Read Online Murder in the White House (Capital Crimes Book 1) by Margaret Truman - Free Book Online
Authors: Margaret Truman
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equipment. Gabe Haddad had been to the State Department early and had returned to the Justice Department, bringing with him Judith Pringle, the young woman said to have been intimately associated with Lansard Blaine.
“I want to avoid embarrassing you,” said Fairbanks. He sat behind the scarred desk appropriated from the GSA, in a chair with one broken spring, looking at Judith Pringle across a desk littered with boxes and files. He fiddled with the controls on a dictating machine also hastily appropriated. “If your name is published, it won’t be because
we
published it.”
“It’s been done already,” the young woman said miserably. “Everybody knows who the
Star
meant.”
“Everybody at the State Department?”
“Yes.”
He was impressed with how much she was like Marya Kalisch. He had a file on her, provided this morning by the FBI. She had a degree in mathematics from the University of Tennessee. She had worked briefly for IBM and had come three years ago to the State Department as a systems analyst and designer… a young woman with ability and a career, yet mousy in appearance and with a quiet manner, a young woman who had been, no doubt, surprised and flattered by the attentions of the distinctly suave Secretary of State of the United States. She had dark brown hair, blue eyes, regular features—nothing exactly memorable. She was wearing a cream-white pants suit, and she was clearly nervous.
“Is what they said about you in the
Star
true?” Ron asked.
“What part of it?”
“That you had an intimate relationship with Lansard Blaine.”
“What if I refuse to say?” She spoke with the soft, southern accent of Tennessee.
“We can stop the interview right now until you get a lawyer,” Ron said. “He’ll tell you that I have the authority to ask you questions and require you to answer.”
She frowned and sucked in her lower lip.
He was not moving well. Not yet. He had dinner last night at eleven, in a hurry, nothing very good, and he’d not slept well and this morning his stomach was queasy and his head hurt as if he’d drunk too much the night before… He’d worn a dark blue suit this morning, it was almost a uniform with him, but now his blue andwhite striped shirt was limp in the June heat and damp. He had loosened his collar and tie. A cup of coffee, turning cold, and a half-eaten Danish sat among the litter on his desk. He carried a pair of half glasses in the inside pocket of his jacket—he almost never put them on when anyone could see; in fact, he never put them on at all except when squinting was painful. Hell, he was thirty-four and too young to be wearing reading glasses. Now he pulled them out and pressed them into place astride his nose. He peered at her file.
“I propose to switch on this dictator,” he said. “I need to make a tape of what we say. If you don’t want to, I’ll have to arrange for a subpoena and take your testimony with a reporter making the record—”
“I have nothin’ to hide.”
“Good, so please let’s get on with it.”
He switched on the recorder, and she told him her name, how old she was—twenty-nine—and what she did at the Department of State. “Mr. Blaine spoke to me one day when he came in our section. I was sort of surprised. He was, after all, the Secretary of State. Then he seemed to be saying something to me all the time. I kept reading in the papers about him—and hearing his name every night when I watched the TV news—and when he called me and asked me up to his office and then asked me if I’d have dinner with him, I was—”
“Flattered.” They were all so damned flattered…
“Yes. And I suppose more than that.”
“When?”
“I’ve been… I guess I have to say it, I
did
see him… for about a year.”
“Tell me about it. How would you describe the relationship? A love affair?”
Judy Pringle frowned. “I would… like to call it that,” she said in a voice close to breaking. She shook her head.
“I want to avoid embarrassing you,” said Fairbanks. He sat behind the scarred desk appropriated from the GSA, in a chair with one broken spring, looking at Judith Pringle across a desk littered with boxes and files. He fiddled with the controls on a dictating machine also hastily appropriated. “If your name is published, it won’t be because
we
published it.”
“It’s been done already,” the young woman said miserably. “Everybody knows who the
Star
meant.”
“Everybody at the State Department?”
“Yes.”
He was impressed with how much she was like Marya Kalisch. He had a file on her, provided this morning by the FBI. She had a degree in mathematics from the University of Tennessee. She had worked briefly for IBM and had come three years ago to the State Department as a systems analyst and designer… a young woman with ability and a career, yet mousy in appearance and with a quiet manner, a young woman who had been, no doubt, surprised and flattered by the attentions of the distinctly suave Secretary of State of the United States. She had dark brown hair, blue eyes, regular features—nothing exactly memorable. She was wearing a cream-white pants suit, and she was clearly nervous.
“Is what they said about you in the
Star
true?” Ron asked.
“What part of it?”
“That you had an intimate relationship with Lansard Blaine.”
“What if I refuse to say?” She spoke with the soft, southern accent of Tennessee.
“We can stop the interview right now until you get a lawyer,” Ron said. “He’ll tell you that I have the authority to ask you questions and require you to answer.”
She frowned and sucked in her lower lip.
He was not moving well. Not yet. He had dinner last night at eleven, in a hurry, nothing very good, and he’d not slept well and this morning his stomach was queasy and his head hurt as if he’d drunk too much the night before… He’d worn a dark blue suit this morning, it was almost a uniform with him, but now his blue andwhite striped shirt was limp in the June heat and damp. He had loosened his collar and tie. A cup of coffee, turning cold, and a half-eaten Danish sat among the litter on his desk. He carried a pair of half glasses in the inside pocket of his jacket—he almost never put them on when anyone could see; in fact, he never put them on at all except when squinting was painful. Hell, he was thirty-four and too young to be wearing reading glasses. Now he pulled them out and pressed them into place astride his nose. He peered at her file.
“I propose to switch on this dictator,” he said. “I need to make a tape of what we say. If you don’t want to, I’ll have to arrange for a subpoena and take your testimony with a reporter making the record—”
“I have nothin’ to hide.”
“Good, so please let’s get on with it.”
He switched on the recorder, and she told him her name, how old she was—twenty-nine—and what she did at the Department of State. “Mr. Blaine spoke to me one day when he came in our section. I was sort of surprised. He was, after all, the Secretary of State. Then he seemed to be saying something to me all the time. I kept reading in the papers about him—and hearing his name every night when I watched the TV news—and when he called me and asked me up to his office and then asked me if I’d have dinner with him, I was—”
“Flattered.” They were all so damned flattered…
“Yes. And I suppose more than that.”
“When?”
“I’ve been… I guess I have to say it, I
did
see him… for about a year.”
“Tell me about it. How would you describe the relationship? A love affair?”
Judy Pringle frowned. “I would… like to call it that,” she said in a voice close to breaking. She shook her head.
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