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    THE TIES THAT BIND: A FIONA FITZGERALD MYSTERY
    THE TIES THAT BIND: A FIONA FITZGERALD MYSTERY
    THE TIES THAT BIND: A FIONA FITZGERALD MYSTERY
    Ebook317 pages4 hours

    THE TIES THAT BIND: A FIONA FITZGERALD MYSTERY

    By Warren Adler

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    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherStonehouse Press
    Release dateJan 24, 2017
    ISBN9781532891526
    THE TIES THAT BIND: A FIONA FITZGERALD MYSTERY
    Author

    Warren Adler

    Acclaimed author, playwright, poet, and essayist Warren Adler is best known for The War of the Roses, his masterpiece fictionalization of a macabre divorce adapted into the BAFTA- and Golden Globe–nominated hit film starring Danny DeVito, Michael Douglas, and Kathleen Turner. Adler has also optioned and sold film rights for a number of his works, including Random Hearts (starring Harrison Ford and Kristin Scott Thomas) and The Sunset Gang (produced by Linda Lavin for PBS’s American Playhouse series starring Jerry Stiller, Uta Hagen, Harold Gould, and Doris Roberts), which garnered Doris Roberts an Emmy nomination for Best Supporting Actress in a Miniseries. His recent stage/film/TV developments include the Broadway adaptation of The War of the Roses, to be produced by Jay and Cindy Gutterman, The War of the Roses: The Children (Grey Eagle Films and Permut Presentations), a feature film adaptation of the sequel to Adler’s iconic divorce story, and Capitol Crimes (Grey Eagle Films and Sennet Entertainment), a television series based on his Fiona Fitzgerald mystery series. For an entire list of developments, news and updates visit www.Greyeaglefilms.com. Adler’s works have been translated into more than 25 languages, including his staged version of The War of the Roses, which has opened to spectacular reviews worldwide. Adler has taught creative writing seminars at New York University, and has lectured on creative writing, film and television adaptation, and electronic publishing.

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      Book preview

      THE TIES THAT BIND - Warren Adler

      Praise

      Praise for Warren Adler’s Fiona Fitzgerald Mystery Series

      High-class suspense.

      —The New York Times on American Quartet

      Adler’s a dandy plot-weaver, a real tale-teller.

      —Los Angeles Times on American Sextet

      Adler’s depiction of Washington—its geography, social whirl, political intrigue—rings true.

      —Booklist on Senator Love

      A wildly kaleidoscopic look at the scandals and political life of Washington D.C.

      —Los Angeles Times on Death of a Washington Madame

      Both the public and the private story in Adler’s second book about intrepid sergeant Fitzgerald make good reading, capturing the political scene and the passionate duplicity of those who would wield power.

      —Publishers Weekly on Immaculate Deception

      Praise for Warren Adler’s Fiction

      Warren Adler writes with skill and a sense of scene.

      —The New York Times Book Review on The War of the Roses

      Engrossing, gripping, absorbing… written by a superb storyteller. Adler’s pen uses brisk, descriptive strokes that are enviable and masterful.

      —West Coast Review of Books on Trans-Siberian Express

      A fast-paced suspense story… only a seasoned newspaperman could have written with such inside skills.

      —The Washington Star on The Henderson Equation

      High-tension political intrigue with excellent dramatization of the worlds of good and evil.

      —Calgary Herald on The Casanova Embrace

      A man who willingly rips the veil from political intrigue.

      —Bethesda Tribune on Undertow

      Warren Adler’s political thrillers are…

      Ingenious.

      —Publishers Weekly

      Diverting, well-written and sexy.

      —Houston Chronicle

      Exciting.

      —London Daily Telegraph

      Title Page

      The Ties That Bind

      A Fiona Fitzgerald Mystery

      by Warren Adler

      Copyright Page

      Copyright © 1994 by Warren Adler

      ISBN (EPUB): 9780795346361

      ISBN (Kindle): 9780795346378

      2nd Edition

      All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any form without permission. This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination based on historical events or are used fictitiously.

      Inquiries: [email protected]

      STONEHOUSE PRESS

      Published by Stonehouse Productions

      Cover design by David Ter-Avanesyan/Ter33Design

      Dedication

      For our family, our fortress

      Contents

      Chapter 1

      Chapter 2

      Chapter 3

      Chapter 4

      Chapter 5

      Chapter 6

      Chapter 7

      Chapter 8

      Chapter 9

      Chapter 10

      Chapter 11

      Chapter 12

      Chapter 13

      Chapter 14

      Chapter 15

      Chapter 16

      Chapter 17

      Chapter 18

      Chapter 19

      Chapter 20

      More Thrillers from Warren Adler

      Also by Warren Adler

      About the Author

      Chapter 1

      That’s it, Fiona Fitzgerald said aloud. She rose on an elbow and looked at the red digital numbers on the bed table clock, a reflex, as if the moment of revelation needed a marker.

      What’s ‘it’? Harrison mumbled, stirring. She felt the warmth of his naked flank where it touched hers. She had duly noted, dating from their third or fourth all-night coupling, that the man slept on his back.

      Her occasional bed partners usually slept in a semi-fetal position, fitted against her back like a spoon or vice versa, where she was the outside spoon. These were the cuddlers, her special preference. But, there were also the non-touchers who needed their space to effect an untroubled slumber. Whatever their choice, Fiona respected their preference.

      Her own view was that if you were making such an intimate, trusting commitment as an all-night sexual encounter, you owed it to your partner to maximize fleshly contact throughout all the cycles of activity from arousal to satiation. Harrison Greenwald faltered only at the cycle’s end when he slipped into slumber on his back. Thankfully, his breathing passages were not constricted and he did not snore.

      He is beleaguered by females.

      Who is? Harrison said, lifting his head to view the red digital numbers. Like her, he was programmed to the tyranny of time. At three in the morning.

      He made way for her in the crook of his arm, where she laid her head, and she slipped her arm around his far rib cage. In her normal single state, which was most of the time, this was the part she missed the most, the nocturnal tête-à-tête.

      My boss.

      The Eggplant?

      A term of affection used only by his underlings.

      So how is he beleaguered?

      His mother is a black matriarch, a boss more exacting than Simon Legree in any incarnation. His wife is a demanding, dissatisfied, pushy, ambitious bitch who daily laments the Eggplant’s lack of upward mobility in the most class-ridden black society in America.

      These traits in women are not exclusive to blacks, Harrison said. May I remind you that I am Jewish.

      Not necessary. I have observed close up the result of that ancient barbaric Hebrew ritual to maim the male child.

      Merely an identification process, like branding. I’m told it does not affect performance.

      He grew silent, awaiting a response.

      If you’re waiting for a comparative opinion, forget it.

      We were on the subject of the Eggplant’s being beleaguered, Harrison said. It apparently had a gender context.

      Harassment, she said. He is being harassed by females. Reaches to the core of the psychology of male domination. The new legal reality of sexual harassment is driving the poor bastard up the wall. He’s got two sticky cases in his bailiwick. Two women cops claiming that they have been verbally abused and sexually intimidated and threatened.

      Which is illegal… and wrong, Harrison said. A negligence lawyer, he was a bleeding-heart knee-jerk liberal in the old mode, a man whose compassion, real or contrived, was a weapon in his cause, which was to help empty the coffers of insurance companies.

      In principle, I agree. On the other hand…

      There is no other hand. The victimization of women is unacceptable.

      In general victimization is unacceptable. But sometimes what passes for victimization is a double-edged sword. In my world, the macho male cups his crotch for reassurance, to be sure it’s still there. The perception that he is somehow oppressing women is sometimes like a nervous giggle. His whole life is centered around receiving applause from women. ‘Man, did that earth move,’ she mimicked. ‘You are the best.’ That’s both the act and the metaphor. If a man says to me: ‘I’d love you to suck my Johnson.’ Is it victimization? Of me? Or of him? I can castrate his career, destroy him with the stigma of sexual harassment. The stigma is the castrating knife. Or should I give it back to him in kind, say something like: ‘Not today, Jack, I left my magnifying glass home.’ He’d laugh. I’d laugh. End of story. We’ve harassed each other. Only he won’t even think of taking me to court.

      Not bad, Harrison said.

      They changed the rules in midstream. Especially for the guys. Hell, they may have taken the fun out of the flirt, the double entendre byplay. I can understand that and I feel sorry as hell for them. They’ve got wives, mothers and daughters and we’ve got fathers, brothers and, speaking for myself… lovers.

      What is that plural ‘s’ doing there?

      The sexual harassment discussion surrendered to the sudden detour. Harrison had a sensitive, possessive streak and was a highly alert listener.

      I was being generic.

      Of course, loving partners all wanted to feel that she’d given them exclusive rights to her body. In fact, she had. Aside from the health considerations that were a given, she considered it a breach of faith to be unfaithful. Trust was the highest priority in her life. And she expected it to be returned in kind.

      Unfortunately, trust had not been given the same priority by some of those who peopled her past. Betrayal had made her wary, defensive. Protecting her vulnerability was an obsession. Sometimes, like now, when she was in the full flush of trust, she gave herself permission to believe that she had, at last, found fealty, knowing it could be a false promise, but wanting it badly enough to let her guard down.

      I’d rather you used the singular, Harrison said, turning his body to face her frontally, pressing her close to him.

      There are no plurals, Harrison. Not in the present.

      My fantasy is that you had no past, no baggage, no previous… experiences. That I’m the first.

      The first was awful.

      Until you, all were awful.

      Like a good Jewish boy, Harrison Greenwald had confessed not only his many sins, but the many sins, real or imagined, that were perpetrated against him. His fear of involvement, despite his longing for it, was a mirror image of her own, which did not make for a very permanent arrangement. Under these conditions, love or attraction, even their rutting, frenetic couplings could not, they both were certain, be sustained.

      Like a good Catholic girl, she was hopelessly indoctrinated despite years of denial and severance and lived in perpetual fear of being chosen for the pit of hell, which did not necessarily mean the hell depicted by the great Michelangelo on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Mostly, she worried about the hell of her vulnerability, the hell of being betrayed, the hell of broken trust. It was an idea that lay in her subconscious with the tenacity of a maggot in the flesh of a corpse.

      Tell me, counselor, what is the defense against sexual harassment, however defined? she asked, the detour ended.

      That again?

      Indulge me.

      The defense? he sighed. His word against hers. Whatever gender makes the accusation.

      Doesn’t the victim’s word have more credence to a jury in those circumstances?

      In most circumstances there is a bias toward the powerless, Harrison admitted. That’s how I make my living. His arms insinuated themselves under her until he held her in a reclining bear hug.

      Finally, she was ready to get at the heart of her motive in raising the subject.

      Which is why the Eggplant assigned a woman to be my partner, thereby lowering the risk of more sexual harassment problems. It is not uncommon in the cops for a male senior partner to harass a woman junior and vice versa. It’s more like a rite of passage than a vicious power game. Under the guise of being a born-again feminist, the Eggplant is playing the evasion game.

      And that bothers you?

      Yes, it does. Especially since I understand his real motive. This way, he avoids the hassle.

      It’s a perfectly logical strategy.

      For him. Not for me. I don’t like being pigeonholed.

      Have you confronted him with your theory?

      No.

      Why not?

      From his perspective he’s got a point. As a representative of my gender, I don’t want to create a full-blown misogynist. In my opinion he’s already halfway there. Besides, I like to leave people with their illusions.

      And what are his?

      He has many. But the one I want to leave him with is that he’s capable of manipulating people. He’s a fabulous interrogator. I wouldn’t want him to lose confidence in his ability to do that.

      But you’re always telling me that a badge has no gender.

      It hasn’t. But the person who wears it has a gender.

      And you’d prefer a male partner?

      In my heart of hearts?

      Where else?

      Yes. I’ll miss the byplay, the innuendo, the flirting, the double entendre, the fun of confrontation. And yes, the dirty talk. I love casting joking aspersions on their dick power. It’s all part of the culture.

      You also like the feeling of superiority. You’re better educated, better—sorry about the snobbery—bred, and a lot prettier. You’re also financially secure and, of course, you’ve had all the advantages. You’re a white princess lost in a blue-collar world.

      You are a snob. And I’m not lost. Besides, some of them are a hell of a lot smarter than you nose-in-the-air lawyer types. And most of them are prettier.

      And what happens when they hit on you?

      In their mind, it’s obligatory. Actually, it’s only theater. I usually threaten dire physical consequences, mostly in the crotch area. That, too, is obligatory for the girl cops.

      You’re confusing me, Harrison said, kissing her neck, caressing the back of her head, then moving downward until both hands were squeezing her buttocks.

      He’s assigned this black amazon to be my partner and has indicated that he’s putting us into investigating female homicides.

      Exclusively.

      That’s his implication. It’s also his cover story. He has concocted this crackpot theory that women must know more about their gender than males and therefore would be more effective in busting cases where the female is the victim.

      What does your new partner say about that?

      Oh, we haven’t met yet. I’ve been told about her. Her name is Gail Prentiss. She worked LA homicide and is transferring over, no small achievement. She’s from DC, her father’s a prominent surgeon, she’s highly educated and is supposed to be a knockout.

      One would think that a woman detective would be more effective if the woman was the perpetrator. You know, they’d-be-able-to-get-into-her-mind sort of thing.

      Not enough female perps to go around, I’m afraid. Murder is primarily a male avocation.

      And this just occurred to you—he turned slightly to see the digital clock again—at three-thirty A.M.

      Moment-of-truth time, she said. That’s when you have it out with yourself and/or your partner.

      Here’s one, Harrison said. Why the cops?

      For me or for them?

      Both.

      You try first.

      I say it’s for people who like enforcing. A sense of control for people who do not ordinarily control anything.

      Now explain me? she asked, feeling suddenly younger, girlish, asking Daddy a question. In the Fitzgerald home Daddy, the senator, the man, was everything, her mother merely a saintly supporter, bearing silent witness to his many betrayals.

      Being in the cops? he asked, obviously stretching the time to find an appropriate answer, letting it cook in his mind.

      Go on, let’s hear it, she said, reaching down, caressing. He did not need the special attention, she noted. His breathing grew deeper, the intakes shortening. From my smartass Jewish lover.

      Shiksa whore, he said, reaching down in a mutual caress.

      Tell me then, before I forget the subject matter, she said, reveling in the exquisite softness of his touch.

      You are deep into guilt, he whispered. You love guilt. Catholics and Jews love guilt. It is their reason for being. You like to be around guilt, playing with guilt, exposing guilt. How’s that?

      Do you feel guilty, Harrison? she said, feeling the accelerating moisture of desire begin to work its way into her cells.

      Always, he whispered. Especially now.

      About what?

      Betraying my forefathers. Eating treif.

      Treif?

      That which is not kosher.

      Me, too, she said, moving on top, feeling him inside of her as she leaned backward, her hands supporting her on either side of his thighs as she rotated her body. Their eyes, accustomed to the darkness now, locked together in an ecstatic mutuality. Fucking Christ killer.

      Treif.

      Christ killer.

      She felt it begin, at first the distant rumble, then the approaching waves, moving with the accelerating tide, a mysterious pounding force of nature.

      Wait for me, she heard him say.

      I won’t, she cried.

      Oh yes, you will.

      He thrust upward, meeting her movements, his hands grasping the corners of the mattress.

      Jew bastard.

      Shiksa cunt.

      The waves crested, engulfing her, releasing long spasms of pleasure.

      Spent, she folded over him, her lips close to his ear.

      Man, that earth sure moved, she whispered.

      Let’s hear it for my earth-moving equipment, he replied.

      Seems to do the job, but I’m still testing for durability.

      Harrison groaned a fake response of frustration and kissed her hair.

      Later, she held him, watching his face and feeling the steady rise and fall of his chest as he slept.

      Chapter 2

      All eyes turned her way as she entered Sherry’s, the DC cops’ coffee shop of choice, a battered and bruised relic of the fifties, just two blocks from headquarters. Even Sherry, used to all conceivable sights and foibles, paused in mid-sentence to take her in.

      Fiona eyeballed her at six-three or six-four. She seemed to have been sculpted from dark Tennessee stone by an artist with a sensualist’s eye for the monumental. Her ample breasts, which seemed in proportion for her, would have been considered gross on a smaller woman.

      Yet, she moved as gracefully as a cattail with a curl in its upper stem lightly bent by a soft breeze. Her hair, cut short, fit like an old-fashioned swimming cap. Small pendant earrings swung from well-shaped ears. Her face was all bones and angles with yellow-flecked brown eyes peering out over milk-chocolate skin.

      Her legs, moving on shoes with moderate-length heels that probably gave her an extra inch, were well turned with muscular calves. This was a woman whose appearance alone demanded both attention and respect. Nobody, but nobody messes with me, her persona seemed to shout to anyone within hearing distance.

      Fiona could not help but notice the closely observing eyes that followed this formidable woman as she moved toward the booth in the back where Fiona was seated. She speculated what the males might be thinking or feeling, perhaps an erotic tug or some nervous joking reference to her proportions. Beware, Fiona thought, all those who dared to express such observations within hearing distance of women.

      There were some facts about her that Fiona already knew from the Eggplant. She had worked in homicide in Los Angeles for three years, where she had an impeccable record, which meant an excellent closing percentage. She had reluctantly sought this transfer to Washington because she needed to be near her ailing father. And she had a B.A. and M.A. from UCLA in Criminology.

      I’m Gail Prentiss, the woman said, ignoring the gauntlet of eyes as she reached the booth where Fiona was waiting. You’re Fiona Fitzgerald, I suspect. She offered an incredible, white-toothed, girlish smile.

      Your suspicions are well founded, Prentiss, Fiona said, trying for her own version of a girlish smile. She was, in fact, stunned by the woman’s effect on her. She had expected, she admitted to herself, something lesser, much lesser. Prentiss commanded the room like an extraordinary work of art.

      There was also no question in Fiona’s mind that the woman knew her effect on others and had probably developed her own method of using it to her advantage. Fiona found herself resisting intimidation, attempts at which rarely made the slightest dent in her confidence. Who would be the junior in this relationship, Fiona wondered, already seeing her expected place usurped by Prentiss’s sense of physical authority.

      Prentiss had barely sat down when Sherry arrived with a coffee mug that she set in front of Prentiss and, without asking preference, poured strong, steaming, no-nonsense black coffee into it. Then she waddled away, dispensing coffee as she went down the line.

      Breakfast? Fiona asked.

      I’m fine, Prentiss said, fixing her inspecting glance on Fiona.

      Seems like the Eggplant has put us in the soup together.

      Eggplant?

      Our good Captain Luther Greene’s moniker, Fiona explained pleasantly. He knows we call him that. Probably hates it.

      We all have our cross to bear, Prentiss said, flashing her girlish smile. Fiona noted that her breasts formed a protruding ledge over the table’s edge. Prentiss’s sharply inspecting eyes seemed to take in the astonishment of Fiona’s gaze. I’ve lived with a lot worse appellations.

      I’ll bet you have.

      It occurred to Fiona that her very awesomeness might have suggested to the Eggplant his idea of female pairing to investigate female homicides. Perhaps, too, it was a private joke. Pair the white queen with the black queen and see how the cards fell. She rebuked herself for the racial reference, but then race was the dominating motif in this environment, with gender a close second, especially among the black men and especially in the Eggplant’s gender-and-race-tortured mind.

      As to what she believed was the Eggplant’s truer motive, the elimination of the possibility of sexual harassment, this amazon carried immunity from such activities in her genes. No male would dare risk even the tiniest castrating look from this female, no less make an attempt to bed her.

      You like the idea of a woman partner? Fiona asked, noting the uncommon humility displayed by her question.

      I like the idea of an intelligent partner, Prentiss said. I can tell by their resentment that you must be one helluva detective.

      As you said, we all have our cross to bear, Fiona said, regretting the natural sarcasm that the remark implied. She’d have to stop that with this woman, she cautioned herself. It was the side of her that she showed most around the department, a kind of shield against revealing any soft edges. Soft edges had to be carefully disguised, even if it was only to ward off the pain of the vocation, that steady drumbeat of horror that permeated the life of a homicide cop.

      I don’t see it as a cross, Prentiss said. Our gender belongs in this business.

      So you think the captain has a point?

      It’s an interesting experiment, Prentiss said, noncommittally. Of course, Fiona reasoned, she was new. It would be self-defeating to be less than a diplomat at this stage. This woman, so startlingly noticeable, must have long ago devised a coping system to react to any new situation.

      Experiment? Fiona said. Yes. I guess that’s what it is. Although the chances are, we’ll be getting mostly domestics, where the perpetrator is hardly a mystery.

      Maybe he thinks we’ll be more tenacious, Prentiss said. More zealous in closing cases where the perp is a male.

      The castrating female syndrome. That’s one way of looking at it, Fiona agreed. The woman had insight, which was a superb trait to have in a partner. Oddly, even the Eggplant had not expressed his goals in that way. His version was that women better understood women, who invariably were the victims, not the perpetrators. Prentiss had quickly seen the other side, the push to discovery and judgment, an idea that reflected the Eggplant’s fear and, perhaps, ultimate belief in the idea that women hated men.

      Fiona felt the power of Prentiss’s probing glance as the woman studied her over the lip of the coffee mug as she sipped. Not to be outdone, Fiona picked up her mug and stared her down, neither woman giving way. A man, Fiona knew, would have flinched. Not this baby.

      So what do you see? Prentiss asked pleasantly. This, Fiona speculated, was her most congenial side.

      Intelligence. Someone in full control of herself. A lady who knows where she’s going.

      Prentiss smiled again and shook her head from side to side.

      I’m glad you feel that way, Prentiss said. However inaccurate.

      Not for one moment do I believe your self-effacement, Fiona laughed.

      Fair enough. I won’t believe yours either. I’ve done my research. Fact is, we’re both damned good.

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