Paper Doll

chapter twenty-six

FARRELL AND I were in my office having some scotch from the office bottle. It was late afternoon, on Monday. Tripp was out of town. Senator Stratton’s office had not returned my call.

“What do you know about Stratton?” I said. “Anything I don’t?”

Farrell looked tired. He shook his head. “Just what I read in the papers, and if you’ve ever been involved in something the papers wrote up, you know better than to trust them.”

I nodded and dragged my phone closer and called Wayne Cosgrove at the Globe. He was in the office more now since they’d made him some sort of editor and he had a political column, with his picture at the top, that ran three days a week. When he answered, I punched up the speakerphone.

“You’re on speakerphone, Wayne, and there’s a cop with me named Lee Farrell but all of this is unofficial and won’t go any further.”

“You speaking for Farrell too?” Cosgrove said.

He had a Southern accent you could cut with a cotton hoe, although he’d left Mississippi at least thirty years ago, to come to Harvard on scholarship. I always assumed he kept the accent on purpose.

I looked at Farrell. He nodded. His eyes were red and seemed heavy, and his movements were slow.

“Yeah,” I said. “Farrell too.”

“Okay, pal, what do you need?”

“Talk to me about Senator Bob Stratton,” I said.

“Ahh, yes,” Cosgrove said. “Bobby Stratton. First off he’s a pretty good Senator. Good staff, good preparation, comes down pretty much on the right side of most issues-which is to say I agree with his politics. Got a lot of clout, especially inside the Beltway.”

“How about second off?” I said.

“Aside from being a pretty good Senator, he’s a fucking creep.”

“I hate it when the press is evasive,” I said.

“Yeah. He drinks too much. He’d fuck a snake if you’d hold it for him. I don’t think he steals, and I’m not even sure he’s mean. But he’s got too much. power, and he has no sense of, ah, of limitation. He can do whatever he wants because he wants to and it’s okay to do because he does it. He’s the kind of guy who gooses waitresses. You understand?”

“Money?” I said.

“Yeah, sure. They all got money. How they get elected.”

“Married?”

“To the girl on the wedding cake, two perfect children, a cocker spaniel, you know?”

“And a womanizer.”

“You bet,” Cosgrove said. “Far as I know, it’s trophy hunting. I don’t think he actually likes women at all.”

“You know of any connection between him and Olivia Nelson, the woman who got killed couple of months back in Louisburg Square?”

“Loudon Tripp’s wife,” Cosgrove said.

“Un huh.”

“I don’t know any connection with her, but she’s female-and Bobby is Bobby. Her husband probably knows Stratton.”

“Why?”

“Because he’s got money and contributes it to politicians.”

“Democratic politicians?” I said.

“Politics makes strange bedfellows,” Cosgrove said.

“I’d heard that,” I said.

“Trust me, I’m a columnist,” he said. “Why are you interested in Stratton?”

“Some people working for him tried to chase me off the Olivia Nelson case.”

“Probably fucking her, and afraid it’ll get out.”

“Doesn’t sound like the Olivia Nelson I’ve been sold, but say it was, and he was,” I said. “Is it that big a secret?”

“He’s probably going to be in the presidential primaries,” Cosgrove said. “Remember Gary Hart?”

“Ah ha,” I said.

“Ah ha?”

“You can say strange bedfellows, I can say ah ha.”

“I thought the cops washed that case off,” Cosgrove said. “Deranged slayer, random victim.”

“You been punching the file up,” I said, “while you’re talking to me.”

“Sure,” Cosgrove said. “I haven’t always been a fucking columnist. How come you’re investigating?”

“Her husband wouldn’t accept it. He hired me.”

“You got a theory?”

“No.”

“You make any progress?”

“No.”

“Off the record?”

“No.”

“So I tell you everything I know and you tell me shit,” Cosgrove said.

“Yes.”

We hung up.

Farrell and I looked at each other.

“You suppose she was sleeping with Stratton?” Farrell said.

I shrugged.

“I don’t even know who she is,” I said.

Farrell was silent. He nipped a little of the scotch. It was good scotch, Glenfiddich, single malt. We were drinking it in small measures from a couple of water glasses, which was all I had in the office. I was not fond of straight booze, but Glenfiddich was very tolerable.

“How is it at home?” I said.

“Home?”

“Quirk told me your lover is dying.”

Farrell nodded.

“How soon?” I said.

“Sooner the better,” Farrell said. “Final stages. Weighs about eighty pounds.”

“He at home?”

Farrell shook his head. “Hospice,” he said.

His words were effortful. As if there weren’t many left.

“How are you?” I said.

“I feel like shit,” Farrell said.

I nodded. We both drank some scotch.

“You drinking much?” I said.

“Some.”

“Any help?”

“Not much.”

“Hard,” I said.

Farrell looked up at me and his voice was flat.

“You got no fucking idea,” he said.

“Probably not,” I said.

“You got a girlfriend,” he said. “Right?”

“Susan,” I said.

“If she were dying people would feel bad for you.”

“More than they would, probably, if she were a guy.”

“You got that right,” Farrell said.

“I know,” I said. “Makes it harder. What’s his name?”

“Brian. Why?”

“He ought to have a name,” I said.

Farrell finished his scotch and leaned forward and took the bottle off the desk and poured another splash into the water glass.

“You can tell almost right away if people have a problem with it or not,” he said. “You don’t. You don’t really care if I’m straight or gay, do you?”

“Got nothing to do with me,” I said.

“Got nothing to do with lots of people, but they seem to think it does,” Farrell said.

“Probably makes them feel important,” I said. “You been tested?”

“Yeah. So far, I’m all right-we were pretty careful.”

“Feel like a betrayal?” I said. “That you’re not dying too?”

Farrell stared at the whiskey in the bottom of the glass. He swished it around a little, then took it all in a swallow.

“Yes,” he said.

He poured some more scotch. I held out my glass and he poured a little in mine too. We sat quietly in the darkening room and sipped the whiskey.

“Can you work?” I said.

“Not much,” he said.

“I don’t blame you.”