The Muffin hadn’t been enough for Stone, so he ordered a full breakfast from room service. He was already eating his eggs when Shelley came out of Dino’s room, followed shortly by Dino. They sat down. “When did you get in?” Dino asked.
“Late, but I woke up early and couldn’t get back to sleep, so I ordesred breakfast.”
“And what did the evening reveal that will aid our investigation?” Dino asked.
Stone thought about that. “As far as I’m concerned, it eliminates Fair as a suspect,” he said.
“Why is that?” Shelley asked.
“She’s too normal to have murdered three people.”
“Too normal?” Dino said. “I see murders committed all the time by people who seem normal.”
“You’ll have to trust me on this, Dino,” Stone said. “I can’t prove she didn’t do it. She worked in Senator Hart’s office and knew Milly, said she liked her. She knew Muffy Brandon, too, but didn’t like her. There’s not the slightest evidence that she could have killed either of them. She does use Pagan Spring, though. It was on her dressing table in her bedroom.”
“I checked with the drugstore chain that sells it in D.C.,” Shelley said. “They’ve sold about nineteen hundred tubes of Pagan Spring since it came out a little over two years ago.”
“Swell,” Dino said.
“Since the two women were killed, my office is taking a new interest in the Kendrick deaths.”
“Great,” Stone said. “As far as I’m concerned, you folks can take over the investigation today, and I’ll go home and practice a little law.”
“Yeah?” Dino said. “I’m starting to get interested again.”
“Who, specifically, is getting interested over at the Hoover Building?” Stone asked.
“My boss, Kerry Smith.”
“Does he think you screwed up the original investigation?”
“Let’s just say that if something comes up that contradicts our conclusions, he wants to be ready with some answers to the inevitable questions.”
Dino spoke up. “I think we need to take a deeper look at Charlotte Kirby.”
“Why?” Shelley asked.
“Because when we talked to her, she was very uptight, very defensive.”
“That’s true,” Stone said. “She seemed to recoil.”
“And we don’t have anybody else who’s recoiling,” Dino said. “So she’s my suspect, until she isn’t.”
“Agreed,” Stone said.
“I’ll pull her FBI file,” Shelley said. “Everybody who works in the White House has one. There might be something there that will help.”
“Good idea,” Stone said. “Especially since we don’t have another one.”
A copy of Charlotte Kirby’s FBI file was delivered just before lunchtime, and Dino read it first.
“Anything interesting?” Stone asked.
“She’s divorced, one grown daughter.”
“Gee, that’s damning, isn’t it?”
“She was valedictorian of her class at Vassar.”
“We’re lucky she hasn’t murdered more people.”
“And she was a suspect in a murder case four years ago, when her sister was killed. She was cleared when the sister’the sists boyfriend confessed. He’s in a hospital for the criminally insane.”
Stone thought. “So she wasn’t cleared by evidence, but by the confession of a lunatic?”
“That’s about the size of it.”
“How did her sister die?”
“Head trauma from a blunt instrument.”
“I see.”
“And Charlotte inherited her sister’s share of her father’s estate, which amounted to a couple of million bucks.”
“She gets more and more interesting, doesn’t she?”
“I was interested before, remember?”
“This time, let’s not make an appointment. Let’s just show up.”
37
They arrived at the White House, and Stone told the receptionist that they were there to see Fair Sutherlin. Two minutes later, as he had hoped, Charlotte Kirby appeared.
“I’m sorry,” she said, “but Ms. Sutherlin wasn’t expecting you. She just left for a meeting at the State Department.”
“Then we’ll settle for speaking with you, Ms. Kirby,” Stone said. “Since Fair’s office is not in use, we can talk in there.”
“I’m not sure-”
“Ms. Kirby, you should know by now that we have the run of the White House.”
Her shoulders sagged. “Oh, all right. Follow me.”
Stone and Dino fell in behind her, and as they walked down the hall, Stone said quietly to Dino, “Do you think she’s Brix Kendrick’s type?”
“I don’t think Brix had a type,” Dino replied. “Or if he did, it included most of the female gender.”
Kirby ushered them into Fair’s office and closed the door behind them. “Now,” she said, “what can I do for you?”
“You can have a seat,” Stone said, indicating the sofa. He and Dino took chairs opposite.
“What is this about?”
“The same thing it was about the last time we talked,” Stone said, “except we did most of the talking, and you were reluctant to answer.”
“I don’t know anything you want to know,” she said.
“On the contrary,” Stone replied, “you know just about everything we want to know, but don’t want to tell us.”
“You knew about each and every one of Brix Kendrick’s affairs, didn’t you?” Dino said.
She looked alarmed, but said nothing.
“Ms. Kirby,” Dino said, “if you continue to obstruct our investigation, the president is going to hear about it, then Ms. Sutherlin is going to hear about it, and then you’re going to find yourself working in a government basement somewhere, if you’re still employed at all.”
Tears rolled down her cheeks.
Dino handed her a box of tissues from Fair’s desk. “Let’s start at the beginning,” he said. “When did you first meet Brix Kendrick?”
“Two years ago,” she said. “At a White House staff party. I was working for the director of the General Services Administration, and Mr. Kendrick needed someone with my experience in government.”
“And when did you come to work for him?”
“A few weeks after meeting him.”
“And when did the two of you first have sex?”
The tears came again. “The night we met,” she said.
“Where?”
“In his office, on the sofa.”
“Brix was a fast worker.”
“Mr. Kendrick was a very persuasive man.”
“And when did you next have sex?”
“The following evening, at my apartment.” Dino started to ask another question, but she held up a hand.
