Murder on Embassy Row (14 page)

“Never met him. Damn fool, Geoffrey was, bringing that sort with him.”

Connie wasn’t sure how to respond. She thought for a moment, then said, “Geoffrey was quite the ladies’ man, wasn’t he?”

Mrs. Girard laughed. “Yes, he did well with them, better than he did with his business and his high and mighty diplomatic nonsense. He had more bearing than brains, as my late husband would have said, but he wasn’t so smart himself.”

“Your…”

“That’s right, my husband. Shock you that I’d speak this way of the dead? It shouldn’t. They were all right, my husband and my son-in-law, a couple of British stuffed shirts who knew more about how to spend money than make it, spend it on the ladies.”

Connie was excited over Mrs. Girard’s candor. She nervously glanced at the door, then asked, “Did you know about a woman named Lindstrom, Inga Lindstrom?”

The old woman suddenly seemed to be fatigued. She closed her eyes, slowly opened them and said, “No, was she one of them?”

“I don’t mean to…”

“Both foolish, my daughter and my son-in-law. She supported him in grand style with our money until he got enough of his own, then he decides to walk out on her for some floozy.”

“Who?”

“Who cares? That secretary of his, this Inga what’s-her-face, somebody. I’m past my nap time.”

“Yes, of course.” Connie stood, offered her hand, which Mrs. Girard took. There was less strength than in their initial handshake. “You’re very kind, Mrs. Girard. I appreciate everything.”

“It wasn’t much of a lunch but with the prices of everything…” Her voice trailed off as though a tiny wind-up motor inside had wound down.

“I’ll see myself out,” Connie said. “Again, thank you.”

Ferguson and Marsha James were in the front hall. “Thank you,” Lake said.

“It was nice of you to stop by.” There was an awkward silence before Mrs. James added, “I don’t wish to be uncooperative, Miss Lake, but all of this has been traumatic.”

“I understand.” She said to Ferguson, who’d put on a tan cashmere topcoat and a snappy tweed hat, “Congratulations on your retirement. Who’ll run the oil company now?”

“It’s in the process of being dissolved,” Mrs. James said. “It no longer exists as a business entity.”

“Oh. Well, thanks again. It was gracious of you to have me to lunch.”

Marsha James smiled. “I think it was Mother who had you to lunch. She often invites people she doesn’t know. Mother is… well, she’s getting old and quite eccentric.”

“She’s nice,” Connie said.

“Yes, eccentric and nice. Good-bye.”

Marsha James waited until Lake had disappeared around a corner in search of a cab, and Ferguson had driven off in his red Mercedes, then went to her bedroom and dialed a number in Washington. “This is Marsha James,” she said to an answering machine. “Call me at the Philadelphia number as soon as you come in.”

Morizio had come down with a head cold the night before, which was a good excuse to leave MPD early that afternoon. He went home, made himself some soup, and started going over everything he knew about the Pringle and James murders. The papers Pringle had left at Piccadilly were spread over the dining room table. Lake’s tapes of her conversations with Melanie Callender and George Thorpe played on the stereo. A lined yellow legal pad contained pages of notes Morizio made each time a thought or a potential connection came to him.

He called Ethel Pringle at 4:30. She was slightly warmer this time, not quite so standoffish although Morizio didn’t categorize her attitude as friendly. He taped the conversation, and played the tape after they’d concluded their talk.

M
ORIZIO
: “Sorry to bother you again, Ethel. This is Sal Morizio.”

P
RINGLE
: “It’s all right.”

M
ORIZIO
: “Ethel, why did Paul return to Washington?”

P
RINGLE
: “I don’t know.”

M
ORIZIO
: “He didn’t give you any indication, any hint?”

P
RINGLE
: “No.”

M
ORIZIO
: “He’d made a date to see me the night he was murdered. His message sounded urgent. Could it have been about the James murder?”

P
RINGLE
: “Perhaps. I really don’t know anything. Thank you for calling. I know he was fond of you.”

M
ORIZIO
: “Wait, please. This accusation that he was involved in drugs. Can that be true?”

P
RINGLE
: (After a long pause) “Paul was troubled, was involved in things he shouldn’t have been. He never shared with me, so I don’t know any of the specifics. I just know the past few months have been dreadful for all of us and I would prefer to bury them. Please understand.”

M
ORIZIO
: “I think it’s a damn shame.”

P
RINGLE
: “Of course it is, it’s…”

M
ORIZIO
: “I’m not talking about his death, Ethel, I’m talking about his reputation. Paul Pringle never touched drugs in his life and I hate to see you and Harriet tainted by a lie.”

P
RINGLE
: “All of it is in the past. I’m determined to start anew, and so is Harriet. Thank you.”

She hung up.

Morizio played the tape again, and once more. He kept focusing on her statement—“Paul was troubled, was involved in things he shouldn’t have been.”

Lake walked in at five-thirty.

“How’d it go?” he asked.

“You have a cold? You sound nasal.”

“Yeah. What happened in Philadelphia?”

“A lot.” She pulled the tape from her coat pocket and handed it to him.

“You got to talk to her?”

“Sure did, and her mother, and Sir Edwin Ferguson.”

“Who’s he?”

“He was on the guest list. Old friend and business partner.”

Morizio rewound the tape and started it. Lake made herself a drink and joined him on the couch. The words from Mrs. Girard’s study were clear and complete. Morizio and Lake listened from different perspectives. For Morizio it was all new. For Connie, it enhanced memories of her day; she was back in Mrs. Girard’s home.

When the tape was over, Morizio said, “There’s a lot there.”

“I couldn’t get over Mrs. Girard’s candor, but old people are like that sometimes. The tape misses the nuances, though, the looks between people, the subtle feelings.”

“Tell me about ’em.”

“You sound awful. Are you taking something?”

“Chicken soup, canned, and Ornade.”

“Okay, here’s the way it went.”

They talked until two in the morning, an FM elevator-music station playing softly in the background. They went over Pringle’s papers, and Morizio’s notes. They had trouble creating a clear-cut scenario or establishing viable connections between the murders, but they did agree that the murders had to have been linked, in some way, although the actual acts had probably been committed by two different people—a conspiracy. Inga Lindstrom kept popping up as a missing link, and Melanie Callender took on greater importance because of Mrs. Girard’s comment about her and the fact that she was involved, to some extent, in Ambassador James’s Scottish oil company.

“If James was that much of a player,” Morizio said, “his wife had cause to hurt him.”

“But why Pringle?”

“He knew something that would incriminate the murderer, or he had something, papers, like what he left me.”

Lake yawned. “I’m beat. It’s been a long day.”

“Tell me again about Ferguson. What was it he said, that the oil company had been ‘dissolved’? That’s a strange way to put it.”

“He didn’t say it, Marsha James did. It was almost as though she wanted the point to be made that it was gone, finished, not worth thinking about.”

“Let’s think about it.”

“I assumed we would.”

“What about James’s will?”

Connie shrugged.

“Did he leave everything to his wife?”

“I don’t know.”

“Is she the one ‘dissolving’ the business?”

“Sal, I don’t know.”

“I don’t expect you to. I’m just thinking out loud.”

“You’re
very
nasal.”

“Yeah. I think I have a fever, too.”

“Can I get you something?”

“Club soda, and let me change the music. It’s putting me to sleep.”

Lake went to the kitchen as Morizio changed frequencies on his FM receiver. He found a college station at around 90 playing vintage jazz—an Art Tatum solo recording of “Willow Weep For Me” was in progress. Reception wasn’t good and he carefully adjusted the dial until the needle was at its maximum strength. Static continued to drift in and out, but he was willing to trade off reception for the good music.

Connie returned with a large glass of club soda and ice. She’d poured herself a glass of tomato juice.

“Let’s run this through one more time,” Morizio said. He drank from his glass and walked to the window. Outside, an ice storm had rolled in, turning the streets into long, wide skating rinks. It was pretty; light reflected off the glassy surfaces as though someone had randomly spilled containers of red, yellow, and green oil into water.

“Okay, Ambassador Geoffrey James is poisoned by someone within his inner circle. His wife hates him because he runs around and is about to divorce her. His secretary has a thing going with him, and maybe he’s crossed her. He’s got a disgruntled assistant, Barnsworth, who’d kill his sister for a real ambassadorship. His Iranian servant, Hafez, maybe isn’t too happy with something that’s going on. His girl friend’s in town, Swedish beauty named Lindstrom, who calls him and he calls her and they don’t connect. Maybe they did, who knows? He’s got this partner, Ferguson, who’s uncomfortable with you there, says he’s retired, the business has been dissolved for some reason and…”

“Sal.”

“What?”

“Did you hear it?”

“Hear what?”

“The radio.”

Morizio cocked his head in the direction of the speakers. The Jimmy Lunceford Orchestra was playing a Sy Oliver arrangement of “Four or Five Times.” “It’s nice,” he said.

“Not the music, what else was coming through.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I heard
you
before.”

“On the radio?”

“Yes, go ahead and talk.” She went to one of the speakers and pressed her ear against it. Morizio started to loudly recite the alphabet. “Change places with me, Sal.”

He stood by the speaker while she went to where he’d been standing and recited “A, B, C…”

“I hear you,” he said. “Keep going.” As she continued speaking he played with the tuning dial until her voice came in stronger. “Son of a…”

“The room’s bugged,” she said.

“It sure as hell is.” He went to his electronic supply closet and pulled out a tiny, thin Nuvox FM radio. He plugged in an earphone, put on his coat and shoes, and told her to keep talking while he went outside.

“Let me go, Sal. You’re sick.”

“No, just give me a few minutes, then start talking.”

A blast of freezing rain stung his face as he left the building. He shivered as he placed the earpiece in his ear and adjusted the tuning dial to approximately 90. He continued to fine-tune until he heard Lake’s voice. It was clear: “A, B, C…”

He walked toward the river. Her voice continued to play in his ear. It wasn’t until he’d gone about eight blocks that she faded out. He stayed tuned-in as he retraced his steps, heard her say, “Sal, can you hear me? Come on back, you’ll get pneumonia.”

“Eight blocks,” he said when he returned to the apartment. “I picked it up for eight blocks.” He threw his coat on a chair, picked up the living room phone, and unscrewed the earpiece. There, nestled in cotton beneath the wired coil was a sub-miniature FM transmitter. He carefully removed it and examined it under the light. “State-of-the-art,” he mumbled. He looked at Lake and said, “Remember when we looked at voice scramblers and bug sniffers last year? I wanted to buy
one but it was too much money. Remember? I think what was in the back of my mind was that I’m a cop, and nobody bugs cops, do they? What a jerk.”

“What about the bedroom?” Connie said.

There was a transmitter in that phone, too. “While we were in bed,” he said.

“I don’t really understand why it picks us up talking in a room. Why doesn’t it just transmit phone calls?” she asked.

“Like I said, Connie, state-of-the-art. I’ve seem them demonstrated. The phone itself powers it but it’s not dependent on phone transmissions. It covers a room, any room.” He punched the palm of his left hand with his right fist. “Your place, too, probably. Let’s get over there.”

“Let’s do it tomorrow. There’s nobody there for them to hear anyway.”

He reluctantly agreed.

They sat in the living room until almost daybreak, and each hour saw Morizio become increasingly angry. The reality was that everything they’d discussed about the James and Pringle murders had been overheard, including the tapes Lake had made with Callender, Thorpe, and Mrs. Girard, Marsha James, and James Ferguson. And, what nettled him even more, their love-making, every subtle, private, personal sound of it had been shared.

Just before Connie dozed off on his shoulder, she asked, “The department? Did they do it?”

“Who else?”

“Then they know we’ve been disobeying orders from the beginning.”

“Yeah. I’m sorry for dragging you into it.”

“Don’t be. I love you.”

She closed her eyes and fell asleep.

They stopped at her apartment in the morning. Both phones there had been altered, too.

Morizio went directly to the Surveillance unit at MPD and checked out a small and lightweight device that vibrated in the user’s hand whenever it came close to a concealed transmitter or room bug. He went to his office, closed the door and approached his desk phone. Lake watched him as he extended his hand toward the phone. He stared at the two-by-two-inch box in his hand. It had started to vibrate. “Here, too,” he said. He shut off the device and unscrewed both earpiece and mouthpiece. There was nothing except what belonged there. “It’s in the line,” he said, “probably downstairs in the junction boxes.”

“Can they hear us now?” Lake asked.

“Not unless there’s a mike somewhere in the room.” He walked the office’s perimeters, the device in his hand. It didn’t vibrate until he came close to the phone again. “I think it’s just a phone tap,” he said, “but let’s cool the conversations just in case.”