Stuart Woods: D.C. Dead

“Oh, you want to talk dirty now, do you?”

She slapped his cheek again. “Just give me your opinion.”

“Well,” Stone said, “we haven’t been able to prove that Brixton Kendrick didn’t murder his wife, and, I must say, it was very unhelpful of him to leave a note taking responsibility for her death. Somehow, you didn’t mention that.”

“It was in the report I gave you.”

“Yes, I finally found it, afte ^siz a="1em"r I had been told it was there.”

“Don’t blame me.”

“Why not? I’m certainly not going to blame myself.”

“I didn’t expect you to,” she laughed.

“Somehow, I don’t necessarily equate his taking full responsibility with a confession of murder.”

“The FBI does,” Holly said.

“Shelley mentioned that,” Stone said. “Of course, the FBI wants desperately for it to be true, because that way they don’t have to find a murderer.”

“Have you got a candidate for that title?”

“Well, I don’t believe it was the president, the vice president, or the secretary of state-or either of the secretary’s associates,” Stone said.

“That’s very patriotic of you.”

“Each of them has the others for an alibi, and that’s tough to shake.”

“You have a point,” Holly said.

Stone crawled up the bed and rested his head on the pillow next to Holly’s. “Dino found the murder weapon, though.” He told her about the brick. “We’ll get the lab report in the morning, so I guess we can hope the murderer spat or bled or sweated on it.”

“That would certainly simplify things, wouldn’t it?” Holly said.

“Yes, but life is rarely that simple, and murder, even more rarely.”

“Can I quote you on that? Or are you stealing from Sherlock Holmes?”

“That was entirely original,” Stone said, “or at least, I can’t remember anybody else ever saying that, and I haven’t read Sherlock Holmes since about the eighth grade.”

Holly didn’t reply, and her breathing had become slow.

Stone’s breathing followed hers, and shortly, he was asleep, too.

Stone and Holly appeared for breakfast in robes and found Dino and Shelley, in robes, already attacking their meal.

“We ordered for you, too,” Dino said.

“Good morning, Holly,” Shelley said, without apparent embarrassment.

“Good morning, Shelley, Dino,” Holly replied, shaking out her napkin and pouring herself and Stone some orange juice. “I hear your conclusions in the investigation are holding up.”

Shelley nodded. “I expected them to, thank you.”

“Don’t thank me,” Holly said. “This wasn’t my idea. Actually, Stone and Dino were my idea, but only after I had my orders.”

“I like your choice of investigators,” Shelley said, pulling Dino’s earlobe.

“So do I,” Stone said, helping himself from a platter of scrambled eggs and bacon.

“Then nobody has any complaints?” Holly asked.

“I didn’t say that,” Stone replied. “First, I want to see the lab report on the brick.”

Shelley got up and went to a telephone, held a brief conversation, then hung up and came back to the table. “The lab report is on my desk,” she said.

“And?” Dino queried.

“The blood on the brick is that of Emily Kendrick, so we have the murder weapon.”

“Okay,” Stone said. “What else?”

“There was no deposit of DNA by another individual,” Shelley said.

“Shit!” Dino muttered.

“However,” Shelley said, making sure she had everybody’s undivided attention before continuing, “there was something else deposited.”

Everybody stared at her in silence, waiting for the news.

“Lipstick,” Shelley said. “Don’t you want to know what kind of lipstick?”

“I’m just dying to know,” Dino replied.

“Pagan Spring,” Shelley said, “from a house brand made for a national drugstore chain.”

“What’s a Pagan Spring?” Dino asked.

“In this case,” Shelley said, “pinkish.”

“Pinkish?”

“Not exactly pink, but pinkish.”

Stone interrupted. “I take it this is a cosmetic used by potentially tens of thousands of women in the D.C. area?”

“Indeed,” Shelley said.

“Shit!” Dino said again.

Holly and Shelley had left the suite, and Stone and Dino were on their second cups of coffee. The phone rang, and Stone got it. “Yes?”

“I’m calling for Director of Central Intelligence Katharine Rule Lee,” a woman’s voice said. “To whom am I speaking?”

“This is Stone Barrington.”

“Director Lee would be pleased if you and Lieutenant Bacchetti could join her for lunch in her dining room today at twelve-thirty.”

“Please tell her we’d be pleased to join her,” Stone said.

“Thank you, Mr. Barrington. There’ll be visitors’ passes for you at the main gate. Would you like directions?”

“Yes, please.” Stone wrote everything down, thanked her, and hung up. “I hope you and Assistant Director Bach haven’t planned a matinee for today,” he said to Dino.

“Funny you should mention it,” Dino said. “I was just thinking about that.”

“Director Lee has invited us to lunch at the Agency.”

“No kidding? I’ve never been there.”

“Neither have I, but I have directions,” Stone replied, waving a piece of paper.

Entry to the Central Intelligence Agency’s grounds was very much like entry to the White House grounds. They gave their names at the gate, were checked off a list, then given visitors’ passes and directed to a parking spot. They were met on the ground floor by a fiftyish woman who introduced herself as Director Lee’s assistant and led them through the security gate and to an elevator, along the way passing a wall where nameless stars represented agents who had lost their lives in the line of duty.

The director’s dining room was pleasant, paneled in a light wood, and featured fo qblf duty.a large window with a view of the woods surrounding the building. Holly was already there, sipping fizzy water.

“Why, Mr. Barrington, Lieutenant Bacchetti, what a surprise to bump into you,” she said gaily.

Before they could respond, the director breezed into the room, followed by her assistant, who was jotting notes on a steno pad. “And tell them to be quick about it,” Kate Lee said, then took a seat at the table, waving the others to chairs. “I’m very much afraid that this is not going to be a very good lunch,” she said, “because I’m on a diet, and you have to suffer along with me.”

A small salad of some sort of leaves, splashed with lemon juice, was served.

“All right,” the director said, after they had begun to eat.

Stone recited what they had learned so far, which he knew would not please her, but she perked up when he came to the brick with the lipstick on it.

“Tell me,” she said, “how do you think lipstick got to be on the brick? Did the murderer kiss it?”

Her question was met with silence.

“Maybe Mrs. Kendrick was wearing it,” Dino said hopefully.

“No,” Holly replied. “She had just come from a tennis date.”

“Well,” the director replied, “I have played tennis with women who were wearing lipstick, but Mimi Kendrick never wore makeup at all. She had this glowing skin that cosmetics had never touched, and she looked great.”

“The lipstick does suggest that the murderer was a woman, though,” Stone said.

“Or a transvestite,” the director murmured.

Holly couldn’t resist laughing. “At the White House? That would be something!”

“Yes,” the director said, “it would be something, but you’re right, Stone, it’s hard to come to any other conclusion but that the murderer was a woman.”