Murder at Ford's Theatre

by Margaret Truman

  “All right.”

  When they reached the room, its occupants were playing a computer video game, the music again cranked up to an uncomfortable level. After getting them to lower the volume and to turn away from the computer screen, Klayman said, “Joe Cole says he talked to you after his date with Nadia Zarinski over the weekend.”

  “He said that?”

  “Yeah. What did he tell you?”

  The roommates looked at each other before one said, “He was bellyaching like he always does about Nadia.”

  “He was angry with her?”

  The other roommate guffawed. “Angry? He was boiling, a volcano erupting.”

  “Over what?”

  “Over Nadia.”

  “Yeah, but what had she done to make him so mad?”

  The second roommate cocked his head and asked, “You sure Joe said he’d talked with us?”

  “Go ask him,” Klayman said, confident they wouldn’t.

  “She was always seeing other guys. Not that Joe was serious about her, like marriage or anything. Nobody would want to marry somebody like Nadia. But—”

  “Why do you say that?” Klayman asked. He looked to Marcia, whose discomfort with the conversation was obvious.

  “Because she was a round heels,” the student said. “Sleeping around with everybody. I mean, that’s good for fun, but serious? Nah. Joe wasn’t serious about her.”

  “So why did he get mad if he wasn’t serious?”

  “Because she goes out with him, like, you know, to a fancy restaurant and all, like that, and then she hops in the sack with somebody else who doesn’t spend a nickel on her. That makes you pretty mad, huh, like you’re being played for a sucker.”

  “Joe felt like he was being played for a sucker?”

  They nodded in unison, a matching pair of toy dogs in the rear window of a moving car.

  “What did he tell you about the weekend?” Klayman asked.

  Shrugs, then, “He took her to this nice Italian restaurant and goes back to her place to make it with her. He says the minute they were through, she starts talking about another guy she’s seeing who she tells Joe is a better lover than him. What do you think of that?”

  “He mention who this other guy was?”

  “You don’t know?”

  Klayman wrote in his notebook and ignored the question.

  “Big deal. So he’s a senator’s kid and all. He’s a bum.”

  Klayman looked up from his notebook. “What senator?”

  “Lerner.” It was spoken as though the world knew. “His son, Jerry. Him and Nadia have been getting it on for months.”

  Klayman was tempted to correct his grammar but didn’t. “Nadia was dating Jeremiah Lerner?” he said.

  “Right, along with a dozen other guys. Man, what a slut.”

  “Are we finished here?” Marcia asked Klayman.

  He nodded, wrote down their home addresses, closed the notebook, thanked them for their time, and left the building with Marcia.

  “I must say I’m shocked,” she said as they returned to the Hamilton Building, where Klayman had parked his car. “I trust you won’t judge all our students by those two.”

  “Wouldn’t think of it,” Klayman responded. “Mr. Jessup said I could speak with Nadia’s faculty adviser.”

  “Yes. Would you like to do that now?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  JOHNSON WAS SITTING in his car in front of the Thai restaurant when Klayman pulled up. He got into Johnson’s vehicle.

  “How’d it go?” Johnson asked.

  “Good. Better than that. The victim was dating Senator Lerner’s son, Jeremiah.”

  Johnson whistled. “How’d you find that out?”

  “A guy who was also dating her, Joe Cole. Cole was angry because she was seeing Lerner. Cole had a date with her Saturday.”

  “Angry enough to do her in?”

  “I’d say so. Let’s go inside and check on Bancroft and his pal, Jones.”

  “We should have a picture of Bancroft,” Johnson said, opening his door. “To show the manager.”

  “Yeah, but we don’t have one. Maybe he’ll remember him because he’s—well . . .”

  Johnson laughed. “Strange.”

  Klayman laughed, too. “I prefer ‘eccentric.’”

  “You would.”

  A picture of Sydney Bancroft wasn’t necessary.

  “Oh, yes,” the manager of Duangrat’s and Rabieng said pleasantly. “Mr. Jones is a regular. Mr. Bancroft comes here often with him.”

  “They had dinner here Monday night?” Johnson asked.

  “Yes. Excuse me, please.”

  He returned moments later with the waiter who’d served them. “Sajing waited on them.”

  “You remember what time they came and left?” Klayman asked the small, achingly thin waiter.

  He flapped his hands as though such a question were beyond the capability of mere mortals.

  “Approximately,” Johnson helped.

  “Maybe seven. Maybe seven-thirty, they come. That table over there. Mr. Jones, he always sit at that table.”

  “He’s a regular,” the manager repeated.

  “How long did they stay?” Johnson asked.

  “Is Mr. Jones in trouble?” asked the manager.

  “No.”

  “They left at ten,” the manager said. “I remember because Mr. Bancroft, he—he had a great deal to drink and was entertaining people at other tables near them.”

  “Entertaining them?” said Johnson.

  “Saying speeches from William Shakespeare, acting for them. He has done that before—when he has had too much to drink. Very funny. The other customers enjoy him.”

  “Yeah, I bet they do,” Johnson muttered.

  “Mr. Jones, he had bhram,” the waiter said. “He always has bhram.”

  “A specialty,” the manager said. “Chicken with shallots, cabbage, and peanut sauce. Very good.”

  “I’m sure it is,” Johnson said. “So they were here from about seven until ten. They left together?”

  “Yes, although—”

  “Although what?” Klayman asked.

  “I went with them to the sidewalk,” the manager said. “They walked in separate directions.”

  “They say why, where they were going?” Johnson asked.

  “No. I did not ask. It would not be proper for me to pry.”

  “Very discreet,” Johnson said. “We’d appreciate you not telling Mr. Jones or Mr. Bancroft we were here asking questions about them.”

  “Of course.”

  Once outside, Johnson said, “So they weren’t together all night like they claim.”

  “Maybe they went in separate directions to—I don’t know, Mo, walk off the meal? Maybe one of them went to get the car.”

  “While the other one walks away? No way, Ricky. Hathaway wants us at headquarters. I told him we were meeting up here, and he said to come back when we were through.” Johnson whistled, louder this time. “Lerner’s kid dating the deceased, huh? Man, the plot thickens.”

  At a fast-food place where they stopped for lunch on the way to headquarters, Johnson filled Klayman in on his interview with Nadia Zarinski’s parents.

  “I’M SORRY TO HAVE TO MEET YOU under these circumstances,” Johnson told the parents as they sat in an interrogation room.

  “We appreciate that,” said Nadia’s father, a short, chunky man with ruddy cheeks, and wisps of gray hair jutting at odd angles from his baldpate.

  The mother, whose name was Judith—the father was Morton—was the same height as her husband, but appeared to be in better physical shape. Her features were sharp, her eyes steely. When she spoke, there was assurance in her voice, a woman used to being in charge. A nurse. No nonsense. She pulled a cigarette from her purse.

  “Sorry, ma’am, but we don’t allow smoking in here,” Johnson said gently. No surprise to him that she was a smoker. Most nurses he’d met smoked. Salty language was next, he assumed
.

  “My daughter has just been brutally murdered, and you’re worried about me smoking?” she said.

  “It’s not me, ma’am. Policy.”

  She shoved the cigarette back into her purse.

  “Judith is upset,” Morton said. “Of course, we both are.”

  “Who killed Nadia?” Judith asked.

  “We’re working on that, Mrs. Zarinski.”

  “Do you have any leads?”

  “A few,” replied Johnson. “Maybe you can help. Did your daughter share with you anything about who she might have been dating, close male friends, things like that?”

  “No,” Mr. Zarinski said. “Nadia didn’t talk much about such things.”

  “With the murder rate you have here in Washington, Detective Johnson, it could have been anyone who took our daughter’s life,” said Judith Zarinski. “It could have been some drug addict looking for money for a fix.”

  “Did your daughter use drugs?” Johnson asked.

  “Oh, no,” Morton said.

  Typical parent’s response, Johnson thought. “Not my little girl.”

  Johnson asked the mother, “Did Nadia confide in you, Mrs. Zarinski, about her romantic life? You know, mother and daughter kind of talk.”

  “On occasion. When she visited us in Florida. We hadn’t seen her in more than six months, though.”

  “She liked working at the theatre,” said Mr. Zarinski. “She told me that on the phone a few weeks ago.”

  “What about her internship with Senator Lerner?”

  Johnson asked it of both parents, and noted their reactions. The father winced; the mother met Johnson’s gaze, never blinking. “I suppose you’re getting at those rumors about the senator and Nadia,” she said.

  “I have to ask,” Johnson said. “Sorry.”

  “They both denied it,” said the mother, “and I certainly believed my daughter when she said there was nothing to it.”

  “Sure, I understand,” Johnson said. “She ever mention an old British actor named Sydney Bancroft?”

  Morton smiled and nodded enthusiastically. “She said he was a real character, really funny. She told me she thought he was abused at the theatre, not respected. She certainly respected him. That’s what she said.”

  “She tell you that he might have made advances toward her?”

  “Good heavens, no,” the father responded.

  Mrs. Zarinski took the bent cigarette from her purse and stood. “It’s obvious there’s been no real progress in finding Nadia’s killer. We’d like to arrange for Nadia to be flown to Florida for burial.”

  “That’ll depend on the medical examiner, Mrs. Zarinski. When there’s been a death under unusual circumstances, we have to keep the body until—”

  “Excuse me,” she said, and left the room.

  “Please try to understand Judith’s anger, Detective Johnson,” Morton said. “This has been a terrible shock.”

  “I know,” said Johnson. “Just another couple of questions, Mr. Zarinski. You paid for your daughter’s college education. Right?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you continued to pay her rent after she graduated. Right again?”

  “That’s right. We encouraged her to accept the internship with Senator Lerner because the experience would be invaluable, even though it didn’t pay anything. I considered it a form of graduate school.”

  Johnson decided to not burst the father’s bubble about the internship. Had the daughter deliberately lied, calling it unpaid, in order to continue pocketing money from her parents? It appeared that way.

  “One last question, sir. What kind of a person was Nadia?”

  “In what way?”

  “Adventuresome? Kind of shy and retiring? A loner? Enjoy partying?”

  “Nadia wasn’t a loner, Detective. That’s for certain. She loved people. People seemed to gravitate to her. No, Nadia was a real people person.” His eyes became moist, and he wiped at one with the back of his hand. “Sorry.”

  “Nothing to be sorry about, Mr. Zarinski.” Johnson stood and extended his hand. “Look, you and your wife try and be patient for the next few days. I’ll keep in touch.” He handed the father his card, on which he’d written his home phone number. “Day or night, Mr. Zarinski. Call day or night.”

  “Thank you,” the father said, slipping the card into his shirt pocket. “You’ve been very kind.”

  “NO HELP FROM THEM, huh?” Klayman said to his partner as they finished their grilled chicken sandwiches.

  “No. Nice people. The father looks like he’s confused. I don’t blame him. I kept thinking about my kids and how I’d react if I got a call telling me one of ’em was dead. Probably act more like the mother. Where’s the action? Who’s the scum who did it? You know?”

  Klayman said nothing, not because he didn’t agree, but because he agreed too much. He considered bringing children into the world an act of extreme courage, and knew he didn’t possess that brand of bravery. Was it selfish to have children, or to decide not to? It probably didn’t matter why the thought of marrying and having babies was anathema to him. It simply was. It seemed you got married and babies naturally came as part of the deal. No decision involved. He’d met young women who’d professed agreement with his viewpoint. “I really don’t want children,” he’d say. And they’d respond, “Oh, I agree. I don’t see why people can’t get married and not have children.” “You really feel that way?” he’d ask. “Absolutely,” they’d reply. Somehow, he didn’t believe them. You got married and the babies came. Maternal needs took over at some point. It was in the genes, in the hormones.

  “Let’s get out of here,” he growled, his voice mirroring the foul mood that had descended upon him. Such introspection always seemed to do that.

  ELEVEN

  CLARISE EMERSON HAD LUNCH at her desk at Ford’s Theatre before heading for the final briefing session in preparation for her confirmation hearing. The meeting was held, as it usually was, in a small, seldom used conference room in the Executive Office Building, directly across from the White House.

  “You certainly charmed good ol’ Senator Sybers,” one of three people from the administration’s presidential personnel office said after Clarise had taken her customary chair across from her mock inquisitors. The woman was one of eleven people on the team the White House had assembled to whip Clarise into shape as a witness. It was informally known as the Murder Team, and the intensity of their questioning had led Clarise to consider it an apt description.

  “The president had coffee with Sybers this morning,” the woman in charge of President Nash’s task force responsible for the arts and humanities agencies said lightly. “The senator said you were ‘one damned impressive lady.’” She delivered the line the way a very old southerner would.

  “That’s good to hear,” said Clarise. “He was charming when we met. I think he was flirting with me.”

  A lawyer on the team laughed. “Senator Sybers is one of the biggest flirts in Congress. He may be eighty-six years old, but he still has an eye.”

  “Southern shtick,” said a publicist, who’d been brought in to generate positive press for Clarise and her quest to head the NEA. “The senator’s charming, all right. It’s a shame his politics aren’t.”

  “How do the numbers look so far?” Clarise asked.

  “Solid. Unless somebody drops a bombshell, I’d say your confirmation is a slam dunk.”

  Clarise sat back and smiled. “What would we do without sports metaphors?” she asked, more of herself than of the other people at the table. She came forward. “Now, what’s on tap for today?”

  A young man from intergovernmental affairs spoke. “The way we see it, Ms. Emerson, the last possible sticking point could be that film you coproduced a dozen years ago, the one with incest as its theme. And these.” He pulled half a dozen posters from a large black carrying case and displayed them on the table, promotional material for made-for-TV motion pictures Clarise had produced. “Senator
Sybers has been circulating these to members of Congress, along with other things he considers examples of your lack of morality.”

  “Do I lack morality?” Clarise asked everyone with a sweep of her head. She laughed. “God, I hope not. It’s no fun without morality.”

  “All in the eye of the beholder. As far as Sybers is concerned, he’s the last bastion of morality in America.”

  “The film you mentioned,” Clarise said. “You’re talking about that film.”

  “Yes,” said the White House arts and humanities czar. “Sybers pointed to it a couple of years ago as an example of why the NEA shouldn’t receive an increase in funding.”

  “As I remember it,” Clarise said, “it wasn’t that he didn’t want to increase government funding. He wanted to eliminate funding.”

  “He always does. Either way, he cited that movie as an example of what he considered the sort of prurient material the NEA funds.”

  “But it wasn’t,” Clarise said, extending her hands in a gesture of frustration. “That film was privately funded.”

  “It’s all the same to the senator, Clarise. Anything that offends his moral compass gets lumped together. Did he mention the film when you met with him?”

  “No.”

  A lawyer handed Clarise a sheet of paper with a dozen lines of type. “Talking points when that film and your role in producing it come up. Take a minute to study them. Then we’ll run you through questions about it. Stick to the talking points. They represent answers that some of the senators will want to hear. If you get off-message, it will open up other questions you might not be prepared to handle.”

  The Murder Team’s grilling of Clarise went on for a half hour. When it was over, someone asked her about the killing at Ford’s Theatre.

  “Incredible,” Clarise said. “A murdered young woman right at my doorstep.”

  “Any leads?”

  “Not that I’m aware of.”

  There was an awkward silence at the table before one of the lawyers said, “The rumors about the young woman who was killed and your former husband, Senator Lerner. Is that liable to get messy?”

  “Oh, come on,” Clarise said. “Why should it? It was just a nasty rumor spread by a disgruntled former aide to Bruce. Why should it have any bearing on my confirmation?”