Free Immaculate Deception by Warren Adler

self-inflicted act or,
worse, a possible murder, it was extraordinary.
    A number of logical scenarios had come immediately to mind.
For Frankie to have a child at this stage in her life would have been a strong
career negative, not to mention the physical danger. One could only assume that
she had given up any idea of more children and that a new baby would be a
massive inconvenience to a woman with other priorities. And, without question,
abortion was both politically and morally unthinkable for her. But a suicidal
way out of the dilemma was even more morally repugnant than abortion, a cruel
twist to the entire Right to Life concept ... the taking of two lives not just
one.
    "Could have been the product of an extracurricular
liaison," Dr. Benton had suggested. "I've typed the fetus' blood just
in case, but even that is never conclusive and the so-called DNA print is too
experimental to be valid."
    A repugnant image of the deceased woman coupling with
Harlan Foy floated into her mind. The possibility existed. It was common
practice between intimate office buddies, a neat and discreet solution to safe
infidelity. He did, after all, have a key to her apartment. National politics
was, she knew, a game which forced the necessity for squirreling away dirty
little secrets, many of which grew naturally out of the fact that
extracurricular sex was a human consequence of separation.
    Such thoughts opened a musty trapdoor in her memory. Daddy
was no goody-goody on that score. A bitter female staffer, objecting to the
senator's stand on the war, had spewed her filthy confession into her mother's
ear. Tales of sexual license, highly detailed, poured out of her, only to be
hysterically recycled again by her mother to her denying husband.
    Fiona, sitting in her pajamas on a step of the winding
household staircase, had heard every word, enough to rekindle memories which,
despite the passage of time, had never lost their power to sting.
    "It's political vengeance," he had said,
dismissing the accusation.
    "Liar," her mother had screamed. "Not only
in the office. You took her on trips. She gave me chapter and verse. It was
revolting. You've defiled me."
    "Can't you see her motives?" her father had
argued, using his lawyer's skills. "And keep your voice down," he had
warned. Fiona, still virginal, had to be protected at all costs. But her
mother, usually serene, had erupted beyond control.
    "I will not have it. It is an affront, worse, a sin. I
can't bear the thought of it. I will not have you consorting with whores."
    "I never touched her," she heard her father say,
sensing the lie. The man was too attractive, too powerful. What her mother
undoubtedly resented most was the forced confrontation. She had always looked
the other way, making excuses to herself. Later, after more words, her mother
had dissolved into tears, folded her cards and slipped back into self-denial.
Her father, she was certain, had admitted nothing.
    It was not uncommon for politicians, especially where
distance made it too difficult for frequent visits back home and even those on
the Tuesday to Thursday legislative run to actually have two families, a
mistress, sometimes with children and often complete with a cozy paid-for
separate domicile. This was the darker side of the legislative process,
revealed in the press only when it was unavoidable, like when the legislator in
question was running for the Presidency or being considered for the Supreme
Court or some such where a definition of "character" was required.
    Washington was tailor-made for
clandestine lovers and being a politician's mistress was, ironically, a
reasonably respectable position for a woman. The thought brought a hot blush to
her cheeks as the unseen accusatory finger pointed square at the center of her
forehead.
    Despite her cop cynicism, Fiona's early Catholic orthodoxy
came out on the side of Mrs. McGuire. Surely it was her husband, demanding his
marriage entitlement, that had done the deed. It was Dr.