Murder on Capitol Hill Page 18

  Lydia forced herself to make a few moments of small talk about the senator, then thanked the doctor for his time and hung up.

  Ginger Johnson came through the door, red hair hanging down in her face, breathing heavily, as though she’d been running. “I’m really not late, Lydia,” she said, taking off her coat and tossing it on a chair. “I was here at seven.”

  “Why?”

  “I couldn’t sleep. What a night. Harold and I sat up all night and talked about us. He’s so crazy, Lydia, but so nice. He wants to marry me—”

  “That’s wonderful—”

  “No, it really isn’t. He told me he wants an old-fashioned woman who’ll be a mother to his children and run a nice, neat house from which he can go forth to build his career and so forth. Imagine me housebound, wearing an apron, doing dishes, washing diapers.”

  Lydia smiled. “Nobody washes diapers anymore, Ginger. They’re disposable.”

  Ginger rummaged through a large pocketbook she’d purchased to replace the one that had been stolen the night of her attack, pulled out a tissue and blew her nose. “I don’t know what to do, Lydia. On the one hand, Harold is square enough to be a good husband. I mean, I wouldn’t worry about his running around. But is that enough? What I mean is, there are lots of men out there who are fun to be with. Harold is… well, face it, Harold is dull, in a nice sort of way.” She directed a stream of air from her lips up to the hair on her forehead. “What’s a girl to do? I’m exhausted from being up all night, which is how come I came in here early… Did you get the message?”

  “What message?”

  “A call from Christa Jones. Right after I arrived this morning. There, it’s on your desk.” She pointed to a mass of paper that virtually covered the desk’s surface.

  Lydia shuffled the papers until she saw one on which Christa Jones’s name had been scrawled. “What did she want?”

  “She wouldn’t say. She sounded off-the-wall, though. Panicky. When I told her you weren’t here, she said, she would call you again when she could.”

  “I’ll try her now,” Lydia said, picking up the phone and dialing the number for WCAP. She asked the operator to be connected with Christa Jones’s office.

  “I’m sorry, but Miss Jones is no longer with the station.”

  “Oh… where can I reach her?”

  “I have no idea. Sorry, ma’am.”

  “Did you know Christa Jones isn’t working for Quentin Hughes any more?” Lydia asked Ginger after she’d hung up.

  “No.”

  “Do you have a home phone number for her?”

  “It’s unlisted.”

  “I hope she calls back. There was something about her that stayed with me.”

  “What do you mean?” Ginger asked.

  “I’m not sure… I had the feeling she wanted to tell me something but couldn’t bring herself to do it.”

  As Ginger left the office Lydia called Cale Caldwell, Jr., and was put through to him by Joanne Marshall.

  “I’m glad you called, Lydia. Frankly, after all the things I told you the other day, I worried about how you might have taken it. I hope you know it wasn’t so easy to tell you those things about Mark and Jimmye. But Mother and I respect you. We trust you. End of speech.”

  “Cale, I appreciate it… But here I am, the investigator again… sorry… Cale, do you know anything about a letter your father wrote that was to be opened on his death?”

  “A letter? No… I’ve never heard of one…”

  “Do you think your mother might have?”

  “I really don’t, Lydia. I mean, if she had, she’d certainly have told me about it.”

  “Well, I’m sure you’re right. Cale—”

  “Why do you ask? Did someone tell you there was such a letter?”

  “It’s just part of the morass of facts, half-truths and gossip I’ve been awash in ever since getting my committee assignment. Believe me, I’ve an idea of what you all have been going through. I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again. You come from a… a remarkable family.”

  It was a warm, appreciative laugh. “Yes, I do, Lydia. I damn well do. No matter what’s happened, I’ll always be grateful for that…”

  Her next call was to Quentin Hughes’s apartment in the Watergate. The line was busy. She tried again five minutes later and again the annoying busy signal buzz. She’d wanted to ask Hughes how she might reach his former producer, Christa Jones. When her third try brought the same busy signal, she gave up. Probably Christa had left because of her problems with Hughes, and it was unlikely he’d give a damn whether anybody contacted her or not. She’d just have to wait for her to call again.

  ***

  Quentin Hughes listened as his mother told him on the phone about what had happened to her in Des Moines. Two men had forced their way into her house, ransacked it and terrified her. She was still shaken, and a family physician had come to the house and sedated her. The police had been called, but when it became evident that nothing had been taken from the house, they seemed to have lost interest in going after the two young men who’d forced their way inside.

  “…and you have no idea what they were looking for, Momma?” Hughes asked.

  “No, I don’t. It was so terrible, Quentin. I wish you had been here.”

  “I do, too. Did they go through the closet?”

  “They went through everything, Quentin. The house was left a mess.”

  “What did they look like?”

  “Oh, I can’t remember, except one of them was bald, and so young too… that struck me…”

  “Look, Momma, I’m glad you’re safe and sound. Do what the doctor says and get some rest. They were probably just a couple of nuts looking for drugs.”

  “Drugs? Why would they look for drugs in my house. I don’t use drugs.”

  “I know, I know, Momma. Look, I have to go. I’ll make plans to fly out there as soon as I can.”

  “You always say that but you never come.”

  “I was there just a little while ago—”

  “Yes, I know, but you only stayed for a little while. You only came to get that package.” She groaned.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Do you think they were looking for that package you had here?”

  “Don’t be silly. I told you what they were, a couple of nuts. Rest and take care of yourself. Have the locks changed on the door. I’ll pay for it.”

  “I don’t like being here alone.”

  “We’ll talk about it soon. Goodbye, Momma.”

  He hung up and quickly went to the kitchen, took the key from the nail behind the refrigerator and went to his bedroom. He pulled the fireproof chest out into the middle of the room and nervously opened it. The brown package was missing.

  He went to the living room, took a violent swipe at a lamp on the desk, sending it flying across the room. He clenched his fists. Christa… damn her soul… damn her…

  24

  They missed each other by only minutes.

  John Conegli pulled up in front of Christa Jones’s apartment building just as she was turning the corner in search of a cab.

  He circled the block twice before he found a parking spot. He walked to the front of her building, looked up and down the street, entered the foyer. He removed a set of master keys from his pocket and tried several before one worked. He opened the locked door separating the foyer from the interior of the building, closed it behind him, listened for sounds. The mailbox said that Christa’s apartment was number 4. He looked for an elevator. There wasn’t any. He cursed silently as he began the long trek up four flights of stairs. By the time he reached the top he was breathing heavily, and his right leg that had been treated for phlebitis two years before had started to ache.

  He stood in front of Christa’s apartment door and again listened for sounds. This time the first key on the ring opened the door.

  One of Christa’s cats looked at him from where it had been asleep on a windowsill, yawned, then p
ut its head back on its paws. The other cat came from the kitchen and rubbed against Conegli’s leg. He gently brought his shoe up under its belly and pushed it away. “Get lost, cat.” He’d never liked cats. Sneaky creatures.

  He looked in the bathroom, the kitchen. A large bag of dry cat food had been emptied onto a succession of paper plates. Next to the plates were two animal feeding bowls that were filled to the brim with water. An eight-quart pot had also been filled with water and sat on the floor. “Looks like she took off for a while,” he mumbled to himself. “Looks like she’s planning to come back, too.”

  He systematically searched every corner of the apartment. He could have worked faster, but he didn’t want to leave evidence that someone had been there, which meant carefully replacing each thing he moved.

  Two hours later, his search completed, he sat on the couch, put his feet up on a coffee table and closed his eyes. Five minutes later he left the apartment, returned to his car and drove off in the direction of Clarence Foster-Sims’s apartment. He’d listened in on a conversation the other night between Foster-Sims and Lydia James. Because it had taken place on the phone, he’d only heard Foster-Sims’s side of the conversation, but it was enough to learn that they were having dinner that night at Foster-Sims’s apartment. He stopped at a tobacco shop and stocked up on cigars. Chances were, it would be a long night.

  ***

  The phone started ringing as Lydia fumbled in her purse for the key to her brownstone. She hurried opening the door, ran into the living room and grabbed up the phone. “Hello.”

  A pause. “Miss James?”

  “Yes. Who is this?”

  Silence. Then, “This is Christa Jones, Quentin Hughes’s producer…”

  “Oh, yes?”

  Lydia cradled the phone to her ear with her shoulder as she quickly sorted through the mail. Along with bills and junk mail was a brown envelope just slightly larger than a standard number 10. It was addressed to her by hand, and the upper left-hand corner read: “C. Jones.”

  “It’s nice to hear from you,” Lydia said. “I was just looking at my mail and see that I have something from you—”

  “Miss James, I—” She started to cry.

  “Miss Jones, are you all right?”

  “Yes… no, I’m not all right. I hate to bother you, and I know this isn’t your problem, but I have to talk to someone…”

  “I’m happy to talk to you. What’s wrong? Has it anything to do with the envelope I just received from you?”

  “Yes, that and more. Could we meet tonight?”

  Lydia was due at Clarence’s apartment in an hour. She’d been very much looking forward to it. Still, how to ignore the urgency in Christa’s voice… she’d call Clarence, tell him she’d be an hour late… She asked Christa whether what she had to say had anything to do with the Caldwell case.

  A hesitation, no immediate response. Only background noise that indicated a public booth. When Christa still didn’t answer, Lydia repeated the question.

  “Yes… in a way it does.”

  “Where are you?”

  “In the bus station, downtown.”

  “All right, it will have to be quick, though. Can I meet you now?”

  “Yes, please. I’m leaving very shortly.”

  Lydia placed a quick call to Clarence, calmed him as best she could, slipped into her shoes, ran a brush through her hair and headed into the center of Washington.

  The bus depot was teeming, complete with the usual assortment of derelicts and prostitutes mingling with a wide variety of citizens about to catch buses. She walked through the terminal, trying to spot Christa Jones. After one complete tour of the place proved unsuccessful, she went to the main door. Should she try again, she wondered? Which was when she did spot Christa coming out of a rest room, carrying a piece of molded Samsonite luggage. She was wearing a long, quilted, apricot down coat. Her hair was in disarray, her face reflected the upset that had been in her voice over the phone.

  “I was about to give up,” Lydia said as Christa came up to her.

  “I’m sorry. I was in there.” She half turned and pointed toward the rest room.

  “Well, here we are. Where can we talk?”

  They surveyed the main passenger area. Most seats were taken, and those that weren’t were singles or next to other people.

  “How was the ladies’ room?” Lydia asked.

  “Almost empty.”

  “Let’s go,” Lydia said.

  Two women were in the rest room but soon left. Lydia and Christa were alone.

  Lydia pulled an envelope from her bag. It had been inside the larger envelope Christa had sent her. The flap had been sealed and covered with Scotch tape. Written on the front was “To be opened 3 days from receipt.”

  “What’s this?” Lydia asked.

  “Something I want you to have in case anything happens to me.”

  Lydia frowned and ran her fingertips over the envelope. There appeared to be papers in it, and a hard object… maybe a key? “Christa, why do you think something might happen to you?”

  “I can’t go into it now.” She looked at her watch. “I have to catch my bus soon. Please don’t open it for three days. I need time. I hope I’ll be back by then. If I am, we’ll open it together. If not… well, open it, and the rest is up to you…”

  “Why me, Christa?”

  “Because I have no one else, Miss James.”

  Two women came in, and Lydia and Christa put their conversation on hold. Other women arrived, and Lydia suggested they leave the room and continue the conversation outside.

  They stood next to a row of vending machines. When Lydia was certain no one was within earshot she asked again, “Why do you think something might happen to you? Who would want to hurt you?”

  Christa, who’d appeared to have calmed down in the rest room, was now visibly anxious. She fiddled with the buttons on her coat, pushed a discarded cigarette butt around the floor with her foot and glanced nervously at everything except Lydia.

  “Christa,” Lydia said, placing her hand on her arm, “you’ve chosen to include me in whatever is happening to you. It isn’t fair, it doesn’t make sense to drop hints and then cut me off.”

  “I know, I know. I didn’t mean to include you… Let me have the envelope back… I’m sorry, I’ve been very upset and I’m not thinking too clearly—”

  “Christa, I’m not suggesting that I don’t want to be involved. What I’m saying is that if I am I’d like you to be honest with me. I asked you when you called whether this had to do with the Caldwell murder. You said it did. What?”

  Christa slumped against the side of one of the machines. “Oh, my God, why did this have to happen?”

  “Why did what happen?”

  “The whole thing… Jimmye McNab, Quentin… it was all so unnecessary. I told him that he was making a terrible mistake, that she was no good for him—”

  “Quentin Hughes and Jimmye McNab?”

  “Yes.” Her face hardened now. “Yes, them. He said he loved her more than any other woman… he did that to me, talked about other women… God, how it hurt…”

  “And yet you loved him, didn’t you?”

  She closed her eyes. “Yes, and the disgusting thing is, I still do.” She opened her eyes. There was fear in them. “She was the worst, Miss James.”

  “Who?”

  “Jimmye McNab. She was so cruel, but he couldn’t see it, or didn’t care. Or maybe he liked it… She used people like nobody I’ve ever met, and I’ve met some in my day, believe me. Ironic, Quentin is a user, too. Maybe it’s like what they say about salesmen… They’re the easiest to sell. Anyway, I knew what she was up to, what she was doing to him.”

  Lydia knew she was running out of time, Christa had said she was catching a bus. How much stock to put in what she’d been told… Christa Jones was obviously a very disturbed woman. No time for subtleties… “Christa… did Quentin Hughes kill Senator Caldwell? Or Jimmye—?”

&nbs
p; It was as though her question had covered Christa in a sheet of ice. She seemed to freeze, her mouth set.

  “Is that what you want to tell me?” Lydia pressed. “Are you telling me that Quentin Hughes killed out of jealousy—?”

  “No.”

  “Then what?”

  “She deserved to die, Miss James. I hated her with every cell in my body—”

  “You?”

  Christa seemed confused.

  “Did you… kill Jimmye McNab?”

  “I would have loved to.”

  Before Lydia could ask any more questions, Christa said she had to go to her bus.

  “I’ll come with you,” Lydia said. She really wanted to escape the bus terminal, escape to the quiet and comfort of Foster-Sims’s apartment. But she was also afraid to lose Christa, to lose the lead she represented… disturbed or not, Christa was also convincing. Her fear and anger seemed increasingly genuine as she talked.

  “No, I want to go alone. I’ll be back in three days. If I’m not, open the envelope. Please, Miss James, not before then. I need these three days to think, to figure out whether I’m doing the right thing. I have a good friend I can stay with.”

  She squeezed Lydia’s hand and was suddenly swallowed by a crowd.

  Lydia pushed through that same crowd and watched the back of the apricot coat go up to a waiting bus that said NEW YORK. Christa never looked back, simply handed her ticket to the driver standing at the open door and disappeared inside.

  In her car Lydia tried to sort out her jumbled thoughts. She was annoyed to have been enticed by Christa to the bus terminal on the promise of learning something of importance to the Caldwell case. That hadn’t, so far as she could tell, happened. Of course she was sorry for Christa Jones, a rejected woman afraid for her life. But damn it, the frustrations were getting to her.

  She started the engine, about to head for Clarence’s apartment, when she happened to look down at the seat next to her and saw Christa’s envelope. She touched it, felt the hard object inside, shut off the ignition, tore open the envelope and removed a locker key. There was a long letter she didn’t read all of because what seemed to matter most were the words: “You’ll find a videotape in a locker at the bus station. The key is to that locker. It explains so much…”