Murder on K Street - Margaret Truman [50]
“So I’ve heard.”
She looked past him to a place only she could see. “I wonder whether people would vote for a murderer.”
“Marlene?”
“A man who murdered his wife.”
“Whoa, Marlene. Hold on. Why would you say something like that?”
“He killed Jeannette.”
“You know this for a fact?”
Her voice became dreamy. “Oh, no, he’s too clever for that. But he killed her. He’s been doing it for years.”
“Mentally?”
“Uh-huh.” She nodded vigorously for emphasis.
He gathered his thoughts, but she spoke again, too fast for him to express them. “Jeannette was such a fool marrying him, Philip. She was infatuated by his money and his ambition. You know that.”
“Their marriage was like any other marriage, full of ups and downs.” At least in the beginning, he thought but didn’t voice.
“She was always starstruck,” Marlene added. “There he was, the rich, handsome lawyer consumed with power. Lyle loves power, loves controlling people. He controlled her like she was his puppet, and she accepted it because she didn’t want to lose her lofty position, la-di-da. The senator’s wife! But even she finally saw through him. She hated him.”
Rotondi didn’t reply. To argue with her would accomplish nothing. More important, he knew that she was right.
“Polly knows it, too,” Marlene continued. “She stood up to him and wouldn’t let him bully her the way he did Jeannette. Good for her! Good girl!”
“Let me ask you a question, Marlene.”
Her tone suddenly shifted. She grabbed his hand and asked in what could only be considered a little girl’s voice, “Do you think I’m insane, Philip?”
“I—”
“Lyle does, and he convinced Jeannette that I was. Do you think I’m insane?”
“Whether someone is considered insane, Marlene, often depends on how many people they annoy.”
She pondered that. “Ooh, I like that,” she said. “Lyle put me away, you know.”
“I know.”
“He said it was for my own good, but I knew differently. He did it because he’s so cruel.”
“Marlene—”
“Jeannette was, too.”
He cocked his head.
“She was cruel, too. She always went along with him whenever he sent me to one of those places.”
“I’m sure she had your best interests at heart, Marlene.” He staved off another interruption by saying quickly, “Did you see Jeannette the day she was murdered?”
She nodded, sat back against the back of the stool and encircled herself with her arms. “I did.”
“And?”
“And what, Philip?”
“How was she? What did you talk about?”
“She was drunk.”
“How drunk?”
“Not stumbling around, if that’s what you mean. Jeannette wasn’t a perfect person. She drank too much, you know.”
He knew.
“She used to go with him to those fund-raising dinners where all they do is drink. Washington! Nothing but whiskey and payoffs. It’s disgusting. Polly wanted me to move to California.”
“Did she? When?”
“Oh, now and then she’d mention it. I should have gone, too, gotten as far away as possible from the distinguished senator and my cruel big sister.”
“They’ve been good to you, Marlene,” Rotondi said, not sure why he felt the need to defend them.
“They’ve controlled me,” she snapped. “Do you know what Jeannette said to me the other afternoon when I visited?”
“No.”
“She said I was jealous of her.”
Which was true, Rotondi knew.
“She said I was pathetic. A pathetic creature, is what she said exactly.”
Somehow Rotondi couldn’t envision the Jeannette he knew saying anything that harsh to anyone, especially to her sister. How drunk had she been? Maybe it’d been the booze talking. He made a mental note to check with Crimley on the autopsy to see how much alcohol she had in her system, although the passage of time between her death and the autopsy would cause the level to drop.
“What time did you visit Jeannette?” he asked.
“Does it matter?”
“It might.”
She waved her hands in the air to chase away the importance of the question, and answer. “The afternoon. I went in the afternoon.”
“Was anyone else there?”
She snorted. “Nobody ever visited Jeannette except me. After she got fed up with having to be at the distinguished senator’s side night after night, she decided to stay home. Like me.