Murder on the Potomac

by Margaret Truman

  “Go on,” Wendell said to his son. “Dress rehearsal can’t be canceled because of one irresponsible actor.”

  Chip would have declined if not for his father’s urging. He sighed, slowly rose, and joined the others onstage. The prompter held out a script for him, but he waved it away. “Suzanne is right,” he said, a wide grin on his boyishly handsome face. “I know the lines—everybody’s lines.”

  Rehearsal commenced and went surprisingly smooth considering the last-minute substitution of Chip Tierney. Sy Fletcher was impressed. Chip had natural stage presence and delivered his lines with conviction and controlled emotion. His romantic scenes with his sister, which would be played the next day on one of two raised platforms near Lafayette Park, avoided anticipated awkwardness. And, as far as Fletcher was concerned, Chip’s dying techniques when gunned down by Sickles were considerably more convincing than Carl Mayberry’s had been.

  The rehearsal ended at midnight. Wendell Tierney had left at eleven after coming to the stage and congratulating Chip on a superb acting job and telling Fletcher, “Chip will play the role on Saturday if he has to.” He didn’t bother confirming it with his son.

  As the cast and crew stood around and critiqued the evening, the tech director, in real life a computer programmer at Agriculture, asked Fletcher a series of technical questions, most having to do with sound effects that were recorded on tape. Cuing the many cuts had been an ongoing thorn in Fletcher’s side. Guns went off when it was supposed to thunder; thunder boomed from speakers when birds were to be chirping. “Do your best,” Fletcher said. “Stay awake and anticipate.”

  “That one mike is still giving me trouble,” the programmer-cum-tech-director said.

  “Fix it.”

  “I’ll try. Maybe we should test-fire the weapon that Sickles uses.”

  “No need,” Fletcher said, envisioning the pistol being discharged in the confines of the basement, shattering eardrums and putting a hole through a mural depicting the Last Supper. Not that blanks would do such damage. But it was the sort of creative visual that Sy Fletcher often had and convinced him he was in the right business. “It’ll work,” he said. “Mr. Tankloff’s weapons always work.”

  He asked for final comments. There were a flurry of them, most of which were ignored. “Shouldn’t I fit out Mr. Tierney in Sid’s costumes?” the costume lady asked. “Just in case?”

  Fletcher said, “Good idea,” and Chip followed her to a room where he tried on the black cutaway coat and black bowler hat worn by Philip Barton Key in the murder scene. They fit perfectly. He was almost the exact height and build and even head size as Carl Mayberry.

  “Drink?” Chip asked his sister after returning to the stage.

  “Can’t. Have to catch the first shuttle to New York in the morning.”

  “Another lesson with the guru?”

  “Yes.” She couldn’t decide whether his tone was mocking or questioning.

  “Well, don’t get weathered in up in New York,” he said.

  “Little chance of that unless a freak storm hits. By the way, you did a great job. Maybe you should become an actor.”

  His laugh was hardy and genuine. “That’s for you, toots. On a list of a thousand things I’d like to accomplish in my life, being an actor ranks at the bottom.” He kissed her on the cheek and left.

  The stage was cleared of props and furniture. The two pistols provided by Sam Tankloff were locked in the costume room by the costume lady, who handed the keys to Sy Fletcher.

  “Hello, Alicia,” Mac Smith said after picking up the phone in his study. “How are you?”

  “Fine, Mac. Tony asked me to call you.”

  “Sounds mysterious.”

  Buffolino’s wife laughed. “Tony’s always a mystery to me. He’s not here. He called from a booth and asked me to get ahold of you. He wants you to meet him tonight if possible.”

  “Where? Why?”

  “I can answer the first part of the question. The small bar in the Watergate.”

  “Hmmm. No idea why?”

  “Nope. He told me to tell you that it was very important and that it would be worth your while.”

  “When is this clandestine meeting supposed to take place?”

  “In an hour. If you can make it, of course. Tony said he’d wait awhile.”

  It was eleven. Annabel had gone to bed early; she felt a cold coming on and wanted to nip it in the bud. “Okay,” Smith told Alicia. “I’ll head there in a few minutes.”

  He let Rufus out the back door into their small fenced yard for a time, then whistled him inside. He plopped a sausage-flavored dog treat into the beast’s gaping mouth—you look like you need root-canal work, Rufe, he thought, I’ve got just the man—patted him on the head and said, “Don’t wake the mistress. Take a nap. I’ll be back soon.” He scribbled a note on a yellow legal pad, the house stationery, and left it on the kitchen table: Had to run out for a few minutes to meet Tony. No idea why. It’s now eleven. Back ASAP. Love, Me.

  Buffolino was at a table when Smith arrived. He looked exhausted. A heavy day’s growth of beard might have been a month’s worth. He wore a green-and-black flannel shirt, baggy black pants, and a stained tan windbreaker, not quite appropriate for a D.C. power bar where men in dark suits drank and slapped backs and told jokes while women, Nautilus-sinewy and eyes blazing with ambition to be one of the dark suits, laughed too loudly.

  “You look like hell,” Smith said, greeting the investigator. “Probably why they gave you this good table between the rest rooms.”

  “The pressure, Mac. Makin’ sure guys show up for their shifts is a royal pain in the butt. And Alicia is drilling away at me like a woodpecker. Too much pressure can kill a man.”

  “Maybe you need a vacation,” Smith offered.

  “That’s what Alicia says. Maybe when the Tierney assignment is over. Drink?” A bottle of Rolling Rock and a half-filled glass were already on the table.

  A waiter appeared, reassured by Smith’s shirt and tie. Smith ordered a Remy. “So?” he said.

  Buffolino’s smile was crooked, smug. “Yeah, right. How come I get you out in the middle of the night like this? Right?”

  “Right.” Smith lifted his snifter. “Cheers.”

  “Cheers.” Buffolino picked up a manila envelope that rested against his chair and held it above the table like an offering.

  “What’s that?” Smith asked.

  “A present.”

  “A present? For me? Is that why I’m here?”

  “Right on, Mac.” Smith reached for the envelope, but Buffolino drew it back. “First, I have to ask you something.”

  “Yes?”

  “Lemme see how to put this.” He frowned. “You’re a straight arrow. Right?”

  Smith shrugged. “Not in all things.”

  “Legally, I mean. You wouldn’t break the law—even bend it a little. Am I right?”

  “Go on. I have the feeling I’m about to be placed in a compromising position.”

  “I’d never do that to you, Mac.” A few surreptitious glances around the bar. “I want you to know, Mac, that if you tell me to get lost, I’ll understand.”

  “Why would I do that, Tony? What’s in the envelope?”

  “Something you want very much.”

  “A winning lottery ticket.”

  “I wish, you wish. I have in this envelope copies of some very important letters.”

  “How did you get them?” Smith asked.

  “You don’t want to know.”

  “Wrong. I want very much to know.”

  “You won’t be happy.”

  “I’m not happy now. They are Tierney’s letters?”

  “Copies.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “Okay. I have this nice young lady who does work for me part time. She’s also a writer. Magazines, poetry. Not very successful but maybe someday. Anyway, I kind of figured out how the letters got leaked to the press. A cop named Frank Chester. A loser, been in
charge of the Evidence Unit for years. I heard stories about Chester, how he’ll play with evidence for a buck. So I figured I’d take a shot. I had my friend contact him, say she was writing a story on Pauline Juris and wanted to know what was in the letters. Chester tells her he can’t help—until she casually mentions her budget on the story is five grand, with two grand for ‘research.’ Chester still balks, but my friend is v-e-r-y persuasive, very charming. She keeps talking, and finally Chester agrees to meet her but only to discuss the matter. Well, Mac, they meet tonight for dinner, and when they finish up apple pie and coffee, my friend has copies of the letters, which Chester ‘just happened to have brought with him.’ ”

  Smith stared at Buffolino.

  “Here they are.” Buffolino shoved the envelope across the table.

  “You bribed a police officer with two thousand dollars?”

  “A grand. It only cost a grand.”

  “I don’t care how much they cost, Tony. You’ve broken the law.”

  “I didn’t do anything. My friend did.”

  “On your instructions.”

  “I didn’t tell her to pass out money. But she knew how much I—you wanted to see the letters and—”

  “You mentioned me to her?”

  “Not by name. I called you an interested friend.”

  “I see. You do remember, Tony, that you almost went to jail for accepting a bribe.”

  “That was for drugs. These are just letters. Nothing got taken. The originals are still sitting in Evidence. Copies. Just copies.”

  Smith didn’t know whether to walk out of the bar or to reach across the table and strangle Buffolino. He did neither. “You laid out a thousand dollars for these?” he asked.

  “Yeah. I figured Tierney would be happy to reimburse me. He’d like to see the letters. Right?”

  Smith couldn’t argue that point. He also asked the logical question: “Why am I sitting here? Give the envelope to Tierney.”

  Buffolino shook his head. “You give the letters to him.”

  “Why?”

  “ ’Cause he won’t question you about how you got them. Me, he’ll question, maybe even get mad. Like you told me, sometimes I go too far.”

  “Sometimes. This is one of them.”

  Buffolino sat back, hurt on his craggy face. “Look, Mac, I’m sorry. Maybe it was a mistake. We all make mistakes, huh?”

  Smith picked up the envelope. “Has anyone else seen these?” he asked. “Aside from your lady friend?”

  Buffolino’s face brightened. “Not even her, Mac. The envelope was sealed just like it is now when Chester gave it to her. I told her maybe she should have checked, but she said she was so happy being given the envelope, she didn’t want to queer the deal.”

  “So maybe what’s in this isn’t the letters after all,” Smith said. Buffolino started to protest but stopped. He knew how Smith’s mind worked. He’d take the envelope and check its contents because he didn’t know for certain what it contained. A real lawyer, Buffolino thought.

  Smith waved for the check. A large man in a gray suit and flushed drinker’s face pawed a young woman at the bar. She giggled. Smith paid the tab and walked outside with Buffolino. “Don’t ever do this again, Tony,” he said sternly. “Don’t ever act on my behalf without checking with me first.”

  “You got it, Mac. You will talk to Tierney about getting me back the grand?”

  “Go home, Tony.”

  “Hey, you, too, Mac. Love to Annabel.”

  When Smith walked through the door, Annabel was reading in their study. “I was worried about you,” she said.

  “You got my note?”

  “Sure. Why did you have to meet Tony at this hour?”

  He held up the envelope.

  “What’s in it?”

  “I’ll find out when I open it. Why are you up? You were asleep when I left.”

  “Got restless, came into the kitchen for a glass of water, saw your note, and thought you might be meeting that mysterious lady on a street corner.”

  Smith said, “I have some reading to do.” He’d been reading Pauline Juris’s family history when Alicia Buffolino called. Now there were the letters, too.

  “Can’t wait?” Annabel asked.

  “The reading? Sure it can. Why?”

  “Because I think we’ve forgotten something.”

  “What’s that?”

  “A few days ago you made amorous advances to me, which I summarily dismissed. I said that it might be wise to try another day.”

  Smith struck a heroic pose in the middle of the room and looked down at her. “I take it this is that other day.”

  “Unless your clandestine midnight meetings have taken it all out of you.”

  “We’ll see.” He reached out, took both her hands, and pulled her from the couch. They embraced. He whispered into her ear, his breath sending shivers down her body, “I adore you.”

  Minutes later they were tangled in bedclothes and each other. It was a night not made for reading.

  In Seymour Fletcher’s apartment in the Adams Morgan section of the city, he sat staring blankly at an old movie on the television set in his little living room, wearing only boxer shorts. Suzanne Tierney emerged from the kitchen. She was now fully dressed. She’d resisted coming home with Fletcher because she did have to catch an early-morning shuttle to New York. And that was the problem. Fletcher had pressed about going to New York. It wasn’t the day of her acting lessons with that charlatan Arthur Saul, he’d said.

  After the sex that had proved unsatisfactory for both, Suzanne told Fletcher that she’d raised money and was giving it to Saul to mount her one-woman show in New York.

  He was furious and felt betrayed, he told her, after having helped shape her show and career. Which was only part true. He had made two suggestions after reading her script and had given her leading roles with the Potomac Players, including Tri-S productions.

  “It’s New York, Sy,” she said, trying to reason with him.

  “And you’ll be lost there. Do the show in D.C. Then bring it to New York. I know you. That fraud Saul is no director. I know how to get the best out of you.”

  “You didn’t know how a few minutes ago,” she said. The argument escalated until, with one toss of a heavy vase into a mirror, he ended it.

  “I’m sorry, Sy,” she said, standing at the door. “I just think New York is right for me.”

  “Do what you want,” he said, his eyes not leaving the flickering TV screen. “Spend Daddy’s money any goddamn way you want.”

  “It’s not my father’s money. It’s—good-bye, Sy.”

  Still seething with anger, he dressed to go out for a drink at a neighborhood bar. “Damn!” he said. He discovered the ring which held the keys to the basement rehearsal rooms in the church was not with his other keys. Must have left them at the church, he decided. The hell with them. The hell with everything. “That should have been mine,” he mumbled as he left the apartment. He meant the money.

  24

  That Same Night—the Cayman Islands

  The club was a two-story, pristine white building on the grounds of a private resort at the northern end of Grand Cayman Island. In the daytime, sun worshipers who hadn’t heard of melanoma, couldn’t spell it, or didn’t care turned copper on the primeval beach while scuba divers and snorkelers sought the abundant, colorful life beneath the tranquil turquoise water.

  At night the water was black except for ripples sent dancing by the moon. Above, palm trees illuminated by powerful floodlights gently danced, too, set swaying in the sweet evening breeze.

  The club’s dining room was as white as the building’s exterior, its starkness broken by carpeting, wall accents, and table settings of the same color as the water in daytime. This night it was virtually empty. Diners were outnumbered three-to-one by waiters and waitresses wearing uniforms so heavily starched they appeared to be made of cardboard. The restaurant’s service was seldom criticized by the club’s board, althou
gh the merits of the wine cellar and quality of the food were constantly debated. A private club, no more, no less.

  Sam Tankloff, Sun Ben Cheong, and John Simmons occupied a window table. They’d finished dinner and lingered over coffee, glad of the room’s sparse clientele.

  “I still don’t get it,” Tankloff said, referring to the discussion earlier that evening—a bank account established in the islands by Sun Ben Cheong in the name of, and for the benefit of, the Tankloff Investment Advisory Group.

  Simmons, a patrician gray-haired lawyer, deeply tanned and professionally manicured, sat in the same steel-rod posture he’d maintained all evening. He smiled brilliantly and said in tones that seemed never to need modulation, “There is nothing untoward about your account here, Sam. When Sun Ben and I set it up, we followed the letter of the law.” Simmons had flown in that day expressly for the dinner meeting. He lived and practiced in Miami, specializing in creating offshore bank accounts for wealthy clients.

  Tankloff grimaced, vigorously rubbed the back of his neck, then dug his little finger into his right ear. “If that’s so,” he said, “why am I being investigated?”

  “You aren’t exactly being investigated,” Simmons replied. “A routine inquiry. Mr. Carvella from Treasury made that clear when he spoke with Bob Chalmers at the bank.”

  Tankloff turned to Cheong. “I thought one of the advantages of opening an account here was secrecy.”

  Simmons’s laugh was this side of patronizing. “Sam, one of the appeals of banking in the Caymans is still secrecy. Congress, with some prodding by the IRS, has been trying to penetrate that secrecy for a long time. It hasn’t gotten very far. Carvella made his approach under the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty. The treaty gives him the right to do that, but there’s no teeth in the law to make anyone here comply. You really shouldn’t be so concerned. Things are in good order.”

  Tankloff finished his cognac, looked up at two waiters hovering at the table, and pointed to his empty snifter. “It isn’t legality I’m concerned about, John. It’s just that offshore banking and secret accounts go against my grain. Hell, I’m supposed to be pretty smart when it comes to investing money. I see a good deal, and I go for it. Simple. I review somebody’s plans for a new shopping center or office building, like what I see, advance the money, and get rich on the payback. When Sun Ben suggested we open an account here to avoid certain taxes—and remember, we opened the London office just to give us an international basis for banking abroad—he said it would reap big rewards for me and the company.” Thinking he might be sounding harsh concerning his young financial genius, he gave Cheong a warm, friendly smile. “Not that I doubted you for a minute, Sun, and I’m not doubting you now. But I’ve wheeled and dealed for years without the government sniffing around. I like it that way. Aboveboard. Doing business in the daylight. But now a probe by the Treasury Department and the IRS. I don’t like it.”