Murder — His and Hers

Catgate

Senator Jim Rawson, Democrat, Iowa, 45 years of age, pulled the sleek red sports car over along the edge of the gravel road. Virginia farmland, washed in moonlight, surrounded him, a fertile and yet desolate landscape, serene in its isolation. Not a farmhouse in sight; certainly not a car. And the only other human being present was a dead one.

Vicki.

The busty young woman wore a pink T-shirt and jeans and running shoes — though she was in her late twenties, she might have been a college girl. Her features were cute — big long-lashed eyes (shut now), pert nose, pouty puffy lips. She was slumped against the other window of the Jaguar. He’d have to move her.

Leaving the driver’s side door open, Rawson — in University of Iowa yellow-and-black sweatshirt and black jeans and black leather gloves — came around and carried her from the rider’s side of the vehicle. It was as if he were carrying a bride across the threshold, although the only threshold Vicki Petersen had crossed was death’s, and she’d done that several hours ago.

Rawson — tall, raw-boned, with blonde-brown hair touched at the temples by distinguished gray — had a Marlboro man look that bode well with his conservative constituency. Iowans rarely voted Democrats to the Senate. Rawson had maintained the office for three terms (with dead-certain re-election coming up next year) by balancing his own slightly left-of-center politics with country charm.

As he gently conveyed the shapely and very dead body of the woman who had been his mistress for three years, he was bitterly aware of his own reputation as a champion of women’s rights, a battler for ERA, a vocal defender of Anita Hill. This irony left a bitter taste in his being as he arranged the corpse behind the wheel of the sports car, which had been purchased by him, in cash, with PAC money a little more than a year before.

“I loved you, Vicki,” he said, and could hear his voice waver; tears were blurring his vision, if not his mission. “But you betrayed me.”

Could she have really believed he would marry her? A Catholic in a predominantly Protestant state, Rawson knew the good people of Iowa would never stand for him divorcing, childless marriage or not, particularly not with a wife who was bedridden back home, wasting away with MS.

And then to threaten him with exposure — “How would you like to see our story on ‘A Current Affair,’ or maybe ‘Hard Copy’? Maybe I could play myself in the TV movie!” — truly contemptible.

You little bitchy he thought, and raised a hand as if to slap her, but the beautiful, eternally slumbering woman behind the wheel was past feeling any such sting, and he immediately felt a flush of shame.

He sighed. A summer breeze riffled a nearby field of wheat, and his own wheat-colored, dead-dry hair. The moon was like a hole punched in a black starless sky, letting in too much light. He looked at his watch, shut the girl’s car door with a thunk that echoed across the world. Where was Edward, anyway?

It was highly unlikely this dead girl would ever come back to haunt him. He knew that. The only nervousness he felt was immediate — once Edward had arrived, and he was back safely in his townhouse on P Street in Georgetown, Jim Rawson would be secure, with his best and only true friend — the big gray mixed-breed cat, Tricky Dick — settled on his lap.

He wondered if Dick would mourn the missing Vicki — the cat and the girl had taken to each other from the start....

A little over ten years ago, Vicki Petersen had been a cheerleader at the University of Iowa, a small-town girl with a big future — until she flunked out in her sophomore year, and found her way to New York, where an acting career seemed to beckon. Naturally top-heavy, her high, soft yet firm silicone-free breasts became tickets to stardom on the strip club circuit.

This had been prior to the more recent influx of upscale topless nightclubs, venues in which she might have made some real money. But a few years ago, stripping was less lucrative, and when Rawson met her in a D.C. bar called the Gentleman’s Club, she was at a low ebb.

He had encouraged her to quit her job as a stripper and get back to pursuing her acting career; as a senator, he’d met and maintained personal relationships with any number of Hollywood celebrities and could certainly help her make some connections.

She had been drawn to him immediately, he could tell — after all, not only was he a senator, and as handsome as Robert Redford, but a superstar celebrity back in her home state. Their affair had begun that first night.

Rawson didn’t like risking motels — you never knew when some sleazeball reporter was lurking in the bushes, waiting to make Gary Hart out of you — so early on in the relationship he had ensconced the girl in a suite at the Watergate. Irony was second-nature to Rawson, and he relished having his mistress spirited comfortably (and handily) away in the hotel and apartment complex where a break-in had once led to that sleazeball Richard Nixon’s downfall.

Vicki had been a private person. Her family back in Iowa — farm folk — had been kept in the dark about her stripping career. She would hardly have told them about an affair she was having.

Nor did she have any girlfriends among the strippers on the topless circuit — her aspirations toward acting had made her a snob toward them. They were sluts, tramps, low-lifes; she, on the other hand, was an actress reluctantly taking on this demeaning “role” on her way to a real career on stage or screen.

He knew she had made a few friends with other single women tenants at the Watergate — secretaries and such. But he had been adamant about her not sharing any secrets with them — after all (as he had drilled into her), these were women who swam in the same dirty Washington waters as he, working for this lobbying firm or that Political Action Committee; the wrong word to the right one of them, and he’d be sunk. And, so, he felt confident she’d protected him.

Even if she had mentioned him to a girl friend (and he doubted it), he knew they had never been seen together; no photographs of them, as a couple, existed to become a nasty surprise on the Enquirer cover.

She invariably would be picked up by Edward in the limo with its dark windows and brought into the townhouse from a garage in the alley that connected with an underground passageway that connected all of the homes on this block. Only Rawson knew about it, however, and that allowed Edward to bring Miss Petersen into (and out of) the P Street townhouse undetected.

“If people see us together,” he would tell her, “it will taint our eventual marriage. When Marge passes away, we’ll ‘meet’ for the ‘first time,’ and you’ll be a Senator’s wife with all the respect and attention you deserve.”

He could see how much she liked the sound of that, and knew she wouldn’t risk such a future. But she had grown impatient of late, saying, “That woman is never going to die! Divorce her! No one will blame you.”

She didn’t understand that she was asking him to commit political suicide.

And now, thanks to the cocktail she’d sipped at the town-house, laced with a deadly, tasteless and thankfully painless poison, she had committed literal suicide.

Not intentionally, of course, but the world wouldn’t know that. They would find a frustrated would-be actress, and ex-stripper, an empty pill bottle beside her lifeless form, a poor dead girl who wound up along the country roadside in a Jaguar purchased her by some unknown gentleman friend who had, perhaps, dumped her, sending her into this fit of final despair.

If this sort of tragedy was not unknown to Washington, neither was it unique to that city.

For this once, he had invited her to drive directly to him; Edward was off tonight, he told her, so there would be no chauffeured limo ride from the Watergate.

But Edward was not off. Edward — the towering discrete manservant with the faintly British accent and long, blankly cruel face, a combination driver/cook/valet highly recommended to him by a senator friend of his from Massachusetts — was waiting in the wings for Miss Petersen’s cocktail to kick in, after which he carried her to the garage where the Jag waited.

The limo, parked on the street for this once, was to follow Rawson and his deceased passenger to this prearranged spot, and Edward was overdue. Just by two minutes, but that was not typical for Edward, and it unnerved Rawson, who was not thrilled to be standing on the roadside near a sports car with his own murdered mistress in it.

But then the limo rolled into view, kicking up some gravel dust, and soon Edward — uniformed, formal, so elegant and proper — stepped out, opened the back door of the black Lincoln Continental, and Rawson crawled into the secure, leather-smelling womb of it. Edward even had a drink waiting on the extended bar tray — a Dewars on ice.

“Unexpected traffic, sir,” Edward said, as he took off.

“Thank you, Edward,” Rawson said. “I’d like some privacy if you don’t mind.”

“Not at all, sir,” the driver said, and closed the compartment off.

Rawson gulped greedily at the drink; he could not keep from looking back out the smoky glass window at the receding sight of the red Jag and the slumped blonde figure behind its wheel. When it was but a small red drop of blood on the moon-washed country landscape behind them, the limo took a hill, and the girl and the car were gone.

The following December, on a very cold lightly snowy night in Washington, D.C., against the advice of Edward (whose salary had been doubled after the “incident”), United States Senator Jim Rawson found himself, once again, drawn to the topless bar where he had met Vicki Petersen.

The Gentleman’s Club, on M Street N.W., had been remodeled into a glittering chrome and mirrored wonderland, in the upscale fashion that was the current trend. Three stages, connected by runways, were being stalked by a trio of bare, bosomy beauties under disco-style flashing lights.

Rawson found a table against a mirrored wall and sat alone, away from the stages; he neither wanted to be noticed, nor to participate in the vulgar ritual of stuffing bills into dancer’s g-strings. But watching these women was a hypnotic drug to him. He couldn’t help himself...

He was working on his second Dewar’s — he’d been drinking too much lately, and he knew it, but that was another compulsion he couldn’t control of late — when he noticed the girl on the center stage.

But for her black hair — a long flowing mane trailing clear down to the dimples of her perfect behind — she could have been damn near Vicki’s twin: a heartbreakingly cute, pug-nosed thing with full high breasts and endless legs. She was graceful like Vicki, too, and sensual, swaying with the music.

His eyes were tearing up; it was smoky in there.

He called a waitress over — the shapely blonde wore a tuxedo-like outfit, except her legs were exposed in fishnet hose. They had to shout at each other to communicate; some mindless Madonna song was blasting, the beat a pulsing thing.

“Please ask that dark-haired dancer to have a drink with me,” he yelled. He gave her two twenties and told her to keep one for herself.

“Why, thank you, sir!” she hollered with wide-eyed appreciation.

Half an hour later, the young woman approached his table; she seemed to float to him, like an apparition of Vicki — albeit a dark-haired one. That hair was piled up high now, an ebony tower, and she was in a low-cut black gown, breasts pushed up by an engineering wonder of a brassiere, one long supple leg exposed by a slit up the side to her hip.

She extended a black-gloved hand. “Charmed, Senator.”

That threw him. He had hoped not to be recognized. But such was the price of fame.

“What’s your name, dear?” he asked, rising, getting her chair.

“Brandi,” she said. “I’m a big admirer of yours, Senator.”

Her voice was surprisingly cultured; it was also a low, catlike purr. Vicki had never seemed cat-like to him, but this woman — who otherwise resembled Vicki so — was truly feline. Part of it was the black hair. Part of it was an almost oriental slant to the eyes, which wasn’t like Vicki at all, though the China-blue color of them was.

His tongue felt thick as he responded. “Admirer of mine?”

“Women’s rights issues are important to me. So are issues of censorship. Any thinking person in my profession wants to see the arts protected.”

“A wise point of view. You, uh... you’re a very graceful dancer, Brandi.”

“Thank you. I apologize for the surroundings.”

“Why... this is downright elegant, here.”

She averted his gaze. “I feel ashamed, working in a ‘titty bar.’ Glitz or not, that’s what this is.”

“I suppose. But I’m the one who should feel ashamed... I’m a patron, after all.”

“A patron of the arts,” she said, and her smile was white and dazzling, her lips transfusion-red. “I am a dancer, and an actress. I’m only here because the money is good, and other opportunities just aren’t there, right now.”

“Times are difficult. Show business is a... challenging profession, in the best of times. Of course, I do have certain connections...”

She brushed his open palm with fingertips; even with the gloves on, her touch seemed warm. “Oh — I wish I knew you better, Senator. I could use a well-connected friend.”

“Brandi, I... have to be honest with you. I’m a married man.”

“I know. I’ve read about you. I know about your... tragedy.”

He swallowed. “Pardon?”

Her expression seemed genuinely compassionate. “Your wife’s illness. You have to stand beside her. Do the right thing by her. But still and all... a man needs companionship.” Her hand was on his thigh, under the table.

“And a real man,” she said, “needs even more.”

He walked with her through the underground passageway, saying, “If you come again, my dear, you’ll have to allow Edward — my chauffeur — to pick you up and bring you here. I can’t risk being seen...”

“I understand. Your re-election campaign.”

He nodded. “Next year’s going to be a busy time for me.”

“Even so, you’ll need to relax, now and then.”

Her arm was in his; she was snuggling against him.

In his study, on the leather sofa, basking in the glow and warmth of the fireplace, over which a serene Bingham landscape hung, they lay locked in an embrace. His hand was on her breast and her lips were nuzzling his neck.

“Senator,” she said. She seemed to be fighting her own urges. “Please...”

He drew away. “Is something wrong?”

She sat up and he settled in beside her, looking at her curiously. “Senator, I... I had hoped we could get to know each other.”

“Well, I thought that was what we were doing.”

She smiled; leaned in and kissed him, quickly. “You’re a rogue.”

It seemed an odd, almost archaic choice of words to him, even if apt.

“What did you have in mind, Brandi?”

“First of all, my real name is Sheila. Sheila Douglas.” She presented her hand, in mock formal fashion, and he grinned, shook his head, then the hand.

“Hello, Sheila. You’re not a reporter are you?”

“No! No. Brandi’s just my stage name. I’m a dancer at Gentleman’s Club, with pretensions toward a show business career. Just as you thought. But I truly do want a friendship with you... well — I want more than a friendship. I want a relationship.”

“I see.”

“I felt... some chemistry between us, at the club. In the limo. In that passageway downstairs. Didn’t you?”

“Frankly,” he admitted, “yes.”

“I know I can’t ever be your wife. But I would like to be your... woman. The only woman in your life.”

“Well, Brandi... Sheila...”

“Maybe you don’t want to make that commitment. I understand. But just because I have the body of a whore doesn’t mean I am one. After all, topless clubs are popular because sex isn’t safe, anymore.”

“Interesting piece of sociology.”

“Thank you. What I’m saying is... if you’re interested in me, as a person, as a friend, as a potential long-term relationship... a loving one, I think, possibly... I have to demand a... a period of courtship.”

He laughed a little. “You’re from the Midwest, aren’t you?”

“Minnesota. Brainerd. We’re both a couple of farmers, Jim. You mind if I call you ‘Jim’?”

“Please. Have you had dinner?”

“No.”

“Edward grills a mean steak.”

“I’m a vegetarian.”

“Well, he tosses a hell of a salad, too. Shall I put that in motion?”

She smiled, nodded; touched his knee.

They ate in the small, dark-wood-dominated dining room, under the miniature but intricate crystal chandelier. There was an elegance to it, and the mood of a... date. Much as he might want to get laid, he had to admit he liked the romance of this.

They retired to the study where the fire was dwindling; they sat and kissed and nuzzled. Tricky Dick came bouncing in and jumped up, straddling them.

She squealed, but it was a squeal of delight.

“What a beautiful big tomcat! Mixed breed?”

Rawson scratched Dick’s ears. “Yes. I took him in off the street.”

The cat was standing on her lap, now, staring right at her, as if searching out a secret.

Sheila smiled at him. “We’re one of a kind, Mr. Kitty, you and me. Strays this good Samaritan here brought in off the street.”

Then Tricky Dick curled up on her lap and she stroked him; he purred orgasmically.

“He’s doing better than I am,” Rawson said wryly.

“He likes me. Cats aren’t always this affectionate.”

“Dick’s pretty easy-going, for a cat, but he seldom takes to strangers like this. I knew someone once who...”

He stopped short.

“What is it?” she asked.

He rose; went to the liquor cart and poured himself a tumbler of Dewar’s. “Nothing,” he said.

Tricky Dick had taken to Vicki just like that. Just that way...

“Where’s his collar?” she asked.

He sat back down beside her. “He doesn’t have one. He’s a fat lazy old boy who never leaves the house. His litterbox is as close to the great-out-of-doors as he gets.”

“Poor, poor kitty,” she said, petting him. “How can you be so cruel, Senator? I’m going to buy you a collar,” she said to the cat. “You mind if I do that, Jim? Buy your kitty cat a collar?”

“Not at all — if you can get him to wear the damn thing.”

She was scratching the cat’s neck; it purred rapturously.

“I think he’ll love the attention,” she said. “He’s a male, after all. Males do love attention...”

“Sir,” Edward said, later, “do you know where Miss Douglas lives?”

“No,” Rawson admitted. He was still in the study, seated on the couch, Tricky Dick curled up next to him, now; another tumbler of Dewar’s in hand.

“The Watergate.”

Rawson shrugged. Sipped. “A lot of people live at the Watergate.”

“Miss Petersen once lived at the Watergate, sir.”

“Your point being?”

“We know nothing about this young lady. Perhaps you should hire an investigator to look into her background.”

“If anything serious begins to develop, I will. Is that all, Edward?”

“Yes, sir. Sir?”

“What is it, Edward?”

“About my raise...”

“You’ve had a raise.”

“I’d like another, sir.”

“I don’t want to discuss this now, Edward.”

“Fine, sir. But, sir?”

“Yes, Edward?”

“We will be discussing it, sir.”

Three nights later, Sheila Douglas — wearing a baby-blue sweater and black ski pants and heels — was again a guest in Rawson’s P Street townhouse. Edward prepared a seafood fettuccine (her vegetarianism, it seemed, pertained only to red meat) and the conversation was friendly. He prodded her about her show business aspirations, and she talked about actresses she admired — Faye Dunaway was her favorite, but she also liked Debra Winger. Chit chat.

In the study, he sat on the couch, patted the spot next to him and she took it. She gave him a long, lingering kiss. Her tongue flicked at his teeth.

“Where’s Tricky Dick?” she asked.

“My cat?”

“What other Tricky Dick do you have? Or should I ask?”

He grinned, laughed, said, “You want to make me blush, young lady?” Then he whistled for the cat. When Dick wasn’t curled up in the study, on the couch by his master, he slept in a little bed in a corner of the kitchen.

“He doesn’t always come,” Rawson said. “He is a cat, you know.”

She called out. “Dick! Oh, Dick!”

And, soon, the cat came ambling in. The damn thing almost seemed to smile at her. It hopped up on her lap and began rubbing its head against her fuzzy sweater.

“He always gets a better shake out of you than me,” Rawson said with a grin.

Her little purse was nearby on an end table. She reached for it and withdrew a sack with a pet-shop name on it; she took from the sack a heavy yellowish leather strap decorated with a few vari-colored jewels.

“I hope Dick doesn’t find the glitz effeminate,” she said. “But it caught my eye at the pet store.”

Rawson folded his arms. “Let’s see if he stands still for this...”

The cat seemed to crane its neck yearningly as she fitted the collar about his neck; no protests. In fact, it was clear he liked the goddamn thing!

“You’re a wonder, Sheila. But now I have something for you.”

He rose and went to a drawer in the mahogany tambour secretary against the wall. He removed the simple strand of glittering diamonds and held it out gently as he walked over to her.

“It’s not a collar, exactly,” he said. “In fact, it’s just a bracelet.”

“Oh, Jim! It’s lovely! A tennis bracelet... oh, I’ve always wanted one...”

She affixed it to her wrist and then held out her slender, red-nailed hand and gazed at the sparkling stones appreciatively. “Oh, Jim. How can I ever thank you?”

He sat down, slipped his arm around her. “There are... traditional ways I could think of.”

She kissed him. The sound of the purring cat, as she stroked it, provided distracting background music.

“I think I could love you, Sheila.”

“I feel that way about you, Jim. And I will thank you for this lovely gift. I want you to know I’ll thank you the right way for it, too. But...”

“Still too soon? I can wait. I’m a patient man.”

She smirked and shook her head. “It’s not that. It’s... you know. The wrong time of the month for me. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize for biology. That’s what this is all about anyway, isn’t it? Biology.”

“Partly,” she admitted. She stroked his face with one hand, her other hand petting the purring cat.

A week later, Rawson was getting worried about Sheila. He had called her at the Gentleman’s Club and she’d been warm, friendly, but hadn’t made another date with him.

“Please understand,” she said. “I... this is embarrassing.”

“What?”

“I have really long, hard periods, okay? Cramps you wouldn’t believe. And cramps or not, right now I have to keep this lousy dancing up, to keep the rent paid.”

“Well, I can handle that. Quit! I’ll take care of you.”

“Jim... you’re wonderful. But it is too soon to talk that way. Next week. I promise.”

That had been almost a week ago; several similar but briefer conversations had followed. Last night, out of desperation, he had gone to the club, looking for her; he was told she no longer worked there. He had even risked going to the Watergate, personally, to her apartment, where his knocking at her door went unanswered.

Now, early the following morning, he sat in his silk robe, brooding in his study, staring at the unlighted fireplace, scratching Tricky Dick around his collar.

“Sir...”

“Edward! I didn’t hear you. Where the hell’s my breakfast, man?”

“It’ll have to wait, sir.”

“Why in hell?”

“You should see the morning papers, sir. It’s... not good, sir.”

“What are you talking about?”

Edward, looking solemn, and dressed in a dark suit with dark tie that represented his street clothes, handed him the Washington Post.

The headline shouted RAWSON SUSPECT IN MURDER INVESTIGATION, and above it a smaller heading said: POLICE SOURCES SAY. Just glancing, he took in his own picture, and another of Vicki, under which were the words SUICIDE OR MURDER?

Edward spoke in a whisper: “She is the girl’s sister.”

“What...”

“Sheila Douglas.”

“What the hell are you saying, Edward?” Rawson was transfixed by this front page from Hell.

“Sheila Douglas,” Edward said slowly, as if speaking to a child, his barely audible voice nonetheless like a scream in Rawson’s brain, “is Vicki Petersen’s sister.”

“Edward...?”

“She took a job where her sister had danced, hoping you would return to the scene of the crime. She had reason to believe you would. Apparently, the late Vicki had told her all about you.”

“Oh my God.”

“When you take time to read that article, you’ll discover that Miss Douglas... actually, Miss Petersen, Sheila Petersen... has given the authorities tapes of conversations between myself... your ‘major domo’... and you, sir.”

“Oh. Oh God. Just two nights ago... we negotiated your latest raise...”

Edward continued in a barely audible, increasingly harsh whisper. “And we mentioned Miss Petersen’s murder, the other Miss Petersen that is, as the motivation behind that salary increase. Yes, sir. The little bitch has had this town-house bugged.”

“That’s impossible! And this story is impossible. If this had been brewing, my phone would have rung off the hook last night with police and reporters...”

“Have you seen your answering machine, sir? The little red light is blinking furiously.”

Rawson’s hand came to his face. “Oh my God, Edward! Where does that leave us?”

“I had hoped you might have some thoughts on that subject.” Edward sighed. “But since you don’t...”

Edward’s hand came out from behind his back and swung the wrench.

Rawson’s surprised expression, below his caved-in skull, remained frozen as he toppled off the couch onto the parquet floor, where blood began to spill, then pool, glisteningly.

Tricky Dick, the cat, startled, leapt from the couch, looking for safe haven. Edward didn’t consider the cat worthy of notice as he wiped the bloody wrench clean of his prints, thinking, For what good it will do me, and made his escape out the underground passageway.

His escape from the house, that is.

In the alley, the police were waiting. Edward sighed, put up his hands; in the police car, nearby, sitting on the rider’s side in front, was Sheila Petersen. She was smiling like the cat that ate the canary.

As for Tricky Dick, he was asleep in his bed in the corner of the kitchen. The only thing the tiny transmitter in his collar was picking up now was the deep, purring-like sound of the tom’s breathing.