He gazed past me, up toward the ceiling. Far below us, where State Street met Congress, there was traffic, and tourists looking at the marker for the Boston Massacre, and meter maids, and cabbies. Up here there was no hint of it. In Tripp’s office you could just as well be in the high Himalayas for all the sound there was.
Tripp shook his head suddenly.
“But what would be the point?” he said.
There was something surrealistic about his grief. It was like a balloon untethered and wafted, aimless and disconnected, above the felt surface of life.
“How well do you know Senator Stratton?” I said.
“Bob’s a dear friend. I’ve supported him for years. He was a good friend to Livvie as well, helped her get her teaching appointment, I’m sure. Though he never said a word about it.”
“And you and your wife were on good terms?” I said.
Tripp stared at me as if I had offered to sell him a French postcard.
“You ask me that? You have been investigating her death for days and you could ask me that? We were closer than two people have ever been. I was she. She was I, we were the same thing. How could you…?” Tripp shook his head. “I hope I’ve not been mistaken in you.”
I plowed ahead.
“And you were intimate?”
Tripp stared at me some more. Then he got up suddenly, and walked to the window of his office, and looked down at the street. He didn’t speak. I looked at his back for a while. Maybe I should investigate other career opportunities. Selling aluminum siding, say. Or being a television preacher. Or child molesting. Or running for public office.
“Look, Mr. Tripp,” I said. My voice sounded hoarse. “The thing is that stuff makes no sense. I know you’re sad. But I’ve got to find things out. I’ve got to ask.”
He didn’t move.
“There’s pretty good evidence, Mr. Tripp, that your wife’s name is not, in fact, Olivia Nelson.”
Nothing.
“That she was sleeping with Senator Stratton, and maybe with others.”
Still nothing. Except his shoulders hunched slightly and his head began to shake slowly, back and forth, in metronomic denial.
“I’ve seen pictures of two different people, both of whom look like your wife.”
His head went back and forth. No. No. No.
“Have you ever heard of anyone named Cheryl Anne Rankin?”
No. No. No.
“Your retainer check bounced,” I said.
The silence was so thick it seemed hard to breathe. Tripp’s stillness had become implacable. I waited. Tripp stood, his head still negating. Back and forth, denying everything. I got up and left.
chapter thirty
QUIRK AND FARRELL and Belson and I were in Quirk’s office. Quirk told us that while he was in Alton he had learned exactly nothing.
“Everybody agrees that Olivia Nelson is married to a Kenyan citizen named Mano Kuanda and living in Nairobi. Embassy guy talked with her, took her fingerprints. We’ve compared them to her Peace Corps prints. She hasn’t been in the United States since 1982. Never been in Boston. Has no idea who the victim is.”
“She know anything about Cheryl Anne Rankin?” I said.
“No.”
“Never heard the name?”
“No,” Quirk said.
“You talk to Stratton?”
“Yeah.”
“And?”
“He says he was sleeping with Tripp’s wife regularly, and that he wasn’t the only one.”
Quirk raised his eyebrows.
“Our Bobby?” he said.
“Shocking,” Belson said. “And him a Senator and all.”
“That’s why he tried to chase you off?”
“So he says. Says he was afraid I’d find out about them and it would spoil his chances for the nomination next year.”
“For President?” Quirk said.
