Murder at Union Station

NINE

Once clear of the accident scene, Rich Marienthal drove as fast as he thought he could get away with. Of the many things Kathryn Jalick liked about him, his patience behind the wheel usually ranked high on the list. Not this day. He weaved in and out through traffic approaching the Key Bridge into Georgetown and on M Street until turning down Massachusetts Avenue.

“What a mess,” he said as they approached Union Station.

“Must be the terror alert,” she offered, referring to the legion of law enforcement personnel milling about the station. Cars were being prevented from pulling up directly in front, so Rich squeezed into a no-parking zone on First Street, at the side of the station.

“Wait here,” he told Kathryn as he bolted from the car and dodged traffic until he’d reached an entrance leading into the West Hall. Although uniformed armed guards patrolled that side of the station, too, no one was stopped from entering and exiting. Marienthal fought the urge to run as he made his way through the throngs of people to the gate area, looking for Russo. Failing to see him, he headed for the information desk in the Main Hall.

“I’m looking for an old Italian man,” he breathlessly told the woman at the desk. “I was supposed to meet his train from New York, but I got tied up in traffic-an accident in Virginia -and…”

The woman’s expression said she didn’t know what he expected her to do.

He went back into the train concourse, where a crowd had gathered in the east end of the station, in front of a tobacco shop. He managed to snake through the gathering until he could see activity next to the shop. Yellow crime-scene tape had been strung to create a wide off-limits area near a set of yellow swinging doors. A large contingent of uniformed and plainclothes police came and went through the doors, leading to what appeared to be a hallway.

“What’s going on?” Marienthal asked a bystander.

“Somebody died,” she said.

“Who?”

“I don’t know.”

“Somebody got shot,” said a man standing next to them.

“Shot?”

“I heard it,” yet another person said excitedly. “I was right here.”

“I heard it was an old guy with a cane.”

A male voice came through a bullhorn: “All right, all right, everybody stand back. There’s nothing to see. Please leave the area.”

Marienthal’s stomach tightened into a painful knot. He backed away until he was clear of the crowd and walked slowly toward the gate area where Russo would have left the Amtrak train. Although his eyes swept the station in search of the old man, he knew deep in his gut that he wouldn’t see him. “I heard it was an old guy with a cane,” the man in the crowd had said, and his words reverberated through Marienthal’s brain. It had to be Louis, he thought-he knew!

“Hey, man, they get the guy?” Joe Jenks asked Marienthal from the shoeshine stand.

“Huh?”

“The shooter. The guy who gunned down the old dude. They find him?”

“No, I… I don’t know.”

Marienthal stood by gate A-8 for what seemed a very long time before going to the Main Hall. He stepped outside and watched the police and military vehicles moving in and out of position. An antenna was extended high above the roof of a TV news remote truck with WTTG-Channel 5 emblazoned on its side. A reporter and cameraman prepared to beam a report back to the station.

“Any word on the victim’s name?” Marienthal asked, his voice weak.

The reporter, an attractive young woman holding a microphone and clipboard, turned to him and shook her head.

“Russo,” Marienthal said automatically. “Louis Russo.”

The reporter pulled a cell phone from where it was clipped on her belt and said into it, “I’ve got a witness who sounds like he knows the name of the victim. Russo, Louis Russo.” She listened intently for the reply. Once she’d received it, she turned to talk to Marienthal. But he was gone, back inside Union Station and on his way to where Kathryn waited for him in the car.