Murder at Union Station

TWENTY-NINE

Kathryn? It’s Mackensie Smith.”

“Oh, good morning, Mr.-Mac.”

“There’s a lot of people worried about you and Rich.”

“Worried about us?”

“Calls not being returned. Did you get my message and the note I left in your mailbox?”

“Yes. I’m sorry, but it’s been so hectic here that-”

“I’m sure it has,” Smith said, “but Rich’s mom and dad are concerned that they haven’t heard from him. His father called me last evening and-”

“I told Rich he’d better call his folks, but with all that’s going on, I guess it slipped his mind.”

“You’re both okay?”

“Yes, yes. We’re fine.”

“Can I speak with Rich?”

“He’s not here, Mac. He went out for the day.”

“Can you reach him? His cell phone?”

“I’ll try, and have him call you.”

“Have him call his father first.”

Smith hung up and pondered the conversation. What was going on there?

“Did you reach him?” Annabel asked when she emerged from the shower, her body wrapped in a large blue towel, wet red hair secured beneath a smaller towel.

“I spoke with Kathryn. He wasn’t there, out for the day, she says. I can’t figure it out, Annie. What’s he trying to be, his version of J. D. Salinger? It obviously has to do with his book.”

“You asked him to call you?”

“After he calls Frank and Mary.” He got up from behind his desk and gave her a damp hug. “You smell good,” he said.

“Thank you, sir. Go get your shower in. Your scent will improve, too. I’ll make breakfast.”

Later that morning, Mac dropped her at the gallery in Georgetown before proceeding to the university, where he was scheduled to meet with the law school’s incoming dean. The intense heat spell of the past week had broken. The air was less humid and there was a slight coolness to it, both conditions representing a welcome change.

“What’ve you got?”

Bret Mullin sat in the central computer room of the precinct where an officer had done an Internet search for the name Richard Mariontholl.

“Nothing under that spelling,” he told Mullin. “But there’s this.”

He handed the detective a printout of entries for Richard Marienthal. There was a bio from the rudimentary Web page Kathryn had created for Rich; a listing of some of his magazine articles from the Washington Independent Writers’ Web site; a photo of him atop a piece he’d written for Washingtonian magazine; and a page from Hobbes House’s Web site announcing the forthcoming publication of a book by Marienthal: “a startling, explosive exposé of murder in the highest of places.”

“This the guy you’re looking for, Bret?”

“Must be. Got an address and phone for him?”

He was handed it a minute later, again from the computer database.

“Thanks, pal.”

“Anytime.”

Mullin went to the detective’s bullpen and laid the pages on his desk next to the artist’s sketch that had been given him earlier that morning. Joyce Rosenberg’s description, captured by the police sketch artist, was surprisingly close to the photo taken down from the Internet.

So this is the guy, he thought, leaning back and finishing his coffee, now cold, from a Styrofoam cup. Sasha had said that Richard Marienthal was writing a book based upon Russo’s life in the Mafia, and that after many meetings in Israel, Russo had come to Washington to meet with him. Russo gets iced the minute he steps off the train by a slick black guy who’s done time in mob school and disappears. Then that guy is found shot dead, floating in the lilies at Kenilworth Gardens. Had the mob ordered both hits, taking Russo down because he’d ratted on them a dozen years ago, then making sure the shooter wouldn’t live to finger them?

Possibly.

But something didn’t compute for Mullin with this scenario. Murder in the highest of places? What did that mean?

Vinnie Accurso entered the area and took the desk across from Mullin, interrupting his partner’s series of silent questions. “Whatta you got there?” Accurso asked, pointing to the sketch and the downloaded pages.

“Our man,” Mullin said, turning them so Accurso could better see them.

“The guy at Union Station?”

“One and the same. I had dinner last night with Russo’s lady.”

“How come?”

“She arrived to claim Russo’s body. Nice gal. I figured the least I could do after she flies all the way here was to buy her a meal.”

“Where’d you go?”

“You wouldn’t know it. Zola.”

“I know it. By that spy museum.”

“Yeah. Well, anyway, she tells me that Russo came here to meet with this writer, Marienthal. The sketch is the one Rosenberg, the Fox reporter, gave our artist. Good, huh?”

“Looks like the picture.”

“That’s what I mean. What say we pay Mr. Marienthal a visit this morning?”

“Why don’t we call him first?”

“I’d rather surprise him,” Mullin said, standing and twisting against the pain in his back.

They went to the unmarked car assigned them that day.

“So tell me about dinner last night,” Accurso said as Mullin started the engine and pulled out of the lot.

“What’s to tell?”

“What’s she look like?”

“Nice-looking. Not a kid. A little overweight, maybe.”

“I guess you’d notice that,” Accurso said playfully.

“Whatta you mean by that?”

“Nothing. Nothing. I just-I just find it strange you’d take her to dinner. How many women have shown up here over the years to claim a body? Plenty, right? You ever take any of them to dinner?”

Mullin ignored his partner and drove in the direction of Marienthal’s apartment on Capitol Hill. They were on Seventh Street, approaching Eastern Market, when Accurso asked Mullin to stop.

“What’s up?” Mullin asked.

“I want to get some fruit, Bret. I told Katie I’d bring fruit home.”

“You crazy, buying it here? They charge a fortune.”

“I’m not going inside. There’re a couple of nice stands outside, on the other side. Cheap, too.”

“Yeah, all right,” Mullin said, pulling into a no-parking zone by the market and across from a mini-shopping center.

“You coming?” Accurso asked after he’d exited the car and saw that Mullin hadn’t moved.

“Go on, go on. I’ll stay here.”

Mullin watched the passing parade while waiting for Accurso to return. Ten minutes later, he saw his partner, carrying a plastic shopping bag, round the corner of the building that had housed greengrocers and butchers since 1873. Accurso was within ten feet of the car when he stopped and looked across the street. “Look!” he shouted.

Mullin swiveled his head. A small branch of a local bank was nestled between a video rental store and a dry cleaner. Two men were in front of the bank, by its ATM machine. One of them, an older man, had his back against the machine and had raised his hands. The second man, considerably younger and wearing a T-shirt and jeans, with a red bandanna wrapped around his head, pointed what looked like a gun at the older gentleman.

Accurso didn’t hesitate. He dropped the bag of fruit to the ground, pulled his revolver from its shoulder holster, and headed across the heavily trafficked street, holding a hand up in an attempt to stop motorists from hitting him and yelling, “Hey, hey, police! Drop the gun!”

Mullin grabbed their mobile radio from the dash, struggled out the driver’s-side door, and also withdrew his weapon. Accurso had reached the other side of the road as Mullin started across. He was stopped by the sound of a single gunshot snapping through the air. Mullin, who was only a few feet into the road, stared in disbelief. Accurso was on the ground; the ATM bandit had taken off to his right and disappeared around the back of the stores.

“Vinnie!” Mullin shouted as he threaded his way through automobiles that had stopped when their drivers saw what was going on. He reached his partner, fell to his knees, and asked, “Where you hit, buddy?”

“It’s okay,” Accurso said, trying to get to a sitting position. “My leg. That’s all. Just my leg.”

Mullin saw a crimson puddle forming around Accurso’s knee. He barked into the radio, “Officer down! Officer down!” and gave the location.

“Get the shooter,” Accurso said.

“Yeah, later, Vinnie. He’s gone. You see him?”

Accurso whimpered against a sharp pain. “Yeah, I saw him.”

“Good.”

“Let Katie know I’m okay.”

“Sure.”

“And give her the fruit. She wanted fruit.”

“Yeah, I’ll give her the fruit, Vinnie. She’ll get the fruit.”

Detective Fred Peck was in a good mood that morning, which reflected the fact that Helen had awoken in sufficiently good spirits to have gotten up with him and prepared breakfast, as rare an occurrence in the Peck household as candor at a presidential press conference. The reason for her springtime mood was a hand-painted mirror imported from France that she’d wanted for the foyer since spotting it weeks ago in a local antique store. Fred had stopped by the shop on his way home the evening before and bought it for her. After many attempts to hang it precisely where she wanted it, he finally succeeded. The glass in it was wavy, but he didn’t mention that flaw to her. She was pleased, which was what counted.

He signed in to the Missing Persons Unit, closed his office door, sat behind his desk, and examined the copy of the police artist’s sketch of the man Fox News reporter Joyce Rosenberg had described. It was interesting-the ability of police artists to create a workable composite of men and women based upon descriptions by witnesses always impressed him. But whether this sketch would be of any use to Tim Stripling was conjecture. All Peck could and would do was deliver it to Stripling, as promised. He slipped the sketch into a large manila envelope, wrote TS on it, placed it in the wide center drawer of his desk, and left the office.

“Hey, Fred,” a detective in the bullpen said when Peck entered.

“Where’s Mullin and Accurso?” Peck asked.

“Out. Mullin came up with the name of the guy who was at Union Station when the old Italian got whacked.”

“He did? How’d he do that?”

The detective shrugged and pointed to a half-consumed box of Dunkin’ Donuts on the desk. “Want one?”

“No, thanks.”

“He got some info off the Internet,” the detective said, helping himself to a jelly doughnut.

Peck went to the central computer room and asked the officer on duty about Mullin, whether he’d downloaded information about a potential witness to the Union Station shooting.

“Yeah, he did. He had the name spelled wrong, but it was close enough.”

“What did you come up with?”

“You want a copy?”

“I’d appreciate it.”

Armed with the same information Mullin had been given, Peck returned to his office, closed the door, and placed a call.

One of the two cell phones Tim Stripling carried rang. He saw that it wasn’t the one provided by the FBI and flipped open the cover on his personal phone. “Hello?”

“Tim. It’s Fred Peck.”

Stripling had just finished breakfast at Patisserie Café Didier, in Georgetown.

“What’s up, Fred?” he asked.

Stripling smiled at Peck’s lowering of his voice. “I have what you want,” said the detective.

“Meaning?”

“The name of the witness at Union Station.”

Stripling pulled a pen from his jacket and positioned it over a white paper napkin. “Shoot.”

“No,” Peck said. “I want to give it to you personally.”

“Why? Just give me the name.”

“I have a picture, too.”

“The sketch?”

“And a photo.”

Stripling glanced around the popular patisserie and also lowered his voice. “Now?” he asked.

“I’m tied up this morning,” Peck said.

Sounds kinky, Stripling thought. “Lunch?”

“Yes. But, Tim.”

“Huh?”

“This will cost you big.”

Greedy bastard, Stripling thought. His wife must be holding out on him in bed unless she gets paid.

“I’ll take care of you,” Stripling said.

“I mean, it’s got to be a lot more.”

“Yeah, yeah, okay.”

“South Austin Grill in Alexandria. Noon?”

Tex-Mex food, Stripling thought, wincing. He disliked southwestern food. All beans and mush. “All right,” he said.

He’d no sooner closed the cover on his cell phone when the other one rang.

“Stripling.”

“We’d like to meet,” the FBI agent said.

“Why?”

“To get an update.”

“I don’t have anything to update you on.”

“That’s disappointing.”

“That may be, but-”

“One o’clock. Usual place.”

“No can do. I’ll have something for you later this afternoon.”

“What time?”

“Four.”

The agent hung up.

He used his personal phone to call Mark Roper at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia.

“What a pleasant surprise hearing from you,” Roper said.

“Always aim to please, Mark. I’ve got a breakthrough for your friends.”

“My friends?”

“You know who I’m talking about. I’m due for a raise.”

“Timothy, please, I-”

“Seven-fifty starting today. And a bonus of two thousand.”

“For Christ’s sake, Tim.”

“I’m serious, Mark. It’s either that or you get somebody else. My expenses have suddenly gone up.”

“What’s this breakthrough?”

“We have a deal?”

“All right. But-”

“I’ll get back to you. Or maybe your friends will. Ciao.”

Marienthal didn’t take time for a leisurely breakfast at a trendy Georgetown patisserie that morning. He was at the local branch of his bank when it opened at nine, presenting the keys to his safe deposit box to the by-now-familiar woman on the platform. He’d been in and out of the safe deposit vault on a daily basis for almost a year.

“How’s your book going?” she asked as she inserted his keys and the master key into his rented boxes.

“Oh, good. Yeah, pretty good.”

“That’s great.”

She discreetly left as Marienthal emptied the contents of the boxes into a large canvas shoulder bag. He signaled her; she returned and together they locked the boxes.

“Thanks,” he said.

“See you this afternoon?” she asked, aware of his habit of returning materials to the boxes just before the bank’s closing time each day.

“Not sure,” he said.

He walked quickly to his car parked around the corner, opened the trunk, deposited the canvas bag in it alongside a suitcase, slammed the trunk closed, looked around to ensure no one was paying attention to him, got behind the wheel, and eased his way into traffic. A half hour later, he was checked into the River Inn in Foggy Bottom, a small, all-suite hotel within walking distance of the Kennedy Center, a favorite of visitors contemplating a longer stay in Washington. He used his cell phone to call Kathryn Jalick at the Library of Congress.

“For you, Kathryn,” a colleague in the rare documents room said.

“Rich?”

“Yeah. I’m here.”

“Are you okay?”

“Fine. I’m fine. You?”

“Okay.”

“Look, Kathryn, just remember what I told you. Nobody, and I mean nobody, is to know where I am.”

“I know.”

“Don’t write down the number here. Don’t write down anything and leave it around the apartment.”

“I won’t. But, Rich, what about your folks? Mac Smith? What do I tell them?”

“Just say I’m out of town on business. I’ll be gone a week, maybe longer.”

“All right.”

“When will you tell Geoff?”

“I don’t know. I’m not sure what I’ll tell him. That’s what I have to figure out while I’m here. Don’t worry. Just go about your life like normal.”

“Normal.”

“It’ll be over soon. I love you.”

She glanced at her colleague, who was busy preparing a rare document for a researcher due to arrive later that morning. “I love you, too,” she whispered, hung up, and brushed a tear from the corner of her eye.