Murder at Union Station
Margaret Truman
Historic Union Station means nothing to the elderly man speeding south on the last lap of what will turn out to be a one-way journey from Tel Aviv to D.C. – on a train that will soon land him at Gate A-8 and, moments later, at St. Peter's Gate. This weary traveler, whose terminal destination is probably hell, is Louis Russo, former mob hit man and government informer. Two men are at the station to meet him. One is Richard Marienthal, a young writer whose forthcoming book is based on Russo's life. The other is the man who'll kill him.
Russo has returned to help promote Marienthal's book, which, although no one has been allowed to read it, already has some people shaking in their Gucci boots. Those in power fear that the contents will expose not only organized crime's nefarious business but also a top-secret assignment abroad that Russo once masterminded for a very-high-profile Capitol Hill client. As news of Russo's murder rockets from the MPD to the FBI and the CIA, from Congress to the West Wing, the final chapter of the story begins its rapid-fire unfolding.
In addition to the bewildered Marienthal and his worried girlfriend, Murder at Union Station features an array of memorable characters: rock-ribbed right-wing Senator Karl Widmer; ruthless New York publisher Pamela Warren; boozy MPD Detective Bret Mullin; shoe-shine virtuoso Joe Jenks; dedicated presidential political adviser Chet Fletcher; and President Adam Parmele himself – not to mention freelance snoops, blow-dried climbers, and a killer or two. There's no place like the nation's capital, and as her myriad fans know, Margaret Truman always gets it right. Murder at Union Station is a luxury express, non stopdelight.
Margaret Truman
Murder at Union Station
Book 20 in the Capital Crimes series, 2004
In memory of William Wallace Daniel
ONE
HAMILTON, BERMUDA
A nasty squall had blown across Pitts Bay earlier in the day, the wind tossing sheets of water against the landmark pink facade of the famed Hamilton Princess Hotel. Blue sky and sun followed the storm; the hotel was now bathed in lambent light.
Kathryn Jalick unlatched the sliding glass door of the second-floor suite, slid it open, and stepped out onto the small balcony overlooking the bay. She’d carried a large, fluffy white towel with her from the bathroom, which she used to wipe residual water from the two plastic chairs and glass-topped table. She returned inside to retrieve a glass of white wine she’d poured from a bottle purchased that morning in one of Hamilton’s downtown liquor stores, and took a chair.
Below was a pitch-n-putt green on which two men were engaged in conversation between putts. She knew both, one better than the other.
She’d been dating Richard Marienthal for three years. The anniversary of their first meeting was Tuesday of next week; marking such dates and occasions was important to Kathryn, and she was good at it.
They’d met at Irish Times, a popular place a block east of Union Station, in the northwest corner of the Capitol Hill area. Irish Times was one of three establishments within a block of each other catering to those seeking a wee bit o’ Ireland; The Dubliner and Powers Court Restaurant were the other two. A hundred years ago, when nearby Union Station was on the drawing board, its planned location was on the edge of Swampoodle, an infamous Irish slum, which was said to be the ideal place to turn a dishonest dollar. Those days were, of course, gone. A foul swamp had been transformed into a thriving neighborhood anchored by the station. If there were such a thing in Washington as an Irish neighborhood-which there isn’t-the area around North Capitol and F Streets would have to do. Although the pubs there were practically interchangeable-same beers, same atmosphere, same spirited conversation-patrons were fiercely loyal, including Marienthal, who wasn’t Irish but for whom authenticity was important, and who considered Irish Times to be, well, more authentic than the others.
He had been at the bar with Winard Jackson, an up-and-coming tenor sax player, when another friend brought Kathryn and a female friend into the room. If there was such a thing as love at first sight, Kathryn experienced it that evening, and try as she might to appear cool and disinterested, her immediate infatuation with him was almost comically obvious. Marienthal’s black musician friend, Jackson, eventually whispered in his ear, “I think the lady’s smitten with you, man. Time for me to split.” Marienthal and Kathryn were soon alone at the bar, where they lingered over fresh, bubbly tap beers.
It became apparent to Kathryn as they drank and talked that this Richard Marienthal was different from other young men she’d met since moving to Washington six years ago to pursue a career as a librarian. First hired by the Daughters of the American Revolution’s Library of Genealogy and Local History, she later landed a plum job at the prestigious Library of Congress, where she still worked. The daughter of a plainspoken Kansas pharmacist, Kathryn found most other men with whom she’d worked or dated too slick and sure of themselves, consumed with their appearance, terminally ambitious, and always pretending to know more than they did. Like Geoff Lowe, the young man practicing putting with Rich on the grounds of the Hamilton Princess.
Marienthal was none of those things. He was big and tousled, a teddy bear type. His face was boyish, although she judged him to be in his late twenties or early thirties. His smile, too, was boyish, meaning it looked the way it probably had when he was a little kid, with a hint of mischief in it. Smiles change with age, she knew, but his hadn’t. She liked it. This night in Irish Times, he wore a gray-and-red-checked shirt, baggy chino pants, and a tan safari jacket frayed at the neck.
Slightly tipsy, they decided to have dinner together, after which he escorted her home to her apartment on the fringe of Foggy Bottom. She hoped he would kiss her good night, which he did, lightly, like a campaign promise, without commitment. She hoped he would commit to seeing her again, which he also did, saying he would call the next day. He kept his word.
“He’s so gentle and kind, and really funny,” Kathryn told her sister back in Topeka on the phone that night. “And he’s a writer, too. Very handsome in a rugged sort of way, but not macho, if you know what I mean. He’s tall. I mean, a lot taller than me. I kidded that we’d have trouble dancing together. Know what he said? He said he’d install a little microphone in one of his shirt buttons and I could talk into it.” She giggled. “Know what else he told me? He told me my glasses not only make me look smart, they make me look sexy.” Kathryn Jalick had worn big round-shaped glasses since junior high school. She had never been happy about having to wear them-until this night. She and her sister laughed. Kathryn’s sudden acceptance of her black-rimmed glasses was symbolic of her acceptance of the large young man.
Three months later, she moved into Marienthal’s apartment in the Capitol Hill district, a block from the bustling Eastern Market at Seventh and C Streets, where they’d been living since, discovering more about each other every day and liking what they learned; haunting the market in search of fresh produce and honing their cooking skills for small dinner parties with friends; lazing in front of the small fireplace when the winds blew and ice covered the streets of Washington, D.C.; and strolling the neighborhood on Sunday mornings, buying the papers and going back to bed, where they usually spent the rest of the day under the covers catching up on the news and with each other.
She wrapped the white terrycloth robe tighter around her against a chilled wind off the bay and continued to watch Rich and Geoff Lowe on the putting green. She couldn’t hear their words, but she knew what they were discussing. How could she not? That’s all Richard had talked about for the past year. He was consumed with it, driven. “I’m a man on a mission,” he would often say when she questioned the long hours he worked on the book. She wished Rich h
adn’t gotten involved with Lowe, a pretentious sort if she’d ever seen one, and she’d seen plenty of them in Washington, D.C., basking in the reflected glory of their powerful political bosses, like secretaries to high-profile physicians who assume their bosses’ status and press it upon patients.
Meeting like this in Bermuda was Lowe’s idea, silly cloak-and-dagger stuff, Kathryn thought. She didn’t like the influence Lowe seemed to have developed over Rich. The man she’d fallen in love with had been changing before her eyes since hooking up with the young Senate staffer, and not for the better.
Marienthal looked up and waved, gave her that boyish grin. She returned the greeting and raised her glass. “Up in a minute,” he yelled, and walked off the green with Lowe.
They had dinner that night in the hotel’s Harley’s Bistro, a large, modern room with huge windows overlooking the pool and Hamilton Harbor beyond, Rich, Kathryn, Lowe, and Ellen Kelly, who worked with Geoff but who was obviously more than that; they shared the same hotel room. Kathryn wished she and Rich could spend a week alone in romantic Bermuda, but that wasn’t in the cards. He’d been away for almost three weeks, returning to Washington from Israel only yesterday and announcing they were flying to Bermuda to meet Lowe and Ellen Kelly, who’d already been there a few days enjoying themselves.
Unsurprisingly, Lowe dominated the dinner table conversation, ranting about politics, which, Washington style, he seemed to feel only he had a handle on, and vilifying the current administration and president. Adam Parmele was in his first term and running for a second. Geoff Lowe was a short man, not much taller than Kathryn, who was five feet, four inches tall. He was chunky, with a large face dominated by a broad nose that would not be out of place on a professional prizefighter. Balding prematurely, he had strands of blond hair long at the sides. He was type A personality personified; even when seated he seemed to be in motion.
Rich and Kathryn had heard Lowe’s lectures too many times over the past year to react with anything but feigned interest, and she sensed a similar paralysis in Ellen, although Lowe’s colleague and girlfriend seemed to exhibit dutiful interest in his words. But the redheaded, green-eyed Kelly also seemed aware of Rich and Kathryn’s situation because she would turn the conversation around to them whenever Lowe took a break.
“How was Israel this time, Rich?” Ellen asked.
Marienthal laughed and sipped his wine. “Great place. Same as it’s always been,” he said. “I’ve been there so often lately I ought to start wearing a yarmulke.”
“Adam Parmele’s approach to the Israeli-Palestinian situation, if you can call it an approach, is ridiculous,” Lowe said, obviously not interested in learning more from Rich. “His whole foreign policy is a joke. Anybody with half a brain could have seen that when he was running-waffling, saying one thing one day, reversing himself the next.” He shook his head and sat back in his armchair. “Another four years with this liberal bumbler and we’ll really be down the drain-the economy, crime, foreign policy, all of it.”
Again, Ellen changed the subject out of deference to Rich and Kathryn, asking Kathryn a question about her job at the library, which led to a lengthy tale of how she’d only recently been promoted into the rare documents room, which answer carried them through dessert but stopped short of coffee with Sambuca.
They ended the evening in the lobby. At least Kathryn thought it had.
“Flight’s at noon,” Lowe said. “Airport shuttle leaves at nine-thirty. Come on, I’ll buy you a drink.”
Marienthal looked at Kathryn, whose face said she wanted to get away from the other couple.
“Thanks, no,” Marienthal replied.
“There’s something we still have to go over,” Lowe said. “Why don’t you two gals browse the shops? Some of them are still open.”
Kathryn hoped Rich would remain firm in declining a drink with Geoff, but he disappointed her. If there were one thing about him that sometimes bothered her, it was how he always seemed to understand both sides of any debate. On the one hand, it was an appealing trait, often heading off potential arguments. On the other hand, it was waffling, and he was easily led at times, the most persuasive-or the last-voice heard having the most influence on him.
“We’ll make it quick, hon,” he told her. “Meet you in the room in an hour.”
Kathryn and Ellen watched the two men cross the lobby and disappear into the wood-paneled Colony Pub.
“I’m beat,” Kathryn said. “Think I’ll head up to the room.”
“Me, too,” Ellen said. “By the way, it’s great what Rich is doing, Kathryn.”
Kathryn’s curt nod did not convey what she really thought. She wished Rich had never agreed to Lowe’s proposal. If only he hadn’t. If only they could turn back the clock a year. If only she didn’t have this nagging feeling of foreboding that kept her awake nights. If only…
TWO
TWO MONTHS LATER
He sat in seat 16B, at the window. The seat next to him was empty. He hadn’t said much during the flight. When he’d asked for a glass of water or a pillow, the Delta flight attendant had had to lean close to understand him. He spoke in a soft, low, raspy voice, an old man who’d lost the ability to project.
“He’s so cute,” she said to a colleague as they stood in the galley of the jet. “Have you ever seen such a funny toupee?”
“I’ve never seen an orange one before.”
“It’s supposed to be red, I think. It looks like plastic.”
“I like men who accept getting bald and don’t wear them.”
She delivered the tomato juice he’d ordered.
“Thank you. Thank you very much.”
“Sure. Anything you need, just ask.”
He sipped his juice and pulled his airline tickets from the inside pocket of the jacket of his wrinkled, ill-fitting gray suit, something he’d done dozens of times since taking off from Barcelona. He’d recently acknowledged-to himself, never to others-that he’d become forgetful lately, entering rooms without remembering why he’d gone there, misplacing things, throwing away important receipts.
He’d been afraid of losing his tickets since they had arrived by Federal Express a week ago, delivered to the door of the apartment he shared with Sasha on Basel Street, in the old city. He’d put them in his small, hard-sided suitcase and checked on them every hour, it seemed to Sasha, with whom he’d begun living since shortly after having arrived in Tel Aviv twelve years ago.
“Crazy old man,” she’d shouted at him in her native Hebrew when, after looking in the wrong section of the suitcase, he’d failed to find the tickets and panicked. She went to the correct pocket, yanked the tickets from it, and threw them at him. He reacted the way he’d been reacting to her for the past few years. He returned the tickets to the suitcase, locked it, and sat on the small balcony that overlooked the busy street. He’d become adroit at ignoring Sasha and her outbursts, which he knew was the most effective way of annoying her. He sat stoically, deep in thought, thinking of the past, which he did with increasing frequency. Although his memory of recent events had slipped, his long-term memory was still sharp.
She had come to the balcony carrying a glass of Italian wine for him. A large ashtray on a small table overflowed with spent cigarettes, and she added another to the pile.
“Todah,” he said, thanking her in Hebrew and taking the glass from her.
“Prego,” she answered in his native Italian and patted his hand.
“You should stop smoking,” he said. “You smoke all the time, day and night.”
“You smoked when I met you,” she said.
“Yes, but I quit, huh? Cold turkey. For my health.”
Rather than argue, she returned inside, lighted a cigarette, and sat at the kitchen table, on which another full ashtray sat. She knew he was right, but she also knew she couldn’t quit. Not in Tel Aviv, where it seemed everyone smoked, maybe to calm the nerves. What was a cigarette compared to a Palestinian suicide bomber?
He c
ontinued to sit alone on the balcony, reflecting on better days. Healthier days. “La vecchiaia!” he muttered, followed by a string of obscenities in Italian and Hebrew, cursing having become old.
The flight attendant reminded him to buckle his seat belt as the flight approached its final destination, Newark Liberty International Airport. He’d gone to the lavatory half a dozen times during the flight, painfully making his way up the aisle, grasping the backs of seats for support, and thanking the flight attendants profusely when they helped steady him on his way back.
She took the cane from his lap and placed it on the floor beneath his feet.
“Thank you,” he said. “Grazie.”
“Visiting family?” she asked before leaving him to attend to her pre-landing duties.
He looked up at her with cold, wary eyes surrounded by loose skin, yellowed from the chemotherapy. She was taken aback for a moment; his gray eyes testified to having seen things in his life she’d never seen, nor would want to.
“No, no,” he said. “It is, ah-it is business.”
She wished him well on the rest of his journey, patted his liver-spotted hand, and left. He looked out the window at the clouds through which they descended. He imagined the clouds would support his body and thought it would be nice to be nestled in them. The jet broke free of the overcast and New Jersey was sprawled out below. Louis Russo closed his eyes, picked up the cane, wrapped gnarled fingers around it, and waited for the plane to land.
“Excuse me,” he said to a Delta agent directing passengers to connecting flights. “The train to Washington? The Amtrak train?”
“Yes, sir, it’s… Would you like a cart to take you?”
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