Murder on Capitol Hill Read Online Free PDF Page B

gloves from the other pocket and slipped them over thick stubby fingers that seemed never to have been meant to caress a violin yet did so with grace and precision. “Good night,” he said, bringing his heels together and bowing to Lydia. He shook Clarence’s hand, spun around and departed with great flourish.
    “Talented yet so boring,” Clarence said as he sat on a couch. “Sit down,” he said to Lydia, who stood in the center of the room, eyes focused on twinkling lights visible through the window.
    “I’m really beat, Clarence, I guess I’ll be leaving.”
    He shook his head, patted the couch next to him. “Stay a few more minutes. It’ll do you—and me—some good to talk. What do you think about it?”
    “Think about it? What could I possibly think about it?”
    “Look, I know you’re upset. But I also know your brain is working overtime. All these years of law plus the mathematical mind of a musician can’t be completely overridden by emotion. So… who killed Cale Caldwell?”
    “Boris,” she said as she sat next to him.
    He smiled. “Know what I think? I think Mr. Charm, Quentin Hughes, should have been the one with the ice pick in his chest. Did you see him? The minute he realized what had happened he was on the phone calling in a report to his studio. What a ghoul.”
    “He’d say it was being professional—”
    “Also disgusting… what was Caldwell working on lately?”
    “In the Senate? The missile system, a new budget, I think. I meant to ask Dick Marvis about it. I do know he’d been under the gun to resign from chairing the Appropriations Committee on the Interior and Related Agencies because of the pressures of being Majority Leader. I got a feeling from Veronica that he wanted to, but that she’d convinced him to stay with both posts. From her perspective, I suppose the committee is more important than being Majority Leader: Arts funding rides along on what comes out of that committee, especially since Cale also sat on the House-Senate conference committee thatmade the final cuts. Her husband is the most important member of Congress when it comes to funding the National Endowment on the Arts and the Humanities—”
    “Was.”
    “Yes… You can only speculate on what happens now. Will MacLoon is in line for that committee chair, and you know what he thinks of federal funding for anything besides cars, guns, steel and the right labor unions… God, I’m so damn tired…”
    “I know… but it’s interesting… trying to solve a murder like this is sort of like resolving a chord.”
    “What?”
    “Like the cycle of fifths. A
G
can go nowhere but to
C
. To get to
G
you start with
D
. And only an
A
can lead to a
D
.”
    “Lordy, Clarence, let me close my eyes for a minute.” She put her head on his shoulder, and he put his arm around her and held her close. He glanced down at the beginnings of her breasts above the neckline of her evening dress, felt a familiar response and shifted his legs. Tonight was distinctly not the night for romance.
    Fifteen minutes later, when he was sure she was sound asleep, he gently shifted so that she could stretch out on the couch. She’d removed her shoes earlier in the evening. He straightened out her legs and adjusted a throw pillow beneath her head. She opened her eyes, smiled, closed them again.
    He took a comforter from a closet and placed it over her, turned off all but one lamp, ignored the urge to carry her to the bedroom and went there himself and slipped into bed. Sleep eluded him for nearlyan hour. Just as it did arrive, he was jarred awake by the ringing of a phone on his night table.
    “Is Lydia James there?” a male voice asked.
    “Who the hell is this? Do you know what time it is—?”
    “This is Cale Caldwell. If Ms. James is there, please put her on.”
    “Cale Cald…? Oh, his son. Yes, just a moment.”
    Lydia took the call in the living room. “Yes, Cale, hello, what… when?… I don’t know, I… all right, of