Although Lydia had the power to issue subpoenas, she chose to make one final effort to obtain Horace Jenkins’s voluntary cooperation at the Washington MPD. She called and asked to see him. Evidently she caught him in a good mood because he immediately invited her to visit his office at her convenience….
“What can I do for you, Lydia?” Jenkins asked after she’d settled in the green vinyl chair and was served coffee by a clerk. Good and hot. Jenkins and the MPD had their points.
“Tell me what sort of progress you’re making in the Caldwell case.” She sipped the coffee.
“Happy to oblige. Let’s see, we’ve finally interviewed everybody who was at the party.”
“And?”
“And we’ve ruled out about half.”
“On what basis?”
“Instinct, connection or lack of it to the deceased, known attitudes about him, proximity to where he got it, witnesses who said somebody was with them when it happened, that sort of thing. How’s the coffee?”
“Delicious.”
“Well, we public servants aim to please… I suppose you want to know who’s still on the list.”
“I suppose.”
He called out to a clerk to bring him the latest Caldwell file, looked across the desk and smiled. “That’s a nice dress you’re wearing. I wish my ever-loving wife had one like it…” He shrugged. “She’s getting a little thick through the middle, if you know what I mean. Happens, I guess, to women.”
“Men, too,” Lydia said.
He glanced down at his waist and nodded. “Well, it’s different too. I saw a play once where somebody says that men get better looking as they get older, and that women get to look more like the men.”
“What was the name of the play?”
He shrugged. “I never can keep them straight.”
The clerk brought in the file, and Jenkins handed Lydia six typewritten pages from it.
“Mind if I read it now?” she asked.
“When else? It’s not leaving here.”
She dropped the papers on the desk and leaned forward. “Why do we have to go through this all the time? I don’t want to use the committee’s subpoena powers, but you keep forcing the issue.”
“Department policy, Lydia, and you know it.”
“You won’t make me a copy?”
He winced, placed his hand over his heart. “What do you want to do, Lydia, blow my pension?”
She said nothing, just sat there and stared.
He removed his hand from his chest. “All right, all right, I’ll give you a copy.” He opened the file folder and handed her a Xerox of the original she held in her hands. It was obvious that he’d intended all along to give it to her but was going to drag out the process. No easy victories with Jenkins.
“I’d still like to look at it here,” she said.
“Be my guest.”
She quickly scanned the list, and recognized many of the names, including both Caldwell sons; Veronica Caldwell; Jason DeFlaunce; Quentin Hughes; Caldwell’s aide, Richard Marvis; Boris Slevokian; Charles, the assistant Senate restaurant manager; various members of the Caldwell Performing Arts Center’s board of directors; Senator Wilfred MacLoon and his wife; the pianist who’d played at the party and Clarence Foster-Sims.
“Some of these names are ridiculous,” she said.
He puffed up one cheek and ran a finger around the perimeter of his ear. “Tell me why?”
“Clarence Foster-Sims, Boris Slevokian, the piano player?”
“What’s the matter, Lydia, you got a thing for over-aged musicians?”
“I won’t say what I’m thinking,” she said. “Veronica Caldwell? Now, why would she kill her husband?”
“I didn’t say everybody on that list necessarily had a reason to do him in. All I said was that this list narrows down the possibilities. Everybody on it was un-accounted for at the time he was killed… Okay, so you’ve got the list. What next?”
“The transcripts of the interviews you did with everyone at the party.”
“Why everybody? We already cut the list in half.”
“That’s right, you did. I haven’t had a chance to make those same decisions.”
“That’s not my problem, Lydia. What you want is for the MPD to do your work. You want interviews? Then grow your own.”
She sighed and pulled the hem of her dress down a little lower over her knees. He took his eyes from them and focused on something behind her. “Look, Chief,” she said, “I don’t understand why you’re viewing me and the committee as adversaries. It seems to me that a lot of money and time could be saved by sharing what we have. Doesn’t that make sense?”
“Sure, if you had something to share. Have you?”
“I hope to soon. We’re beginning to follow up leads and ideas. I have a small staff. We’ll do all we can, but your help would make things much easier. Why won’t you cooperate?”
“Because it’s one-sided, Lydia. More than that, this department is under the gun from everybody and his brother. Somebody gets killed in D.C. and we’re supposed to solve the crime. If we don’t, people say we’re bums. Nobody likes to be called a bum, never mind being one. Add on that the victim is a senator and everything gets magnified a hundred times. You remember the McNab case? Two years and nothing, not a damn lead. Did you read the column in the paper a couple of days ago? The hotshot who wrote it all of a sudden is Sherlock Holmes, and he claims there must be a connection between Caldwell and McNab.”
She was glad he’d brought up the subject of Jimmye McNab. “Well, isn’t there a possible connection?” she asked. “After all, Senator Caldwell raised Jimmye McNab from infancy—”
“Yeah, I know that, but that doesn’t mean their murders had anything to do with each other.”
“But maybe they did. Anyway, that’s one line of inquiry we’re following—”
“Lotsa luck, Lydia. From what I hear, Mrs. Caldwell… pardon me, Senator Caldwell… she’s not what you’d call happy that the McNab and Caldwell murders are being linked. She wants the McNab thing put to rest as much as her husband did.”
Lydia thought for a moment, then asked with genuine puzzlement, “Are you suggesting that Senator Caldwell wanted Jimmye McNab’s murder investigation stopped?”
“I didn’t say that, Lydia. All I meant was that neither of them, the senator or his wife, were happy about what developed. Can you blame them? It’s bad enough your daughter gets killed by some nut in a park without having it dragged on and on, in the papers, on TV, all of that. It makes us look pretty foolish, huh?”
“Like bums.”
“That’s right. Hey, McNab was a popular TV reporter. Even though the family didn’t push to have the murder solved, lots of other people did, and still do.”
“There you go again, an inference that Senator and Mrs. Caldwell didn’t cooperate in the investigation.”
“Well, she wasn’t really their daughter.”
“I know that, but she might as well have been.”
Jenkins checked a wall clock behind her. “Sorry, but I’ve got to move on. The commissioner wants to see me in a half hour.”
“About the Caldwell case?”
“No.”
“What’ll make you happy?”
“The transcripts of the interviews you did, and a chance to look at the McNab file.”
He shook his head.
“Back to square one, a subpoena.”
“You want me to level with you, Lydia?”
“That would be refreshing.”
“Come on, Lydia, I got a job to do, just like you, only for me the stakes are bigger. You and the committee will go through the motions and then announce that you didn’t find anything that implicates the government or any government official in Caldwell’s murder. Me, I’m still left with everybody looking over my shoulder and demanding that we solve the crime.”
Lydia knew that much of what he said was true, and she felt some sympathy for him. She and the committee were dabbling in crime, dilettantes in a grimy game that he lived with every day and would continue to live with until he either retired or dropped dead.
Still, she knew she couldn’t allow sympathy to get in the way of the job she’d taken on. She slipped her copy of the list into a slim leather briefcase. Jenkins saw the look of disappointment on her face and extended his hands across the desk, palms up, as though to say, Don’t be mad at me.
“Thanks for your time,” she said coolly.
“You want the transcripts?”
“I’ll have them one way or the other.”
“Just sit a minute.” He swiveled in his noisy chair, opened a sliding door on a cabinet, leaned back so that Lydia could see past him and said, “There’s all the copies. They’re too heavy for you to carry. Send somebody over for them.”
She smiled. “Thanks, I really appreciate it.”
His face hardened, and he pointed his index finger at her. “But I warn you, Lydia, that committee you’re working for, like every other damn committee, has enough leaks to sink a destroyer. One leak on what I give you and you can go whistle for anything else. Now and forevermore.”
“I’ll remember that,” she said, meaning it. His concerns were justified, and she determined to do everything in her power to keep the materials private and within the confines of the committee. “I’ll have somebody over here this afternoon.”
“Okay.”
“What about the McNab files? Can I see them?”
“Yeah, but here. No copies.”
“Fair enough. When?”
“Just call.” He suddenly grimaced with pain. “Damn arthritis. I must have slept funny.”
“Take an aspirin.”
“Thanks, doc. Hey, do you know what I read in one of those flaky magazines my wife buys?”
“No, what?”
“That sex is the best medicine for arthritis.”
“I wouldn’t know about that.”
“A pretty gal like you?”
“I don’t have arthritis.”
***
Lydia returned to her office in the Senate Building and arranged for a messenger to accompany her to MPD headquarters later that afternoon to transfer copies of the transcripts back to her apartment. She’d originally intended to ask Rick Petrone to handle the chore and bring the transcripts to the office, but Jenkins’s warning about leaks weighed heavy on her mind. Until she’d personally had a chance to go through the transcripts there was no sense in having them in an office where staff members would have access to them.
She realized that Ginger had not been in all morning, and began to worry about her. At one o’clock the researcher called and said she’d been tied up at the library and would be in by three. Lydia asked about her dinner meeting with Quentin Hughes and was assured that she’d be given all the details when Ginger returned.
Lydia had lunch sent up from the Senate Dining Room. She’d been reluctant to do that but finally decided to take advantage of such services in the interest of saving time. She tipped the waiter, who delivered quiche Lorraine, a salad and black coffee. She wasn’t sure whether tipping was proper in the Senate, but the quickness with which he accepted it settled the question.
Ginger arrived at four, just as Lydia was about to leave to meet the messenger service at Horace Jenkins’s office. “Sorry I’m late,” she said breathlessly, her red hair hanging in limp strands over her face. “I got engrossed in what I was doing and lost track of time. Where are you going?”
Lydia told her, then asked for a brief rundown on the Hughes meeting.
“I can’t go over it that quickly,” Ginger said. “I’ve got a zillion notes I made after I got home. But this is why I was late.” She handed Lydia a copy of a newspaper article on which she’d circled in red a paragraph near the bottom.
Lydia skipped down to the circled portion.
Chief Jenkins was asked whether an autopsy on the victim’s body had been performed. He said that it hadn’t, and went on to explain that the cause of death was so obvious that there was no MPD need for an autopsy.
“I don’t believe it,” Lydia muttered. “An autopsy is routine in murder cases.”
“Not in the Jimmye McNab murder evidently,” said Ginger. “It struck me as odd. That’s why I circled it.”
“I’m glad you did. I’ve got to go.”
“Need any help?”
“No, thanks.” The phone rang just as Rick Petrone entered the office. He picked it up, held it out for Lydia. “It’s Senator Veronica Caldwell.”
Lydia took the phone. “Hello, Veronica.” She wasn’t sure whether she should say “senator” despite their friendship, but her first name just naturally came out.
“Hello, Lydia, how are things going?”
“Getting there. How are you?”
“All right. I was wondering whether we could get together tonight?”
Lydia knew she had little choice but to agree, although she’d had her heart set on spending the evening in her apartment reading through the transcripts. “All right,” she said.
“Would you come to the house?”
“Yes, of course. What time?”
“I won’t be able to get away from here until six. Make it seven-thirty. We’ll have dinner together.”
“Fine, I’ll see you then.”
“Anything I can do for you tonight?” Rick asked after she’d hung up.
“No, thank you, Rick. I’m having dinner with Mrs. Caldwell.”
“What happened today? I got caught up with Senator MacLoon’s schedule and never got a chance to get over here.”
“I thought you belonged to me.”
“That’s what I thought too, but he said you wouldn’t mind losing me for a day. We had the vote on the Wyoming dam project and all hell broke loose. What did I miss?”
“Well, I think the MPD is about to start cooperating.”
His face showed how impressed he was. “What did they give you?”
“Oh, not much, just enough to keep me reading for the next few nights.” She started to leave. “You and Ginger will lock up?”
“Sure. Have a nice night.”
***
It wasn’t until she was in her Buick and about to join the flow of traffic that she realized she’d already told her staff members too much. She tried to remember whether she’d specifically mentioned that she’d been given the transcripts, then decided she hadn’t and felt better about it. Besides, she had considerable faith in the people she was working with.
She headed directly for the MPD, where two young men from the messenger service were waiting. Forty-five minutes later they’d deposited the boxes of transcripts in her living room and left. She looked at the boxes, fought the urge to open one and headed for the shower.
At seven-thirty on the nose, dressed in a gray cashmere sweater and pleated green and blue tartan skirt, her face free of makeup, her hair pulled back, she arrived at the Caldwell house in Mount Vernon.