about how to set up a hit. Turm was supposed to be the detail guy: who went in what window, timing, getaway, the cars, the hideouts. We talked about it a little. I got the feeling he did it a couple times before, down in those South America countries.'
'But the hit never came off,' Fulton objected. 'If he was such a pro, how come he didn't fix it up?'
'Yeah, well, that was another fucked-up thing about it. We get to the airport in Havana and Turm says he's got to make a phone call and he'll catch us later, and that was the last I saw him, until that night in New Orleans.'
Marlene had seen so many movie images of the red stone house on L Street that it looked entirely familiar when at last she saw it in real life. She was sure that with no help at all she could have found her way around inside it, almost as if it were a house she had lived in as a child. The mistress of the house, Selma Hewlett Dobbs, had aged more perceptibly than the blood-colored sandstone, being made of a softer material, but not that much softer, as Marlene found out a few minutes into her interview.
They were sitting in the old study at the rear of the house, a room Marlene recognized from the films, of course: his study. It looked unchanged, like a room in a museum. The books in their cases were neatly ranked and dusted, the bay windows that gave on the small back garden were clean, the desk and an oak filing cabinet and the other furniture were polished, gleaming dully in the thin light, and smelling faintly of lemons. Mrs. Dobbs sat at her husband's desk, facing Marlene, who sat in a leather chair before her. She was being dressed down.
'Miss Ciampi, is it? I want you to understand that I have not given an interview since my husband's death and I would not be giving one now had not my daughter-in-law asked me to see you. I think it was unwise of her to involve a stranger and I told her as much. Maggie is prone to enthusiasms about people that may overcome her judgment.'
The voice was firm and vibrant with the accent and timbre made famous by Katharine Hepburn. There was a Hepburnesque look about the woman herself, Marlene thought: cheekbones like rails and a sharp little chin. Her eyes were blue and bright, although the once red-gold hair had faded to a grayish dun. It was combed straight back with a bun. She was sixty-five and looked ten years younger.
'I'll try to justify her confidence, Mrs. Dobbs,' said Marlene.
Mrs. Dobbs's face reflected doubt, but she nodded and said, 'Very well, let's get on with it. What is it you wish to know?'
Being a good interviewer of people who had something to hide, Marlene was not about to reveal what she wished to know. Instead, she began by giving something. 'I spoke with Harley Blaine recently,' she began.
The other woman's eyes blazed. 'What! Who gave you permission to do that?'
'Maggie gave me his private number. I didn't realize permission was required.'
'Decency is what is required,' Mrs. Dobbs shot back, distaste in her voice. 'Harley is dying. He has cancer. I will not allow him to be disturbed in the service of some harebrained project designed to stir up unpleasant and painful memories.'
'I'm sorry, Mrs. Dobbs. I didn't realize you were so opposed to Hank's attempt to clear his father's name.'
'My husband does not need to have his name cleared!' Mrs. Dobbs exclaimed. Twin bars of color had appeared on those cheekbones, glowing like neon tubes.
Marlene drew a deep breath and let it out. She said calmly, 'Um, look, I think we're getting off on the wrong foot here. I'm not a journalist, I'm not trying to pry into anything. I'm not getting paid for this. I'm an unemployed mom who used to be a pretty good lawyer and Maggie asked me to do her a favor on this background investigation for a book Hank is planning to write. The last thing I want is to get into a family wrangle. So, you don't want to help, fine, I'll leave this minute and I'll go back to McLean and tell Hank and Maggie you don't want to help and then the three of you can duke it out.'
For a long moment Marlene met the glare of Mrs. Dobbs's steel blue eyes with her single black one and the impervious glassie. Then Mrs. Dobbs turned away and favored Marlene with a view of her strong profile, limned by the garden window. When she at last returned to speech it was with a far softer tone. 'I'm sorry. I should not have spoken to you like that.' A long sigh. 'My only excuse is that the events surrounding the accusation of my husband are so painful, even at this long remove, that I am not quite in control of myself.'
Marlene nodded sympathetically, thinking, however, that lack of control did not seem to be one of Mrs. Dobbs's big problems. Mrs. Dobbs now put on a surprising smile, showing white perfect teeth, the smile familiar from the early Dobbs films. 'Would you care for some tea?' she asked.
'I'd love some.'
Mrs. Dobbs rose and led Marlene, not to the door she had come through, but under an archway to the right of the desk, which led to a short hall and another exit from the study. This hall was fitted out as a little gallery, lit by bucket lights overhead, the walls covered from the wainscot to nearly the ceiling with framed pictures. Mrs. Dobbs paused to point out the more interesting ones. Most of these were of ancestors, in yellowed formal poses, bearded gentlemen and blank-faced plump ladies looking like upholstery. Selma's father the governor. Richard's father the senator. The ladies and their children were represented in posed shots taken by society photographers: Richard at various stages of childhood with his mother; Selma, the same, with brothers and sisters, retouched so as to obscure any excursion from well-bred perfection. Displayed with the photos were a Civil War general's commission for a Dobbs ancestor; a coat of arms; a family tree for the Hewletts; a certificate from the DAR; a framed display of medals on blue velvet.
Marlene examined with interest two photographs that seemed to contain no Dobbses at all. One showed Harley Blaine in western gear with a white Stetson, seated on a horse, under a rustic wooden arch bearing the name of his Texas ranch. In the other, Blaine was posed smiling in front of an oriental-looking statue of a lion in company with two other grinning men, both younger, both with crew cuts and thin ties.
'This is Mr. Blaine,' Marlene said, pointing at the group shot. 'Who are the other men?'
'I haven't any idea,' Mrs. Dobbs replied after a brief look. 'Richard hung these here. It's one of the photos Harley sent him when he was overseas, after the war.'
'He stayed in the navy?'
'The navy? Oh, no, Harley was never in the navy.'
'But I saw them in the films, Mr. Dobbs and Mr. Blaine, all through the Pacific war, in Pearl Harbor, out in the Solomons…'
'That was what I believe they call 'cover.' Harley was one of Bill Donovan's young men. He was in the OSS during the war. And in the CIA afterward.' Mrs. Dobbs walked away down the hall. Marlene shut her gaping mouth, took a deep breath, and followed.
They went to the kitchen, a dim room with worn checkered linoleum on the floor, a long white enamel table at the center, twenty-year-old appliances, and numerous cupboards and larders painted thickly in dun paint. It was the sort of kitchen meant to be worked by a staff.
'The girl is out,' said Mrs. Dobbs, as if confirming this impression. 'We'll have to fend for ourselves.'
They fended, and then, seated in a small stuffy parlor, they drank their tea from thin china cups with a rose pattern, and munched delicately on thin butter wafers.
The two women chatted in a civilized fashion about Washington life, the Dobbs grandchildren, Marlene's family. Mrs. Dobbs seemed anxious to use what charm she possessed to repair the initial impression she had made, not, Marlene thought, because she cared a whit for Marlene's opinion, but because she had, by that transient rudeness, departed from her own rigorous standards of polite intercourse.
Marlene brought the conversation back on track, steering it from family, to friends, to friendship in general, and then to a particular friendship. 'Mr. Blaine and your husband seem to have had a particularly close relationship.'
'Oh, close isn't the word. Sometimes it seemed as if they were two parts of the same person. We used to joke about it in those days, that I'd gotten two for the price of one.'
'Mr. Blaine never married?'
'Oh, yes, he did, briefly, right after the war. It didn't last. He traveled a good deal, of course, and it must have been lonely for her here in Washington. A Texas girl. It was hard for her to fit in.'
I'll bet, thought Marlene. Not into this little triangle. She asked, 'They met at Yale? Your husband and Mr. Blaine?'
'Oh, no, much earlier-at prep school, St. Paul's. I believe they were nine or ten. Harley's parents were killed in
