Mistress Read online

  I drive back to my house slowly, giving them a chance to follow me. They don’t. So maybe they have no interest in Diana. Maybe they just wanted a glimpse of the Potomac from their vantage point. Maybe they’re bird-watchers.

  Diana would ride with me on the Triumph sometimes. It was the best time I ever had on the bike, with her arms nestled around my waist, her chin on my shoulder, sharing an adventure. I haven’t yet come to grips with the fact that she’ll never ride with me again.

  We were going to be a couple. I know that. The best couples are the ones who start out as friends first, like Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan in When Harry Met Sally. Except let’s face it—she was way too cute for him. Anyway, most people come together through sexual attraction and then try to figure out if they’re compatible. The sex distracts them, then they realize too late that their pieces don’t fit together. Diana and I, we were different. We were pals. Buds. True, I wanted more, but her resistance forced us to develop a different kind of relationship. Once we got to the romantic part, we would’ve already checked off all the other boxes.

  Or maybe I was just dreaming. I’ll never know for sure.

  Because somebody killed her. I’m sure of it now. She loved those apple geraniums. Even if she wanted to die, she would’ve taken care to step around them before taking the plunge. She wouldn’t have willy-nilly barreled over the side and taken them with her.

  I can imagine a cop laughing at my analysis. The Case of the Fallen Geraniums. Someone in this room is a florist!

  You’d have to know her like I do.

  Anyway, the video surveillance in her apartment will tell the story. I’ll just have to wait until the police clear out—

  Wait. Wait. Did Diana know somebody wanted to kill her?

  Is that why she asked me to put the surveillance equipment in her apartment? She never volunteered why, so I never asked. But it makes all the sense in the world.

  Why would Diana go to the trouble of having me install eavesdropping devices in her apartment if she were going to commit suicide the same night?

  She wouldn’t. That confirms it. Diana Marie Hotchkiss was murdered.

  Oh, Diana. Were you afraid for your life? Why? What did you do? What situation were you stuck in? Did you know something you shouldn’t have? Did you do something you shouldn’t have?

  And why didn’t you trust me enough to tell me?

  I should go to the police with this. It’s a critical piece of information. They’ll know Diana was afraid of somebody, plus the surveillance cameras should solve the crime.

  But I’m left with the same problem I’ve had since the moment I left her that night, dead on the sidewalk: I was in her apartment only minutes before she fell. And I fled the scene.

  The minute I go to the police, I become the prime suspect in her murder.

  Chapter 10

  They come at me all of a sudden, faceless, but big and strong, with quick hands that take hold of me, seize me by the neck and the wrist, forcing me into submission as my feet slip on the wet bathroom tile, placing the gun in my hand but gripping it fiercely, maintaining control, pressing it against my temple. I resist, moving my hand, angling my head away from the barrel, but their fingers grip my hair, force my head forward, press the barrel against my temple, and reach for the trigger. I stretch my fingers outward, off the trigger, but they’re too strong, they’re too strong and I’m too weak, and I see the blood spatter on the shower curtain before I hear the bullet, before I feel it penetrate my brain, before I know that I am dead.

  I lurch forward and almost break my laptop computer in half. I expel a loud breath and take a moment to reorient myself. I’m sitting in the corner of my bedroom. I was online doing research for a story and I guess I dozed off. I’ve been doing that a lot since Diana died—not sleeping in any regular fashion but rather nodding off until the violence of my dreams shakes me awake. I can count on one hand the number of hours I’ve slept in the last forty-eight.

  I place the laptop, hot in my sweaty lap, onto the carpet and rise to a crouch. I stay that way, keeping low, as I move toward the window, careful to stay below the sight line.

  Then I rise up just enough to look down at the street level. The sun, recently risen, sends stripes through the trees into the park and onto F Street below.

  The white panel truck is still parked along the curb across from my house, two days running now. I have passed it several times in the days since Diana’s death. Never have I seen a single person inside. Then again, I can only see inside the driver’s compartment. I have no idea what’s going on in the back.

  One of my neighbors, a grad student named Alicia who won’t let you forget she studied the classics at Radcliffe, is walking her Doberman along the brick sidewalk across the street. A Frisbee sails to a rest at her feet and she pauses, concerned, as another dog, a yellow Lab, races to retrieve it. She hustles her Doberman away to avoid a confrontation. The Lab manages to scoop up the Frisbee in his mouth and gallops back to his owner, who is standing in the middle of Garfield Park.

  No sign of Oscar, the giant schnauzer.

  Someone’s playing Frisbee with his dog this time of morning? The guy is big and athletic—is he one of the guys from the Lexus a couple days ago, watching me and the cop outside Diana’s building? Could be. I don’t know.

  I turn away from the window and catch a whiff of myself. I didn’t shower yesterday. I don’t remember much of what I did yesterday, which is not to say that I have amnesia but rather that it feels like a blur. Somewhere in there, while hunkered down in the house—the benefits of owning an online newspaper—I banged out an article on a power struggle between the president’s chief of staff and the secretary of homeland security, something I dug up from a source inside DHS, an assistant to the deputy secretary, one of the few women I ever dated who actually liked me when it was over.

  Music pops on over a DJ’s voice—my clock radio. Six thirty in the morning in the nation’s capital, and it’s going to be a great day, he tells me.

  No, it’s not. Today’s going to be a bad day.

  I move slowly, trudging along, bitter and wounded. Over the last two days, I have veered wildly between depression and bitterness and fear, depending on whether I consider that (a) Diana is gone forever; (b) someone violently took her from this world; (c) someone might have similar thoughts toward me; or (d) somehow, in some way I can’t fathom, I am being set up for Diana’s murder.

  The instinct comes naturally to me, bred into me since childhood, to turn inward, to hide, to keep everything and everybody out.

  Benjamin, the sooner you learn your limitations, the better.

  You’ll have plenty of time to make friends when you grow up.

  Diana was my friend. And that’s why I can’t stay in the house today.

  Today is Diana’s visitation in her hometown of Madison, Wisconsin, and I owe it to her to attend.

  Even if it gets me killed.

  Chapter 11

  I shower, shave, put on a suit, and take the Triumph over to the airfield for my flight to Madison. The fresh air does me some good, snaps me out of my funk for the moment. I need my head screwed on tight.

  I park my bike and walk right through the lobby out onto the tarmac. Potomac Airfield is just a few minutes from downtown DC, yet there are still no fences, no cameras, no real security checkpoints. Go figure. The guy who runs this place has some kind of guts. But when he’s got an empty spot, he’ll let me tie down or hangar for practically nothing, as long as I talk him up with the other correspondents. Politics in the District isn’t limited to elected officials.

  I walk over to my plane, a Cessna 172N Skyhawk, 1979 model. I bought it two years ago, tapping the trust fund my grandfather left me. Never knew the guy, but Grandpa did well in the convention business and even better in the stock market, and I have a plane, an online newspaper, and a pot of money invested in bonds to show for it.

  The Cessna’s a beauty. Four seats with just enough cargo space. Blue stripe
s, the color of a peaceful sky. The color of Diana’s eyes.

  I’m going to say good-bye to you today, Diana.

  President Kennedy was the first to use the plane that became known as Air Force One, a modified Boeing 707. He didn’t want an overtly military look, so he went as far as to remove the words Air Force from the side of the fuselage. Kennedy flew in it the first time to attend Eleanor Roosevelt’s funeral in Hyde Park, New York. His last time on the plane was his flight to Dallas in November of 1963. President Johnson took the oath of office on board that aircraft.

  I remove the chocks, the triangular blocks that prevent the wheels from moving. I walk around to remove the wing and tail tie-downs. I get a funny look from a pilot tying his plane down next to me. Most pilots just use chocks for short stops of an hour or so and only use tie-downs if the plane remains outside overnight or longer. I use both. You can never be too safe.

  President Kennedy fantasized about his own death. He talked about assassination frequently and even reportedly made a playful home movie about it.

  The routine of the preflight inspection comforts me, freeing my mind from weightier subjects. No frost on the wings—fat chance in this sweltering August heat. Sufficient oil; external lights illuminated. I’ve already called in the flight plan, so I won’t have an unexpected air force escort. The SFRA—the Special Flight Rules Area all around the District—isn’t really a big deal unless some idiot pilot forgets to notify anyone that he’ll be flying through. Then he just might have the nation’s finest airmen using him for target practice.

  Cargo door secure. Rudder control and elevator control cables okay. VOR antennas in good condition. The VOR antennas, radio beacons that create the “highways” in the sky, are crucial to instrument-guided flight. With two or more bearings to or from a station, I can triangulate my position on a map—but only if my antennas are working properly.

  One of Kennedy’s favorite poems was “I Have a Rendezvous with Death.” He would often ask his wife to recite it to him.

  I climb up in the cockpit and start the next checklist. Seat belt: fastened. Brakes: set. Mixture: full rich. Carb heat: cold. Prime the fuel. Throttle in one-eighth inch. Master and beacon: on. Open the window, yell out “Clear!” Crack the throttle and hit the starter. The plane rolls forward.

  I have a rendezvous with Death

  At some disputed barricade,

  When Spring comes back with rustling shade

  And apple-blossoms fill the air—

  Or apple geraniums, tumbling to the sidewalk six stories down.

  A blood droplet in free fall will take the shape of a sphere.

  A crackle of muted static, frantic squawks from the radio. To my right, the pilot who shot me the funny look is screaming and pointing. I hear a strange loud thrumming, like the metro rumbling by the Eastern Market while I walked with you, Diana, in the cherry blossom–scented spring sunlight—

  No!

  I slam on the brakes. The prop on the front of my Skyhawk nearly takes the wingtip off a Piper Mirage as it taxis past me. Jesus, Ben, wake up!

  The three most important things to remember when you’re in the cockpit, Benjamin. Fly the plane. Fly the plane. Fly the plane.

  Breathe, Ben.

  My heart creeps back down my throat to its cage in my chest, and I taxi out for takeoff with trembling hands.

  I have a rendezvous with death.

  Chapter 12

  I take a rental car from the Dane County Regional Airport to this place, the Partridge Funeral Home, which is bordered on the north by its cemetery, on the south by residential housing, and across the street by some kind of forest preserve or park. The building looks like an elementary school, a one-story structure of faded brown brick with simple shrubbery and a small lawn that’s withering in the blasting summer heat.

  I slow my pace as I approach the front door. Through the glass door I see a blown-up photograph, placed on an easel, of Diana from long ago, a high schooler in her purple homecoming dress, her hair poofy and sprayed, wearing a gaudy white corsage and, as always, that carefree, crooked smile.

  A tremble runs through my body. I stifle the instinct to turn and run, to return to the capital. But I have to do this.

  There are some things in life you just have to do. That from my dear father as he knotted my tie on the morning of Mother’s funeral. I always thought that was a stupid thing to say, but now I guess I understand what he meant.

  I enter the building, take one more look at the photo of the smiling Diana, and follow the directions on a sign. At the end of the hallway, a large parlor area hums with the quiet, respectful tones of those paying their last respects. There are flowers everywhere. More photographs are displayed throughout the room: Diana as a newborn; as a toddler in a Halloween princess costume; as a teenager setting a volleyball; as a graduate in a posed yearbook photo, her eyes full of promise as they look off into the distance. In the middle of the room, several women who look to be Diana’s age gather around a laptop computer that plays a slide show of images.

  Where’s the casket? With my question comes relief. I’m not sure I’m ready to see her lifeless. It was one thing to see her facedown in the dark; it would be another to see her posed in cruel artificial lighting, broken and damaged and on display.

  Then it hits me. Diana’s body isn’t in Madison. It’s in DC, in the custody of the Metropolitan Police Department. They haven’t released the corpse. For now, they’re only having a visitation, to be followed by a funeral at a future time after they determine the cause of death.

  Just as they did with Mother.

  To the far right of the room, an elderly couple and a guy in his midthirties shake hands with well-wishers. Her parents and brother, a receiving line.

  I do another survey of the room. About thirty people here and I don’t recognize a soul. It’s probably asking a lot for people from DC to trek out here to Wisconsin. Most people don’t have a trust fund, as I do.

  A woman in a crisp black suit, somewhere around forty, stands in a corner, looking at a collage of photos of Diana. Except she’s not really looking. Her eyes move casually about the room, keeping an eye on the entrance. She’s chosen the corner that maximizes her view of the entire parlor. She avoids eye contact with me when I try to establish it. She’s pleasant-looking and unremarkable, which is smart—she’s a good choice, somebody who won’t stick out. Whoever sent her, they aren’t stupid.

  I mean, in The Firm, one of the henchmen, the one who killed Gary Busey and the lawyers in the Caymans, and who tried to kill Tom Cruise—that guy was an albino. If you were going to pick someone to anonymously carry out your wet work, would you choose an albino? Anybody, but anybody, could identify him: Well, let’s see…don’t remember much, ’cept, oh, yeah, he had white hair and red eyes and was completely pale.

  This woman here—dirty-blond hair, normal-looking, medium height, simple black outfit, etc. She could be anybody.

  I take a breath. Okay. I can do this.

  I stand in a small line of people waiting to speak with Diana’s family, my heartbeat accelerating. Why would an albino go into acting in the first place? Are there a lot of roles out there for people lacking pigment? Maybe you figure you have a niche, and you do minor roles just to put food on the table, awaiting that one part, that film that will define your career, The Color of Nothing, the story of the albino kid from Detroit who everyone said wouldn’t amount to anything, who lifted himself up by his bootstraps working at carnivals and tanning salons until he rose to prominence as Alfie the Clown, the star of a Nickelodeon—

  “Hello.”

  I turn to see a woman standing behind me, alone, dressed in a loose-fitting blouse and blue jeans, more casual than I might have expected for a visitation. She looks to be about Diana’s age, so I’m guessing local, a high school classmate or neighbor.

  “Hi,” I manage. It comes out weak, through a full throat.

  “I’m Emma.”

  “Ben.”

  �
�You’re from DC?” Emma asks. She’s a tad overweight, a round stomach, possibly pregnant, but I don’t dare ask. I’m not that stupid.

  I nod. “You?”

  “High school,” says Emma. “I still live in town. My husband’s a math professor at the university. Do you work at the same PR firm as Diana?”

  PR firm? Diana didn’t work at a PR firm.

  “Yes,” I answer. “I do.”

  She shakes her head—bemusement, not admiration. “That must be something, living out there. All the fighting and spinning and talking heads.”

  “Diana—Diana talked about it a lot?”

  “Oh, I don’t know about ‘a lot.’ We’d lost touch. I’d see her when she came back in town, maybe once a year around holidays, that sort of thing.” She smiles absently, recalling a memory. “I remember when she graduated from UVA—”

  She didn’t graduate from UVA. She didn’t even go to UVA.

  “—and she took that job on the Hill.”

  She didn’t take a job on the Hill after college.

  Here: Diana was a sophomore at Wake Forest, a poli-sci major, when she got pregnant. The history professor who knocked her up talked her into an abortion. She complied, it tortured her, and she dropped out of school and moved to DC. She was a housekeeper at then-congressman Craig Carney’s apartment. Then, history repeating itself, she started an affair with Congressman Carney. He recognized her brains as well as her beauty, and when Carney became deputy director of the CIA he elevated her to her current position as a CIA White House liaison. He also put her up in a nice place in Georgetown. The affair ended, Diana picked up the rental payments on her own, and she kept the job with the CIA.

  “That’s what she called it, the Hill. She was so excited. She said she might run for Congress someday.” Emma shakes her head, lifts her shoulders in frustration. “What—I mean, does anyone know why she would take her own life?”