Hart had seen too many of the different faces of Hillary Constable, too many masks put on for effect, to believe any of them authentic, especially one as convenient as this, the practiced look of a woman misunderstood.
“You really believed, when you saw the evidence…? Of course you did. There were only two people who had something to gain by the president’s death: Irwin Russell and you. The Four Sisters story would have forced the president to resign. And you-what chance would you have had to run for anything after a scandal like that? But instead, Robert Constable dies, Russell becomes president, and you become-what?-president-in-waiting? You told me you were going to run against Russell. Why didn’t you? Nothing could stop you. That’s what you said. But there was something, wasn’t there? Russell knew about The Four Sisters, because he had done the same thing as Frank Morris. Except that Russell didn’t have a conscience, he wasn’t any danger to the great Robert Constable. Unlike Frank Morris, he didn’t have to be killed.”
“You’re guessing. You could never prove anything like that.”
“You didn’t have your husband killed?”
“No, I swear. I-”
“Then Russell did.”
“I can’t believe that he would-”
“More likely, you were both in it together. Atwood arranged everything, didn’t he? And, as you told me yourself, Atwood always did what you asked him to do. He tried to frame me for it. He tried to have me killed. He had Austin Pearce murdered. Which one of you asked him to do that?”
She did not answer, and Hart became more agitated and impatient. His eyes were cold, determined, and lethal.
“When did you decide to do this? When did you decide to set me up?”
“I didn’t!” she protested.
His hand moved toward the gun.
“All right, it’s true: I wanted you to find out how much of what Robert had done with The Four Sisters could be traced back, how much I might have to explain. And there is something else. I was afraid. I thought Robert was killed to stop him from talking to Burdick. I thought someone connected with The Four Sisters must have done it.” With a plaintive glance she asked, “Isn’t that what you thought: that The Four Sisters was behind everything?”
“It’s what you wanted me to believe, part of the way you used me. And it almost worked. I was going to kill Jean Valette if I had to. But you made a mistake when you had Atwood try to implicate me. Atwood works for you.”
“Atwood works for Russell!” she shot back. “Russell is now the president, or have you forgotten that little fact?”
“He won’t be for too much longer,” said Hart, subjecting her to a scrutiny so close she felt a shudder run up her spine. “And you won’t be taking his place.”
“Why do you say that? What is it you think you know?”
He just looked at her, a grim smile on his face.
“You were staying at Jean Valette’s?” she asked, trying to draw him out. “When everyone was looking for you, when you were supposedly on the run somewhere in Paris, that’s where you were, at the chateau?”
“He said you both had visited. Yes, I was there for a while, and so was the chief of detectives of the Surete. We were joined by that New York reporter, Philip Carlyle, and things got quite interesting. You should have been there. I would have liked to have seen your reaction when Jean Valette began to tell him about how the president of the United States extorted tens of millions of dollars from companies he owned, and how both you and Irwin Russell knew all about it. But that was just the beginning. Before Carlyle left, Jean Valette gave him all the documentation needed to prove every charge: bank records, wire transfers, numbered accounts-every penny The Four Sisters was forced to give you and your husband. That’s why Carlyle asked you what he did this afternoon: so that when his story runs on the front page of this morning’s paper he can print your categorical denial, or rather, given all the evidence he has, your categorical lie! You’re not going to be confirmed as vice president and you’re not going to run for president. You’re going to be indicted as a co-conspirator for fraud and, unless I miss my guess, for murder.”
There was a sharp knock on the door.
“Are you all right, Mrs. Constable?” asked a Secret Service agent. “We thought we heard voices.”
Hart warned her with his eyes. She went to the door and opened it just a crack.
“No, I’m fine. I had the radio on.”
She turned around, but Hart was gone. Breathing hard, she braced herself against the desk. Then she picked up the telephone and called the White House.
“I need to speak to the president!”
The voice at the other end told her that the president had retired for the night and left instructions not to be disturbed. She slammed her hand hard on the desk and shouted:
“I don’t care about his instructions! Wake him up, goddamn it! Tell him it’s urgent!”
While Hillary Constable waited impatiently for Irwin Russell to come to the phone, Bobby Hart made his way through the shadows of the leafy back yard and out to the end of the street where Charlie Finnegan was waiting in his car.
“What did she say?” asked Finnegan as they drove down the block.
“Just what you’d expect: that she didn’t do it, that she thought I did, that she had thought at first that The Four Sisters was behind it. She did admit that she knew something about what Constable had been doing and that she was worried about how much she might have to explain. That’s why she asked me to look into it. What she can’t explain is Atwood. She tried to blame it on Russell, said Atwood works for him.”
Folding his arms, Hart leaned against the passenger side door and shook his head, discouraged, as it seemed, by what had happened.
“I’m such a fool sometimes. I thought that the shock of seeing me would be enough, that she’d just confess, that she’d tell me everything. She’s probably never told the truth about anything in her life, and I thought she’d tell the truth to me!”
“You didn’t really think that,” protested Finnegan with a cynical laugh. “You might have hoped she would, but you knew better than that. If she went to trial and got convicted, she’d insist with her dying breath that she was innocent. Her life means nothing if she ever admitted to what they really were. And as long as she doesn’t admit it, or even if she admits some of it and explains the rest away, there will always be people who believe in her, who believe in them. So long as there is a mystery about who really had her husband killed, she’ll always be remembered, she’ll always be important. Isn’t that the reason everyone wants to become famous, so they’ll never be forgotten?”
Hart was not listening. He was too caught up in what he knew he had to do.
“She did it, she and Russell both. I’m certain of it. The only problem is I can’t prove it.”
“You may not have to. Atwood may prove it for us. In just a few hours, all the pressure is going to be on him.” He nodded toward the lights of the White House looming in the distance. “You know she had to be on the phone the moment you were gone, telling Russell what you told her, trying to figure out what they can do to save themselves. I don’t imagine either one of them is going to be getting any sleep tonight.”
They drove to Finnegan’s apartment just off Dupont Circle. A pre-war building in which most of the tenants worked for various foreign missions, it gave Finnegan a place to get away from people who worked on the Hill, a place where he could pass almost unnoticed among the others who lived there. He had insisted Hart stay with him until it was safe for him to go home.
“Laura okay?” he asked. He tossed his jacket on a chair in the kitchen, opened the refrigerator, and looked over his shoulder. “Beer?”
“Sure. Thanks. And yes, Laura is okay, though a little angry with me right now.”