Paper Doll

chapter forty-four

THE MORNING WAS overcast, and hardlooking. I was in my office, thinking about Jefferson, and feeling like Hamlet, but older, when Farrell came in carrying two coffees in a white paper bag. He took them out, handed me one, and sat down.

“It bother you that Stratton was so interested in this case?” he said.

“He wants to be President,” I said.

“And all he was trying to cover up was adultery?”

I shrugged.

“The cover-up was more dangerous to him than what he was trying to cover up,” Farrell said.

“Guys like Stratton don’t think that way. They think about fixing, about putting a new spin on it, about reorganizing it so it comes out their way.”

“He stole most of the Tripps’ money,” Farrell said.

I sat back in my chair.

“Why do you know that and I don’t?” I said.

Farrell was carefully prying the plastic cap off his paper coffee cup, holding it away from him so it wouldn’t spill on him. He got the cover off and blew on the coffee gently for a moment, and then took a swallow. His face was still tight with grief, but there was also a hint of self-satisfaction.

“You been thinking about who killed the woman,” Farrell said. “I been thinking about other stuff like Stratton, like what the hell happened to all that money. Everybody says Mrs. Tripp spent it all, but on what? It’s hard to go through that kind of money at Bloomingdale’s.”

“So you chased Tripp’s expenditures,” I said.

“Yeah. Checks written by him, or her. They had a joint account. His didn’t show us anything unusual. He kept writing them even when there was no money. But you already knew that.”

“Mine bounced,” I said.

“There’s a clue,” Farrell said. He drank some more coffee. “Her checks were more interesting.”

“I didn’t see any of hers when I looked at his checkbook,” I said. “But she’d been dead awhile, probably hadn’t written any.”

“Good point,” Farrell said. “I went back about five years.”

“Tripp didn’t object?”

Farrell shook his head. “Didn’t talk to him,” he said. “I went through the bank’s records. She wrote regular, like monthly, large checks to an organization called The Better Government Coalition, which is located in a post office box in Cambridge, and headed by a guy named Windsor Freedman. We’re having a little trouble locating Windsor. He lists his address as University Green on Mt. Auburn Street. It’s a condo complex, and nobody there ever heard of him. But the Mass. Secretary of State’s office lists The Better Government Coalition as a subsidiary of The American Democratic Imperative in D.C. And the president of that operation is a guy named Mal Chapin.”

Farrell paused to drink coffee. He looked at me while he swallowed.

“I know that name,” I said.

“So did Quirk,” Farrell said. “You remember where you heard it?”

“Motel room in Alton, South Carolina,” I said. “Mal Chapin is in Stratton’s office.”

“Pretty good,” Farrell said. “Of course I mentioned that Quirk knew it too; that was a clue.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I’m excited. Usually when I get a clue, I trip over it, and skin my knee.”

“Quirk’s talking with somebody in the FBI, see about getting one of their accountants to check out The Democratic Imperative, see what they do with their money.”

“You figure it supports Stratton.”

“Sure,” Farrell said. “A charity with no offices, wholly owned by another charity, with no offices, headed by a guy works for Stratton. What do you think we’ll find out?”

“That it supports Stratton,” I said.

“That’s what we’ll find out,” Farrell said. “Maybe there’s a motive in it. Maybe Olivia Nelson knew what was going on and they had a lover’s quarrel and she was going to blow the whistle on him.”

“And he got a hammer and beat her brains out one night?”

“Maybe he had it done.”

“By somebody that would use a hammer?”

“Possible.”

“Sure,” I said. “But likely?”

Farrell shook his head slowly.

“Not likely.”

“Stratton know you’ve been investigating him?”

“Shouldn’t,” Farrell said.

“I’d like to bring them all together and confront him with it.”

“All of who?”

“Tripp, his kids, Stratton, see what comes out of it.”

Farrell stared at me for a couple of long moments. Then he shook his head slowly.

“You’re still trying to fix that family,” Farrell said. “You just want to shake the old man out of his trance if you can.”

I shrugged, drank some coffee.

“You could just stick to finding out who killed the woman?”

“Might make sense to bring them together,” I said. “Something might pop out. No harm to it.”

“No harm to you,” he said. “Might be some harm to a detective second grade who accuses a U.S. Senator of a felony without all his evidence in yet.”

I nodded.

“Be stupid to do that,” Farrell said. “Especially if being a gay detective second grade made command staff ill at ease anyway, so to speak.”

I nodded again.

“Unless, of course, you made the charge,” Farrell said.

“Without saying how I knew it,” I said. “And you simply called us together to give the Senator a chance to respond privately, before any formal inquiry began.”

“A chance to lay these baseless charges to rest,” Farrell said.

“Sure,” I said.

“Want to meet here?”

“I’m the guy making the baseless charges,” I said.

“Okay,” Farrell said.

There was silence while we both drank the rest of our coffee. Then Farrell put his cup in my wastebasket and stood.

“I’ll be in touch,” he said.

“I know you are going out a little ways on a limb,” I said. “Thanks.”

“Nice of you to come to the funeral,” Farrell said.