“Billy don’t think that’s way up there on his list of civic responsibilities,” the detective said.
Just after midnight Partain let himself out through the General’s front door and started walking toward Connecticut Avenue in search of a taxi. The temperature had dropped into the low twenties and he felt the cold immediately. He had gone less than a hundred feet when he heard the rapid clicking footsteps. He turned to find Jessica Carver hurrying toward him, a blue airline bag slung over her right shoulder.
“It’s turned into sort of an Irish wake back there,” she said.
“That’s why I left.”
“Millie’s getting nostalgic and a little bombed and she and Ver-non’ll probably wind up in bed.”
He nodded.
“So I thought tonight I’d sleep in her room at the hotel.”
“Or mine,” he said.
“Right,” she said. “Or yours.”
Chapter 34
The Memory Room of the funeral home on Wisconsin Avenue seemed to have been designed for those who died without leaving more than a dozen mourners, for that was the number of chairs that had been set out, four wide and three deep.
Seven of the twelve chairs were occupied. Partain and Jessica Carver sat in the second row on the right just behind the kid from the CIA, who had delivered the agency’s condolences the night of Henry Viar’s death. Next to Partain and Carver were General Winfield and Nick Patrokis. In the back row by himself was Colonel Ralph Millwed in dress uniform. In the front row, seated together, were Shawnee Viar and Major General Walker L. Hudson.
A closed wood casket, painted to look like old silver, rested on two trestles draped in dark blue velvet. Four mourners had sent flowers. Partain had sent the roses and suspected that the three other floral tributes were from Vernon Winfield, General Hudson and the CIA.
The muted CD strings ended promptly at 11 A.M. Shawnee Viar, wearing no makeup and a black dress that came to mid-calf, rose,turned and said, “Thank you for coming. General Walker Hudson has offered to say a few words. General Hudson.”
She sat down and General Hudson rose, turning to face his audience of six, including Shawnee Viar. Hudson was also in dress uniform but the only medal he wore was the long blue and silver badge of the combat infantryman. He looked grave, if not particularly sad, as he inspected each member of his audience, then snapped open his purselike mouth and said, “We’re here to mourn the passing of an old friend, Henry Viar, and to offer our sympathy and condolences to his daughter, Shawnee.”
There was a practiced pause before he continued: “I knew and admired Hank Viar for more than twenty-five years as a patriot, a father, a husband and a shrewd judge of men. We served together twice, once in Vietnam and again in Central America. He was a man who deeply loved his country and dedicated his life to it. He was also one of those unsung anonymous heroes who helped win the Cold War and we should all be grateful for his untiring efforts. Henry Viar was one of this nation’s great patriots and I’m proud to have served with him and to have been his friend.”
The General did a smart about-face, threw the casket a snappy salute, held it for a long beat, ended it, backed up exactly two paces and sat down without even looking. Shawnee Viar leaned over to whisper something in his ear before she rose and again turned to the mourners.
“My father may have been all the things the General said, but he was also a cruel, uncaring, spiteful man and I’m not in the least sorry he’s dead.”
She turned and hurried through a side door. Patrokis rose and went after her, leaving behind a silence not of the stunned variety, but rather the kind that didn’t quite know how to end itself because the remaining mourners, except for Partain and Carver, were too far apart to lean over and whisper “May God forgive her” or perhaps “She sure nailed old Hank, didn’t she?”
Partain ended the silence when he rose, walked over to General Hudson, who had also risen, and said, “Great eulogy, General. A lot of truth in it, especially the part about Hank being a father and a husband.”
“What the fuck’re you doing here, Twodees?”
“Paying my respects to a gallant Cold Warrior.”
“The silly shit went and shot himself. Not much gallantry in that.”
“What about your offer?” Partain said. “The one where you get me reinstated as a light-colonel.”
“It stands — providing.”
“Providing what?”
“Providing you say nothing, do nothing.”
“For how long?”
“Not long.”
“Sure you can swing it?”
“They reinstated MacArthur after they fired him for shacking up with that Eurasian mistress of his. So there’s plenty of precedent, although you’re not exactly a MacArthur.”
“Don’t wait too long,” Partain said.
“Don’t get too eager.”
Partain returned to Jessica Carver, who was listening to the young CIA representative. He was telling her that the agency tried to be represented at the funerals or memorial services of most of its senior employees, even those who’d served long ago in the Office of Strategic Services during World War Two.
“Some of those old OSS guys, a few anyway, are way up in their nineties. I had to be at one service last week at this fancy estate out on the Eastern Shore — in Maryland? The deceased was a real old guy of about eighty. He had this funny-strange name, Minor Jackson, and the only mourners were this ancient dwarf and the two pretty young French girls he’d brought. The girls said they’d all flown in from Paris on the Concorde. You should’ve seen the place this guy had. But nobody else came, no neighbors, no household help, no minister. Nobody. Just the two girls and the dwarf and me.”
“What was the dwarf’s name?” Partain asked.
“Nick something.”
“Ploscaru?”
The young CIA man nodded. “Right. Ploscaru. He had to be ninety at least. You knew him?”
“I’d heard he was dead,” Partain said.
In the haphazardly furnished living room of the house on Volta Place in Georgetown, Patrokis had arranged for a caterer, not his uncle, to lay on some finger food and wine. The invitations had been verbal. Colonel Millwed hadn’t been invited but General Hudson had and had declined with regret. Partain had been asked to invite the young CIA man, who begged off because of another funeral he had to attend late that afternoon.
Partain loaded his plate with small crustless sandwiches, deviled eggs and Triscuits covered with melted cheese that he suspected was Velveeta. He then looked around for something to drink and was relieved to find twelve bottles of a sparkling California wine and two dozen glasses on a corner table.
Nick Patrokis sat with Shawnee Viar, who had nothing on her plate other than a half-eaten deviled egg. From the fingers of her right hand an empty wineglass dangled. Patrokis offered to get her more wine but she shook her head and said, “How awful was I?”
“Awful enough.”
“Good.”
“Why’d you invite him to speak?”
“Perversity. Or wishful thinking. I thought that if I asked him to speak and he didn’t show up, it’d prove he killed Hank. But he showed up.”
Patrokis smiled. “So he’s no longer a suspect.”
She shook her head. “Now I suspect he’s just a lot smarter than I thought he was.”
Across the room Jessica Carver had finished a pair of deviled eggs and was biting cautiously into one of the crustless sandwiches when Partain said, “How do you read her — Shawnee?”
She put the sandwich back on her plate, studied Shawnee Viar across the room for a moment or two, then said, “Probably a chronic mood-swinger and I like her.”