STEELE INSEPARABLE V: Requiem in Steele Major
AUTHOR: Madeleine Gilbert
SYNOPSIS: S5 continuation, intra-"SWAK2". How on earth did Steele and Laura progress from Daniel's death and their mutual suspicion and semi-hostility to his carrying her upstairs to make love?
PREQUEL TO: Part I, "Steele in Perspective'; Part II, "Steele-In-Law"; Part III, "Ancestral Steele"; Part IV, "Steele in the Shadows"
SHARES A UNIVERSE WITH: "Notoriously, Steele"
DISCLAIMER: This story is not for profit and is purely for entertainment purposes. The author does not own the rights to these characters and is not now, nor ever has been, affiliated in any way with Remington Steele, its producers, its actors and their agents, MTM productions, the NBC television network, or with any station or network carrying the show in syndication.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: What happened in the interval between the scene in "SWAK2" where Steele exclaimed of the caskets, "We'll take all three," and the one that finds Steele and Laura watching the televised report of Daniel's funeral? A lot should have happened, because the writers left so many questions up in the air. How did the three coffins make it to the correct destinations? Why didn't Steele attend Daniel's funeral in London? Why was the funeral important enough to be reported on Irish TV? And the biggest one of all: after a week of alternating between fighting and virtually ignoring one another, and never discussing what was wrong between them, how did Steele and Laura smooth it over enough to consummate their relationship at last?
It's a largely undeveloped slice of their story. Here's my exploration of it.
Part 1
On a chilly afternoon in May—the coldest May in recent memory, the television weathermen had been dubbing it for a week—an odd procession was drawing to its climax at Ashford Castle, Glen Creagh, Ireland.
In the sweeping ribbon of driveway before the castle, three hearses parked. From the interior of the house, three caskets, carried out in rapid succession.
The unwieldy burdens deposited and the hearses secured, one of the bearers approached a group at the bottom of the entrance steps. "Mr. Steele? Might I ask you to sign here? And here—and here--"
From her position beside him, Laura Holt waited and watched while the man she called Remington Steele accepted the clipboard that Niall Donegal, of Donegal & Sons, Morticians, Dublin, held out to him and began to scrawl his signature on the forms it contained.
Waited for his normally expressive face to break out of the stern lines into which it was set. It didn't.
Watched to see whether he would catch her eye.
He didn't.
"Thanks," he said to Donegal. "We'll see you in Dublin, then. Around half past five? A couple of gentlemen will be joining us. Secretary Peterborough from the British embassy, and---?" Here he broke off with an inquiring glance at Marissa Peters, who was on his left.
"Secretary Spaulding from the U.S. embassy," Marissa supplied.
"Right. We'll be ready, sir." Donegal took back his clipboard and pen.
With the administrative details out of the way, action resumed. Drivers started their engines; the hearses began to roll slowly along the driveway towards the main gate.
The group by the steps stood straight and silent in the cortege's wake. Steele's gaze, Laura saw, was fixed on the lead car. It was the one that held the coffin in which Daniel Chalmers' body lay. If the rest of Steele's plan succeeded, this would be the only element of formal obsequies with which he'd be able to honor the old man.
She slipped her hand into the crook of Steele's elbow and moved a step nearer to him.
Once the line of hearses had made a right turn onto the road that led to Dublin and passed out of sight, Marissa Peters said, "I'm sorry, Mr. Steele. Were you and Daniel very close?"
It took him a second to turn his attention from the now-empty road. "Very," he said briefly. "Let's plan on leaving for Dublin with Fitch and Kemodov in about an hour. Could I prevail on you to entertain Secretary Kemodov in the meantime? The last thing we need is a sudden change of heart on his part."
"Of course." And Marissa turned composedly towards the castle.
One by one the members of the Steele agency followed her: Mildred, who had been hanging a little behind the others, Laura next, and Steele last of all.
It was as Laura slowed a half-step to wait for him that his eyes met hers for the first time. What she saw in them made her falter so that he passed by and preceded her inside.
Beneath his daze of shock, of grief, smoldered another expression, one she recognized all too well.
Steele was furious.
It had happened so fast, Laura thought.
It was only last night that Daniel had unwillingly surrendered the secret that Steele was his son. Only last night that he'd outmaneuvered her like the old tap dancer he'd claimed to be and avoided confessing it to Steele. And it was only this morning—a few hours ago, at the Soviet Embassy in Dublin—that she'd castigated him for that, even pronounced an epitaph for him. She'd told him he was cowardly, pathetic, not a fit father for Steele, that Steele was better off without him. Rest in peace, she'd said.
It was simultaneously eerie and mortifying to realize those would be her final words to him.
But he'd seemed perfectly well! She ought to know, since she'd been tracking him in Dublin for most of the morning, having spent the bulk of last night—when she might otherwise have been, with any luck, in Steele's arms—watching for him outside Ashford Castle's garages. Whatever Daniel and Marissa Peters were doing with the Soviets, he was pulling it off with his usual aplomb. Maybe he'd lost a step or two, maybe his reaction time was a fraction of a second off, but only someone who knew him very well would've noticed. His color was good, his carriage as erect and graceful as ever, and she'd seen no repeat of the coughing fit she'd witnessed last night in his bedroom.
There was no sign in their last encounter of the anguished father he'd claimed to be, either. Annoyance, impatience, resentment: those were what she'd sensed from him. The emotions they always managed to arouse in each other, in other words. The mix had only strengthened her suspicion that he'd again pulled the wool over her eyes in some way she didn't understand.
So she didn't regret saying what she had. In fact, her only regret was that she'd gotten sidetracked at the embassy by the drama swirling around Kemodov and Roselli. Otherwise she would have been at the castle with Steele during one of the darkest moments of his life.
By the time she'd arrived on the scene it was already over. She was too familiar with death not to grasp instantly that Daniel was gone. Other clues--the glass of wine in Steele's hand, the positions of the two men, facing each other--told her that Daniel had revealed the truth before he died.
But there was no opportunity to confirm the impression. The butler, Mikeline O'Flynn, had blundered into the room, sputtering about a delivery of caskets. And she and Steele had been swept into another stream of events entirely, starting with the search for the source of the gunfire that had exploded from somewhere within the castle and ending with the conundrum of three empty coffins in a ground-floor storeroom.
Throughout, Steele had persisted in the taut, strained look of a man who was relying on a massive expenditure of will to hold himself together. It had hurt Laura's heart to see it. The look had lightened only momentarily when Daniel's purpose for the coffins had dawned on him. But grief hadn't hampered the marvelously creative workings of Steele's mind, evidenced by the details of his plan to bring the double agent Sterling Fitch to justice.
He had gathered the principals in the drama in the dining room and laid it out for them. "The main objective's simple, really. We've got to distract the Soviets long enough to transfer Fitch into British hands while at the same time saving Secretary Kemodov from a traitor's fate." He glanced across the table at Kemodov, who, untrustworthy though he was, couldn't be excluded from the process. "Assuming defection's still the path you want to take."
"Want to take?" Kemodov scowled. "Nyet. Must take, because of her--" he indicated Marissa "—and your Mr. Chalmers. I have no other choice." His eyes, sharp with suspicion, had traveled the faces around him, coming to rest on Laura. "You said earlier that the plan was to kill me."
"My wife was speaking figuratively, Comrade" replied Steele. "We're not in the habit of committing cold-blooded murder, even of our enemies. But we do have to make your compatriots believe you're dead if we're to smuggle you out of the country."
"That's a tall order. What've you got up your sleeve, chief?" Mildred asked.
"The news of the secretary's demise delivered to his embassy by an official source…followed by a viewing of the corpse."
Laura studied her partner's profile. "How official are we talking here?"
"The highest ranking American in Ireland."
"The ambassador?"
"If we can manage it. Marissa, perhaps you can help us with that. Have you or your father any contacts at the American embassy?"
"None that I can think of. But that doesn't mean I can't make some."
As she had with the coffins, Laura had begun to intuit Steele's line of thought. "We'll need someone at the British embassy who can see that Fitch is turned over to the proper authorities."
"Precisely." For a beat it had seemed as if Steele were savoring it, too, that instinctive connection between them, two halves of a single mind operating in harmony. "Marissa, if we could prevail on you--?"
"I'll do my best."
"I've already asked Mikeline for a referral to a Dublin undertaker and he's kindly obliged. Donegal & Sons should be here shortly to take charge of the caskets," said Steele.
"And to provide the viewing of the body?" suggested Laura.
"With sufficient lead time." Eyes narrowed, Steele looked Kemodov over. "How are you at playing dead?"
"I am twenty-five years with the KGB. How do you think?"
"No need to get testy. I was merely inquiring."
After a moment Kemodov's truculence had subsided. "There are ways. It will be enough to fool Comrade Dmytryk, who is sure to be the one they will send to confirm my death."
"Excellent," said Steele.
Mildred had been following the conversation with a puzzled frown. "So the American ambassador tells the Soviets that Kemodov's dead and Kemodov's buddies come and identify him. I still don't get why the three coffins, or how it's gonna help the Italian Stallion."
"The shell game, Mildred, remember?" Laura replied. "The Soviets will want to send Kemodov's body back to Moscow for burial. Meanwhile, the funeral home has two additional overseas shipments to arrange. Colonel Reginald Frobish to London and Daniel Chalmers to America."
"A little sleight of hand when the coffins are sealed, some intentional misdirection when the hearses set off for the airport, and voilà! Kemodov's achieved asylum with the U.S. government, which will no doubt welcome him with the equivalent of a ticker-tape parade…Fitch is taken into custody by the very country he betrayed…and our Antony is proved the honest spy he's always protested he is." The last words were freighted with a sarcasm Steele hadn't bothered to conceal.
"And Daniel's served as a decoy to the Soviets, the way he meant to do for my father," added Marissa.
Mildred's confusion had given way to beaming admiration. "Sometimes your plans flow just like poetry, chief."
"It ain't Wordsworth," conceded Laura, "but it ain't bad." And she'd smiled at Steele.
A smile he hadn't acknowledged. Instead he shoved his chair back and stood up. "We've covered everything, I think. Marissa, there's a private phone in the study on the second floor. Get Mikeline to show you. If you'll all excuse me…"
There'd been no need to ask him where he was going. Laura had guessed his destination before he left them.
Daniel's room. He was spending his final moments with his father.
It was personal insight as much as professional know-how that guided her to look for him there once Donegal & Sons had taken Daniel away.
She'd had no hesitation about going straight to Steele immediately after Daniel's death. Now, unsure of her welcome, she paused just outside the doorway. "Can I come in?"
He didn't glance up from the watch he was turning over and over in his hand. "Why not."
Tentatively she sat down next to him. A fleeting image came to her as she did so, dejà vu, the two of them perched exactly like this at the foot of a motel room bed, Steele taking her hand and closing both of his over it, she tipping her head onto his shoulder. The comfort they'd derived from one other in the face of county officials on the take, falsified documents and murder.
No possibility of that happening today. Though he hadn't shifted a muscle in his position, there was something about him all the same that suggested total withdrawal from her. Her impulse to reach for him died stillborn. Nor could she think of a single thing to say.
He relieved her of the necessity by breaking the silence himself. "You know, don't you?"
So he had registered the remark she'd made in the storeroom, when the delivery man had questioned how Steele could've deduced Daniel's plan with only the coffins to go on. She hadn't been sure until then that he was even listening.
"He admitted it last night."
"Ah, yes. Your conversation on the lawn. The topic was nothing, I believe." His drawl was heavy with irony, his eyes unfriendly. "And how long since you've figured it out?"
"I didn't. I came to confront him about all the skulking around he was doing and found the watch among his things. He broke down and told me. When you saw us, I was trying to convince him to tell you. You know how that turned out. But he did today, didn't he? When I saw you together…" She let the question dangle in the air.
"About two hours before. He was waiting for me in our room—yours and mine, I mean."
"Two hours--? Then you got a chance to spend some time with him."
"Time." Though he didn't actually snort, he might as well have. "I suppose you could call it that."
"Are you angry?"
"I'd have liked to be let in on the secret much sooner, yes."
"It wasn't my story to tell."
"Come now, Laura. Since when have you been so scrupulous about guarding Daniel's privacy? Or mine, for that matter?"
That stung. She made herself count to ten and remember how fresh it all was, devastatingly so. Fewer than three hundred minutes, if you wanted to break it down that way, since he'd discovered who his father was. Fewer than two hundred since his father had died. He was entitled to some slack.
"When it comes to the business, never," she said quietly. "This was personal. And it was his responsibility, not mine. I wouldn't have done it if he asked me to. He and I have never exactly been the best of friends."
"That's putting it mildly, isn't it?"
Again the hard, unsmiling blue glance. She'd never seen him like this before. And she hadn't the first idea how to deal with him.
"Let's try a little honesty for a change, eh?" he went on. "You've always begrudged him the place he has in my life. The influence he has--" here he stumbled verbally and checked himself "—had—over me. If our paths had never crossed again, it would've been too soon for you. Well, you got your wish, didn't you? You won't have to worry about it ever again, him luring me away from life as Remington Steele."
Even before she could wince from the pain of the blow, he was headed for the door. Was there a fraction of a second when his footsteps slowed just a little bit? No, her eyes must have been playing tricks on her. Straight-backed, he strode out of the room.
He went to Dublin without her.
From the ground floor reception hall she watched the castle limo depart via the same route the hearses had taken an hour earlier. There were only three figures visible through the Rolls' rear window. Probably Steele and Marissa, along with the chauffeur, she reasoned. Fitch must've been secreted in the trunk, still bound and gagged, and Kemodov crouched on the floor of the back seat. The glimpse told her all she needed to know about Steele's level of self-control. Clear thinking hadn't deserted him, no matter how turbulently his emotions were churning.
She could've used a little of that clarity herself. A combination of disbelief and hopelessness was steadily depressing her spirits. An analogy came to her: a climber, close to the summit, suddenly hurled back to the bottom of the mountain she'd been scaling.
That was pretty much it. Up in their bedroom, tidying the drawers Roselli had ransacked and unpacking the rest of their clothing, she thought it over. Days of painstaking progress, of working hard to regain the trust and emotional intimacy, and where were she and Steele now? Back to square one. Maybe worse off than that. For even in his deepest throes of jealousy over Tony, Steele had never looked at her, spoken to her, with the tone and expression he'd used in Daniel's bedroom.
Just when she'd finally gotten the Tony situation sorted out! Feeling protective towards Steele because of Daniel's confession, she'd examined her own recent behavior a little more closely. She hadn't much liked what she saw. There was a cliché that perfectly described what she'd been doing, flaunting her attraction to Tony in order to set Steele off: playing with fire. Dumb luck alone had prevented it from blowing up in her face.
Tony's kiss in Dublin, along with his casual assumption that of course, she'd throw away her years with Steele for the sake of momentary physical "juice", had been the final straw. She'd meant it when she'd told him she couldn't pull back from Steele now. That Roselli hadn't believed her, or professed he didn't, was no big shock. If only he knew she'd scarcely spared a thought for him since the Glen Creagh police took him away. What a blow to his colossal ego that would've been.
To her it was the final confirmation she needed of where her heart really lay--with Steele.
A Steele who'd been shaken to the core by a double-edged loss. A Steele who was already putting up walls and withdrawing behind them. A Steele who seemed bent on running away.
It was nothing new, she tried to tell herself. Part of getting close to Steele had been accepting that he was a man of moods, not all of them easy. When he retreated like this, the best course of action was give to him the latitude he needed to work out whatever was troubling him. She'd become very good at it. Much as she hated to admit it—much as she longed to give him more—maybe it was the only thing she could do in this situation. Give him room, and wait for him to come back to her.
And if he didn't come back? What then?
Her resolve to cross that bridge when—if—she came to it provided no comfort at all.
Eventually hunger drove her down to the kitchen, where Mildred was bustling between stove and steam table. Mildred's reaction to her appearance was ill-disguised surprise. "Mrs. Steele! I thought you were in Dublin with Mr. Steele!"
"Slight change of plan." In an effort to head off further questions, Laura gestured towards a pan simmering on the stove. "That wouldn't be dinner, would it?"
"Tomato soup. There's grilled cheese sandwiches to go with it. Want some?"
"I'd love some. Where on earth did you find the food? I thought the cupboard was completely bare."
"It wasn't me. The Chief made a down payment on the chef's bill this morning. Said to tell you he'll pay back the agency from his personal account when we get home. Gave me money for groceries, too. Mikeline took me shopping in Glen Creagh this morning." Laura noted the flush that reddened Mildred's cheeks with the final sentence, but refrained from mentioning it.
Since there didn't seem to be any servants around, she rummaged in the butler's pantry for cutlery, plates and glasses while Mildred finished the cooking. It was just as much an excuse to stay of Mildred's range as it was an effort to be helpful. Her assistant would be bubbling with curiosity over the fact she hadn't accompanied Steele to Dublin. Right now Laura wasn't in the mood to satisfy her, not while the incident with him was still smarting. Maybe if she kept silence on the subject long enough, Mildred would forget about it.
But it wasn't for nothing that Mildred had won commendations for her persistence from the IRS fraud squad. "So you two had some time to talk before he left for Dublin?" she said as soon as they were seated at the dining room table.
"Not long. A few minutes."
"How's he holding up?"
Laura sighed. Unless she responded with the polite equivalent of 'none of your business', she was in for it. Still, keeping her reply brief might serve as a hint to Mildred to back off. "He's a little…angry."
Mildred nodded sagely. "At himself, mostly. And feeling guilty on top of it."
"What makes you say that?"
"He didn't tell you? He didn't take it too well when Chalmers broke the news he was his son. Yelled at him and stormed off and wouldn't go back until I talked him into it. I think that was maybe a few minutes before Chalmers died. He's kicking himself for it now."
It explained a lot. Laura felt the hard knot in her mid-section begin to ease a little. The obvious sympathy in Mildred's eyes was doing its part, too.
"He took it out on you, I bet," Mildred continued. "Pushed you away. Am I right?"
"Something like that."
"Doesn't surprise me. That's usually the way it goes, especially when it's a sudden death."
She was speaking with the authority of a woman who knew what she was talking about, and it sparked a new attentiveness in Laura. Hadn't she been deploring her own ineptitude in dealing with Steele's grief? Here, maybe, was an insight she could use. "Why a sudden death especially?"
"Because of not being able to say good-bye. It's hard when everything's left unfinished. And him, with all those he questions he has? He's realizing he wasted the last chance he had to get the answers. He's just lashing out, honey. I wouldn't take it personally."
"I don't know, Mildred. He's pretty mad at me. He has to be, to say what he did."
They were silent for a bit, concentrating on their food. "Might help if you got it off your chest," Mildred commented at length.
Laura laid down her sandwich, remembering. "He said…with Daniel dead, I got what I've always wanted. And now I'll never have to worry that he'll lure him away from being Remington Steele again."
"Ouch."
"Yeah."
"Would if help if I said he didn't mean it?" Mildred asked. "It'll be the first thing he says when he gets back, I guarantee it."
"Not really. But thanks."
"Aw, honey." Mildred patted her hand. "Try not to hold it against him, huh? You've put up with a lot worse from him without batting an eye, you know you have. And you know he needs you, and you know he knows he needs you, even if he can't tell you himself right now. Stick it out. It'll be worth it, you'll see."
The conversation had done her a surprising lot of good. Laura had no problem admitting it. It had put some things in perspective, at least. What it couldn't do was fill the solitary hours that stretched ahead of her in this place that offered few to no distractions. Television was out, not for lack of a set, but because Irish programming was more difficult to follow than she would've expected. It wasn't a language problem so much as the cultural context. Without Steele to translate it for her, the way she had for him when he first arrived in the U.S., watching was kind of pointless. And the American re-runs one channel offered were old cop shows that had failed to interest her even when they were brand new.
With the library she fared better. One of the more recent lords of the manor had consolidated popular fiction into the huge collection; in its midst she spotted an old favorite by one of the authors who'd fed her adolescent dreams of becoming a detective. A good fire to banish the chill, a cup of tea, and she'd have everything she needed for a cozy evening in the master bedroom.
Once an obliging young footman had taken care of the former—without submitting a bill for his services—she settled down to the latter. Of course she couldn't fool herself about her real purpose. She didn't try. Of course she was waiting for Steele.
It was almost eight o'clock when a sweep of light across the windows overlooking the castle's forecourt signaled that a car was coming up the drive. Madam, Will You Talk? tumbled to the floor, forgotten; hastily she pulled on a robe and skimmed from the room.
But in the entrance hall there was only Marissa Peters shedding hat and coat and Mikeline discreetly hovering. "Where's Mr. Steele?" she asked them.
"Still in Dublin, I imagine." Marissa handed her outerwear to Mikeline. "The last I saw, he was off to hire a car."
Steele needed a rental car? Since when? And what for? A dark imp of suspicion stirred in Laura, ready with a full-blown scenario: Steele as Richard Blaine, boarding a plane to God knows where, fleeing a situation that was too big for him to handle emotionally. Leaving on her hands, in the process, a castle they couldn't afford to own, a nasty, suspicious Immigration case worker, and a phony marriage whose disintegration would probably land her in jail.
And who would await him at his destination? Shannon? Felicia, who, according to Steele's euphemistic construction, had 'run into a spot of trouble' in Westminster, and was off for an 'extended vacation' in Sint Maarten? Or maybe it was the rent-a-bride, Clarissa—a much nicer girl than the other two, but for all that not above putting herself in contention for Steele's affections.
Get a grip, Laura ordered herself. The Blaine passport, along with the other four, had been in Scotland Yard's possession for the past six months. And his Remington Steele passport was safely tucked into one of the bureau drawers he'd staked out for himself upstairs. She'd seen it for herself when she'd put the rest of his clothes away.
Anyway, wasn't her more immediate concern whether or not he'd pulled off the caper? "Did it go all right at the funeral home?" she asked Marissa.
"Exactly the way he planned. Even Kemodov rose to the occasion. He's a brilliant man, that husband of yours. And an interesting one." Head on one side, Marissa contemplated her. "I'd like to ask you a question."
"Go ahead."
"I get the feeling there's been more going on here than meets the eye, especially when it comes to you and your Mr. Steele and Daniel."
It was hard to guess from Marissa's knowing gaze what she was after. No big worry; Laura had the utmost confidence in the inscrutability of her own poker face. "How well did you know Daniel?"
"We worked together a couple times. Had a few drinks, a few laughs. You know the sort of thing I mean."
"Has he ever talked to you about Mr. Steele?"
"Never. Which makes it all the more curious, what you said earlier, while we were trying to figure out what Daniel intended to do with the coffins. 'Like father, like son'."
More trouble from that innocent, off-the-cuff remark. Laura was beginning to regret she'd ever made it, though she was careful not to let it show. "Did you ask my husband to explain?"
"He wasn't exactly in the mood for personal conversation."
"There you have it, then."
The parry had the desired effect. Instead of taking it with resentment, as she might have, Marissa only looked amused. "Yes, I suppose I do. So that's that. I'm leaving for London in the morning." She held out her hand. "It's been interesting, meeting you both. Perhaps our paths will cross again."
Even before Marissa passed on her way upstairs, Laura had forgotten her. "Mikeline?" she called. She wasn't sure where in the bowels of the castle he might've gotten to, and took a few steps towards the dining room. "Mikeline?"
As usual, he was flushed and panting when he finally turned up. "Looking for me, were you, your ladyship?"
"It might be late before Mr. Steele gets back tonight. Will he be able to get inside? Or do you lock up at a certain hour?"
"Sure and we do lock up every night, routine-like, your ladyship, else the castle treasures wouldn't be safe, the times being what they are. But no need to fret about your lordship. I'll see he gets in, meself, you have my word on it, ma'am."
"Thank you. I appreciate it." She was turning to go when a sudden thought arrested her. "Mikeline?"
"Your ladyship?"
"Would you give his lordship a message from me when he comes? Tell him I'm waiting up for him. No matter how late it gets, I'm waiting for him."
"That I will do, ma'am."
Up in the master bedroom again, Laura moved quickly to one of the casements opposite the door. That it was the same one through which she'd helped Tony evade Steele yesterday never crossed her mind. But just as she had then, she unhooked the catch, opened the window and leaned out.
Darkness was thick here, not like California, swallowing all but the castle's immediate perimeter. She peered into it anyway, as if by concentrating hard enough she could penetrate not only atmosphere but distance, and see all the way to Dublin. And snatch a glimpse, if she could, of a tall, dark-haired man, hands in pockets, slouching elegantly through its streets.
Part partner. Part cherished friend. Part longed-for, would-be lover. Daniel Chalmer's bereaved son. The man she called Remington Steele.
"Where are you?" she whispered into the night. Then she said it again: "Where are you?"
No one answered. Nothing happened. But she stayed there for a long time, heedless of the cold, watching for headlights on the dark road from Glen Creagh.
TO BE CONTINUED