Murder on K Street

by Margaret Truman

  “Thanks for being so understanding,” she said.

  “There’s really not much of a choice, is there?”

  “You could have exploded.”

  “Which would accomplish nothing.” He forced a smile. “Tell you what, Jeannette. Let’s sleep on this and talk again tomorrow after we’ve had a chance to digest things. I somehow think that—”

  “Phil! Lyle and I are getting married.”

  SIXTEEN

  The Cirilli Group sure as hell isn’t being suttle about going after X-M Shipping as a client. Let’s cut them off at the legs. Rick.

  It wasn’t fair, of course, to judge a man’s character and personality by a misspelling in a memo. But in Rick Marshalk’s case, it seemed apt. Subtle wasn’t a word in his vocabulary, correctly spelled or not; nor was it a part of his makeup. He’d navigated the treacherous shoals of Hollywood, and although his years there could never be considered a success, he’d learned plenty. Subtlety! That was for losers. His full-frontal-attack philosophy had served him well since arriving in D.C., and he saw no reason to change or even question it.

  He’d called a meeting that afternoon at his high-rise condo overlooking Washington Harbor. It was the largest unit in the building, with splendid views of the water and of the complex itself from its wraparound balconies. Present were two of his top lobbyists, as well as the Marshalk Group’s head of security, Jack Parish.

  “I wanted to meet here,” Marshalk said, “because I’m getting paranoid about talking in the office.” He turned to Parish. “I want the place swept again, Jack.”

  “I had it done only a couple of weeks ago.”

  “Do it again, every day if you have to.”

  “It might not be a bug,” one of the execs said. “Maybe somebody at the office is leaking information.”

  “Any ideas who that might be?” Marshalk asked.

  His colleagues looked at each other. Parish, who sat on a window seat in front of a floor-to-ceiling window, had been examining a discoloration on the back of his hand. He looked up and said, “You want it straight, Rick?”

  “Of course I do.”

  “I’ve got my suspicions about a lot of people in the firm.”

  They waited for him to elaborate.

  “Neil,” he announced flatly.

  “Why do you say that?”

  Parish shrugged and grimaced against an unseen kink. “He’s a weak sister, Rick. He’s got a flabby mind.”

  “Flabby mind?” someone asked.

  “No strength,” Parish explained. “I know he’s the president and all, but I just have this uneasy feeling about him.”

  “Who else?” Marshalk asked.

  “The one who’s leaving, Camelia. She’s gotten cozy, real cozy, with Jonell, and I’ve never trusted him, either.”

  Marshalk, who’d been standing behind an elaborate bar in the living room, moved around it and approached Parish where he sat. “I agree about Camelia Watson,” he said. “She’s been warned. But Neil has been loyal, at least as far as I can tell. Hell, he knows what side his bread is buttered on.”

  Parish looked up at his boss and smiled crookedly. “It wouldn’t take much to get him to say anything, Rick. Believe me, I know his type. I dealt with lots of them when I was MPD. He’s weak.”

  Marshalk knew that his security chief was right. Bringing Neil Simmons on board hadn’t been motivated by wanting a strong presence in the firm’s presidency. It had been more pragmatic than that. Neil assured Marshalk of a strong pipeline to his father, one of the most powerful men in the U.S. Senate. Neil’s weakness was a plus as far as Marshalk was concerned. He was easily manipulated, not one to stir the pot and cause trouble. Potential clients responded favorably, even enthusiastically to having Lyle Simmons’s son working on their behalf in the halls of Congress, and in offices of top people in every government agency.

  Marshalk turned to the others. “We tighten things up from now on. We bring people into the loop on a strictly need-to-know basis.”

  “Right,” affirmed the two-man chorus.

  “Okay, let’s get down to what we have to do to land the X-M Shipping account. Cirilli’s been telling X-M that we’re under investigation by Justice. That’s all they’ve got to offer, crap like that. We’ve got the people in Congress who can kill that new legislation requiring shipping companies to set up their own port security procedures. It’ll cost them a fortune. Homeland Security’s pushing it on the basis of national security. So what else is new? I want an all-out blitz on X-M and Cirilli. Get our writers to start grinding out op-ed pieces, and make sure they emphasize our experience in lobbying for shipping company interests. Feed info to the columnists and bloggers we’ve got in our pocket about a pending congressional hearing into Cirilli and its paying off of lawmakers. Get some of our House members to put it in the Congressional Record, tip off the press. Put Kelman from the National Security Committee together with X-M’s execs. Tell Kelman we’ll bankroll another fund-raiser for him if he’ll lean on X-M to come with us. He owes us plenty.” He turned to Jack Parish. “You’ve got the goods on Cirilli’s number one guy, Clauson. Right?”

  “About the bimbo he’s got stashed away in Georgetown? Yeah, I’ve got it.”

  “Leak it! X-M’s people won’t want to get in bed with a potential scandal.”

  Marshalk’s minions took notes.

  “Questions?” Marshalk asked.

  There were none.

  “Okay, let’s move.” He asked Parish to stay behind.

  “Look, Jack,” Marshalk said when they were alone. “I had a conversation with Jonell about his being at the Simmons house the day of the murder. He’s wavering about going to the police. I think I convinced him to cool it for a few days, but he may need a stronger message than that.”

  “I’ll take care of it,” Parish said.

  When Rotondi left Marlene Boynton, he intended to go straight to Emma’s Foggy Bottom home to walk Homer. But he stopped on the way at Kinkead’s and nursed a drink at the sparsely populated downstairs bar.

  His visit with Marlene, and her parting comments, had opened a torrent of memories of that senior year at the University of Illinois, memories he was almost always successful at blotting out. He recalled the conversation with Jeannette in Lyle’s Thunderbird as though it had happened the night before, and the knot in his gut was equally as fresh—and painful.

  After dropping Jeannette at the sorority house, he’d driven aimlessly, the windows open, the radio loud as a local station spun the day’s hits. “How Can You Mend a Broken Heart?” by the Bee Gees was on at the moment, and the lyrics had meaning to him for the first time. He knew he should be feeling a litany of emotions—rage at Lyle, extreme disappointment in Jeannette, a sense of betrayal to rival Caesar’s, hatred, disgust, maybe pity. But he was unsuccessful in summoning any of those feelings. He wanted to cry; wasn’t that the appropriate reaction? But he didn’t. Couldn’t. Mitigating all those human emotions was what had nagged at him ever since he first saw Jeannette Boynton and fell in love with her easy laugh, her beautiful face, her stunning body, and all the other good womanly things.

  He wasn’t right for her.

  And wished he were.

  Where was his competitive spirit? He attacked every basketball game as though it would be the last one he ever played, tenacious, focused, eyes set on winning above all else. Or those track meets in which he viewed each opponent as a threat to his very existence, summoning up every last ounce of energy and fire to finish first. Always finish first.

  Love was different, he now knew. There were no referees to call foul, no umpires to set the rules. No one counted the number of times you stole the ball from an opponent, or how many seconds you shaved off your personal best in the quarter mile. Love was no game. It had to do with how lifetimes would be spent, and who would spend them together.

  He returned the car a little before midnight. Simmons looked up as Rotondi walked in, laid the car keys on Simmons’s desk, stripped off
his shirt, tossed it on a chair, and sat at his desk. “Thanks for the car,” he said.

  “Anytime, pal.”

  Rotondi opened a textbook.

  “You know, right?” Simmons said.

  Rotondi swung around in his chair. “Yeah, I know. Jeannette told me. You knew she planned to tonight. That’s why you gave me the car.”

  Simmons shrugged. “I figured it was better coming from her than me.”

  “You mean safer, Lyle?”

  “No, of course not. She’s the one who’s pregnant, not me.” It was an ugly attempt at a laugh.

  Rotondi turned away. Simmons rolled his desk chair across the floor to his roommate’s side. “Look, Phil, I know this comes as a hell of a blow to you, and I’m sorry. I truly am sorry for the way it worked out.”

  “Drop it, Lyle.”

  “I can’t drop it. You’re my best friend, damn it! You’re the last guy I’d ever want to hurt. You know that, don’t you?”

  Rotondi faced him. “What I know is, Lyle, that you and Jeannette are getting married. I’m square with that. I wish she weren’t pregnant going into it, but that’s not my concern. You’re right. I am your best friend. I thought you were mine.”

  “I am, I am, Phil, and this shouldn’t get in the way of that friendship. It’s not as though I planned it. It just—it just happened, like these things sometimes do. By the way, this is no shotgun wedding. Jeannette and I have really fallen for each other, and it’s because of you. You spotted her first. Man, you’ve got good taste.”

  Rotondi sprung out of his chair, grabbed Simmons by the throat, and propelled him across the room and into the far wall, spilling chairs and knocking things from desks en route. He held him against the window, the venetian blinds falling and tangling Simmons in the slats and cords. Rotondi cocked his right fist and held it in front of his roommate’s face.

  “Go ahead,” Simmons gasped. “Take a shot, pal. Beat me bloody. I deserve it.”

  An animal growl came from Rotondi’s throat. His hand shook as though the nerves in it had short-circuited.

  “Go ahead, Phil,” Simmons repeated. “Break my nose. Get it over with.”

  Rotondi loosened his grip on Simmons’s throat. He lowered his hand and took a step back, hyperventilating. Simmons rubbed his neck and slumped to the floor. Rotondi backed away and fell into his chair.

  “Lyle,” Rotondi said.

  “What?”

  “We have a month before graduation, and I don’t want to hear another word about this. Okay?”

  “Yeah, sure, but I don’t want it to destroy a great friendship.”

  “It won’t, Lyle, if you’ll just shut up. The best man won and—”

  “Oh, no, my friend, you are definitely the best man. You will be, won’t you?”

  Rotondi stared at him.

  “Be my best man. You’re the brother I never had, Phil. Please. We’ll be planning a quick wedding in Connecticut. Kind of necessary, you know? I’ll pick up all the expenses for you to come. Bring a gal.”

  Rotondi slowly shook his head and was unable to stifle a smile. “You know what, Lyle?”

  “Tell me, brother.”

  “You will be president of the United States some day. You’ve got the cojones to pull it off.”

  The week after graduation, Rotondi drove one of his sisters’ cars from Batavia to Greenwich, where Lyle put him up in a suite at a local motel. He arrived two days before the wedding, in time to attend the bachelor party at a historic pub in the center of town, and the rehearsal dinner that was catered at Jeannette’s home, also the site of the wedding itself.

  There were a dozen men at the bachelor party, including Lyle’s father, with whom Rotondi had spent time over the course of his four years at the university. The elder Simmons, a gruff, no-nonsense sort of man for whom laughing appeared to be painful, was overtly uncomfortable in the midst of the over-the-top, forced masculine gaiety. It was evident to Phil that the father was not pleased that his only son had opted to marry straight out of college. He confirmed that to Rotondi later in the evening when they found themselves apart from the others.

  “Lyle’s got himself a great wife,” Rotondi said.

  “She’s nice,” Mr. Simmons said. “I like her. But I would have preferred for them to wait until Lyle’s established in his career.”

  “Well,” Rotondi started to say, “there’s—”

  “I know, I know. There’s a kid coming. Four years of college and he’s never heard of condoms.” He laid a large hand on Rotondi’s shoulder. “You ever need anything, Phil, you come to me. I consider you and Lyle brothers. Call anytime. Got that?” He walked away, his posture less erect than when Rotondi had last seen him.

  The number of toasts Lyle made during the party increased with the consumption of drinks. He directed a few at Phil, which made him uncomfortable. At one point, he announced, “When I’m president of the United States, you’re looking at my attorney general, Mr. Philip Rotondi, my best friend.” Glasses were raised to Phil, which he halfheartedly acknowledged.

  When everyone spilled out of the pub and into the street, Lyle tried to coax Phil back to Jeannette’s house to continue the evening.

  “Not tonight, Lyle,” Rotondi said. “See you at the rehearsal dinner.”

  He sat in his suite and watched a made-for-TV movie, River of Gold, with Ray Milland and Suzanne Pleshette. His attention kept shifting from the screen—Why would someone like Ray Milland get involved in such a stupid film? he asked himself—to his thoughts about the wedding and his being there. Jeannette’s parents seemed like nice people, wealthy but not ostentatious. He wondered whether things would have turned out differently if he’d agreed to accompany her home over the Christmas break. Probably not. They’d turned out the way they had because deep down, it was what he wanted.

  He felt awkward during the rehearsal dinner. Jeannette had mentioned earlier in the year that she’d told her parents all about him, and had showed them a photograph of the two of them taken at a school function. Were they comparing him with Lyle during the dinner? He felt they were—and wished they wouldn’t. He left as soon after dessert as proper etiquette allowed and went back to the hotel. One more day, he thought.

  The following afternoon, he fulfilled his assignment as Lyle’s best man. The ceremony was held on the Boynton family’s sprawling estate on a picture-perfect June day. Jeannette looked, of course, radiant in her gown; the dressmaker had artfully arranged the layers of silk and satin to camouflage the beginning of a bulge in her belly. At the appropriate time, Rotondi dutifully handed the ring to Lyle; he joined the applause after the minister had pronounced Lyle and Jeannette man and wife, and suggested that the groom could now kiss the bride.

  A wooden dance floor had been set up on the grounds by the caterers, and an offshoot eight-piece band from a leading society orchestra provided nonstop music. Rotondi hung around one of the bars and took in the festivities. The newlyweds would leave that evening for the British Virgin Islands on their honeymoon. Bride and groom danced with others, and with each other. When the band changed tempo to something slower and more easily navigated, Jeannette came to Phil and asked him to dance.

  “You know I’m not very good at that,” he said.

  “Oh, come on, Phil. Please?”

  They took to the floor and moved stiffly. The feel of her against him was exquisite, and his thoughts raced back to those times when they’d been intimate.

  “Thank you, Phil,” she said into his ear.

  “For what?”

  “For being here. I know it’s not easy.”

  “It’s not hard, Jeannette. Your folks and friends are nice people. I’m having a good time.”

  “That may be,” she said, “but I’m sure that if I—”

  “I’m happy for you and Lyle,” he said, cutting off what he knew she was about to say. “I just hope we can stay in touch.”

  “You bet we will, Phil. Count on it.”

  She kissed him lightly
on the lips as Lyle cut in and swept her away.

  They did stay in touch. Rotondi graduated at the top of his class from Maryland’s law school, and Simmons received his law degree from the University of Chicago. The announcement of the birth of Lyle and Jeannette’s first child, a baby boy they named Neil, arrived in the mail, followed by a phone call. And there were other announcements from the Simmons household, most having to do with Lyle’s rise through the Chicago and state political ranks, as well as news of the birth of their second child, a girl named Polly.

  Rotondi settled into the U.S. attorney’s office in Baltimore and eventually sent out a personal announcement of his own, of his marriage to Kathleen. Simmons’s election to the U.S. House of Representatives brought the family to Washington, close to Baltimore where Phil and Kathleen lived, affording the couples time to get together on a regular basis, parties at Simmons’s D.C. home, occasional weekends away, and dinners at favored restaurants. Phil had never told Kathleen about his college romance with Jeannette Boynton and how it ended, concerned that it might taint her view of Lyle and Jeannette. His continuing friendship with the rising political star and his family was important to him. But his reluctance to share with his wife that portion of his life also had to do, he knew, with not wanting to have to answer what would undoubtedly be her first question: Why would you want to remain friends with someone who did that to you? Although he didn’t have to answer that question for her, he silently knew the truth. His friendship with Lyle Simmons was based, in large part, on his fascination with the man. He enjoyed being close to an increasingly powerful figure without having been sucked into his vortex, able to stand aside and observe, offer advice and not give a damn whether it was taken or not. All of this was selfish, of course, including the reflected importance he felt as the one to whom members of the powerful man’s family frequently turned.