Murder on Capitol Hill Read Free Page B

the case of the Caldwell party, though, he wished it had been Mrs. Caldwell rather than DeFlaunce he’d had to deal with. He found DeFlaunce obnoxious. But since the senator’s wife evidently had great faith in the man and had given him carte blanche as far as preparations were concerned, Charles had little choice but to grimace and bear it.
    The guest list contained 120 names. The decision was to keep it simple with an abundance of hors d’oeuvres and canapés.
    The center of attraction was a large ice carving in the shape of the senator’s home state of Virginia. Charles had suggested a sports figure, perhaps a football player about to throw a forward pass, but the idea had been vetoed, not surprisingly, by Jason. An ice carver well-known to Washington’s society set had been brought in to accomplish the sculpture andhad done a remarkable job: it stood five feet, glistening beneath red and blue pin spots.
    On another table was a tall shrimp tree that Charles had personally built a year ago from a discarded silver service. He’d ordered fifty pounds of jumbo shrimp, ten per guest. Each of the four graduated levels of the tree was edged with shrimp and lemon wedges, and shrimp skewered with frilled toothpicks were heaped on each silver disk. The shrimp had been soaked in an imported beer and a herb-and-spice mixture prior to deveining and shelling, then sprinkled with lemon juice before being placed on the tree. A cocktail sauce was in a silver bowl at the tree’s summit.
    “I love it,” Jason said to Veronica as Charles applied the finishing touches.
    “It’s just magnificent,” she said. “Bravo to you and yours, Charles.”
    “Thank you, Mrs. Caldwell. I hope the senator will be pleased.”
    The room had been divided with folding green screens to provide a better flow between beverage and food areas. One of Washington’s top society pianists arrived early and fastidiously wiped down every inch of a grand piano with a soft cloth he’d pulled from a Gucci attaché case in which he carried the sheet music to standard show tunes.
    As the first guests arrived Veronica excused herself from Jason and Charles to greet them. Lydia and Clarence were among the first, and after briefly chatting with their hostess they gravitated toward the nearest bar.
    “Okay, I’m ready to leave,” Clarence said aftergetting a brandy. It was his standard refrain immediately after arriving at just about any such soiree.
    “Look,” Lydia said, ignoring him and nodding toward the door. “I may be wrong but I think that’s Mark Adam Caldwell.”
    “So?”
    “So, Clarence, if it is, Veronica has pulled off a coup of sorts. Mark Adam is, after all, the wayward son, Peck’s bad boy, the black sheep of the Caldwell clan.”
    Clarence looked at the young man who’d entered the room. His first thoughts were that if he were a Caldwell son he’d been the product of Veronica Caldwell and a stranger, or Cale Caldwell and a stranger. Or… He looked nothing like the others in the family, had none of their unmistakable patrician features. Nor was he as tall as even his mother. He had a bull-like neck that barely provided separation between his head and wide, thick shoulders, the product of years of ritualistic weight lifting. Dark eyes set in small sockets were in constant motion, like tiny ball bearings swiveling about on a broad, fleshy face. His nose could have belonged to a professional prizefighter. His head was clean-shaven, and he wore an ill-fitting tan suit. The collar of his shirt dug into the folds of his neck, and his tie barely reached his distended belly.
    “I knew him,” Lydia said, “before he went off the deep end and joined that weird cult in Virginia.”
    “It was quite an embarrassment to his father, wasn’t it?”
    “It still is. Veronica says Cale’s never forgiven him. I’m amazed he’s here. I thought he’d been disowned.”
    “Maybe the mumbo jumbo has worn off. Prodigal son returns, asks forgiveness of