The Assassins Gallery - [Dr Mikhal Lammeck 01]

by David L. Robbins

  Morning drifted into early afternoon. Neither Mrs. Rutherfurd nor Madame Shoumatoff turned anymore to speak to the backseat. They kept their conversations to themselves. Robbins, whom Judith determined must be eastern European in origin, closed his eyes and let the sun and air brush his face. Judith watched great swaths of the American South fly by. The road rose and fell over easy hills green with young crops, weeds, and fresh, bright leaves. The land was carved into broad fields by antique fences long left unpainted, or by creeks. Cattle, sheep, and chickens moved in the emerald shade or amber patches of sunlight. Elder white folks and Negroes hung laundry on lines, rode clattering tractors, padded beside the road leading swaybacked horses or mules by tethers, and children who ought to have been in school ran on dusty feet or in moccasins. Every town the Cadillac motored through was small and whitewashed; the road they were on was always the only one through town. Everyone they passed stopped to stare at them. Judith smelled the poor rural warmth and thought how different America was in its regions, how far she’d come from the cold swells off Newburyport, the ghetto alleys and marble heights of Washington, and how close she was to the finish of it all.

  By four o’clock, Madame Shoumatoff was lost. The Cadillac zoomed past a sign claiming that Warm Springs lay behind them. She pulled over, exasperated. Mr. Robbins took control of the maps. Mrs. Rutherfurd twittered nervously, but left the navigation to the two immigrant artists. Judith kept her eyes on the sky, on falcons and crows against the very deep blue, until Mr. Robbins convinced the ladies in the front seat what direction they should travel. He led them to two more wrong turns. Mrs. Shoumatoff’s foot grew heavier on the gas pedal until Mrs. Rutherfurd calmed her, saying the President had enough tragedies on his hands. Mercifully, a sign clearly pointing the direction and distance to Macon emerged out of the lush landscape.

  The Cadillac arrived thirty minutes late to the designated spot in Macon. Nothing indicated the President was anywhere near: no Secret Service presence, no crowd. Madame Shoumatoff muttered in Russian. Mr. Robbins traced the map with a finger and declared they should head directly for Warm Springs. Mrs. Rutherfurd searched the street in vain.

  The car roared out of town with certainty, headed in the direction Mr. Robbins dictated. Fifteen minutes later, Madame Shoumatoff announced she was convinced they were lost again. Mr. Robbins blustered over the map. Finally Mrs. Rutherfurd exerted her authority. “Keep going this way.” She pointed ahead through the windshield. Shoumatoff drove on. Robbins shrugged at Judith, privately unsure.

  Ten minutes passed on the swervy country route. Tall maple trees leaned over the road, shading it and presaging the cool approach of dusk. Mrs. Rutherfurd hugged herself, eager to be there, not wanting to stop to raise the top and make herself even later. The Cadillac hurtled into green obscurity for another half hour, racing in the direction of Mrs. Rutherfurd’s intuition, until ninety minutes after they should have met the President in Macon they arrived in the tiny town of Manchester. Barely slowing to cruise down the main street, Madame Shoumatoff gave a whoop. Mrs. Rutherfurd clasped her hands at her breast. A crowd had gathered around another open car, a Ford parked at a pharmacy. Several men in dark suits, out of place in this small burg, monitored the women milling in their cotton dresses and the men in overalls around the vehicle. Madame Shoumatoff parked close. Mrs. Rutherfurd opened her car door almost before the Cadillac had halted. A pair of Secret Service agents came to shepherd her through the crowd. When the people parted, Judith spotted the President of the United States, twenty feet away, sliding aside in the rear seat, a Coca-Cola in his hand, greeting Mrs. Rutherfurd, who climbed in beside him.

  * * * *

  Washington, D.C.

  LAMMECK CROSSED HIS TIRED legs on the stone bench and gazed at a giant African orchid. High overhead, the great glass dome of the Botanic Garden presided over air artificially moist and close. Late sunlight flowed through the glass into a tropic mist, highlighting bizarrely great leaves and jungly twists. Lammeck took a deep breath of falsity and longed for the real chill and mists of Scotland. Not just the weather, but the freedom.

  Yesterday he completed his walking tour of the National Gallery and the Freer Museum of Art. Last week he finished the Smithsonian, the Air Museum, and the Arts and Industries pavilion, along with various monuments, statuary, and points of interest. This morning, before the Botanic Garden, he’d visited the National Archives. Now Lammeck rested, done with Washington as a tourist and with no more professional reason to be in this city.

  That made his next stop a foregone conclusion.

  Lammeck exited the beautiful gardens into a crisper, natural air. He strolled west along the one mile that was the Mall toward the White House. Entering the southwest gate, he again showed the Marine on duty his creased Secret Service letterhead that granted him entry. The afternoon ran late, past five o’clock, and he wasn’t sure he’d catch the cantankerous secretary before she left for the day.

  Lammeck checked his .38 at the gate and entered the West Wing. At the end of the long white hall, opening the office door, he thought himself in dubious luck; Mrs. Beach was still at her station.

  She looked up from her typewriter. “Doctor. I haven’t seen much of you this past week. Dag mentioned you’re not checking in as often as you used to. Keeping busy?”

  “Yes. I can barely keep up with my duties. And my social calendar is just chockablock.”

  “Splendid. If you’re here to see the chief, he’s out of town until the middle of next week. I’ll tell him you dropped by.”

  “Where is he?”

  “He’s with the President, Dr. Lammeck. That’s his job.”

  Lammeck took a seat in front of Mrs. Beach, to inform her he was not in the mood to be turned away. “And where is that?”

  She pressed her pince-nez up on her nose, a gesture he’d learned to interpret to mean she was ready to be cantankerous.

  “And the reason for your interest is ... ?”

  “Because, damn it, I want to get the hell out of here and back to my work in St. Andrews. Tell Reilly you can keep Harvard and Yale and the rest. I don’t need a payoff. Just let me out of here. And I want to go now. Get him on the phone.”

  Mrs. Beach smiled with the stolidity of a career bureaucrat.

  “I understand your sense of urgency, Doctor, but unfortunately it is not one this office shares. I am not going to disturb Chief Reilly from his duties protecting the President simply to pass along an administrative matter. It, and you, can wait for his return. And just to show you I’m not hard-hearted or untrusting of you, Chief Reilly is in Georgia, with the President.”

  She tilted her head to imply that was all she had for Lammeck. He was undaunted.

  “Call him.”

  “No.”

  “Where’s Dag?”

  “Agent Nabbit is also on assignment out of the capital. He’s doing advance work for a trip the President will be making soon. We have not forgotten your Persian, Doctor, no matter what you may think of us. We’re quietly doing our job. We are, after all, the Secret Service.”

  Lammeck had run into the stone wall he’d expected. But he hadn’t figured on having to wait until next week for Reilly to get back to settle this. The notion set his foot tapping with impatience. He stood from his chair.

  “Mrs. Beach. I’m bored, I’m useless, and, worse, I’m getting fat. I want you to do everything possible to send me home the minute Reilly gets back.”

  The secretary knit fingers and rested them across her keyboard. “Doctor, I assure you that you’re just as important and handsome as you were the day you first walked in that door. As for your being bored—here.”

  She reached for a folder on the credenza behind her and handed it over. Lammeck flipped it open and knew immediately this was another set of yellow typed pages copied from Roosevelt’s daily schedule. The dates covered the week of March 11th through 18th. Four weeks old.

  “This saves me a courier. Good day, Dr. Lammeck. And rest assured, tho
ugh you’ll be missed, I’ll do everything I can to expedite your leaving us. Somehow, we’ll fend for ourselves.”

  Lammeck grimaced his good-bye to the secretary. He took the folder into the hall. Walking absentmindedly for the gate and his gun, he scanned the first few pages. For the date of 3/11/45, he read:

  1140—to office

  1145—Chinese ambassador

  1200—Budget Director Harold D. Smith

  1245—Sec. of State Edward R. Stettinius, Jr., Adolf A. Berle, Acting Brazilian

  Min. of Foreign Affairs Pedro Leso Velloso

  1330—returned from office

  1330-1455—(lunch—Sun Parlor) Mrs. John Boettiger, Sec. of State Edward R.

  Stettinius, Jr.

  1635—to office

  1830—returned from office via doctor’s office

  1945—(dinner) ER

  2125-2245—Dorothy Brady, secretary

  2345—retired

  ER-2330—left for Raleigh, NC

  Nothing out of the ordinary. A typical short day for the tired and ailing President. A few hurried appointments, lunch with his daughter and secretary of state, then after dinner, Eleanor headed for Raleigh, leaving him alone again. This report was as stale and dormant as Lammeck himself felt. He was only a few steps down the hall when he turned to the next page, March 12. What he saw stopped him in his tracks.

  1120—to office

  1125—Sec. of State Edward R. Stettinius, Jr., Comdr. Harold E. Stassen, Rep.

  Charles A. Eaton, Dean Gildersleeve, Sen. Tom Connally, Rep. Sol Bloom, Sen. Arthur Vandenberg (Delegates to San Francisco, Cal., UN Conference)

  1145—War Sec. Henry L. Stimson, Adm. William D. Leahy

  1200—Sen. Lister Hill (Alabama)

  1230—Herman Baruch

  1340—returned from office

  1340-1440—(lunch—Sun Parlor) Mrs. John Boettiger

  1750—motoring

  1840—Returned, accompanied by Mrs. Rutherfurd

  1930-2230—(dinner—Study) Col. and Mrs. John Boettiger, Mrs. Rutherfurd

  Who the hell, Lammeck wondered, was Mrs. Rutherfurd? It was a name he’d never seen nor heard anywhere near Roosevelt, much less someone whom the President picked up in his limousine, and who then had a private dinner with Roosevelt plus his daughter and son-in-law.

  Quickly, Lammeck checked the schedule for the next day, March 13th. There she was again, Mrs. Rutherfurd for dinner at 1915. She enjoyed two hours with the President, plus Anna and John Boettiger, and the Canadian prime minister, Mackenzie King. Again on the 14th, Roosevelt lunched with Anna and Mrs. Rutherfurd, then that evening ate dinner with Mrs. Rutherfurd alone.

  On the 15th, she was gone. That day, Eleanor Roosevelt had returned from North Carolina.

  Lammeck reversed direction. He’d gone no more than a dozen strides down the hall, and used only half that number to return to Mrs. Beach’s door. The doorknob was still in his grip when he started speaking.

  “Four weeks ago, a Packard brought an old friend of the President’s to lunch. You told me that woman’s name was Mrs. Paul Johnson.” Lammeck rattled the yellow sheets, Mrs. Beach looked up at them. She stayed tight-faced and glaring. Lammeck continued, giving her no chance to interrupt. “It says here someone named Mrs. Rutherfurd came for lunch that day, not Mrs. Paul Johnson.”

  The secretary inhaled, an impatient retort on her lips.

  “Quiet,” Lammeck snapped, leaving the woman with her mouth open. “There is no Mrs. Paul Johnson. I want to know right now who this Mrs. Rutherfurd is, and why you were covering her up with a false name.”

  Mrs. Beach remained stony, working her jaw below a hard stare.

  “Mrs. Rutherfurd is off-limits to you, Doctor.”

  “Too late for that. Georgetown, 2238 Q Street. I followed Reilly’s car when she left the White House. Either have me arrested right now or I get in my own government car, drive over there, and ask her why she only comes to visit when the President’s wife is out of town.”

  Mrs. Beach sighed, pointing to a chair. Lammeck folded into it.

  ”Doctor, this is a potential hornet’s nest. It requires delicacy. With apologies, that is not a trait anyone here associates with you.”

  ”At the moment, that sounds more like your problem than mine. Who is she?”

  Mrs. Beach pulled down her pince-nez to rub her eyes with her fingertips. Lammeck had never seen her without the sharp-edged frames perched across her nose. He read this gesture as a victory, like watching an enemy fort take down its flag.

  She composed herself before answering, leaving the glasses on the desk. Succinctly, Mrs. Beach summed up the President’s relationship with Lucy Mercer Rutherfurd. The woman was exactly as she’d been described to Lammeck previously, a dear friend of Roosevelt’s, and above reproach. But there was a new twist to the tale: She was not just an old acquaintance, but an old flame. Thirty years ago Lucy had almost broken up the Roosevelts’ marriage. Caught and chastised, FDR vowed never to see Lucy again. Nonetheless, over the years, the President and she had kept in touch by letter and telephone. The President took an interest in all of Lucy’s stepchildren, getting military commissions for two of the Rutherfurd sons. Lucy’s calls were passed through to the President by Louise Hackmeister, the chief White House operator, under the code name Mrs. Paul Johnson. In recent years, Lucy had begun to visit the White House in person under that same name, a thin protective guise in case Eleanor ever got a gander at the usher’s or operator’s logs. Ever since Lucy’s husband died last year, her visits had become more frequent. Just last month, Roosevelt grew tired of the “Mrs. Johnson” deceit, instructing the staff to admit Mrs. Rutherfurd by her real name. Four weeks ago, when Lammeck asked about the visitor, Mrs. Beach had called Lucy by her code name, partially out of long habit, mostly to keep Lammeck off her scent. “Needless to say,” the secretary conceded, “that didn’t work.”

  Eleanor would not be at all pleased to find her husband had renewed visits with his former sweetheart. Even the President’s daughter and sons were in on Lucy’s visitations. The children liked her and viewed her as a tonic for their sick father. They accepted the deception of their mother as the price they paid for the man’s rare comfort and pleasure in these difficult days. The President had also visited Mrs. Rutherfurd at her estates in Allamuchy and Aiken. The pool reporters, along on these train trips and left to wait on the sidings, seemed content to let the Boss have his diversion.

  “Mrs. Rutherfurd is quite different from Mrs. Roosevelt. She is more... congenial. The President enjoys her company; he is the Boss; and on this topic, Doctor, I will say no more. Except to repeat that, for obvious reasons, Mrs. Rutherfurd remains off-limits to you. To a great extent, she’s out-of-bounds even to us.”

  Lammeck sat back, satisfied that he’d wrung from Mrs. Beach all he was going to get. If he pressed much further, she might take him up on his bluff and have him arrested. He’d spoken to her pretty roughly to get this far. Though delicacy might not be his strong suit, he wasn’t stupid.

  ”Thank you, Mrs. Beach. One last question. You say Mrs. Rutherfurd lives in South Carolina. Who’s at Q Street?”

  The secretary replaced her glasses on the bridge of her sharp nose. Lammeck guessed this heralded the end of her patience.

  ”Why do you need to know, Doctor? Is it important?”

  ”I have no idea. I can only guess that if you don’t tell me, it is.”

  ”Point taken. That is the home of Mrs. Rutherfurd’s sister, Violetta. At present, so far as I know, Mrs. Rutherfurd is not there, but at her property in Aiken. So you do not need to drive to Georgetown.”

  ”Agreed.”

  Lammeck recalled the big maid he’d seen peering through the Q Street window when Lucy returned from her White House lunch.

  “You said Mrs. Rutherfurd has two estates. I assume she has staff. What do you know about the people who work for her?”

  Mrs. Beach cocked her head. Lammeck readied himself to escape.


  “As I’ve said more than once, Mrs. Rutherfurd enjoys a special status with the President. We do not pry too deeply where she’s concerned. We trust her because the President trusts her. To do otherwise would be to second-guess and displease the man we all work for. Understood? Good. Now, is that all? I should like to go to my own home before the night is over. You are not the only one tired of being in my office.”

  Lammeck rose, thanked the woman again, and left. Only seconds behind him, she locked up, sounding stern even with her keys. At the gate he reclaimed his pistol. Mrs. Beach strolled off in her direction, and he went his through the dusk back to the Carlton Hotel.