Murder on the Potomac

by Margaret Truman

  “You know how to drive that thing?” Smith asked.

  “Me? Sure. I spent a couple ’a years with MPD Marine Division.” He hit a brace, tossed another crisp salute, and said, “Captain A. Buffolino at your service, sir.” He looked down at his watch. “I’d better move. Maybe we’ll catch up later.”

  As Buffolino increased power to the outboard and moved away, Annabel said to her husband, “He never ceases to amaze me.”

  Smith grinned. “Tony’s the kind of guy who’s always marching up to the brink of disaster but pulls back at the last second.”

  “He’s gone over the brink three times,” Annabel offered, referring to the investigator’s marriages.

  Smith chuckled. “Sometimes you learn late. I think he’s finally found the right woman in Alicia. Don’t you?”

  “I hope so. At least she doesn’t have horns like the last one.”

  “Neither does he, though Tony’s no angel. As we both know.”

  One time that Tony Buffolino failed to pull back in time had led to his dismissal from the police department.

  He’d been an exemplary officer, his file filled with commendations, a cop who wasn’t afraid to put everything on the line, including his life. But then a son from his first marriage was diagnosed with leukemia, and the medical bills mounted rapidly. Desperate, Tony took money from a Colombian drug dealer but was caught in an Internal Affairs sting. That’s when he met attorney Mackensie Smith, who worked out a deal for criminal charges to be dropped in return for Buffolino’s resignation from MPD.

  Since those dark days in his life, Buffolino and Smith had worked together on a number of occasions, Mac giving him work, and getting him work, to help with his rehabilitation. But it wasn’t all from the goodness of Mac’s heart. Mac Smith had worked with plenty of private investigators over the course of his legal career, but none had the instincts of Tony Buffolino. It was street smarts plus a way of looking at things from an offbeat, sometimes skewed perspective that often proved right. He was different, and that was his edge.

  A friendship of sorts had also developed between the two men, an unlikely one, perhaps, but satisfactory to both. It wasn’t that they socialized. Each predictably moved in his own circle. But Smith liked the savvy, tough-talking ex-cop, and Buffolino liked and respected his friend “the prof.” Which was good enough.

  Wendell and Marilyn Tierney boarded. Wendell, in the best tradition of a ship’s captain, barked orders to the crew. Minutes later, the Marilyn left the dock and slowly headed downriver toward the capital and points beyond.

  Once they were under way, Tierney abandoned his role of captain and became gregarious host to his thirty guests. The murder of Pauline Juris, less than a week old, was unofficially off-limits as a topic of conversation, at least when Tierney was within earshot. When he wasn’t, guests whispered about it. Many expressed admiration for the way he was holding up. Electing to go forward with this cruise was, they felt, an example of what the man was made of, a backbone of steel, a determination that life went on no matter whose life had not. And, of course, a few questioned where backbone ended and insensitivity began.

  As the Marilyn continued downriver, Smith noticed two men aboard who did not appear to be guests or members of the crew. Security personnel provided by Buffolino? he wondered. Tierney might present a front of strength and business-as-usual, but he was obviously concerned enough to have hired protection. Which Smith did not entirely understand. Did Wendell know something about an outside destructive force that played a role in Pauline’s death and that might be unleashed on him and his family? Probably not. Wendell Tierney was a man of excesses, Mac knew. Never one boat when four would do.

  The yacht’s real captain used the P.A. system to point out landmarks on shore: Glen Echo, billed as a utopian community in 1889 and wiped out by a malaria epidemic in 1892; Cabin John, named after an early settler who’d struck gold there and now the site of the Cabin John Arch, the largest stone arch in the Western Hemisphere, across which the Washington Aqueduct flowed; the Clara Barton House, built in Mississippi Riverboat style by the founder of the American Red Cross; famed Fletcher’s Boat House and its mill, closed in 1870 after years of turning out Evermay Flour, currently a popular place for renting canoes and rowboats; and Little Falls Skirting Canal, a 2.2-mile canal now part of the C&O.

  They cruised beneath the Chain Bridge, one of the oldest bridges to span the Potomac. After they had sailed seven miles, Teddy Roosevelt Island came into view.

  Then a woman, dropping delicacy after several drinks, wondered aloud whether they would pass the actual spot where Pauline Juris’s body had been found. An athletic-looking man, an inveterate boatsman and guiding light of the prestigious Washington Canoe Club, laid that speculation to rest. Boats did not ply that side of the island, he explained. Too shallow. They would pass through a channel at the northern end, far from the scene of the park ranger’s gruesome sunrise surprise.

  While the captain’s earlier running commentary was interesting, history was not uppermost on the minds of most guests. Show tunes performed by a piano-bass-drums trio filled the air with a sense of here and now as waiters in short white jackets and long black bow ties moved with precision, their trays ladened with lobster hors d’oeuvres and drinks. There would be cold salmon, lobster, and crab for lunch, with champagne and iced vodka to accompany a czar’s supply of beluga caviar.

  The one person who didn’t seem to have been caught up in the festive spirit was Marilyn Tierney. Annabel commented to Mac that Marilyn looked the part of a dutiful, professional hostess who would rather be some other place, preferably alone and without the need to smile on demand. “I ache when I see someone like that,” she said into Mac’s ear.

  “As I told you, they have their problems,” Smith said.

  “Problems I hope we never have.”

  “No chance.”

  “Don’t be so smug,” she said, squeezing the muscle of his arm. “It can happen—unless we work hard to make sure we won’t.”

  Smith’s frown turned into a smile. “And that’s exactly what we are, Annabel. Two people working hard. Nice work if you can get it.” He kissed her, took her hand, and they settled back into yellow canvas deck chairs at the yacht’s stern.

  Their solitude didn’t last long. Alabama congressman Wells Montgomery and his wife, Tricia, he the white-haired, red-faced House whip, she with the bouncy style and pert looks of the perpetual cheerleader, joined them. They were accompanied by the founder and principal fund-raiser for the Coalition for a Better D.C., Amanda Cole, and her husband, Richard, the successful owner of a string of suburban mall multimovie theaters.

  “Gives me the creeps,” Amanda Cole said, suddenly and uncharacteristically serious, as they looked at Roosevelt Island. The yacht had begun to swing north through the narrow Georgetown Channel that would traverse the island and bring them out into the more open waters of Washington Harbor.

  “Inconceivable,” Congressman Montgomery said.

  They uttered a few more sober sentiments before walking away from Mac and Annabel to join other guests on the starboard side, where the spires of Georgetown University, and Three Sisters Islands, provided less troublesome visual interest.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” Annabel said.

  Her voice startled Mac. The comments of the others had caused him to focus on a vision of Pauline Juris’s body tangled in weeds and branches along Roosevelt Island’s shoreline. He snapped his head in Annabel’s direction. “You do? Yes, of course you do. I was thinking of Pauline Juris.”

  “And of Wendell Tierney wanting you to help him.”

  Smith shook his head. “No, I wasn’t thinking about that. There’s nothing I can do for Wendell, except what I did—lend an ear.”

  A bell announced that lunch was served in the main cabin.

  “Mac, stay out of it.”

  He looked at her.

  “Please.”

  He glumly nodded. “Hungry?”

 
; “For lobster? Lobster creates appetites.”

  And so they filled their plates, balanced them on their knees, and allowed the sun and crisp air and succulent tastes to replace grim thoughts. That pleasant reverie lasted all the way to Point Lookout at the entrance to the bay, where Tierney’s captain made a large, languid circle and pointed the yacht home.

  Lunch had been cleared by the time they reached Breton Bay, and fresh glasses on serving trays had taken on a more distinct hue of white and amber. Mac and Annabel now stood near the bow, their faces raised to capture the invigorating breeze caused by its movement, and to enjoy the fading rays of a sun heading west. Wendell Tierney, who’d spent little time with them that day, came up behind and asked, “Enjoying yourselves?”

  “Very much, Wendell,” Annabel answered. “It’s a lovely day, lovely event.”

  “Marred only by what’s on everyone’s mind, I suppose,” Tierney said. “What scuttlebutt have you picked up today, Mac?”

  Smith was surprised by the question.

  “I’m sure that in spite of all this nice-nice, everyone is talking about Pauline,” Tierney said. He leaned on the railing and looked straight ahead.

  “Very little of that kind of talk,” Smith lied. “Too nice a day to think about murder.” Which was more nearly true.

  “Not if you’re a suspect.”

  “No, I suppose not. Anything new from your end?”

  Tierney shoved his hands in the pockets of his white slacks and peered down at the deck. “They finished the autopsy.”

  “When?” Smith asked.

  “Last night. Detective Eikenberg called this morning as I was leaving the house.”

  Smith’s face reflected his puzzlement. Why would she call Tierney with that information?

  Tierney continued. “Nothing surprising, I suppose. Murdered with a heavy object with a defined edge during the hours following the board meeting.” He said to Annabel, “Hell of an introduction for our newest board member.”

  She said nothing.

  “Mac, any chance of stealing you away from your bride for five minutes?”

  Smith glanced at Annabel. She replied, “By all means.” To Mac: “I’ll be here when you get back.”

  Smith followed Tierney through the master suite on the main deck, with its Jacuzzi and queen-sized bed, and into the smallest of three additional guest quarters that had been configured as an office. “My favorite getaway,” he said. He indicated a small couch to Smith. “Sometimes, when I really have to think something out, I rustle up the crew, and we go out on the river. I hole up here and let my mind wander. I’ll probably be doing a lot of that these days.” He perched on the edge of a desk and continued. “Eikenberg didn’t call just to give me the autopsy report. She told me they’d found letters in Pauline’s apartment.”

  “What kind of letters?”

  “Love letters.”

  Smith’s face asked for further explanation.

  “The detective said I’d written them to Pauline.”

  “I see,” Smith said. There was silence in the room except for the steady throb of the Marilyn’s powerful engines. Smith asked the obvious question: “Did you? Write them?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Then why would such letters be in her apartment? I mean, did Eikenberg say the letters had been signed by you?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you say you didn’t write them. Someone else did and signed your name?”

  “I suppose that’s the logical explanation. But will she buy it?”

  Smith didn’t like Tierney wondering whether the police would “buy it.” He asked, “Did Darcy Eikenberg tell you anything else about the letters? Specific language?”

  Tierney shook his head. “All she said was that they were intimate in nature and could be called love letters.”

  “Why are you telling me this, Wendell?”

  Tierney’s eyes widened; animation returned to his face. “Because I don’t know who else to turn to, Mac. I obviously can’t discuss this with my family. I’ve got a slew of attorneys I pay a fortune to who wouldn’t mind the fees, and one or two who wouldn’t mind seeing me sink in some kind of scandal.”

  Smith stood, twisted his torso to manipulate his spine against a fleeting spasm in his lower back, and sat again. “Wendell, I suppose I should be flattered that you’ve trusted me with this information. But, frankly, I’m at as much of a loss today as I was coming to your house the day they found Pauline. There’s nothing I can do for you except what I’ve done—offer my friendship and a willing ear.”

  Tierney didn’t hesitate. “Mac,” he said, “I was hoping you’d use your connections to find out more about these letters, maybe even get hold of them for me.”

  Smith looked at Tierney quizzically, then laughed a little. “What makes you think I could do that?”

  “It’s my understanding,” Tierney said, “that Mackensie Smith can do damn near anything he wants in this town. It’s called connections.”

  “You need better sources of information, Wendell. I happen to be a law professor who leads a cloistered, unconnected life these days.”

  “Come on, Mac. You don’t spend years as Washington’s top criminal attorney without having plenty of strings to pull, chips to call.” He pushed himself away from the desk and slapped Smith on the shoulder. “Besides, the police arrive, and you arrive, and the head cop learned her trade from you. And I saw the way the lovely lady detective looked at you. Obviously infatuated. Maybe you could trade on that infatuation. I’d be eternally grateful. Name your price.”

  “It has nothing to do with price,” Smith said, his good nature now roughened up by Tierney’s sandpaper style. But he reminded himself that this was, after all, Tierney’s manner. He was a man used to getting his way, hiring and firing, spreading money around, an archetypal D.C. power broker. Second nature to him.

  “Will you, Mac? I mean, at least take a shot at it for me? I don’t expect miracles, but I would appreciate the effort. Just a few phone calls.” Tierney sat on the couch next to Smith, glanced at the closed slatted doors through which the faint sounds of the party could be heard, and lowered his voice. “What I really want, Mac, is for these letters to not be made public. I don’t want some son of a bitch leaking them to the press. You can imagine what that would do to Marilyn, to my children. It would be devastating.”

  “Not if you didn’t write them,” Smith said.

  “What does it matter if I wrote them or not? If the police say my name is on them, the seed is planted. Please, Mac. I know I’ve been imposing upon you since Pauline’s death, but I’m pulling out all the stops to keep my family together. If I ever needed family, it’s now. I don’t think I can survive this without their support.”

  The new sincerity in Tierney’s voice had its intended effect. Smith had known a lot of men like Tierney—arrogant, self-assured, yet with the magical ability to draw you in and make you want to respond.

  Tierney continued. “I don’t care about business,” he said. “I don’t care about myself. But I do care about my family. Whoever wrote those letters and put my name on them is out to destroy me. Whether it’s a business competitor or someone with a personal grudge doesn’t matter a hell of a lot. All I know is that I’ll do anything to keep my family out of it. One call, Mac. Just see what you can do. That’s all I ask.”

  Smith stood, sighed. “Let me think about it, Wendell.”

  Tierney said, “I can’t ask more than that. By the way, Mac, introducing me to Tony Buffolino was a real favor. I’ve hired him until this mess is resolved. You don’t think I’m paranoid, wanting security beefed up, do you?”

  “Better safe than sorry.”

  “He’s a real character. But you know something? He’s changed since the last time he worked for me. I wouldn’t call him refined, but he’s smoothed some of the rough edges.”

  Smith smiled. “I hope he doesn’t lose too many of those rough edges. That’s part of his charm—and his effecti
veness.”

  When Smith returned to the deck, Annabel had left the bow and joined a group aft. Her eyes asked the obvious. Smith’s expression said, “I’ll tell you when we get home.”

  And so it was left until they pulled up to Tierney’s private dock, the gangplank was lowered, and the guests filed off, each woman carrying a souvenir of the trip, a sterling-silver music box in the shape of balustrades that adorn the National Building Museum.

  Mac and Annabel didn’t say much on the drive home. But once inside the house, and after Annabel had placed the music box on the mantel—“What a beautiful gift,” she said—they sat in the kitchen, where he told her of his conversation with Tierney.

  “What do you think?” Annabel asked.

  “I don’t know what I think,” was his response. “Somehow, I believe him. I don’t think he wrote those letters. On the other hand, maybe he did. If he didn’t, somebody not only wants to link him to Pauline’s murder, they’re out to destroy him personally.”

  “Will you make the phone call?” she asked.

  “Yes. It’s a small thing. I doubt if I’ll learn much, but I’d like to be able to say I tried.”

  “Who will you call?”

  “MPD.”

  “Detective Eikenberg?”

  “She’s the lead detective on the case and the one who told Wendell about the letters.”

  “Do what you think is right. Now excuse me. I brought home the account books from the gallery to reconcile this weekend. I think I’ll get started.”

  Smith intercepted her on her way out of the kitchen and embraced her. “How about extending a perfect day on the Potomac? Just the two of us.” He nuzzled her ear with his nose and attempted to kiss her neck. She disengaged. “Let’s save your ardor for another day,” she said.

  “Tomorrow?” he asked.

  “Call me in the morning.”

  He stood in the kitchen and heard her go to the den and wind the sterling music box—the tinkle of “Sailing, Sailing, over the Bounding Main …” drifted from the room—and then to the bedroom, where she had a small desk. She closed the door behind her.

  Smith sat at the kitchen table and glanced at mail they’d brought in. Rufus placed his oversized gray head on his master’s lap and looked up with wet, soulful eyes. Smith scratched behind the dog’s ears. “I think the lady of the house is upset, my hairy friend, because she thinks I’m going to end up in the middle of another murder. She’s wrong, Rufus. Not Guilty.” He cocked his head and said, “You look skeptical, Rufus. Careful. Remember what they say about biting the hand that feeds you.”