Naked Came The Phoenix

"That's not what I mean!" Blessing's features contorted, his teeth gritted, his eyes squeezed into slits. He looked like a politician who'd taken the lid off his garbage can and found a National Enquirer reporter nestling inside.

Toscana stole a look at the pitcher; it looked like a big chunk of glass, heavy enough to conk somebody. Was it, though, or was it some of that plastic stuff that just looked like glass?

Before he could put a casual hand on the pitcher to check, Blessing got control of himself. He breathed like a marathon ru

"I'm sorry," he said, and his voice was so quiet Toscana had to strain to hear it. "I didn't think it would be this hard."

"Don't you worry," Toscana assured him, with one eye on the pitcher, just in case. "Police officers hear all sortsa stuff."

A ghost of a smile crossed Blessing's face. "You aren't going to tell me it goes in one ear and out the other, are you, Detective?"

Toscana contented himself with a shrug and a noncommittal murmur, but it seemed to help. Blessing sat slumped in his chair, exhausted. Toscana-who really had heard almost everything imaginable in his career-knew when to talk and when to listen. This was a time to keep still and wait. At last, Blessing nodded, like a man making up his mind.

"I'm being blackmailed," he said.

At this point, the news came as no big hairy surprise to Toscana, but he felt his heart jolt in his chest anyway. A break! Goddamn, was he finally going to get a solid break in this case? "Yes, sir?" he said politely. "What about?"

Blessing's long, muscular throat moved as he swallowed. "I was adopted as an infant," he said. "I had no idea who my birth parents were and no reason to think it mattered. But then…" His jaw clenched involuntarily, and he had to force it open to get the words out. "I met Claudia de Vries at a fund-raiser last year. She seemed interested in the issues…"

Toscana snorted, by reflex, and Blessing's head shot up. "Yeah," the detective said, waving a hand in dismissal. "Issues. Yeah, that too, I'm sure. So?"

Blessing's jaw was bulging again. "So," Blessing got out, "I met with her… now and then. She made contributions to my campaign fund, large contributions." Toscana made a casual note on his pad: check the congressman's other contributors, just in case.

"Illegally large?"

"Certainly not!" Red, white, red again. The man could get a job as the flashing light on a caboose, Toscana thought. He went back to the noncommittal grunt.

"I wouldn't countenance anything of the kind," Blessing said. "And that's what… well, eventually, she started conveying… messages. From other contributors. About things they'd like to have happen, votes they'd like to go a certain way."

"So Claudia was fronting, huh? Who for?" Toscana was more than interested and didn't bother trying to hide it. Blessing had made up his mind to talk, and he was going to do it, if he had to fight himself every inch of the way.

"I don't know. I have guesses, but I don't know." Blessing gave a grimace that might have started life as an ironic smile. "The Mob? Is there still such a thing?"

"Oh, you better believe it," Toscana assured him. "Though a few of 'em have gone uptown." Hoo-boy. Well, that would explain a few things, wouldn't it? He drummed his fingers on the table, thinking. If you had a lot of dirty money-a chronic problem for anybody co

Blessing cleared his throat, and Toscana came out of a rose-tinted dream of men in tailored suits and wing tips being herded en masse into the paddy wagon.

"So," Blessing said, with renewed determination, "when I made it clear that I couldn't be bought, Claudia smiled and went away-and then she came back, with the record of my birth mother's name. Hilda Finch."

"Hil-" The pitcher clattered to the floor, in a flood of ice cubes and sun tea. So it was plastic, Toscana thought dimly. "But Hilda Finch is…"

"My wife's mother. Yes, exactly." The deep lines still furrowed Blessing's brow, but he seemed relieved to have got it out.

"Oh, Jeez."

Blessing's mouth actually twitched slightly at that.

"Very eloquent, Detective. So you do see, I hope, why I need your help. I have to divorce my wife-or rather, make my wife divorce me."

Toscana was recovering from the shock. He flicked an ice cube off the table with one finger, eyeing the congressman.

"Yeah? I didn't hear everything you guys said outside, but I heard enough. Sounded like you were doing everything you could to make sure she stayed married to you."

"If it sounded like that," Blessing said shortly, "then I did a good job."

"What do you mean?"

The congressman exhaled, shoulders slumping a little. "Claudia may be dead, but whoever she was fronting for isn't." He straightened up, with a sharp glance at Toscana. "Bear that in mind, Detective. I knew there was someone behind her, and that someone certainly knew the secret of my birth-and my marriage. Killing her wouldn't have helped me. It's put me in a much more difficult position," he added, with a nod toward the door.

The position was simple. When he had discovered the truth about his marriage, he had been overcome with horror. Unwilling to believe it at first, he had finally accepted Claudia's claim. Records could be forged, but there was something else.

"Look." He stretched his hands out on the desk. They were neatly manicured, the nails buffed and glossy, long-fingered and graceful. "When you get a chance, look at Caroline's hands. They aren't identical, but the shape of the fingers is damn close. And then there's this." He held up his hands, palms toward the detective. The fingers of the right hand lay together; on the left hand, the little finger stuck out at an angle, with a space between it and the ring finger. "Caroline has it, too. It isn't obvious enough that anyone would notice unless he or she was looking." He folded his hands abruptly. "There are half a dozen other tiny things; that's just the most obvious."

All doubt erased, he had been confronted with a wracking dilemma. "I love her," he said softly, looking down into his lap, where his fists lay on his thighs. "I couldn't bear to tell her, to have her look at me with disgust, to recoil from me. But likewise, I couldn't…" He shrugged, helpless. "I couldn't…"

"Well, I can kinda see how that would be," Toscana said slowly. "But what you said? About being a good actor?"

Blessing nodded and took a deep breath. "Whoever was behind Claudia, he-they-wants me to stay married. It helps the image"-he made a slight, instinctive grimace-"and more important, it keeps me under control. So I couldn't divorce her, they wouldn't have it. The only thing I could do was to try my best to make Caroline divorce me." He swallowed. "She might hate me, but at least she could remember having loved me. If I… if she knew the truth, she couldn't ever think of me without wanting to throw up."

He sighed. "So I did my best. I went off to the cabin with Miranda to make it look like we were having an affair"-he nodded toward the door, where his aide presumably still buzzed-"and gave that masterful performance outside." He looked up with a faint smile. "It might have sounded to you-and to Miranda-like I wouldn't let her divorce me. But Caroline's a proud woman. Being told, and told in brutal, shaming terms like that, nothing would drive her away faster."

Toscana pursed his lips, nodding. "What about those photos? Method acting, huh?" He quirked a brow at Blessing.