Murder on K Street

by Margaret Truman

  “That’s ridiculous,” Marbury snapped.

  “About the DNA?” Crimley said.

  “This is getting out of control,” Marbury said.

  “We have reason to believe that you went inside the Simmons house that afternoon, Mr. Marbury. We have your fingerprints from the scene.”

  Marbury fought to maintain control of his emotions, unsuccessfully. He slapped his hand on the table and said in a loud voice, “I have never been inside that house. Never!”

  “Where were you last night?” Widletz asked from across the room.

  “Last night? I was home.”

  “Before that.”

  “I was—I was at a party. Someone from the firm was leaving, and we had a party for her.”

  “Camelia Watson?” Crimley said.

  “Yes. Camelia Watson. What does she have to do with this?”

  “You were with her last night?”

  “Of course I was. I was at her party and—”

  “What about after the party?” Widletz asked. She’d now come to the table and stood directly behind Marbury, and close.

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Oh, come on, Mr. Marbury,” Crimley weighed in. “You drove her home, didn’t you? You left the party with her, went to the Fly Lounge, had a few more drinks, and drove her home.”

  “I wasn’t drunk,” Marbury quickly said.

  “We are not talking about driving drunk, sir,” Chang said.

  “Then what are you talking about?”

  “About her death.”

  Marbury felt as though a javelin had pierced his midsection. He searched for words, stumbled, and finally managed, “Camelia is dead?”

  “You didn’t know?” Chang asked.

  “No, of course not. She was alive when I last saw her.”

  “When was that?”

  “As you said, I drove her home from the Fly Lounge and walked her into the lobby of her apartment building. We said good night and I left. You can ask the doorman.”

  “We did,” said Chang. “He says that he did not see you leave the building.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Marbury protested. “He…wait a minute. He disappeared from the lobby before I left.”

  “Uh-huh,” Crimley muttered.

  “He left through a door behind the desk,” Marbury added.

  “Right,” said Crimley.

  Marbury looked from detective to detective, his expression a melding of concern and pleading. “I don’t believe this,” he said, growing smaller in the chair as though air had been released from his body. “Camelia dead? You think I was in the house when Mrs. Simmons was killed. This is a nightmare.”

  “Care to change anything you’ve said so far, Mr. Marbury?” Crimley asked.

  Marbury didn’t reply.

  “The DNA,” Chang said. “We will be able to get a court order if you do not cooperate.”

  “Of course I’ll cooperate,” said Marbury. “I have nothing to hide.”

  Crimley was summoned from the room. When he returned, he announced that questioning would stop. Marbury’s lawyer had called.

  “Who?” Marbury asked.

  “You travel in good company,” Crimley said. “Mackensie Smith says he’s representing you. He’s on his way.” Crimley motioned for Chang and Widletz to follow him from the room. “Relax, Mr. Marbury. We’ll be back once your attorney arrives.”

  Smith and Marla Coleman showed up twenty minutes later. She was told to wait in the reception area while Smith was brought to the interrogation room.

  “I can’t believe what’s happening to me,” Marbury told him. “They say I was in the Simmons house the day she was murdered. That’s not true, Mac. And I just learned that Camelia Watson died last night. They think I might have had something to do with it.”

  Smith, who was about to leave his apartment for a tennis game when a frantic Marla called, had changed into a blue blazer, white shirt, slacks, and tie. Marbury started to elaborate on the situation but Smith stopped him, glancing up at the two-way glass. “Not here,” he said. “Have they charged you with anything specific?” he asked.

  “No. They said something about impeding an investigation because I didn’t freely tell them that I’d been at the house delivering an envelope. I meant to do that this morning.”

  “Okay, Jonell,” Smith said, standing. “Let me go talk with them.”

  He found Crimley just outside the room.

  “Microphone’s turned off, Counselor,” the detective said.

  “I wouldn’t expect any less,” Smith said. “Where can we talk?”

  They settled in Crimley’s office.

  “What’ve you got?” Smith asked the barrel-chested detective.

  “Plenty. We’ve got his print off a glass in the kitchen of the Simmons residence, but he says he’s never been inside the house. He was there late afternoon the day she was killed but doesn’t bother to tell us that little fact until we pick him up. He says his boss, Rick Marshalk, told him to not come to the police with that information, but Marshalk says otherwise, says he encouraged him to do it.

  “We’ve got a hair from the downstairs bathroom, African American hair. He says he’ll be happy to give us a DNA sample. Wanna bet he matches up with it?

  “And last night, a lady he drives home from a party falls, or jumps, or is pushed off her eighth-floor balcony. Some folks from that party say that he and the deceased were pretty cozy. His girlfriend storms out of the party because he’s paying too much attention to the deceased, and the doorman at her building claims he didn’t see your client leave that night. Of course, your client claims the doorman disappeared conveniently just as he was walking out.

  “I’d say we’ve got plenty of reason to hold him, wouldn’t you, Counselor?”

  Smith smiled. “I’d say you have reason to consider him a person of interest, Morrie, but hold him? No. He’s a respected member of the community, used to work for a congresswoman, now a lobbyist. If he agrees to provide a DNA sample, it’s all right with me. But the questioning stops unless you charge him with something.”

  “How about double homicide?”

  Smith’s smile vanished. “I’ve always appreciated cops’ sense of humor. I saw the TV reports this morning of the woman who fell from her apartment. From what I heard, it looks like a suicide.”

  “Could be. I just find it interesting that your client shows up at two unnatural death scenes, and lies.”

  “Maybe he’s not lying.”

  “He says he was never inside the Simmons house, but his prints on a glass, and his hair in a bathroom, say otherwise. Forensics don’t lie. People do.”

  “Some people. I’ll go back and tell him to let you swab his mouth for DNA. After we leave, Morrie, you can always reach him through me as his attorney.”

  “Good to see you again, Mac Smith. I thought you’d packed in your law practice to teach a whole new gang of defense attorneys over at GW. What brings you out of retirement?”

  “Jonell Marbury is a friend.”

  “He’s lucky. Okay. He submits to a DNA sample, and he walks out of here with you. His lady is out front. We’ll want to talk to him again.”

  “Of course.”

  A swab from Marbury’s cheek was taken, and Smith escorted him to where Marla waited. After she and Jonell embraced, and she’d wiped tears from her face, they left headquarters and went to Smith’s car.

  “We can’t thank you enough,” Marla said to Smith.

  “Happy I could help,” Mac said. “Now let’s go to my apartment where you can tell me everything, Jonell—and I mean everything.”

  Rotondi caught a few updates on Camelia Watson’s death from TV news, but there wasn’t much additional to report. As he was about to call for a taxi to take him to Reagan National Airport, Rick Marshalk’s face appeared on the TV screen, interviewed by a reporter.

  “Camelia’s death is a true tragedy for all of us at the Marshalk Group,” Marshalk said solemnly. “Sh
e was an outstanding young woman with a great future.”

  The reporter said, “The police are saying that it’s an apparent suicide. Did you see signs of despondency in her recently?”

  “Unfortunately, I did. Of course, you never think that someone who appears to be depressed will take his or her own life this way. But yes, she’d been depressed lately. I asked her about it and offered to help, but she said she was fine. All I know is that we will miss her greatly.”

  Another story followed.

  Rotondi made his call and went to the kitchen to take pain pills before heading for the airport. He pulled a glass from a cabinet, filled it with water, and downed the capsules. He placed the half-empty glass in the sink and started to walk away. But he stopped, returned, and retrieved the glass. Everything in Emma’s home kitchen came from her catering business—glasses, silverware, plates, cups and saucers, pots and pans, table mats, carving knives, serving spoons, toothpicks, and wooden skewers, all nontaxable perks. He held the glass up to the light coming through a window and frowned as he ran his fingertips over the surface, tracing the almost indiscernible indentations on it. He didn’t know why, but that particular water glass had meaning to him at that moment.

  He continued to ponder it until he heard a blowing horn from outside. He placed the glass back in the sink, grabbed his overnight bag, roughed up Homer’s coat and kissed him on the snout, and left.

  “Aren’t you going to work?” Alexandra Simmons said to her husband, Neil, that morning. It was ten o’clock and he was still in nightclothes.

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I don’t want to. I can’t believe this has happened—first Mom, now Camelia. I just want to crawl under the covers and stay there.”

  “You were with her last night. Did she seem suicidal to you?”

  “No. She was never suicidal. I mean, I didn’t stay long at the party, just long enough to make an appearance. She seemed fine.”

  “You never can tell about people,” said Alex. “Remember that woman, Jacqueline, from up the street? She was the happiest person you could ever want to meet until she ran a hose from the exhaust of her car into it. You just never can tell.”

  He sat glumly at the table.

  “What did Rick say when he called?”

  “What?”

  “Rick,” she snapped. “You never listen to me. I asked what Rick said when he called with the news.”

  “Oh, sorry. Rick said that he’d been noticing for a while now that Camelia was depressed. He said he was worried and even talked to a friend of his, a psychiatrist, about her. He was sure I’d noticed the same thing.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  “No. Absolutely not. I mean, I knew that she was unhappy working at Marshalk and wanted to go back to her job at Justice. That’s what she decided to do, which would have made her happy, not depressed.”

  “Well,” said Alexandra, “it’s too late for any psychiatrist to do anything for her now. Poor thing. I don’t think I could ever kill myself by jumping off a high place.” She grimaced and shook her head.

  One of their sons came into the kitchen. “Is Daddy sick?” he asked Alex, noticing his father’s attire.

  “Yes, Daddy’s sick,” she said.

  “I’m not sick,” Neil said angrily. “I’m—I’m—I’m sad, that’s all. Why wouldn’t I be? Jesus, try and understand.”

  The boy pouted and left the room. Alex got up from the table and rinsed out the coffee carafe, saying as she did, “I have girls’ day today, Neil. They’re coming for lunch. I really don’t want you hanging around all day in your pajamas.”

  “All right,” he said. “I’ll be gone by then.”

  He went to the bedroom, closed the door, and climbed into bed. The news of Camelia’s plunge to her death had short-circuited him that morning. Not that he wasn’t already in a fragile emotional state. As potent as the news of his mother’s murder had been initially, the reality and weight of it seemed to increase as the days passed; time was not healing all wounds, as some claimed. There were physical manifestations, too. His legs had become heavy and unsteady, like an old man who has lost muscle mass, or alcoholics who seem to search for the ground with each unsure step. His convictions were as unsteady as his gait. He couldn’t identify anything in which he believed. Nothing mattered. Whatever had become his most frequently used word since the murder of his mother. Want to watch something on TV? “Whatever.” Potatoes or rice with dinner? “Whatever.”

  He’d tried to codify his feelings, to make sense of them. He’d even resorted to writing down his inner thoughts as a means of structuring them. A business writing class he’d taken at his father’s school, the University of Illinois, had stressed that often the act of writing helped clarify thinking, rather than thinking being a prerequisite for clear writing. Horse before cart? He’d been bored in that class, as he had been in most classes, his GPA reflecting it, mediocre at best but enough to graduate.

  As he cowered in his king-size bed, legs drawn up in the fetal position, the covers pulled up to his chin, he tried to cry but couldn’t. His reservoir of tears was empty. He wanted to cry out but the energy wasn’t there.

  He wanted to die, but didn’t have the will to bring about his death.

  He hadn’t meant harm to come to anyone as a result of what he’d done.

  It seemed so right at the time, so noble.

  And it had turned out so wrong.

  TWENTY-THREE

  The taxi driver dropped Rotondi at the general aviation section of Reagan National Airport, where a sleek, twin-engine Gulfstream III jet aircraft stood waiting on the tarmac. Senator Simmons’s chief of staff, Alan McBride, and Press Secretary Peter Markowicz were already inside the operations building when Rotondi walked in.

  “Where’s the senator?” Rotondi asked.

  “On his way,” McBride said. “Should be here any minute.

  “Is Polly coming?” McBride asked Markowicz.

  “She begged off,” Markowicz replied. The men exchanged knowing glances.

  “Polly was supposed to be with us?” Rotondi said.

  “Yeah,” said Markowicz. “The senator thought she’d enjoy a day in Chicago. Didn’t work out.”

  They looked through a window as Senator Simmons’s black Mercedes pulled up, Walter McTeague at the wheel. The senator got out, said something to McTeague, and strode into the building.

  “Good morning,” Simmons said. “Looks like a nice day for a flight.”

  “Couldn’t be better, Senator,” McBride agreed.

  “How are you this morning?” Simmons asked Rotondi.

  “Just fine. You?”

  “Must have slept wrong,” Simmons said, rotating his head. “I’ve got a crick in my neck.”

  The flight’s captain led them to the plane, where his first officer was conducting a last-minute walk-around visual check.

  “That’s a mean-looking machine,” Simmons commented.

  “Top of the line,” the captain said. “Ready to board?”

  “Yes, sir,” said Simmons. “Let’s go.”

  The interior of the sleek business jet was all leather and chrome. It looked to Rotondi that it would seat a dozen people, and he wondered whether others would join them. The closing of the passenger door answered that question. There would be just the four of them in the back, with the two-man crew up front. The first officer came to where they’d chosen their overstuffed, swiveling tan leather club chairs and announced that he’d be back to serve coffee and pastries once they were at cruising altitude. “There’s a bar, too. Help yourselves. It’s fully stocked.”

  Rotondi was impressed with the aircraft’s power as it lifted from the runway, the nation’s capital falling away below. They soon reached their assigned cruising altitude, and the first officer fulfilled his promise of a continental breakfast. Markowicz, who sat next to Simmons, said, “How about moving to the rear, Senator? There’re some things to discuss.”


  Simmons replied, “Anything can be discussed in front of Phil, Peter. He knows why we’re going to Chicago.”

  “Fair enough,” Markowicz said, smiling at Rotondi. He said to the senator, “Some press has gotten wind of the meeting and the reason for it.”

  “Who?”

  “I got a call this morning from a reporter at the Post. She wanted to know who would be attending the meeting, and whether they’d signed on to your campaign.”

  Simmons laughed. “Campaign? What campaign? I haven’t announced anything. I assume you straightened her out.”

  “I don’t know whether she’s straightened out or not, but I told her that you were going to Chicago to attend a fund-raiser for your next senatorial run. I don’t think she bought it.”

  “What about the Chicago press? Do you think they’ll be on it?”

  “Beats me” was Markowicz’s response. “I’m working with our PR people there. They’ve got their finger on things. We won’t be blindsided.”

  As Simmons and his two top staff people continued to discuss the upcoming meeting and possible media interest in it, Rotondi reclined his leather chair and contemplated where he was and why he was there. Should he, Philip Rotondi, son of a shoemaker from Batavia, New York, feel privileged to have been included in this inner circle, seated next to a possible future president of the United States and listening to conversations to which few were privy? The most influential journalists in the land didn’t enjoy this level of access.

  His overnight bag sat on the carpeted floor next to him. In it was the file Jeannette had given him when they were together on the Eastern Shore. There was a certain irony, he knew, in having such damaging information within a few feet of the man who might one day end up in the White House. He’d considered pulling Simmons aside and laying it all out for him, and knew that the time would probably come when he would do just that. But at this stage, he preferred to keep his friend’s confidence and to wait until he’d had a chance to learn more about the source of the salacious, damning material. That’s why he’d agreed to accompany Simmons to Chicago. The answers to his questions, he now knew, were in the Windy City.