Murder on K Street

by Margaret Truman

  “Oh?”

  “I didn’t come here to see Josie Williams. I came here to see you. I didn’t want to tell Lyle that. And I didn’t come just to enjoy a pleasant dinner.”

  Their second round was delivered and she drank. “I need your advice, Phil. I need your help.”

  “About what?”

  “About what’s happening with Lyle and Neil.”

  “I’m not sure my advice is worth much, Jeannette, but I’m a good listener.”

  The waitress returned to the table “Care to order?” she asked.

  “Maybe we’d better,” Rotondi said. “The place is filling up.”

  As Rotondi ate, he watched Jeannette push food around on her plate, taking an occasional nibble between sips of the wine she’d insisted on having with dinner. Aside from a slight thickening to her speech, she showed little effect from the alcohol. Whatever it was that she needed to discuss with him had been forgotten, at least for the moment, and their conversation centered on pleasant topics, nothing weighty. Rotondi proved his claim of being a good listener, going with the flow and reacting to things she said, humorous comments about Washington and how much she disliked living there, a few reminiscences about their college days—without getting into their tangled relationship—and other areas that didn’t demand advice. It was over a rice pudding to share and cappuccinos that she brought the conversation back to something meatier.

  “Phil,” she said softly, “Lyle and Neil are in serious trouble.”

  “What sort of trouble?”

  She started to explain, but he took note of tables in their vicinity that were now occupied. “Maybe we’d better have this conversation someplace more private, Jeannette,” he suggested, motioning for a check.

  The husband-owner intercepted them on their way out. “Was everything all right, Mr. Rotondi?” he asked.

  “Everything was great,” Rotondi said, slapping him on the shoulder.

  “It was delicious,” Jeannette said.

  The owner beamed. “That is always good to hear. Come back soon.”

  Rotondi drove directly to his condo. Homer greeted them enthusiastically, one hind paw held slightly off the ground. “Poor baby,” Jeannette said, roughing up the hair on his head and neck.

  “I’ll put coffee on,” Rotondi said.

  “I’d love a drink,” she said.

  “Maybe later.”

  He left her in the living room while he puttered in the kitchen. When he returned, she was perusing a series of photographs hanging on a wall above a desk, some of them with Kathleen.

  “It’s so tragic what happened to her,” Jeannette said.

  “I still sometimes have trouble believing it,” he said, setting down on a coffee table in front of a couch two steaming mugs of black coffee, along with a small bowl containing packets of sugar and Sweet’N Low, and a pitcher of half-and-half. “Come, sit,” he said, patting the cushion next to him.

  “How is Emma?” she asked when she joined him.

  “She’s fine. Busy. Now, you said that Lyle and Neil are in trouble. What do you mean?”

  She sat back, leaned her head against the back cushion, closed her eyes, and said, “I don’t even know where to begin.”

  “Political trouble?”

  She came forward. “There’s always political trouble for Lyle, but he seems able to handle that. I’m afraid the sort of mess he’s in goes beyond politics, Phil.”

  “Go on,” Rotondi said, sipping his coffee. Jeannette’s remained untouched.

  “I received a call a week ago from someone in Chicago.”

  “Who in Chicago?”

  “It was a man. I don’t know his name. He sounded old.”

  “Old?”

  “His voice was weak, raspy. Maybe he wasn’t old. Maybe he had a sore throat. I don’t know.”

  “What did he say? How did he introduce himself?”

  “He didn’t. I mean, he asked if I was Senator Simmons’s wife.”

  “Senator Simmons wife? That’s the way he put it?”

  “Yes. He asked that, and I said I was.”

  “What happened next?”

  She sighed and reached for her coffee, then withdrew her hand. “I really would love something to drink besides coffee, Phil. I know you think I drink too much, but—”

  “Cognac?”

  “That will be fine.”

  He brought her a small cordial glass one-third filled with Cognac.

  “Thanks,” she said, tasting it.

  “Let’s get back to what this man from Chicago said to you.”

  “He apologized for calling me. He spoke with a strange kind of formality, as if he wasn’t an educated person but was trying to sound as though he was. He apologized to me for—oh, yes, for calling with such bad news.”

  “Was it bad news?”

  She guffawed and finished the Cognac in a swallow. “It certainly was, Phil. This gentleman—and I’m being generous in labeling him that—this guy threatened me.”

  “Physically?”

  “Blackmail.”

  “Over what?”

  “Over what he claimed to know about Lyle and his dealings with the underworld.”

  “Whoa, wait a minute. He claimed that Lyle is tied in with organized crime?”

  “That’s right. But Phil, he didn’t just claim that. He said he could prove it. He told me I would be receiving a package within a few days with the proof.”

  “And?”

  “It arrived a day later. FedEx, overnight delivery.”

  “What was in it?”

  “Damaging evidence backing up what the caller claimed. Copies of checks and e-mails between these people in Chicago and Marshalk, transcripts of recorded conversations, all sorts of damning evidence. Good God, Phil, organized crime has been laundering money through the Marshalk Group, and a lot of that money has ended up with front groups that use it to fund Lyle’s run for the White House.”

  “You say the package contained evidence. Can you trust it? Can you trust this man who sent it to you?”

  “I don’t know. I want you to see it.”

  Rotondi asked, “Why would Lyle get involved with this sort of thing, Jeannette? For money? He doesn’t need money.”

  “To run for president of the United States? Come on, Phil. No one has that kind of money. It takes hundreds of millions to even have a chance. Besides, you know Lyle isn’t as rich as he was when his father was alive. Before he died, his father made some dreadfully bad real estate investments that almost broke him.”

  Rotondi did know. Lyle had confided in him throughout the period of his father’s failing fortunes, and he had attended the senior Simmons’s Chicago funeral, where his bad investments dominated the conversation.

  “Excuse me,” Rotondi said. He returned from the kitchen carrying a glass of beer.

  “Please,” Jeannette said, indicating her empty glass.

  “You sure?” he asked. He was torn. Still, withholding another taste of Cognac wasn’t going to send her straight to AA. He obliged.

  “There’s more, Phil,” she said. She put her lips to her glass, made a face, and put it down on the table. “Photographs.”

  “In the package?”

  “Yes.”

  He knew what was coming.

  “Pictures of Lyle with a woman. I’ve known about her for a long time, not her name or anything, but I’ve been aware that he was seeing someone in Chicago. The photos are—oh, God, they’re so disgusting. She’s not the only one. I know that for certain. I can’t stand the thought of living with him any longer, Phil. I’m divorcing him.”

  “He knows?”

  “Oh, I’ve told him, which sends him into a rage. Do you know what he suggested? He suggested that we live separate lives but stay married. He gave me permission to see other men, as long as I was discreet about it and didn’t do anything to reflect poorly on him and his political future.”

  The pragmatic Lyle Simmons in full flower.

  “Did yo
u show him the package you received from this guy in Chicago?”

  “No. I was afraid of how he might react. I wanted to talk to you first.”

  She’d been relatively calm up to this point, considering the subject matter. Now, suddenly, as though struck by lightning, she swung around on the couch to face him. Her face was a fright mask. “It’s Neil,” she said. “I’ve got to get him away from Marshalk. He’ll be destroyed along with the rest of them.”

  “Do you think Neil knows?” Rotondi asked.

  “I haven’t told him any of this, but I intend to.”

  “I mean about the Marshalk connections with the mob. He’s there every day. Hell, he’s the president of the firm.”

  “He’s a figurehead, Phil, that’s all. Lyle put Neil at Marshalk the way he puts other people at lobbying firms around the city. I don’t know, maybe Neil does know about the money laundering. I’ve got to convince him to sever his ties there, run as fast as he can.” She wrapped her arms about herself and shuddered. “He—the man who called—said that if I didn’t arrange to pay him money, he’d destroy the family.”

  Now tears came. Rotondi pulled her close and held tight until the sobbing had ebbed. “I’m sorry,” she said, accepting a tissue from him. “I must look a wreck.”

  “You look just fine. How much money does this guy want?” he asked.

  “He didn’t say. He told me he’d be in touch after I received the package. I haven’t heard from him again.”

  They sat in silence. It was now dusk; without lights on, the living room had grown dim, as though an emotional thermostat had sensed the mood and made adjustments.

  “Where’s the package?” Rotondi finally asked.

  “In the trunk of my car. I hid it under a lot of stuff.”

  “I’ll look at it, Jeannette. I don’t know what good that will do, but maybe I’ll think of something.”

  “It’s all so evil,” she said quietly.

  Rotondi tended to view evil as having a religious basis, which he eschewed. He’d put away plenty of bad people during his career as a prosecutor, men, and some women, for whom human life was irrelevant. In many of those cases, defense lawyers brought in psychiatrists and psychologists to testify that the accused were mentally ill and therefore not responsible for the heinous acts they’d committed. Rotondi frequently brought in his own shrinks to counteract their testimony, including one in particular with whom he’d forged a close relationship. She’d been a practicing psychiatrist for many years, and possessed what Rotondi considered a healthy disdain for much psychiatric theory, including the definition of insanity. As she often told him, “We’re too quick to label people who do bad things ‘sick.’ The truth is, there are plenty of people who aren’t sick at all. They’re just bad people, and labeling them as sick gives legitimate mental illness a bad name.”

  As Jeannette had spun her tale of the call from a man with a raspy voice, and the threat he’d issued, Rotondi couldn’t help but focus on the genesis of the problem, his college roommate, Lyle Simmons. Had Simmons’s lust for power carried him over that line separating unbridled levels of ambition from unlawful behavior—a descent into evil?

  “Look,” Rotondi said to Jeannette, “I’m sure this will work out. I’ll take a look at what this guy sent you and figure out where to go with it.”

  “I have to talk to Neil.”

  “And you should.”

  “I don’t know if he’ll listen to me, Phil. If he doesn’t, will you try to get him to see the light? He’s always admired you.”

  “I’m sure he’ll listen to you, Jeannette. Ready to go back? I’ll drive you to the hotel and we can get that package for me.”

  She didn’t respond.

  “Jeannette?”

  “I want to stay with you, Phil.”

  He sighed. He’d wondered from the moment he’d received the call from her whether they would end up together. It wasn’t what he intended. But he certainly recognized that such a possibility existed, and had given considerable thought to what his response might be. In a sense—and he wasn’t especially proud of this thought—making love to Jeannette would represent some sort of sweet justice where Lyle was concerned. But that wasn’t Phil Rotondi’s style. Nor was taking advantage of someone’s vulnerability, and Jeannette had certainly joined the ranks of the vulnerable over the past couple of years. She’d confided her unhappiness to him before, never as directly as this evening, but her message was easily read by someone who knew her when—and now.

  He’d finally concluded that no matter what transpired during her visit, it would not involve sex.

  “Can I stay with you tonight?” she repeated.

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Jeannette.”

  “Should my feelings be hurt?” she asked.

  “No. You know I love you and have since the first day we met. But things didn’t work out.”

  Her laugh was rueful. “And how did they work out, Phil? God, I was such a fool, getting pregnant by Lyle and marrying him. Why do we have to wait until we’re old before we get wise?”

  “I suppose that’s the way it was planned by somebody.”

  “God? If so, he has a cruel sense of humor.”

  “Let me heat up some coffee for us.”

  “I want a drink, Phil, a nightcap.”

  “Now that you’re older and wiser, you know alcohol isn’t going to solve anything.”

  “It may not solve anything, Phil, but it sure eases the pain. Please.”

  They sat quietly in the dark until Phil announced he had to walk Homer.

  “Go ahead,” she said. “Don’t be long.”

  He was gone fifteen minutes. When he returned, she’d stretched out on the couch and was asleep. He covered her with a caftan that his mother once used to cover him as a boy, tiptoed into the bedroom with Homer at his side, lay down, and allowed his eyes to close. When they opened, early-morning sun streamed through the window.

  Jeannette was already up and sitting on a small patio at the front of the condo. He made them breakfast, showered—she said she’d wait until returning to the hotel—and drove her to her pale blue Lexus in the Marriott’s parking lot. She opened the trunk, rummaged through paraphernalia, and came up with the FedEx package.

  “Here,” she said, handing it to him. She kissed his check and said, “Thanks for being wiser and stronger than I am, Phil. You always have been. I wish I’d married you.”

  He watched her walk quickly toward the hotel’s entrance and disappear through the doors.

  NINETEEN

  “What’s new with the Simmons investigation?” Smith asked Rotondi after they’d taken at a table in the Garden Café.

  “Not much. Morris Crimley says they’re making progress. They have trace evidence they think might be important.”

  “I see that they’re holding some drifter.”

  “They have to hold somebody. They’re getting a lot of pressure to solve this thing.”

  “How’s the senator holding up?”

  “He’s holding up fine, no surprise. He always does. The press seems to be cutting him some slack, although they still keep harping on the state of his marriage.”

  “Objective journalism at its best,” Smith muttered. “What’s your take on the murder, Phil? You’re obviously more than just a curious bystander.”

  Rotondi thought for a moment before responding. “I’m convinced, Mac, that Jeannette Simmons wasn’t killed by some passerby. She was killed because of what she knew.”

  “Knew about what?”

  “Not here. It’s sensitive stuff. But I do want to run something past you later. Let me just say for now that Jeannette was in possession of information that could blow her husband’s career out of the water, and take down their son, too, along with the lobbying firm he works for.”

  Mac exhaled and raised his eyebrows. “That’s pretty heavy stuff. You will elaborate now that you’ve captured my complete and undivided attention.”

  “Of co
urse I will. That’s why getting together was so appealing to me. Let’s get food out of the way first.”

  After lunch, they entered a nearby pocket park and sat on its only bench. A leafy elm provided dappled shade from the sun.

  “You’re pretty well connected in this town, Mac,” Rotondi said.

  “Not that I try to be.”

  “You’ve always had a reputation as a stand-up guy who doesn’t tell tales out of school. You were the most honorable defense lawyer I’ve ever known.”

  “Are you saying I’m the best of a bad bunch?” Smith said, playfully.

  “I’m saying that you’re someone I know I can trust.”

  “I’ll try to live up to that,” Smith said. “Are you in legal trouble?”

  Rotondi grinned. “Get right to it, huh? No, I’m not in any trouble, at least not yet. I’ll get to the point, too. I have information Jeannette Simmons gave me a month before she died. It came from an unnamed guy in Chicago who called and said he was sending it, and that unless she came up with money, he’d use it to destroy the family.”

  “What sort of information?”

  “Dirt on Senator Simmons and the Marshalk Group, ties to organized crime, money laundering through Marshalk that ends up in Simmons’s coffers. There are photos, too, of Lyle with a woman in Chicago who has ties to the mob.” Rotondi winced. “Pictures like that are supposed to be salacious and erotic. They’re almost comical, all those limbs intertwined, the expression of the senator’s face while in the heat of the moment. It would almost make you think that sex is overrated, unless you’re a United States senator with his eyes on the White House. Not so funny then.”

  “How much money is this guy after?”

  “I don’t know. That’s what’s strange about this, Mac. Jeannette never heard from him again. I kept in touch with her by phone almost every day during the period between when she gave me the material and her murder.”

  “Not a very efficient blackmailer.”

  “Most criminals aren’t that smart.”

  “Why did she give the material to you?” Smith asked.