D.C. Dead

35

Stone arrived at Fair Sutherlin’s apartment and was greeted with a kiss to the corner of his mouth, with just a little tongue. Fair was dressed in tight jeans and a V-necked cashmere sweater that showed an inviting amount of cleavage, and her breasts seemed unfettered under the sweater.

“I had a tougher day than I had planned,” she said, “so do you mind if we just order in some Chinese?”

“Fine with me,” Stone replied.

She handed him a menu. “You choose, and order too much so I’ll have leftovers to keep me alive for a few days. I’ll get the trays ready.” She disappeared into the kitchen.

Stone consulted the menu and noted that Fair had checked the dishes she preferred, probably on an earlier occasion. He chose the marked dishes that he liked, too, and called the restaurant, ordering pork pot stickers, shrimp balls, Yang Chow fried rice, General Tso’s chicken, orange beef, sweet-and-sour shrimp, and Mongolian beef, then he went to the bar. Fair had been drinking scotch on his previous visit, so he poured her a Chivas Regal and found some Knob Creek for himself, then he took the drinks into the kitchen.

Fair was arranging trays containing napkins, silverware, wineglasses, and little individual salt and pepper shakers. He handed her the scotch. “That looks beautiful,” he said of the trays. “When I order Chinese at home, I tend to eat straight out of the cartons.”

“I do that, too,” she said, “when there are no witnesses.” She took a gulp of her scotch. “Thanks for remembering,” she said.

“Thanks for having my bourbon.” He took a sip. “How did you find your way to the White House?” he asked.

“When I was a senior in college, at UVA, I volunteered to work for a Democratic candidate for Congress, as research for an eventual thesis for a master’s degree in political science. To my surprise, I thoroughly enjoyed the experience, and the congressman-elect offered me a job on his staff. I didn’t take it, but I had met some interesting figures in the party during the campaign, one of them Tim Coleman, the deputy chief of staff for Senator Hart, who gave me his card and told me to keep in touch. Just before I graduated, Tim called and invited me to come to Washington for a talk. He introduced me to the senator, whom I admired, and they talked me into forgetting my master’s and joining the Hart staff.

“I began as deputy press secretary, and after a couple of years of that Tim got promoted to chief of staff, and I became his deputy.”

“That sounds like a wonderful opportunity,” Stone said.

“I got lucky,” she replied. “When Senator Hart died, Tim went to the White House, and the senator’s appointed replacement hired me to be his chief of staff. The guy knew nothing, and that made me look like I knew everything, but I have to say, I did a good job for him. That led to a job in the press office at the White House, during Will Lee’s first term, and when he got reelected, Tim Coleman moved me over as one of his two deputies.”

“So you’ve been in the White House for how long?”

“Nearly seven years.”

“It must seem like home by now.”

She laughed. “It seems like a sweatshop.”

“Will you be glad when it’s over, and Will Lee goes home to Georgia?”

“I suppose I’ll have mixed feelings,” she said.

“Any plans for after the White House?”

“I’ve got my eye on a House seat in Virginia,” she said. “I don’t think the guy is going to run again, and I think I’d be good at it.”

“And after that, what? Governowhat? Gor? Senator? President?”

She gave him a sly smile. “Who knows where the road may lead?”

The house phone buzzed, and she told the doorman to send up the food. Stone met the deliveryman at the door, paid him, and brought the big bag into the kitchen. Fair gave Stone a bottle of Chardonnay from the fridge to open, then they heaped food onto their plates and took their trays into the living room.

Fair switched on the TV. “Do you mind? I TiVo the evening news.”

“Not at all.”

They watched the news silently, and Fair spoke only when fast-forwarding through the commercials. When it was over, Stone said, “I thought there might be a mention of the Muffy Brandon murder.”

Fair shook her head. “Nope, that’s a local story. If Paul Brandon were still in the Cabinet, it might have made the national cut.”

“Since you worked for Senator Hart, you must have known his wife.”

“Milly? Sure. She was in and out of the office all the time. I liked her.”

“How about Muffy Brandon?”

“I met her a few times at dinner parties. I liked her less. She was too skittish for my taste, too brittle. She was beautiful, of course, but, as far as I was concerned, not an attractive person.”

“Any thoughts about who killed them?”

She looked at him in mock surprise. “Are you kidding? You’re the investigator: you tell me.”

Stone watched her closely for her reaction to his next statement. “I think the killer may very well work in the White House.”

She choked on her wine. “Are you serious?”

“I am.”

“Please, please tell me why you think that.”

“Things have come out in our latest round of interviews with White House people.”

“What things?”

“I haven’t reported to the president yet, so I can’t tell you.”

“Have you mentioned this to anyone outside the White House?”

“Just the people involved in our investigation.”

“Please promise me you won’t breathe a word of that to anyone else. It’s the sort of thing that the media would go nuts over, and we’d be overwhelmed for days, maybe weeks, dealing with it. It would just make it harder for us to get our work done in the months Will Lee has left in office.”

“I won’t tell anyone else. It’s just a theory, at this point.”

“Well, it’s a very scary theory,” she said. “When do you plan to wrap up your investigation?”

“We were about ready to do that, until the two women were murdered,” Stone said. “Now we’ll have to wait and see how everything plays out.”

“I wish to God Will and Kate hadn’t asked you to look into Mimi’s and Brix’s deaths,” she said. “Everything that’s happened seems to be because you’re here, doing this.”

“Sometimes I feel the same way,” Stone said.

“Enough shoptalk,” she said. “I have an early day every day, so we should so we shget into bed now.” She took his face in her hands and kissed him, then she took his hand and put it inside her sweater, on her breast. “Are you game?” she asked. “I don’t have time for foreplay.”

“I’m game,” Stone said, stripping off her sweater, while she worked on his buttons. He was astonished at how swiftly she had inflamed him.