“After that, it was three or four times a week, sometimes in the evenings, sometimes he’d come by my apartment early in the morning-five or six-on the way to work.”
Stone spoke up. “And when did Brix stop having sex with you?”
She drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. “As soon as I came to work for him. He said that since we were working together, we couldn’t take the chance. After that, he was all business, except when he was talking about his affairs.”
“He talked with you about other women?” Dino asked.
“I know it sounds perverse, and maybe it was, but he’d talk about what they’d done in bed, and in great detail. He knew it made me . . .”
“Jealous?” Dino asked.
“Horny,” she replied. “He would insist that I . . .”
“Go on.”
“That I masturbate while he talked about the other women.”
Dino seemed to have run out of steam, so Stone stepped in. “And how did that make you feel?” he asked.
“Less horny.”
“Did you enjoy these experiences?”
“I’m ashamed to say I did,” she replied. “I began to look forward to them.”
“No need to feel ashamed, Ms. Kirby,” Stone said. “You’re telling the truth now.”
“And I feel better for it,” she said.
“How long did these . . . conversations continue?”
“Until the day he died,” she replied.
“Now,” Stone said, “let’s start from the day you went to work for Mr. Kendrick: who were the women he slept with?”
“There were nineteen of them,” Kirby replied.
Now Stone ran out of steam, and Dino stepped in. “Their names, please.” He opened his notebook.
“He never used their names. He either made up names, like ‘Shotzie,’ or ‘Toots,’ or he gave them nicknames, like ‘the Bunny,’ or ‘the Grasshopper.’”
“What did he call Milly Hart?” Stone asked, recovering.
“I think she was the one he called ‘the Rabbit,’” she said, “but I can’t be sure. He saw the Rabbit for a long time, and often.”
“And what name did he give Mufd he givfy Brandon?”
“‘The Doggie,’” she said, “because that was her preferred position.”
“And when, in the chain of events, was he seeing her?”
“Only for the last month or so of his life, I think. She lived in Georgetown, and he would run over there, screw her, and be back in half an hour. He said he would walk into her house, and she’d be waiting for him, already naked. He’d just drop his pants and stick it in. Ten minutes later, he was on his way back to the office.”
“You make it sound as though Brix was not a considerate lover,” Stone said.
“Oh, I don’t mean to make it sound that way,” Kirby said. “He took pride in giving them what they wanted, the way they wanted it. He was very . . . proficient. If he was seeing Milly Hart, he’d be gone for a couple of hours. She liked
“Ms. Kirby,” Dino said, “would you describe Brix Kendrick as a sex addict?”
She laughed at that. “What else? He practically turned me into an addict, too, except I was addicted only to him.”
“Did you like him?” Stone asked.
“I loved him, and I loved working for him, too. He was a good boss, and he got a tremendous amount of work done every week, in spite of his extracurricular activities. I made a lot of that possible, of course, but he always gave me a list of things to accomplish before he went out.”
“Ms. Kirby,” Stone said, “this is important. Early in the afternoon of the day he died, he had sex with a woman in the family quarters-in the Lincoln Bedroom, in fact. Who was she?”
“Yes, he came back, went to work, and then, a little after five, he changed and went to play tennis on the White House court.”
“Who was she?” Stone asked again.
“I don’t know,” she said, “but he called her ‘the March Hare.’”
38
Stone and Dino were quiet on the drive back to the Hay-Adams. When they were back in the suite Stone called Holly.
“Hello?”
“We’ve just left the White House, where we conducted a very important interview. I don’t want to talk about it on the phone, so can you come over for a drink or dinner?”
“I can come over for a drink
“Good. See you then.”
Dino picked up the phone. “I think it will save time if I ask Shelley over, too.”
“We may as well have all the principals here,” Stone said.
Dino looked at Stone closely. “You seem a little down, pal. I would have thought you’d feel great about our interview.”
“You’re right, Dino, I should feel that way, but I’m sort of depressed about the direction this is taking.”
“What, too many suspects?”
“Right, and nobody knows who they are, except Brix, and he took the shortcut out of here.”
“Well, we know three of them,” Dino said, “but two of them are dead. All we’ve got is Charnlotte Kirby and the March Hare. That’s from
Stone nodded. “The Tea Party. It’s where the expression ‘mad as a March hare’ comes from.”
“Well, Brix seemed to give a meaning to each of his nicknames: the Rabbit, the Doggie, et cetera. So maybe the March Hare is a nut job.”
Stone nodded. “She’d almost have to be,” he said. “I mean, jealousy is one thing, but to kill Brix’s wife, then two of his lovers, well . . .”
“Maybe,” Dino said, looking thoughtful, “the March Hare is Charlotte Kirby herself. Maybe Brix drove her crazy with all of his descriptions of his sex life. Maybe masturbation really does drive you around the bend.”
“That’s a perfectly valid theory,” Stone admitted, “but it goes against the grain.”
“What grain is that?” Dino asked.
“The grain of Charlotte Kirby. I bought her story-hook, line, and sinker.”
Dino nodded. “I know what you mean. I had the feeling that we had stripped all her pretense away and we were getting the unadulterated truth. That happens in a successful interrogation, you know? The perp finally has no place to go but the truth.”
“You’re right,” Stone said.
“Maybe she still knows something she hasn’t told us, though,” Dino said. “Maybe she’s holding back the final tidbit.”
“The name of the March Hare?”
“Yeah.”
Stone shook his head. “No, I think she would have told us, if she knew.”
“Maybe she suspects?”
“I think she would have told us her suspicion. I think she’s sick of all this, and she wants an end to it.”
“I can’t disagree with you,” Dino said. “And I still think the March Hare is a nut job.”
“Agreed,” Stone said.
