woman who had lived here had helped to murder President Thomas Byrnes. The den had been used as an editing room for their film. The apartment had historical importance now. For as long as this building stood, people would point at it and say, “That's where Jill lived.”
She had bought anonymous-looking furniture in a country-club style. They were middle-class trappings. A sofa and armchair made of brushed cotton twill. Local furniture store tags: Mastercraft Interiors, Colony House in Arlington. Cool, cold colors in every room. Lots of ivory-colored things at Jill's place.
An ice-blue, patterned area rug. A pale, distressed pine armoire.
Several frames on the wall contained matted Christmas cards and letters from White House notables: the current press secretary, the chief of staff, even a brief note from Nancy Reagan.
There were no pictures of any of the “enemies” mentioned to me by President Byrnes. Sara Rosen was a secret starfucker, wasn't she? Had Jack been a star for her? Was Jack really Kevin Hawkins?
Talk to us, Jill. I know you want to talk. Tell us what really happened. Give us a clue.
Sitting out on a small rolltop desk were mailings from the Heritage Foundation and the Cato Institute, both conservative organizations. There were several copies of U.S. News & World Report, Southern Living, Gourmet.
Also flyers about future poetry readings at Chapters on K Street, and Politics and Prose, bookstores in the Washington area. Was Jill the poet?
A poem had been cut from a book and taped to the wall above the desk.
How dreary -- to be -- Somebody!
How public -- like a Frog -To tell one's name -- the live-long June -To an admiring Bog! -- Emily Dickinson Emily Dickinson apparently had the same opinion of celebrities as Jack and Jill.
The walls of the den and bedroom were covered with books.
The walls were bookcases. Fiction, nonfiction, poetry. High- and low-brow stuff. Jill the reader. Jill the loner. Jill the sexy spinster.
Who are you, Jill? Who are you, Sara Rosen ?
There was even one bit of evidence that showed a sense of humor. A sign was framed in the front hallway: use an accordion, go to jail. That's the law.
Who are you, Sara-Jill?
Did anybody really care about you before now ? Why did you help to commit this horrible crime? Was it worth it? To die like this, a lonely spinster? Who killed you, Jill ? Was it Jack?
If I found one indisputable piece of truth, just one, all the rest would follow, and we would finally understand. I wanted to believe that it could go like that.
I looked through Jill's clothes closets. I found conservative business suits mostly in dark colors. Labels that told me Brooks Brothers and Ann Taylor. Low pumps, running shoes, casual flats. There were several sweatsuits for running and exercise.
Not many evening dresses for parties, for fun.
Who were you, Sara?
I searched for false walls, false bottoms, anywhere that she might have kept private notes, something that might help us to close this case forever, or open it wide.
C'mon, Sara, let us in on your secret life. Tell us who you really were.
What kept you going, Jill ? Who were you, Sara? Sexy spinster?
You want us to know. I know you do. You're still in this apartment.
I can feel it. I can feel your loneliness everywhere I look.
You want us to know something. What is it, Sara? Give us one more rhyme. Just one.
Sampson came up behind me while I was standing at a bedroom window overlooking the courtyard. I was thinking about all the possibilities the case held.
“You got it solved yet? Got it all figured out, Sweets?”
“Not yet. There's something more, though. Give me another couple of days here.”
Sampson groaned at the thought. And so did I. But I knew I would come back here. Sara Rosen had left something for us to remember her by. I was almost sure of it.
Jill the poet.
MAYBE I WAS a glutton for crime and punishment, but I came back alone to her apartment very early the following morning.
I was there by eight, long before anyone else. I wandered back and forth in the small apartment, nibbling from an open box of Nutri-Grain.
Something was still bothering me about the sexy spinster and her hideaway in Foggy Bottom. Detective's hunch. Psychologist's intuition.
For nearly an hour, I sat crouched at a window seat that looked out on K Street. I fixated on a bus shelter poster for a Calvin Klein perfume called Escape. The model in the poster looked unbearably sad and forlorn. Like Jill? Someone had written a thought balloon above the model's head. It read: “Someone feed me, please.”
What gave Sara Rosen sustenance? I wondered as I peered out into the D.C. ether. What was her secret? What drove her to the madness of celebrity stalking--or whatever she had been doing before she was killed in the Peninsula Hotel? She had been murdered in New York. What was her connection to Jack?
