D.C. Dead

9

Stone and Dino had made themselves presentable by the time Assistant Director Shelley Bach arrived at the door, and, as it turned out, she had made herself very presentable, too. She was wearing a black sheath under a silk coat, very high heels, diamond studs in her ears, and an expensive-looking diamond-like necklace around her throat.

“Good evening,” she said, as Stone held the door for her. She shook both their hands and her hand seemed to linger in Dino’s for a moment.

“Please have a seat,” Stone said. “May I get you a drink?”

Bach glanced at her Cartier wristwatch. “Thank you, yes. A vodka martini on the rocks, please.”

Stone turned to make the drink, and when he turned back Bach and Dino were sharing the small sofa. He delivered her drink on a small silver tray, then made Di V

“Long day?” he asked, by way of small talk.

“It’s always a long day at the Bureau,” she replied. “Especially since I was promoted.”

“How long have you been an assistant director?” Stone asked.

“About three months. When Kerry was promoted from assistant to deputy director, he brought me up with him. We’ve worked quite closely together for a couple of years.”

“What sort of cases do you work?” Dino asked.

Bach turned her body toward him as she answered. “Kerry’s purview is domestic criminal investigations, so just about everything under that umbrella. I must say, though, that the Kendrick affair was the first homicide I investigated in more than four years.”

“Was it?” Stone said, noncommittally.

She rolled her eyes. “I must apologize for my inattention to the bricks. That was inexcusable, and I’m very embarrassed.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Dino said, patting her knee.

Stone observed this action with concealed amusement. Was Dino making a move?

“You’re very kind,” she said. “We should have the lab report first thing in the morning, and I’ll be sure to get it to you quickly.” She opened the small satin clutch she had brought and extracted a folded sheet of paper, then she unfolded it and read from it: “These are the people who were in the proximity of the crime scene at the time of the murder: the president of the United States; the vice president of the United States; the secretary of state; two undersecretaries of state; the president’s chief of staff, Tim Coleman; one of his two deputies, Charleston Bostwick; and two Secret Service agents.”

“That’s quite a list of suspects,” Stone said.

“Those were the people in the Oval Office,” she said, “and ‘suspects’ is your word, not mine. Within a short distance of the Oval Office were the president’s three secretaries, the chief of staff’s two secretaries, the second deputy chief of staff, Herman Wilkes, his secretary, and the secretary of Ms. Bostwick.” She handed the list to Dino. “I’m sorry,” she said to Stone, “I didn’t bring a second copy.”

“Quite all right,” Stone said. Dino read the list, then handed it to Stone.

“For your information, we have, through interrogation and questioning of all these people, excluded as suspects those present in the Oval Office at the time, and all the others near the Oval Office, with the exception of Herman Wilkes, who left his office about the time of the murder to attend a meeting in the Map Room, just down the hall from the O.O. We were unable to immediately exclude him, until we had interviewed two people at the meeting who accounted for the time of his presence there.”

“Did you take a look at a list of visitors to the White House at that time?” Dino asked.

“Yes, we did, and we were able to exclude all of them, since none had access to the portico.”

Stone spoke up. “Were you present when Brixton Kendrick was interviewed?”

“Yes, I conducted the interview.”

“What were your impressions of him at that time?”

“Very broken up, understandably. I also inferred a heavy undercurrent of guilt, and in retrospect, I think that was because he caused her death.”

“When was his body discovered?” Stone asked.

“The morning after the murder,” Bach replied. “His daughter-in-law stopped by the house to deliver a birthday present to him-she had a key-and she discovered the body hanging in the living room. He had kicked over the ladder he used to tie the rope to the rafter.”

“Did you consider that it might not have been suicide?” Stone asked.

“We viewed his death as a homicide from the beginning of the investigation and determined it to be a suicide only after a thorough examination of the premises revealed no evidence of another person present at the time. Then there was the note, of course.”

“Note?” Stone said, surprised.

“It’s in the report you were given.”

Stone picked up the report from the coffee table and leafed through it. “Ah, here it is. I missed it the first time.”

“Read it to us,” Dino said.

“It’s handwritten, hurriedly, I would say: ‘I take full responsibility for my wife’s death and for everything that’s happened. There is no life for me now, and my affairs are in order.’”

“That seemed to cover everything,” Bach said. “We closed the investigation two days after his body and the note were found.”

Stone read from the note again: “‘I take full responsibility for my wife’s death and for everything that’s happened.’ He doesn’t say he killed her, and what does ‘everything that’s happened’ mean? What else happened?”

“My assumption is that he was referring to the events in his marriage that led up to the murder of his wife, and I disagree with your interpretation of ‘I take full responsibility for my wife’s death.’”

“I think your interpretation is a reasonable one,” Dino said.

Bach nodded. “I think that, coming from as well-educated and as articulate a man as Brixton Kendrick, ‘full responsibility’ means ‘full responsibility.’”

“I can’t mount a cogent argument against your view,” Stone admitted. “However, nobody we’ve talked to was aware of any events in the marriage that might have led to a murder/suicide. They’ve been pictured as the happiest and most well-adjusted of couples.”

“People of their social class do not easily share the details of their marriage with others, even their peers,” Bach said. “Perhaps especially not with their peers.”

Stone shrugged. “If I’ve learned anything in my life, it’s that nobody can ever understand what goes on in somebody else’s marriage.”

“Well said,” Bach replied. She glanced at her watch. “I’m due at a cocktail party at the British Embassy,” she said. “Would you gentlemen like to come along?”

“Love to,” said Dino, without hesitation.

“Thanks,” Stone said, “but I think I have a date with room service. You two have fun.”

Dino and Bach left, and Stone thought that neither of them seemed at all broken up about his staying home.

He c [siz andalled Holly.