Murder at Ford's Theatre

by Margaret Truman

  “It shouldn’t,” replied the lawyer. “But you never know what some of the committee members will dredge up, especially crafty curmudgeons like Sybers. We just don’t want any surprises.”

  “Are any people on your staff suspects?” asked another attorney.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “You’re not, are you?”

  “Of course not.”

  “No surprise witnesses liable to show up to testify against you?”

  Clarise shook her head back and forth, as far as it would go. “This is a little late for that, isn’t it?” she said. “My God, you’ve investigated me as though I were up to head the Atomic Energy Commission. What surprise witnesses could there possibly be?”

  One of two friendly senators’ assistants on the team said, “Too much has gone into this process to leave room for bolts from the blue, Clarise, that’s all. The murder at the theatre is an unfortunate thing. Bad timing.”

  “Murder,” Clarise muttered. “The ultimate pornography. Look, my friends, my life has become an open book. If there is some surprise in the woodwork, it’ll shock me as much as it shocks you—or the senators.”

  “Good,” said the White House arts liaison. “You’ve been a real trouper, Clarise. Anything else anyone wants to raise?”

  No one responded, and the meeting broke up. On her way out, Clarise was taken aside by the president’s arts chief: “Vice President Maloney asked me to send her best, Clarise. She’s firmly in your corner, as you know.”

  “Please say hello for me. I owe her a call. It’s been so busy that—”

  “Of course. I’ll tell her you’ll be in touch. Keep your chin up. It’ll be over soon.”

  “It can’t be soon enough.”

  Clarise headed back to Ford’s Theatre, where she huddled with Bernard Crowley for the rest of the afternoon going over plans for two upcoming fund-raisers: a cocktail party for members of the theatre’s board of trustees, each of whom had paid at least $10,000 for the privilege of serving; and the annual Festival at Ford’s, a nationally televised variety show that generated large sums of money for the theatre and was traditionally attended by a who’s who of Washington government officials and social leading lights, including the president and vice president and their families.

  “It looks like you have things in your usual good order, Bernard.”

  “I try to, Clarise.” He placed a hand on her shoulder. “I just don’t know how you do it,” he said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “How you manage to juggle so many things. Running the theatre society, getting ready for a senate grilling, all your social obligations, and now having to put up with a murder investigation.”

  “In the genes, I suppose. Dumb enough to enjoy the challenge. Have the police been back?”

  “I don’t think so. At least they haven’t been up here in the offices. Sydney called when you were at your briefing.”

  “And?”

  “Said he wasn’t feeling well and was staying home.”

  “What about the teen show?”

  “He said to tell you it’s coming along fine. They’re rehearsing tomorrow. I must say, Clarise, that Sydney is becoming more erratic. Maybe ‘insufferable’ is more accurate.”

  Hers was a gentle laugh; this time it was her hand on his shoulder. “Could we not discuss Sydney today, Bernard?”

  As though not hearing her, he said, “I think you should know that Sydney is a serious suspect in Nadia’s murder.”

  She stared. “How do you know that?”

  “One of the stagehands. Wales. He told me that when the police questioned him, he told them that Sydney showed an unnatural interest in Nadia. He said Sydney was always touching her and making lewd comments. The police were extremely interested, Wales says.”

  “I don’t believe it,” she said.

  “You may not want to believe it, Clarise, but it’s a fact.”

  “I hope it isn’t a fact, Bernard. Had you heard anything about Sydney and Nadia before?”

  “No, of course I didn’t. Are you going to ask Sydney about it?”

  “Not unless I have to. I’d like to talk to the police first.”

  “They won’t tell you anything. But I’ll keep my ears open.”

  “Yes, do that, Bernard. I have to leave now. There’s a party at the Millennium Arts Center I must stop in on, and dinner with some AT&T people. I think they might want to sponsor one of the shows next season in addition to their usual support.”

  As she left the building and said good night to a park ranger on duty at the desk downstairs, her thoughts were on what Crowley had told her about Bancroft. She hadn’t been honest when she’d said she didn’t believe the claim that Bancroft had made improper advances to Nadia Zarinski. It was more a matter of not wanting to believe it.

  “Damned old fool,” she said under her breath as she hailed a cab and gave the turbaned driver the address of the arts center in southwest Washington.

  TWELVE

  “I DON’T UNDERSTAND why a husband has to be in the delivery room when his wife delivers a baby,” Hathaway snapped at Klayman and Johnson the moment the detectives entered his office at First District headquarters. “Wallace’s wife’s having a baby, so he takes off for the day. It was better when my kids were born. My wife had the kids, and I went to work.”

  “It’s an event you don’t want to miss,” Johnson said.

  “Were you there when your kids were born, Mo?”

  “No, but I wish I had been.”

  Hathaway’s eyes rolled up in his head. “Who wants to see that bloody mess anyway?” His eyes returned to straight and level. “So, what do you have?”

  Klayman led off. “I talked to some students who knew the deceased—or knew about her. They portray her as being sexually active; one called her a ‘round heels.’ I didn’t think anybody used that expression anymore. She was dating a student named Joe Cole. I spoke with Cole. He was out to dinner with the deceased Saturday night. They made love back at her apartment after dinner. He says he left because she wasn’t feeling well and didn’t see her again. Other students I talked to claim Cole was angry about the way the date turned out because, according to them—and they’re quoting him—she told him that another guy she was dating was a better lover.”

  “That must have given his ego a hell of a boost,” Hathaway said.

  “Tell him who the other guy is,” Johnson told Klayman.

  “Jeremiah Lerner.”

  “Ooooh,” said Hathaway. “The senator’s son?”

  “Yup.”

  “We have an address on him?” Hathaway asked.

  “Easy to get,” said Johnson.

  “The chief was on with the senator today,” Hathaway said, leaning back as far as his chair would allow, and rubbing his eyes. “He agrees to talk to us, but not here. They’re working out a deal. Don’t you love it? Somebody gets murdered, and we have to cut a deal to talk to him.”

  “I want to run a background on Cole,” Klayman said. “According to the other students, he was mad enough to want to kill her.”

  “What do we do about the Lerner kid?” Johnson asked.

  “Go talk to him,” Hathaway said. “His old man’s immunity doesn’t cover the kid.”

  “Oh, by the way,” Klayman said, “I also spoke with the deceased’s faculty adviser at American. Kind of interesting what she said. She says Ms. Zarinski wasn’t much of a student, just managed to get by. This adviser says she couldn’t understand how Zarinski ever landed an internship in any political office, let alone with a senator like Lerner. The school’s got a great reputation in political affairs and international service, and lots of good students in them. But Ms. Zarinski almost flunks the only courses she took in those disciplines, and never bothers to register with the internship department. But she ends up with Senator Bruce Lerner—”

  “And with a paid internship, too,” Johnson added.

  “Right.”

  “I’m interes
ted in what Johnson got out of the parents,” Hathaway said. “She’s getting paid by Lerner’s office, but she lies to her parents and says she isn’t getting paid. So they keep sending money, pick up the rent, who knows what else?”

  “The jewelry?” Johnson asked. “I should have asked how much they gave her every month. Enough for the baubles?”

  “Ask ’em,” Hathaway said. “They’re still around. Just keep the mother away from me. She’s been breaking my chops since they got here. Okay. Run down the Lerner kid and see what he has to say.”

  “How do we handle him?” Klayman asked. “Is he a suspect?”

  “If you mean do you have to read him his rights, the answer is no. Nobody’s a suspect yet, at least officially. I’ve got a warrant out for the Partridge character to be picked up as a material witness.”

  “Why?”

  “To cover our rear ends.” Klayman’s and Johnson’s glances at each other were swift and discreet. Our rear ends? they thought in concert. Hathaway was the one who’d decided to release the old drunk.

  “Maybe we run a lineup for Partridge with this Cole guy, or Lerner, or anybody else,” their boss said. “For the record.”

  “Good idea, Herman,” Johnson said.

  The answer to Jeremiah’s address was close at hand. He had a rap sheet, which gave his address, an apartment in the Adams-Morgan section of the city, and phone number—at least as of the date of his last arrest, which was three months ago. A girlfriend had brought charges against him for assault and battery, claiming he struck her during a domestic dispute. He’d spent the night in jail but was released the following morning after the young woman chose to not press charges. The incident had received a small mention in the Washington Times. Two earlier arrests involved a bar fight, and marijuana possession. Both charges were summarily thrown out; the arresting officers in each instance were never told why, although the popular assumption was that political pressure had been brought. The D.C. police prided themselves on not bowing to pressure by the highly placed; whether internal reality matched up with that public posture was conjecture. This was Washington, D.C., where almost anything was possible.

  A male answered sleepily, “He’s not here.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Work.”

  “Where does he work?”

  “The Millennium Arts Center, over in Southwest.”

  “He’s there now?”

  A loud, prolonged yawn preceded, “Five o’clock. He goes to work at five.”

  Hang up.

  THIRTEEN

  TOPPER SYBERS, senior senator from Alabama, slipped the mask over his mouth and nose and drew in the cold, pure oxygen. The delivery unit was on a stand next to his massive desk in his office in the Dirksen Senate Office Building, at First and C Streets. The eighty-six-year-old senator had the largest office in the building, and over the years it had turned into a museum of sorts, chockablock with mementos of his eight terms in the senior congressional body.

  An aide poked her head through the door. “Senator Lerner is on his way, Senator,” she said.

  Sybers removed the mask. “Send him in soon as he gets here.”

  A lifetime of heavy smoking had taken its predictable toll on Sybers’s lungs and heart. He’d “officially” quit smoking twenty years ago, but was an inveterate cheat. One of his office workers had, among other duties, the responsibility of delivering to him an occasional cigarette when the urge struck. At least he’d given up cigars, was the sentiment of those who’d been with him for years. Still, the odor of hundreds of cigars from the past had permeated the carpeting and drapes, which he refused to have cleaned. He liked that smell; it reminded him of better times.

  The aide who’d announced that Bruce Lerner was heading their way had positioned herself in the doorway to the hall. When she saw the senior senator from Virginia turn a corner, she motioned to another aide, who quickly informed Sybers that Lerner was about to arrive.

  “Good morning,” Lerner tossed out to those in the reception area as he passed by and strode into his Alabama colleague’s office.

  “’Morning, Senator,” he said to Sybers, who lifted himself a few inches from his chair. “No need to get up.” He extended his hand across the desk, which Sybers took in what always surprised people as a firm grip. “You’re looking well.”

  Lerner settled into a red leather chair across from Sybers, crossed one leg over the other, and checked the crease in his trousers. Washingtonian magazine named him among the five best-dressed lawmakers year after year, as well as one of the city’s most eligible bachelors. His suits came from Savile Row’s esteemed Gieves & Hawkes, his shirts custom-made at Turnbull & Asser, shoes from Trickers. His long face was attractively craggy, his full head of gray hair professionally coiffed by a barber who visited his office twice a week.

  Sybers said, “I feel pretty good, Bruce, for an old man. I don’t have time to feel bad.”

  “Good for you, Topper.”

  Lerner glanced at the door to ensure it was closed. He ran his tongue over his lips, examined the nails on one hand, and said, “Clarise appreciates the courtesies you extended her when she visited you.”

  “A fine lady, Bruce. Got some class. But then again, you’d know all about that better than me, havin’ been married to her.”

  “You’ll get no argument from me, Topper.” Lerner’s southern accent thickened slightly under the influence of Sybers’s pronounced drawl. “As you can ’magine, Clarise is anxious about the hearin’.”

  “I imagine she would be, bein’ grilled by a nasty old redneck like me.” He let out a single-syllable grunt that passed for a chuckle. “I’ll be candid with you, Senator. Always have been. I have some serious reservations about your former wife heading the NEA.”

  Lerner started to respond, but Sybers’s gnarled, arthritic, liver-spotted hand waved him off. “I suspect that’s why you come up to see me today.”

  “That’s right, Topper. I don’t want to see Clarise disappointed. She’s too good for that. She’d make a fine NEA head, and I think you know that.”

  “Depends more on what my folks back in Alabama think. Clarise got herself wrapped up in some pretty nasty excuses for art over the years, Bruce. Every day goes by, I’m made aware of ’em. Hard to reconcile this lovely, middle-aged woman with some of the lowlifes she’s hooked up with in Hollywood.”

  Lerner reversed legs and looked up at a photograph of Sybers with former presidents Nixon and Ford. Although Lerner and Sybers sat on different sides of the aisle in the Senate—Sybers was a lifelong Democrat, Lerner a Republican—their political views were very much the same. Sybers was more conservative than most Republicans, and often voted with them, particularly on legislation concerning military spending, judicial appointments, and social issues including abortion, welfare, and crime. He’d often been urged to switch parties by a variety of Republicans but considered that option to be anathema. He considered himself a rock-ribbed Roosevelt Democrat, viewing FDR as having used big government only in a time of extreme danger for the nation and its people. He hadn’t seen a similar need since the Roosevelt administration, and had supported Republican presidential candidates ever since.

  “I want to see Clarise confirmed,” Lerner said quietly.

  “I’m sure you do, Bruce. You bring me somethin’ today to help me come to that conclusion?”

  Lerner smiled and cocked his head. “Get right to the point, huh?”

  “Must be my age, Bruce. Can’t afford to waste time with a lot of pleasant chitchat.” Sybers sat up straight, coughed, and wiggled a finger at Lerner. “You and your armed services committee are still tryin’ to figure out how to slice up the budget pie for the Pentagon. Am I right?”

  “When are we ever not doing that, Topper?”

  His laugh brought on more coughing, deeper this time. “Bruce, I haven’t made any secret of my fervent desire to see some of the money redistributed in the military budget. Seems to me—and it’s seemed to me for a
long time—that the air force keeps gettin’ more and more money because of the way the damned media plays up all their smart bombs and fancy-lookin’ aircraft and the like. The media doesn’t like to show the dirty side of war, down in the trenches, crawlin’ on bellies, and getting shot up close. Now, don’t get me wrong, Bruce. Far as I’m concerned, the flyboys should get everything they need. No question about that. Desert Storm and Afghanistan made that point loud ’n’ clear. But we’ve got to keep our ground forces up to date, too, damn it.”

  “I agree,” said Lerner.

  “You saw that presentation Accell Industries gave on its new all-terrain vehicle. That particular vehicle is one potent military machine, Bruce, and I just wonder at the sanity of some of those generals over at the Pentagon dismissin’ that vehicle like it wouldn’t end up savin’ plenty of our boys’ lives and maybe helpin’ bring down scum like Hussein, and all those terrorists who’re out to kill every damn one of us. Now, I know you’re a reasonable man. And a smart man. You prove that every day, Bruce. And I would be very much obliged if you could use some of your influence at the Pentagon to get them to see why some money ought to rightly be shifted from the air force over to Accell to develop its military vehicle.”

  Lerner was well aware that Accell Industries, with headquarters in Alabama, had always been Topper Sybers’s most generous campaign contributor. Accell’s lobbyists seemed to be everywhere, working the halls of Congress, dropping in “just to say hello,” hinting that a vote for funding its products could result in hefty campaign contributions for those senators and House members who agreed with what they were selling.

  “I must say I was impressed with Accell’s presentation, Topper,” Lerner said. “Accurately bombing targets from thirty thousand feet is good. But you don’t win wars from the air alone.”

  “Exactly.”

  “I’ll be meeting with the secretary and the Joint Chiefs within the next week. I’ll talk to them.”