Murder at the Kennedy Center

by Margaret Truman

  “True.”

  “Let me ask you a question.”

  “Shoot.”

  “I’m slanting the article along the lines of a young, attractive woman with a law degree hooks up with some political heavy hitters in Washington, and gets herself killed as a result. Her mother immediately disappears, doesn’t even come forward to claim the body. The son of a leading candidate for the White House is the prime suspect. This young woman, who meets an unfortunate end, is killed with a weapon belonging to this potential president of our country. Still, no one knows who killed Andrea Feldman.”

  Smith shrugged. “Sounds like an interesting human-interest piece. I’m sure you’ll do your usual bang-up job.”

  “Funny choice of words. I intend to. I’ve talked to Feldman’s associates. Not many of them, Mac. She defined ‘loner.’ No buddies, no steady boyfriends, no family. If it weren’t for the Ewald family paying to bury her out in San Francisco, she’d be planted in the District cemetery along with the tombs of the unknown winos and druggies. How come?”

  “I’m listening, Rhonda, you’re talking. Keep going.”

  “Damn,” Rhonda said, laughing. “The more I talk about it, the better it gets. Andrea Feldman sleeps with Senator Ewald’s son. Do you figure she was carrying information about Ewald out to his enemies—you know, pillow talk from Paul?”

  “I wouldn’t know.” He hoped she would have the answer. Knowing what a good reporter she was, Smith wondered whether she’d uncovered anything about Andrea’s affair with not only Paul Ewald, but with his father, too. He thought she might mention that next, but she didn’t. Instead, she asked, “Do you have any idea where to find Andrea Feldman’s mother?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “I checked the birth records at Moffitt Hospital in San Francisco where Andrea was born. No father-of-record. A real mystery woman. Her last known address is in the Sunset district. I talked to her landlady, a flaky former opera singer who told me the mother left.”

  “Didn’t know where she went?”

  “Not according to her. The whole family is shrouded in mystery.”

  “Evidently.”

  They continued to jog, but without words. A man and a woman sprinted past them. Smith realized how long it had been since he’d done any running. He was getting winded quicker than usual. As they approached the door, Rhonda punched him on the arm and said with a grin, “That’s it for me. See you around the quad, Mac. Can I call you in a few days about this?”

  “Sure. Happy to talk to you again, Rhonda.” He watched her disappear through the doors, did another lap, and headed for the gymnasium, where he lifted weights, did a series of stretching exercises that he knew he should have done before he started running, showered, dressed, and returned home. There he changed into a gray sweatshirt from his university, baggy khaki pants and Docksiders, and took Rufus for a long walk through the neighborhood.

  He walked back into the house and made himself a cup of coffee. As he sat at the table, Rufus looked up with soft, watery eyes. Smith looked down into the dog’s trusting face and said to him, “Doesn’t make any sense to you, either, huh? Well, think about it. We’ll talk more tonight.” He went to his study and made notes until he realized Annabel would be there for dinner. He ran to a local market and bought the ingredients—pâté, swordfish, salad makings, new potatoes, and French bread—and made whatever preparations he could before she arrived.

  After they had consumed and saluted Smith’s culinary gestures, they made a gesture of another sort at each other.

  Now, an hour later, they sat together in bed, naked, watching a documentary on television.

  “We’ll take a ten o’clock shuttle,” she said. “The noon flight to San Francisco out of Kennedy on Saturday was the only one open.”

  “That sounds fine. We pick up three hours going in that direction anyway.”

  The commercials ended, and they watched the next section of the documentary. When it was again time to move into a commercial break, Ted Koppel’s face came on the screen and he announced his guest for that evening’s Nightline.

  Annabel asked whether he had watched Colonel Gilbert Morales Tuesday on the Koppel show.

  “Some,” he said. “I really didn’t focus on it.”

  “He mounts a convincing argument,” Annabel said.

  “In substance or in style?”

  “A little of both.”

  “I think he and his cause are frauds. The Manning White House makes continual public proclamations of the drug epidemic in this country, but they keep wrapping their arms around Morales, who, everybody knows, was one of the leading drug pushers in Central America.”

  “He was an ally.”

  “Allies like that we don’t need.”

  “You are such a liberal, which, I must admit, is part of your charm. An old liberal. Hubert Humphrey found old liberals to be sad. I don’t. I ended up in love with one.”

  Smith laughed. “I probably should have taken up with an eighteen-year-old Georgetown hippie instead of a middle-aged, relatively conservative beauty. We could have protested together.”

  “And died prematurely in bed. Think of the embarrassment to family and friends. Besides, you’re dating yourself. They’re not called ‘hippies’ anymore.”

  “That’s one thing I’m damned enthusiastic about with Ken’s campaign,” he said.

  “Dying in bed with young girls?”

  “No, wench. If he does become president, I think he’ll take quick and decisive steps to cut off all aid to that fraud Morales, as well as that charlatan evangelist Garrett Kane, who claims he’s set up ministries in Panama. Bull.”

  “We promised ourselves we would never discuss politics, remember?”

  “Sure, and for good reason.” He looked over at her beautiful breasts above the comforter that covered her legs, reached to touch a pink tip, and growled.

  Rufus raised his head from the floor at the sound, then put it back down.

  “Mac, what are you doing?”

  “Something apolitical.”

  “Are you suggesting twice in one night?”

  “As you say, Annabel, you’re in love with a liberal. I can’t think of anything more liberal …”

  Her eyes widened, and a wicked smile crossed her mouth. “And I’m not nearly as conservative as you think I am when it comes to matters of the flesh. I just thought that—”

  “That this old liberal isn’t capable of repeating a triumph? Remember FDR.”

  “So long ago. But.”

  She kicked the covers off, moved her leg over to straddle him, and looked down into his eyes. “On second thought, no buts.”

  After a moment, she said, “My God, Smith—do you think a third term is out of the question?”

  25

  Early Saturday morning, Smith took Rufus to the local kennel, where the Dane was enthusiastically welcomed. “Don’t worry about Rufus, Mr. Smith,” the owner said, “just view it as him taking a nice vacation at a fancy dog hotel.” The owner always said that when Smith delivered Rufus, but Smith always responded as though he were hearing it for the first time; he was very appreciative of the good care his friend received there.

  Heavy weather had hit the East Coast overnight, delaying flights in and out of Washington and New York. They made their American Airlines flight from JFK to San Francisco with only minutes to spare.

  “Did you talk to Ken or Leslie?” Annabel asked after they’d settled in their first-class seats and had been served Bloody Marys.

  “Yes. I talked to Leslie yesterday. She kept thanking me for all I did for Paul, and I kept reminding her I didn’t do anything.”

  “Maybe you did more than you think.”

  “In the meantime, we have this business with Greist to iron out.”

  “Well, Mr. Geist is probably nothing but a bumbling con man looking for a fast buck. Funny, but I’m anxious to meet Tony. I can’t say he’s my favorite person, based on the stories you’ve told.”

>   “He’s all right. What I want to hear from him is why the hell he was breaking into this Carla Zaretski’s house after he’d taken her to dinner and the opera. His message on my machine indicated that she was a real—”

  “ ‘Dog’? Don’t use that word, Mac.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it. She was not the sort of female that particularly appealed to him. Better?”

  “Much.”

  “So, I wonder why he was breaking into her house. Something must have developed during the evening that turned her into the girl of his dreams.”

  Annabel giggled. “You think he was breaking in to rape her?”

  “No, just anxious to continue communing on a philosophical level. We’ll find out soon enough.”

  After the flight to San Francisco, they got into a cab driven by a portly gentleman in his sixties with a swooping walrus mustache, a tweed jacket, and an Irish tweed cap. When everyone was settled inside, he turned to them, but failed to ask the expected “Where to?” Instead, he said, “And what political persuasion might you two be?”

  Annabel and Smith looked at each other and stifled laughter. Smith said, “A Roosevelt Democrat.”

  “And you?” the driver asked Annabel.

  “A conservative who has whatever it takes to make Roosevelt Democrats happy.”

  26

  As Mac Smith and Annabel Reed were winging their way west, Senator Jody Backus was finishing a speech to a group of supporters in the Antrim Lodge in Roscoe, New York, a little more than two hours from New York City and known as the trout capital of the world.

  “Great speech, Senator,” an aide said as the corpulent candidate for president climbed down from a platform at the end of the large dining room. A hundred people had paid twenty-five dollars each to break bread with him at lunch and to hear him call for a return to decency, family values, and morality in the media. He’d been warmly received. The “morality in media” issue had only recently been injected into his otherwise-standard canned speech.

  He’d ended with, “And I’ll tell you one more thing. When I’m president of these United States, you’ll see a president with a total commitment to the environment. They don’t call Roscoe the trout capital of the world for nothin’, and I’ll see to it that these beautiful waters, and these big, fat trout, are around for years to come.” The crowd had erupted in applause. Backus added, “As a matter of fact, as soon as we break this up, I’m headin’ for Zach Filler’s lodge, where I’m intendin’ to spend the rest of this day and tomorrow morning haulin’ ’em in.”

  The limo, followed by a string of cars in which press rode, turned onto the quiet little main street of Roscoe and stopped in front of a sporting goods store. “Be back in a minute,” Backus said as he pulled himself out of the limo. “Got to see what the local folks are catchin’ them on these days.” He disappeared into the store followed by an aide and Secret Service agents.

  The luncheon, like the fishing trip itself, had been decided on at the last minute by Backus. An old friend from Georgia, Zach Filler, owned a small fishing lodge in the area, and Backus’s staff knew their boss needed such days. They just wished he’d plan ahead a little better.

  Usually, his press aides were able to turn these sudden deviations into something positive. Ewald might seem to have the nomination wrapped up, but Backus’s boys were going to take him into the convention with strength. There would have to be some dealing. The staff had managed to bring in enough upstate New York Democrats for the luncheon, and made plans to take photographs of Backus fishing, which they would release to fishing magazines and sports pages. “Fly fishing’s hot these days,” one of them said. “Might as well sell the old man to those fanatics, too.” When they announced their plans to Backus, he dampened their assiduity by telling them this was to be pure relaxation, with only a few close advisers and a single Secret Service agent accompanying him. One of the aides mounted an argument. Backus snapped, “Damn it to hell, I am sick and tired of people and press and pressing the flesh! I need a day with the fish, just me and some big, fat ol’ trout.” And when a senior aide questioned whether they should run the change of schedule through Backus’s campaign braintrust, he erupted. “I don’t need to clear nothing through nobody, and it’s time people around here got to understand that! Jody Backus is his own man.”

  Lodge owner Zach Filler was waiting when the limousine and two accompanying vehicles pulled up to the main house. Backus was shown to the largest cabin on the grounds. It contained two bedrooms; Agent Jeroldson was assigned to the second.

  “You really threw me a curve, you rascal,” Filler told Backus as the senator settled into a rocking chair and accepted a glass of bourbon from his friend. A roaring fire took the chill off the room. There were bottles of bourbon, buckets of ice, and a large tray with cheeses, breads, cold shrimp, and smoked salmon and trout. “I had to shift some good regular customers around to fit you and your people in.”

  “And I appreciate it, Zach. Hope it wasn’t too much of an imposition. The fish bitin’?”

  “Yes, they are, mostly on black ants and nymphs.”

  “Damn it, Zach, the fella in the store said they were risin’ to mayflies and caddis. I bought myself a whole bunch a’ nice flies tied by Walt and Winny Dette.” The Dettes, who lived in Roscoe, were considered among the world’s leading dry-fly-tying experts.

  Filler laughed. “Beauty … and what catches fish are in the eye of the beholder. Don’t worry, Jody, I’ll take care of you. You’ll catch yourself a fish.” Filler closely observed his old friend. Obviously, running for president took its toll. Backus looked considerably older, more fatigued, and less healthy than he had the last time they’d been together, a year ago in Georgia. He asked, “How is it going, Jody?”

  Backus scowled at him and drew on his drink. “Could be better, Zach.”

  Filler asked whether Jody wanted another drink. “Not right away, Zach. I got some heavy thinking to do, and I’d better get on the phone. You heard any news today about my opponent, Senator Ewald?”

  Filler laughed. “Can’t say that I have, but that’s why I bought this place. The rest of the world doesn’t exist up here, which suits me fine.”

  Backus grunted and yawned. “I may have a visitor in the morning, Zach, a special one. I’d just as soon keep that between us.”

  “Absolutely. You ready for a good dinner? I brought in a fine Indian cook for you. I let my regular one go last week. Son of a bitch was stealing me blind, not money, but food, which comes down to the same thing.”

  “I figure I can put off dinner for a while.” Backus tapped his large stomach and grinned, which pleased Filler. It was the first demonstration since he’d arrived that his friend was relaxing. “Look, Zach, anybody calls for me, I’m not available, hear? The others’ll take calls. I got to get as far away as possible from them.”

  “I can understand that, Jody,” Filler said, laughing. “I only keep a phone here for city guests who can’t seem to be out of contact with their businesses. Some of them spend more time on the phone than on the stream. Don’t know what they catch—but they can have it.”

  Backus closed his eyes.

  “Let me get back and see how dinner’s shaping up,” Filler said. “There’s five of you?”

  “Right. I appreciate this, Zach. I feel better already.”

  “Always glad to help a good friend, Jody. I’ll be back.”

  Backus sat alone in the cabin, the flames of the fire casting a ruddy, healthy glow over his round face. He’d shed his coat, tie, and shoes, and felt himself sink into the rocking chair’s well-worn cane seat. Then, as though he’d suddenly forgotten something, he looked in the direction of the room assigned to Jeroldson and shouted, “Bobby, come out here.”

  Jeroldson, who’d been reclining on the bed reading a copy of Service Star, the Secret Service’s employee publication, got up and stood in the doorway.

  “Come, sit, Bobby, and let’s talk while we got the chance.”

 
The dour agent took a straight-back chair near the fireplace.

  “Help yourself,” said Backus, gesturing toward the platter of food.

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “Then have yourself a drink.”

  “Not on duty.”

  Backus started to laugh, but it turned into a sputter. “You are some strange breed, Bobby,” he said. “Duty? The only duty you have right now is to relax and talk to me. Go on now, have a drink. You don’t like bourbon? Go on up to the house and tell Zach what it is you do want—gin, beer, moose piss, whatever.”

  “I’ll have bourbon.” Jeroldson poured a small amount of it into a glass filled with ice cubes, popped a shrimp in his mouth, and returned to his chair.

  “Well, now, Mr. Bobby Jeroldson, tell me how the senator and Mr. Farmer felt when you were transferred over to me last week.”

  Jeroldson shrugged. “They didn’t say anything.”

  “Seems to me the senator from California would be pleased. I heard he wasn’t especially fond a’ you.”

  The comment brought a small smile to Jeroldson’s wooden face.

  “You want to say the feelin’s mutual, don’t you?”

  A shrug.

  “All I can say, Bobby, is that you’ve done a fine job keeping this ol’ boy up to date on what my friend and colleague Senator Ewald has been up to. I’m sincerely appreciative. I figure you’re smart enough to know that whether it’s me in the White House, or Vice-President Thornton, you’ve got yourself a fat job up on top of the Uniformed Division. Be a nice spot for you, Bobby, about a thousand men under you, respect, make a real name for yourself.” He was referring to the Secret Service’s special uniformed unit charged with protecting the White House, embassies, consulates, and chanceries. Although it had been the subject of considerable criticism because of its use of extensive manpower and excessive money to patrol Washington’s safest streets and best neighborhoods—while the MPD had to deal with the city’s worst crime areas—it had been considered a political sacred cow ever since Richard Nixon established it in 1969.