Quentin Hughes walked briskly through the terminal at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport. His flight from Des Moines had been delayed, and he had only twenty minutes to make his connection to Washington.
He stopped at a wall phone, gave the operator his credit card number and waited for his call to go through. Christa, his producer, picked up the page at WCAP.
“I’ve only a minute, anything I should know about? Any calls?”
“Lots of them. A Ginger Johnson called… she’s from the Senate committee investigating the Caldwell murder, says she’s the special counsel’s chief researcher. She’d like to talk to you.”
“Anybody else?”
“Nothing that can’t wait.”
“I have to go. I’ll probably be there just in time for the show.”
He picked up a small leather overnight bag from the floor. An eight-by-eight-inch package wrapped in plain brown paper had never left its secure spot beneath his arm. He hugged it even closer as he headed for the departure gate.
“I can put that package in the overhead rack,” a flight attendant said once they were aloft.
Hughes shook his head. “No, thanks, I’ll keep it with me.”
She looked at him more closely. “Are you Quentin Hughes?”
“Yup.”
“I’ve seen you on TV.”
“You live in Washington?”
“Uh-huh. I’ve heard you on the radio too.”
“Ears and eyes check out. How about the rest of you?”
“Everything works.” She didn’t smile when she said it. “Excuse me, I have other passengers.”
She provocatively ignored him throughout the flight, which had its desired effect. He liked her looks—medium height with dark brown hair and ultra-white, as the ads said, teeth that she frequently displayed, a little full in the hips but years away from that becoming a problem. As they prepared to land at National Airport she stood next to him. “Two whole days off. I think I’ll celebrate.”
“With anybody in particular?”
“Not yet.”
“Discuss it at dinner?”
“A girl has to eat.” Moments later she returned and handed him a slip of paper on which she’d written her address and phone number….
“I’ll drive you home,” he said. “Time’s a problem for me, I’m afraid. I’ve got a show to do tonight.”
He arrived at the studio at 11:45. He and the flight attendant… he still thought of her job as “stewardess”… had ordered in Chinese food and had lingered in her small apartment until he’d had to leave. He told her he’d call the next day but knew he wouldn’t.
He lingered for a few minutes after the show with the departing guest, a professor of geology at George Washington University. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Christa scooping up paraphernalia from the table, including the package he’d carried with him from Des Moines, and that had sat next to the microphone throughout the program.
“Don’t touch that,” he said from across the studio.
“Pardon me. What’s in it, a bomb?”
He excused himself from the professor, grabbed up the package and went to his office. Christa followed. “I was cleaning up, that’s all,” she said. “What’s so important about that package, Quentin?”
“Nothing… something personal.” He glanced down at a slip of paper on which Ginger Johnson’s message had been recorded. “Am I supposed to call her back?”
“Yes, as soon as possible.”
He put the paper in his jacket pocket. “What are you doing now?” he asked.
“Home to bed, like any good little girl about Washington.”
“I’ll come with you.”
She felt a distinct twinge of displeasure… anger, even… at being so taken for granted, but a rush of expectation, willy-nilly, went with it. And in a way she was flattered. Obviously he wasn’t in the mood for the mindless young woman he’d been living with…
She fixed him eggs the way he liked, loosely scrambled, no butter, while he took a shower. She noticed that the package wasn’t in the bedroom. He came out of the bathroom wearing a robe he’d kept there for years, and carrying the package beneath his arm. He sprawled out on the bed and waited for her to bring the tray with his eggs. She did, then snuggled in beside him. “Why the hurry-up trip to Des Moines, Quentin?”
He talked between bites. “To see my mother, she hasn’t been feeling so hot…”
“Oh? And she sounded so strong last week when she called—”
“Forget it, Christa… It was a good show tonight, huh?”
She punched him on the arm lightly. “It always is, and you know it.”
“Yeah, right… Hey, I’m really beat, Christa, okay? Wake me at eleven. Big day tomorrow…”
She reached for him beneath the folds of his robe, but he turned his back. She could wait. She removed the tray and watched television in the living room until eleven, then woke him. He rubbed his eyes, yawned and pulled her down on top of him. Damn him, it was worth waiting for….
***
An hour later, Ginger Johnson received a call from Quentin Hughes. “Thanks for calling back,” she said, then went on to tell him about her role with the committee and her need to talk with him about what he’d observed at the Caldwell party, and to see whether his long association with the family might provide some insight into the murder.
“I’ve been through all this with the MPD—”
“I know that, but Ms. James thought—”
“How is she?”
“Fine, just fine. Really, Mr. Hughes, I’d only need an hour of your time.”
“All right. How about dinner?”
“I was thinking of—”
“That’s the only time I’m free for the next six months.”
“Well, if that’s the case, I suppose I’ll have to work overtime. Any preference in restaurants?”
“Is the committee buying?”
“I suppose.”
“Good, make it Petitto’s, on Connecticut, Northwest. See you there at seven.”
Ginger reported her conversation with Hughes to Lydia. “Dinner? Protect your flanks, he’s a dedicated womanizer.”
“By me that’s not all bad, Lydia. The way things are going… or not going… with Harold.”
“Forewarned is… Did you ask him about getting the videotape of his last interview with Senator Caldwell?”
“I didn’t have a chance but I’ll bring it up at dinner. You said you wanted to discuss the Jimmye McNab murder before I interviewed Hughes.”
Lydia nodded. “The rumor is that Jimmye and Hughes had an affair. That wouldn’t be so unusual, but some people say she represented one of the few real, two-way relationships he’s ever had. I’ll tell you what I know at lunch. Come on, my treat.”
***
As Lydia and Ginger left the office to go to lunch, Quentin Hughes entered his apartment in the Watergate, placed the brown package in a fireproof, locked chest in the bottom of a closet and returned the key to its hiding place on a nail behind the refrigerator. He lay back on the couch, kicked off his shoes and thought about the last twenty-four hours. After a while he got up and called his mother in Des Moines.
“I was worried about you,” she said. “You said you’d call when you got home safe. You know I hate airplanes.”
“Yeah, I know, Momma, but I got busy. It was good seeing you.”
“You don’t visit enough.”
“Yeah, well, maybe I’ll have more time in a couple of months. Thanks for keeping the package safe.”
“I did just like you told me. I kept it under all the blankets in the closet and never told nobody it was here. I don’t even ask anymore what’s in it. That’s your business, I guess. Thanks for the money. It costs so much to heat the house these days. I called the furnace man but he said—”
“I have to run, Momma. Thanks again. I’ll call soon.”
“You say that but you never do, son, except when you need somethin’.”
“Goodbye, Momma.”
Now he slept until Christa called him at five. He showered, shaved and left for his dinner engagement with Ginger Johnson, wondering as he drove to the restaurant what she looked like. All right, so he was a rat… but at least he liked women, which was more than you could say about most of the men in Washington.