Murder in the Smithsonian

by Margaret Truman

  “Meanwhile it looks like they assumed wrong this time, or these intruders knew there wasn’t an alarm.” He went to the broken display case. Lab technicians had finished dusting for fingerprints and had taken photographs of the scene. The area had been roped off, including the path Tunney had staggered along from the exhibit area to the pendulum railing. Signs warning that it was the scene of the crime and that no one was to enter hung from the blue ropes. Two uniformed MPD officers stood guard. Broken glass from the display case had been carefully swept up and removed with other evidence.

  “Tell me about the medal that was in there,” Hanrahan said to Rowland.

  Rowland shrugged. “I don’t know anything about it, Captain. I heard it wasn’t worth a hell of a lot—”

  “It was covered with jewels.”

  “Compared to other things in here, Captain, it was nickel-and-dime.”

  Hanrahan leaned closer and read a card below the smashed glass.

  THE LEGION OF HARSA

  Created by an identified gemologist in 1794, the medal was a gift to Thomas Jefferson from original members of Harsa. It was worn by Jefferson during his term as the legion’s first president, then passed down to succeeding presidents.

  The medal, set with diamonds and rubies in a sunburst design symbolizing the power of God and nature, and the light under which all free men prosper, hangs from a blood-red ribbon edged with white and set in a bow. The color of the ribbon, and of the large ruby at the center of the sunburst, was to honor the blood shed by free men who steadfastly stood against what Jefferson and other founders of the legion termed “a race of hereditary patricians or nobility” as characterized by the Society of Cincinnati.

  Hanrahan now read the card beneath the Society of the Cincinnati’s medal, which rested securely behind glass that was intact.

  THE SOCIETY OF THE CINCINNATI EAGLE

  The president-general’s eagle of the Society. This badge set with diamonds was a gift to General Washington by officers of the French navy who had been admitted to the order. It was designed by Major Pierre Charles L’Enfant, and had been worn by Alexander Hamilton, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney and twenty-two other presidents of the society.

  Pale blue ribbon set in a bow and edged with white; band of five diamonds leading down to the top medallion (all diamonds). In the body of the eagle is an oval of porcelain around which is inscribed OMNIA RELINOT SERVAT REMPE. On the eagle’s wings are two larger diamonds on top, and smaller diamonds make up the rest of the wing. The tail is made of graduating-size diamonds and larger ones at the bottom. Upper medallion has large center diamond, two oval diamonds flanking it and smaller stones around them.

  “A lot of diamonds,” Hanrahan said.

  “I guess maybe they were cheaper then,” Rowland said.

  Hanrahan walked the route Tunney had taken from the display area to the pendulum, carefully avoiding the dried drops of blood. He reached the railing and looked down into the pit, where the pendulum was once again in motion. Guests already interviewed and logged were leaving. Joe Pearl stood near the main floor railing.

  “Joe,” Hanrahan called.

  Pearl looked up. “Yeah?”

  “Finished up?”

  “I think so.”

  “You going back?”

  “Might as well. We’ll get the steno transcripts of the initial statements typed. Need me?”

  “No, I’ll be back in a while.”

  “Okay, Mac.” Pearl looked down at a chalk outline of Tunney’s body, then walked out of Hanrahan’s view.

  Hanrahan turned to Rowland. “I’d like to see the entire museum again.”

  “Never been here before, Captain?”

  “Never have. Museums have always… well, I guess I just never had the time.”

  “I never did either ’til I started working here.” His laugh was warm. “I’ll send somebody with you. I’ve got paperwork to do, you know how it is.”

  Ten minutes later Hanrahan walked alongside a security guard who wore a starched white shirt, black tie and officer’s cap. A leash in his hand was attached to a German shepherd.

  “Been using dogs long?” Hanrahan asked as they climbed stairs leading to the second floor. He didn’t want to admit it but the dog made him nervous, the way MPD dogs did.

  “Yup,” the guard said, “they been around here longer than me.”

  They started in the Nation of Nations exhibit, more than five thousand original objects and documents dedicated to the diversity of people who have come to America over the years, then moved to Everyday Life in America, where the fabric of the American character was displayed, from a classic colonial parlor in Virginia to a Victorian-Gothic bedroom in Connecticut, from a Philadelphia banker’s library to a New England one-room schoolhouse.

  Hanrahan was tempted to linger at some of the displays but knew he wasn’t there as a sightseer. He needed to have a better sense of the building in which this bizarre murder had taken place, wanted to know it. “You must get to know a lot about American history,” he said to the guard as they entered the We the People area—artifacts of the westward expansion, Indian wars, the Civil War, gifts to the fledgling nation from foreign powers, all based on Lincoln’s words, “…government of the people, by the people, for the people.”

  “I don’t look much at this stuff,” the guard said. “I do my job, that’s about it.”

  “I understand.” And he did. It was how he sometimes excused himself for not living enough of the rich full life his ex-wife used to talk about.

  Hanrahan had heard of the First Ladies’ Gown exhibition. It had been written up often in the papers and was the museum’s most popular attraction. Started in 1943 by renowned curator Margaret Brown Klapthor, it had steadily grown until reaching its current size, a detailed and revealing view of the women behind the great men, the nation’s first ladies.

  They stopped in front of one of many large, glass-walled rooms representing a White House parlor of the mid-nineteenth century. Hanrahan saw himself in the glass, touched his salt-and-pepper beard, ran his hand over baldness extending from his forehead to the crown that was bordered by fringes of what had once been a full head of black hair. Hanrahan never understood why he was balding. His father had had a full head of hair until he died at the age of eighty-four. At least he hadn’t put on weight like his father. He still weighed a trim 170 pounds, about right for his six-foot frame. It wasn’t that he made a big deal out of trying to stay slim, he just never put on weight. Metabolism, he figured. So nature evened things up. Bald but good metabolism. Couldn’t have everything…

  He shifted his focus from his reflection to the display. The mannequins, exquisite in their detail, represented the early women who’d occupied the White House. Other display rooms featured more contemporary first ladies. In this room, according to the placard, were Sarah Polk; Betty Taylor Bliss, President Taylor’s daughter, who served as White House hostess in place of her ailing mother; the tall and motherly Abigail Powers Fillmore; the Victorian Jane Means Appleton Pierce; Harriet Lane, bachelor president James Buchanan’s “mischievous romp of a niece,” who functioned as her uncle’s official hostess; the extravagant Mary Todd Lincoln; and Martha Johnson Patterson, daughter of President Andrew Johnson. Martha’s mother, too, had been ailing during the White House years and had delegated hostess duties to her.

  “You comin’?” the guard asked. The dog yawned.

  “In a minute,” Hanrahan said, drawn to the splendor in the room behind the glass—Mary Todd Lincoln’s resplendent silver tea service gleaming from a marble tabletop in the center, wallpaper reproduced from a scrap discovered during a White House renovation, a white marble mantle from the Pierce administration, laminated rosewood American Victorian furniture by John Belter, a burgundy floral carpet with pink and red roses surrounded by green leaves, gilt-framed mirrors, oil portraits of the presidents and a myriad other reminders of America at another time and place.

  “Let’s move on,” the guard said. He
sounded impatient.

  “Yeah, right. Sorry. It’s pretty fascinating stuff.”

  “I guess.” He jerked the dog’s leash and the animal slowly, reluctantly moved with his master.

  They went now to the center of the floor, where the Foucault pendulum dangled through the circular opening.

  “Well, thanks for the tour,” Hanrahan said. “By the way, are there any places you know of where somebody could hide, I mean really hide?”

  “Like whoever killed the man tonight?”

  “Yeah, like him.”

  “Mister, there’s more places to hide in this funhouse than you can imagine.”

  “I figured,” Hanrahan said.

  As he peered over the railing, he was, of course, unaware of a most peculiar movement in the First Ladies’ exhibition. One of the mannequins, dressed in a black velvet casaque over a gray silk skirt with black velvet ruffles and ruche, wearing a brunette wig combed up over crepes on the sides and adorned with velvet ribbon, feathers and a bead clasp, took a tentative step away from where she had posed between Sarah Polk and Betty Taylor Bliss. The mannequin-come-alive hesitated, listening for sounds of anyone approaching. Hearing nothing, she continued toward a door at the side of the exhibition room, opened it and stepped from the room to the visitor’s aisle in front of the glass. Long, dark eyelashes lowered, then came up again. A deep breath, a sigh, then disappearance behind one of hundreds of partitions used to separate the museum’s backstage activities from the tourists.

  “Tell Mr. Rowland we’ll be in touch,” Hanrahan said to the guard. He went outside, where reporters waited. It had started to rain. The steps leading up to the museum were tented with umbrellas. Hanrahan moved back under cover of a narrow overhang, pulled a sheet of notations from his pocket, cleared his throat and said in the best official voice he could manage, “The deceased’s name was Dr. Lewis Tunney, Caucasian, forty-three years of age…”

  Chapter 4

  JUNE 5

  “Captain Hanrahan?”

  “Yes.”

  “The vice president of the United States wishes to speak with you.”

  Hey, Mac, he said to himself, your ma should be proud of you…

  “Captain Hanrahan?” asked the now familiar deep voice of William Oxenhauer.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You get in as early as I do.”

  “I didn’t get in, sir, I never left.”

  “Oh… look, I’m sorry, Captain… I can’t go into details, but I’m afraid we’ll have to postpone our meeting.

  Hanrahan looked at his watch. It was seven-thirty. He’d intended to leave at nine for his appointment with Oxenhauer to make sure of being early. “Well, sir, may I ask when—?”

  “Something brewing on the international front. I just can’t get away today. I called you myself because I want you to know how much I want to cooperate with you. Lewis Tunney was a very dear friend. To both my wife and myself. If I can help you solve his… well, I’ll do everything and anything I possibly can. I want you to understand that.”

  “Yes, sir, when can we meet?”

  “Tomorrow morning, I should think. Same time, ten. That all right with you?”

  It will have to be, won’t it? Hanrahan wanted to say. Instead he said, “That’ll be fine, sir. But I can’t let this slide. If you have something to offer, sir, I need it. Fast.”

  “Of course. Tomorrow morning at ten. Thank you for your patience, Captain.”

  Hanrahan waited until his superior, Police Commissioner Calvin Johnson, arrived at MPD. He called and told Johnson’s secretary that he had to see him right away.

  “You’ll see him soon enough, Captain. He’s on his way down.”

  Johnson was a big man, six feet three inches tall. He came from a distinguished family of black educators and had a Ph.D. in sociology. Which made him somewhat partial to Hanrahan’s assistant, though he too occasionally winced at Joe Pearl’s penchant for the jargonish language of his field. He had been commissioner only two years, but in that brief time had managed to establish a reputation for having gotten a handle on D.C.’s crime problem, and even some solutions for it. He had also made Washington’s best-dressed list. This morning he wore a charcoal gray pinstripe suit that looked like it had been tailor-made to his lean, well-exercised frame, plus a pale blue shirt pinched at the neck with a gold bar, and a royal blue silk tie. What hair that was left on his fifty-two-year-old head was black and wavy.

  “Hello, Mac,” he said.

  “Hello, Cal.”

  “You look like you’ve been up all night.”

  “Can’t imagine why. You want coffee?”

  “Not your coffee. It’s terrible.”

  “Hire me a better coffee cook. Okay, you want to be filled in on last night.”

  “I appreciated your call at three this morning; Julia didn’t.”

  “Give her my apologies.”

  “I did. What’s new on this thing?”

  “Nothing. We searched the museum, logged every one of the two hundred guests and asked the usual prelim questions. The lab people did their job, the press was fed a lean diet and everybody was put on notice not to leave town. It boils down to one dead historian, a missing medal and a suspect-cast of thousands.”

  “What about the medal?”

  “It belonged to a society called Harsa. It has something to do with the Revolutionary War, and with another society called the Cincinnati.”

  “And?”

  “And, well, I have to find out a helluva lot more. I put a bulletin out to Interpol on the medal in case they try to fence it overseas.”

  “Do you think the medal is what got Tunney killed?”

  “As of now that seems to be the scenario, Cal. Professional jewel thieves in the act of stealing the medal, Tunney stumbles onto them, gets killed with the closest thing at hand, Thomas Jefferson’s sword.”

  “Thomas Jefferson’s sword?”

  Hanrahan nodded. “Excuse me, Cal, but I really need coffee, no matter how bad it is.” He returned carrying a steaming mug. “Sure?”

  “More so than ever.” Johnson perched on a corner of Hanrahan’s desk after checking the surface for stains or splinters, touched a thin, gray moustache with the middle finger of his right hand. “Mac, what about the vice president?”

  “What about him?”

  “He was there.”

  “Right. It seems he and his wife are old friends of the deceased, as Joe Pearl would say. His wife got hysterical, and the veep didn’t look too terrific either.”

  “Did you talk to Oxenhauer?”

  “Sure. I had an appointment with him this morning but he canceled.”

  “Why?”

  “Something international, he said.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Think he was trying to avoid you?”

  “I doubt it. But who knows?”

  “When are you seeing him?”

  “Tomorrow morning at ten.”

  Johnson went to a window and looked down to the street. He asked without turning, “Why so interested in interviewing the vice president? You bucking for a White House security job? Maybe Secret Service?”

  Hanrahan made a sound of disgust. “You’re right, Cal, this coffee is terrible. Better job? What could be better than this one? It’s like going to heaven every day.”

  Johnson nodded, straight-faced. “It looks like rain… Why so much interest in Oxenhauer?”

  “Because he told me Tunney said something to him before he died that might be important.”

  “What was it?”

  “He didn’t tell me.”

  “Why not?”

  “He wanted to get his wife home. She was in pretty bad shape.”

  “Oh.”

  “That’s what I said. I’ll see what he has to say in the morning.”

  “I can see the papers now, blaming this on the ‘Smithson Bomber.’ What about him? Any possibility that he finally came out of the cl
oset?”

  “And killed Tunney?”

  Johnson nodded, shrugged.

  “I doubt it, but who knows? That’s getting to be my favorite line on this case. Anyway, all we can do is wait for him to make a mistake, stick his head out of his hole. He hasn’t taken credit for this yet.”

  “Beef up the search for him, and make a point of it with the press. The media’ll play this to the hilt, turn it into a circus. God, Mac, a leading historian has Thomas Jefferson’s sword rammed into his back in the middle of two hundred people in tuxedoes at the Museum of American History. Imagine what they’ll do with this.”

  Johnson cleared his throat and moved to where a color photograph of Hanrahan, his ex-wife, two sons and a daughter stood on the corner of a cabinet. He touched the frame. “Are you over this yet, Mac?”

  “Over what? The divorce? Sure.”

  “Must have been tough. I mean, having your wife run off with a younger man.” They respected each other enough to talk straight.

  “It was. It isn’t anymore.”

  “Good. Good for you and good for this case. I’d hate to see you distracted. This is a big one, Mac. Tunney was a good man, I’ve heard of him… but our big problem is where he died, and the circumstances. We want to do this right. We’re making some headway in this town. I’d hate to see it set back by a lot of high-level backbiting.”

  Hanrahan momentarily resented the pressure, even if well-intentioned, from the commissioner. Then the resentment subsided and he rolled his fingertips on the desk top. “We’re on top of it, Cal. I’ll keep you informed.”

  “I know you will, Mac. Get some sleep. By the way, what did you say that medal was called?”

  “The Legion of Harsa.”

  “Find out more about that too. I’ve always enjoyed history. Like they say, we are what we were.”

  “Yeah, like they say, Cal.” He didn’t press the point that that would have made the commissioner a slave.

  ***

  Twenty-four hours later, as Captain Mac Hanrahan fidgeted in Vice President William Oxenhauer’s outer office, a thirty-four-year-old woman named Heather McBean stood at the Constitution Avenue entrance of the National Museum of American History. Next to her were four suitcases. A cab driver who had driven her to the museum from Dulles International Airport offered to help her inside but she declined. “I suppose I should have gone to the hotel first,” she said in a voice reflecting her weariness after a long flight from London.