“We took it from the room they call the commissioner’s suite,” a detective said.
“Is that where it was always kept? Run it down before the day is out.”
* * *
The Second Meeting
MPD’s Evidence Unit had been a source of embarrassment for years. Its job was seemingly simple and straightforward—to catalog and file evidence in criminal cases so that it was available in its original form for presentation during trial. But evidence sometimes disappeared. Illegal drugs seized in raids occasionally vanished. In one case, Internal Affairs built a case against cops who’d confiscated the drugs and sold them back to the same dealers from whom they’d been taken. Weapons had occasionally flown the coop, too. And sensitive documents to be used to prosecute certain government officials seemed to have been lifted aloft by breezes through open windows and floated to a kinder, gentler place.
Such incidents did not occur with regularity. To the contrary, materials generally stayed in Evidence until prosecutors called upon them to build their cases. It had been at least six months since any controversy had arisen over MPD’s handling of evidence.
But the leak of the letters purportedly written by Wendell Tierney to Pauline Juris had broken that string.
The officer in charge of Evidence, eighteen-year veteran Frank Chester, had spent most of his MPD years behind a desk and pushing papers. His early years on D.C.’s streets had been relatively uneventful, and his performance reports never rated him higher than average. The word was that Chester didn’t have the heart, or guts, to be a street cop.
When he was offered a job in Evidence after four years, Chester took it and never complained. It suited his style. A nine-to-fiver. In it for the pension. Two years to go.
Seeing Detective Darcy Eikenberg come through the door was not destined to make Frank Chester smile. He had little use for all detectives, with their swagger and boast, but had a particular dislike for female cops. Women didn’t belong in fire trucks, patrol cars, or the military. He wasn’t terribly original in his rationale—“There’s always that time of the month,” or, “They just end up quitting to have babies.” He’d never married.
Eikenberg was aware of Chester’s chauvinistic attitudes and knew he wasn’t unique. Many of her male colleagues felt the same. She also knew that Chester was not a man to seek confrontation or conflict. He kept such thoughts to himself. Watery blue eyes and weak lips said more than any words.
When confronted with men like Frank Chester, Eikenberg invariably presented herself at her female best. She knew it made them squirm and took pleasure from their discomfort. Instead of choosing a chair, she perched on the edge of his desk and slowly, provocatively crossed her legs. “Well, Frank, whodunit?” she asked, flashing a winsome smile.
He looked at her quizzically.
“Who leaked the letters?”
“I don’t know,” he said.
“Leaking the contents of those letters put me in one hell of an awkward position. Ever hear of Mackensie Smith?”
“Yeah.”
“He’s Wendell Tierney’s attorney. He’s a professor at George Washington University. And he’s one unhappy camper. When I told him some inefficient, ineffectual, stupid member of the Evidence Unit blabbered to reporters about those letters, he—well, he looked like he’d just eaten a rotten egg.” Before Chester could respond—if he’d even intended to—she added, and stopped smiling: “And that makes me very angry.”
“Look, Darcy, lots of people saw those letters. Why are you looking at me like I leaked them?”
“I’m not looking at you as though you personally leaked them, Frank. But you are the head of Evidence. Ever hear of an old presidential expression ‘The buck stops here’?”
“Truman. Harry Truman.”
“A history scholar, too,” she said. “IA is serious about this investigation. When they find out who leaked those letters, bye-bye pension.”
“Yeah, okay,” Chester muttered.
“I talked to your brother this morning,” she said.
His response was a blank stare.
“I asked Joe Chester whether he had some reason for those letters to be made public.”
“So?”
“So, he told me he didn’t. But I figured maybe he had a reason to hang Wendell Tierney out to dry. Maybe he called his brother at MPD and said, ‘Hey, Frank, give me some stuff on what Tierney wrote to his mistress.’ ”
“I don’t have to listen to this,” Chester said, standing. “My brother and I don’t talk. My brother and I haven’t talked in ten years. So get off my case, awright?”
Eikenberg stood, straightened her skirt, and checked her reflection in a window. “I know I’m wrong,” she said, continuing to study herself in the pane. “At least I hope I’m wrong.” She turned and looked down at him—she was inches taller. “I assume those letters are secure in the safe.”
Chester walked out.
The Third Meeting
Eikenberg had been assigned three more detectives for the Juris case. They met in a basement room. With them, she was all business. “Dr. Lucas Wharton, former husband of the deceased, claims he had dinner with her to discuss land they jointly owned in West Virginia. He claims he never went near Roosevelt Island that night. Maybe he did, maybe he didn’t.” She pushed photocopies of paper across the table to each of them. “Here’s the information he gave us on the car he rented. Find it, bring it in, and let the lab go over it.”
“Chances are the rental company cleaned it up,” one of the detectives said. He was an obese older man with a breathing problem.
“When’s the last time you drove a truly clean rented car?” she said. “Check it out and do it fast.”
The Fourth Meeting
Chief of Detectives Joe Horton was known as a cop’s cop, seasoned by D.C. street wars, steel-eyed, taciturn, and with a generous blessing of balanced cynicism. He’d gone bald at twenty but hadn’t tried to do anything about it. A point for him. His head was a series of craters and hills, a lunar landscape. He still wore knit ties—maroon this day—and had framed pictures of his children and grandchildren all over his office. A good guy, everyone knew. But don’t cross him. Eikenberg made sure she was on time.
“Fill me in,” Horton said.
“Making progress,” she said, pulling a steno pad from her purse and referring to it. “I’ve got people checking out the rental car the deceased’s husband drove the night of her murder. That’s Dr. Lucas Wharton, big-shot surgeon from New York. We’ve interviewed him twice. Talks a good story, but I have my doubts.”
Horton’s reply was to place a folder in front of her. She opened it, read, glanced up with a knowing look. “This was fast,” she said.
“I put a priority on it,” he said. “That’s valuable land Ms. Juris and her ex-husband owned.”
“Only they didn’t own all of it together,” Eikenberg said. “Not from what I see here.”
“Right. Juris bought the adjacent parcel a month before she was killed. Down payment in cash. A hundred-and-fifty grand.”
“But she didn’t have any money,” Eikenberg said. She decided to not mention the rumor of missing funds from the National Building Museum. Not yet. She’d run that down herself. No sense giving up what it might produce to another cop.
“So she has a friend,” said Horton. “The land they jointly held wasn’t worth a hell of a lot. But when you add what she brought to the deal, it’s suddenly worth a lot more. Tierney Development is going in there big time. Condos, shopping mall, the works. Worth a lot if you put the two parcels together. And she owned the big slice.”
“I want to think about this,” Eikenberg said, placing the folder in her briefcase.
“Yeah, I figured you would. Looks to me like the doc got screwed by his ex-wife.”
“Don’t you love it when we’re drowning in motives?” she said. “Want to hear another?”
“Sure, only make it quick. The commissioner and I have a date in a few minu
tes.”
“I interviewed people at Tierney Development again this morning. I asked them about rumors that Wendell Tierney might have had a thing going with Pauline Juris.”
“And?”
“And I got these noncommittal stares. Nobody knows anything, of course.”
“Of course.”
“Except that two people I talked to didn’t completely dismiss the notion of an affair between Tierney and Juris.”
“That’s progress,” said Horton.
“I thought so, Joe, especially since the Tierney they pointed to wasn’t Wendell Tierney. It was his son, Chip.”
Horton removed half-glasses that had been perched on the end of his prominent nose. “Son? Sleeping with Pauline Juris?”
“That’s what I read into what I heard this morning.”
“So how do you figure this?”
“Like everything else, I have to think about it. But if Chip Tierney and his father’s personal assistant were sleeping together, it means he might have had a reason to do her in. Lovers’ squabble. Threats to tell his father about their affair. Or—”
“Or what? I have to leave.”
“Or Chip Tierney’s fiancée, Terri Pete. I talked to her, Joe. Hate to be old-fashioned, but she defines gold digger. She’s got Chip Tierney all twisted up around her fìnger—and body. Claims she only met Pauline Juris once or twice and had no feelings about her one way or the other. Right! She could have found out about her sweetie’s fling with Daddy’s aide and done in the competition. Certainly adds to the suspect list.”
Horton stood, stretched, buttoned his suit jacket, and came around the desk. “You’re really into this, aren’t you?”
She looked up. “I guess you could say that.”
“Gotten to the point where you want somebody brought in and charged?”
“Brought in, not charged. Held as long as we can get away with,” she said.
“Who?”
“Dr. Wharton.”
“We have enough on him?”
“No, but I’d like Tierney—make that plural—the Tierneys to think the pressure is off them.”
“All right, but let’s wait until they check the rental car. I’d feel better having caught him in a lie.”
“Fair enough. By the way, Joe, I need a bigger expense account.”
It was his first laugh that day.
“Tierney runs with a well-heeled crowd,” she said. “I’ve gotten to know some of them and want to get to know them better. That means lunches, dinners, hanging out, getting them to trust me, forget I’m a cop and view me as a sympathetic listener. Not big expenses, Joe, but I don’t want to feel guilty picking up a tab.”
He smiled and patted her shoulder. “Okay, but don’t overdo it. IA tells me they haven’t come up with who leaked the Tierney letters.”
“No surprise,” she said. “Just as long as it doesn’t happen again.”
“If it does, heads will hang on these walls along with the shots of my kids and grandkids.”
21
That Same Night
Suzanne Tierney entered the Grand Hyatt Hotel on H Street and headed directly for the Grand Slam. The Slam was a popular bar where sports of every stripe and season were projected on huge TV screens. She snaked her way through the crowded room.
Sun Ben Cheong looked at her but said nothing, returning his attention to the screen. He’d placed a sizable bet on a baseball game and was unhappy his team wasn’t covering the spread.
Suzanne, whose annoyance level was always close to the surface, tapped his arm. “Hey, I have a life, too. Tear yourself away from the game. I need to talk to you now.”
Cheong ran fingers over his nose and scowled at what was on the screen. No need to watch any longer. He was a loser and knew it. “Over there,” he said, indicating an unoccupied corner of the room.
“Okay,” he said. “What’s so important?”
“The money you owe me.”
Suzanne had rehearsed a number of lead-ins on her way to the bar, but Cheong’s cold, unsympathetic demeanor rendered smooth opening gambits difficult. He had that effect on people. Because he was direct, it brought out directness in others.
He stared at her, unblinking, then glanced at another television set at the sound of the crowd’s roar. They had scored again; his bookie in Tyson’s Corner would want his money in the morning.
“Sun Ben, please don’t play games with me,” Suzanne said, her earlier toughness replaced by a pleading tone. “It isn’t fair.”
Cheong returned his attention to her and knit his brow as though running through a complex series of calculations. “How much?” he asked.
Toughness to pleading to frustration. “You know how much. One hundred thousand dollars. What we agreed on.”
“Just like that,” he said.
“No, not just like that. I’ve been putting my neck out for you for months now. Every week that I pick up a package in New York, I feel like a criminal, like the FBI is going to jump out of the bushes and arrest me.”
His smile was a slight imperfection. “You’re being dramatic again, Suzanne.”
“The hell I am. Look, I don’t care what kind of scam you’re involved in. That’s your business, and maybe Sam’s Tankloff’s. Should it become Daddy’s business, too?”
There was no smile now. His face was granite. “You aren’t threatening me, are you?”
“Call it what you will. I want my money. It’s that simple. I promised Arthur Saul in New York that I’d have it. He’s going to put me in a play. Damn it, Sun, I want it now.”
“I don’t have it now.”
“What did you do, drop it all in Atlantic City?”
He didn’t respond.
“Please, Sun. It’s my big chance. I’ve been writing this one-woman show for a year. Arthur says he’ll produce it and turn it into a real showcase for me. You know Daddy won’t give it to me. I asked him six months ago, and he laughed. He just looked at me and laughed. What do you think that did to me, made me feel? When I told you—”
They were interrupted by a young man who asked Cheong how he was doing. “Fine,” Cheong responded. The young man slapped him on the shoulder and continued to the bar. “When I told you, you seemed to understand,” Suzanne continued. “So I started doing the pickups for you in New York, when you told me it would be worth a hundred thousand dollars for me.”
His black eyes darted back and forth. Confident that they weren’t being overheard, he leaned closer. “I don’t want to argue with you, Suzanne. I’ll give you the money, but it will take me a week or two. I’m going to the Cayman Islands with Sam on business. While I’m gone, I expect an infusion of cash. When I get back—and if the cash is there—I’ll give it to you. I can’t do more than that.”
Her face brightened. She placed a small hand on his chest and smiled. “That’s all I wanted to hear. I’ll call Arthur and tell him it’s set so he can get the ball rolling. What else can I say except thank you? I knew you wouldn’t let me down the way Daddy has all these years.”
“I have to go,” he said. “I have an appointment.” He strode purposefully from the room and into the hotel lobby, leaving Suzanne alone with her thoughts—and dreams.
She went to a public phone and dialed Arthur Saul’s number in New York. His assistant answered and told her he was busy.
“Put him on,” she said with conviction. “I have very good news for him. For us.”
22
The Next Morning—Thursday
Because Mackensie Smith was obsessive-compulsive when it came to office neatness, he seldom had the courage to visit the office of his friend Professor Monty Jamison, whose office of solid toxic waste was infamous at the university. “Monty will die in there, and we won’t know for days and won’t be able to find him for a month,” a colleague liked to say. One thing for certain, Mac thought, he won’t be found under J.
Jamison’s office was twice the size of Smith’s but seemed considerably smaller because of i
ts immense clutter. Most of the space was taken up with books and papers in what seemed to be leaning towers, some reaching from floor to almost ceiling. A narrow path wandered from door to desk, with an even narrower black hole circling the desk to allow Jamison access to his chair. He claimed to be able to put his finger on any document there, and Mac Smith didn’t doubt it. A psychiatrist at a party once told Smith that people with organized minds didn’t need external order to function. Translation: Smith’s need for external order meant that his mind was disorganized. Just another flawed Freudian theory, he told himself after finding an excuse to escape the shrink. He’d once heard Dr. Joyce Brothers on a TV talk show explain that men who needed to arrange throw pillows in a neat row on a couch had a breast fixation. The pillows on Smith’s couches were always neatly lined up. He’d asked Annabel about it, and she’d assured him that his appreciation of the female breast was well within normal limits.
Jamison had multiple research projects going at once. Few were completed because his initial enthusiasm usually waned when a new idea captured his sizable imagination. Recently, he’d told Smith that he was in the process of studying the background of Amila Bloomer, a nineteenth-century leader of the temperance movement and inventor of women’s “bloomers”; George Washington Plunkitt, a New York politician at the turn of the century who’d proudly differentiated between honest and dishonest graft and who claimed that the sort of “honest” graft he practiced was good for society; and, of course, there was always another Washington murder in the past to which the American history professor was lending his insatiable curiosity.
Smith knocked on Jamison’s door that morning, heard a gruff “Come in,” and pushed open the door as far as it would go, which wasn’t far because of books piled behind it. Jamison was leaning back in his chair reading.
“Bad time?” Smith asked.
Murder on the Potomac Page 13
