As I watched, library patrons came and went, waddling through the checkpoint at high speed like cartoon penguins. ‘There!’ Jud said, freezing the frame on the Garfinkel’s bag as it made its way slowly along the conveyor belt and disappeared into the X-ray machine.
I squinted at the faces passing through the checkpoint, but the images were grainy. ‘Who brought it there?’
‘I’m hoping you can tell me.’ Jud diddled with the controls, the camera pulled back, panned, and refocused as somebody picked up the bag at the end of the line. Jud zoomed in on the man’s face.
It was James Hoffner.
‘My God,’ I said. ‘That’s definitely Aupry’s lawyer.’
Jud grinned, fast-forwarding – five, ten, fifteen minutes. ‘And here’s our bad boy again,’ he said, freezing the action. ‘At two fifteen, leaving the way he came. And this time, he’s not carrying the bag.’
I didn’t know that there was a telephone in the room until it warbled like an ill-tempered turkey. Scowling in annoyance at the interruption, Jud punched the speaker button. ‘Yes?’
‘Have you seen John?’ a woman’s voice inquired.
‘He’s taping right now.’ Jud checked his watch. ‘Should be finished in about ten minutes.’
‘Thanks, Jud.’
‘Who was that?’ I asked after the woman hung up.
‘Doro. Dorothea Chandler. Mrs John C. She who must be obeyed.’
‘I take it you don’t get along.’
Jud shrugged. ‘She’s OK, but it drives me crazy how she’s always popping in, fussing about one thing or another. The latest bee in the Missus’s bonnet is her Christmas fundraiser. They’re having an auction, and she’s twisting John’s arm to sign on as auctioneer. John told me he’d rather have a root canal, but short of starting a war in a third world country so he can jet over there to cover it, I think he’s going once, going twice, doomed!’
‘Where is this event taking place?’
‘At her club.’
‘Which one?’ I asked, although, from Chandler’s bio on Wikipedia, I thought I already knew the answer to that.
‘The Women’s Democratic League.’
‘I’d like to meet her,’ I said.
At my comment, Jud rolled his eyes in a you’ll-be-sorry way.
‘Seriously,’ I said. Even though recent developments seemed to be pointing the finger of blame for Meredith’s murder squarely at James Hoffner, Dorothea Chandler, the wronged wife, wasn’t entirely off the hook, at least not in my mind.
Much later, at home, I looked up the Women’s Democratic League on the Internet, clicked on the pull-down menu labeled ‘Events.’ As luck would have it, a Talk & Tea was scheduled for the following day, featuring Susan Woythaler, a woman who’d been active in the women’s rights movement since the early years, a mover and shaker at the 1977 National Conference of Women in Houston, where she’d appeared on the dais with such pioneers as Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedan. I made a few phone calls, setting everything else on my calendar – a mani-pedi and lunch with a friend – aside, and hastily made plans to attend.
TWENTY-TWO
Pat Nixon had her ‘good cloth Republican coat,’ but what did a good lady Democrat wear to a Talk & Tea these days? Using Hillary Clinton and Tipper Gore as my imaginary fashion consultants, I pawed through my closet, finally settling on a periwinkle-blue pants suit that hadn’t seen daylight since Bush defeated Kerry and a white silk, scoop-necked blouse. I fastened a single strand of pearls around my neck, and added matching ear studs. Standing in front of the full-length mirror in a pair of classic black Ferragamo pumps, I nodded in approval. I looked so Democratic that I’d even vote for myself.
I drove into the District and spent a good twenty minutes cruising the neighborhoods around Dupont Circle searching for a parking space. In spite of the exorbitant hourly rates, I was seriously considering Plan B – one of the hotel parking garages in the vicinity – when an SUV pulled out of a space adjacent to a driveway on Newport Place. I slipped into the spot, pulling as close as I dared to the car in front of me, and climbed out. From the sidewalk, I squinted at my rear bumper, calculated how far it extended into driveway territory and decided that a scant two inches didn’t put me at risk for a ticket. Satisfied, and praying that the meter minder didn’t carry a ruler in his or her pocket, I locked my doors and walked the three blocks to the Women’s Democratic League, located in an imposing red-brick mansion near the corner of 22nd and O Streets, NW, not far from Washington DC’s famed Embassy Row.
Built at the turn of the last century for a former Supreme Court justice whose taste ran to high Victorian, the mansion welcomed visitors into a spacious lobby which would have been as dark as the inside of a coffin had it not been for the light streaming in from a clerestory window on the landing of a grand, central staircase. The staircase itself was a work of art, constructed of dark oak. Poseidon and his twin, complete with tridents, formed the newel posts, and the spindles that supported the banisters were carved naiads, dancing up the stairway in orderly fashion like Radio City Rockettes.
A bronze plaque on the wall to my left indicated the ‘Cloak Room’ where I should hang my coat, and a poster on an easel near a massive Jacobean sideboard directed me to ‘Talk & Tea: Susan Woythaler, VP of Women Now! speaks on the Changing Face of Feminism. 10 a.m.’
Following the arrow on the poster, I found myself in a small anteroom where two women who looked enough alike to be mother and daughter sat behind a long table covered with a white cloth, tending to a spreadsheet and an alphabetical array of name tags. I straightened my spine, smiled broadly and approached the table. ‘Hi. I’m new to the area and just heard about the tea today. Is it too late to sign up?’
The older woman wore a hot-pink suit. Clipped to its lapel was a Lucite nametag that told me that her name was Jeannette Williams. ‘Of course not,’ she smiled back. ‘Welcome!’
‘How much is a ticket?’ I asked, resting my handbag on the table.
‘It’s twenty dollars for members and twenty-five for non-members.’
‘Well, I guess it’s worth it to hear what Susan Woythaler has to say!’
‘And there’s tea before and after, of course.’
‘Of course.’ I pried open my handbag and forked over three tens.
‘We hope you’ll like what you see and hear today, and that you’ll decide to join,’ the second woman, the one holding the spreadsheet, said. She handed me a pre-printed, three-by-five index card. ‘If you’ll fill out that card, we’ll put you on our mailing list.’
‘There’s the holiday party coming up in December, of course, and in three weeks, we’ll have our annual fashion show.’ Jeannette passed me a brochure along with my five dollars in change. ‘There’s an application form on the back.’
I didn’t think I could deal with another fashion show so close on the heels of the one that very nearly became the last one I’d ever attend on this side of the Pearly Gates, but I didn’t tell her that.
Jeannette pushed a paper name tag in my direction and handed me a felt-tip marking pen. ‘If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask.’
I uncapped the pen, bent over the table and before I could stop myself printed ‘Lilith Chaloux’ on the name tag in big, black letters. ‘I’m sure I will,’ I said, stripping the backing off the tag and patting it, adhesive side down, to my lapel. Under my hand, I could feel my heart pumping like a jackhammer.
‘Feel free to look around, Lilith,’ Jeannette said after consulting my name tag. ‘Refreshments are just through there, in the ballroom.’
‘Thank you.’ I waved the index card, then tucked it into my handbag. ‘I’ll return this to you later, if that’s all right.’
Inside the former ballroom, which was set up with rows of folding chairs in preparation for Susan Woythaler’s lecture, I accepted a cup of coffee from a uniformed server manning an elaborate bronze samovar, stirred in some cream and sugar, then wandered around the downstairs rooms of the mansion, checking out the décor.