he had reason for cynicism. He was in his late fifties and had lost his wife of thirty years, the love of his life. He had lived alone in the house they had shared. As far as she had observed, he hadn't the remotest interest in involving himself in another relationship.

"Logical conclusion." Fiona murmured. "It has an air of speculation."

"There were, indeed, signs of forced entry, signs of trauma in the vaginal tissues. I'll skip all the technical jargon, Fi. She was not a willing participant. Ergo rape."

Dr. Benson leaned back again and made his trademark cathedral, studying Fiona through the finger slats.

"But you could have got that in one telephone call, Fi. There's more isn't there?"

"Don't be so smug, Doctor. I've dropped clues like flower petals at a wedding. I called you at seven a.m. Brought in breakfast for us both, a clear tip-off that I was here for a heart to heart. And here we are talking about sex."

"Rape isn't about sex, Fi," Dr. Benson said.

"I know. I was referring to my own situation. And it is, at least partially, about the sex."

"I've noted the definite article, Fi."

"That part deserves the definite article, Doctor. It's the less physical parts of the relationship that give pause. She sighed and shook her head. "It's Hal Perry, my new friend. I told you about him."

"With great enthusiasm, I recollect."

"You've heard all this before, I know."

"But this is different, right?"

"Don't trivialize, Doctor. I'll grant you that all this comes from the same root ... the need to pair. Just because you were lucky once, doesn't mean this is the fate of all."

Both knew that this was gentle sparring. His advice was always on target, including the hardest part, a subtle suggestion that she might be wise to ponder the long term effects of this or that proposed union. He never pressed the point, only mused aloud modestly intoning that "he was not as good with the living as he was with the dead".

"As you know, he's a former General and he is mounting a massive offensive to gain my hand in marriage." She waved her hand around his office. "He wants to take me away from all this. All this blood and violence, chicanery, hypocrisy, deception. In that role, I would be the chatelaine of his various houses, the powerful sucked up to corporate wife."

"Sounds intriguing," he said, unmaking his cathedral and sitting up. He buttered his bagel, took a bite and sipped his coffee.

"It is."

"But is it love?"

"I think so."

"If it's love Fiona, you don't think. It's like religion, an irrational certainty."

"Maybe I'm too cerebral. Or do I prize my independence beyond reason?"

"Now there's an obvious rationalization, Fiona. In love, you give up your independence willingly, gladly."

"You're a pathetic romantic, Dr. Benson. Somehow it seems incongruous with pathology."

"Not at all. It reveals the same certainties. Bones and tissue can't lie."

"Are you suggesting that I'm lying to myself?"

"Not you Fiona. I'd say you weren't, if you'll pardon the expression from a medical examiner, dead certain."

A protest, Fiona knew, would be irrelevant. He knew she had come to him for honesty and wisdom. Dead certain, she mused. Yes, she wanted Hal Perry, wanted to be in his arms, wanted him nearby, wanted to share his life. But she also wanted him to share hers, this life, which put her between, as they say, a rock and a hard place.

"Have you considered split shifts?"

"I have. He hasn't. Oddly enough, it's not the work I do. Unlike others who caught my affection, he has bought my explanation. He truly understands the why of it. That's not the relevant issue. If I were a cabinet minister, a rocket scientist, a lavatory attendant or even a pathologist. It wouldn't matter. He wants me ... there. With him."

"Can you blame him?"

"That would be the last thing I could do," Fiona sighed.

"He's right, you know," Dr. Benton said. "In my view, marriage requires proximity."

"Why can't you read tea leaves instead of ... dead people?"

She popped the last chunk of her bagel into her mouth and washed it down with coffee.

"I wish I could, Fi."

At that moment, the telephone rang. He picked it up.

"Yes, Gail. It's confirmed. She's right here."

He handed her the phone.

"Weird call, Fi." So she was back on Fi, which was encouraging. "Roy, the faithful retainer. Says he's caught the killer."

"What?"

"I'm quoting verbatim. He has him locked in Mrs. Shipley's wine cellar."