wouldn’t it?
Right. I read on, and Arbatov, like his boss, had been observed and analyzed by several CIA psychiatric profilers. He fell well outside their standard template for clandestine operators. He appeared to be fastidious, altruistic, nearly monastic in his habits. He was a vegetarian, which is about as rare in Russia as tulips in wintertime. Even more unusual, he was a teetotaler who rarely consumed more than a glass of wine. It’s a wonder the Russians gave him a passport.
“Magnetically charming,” claimed one observer. Despite his obvious intelligence, not bombastic, nor arrogant, nor overbearing-none of the standard traits found in your typical clandestine operator. “Surprisingly shy and tactful” was how the observer summarized him.
All of which added up to a manner that would endear him to an overambitious, egotistic officer who thought he was smarter than anybody. It wouldn’t have been a fair match: the poseur against the boy wonder. Poor Morrison would never have felt the hand that slipped into his pocket. If the CIA was even half right about Arbatov, putting Billy Morrison in his proximity was like sending a Little League team up against the Green Bay Packers. They don’t even play the same sport, for Chrissakes.
In short, were I on the task force investigating Morrison, I’d be completely fixated on his relationship with Arbatov.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Katrina had no trouble tracking down Miss Janet Winters. The State Department’s personnel office gave her the forwarding address, which was in Rosslyn, Virginia, a ten-minute drive from my office.
Katrina wisely made the call to Janet, since the instant the poor woman heard a male voice identify himself as an attorney for Morrison, she’d probably invite us over so she could mow us down with a twelve-gauge shotgun. Incidentally, near the head of my list of ways I don’t want to die is being slain by the jilted paramour of a complete jerk-off.
Katrina sweet-talked her and wangled an invitation. It turned out Janet lived in a red-brick townhouse she shared with a few other professional women, a common enough arrangement in our capital’s anthropology, where young people nest together until they either find suitable mates or enough cash to hibernate alone.
We knocked, the door opened, and an extremely attractive woman in her early thirties stared at us. She took in my uniform, and that didn’t make her the least bit happy. Then her eyes fell on Katrina’s costume, which consisted of floppy camouflage pants and an OD halter top, obviously chosen for my benefit. I ordinarily like cheeky women. You can push it too far, though.
We ended up in a sparsely furnished living room that, like all collective nests, was a hodgepodge of jointly owned furniture assembled in one room. Where the male variety of these nests normally comprises a big-screen TV surrounded by three or four ratty old lounge chairs and a beer-stained rug, the female variant somehow manages to nearly always look tidy and tastefully decorated, despite the clashing striped and flowered and paisley couches and chairs. Women are so impractical that way.
Katrina sat on the striped couch, and I was starting to sit next to her when she quickly scooted her fanny over, exiling me to one of those flowered side chairs. She was shrewdly arranging the social setting for the best psychological effect, so she and Janet could have a confidential, chiquita-to-chiquita chat, which I believe to be much wimpier than a mano-a-mano, bareknuckled discussion.
Janet wore jeans and a sweatshirt with the words UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA curled around a picture of a snarling English bulldog. She had long honey blond hair, a classically pretty face, and a sleek, slender body. She struck me as the type you’d want to have an affair with. I’d want to have an affair with her. But we were here to find out if Bill did have an affair with her.
She began playing with the hem of her sweatshirt, betraying her anxiety, and Katrina gave her a warm smile and asked, “That shirt yours or in honor of a boyfriend?”
“Mine.”
“No kidding. What year did you graduate?”
“Nineteen ninety-two. I majored in political science.”
Katrina smiled sweetly. “Is that why you took the job at State?”
Janet stopped playing with the edge of her sweatshirt. “I wanted to be a Foreign Service officer, but I was having difficulty with the tests.”
“Hey, got that,” said Katrina, instantly sympathetic. “I worked at State, downstairs in Translations, trying to scramble up cash for law school. I had lots of friends trying to do what you did, though. It’s a bitch of a test, isn’t it? I knew one friend, took it six times and never passed. And I mean, that woman was smart as hell.”
Janet shook her head. “You want irony? I took it twice and failed. The third time was just before this thing with Bill. I was notified afterward that I passed, except I lost my security clearance and was disqualified.”
Katrina, her new buddy, shifted to a distressed frown. “Wow, that sucks. What are you doing now?”
“I’m a paralegal in a small firm downtown. Not exactly what I hoped to do with my life.”
“You must be royally pissed at Morrison, huh?”
“I’d hate to be in the same room with her. I’d probably strangle her.”
Katrina shot me a quick sideways glance. “Her? Uh, I thought her husband was behind it.”
Janet broke into a throaty chuckle. “Him? He’s just spineless. She hired the lawyer and detectives who sabotaged my life. I mean, okay, I was having an affair with her husband. I’m not proud of it. He was miserable in that marriage, though. She made his life hell.”
Katrina nodded sympathetically, like, Well of course he was miserable. Married to Mary, with her money, looks, and class, who wouldn’t be? Poor, poor Bill.
“How’d she find out about you?”
“He sent some gifts over to my apartment… some lingerie, some jewelry. And do you believe this?… the idiot charged it. She saw the receipts and hired a detective to track me down. Then Bill came into work one morning and asked me into his office. He looked like hell, like he hadn’t slept all night. He said he had to fire me. She ordered it.”
“And what did you do?”
“I said, no way. Transfer me, but don’t fire me. I knew I’d done well on the exam the last time. It would ruin me.”
“And he said… what?”
A harsh chuckle erupted from the back of Janet’s throat. “He offered me money. I told him to stuff that money up his wife’s ass. He’d told me dozens of times he loved me. Why was he letting that shrew ruin his life? Our lives? You know what he said?”
“What?”
“For the children. That old line. It was bullshit. He was a miserable father. He ignored those kids. They were so much like her, he hated being around them.”
“Then what happened?”
“I protested the firing. There was a hearing, and those high-priced lawyers and detectives had testimonies from the first guy I ever slept with to every affair I ever had. Look, I’m no nun, but I don’t go around throwing myself at married men, either. They made me sound like pathetic trailer-park trash.”
Katrina was again nodding in her sympathetic way, like, Aren’t men just the biggest cads? What in the hell was God thinking when he gave them such a big role in reproduction? She said, “Hey, I have to tell you. Bill doesn’t come off sounding very good.”
“Well, yeah, he was spineless… but I don’t blame him. That wife of his is like Lucrezia Borgia. You have no idea.”
Uncomfortable hearing Mary described in such thorny terms, I swiftly said, “So you didn’t think Bill was an honorable person?”
She shot me a noxious look. “I didn’t say that.”
“No?”
“This whole thing in the news is hogwash. Somebody’s made a terrible mistake.”
