Murder in the Smithsonian

by Margaret Truman

  They both laughed.

  Sounds from the party downstairs drifted up through the Foucault pendulum’s opening in the floor. One of the women leaned close to another. “I’ve never seen Mr. Throckly so wound up. I can’t decide whether he’s excited about having Dr. Tunney here or annoyed.”

  “Well, it did upset Mr. Throckly’s plans… Come on, let’s go downstairs and enjoy the party.”

  ***

  A long, black limousine turned off Constitution Avenue into a circular drive in front of the National Museum of American History. The chauffeur came around to open the door for his passenger but Lewis Tunney had already gotten out. He thanked the driver for a safe and pleasant ride, looked up at the building he’d once said had all the architectural charm of a stone shoe box, drew a deep breath and went to the main doors, where two uniformed guards and a Secret Serviceman stood. He identified himself, was checked off a long list and entered the building. “Hello, I’m Lewis Tunney,” he said to the first person he met, an attractive middle-aged woman wearing a maroon gown.

  “Oh, Dr. Tunney, welcome,” she said, shaking his hand, “let me find Mr. Throckly for you. He’s been worried that your flight might be delayed.”

  “First,” Tunney said, “I’d like to see Vice President Oxenhauer.”

  Before she could respond Tunney spotted the vice president, thanked her for her hospitality and moved away. Oxenhauer saw him coming, left the circle and greeted him warmly. “Lewis, good to see you. How’ve you been?”

  “Just fine, Bill. Yourself?”

  “Considering the fact I willingly committed myself to four years inside an institution, not bad. Come, say hello to Joline. She’s as excited as I am.”

  Joline threw her arms around Tunney, then stepped back and took him in from head to toe. “My God, more handsome than ever. How you’ve stayed a bachelor so long is worth congressional study in itself. You’re an American original.”

  Tunney felt embarrassed by the open flattery. “Thanks, Joline. And you look… splendid.”

  Throckly, who’d broken away from Oxenhauer’s group moments before Tunney’s arrival, returned and said, “Hello, Dr. Tunney. I’m Alfred Throckly. We met a long time ago.”

  “Hello.” Tunney turned to Oxenhauer. “Could I catch a minute with you?” Throckly’s face reflected his annoyance at Tunney’s abrupt greeting, and seeming dismissal.

  “Now?” Oxenhauer asked.

  “Please.”

  “We’ll be going in to dinner soon,” Throckly said. “I thought you might like to come upstairs and see where you’ll be speaking. I have an audiovisual person on hand in case you want to—”

  “Maybe later,” Tunney said. “I’m not using my props. Would you excuse us?” He touched the vice president’s arm. Oxenhauer looked at his wife, whose expression said that she didn’t understand either.

  Oxenhauer and Tunney, accompanied by three Secret Servicemen, went to a corner of the museum near the main entrance, where a rural country store and post office were displayed. It had been a functioning store and post office in West Virginia back in 1861, and had literally been moved lock, stock and barrel to the Smithsonian. Besides being a popular exhibition, it also served as the Smithsonian’s only working postal outlet.

  Oxenhauer nodded to the Secret Servicemen, who retreated out of earshot. “Well?” he said to Tunney. “You look as though whatever’s on your mind is pretty damned important.”

  “It is, Bill.”

  “Personal, something Joline and I can help with?”

  “No. We can discuss my personal life later.” His face was serious, hard. He put his hands on his hips, exposing a field of dark blue vest and a gold watch on a chain, looked down at the floor, then up at Oxenhauer. “Let me tell you a story, Bill. I’ll make it as brief as I can.”

  Oxenhauer looked to where his wife stood with a cluster of young curators. “Make it quick, Lewis. We really should be getting back…”

  ***

  Ten minutes later Alfred Throckly looked at his watch, then told two committeewomen acting as hostesses, “Let’s try to move them into dinner. We’re running behind schedule.” He looked to where Tunney and Oxenhauer were talking in front of the old post office, and disappeared behind a partition.

  ***

  “Lewis,” the vice president was saying, “we’d better get back to the party. I think dinner is close to being served—”

  “That’s your answer to what I’ve told you?”

  “Of course not. I’m as sickened as you are. Look, you’re staying around a few days, aren’t you?”

  “I planned to fly back to London tomorrow night. I have someone waiting for me.”

  “That gives us the day, then. I’ll clear the decks. Come to my office at ten. I have some things to tell you about too.”

  “All right, Bill, but I still intend to refer to it in my remarks.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “You could win a battle and lose a war. Besides, there are compelling reasons to hold up. Don’t misunderstand, I’m as concerned as you are. All I ask is that you keep it to yourself until we get a chance to really sit down and talk.”

  “Ten tomorrow?”

  “Yes.”

  Throckly intercepted Tunney as he headed for one of three bars. “We’ll be going in for dinner soon, Dr. Tunney. You’ll be sitting with the vice president and with—”

  “Thank you, that’s fine, Mr. Throckly,” Tunney said. “I’ll get a drink and join you shortly—”

  “Dr. Tunney…”

  Tunney turned, and was face-to-face with a tall, gaunt woman in her late fifties. She wore a long, loose gray gown with a strip of black silk at the neck and cuffs. Her face was a montage of angles and planes, but not without a certain bright attractiveness.

  “Miss Prentwhistle. Nice to see you.”

  “Likewise. We’re all so glad you could come.”

  “Yes. I was on my way for a drink.”

  “I’ll have someone get it for you.”

  Tunney looked past her and saw that guests were moving toward the museum’s private dining rooms. “No, I’ll get it myself,” he said. “I need a few minutes alone… you know, to gather my thoughts before speaking.”

  “I’m sure it will be stimulating.”

  “I hope so. I’ll see you inside. How is Mr. Jones?”

  “Walter? Fine, just fine.”

  “See you in a few minutes, Miss Prentwhistle.”

  She hesitated… “I wonder if we could talk privately before dinner.”

  “I’m not sure that’s necessary—”

  “I think it is.”

  Tunney sighed and followed her to a small room that housed public telephones. They were alone. Five minutes later Tunney left the room.

  A hostess asked if there was anything he needed. He told her, “Just a drink.” She went to where two other women, all wives of prominent Washington businessmen, stood, and said sotto voce, “Just like Alan Alda, really. And never married, I understand.”

  ***

  Tunney took a gin and tonic from a bartender and walked to a bank of elevators. A member of the museum’s security force stood in its open door. “The second floor, please,” Tunney said.

  “Yes, sir.”

  He stepped out on the next level. When the elevator doors had closed behind him he went to the folding chairs and put his hand on one of them. In front of him, rising majestically, was the “Star-Spangled Banner,” the thirty-by-forty-two-foot American flag that had flown over Fort McHenry following the successful defense against British naval forces in September, 1814. A young lawyer on a ship that fateful night observed that the “flag was still there” by the “dawn’s early light” which inspired him to create America’s national anthem.

  Tunney felt a chill as he looked up at the huge red, white and blue banner that had been so painstakingly restored by museum experts.

  The room was dark except for low-wattage perimeter l
ights. A single spotlight illuminated the lectern. To its left were a large movie screen and two speakers. Tunney went to the lectern and looked out over the sea of metal chairs. Behind them was the opening through which the Foucault pendulum dangled.

  He turned and faced the reason he was here, the Harsa-Cincinnati exhibition. In the morning the exhibit would be open to the public, another chance for Americans to touch base with their heritage. He stepped down from the lectern and entered the shadowy exhibition space. A massive oil painting of George Washington stared down at him from one side, an equally large portrait of Thomas Jefferson from the other.

  He went over to a wall that had been constructed in the center of the exhibit, two glass cases housing precious memorabilia. Swords belonging to Washington and Jefferson hung vertically on either side. Behind each of the two glass windows were gem-studded medals, symbols of the Harsa and Cincinnati societies.

  Tunney listened to the carefree sounds from the floor below; a woman’s loud laughter cut through the din. Suddenly he looked to his left, thinking he’d heard someone.

  He saw nothing.

  He was conscious of the baroque music.

  He took three steps forward and looked through the glass at the Harsa medal.

  “I’ll be damned,” he said aloud to himself, and downed half his drink.

  The hostesses at the party downstairs moved through the crowd and urged people to go into the dining room.

  Bill and Joline Oxenhauer stood with six other people at the railing surrounding the pendulum. Another red marker was about to be toppled. Everyone laughed as Joline suggested they bet on how many seconds before the earth rotated sufficiently to bring the pendulum into contact with it.

  “Want to get in on the bet?” Oxenhauer asked the Secret Serviceman nearest him.

  “No, sir, but thank you,” he replied, his eyes never straying from the crowd.

  “Twenty seconds. I’ll count,” Oxenhauer said. He looked at Joline, who was staring at the ceiling. “What’s the matter?” he asked.

  A drop of bright red oxygenated blood hit the floor in front of him.

  “My God, look,” a woman said, pointing upward.

  Now a series of red drops splattered the edge of the compass rose. The pendulum reached the side where the group stood, then swung back in the other direction, catching the marker and toppling it.

  “Lewis…?” Joline said.

  Slowly, as though having been photographed in slow motion, Lewis Tunney’s body slipped over the second floor railing and fell to the compass rose. Protruding from his back was a sword that had once belonged to Thomas Jefferson.

  The pendulum reached its apex on the other side, then headed back toward the vice president, stopping for the first time in years as it thudded into the lifeless body of the night’s keynote speaker, the late Dr. Lewis Tunney.

  Chapter 3

  Tunney’s body was removed from the National Museum of American History in a black body bag. As it passed, Alfred Throckly shook his head. “My God…” The tone in his voice seemed a blend of shock and impatience.

  The man next to him said, “It takes time, Mr. Throckly. Procedures.”

  “What now, Captain?”

  “More procedures.”

  Captain Mac Hanrahan, chief of detectives of Washington’s Metropolitan Police Department, excused himself from the museum director and went to the Constitution Avenue entrance. He stepped back to allow two uniformed policemen to carry the body bag outside, then followed. The street was choked with vehicles, some from MPD, most belonging to news media. Three large television remote trucks were parked on the sidewalk. Powerful lights mounted on their roofs turned night into day.

  At the sight of Hanrahan a swell of reporters converged on the entrance.

  “Take it easy,” Hanrahan said, holding up his hands. “I’ll have something to tell you in an hour.”

  “Who is it?” a reporter called out.

  “The victim was not a government official, he was a private citizen.”

  Hanrahan saw that the officers carrying Tunney’s body could not get through the crowd to a waiting ambulance. Lights and cameras were trained on the bag. “Ghouls,” Hanrahan muttered, and in a louder voice: “Let them through, damn it, unless you want an obstruction rap.”

  “Is the vice president still inside?” another reporter asked.

  Hanrahan nodded and went inside, where Alfred Throckly was waiting.

  “This is terrible,” Throckly said, “beyond belief. What perverse, horrible…?”

  Hanrahan saw that Vice President William Oxenhauer and his wife were talking with his assistant, Lieutenant Joe Pearl. He went up to them. “Sorry for the delay, Mr. Vice President.”

  Oxenhauer’s face was ashen. The strain of Joline’s earlier hysteria still showed, though she was now under control. Her eyes were red, watery. “Don’t worry about us, Captain, please…” Oxenhauer said, “just do what you have to do.”

  A Secret Serviceman took Hanrahan aside. “The vice president should leave, Captain. He has a full schedule tomorrow—”

  “Yes, I understand.”…“Why don’t you and Mrs. Oxenhauer go home now, sir. You’re not involved in this and—”

  Joline looked sharply at him. “Lewis Tunney was one of our closest friends.”

  Oxenhauer put his arm around her. “The captain is only trying to help, darling. He’s not being unkind. He’s right, let’s go home.”

  “It’s wall-to-wall press out there, sir,” Hanrahan told him.

  Throckly, who’d joined them, said, “There’s an exit through the kitchen.”

  Oxenhauer told a Secret Serviceman to have the limo pull around to the kitchen exit, and to Hanrahan said, “Thank you for your courtesy, Captain. Could I have a word with you?”

  They moved halfway around the pendulum railing. Oxenhauer checked to see that they weren’t being overheard. “I learned something tonight that might have bearing on your investigation, Captain…”

  “Oh?”

  The vice president again looked over his shoulder. “It can wait until tomorrow… Please come to my office at ten.”

  “Well, sir, maybe I should be the one to decide whether it can wait, Mr. Vice President. This is a murder we’re dealing with—”

  “Of course, but I’d much appreciate your allowing me to follow your earlier suggestion. I’d like to take Mrs. Oxenhauer home. She’s very upset.”

  Hanrahan’s instinct was to press the matter then and there, but Oxenhauer was, after all, the vice president of the United States… “Thank you for your cooperation, sir. I’ll be there at ten.”

  He watched them leave, then followed Lieutenant Joe Pearl into the dining room, where others at the party had been corralled. A team of six detectives was busy establishing the identity of each person who had been in the museum at the time of the murder, noting addresses and phone numbers, asking questions about movement during the evening and warning that they were not to leave Washington until further notice.

  “Anything turn up?” Hanrahan asked Pearl.

  “I don’t think so. Maybe we’ll put something together after we assimilate and correlate the statements—”

  “Assimilate and correlate?”

  Pearl picked lint from Hanrahan’s lapel. “You’re about to lose a button, Captain.”

  “Yeah, I know.” Hanrahan slapped Pearl on the back. His assistant was only slightly younger—Hanrahan was forty-seven, Pearl forty-one—but displayed a capacity for jargon that never failed to amuse his boss. Pearl had a master’s degree in sociology. Hanrahan had graduated high school. Period. Pearl was Jewish, and relatively devout. Hanrahan’s parents were Irish, and he was raised a devout Catholic, although he’d broken away from the church years ago. He’d recently divorced after twenty-two years of marriage. His mother had said at the time of the separation, “That’s what happens when you marry out of your faith, Mac. You go to bed with swine, you get up with swine.” Hanrahan’s wife had been Baptist, which, he to
ld his mother, hardly made her a swine.

  His personal feelings about his ex-wife were another matter. She’d taken up with a man the age of their eldest son, twenty-five, in order, she said, to establish her identity as a “female being” and to catch up with the sexual revolution she’d missed out on. Hanrahan hadn’t contested the divorce. He wasn’t interested in competition with a damned flower child. His last words to his wife when she left were, “Remember, you go to bed with swine, you get up with swine.” At least she’d laughed at that. He didn’t…

  The museum’s security director, L. D. Rowland, who’d been called from his home right after the murder, asked for a few minutes with Hanrahan. They left the dining room and went to the second floor, the site of the Cincinnati-Harsa exhibition. Rowland, a black man with hair like pasted-on cotton balls, pointed to the floor.

  “Yeah, we got that,” Hanrahan said, referring to drops of blood leading from the exhibit area to the railing Tunney had fallen over. “Did your men see anybody at all leave the building about the time of the murder?”

  “They say no, but of course it’s hard to be positive about that sort of thing. I have a good staff, though.”

  “I’m sure you do. Let me ask you something, Mr. Rowland. Why wasn’t there an alarm system on the case over there?” He pointed to where the Legion of Harsa’s medal had been displayed, next to the Society of the Cincinnati’s symbol. The glass covering the Harsa medal was smashed and the medal was missing.

  “Museum policy now, Captain Hanrahan, not that I entirely agree with it, which is between you and me. Alarms can be triggered by a lot of things besides an actual break-in. It happened so many times in the past—short circuits, breakdowns, you name it, they decided to do away with the system. The idea is, it’s sort of like sticking labels on windows warning intruders that a house is armed with a burglar alarm. It doesn’t matter whether it is or not so long as a potential intruder thinks it is. I guess the museum figures people will assume these things are protected and not try anything. And at the same time avoid false alarms. I also hear talk they’re thinking of installing a more sophisticated, newer system. Meanwhile…”