Murder on K Street

by Margaret Truman

  “We’re running low on shrimp,” one of the catering staff said to Emma.

  “Can’t have that happen,” she said. “I have more in the kitchen. Come with me.”

  Had Emma stayed where she’d been, she would have seen Marshalk, Simmons, and Parish leave their secluded corner and head for the door. Simmons and Parish continued through it while Marshalk said something to a senior lobbyist from the firm, who nodded his understanding. After a few additional stops to slap a back or whisper in an ear, Marshalk joined the other two outside the building.

  “Are you sure, Neil?” Marshalk asked Simmons after a few minutes of conversation dominated by Simmons.

  “I’m sure.”

  Marshalk motioned for his driver to pull to where they stood. The driver opened a rear door of the stretch limo and Marshalk, Simmons, and Parish got in.

  “The office,” Marshalk instructed the driver.

  “I don’t want to cause trouble,” Simmons said. “I just want to—”

  Marshalk gave his president, the son of Senator Lyle Simmons, a reassuring pat on the knee. “Don’t worry about a thing, Neil,” he said. “We’ll go back where we can be comfortable and talk privately. Everything will work out just fine, Neil. Trust me.”

  TWENTY-NINE

  Rotondi stayed at Emma’s house until quarter of nine, when he called a cab to take him to the Willard. He’d noticed earlier that Homer was limping again, and questioned whether he should find an emergency vet service open at that hour. He decided it wasn’t necessary. Tomorrow would do. He massaged the dog’s hindquarters, which resulted in a lot of licking of Rotondi’s hands and face. He washed up, gave Homer his usual cheery good-bye, and climbed into the taxi.

  After Lyle’s call, Rotondi had had second thoughts about agreeing to meet with him. According to Neil, he’d discussed with his father the Chicago documents and photographs that Jeannette had received. That meant that the senator was well aware of the threat to him and to the Marshalk Group from the Chicago AG’s office, and from whomever had the copy that had ended up in Jeannette’s possession.

  Kala Whitson had told Rotondi that political pressure had put a tight lid on what the informer had delivered to the Chicago AG. Did Lyle know that? Had that pressure come from Simmons himself, or from someone working on his behalf?

  These sorts of political machinations were anathema to Rotondi. He’d seen plenty of them in the Baltimore office, although nothing to rival this situation. He’d realized shortly after becoming an assistant attorney general that he would never progress very high up the ladder of responsibility and status. One of his earliest cases had been shelved because of politics. The target was a city official with strong ties to the sitting administration in Washington. Rotondi had the goods on him, an especially strong case that would have been, to use a now familiar bit of slang, a slam dunk. But the case was dropped at the last minute, allegedly because his boss decided there wasn’t enough credible evidence to go forward. When Rotondi confronted him about the decision, he was given a lecture on political reality and the need to work as a team. Following that conversation, Rotondi was assigned only to criminal cases that did not include political overtones, which was fine with him.

  Politics was for politicians.

  For the Lyle Simmonses of the world.

  But as the time to leave for the Willard grew closer, Rotondi’s attitude changed. He was now anxious to lay out on the table for Simmons what he knew, and how he knew it. While he was not out to derail his friend’s political future, he wouldn’t let that stand in the way of getting at the truth about Jeannette’s murder. If the envelope secreted in the trunk of his car held the answer, so be it. Chips could fall where they may.

  Lyle Simmons was waiting in the suite when Rotondi arrived. He’d been sitting in a red-and-gold wing chair by the window. A glass of whiskey rested on a small table. The senator had rolled up the sleeves of his white shirt and discarded his tie. He’d removed his shoes; a hole in the sock on his right foot allowed the end of his big toe to poke through, unusual for someone as fastidious about his appearance as the senior senator from Illinois.

  “Grab a drink at the bar,” Simmons told Rotondi. “There’s a room-service menu there, too. Order something for both of us. I don’t care what it is.”

  Rotondi got the drink but ignored the menu. He took a matching chair across from Simmons.

  “You’ve been a busy boy, haven’t you, Phil?” Simmons said in a flat voice.

  “You might say that, Lyle. You look beat. Tough day?”

  “They’re all tough. But I had one piece of good news today. That son-of-a-bitch detective, Chan or whatever his name is, is off the case.”

  Rotondi looked at him quizzically.

  “I called Chief Johnson myself and told him his guy was rude, nasty, unprofessional, and inept, and that I wanted him gone.”

  Crimley had been summoned to the chief’s office late that afternoon and was instructed to remove Detective Chang from the Simmons case.

  “Why?” Crimley had asked. “He’s doing a good job.”

  “Let him do a good job on another case, Morris,” was the chief’s response.

  “I still want to know why,” said Crimley, afraid he probably already knew the answer.

  “Senator Simmons called. Evidently, Chang has been rude and unprofessional in the way he’s handled things.”

  “Bull! Charlie’s not the most likable of cops, but he’s good.”

  “Please, Morris, don’t argue with me about this, okay? I’m not about to buck a U.S. senator. Assign Chang to another team. End of discussion.”

  Crimley tried to mount a further argument but Chief Johnson cut him off by standing, slipping on his uniform jacket, and heading for the door. “Pick your fights, Morrie,” he said on his way out. “This one’s not worth it.”

  Rotondi shook his head. “So a suspect in a high-profile murder case, who just happens to be a United States senator, doesn’t like the detective investigating him and plays the eight-hundred-pound gorilla to get him off the case.”

  “Offends your sense of justice, doesn’t it, Phil?” Simmons said.

  “I just wish it offended yours, Lyle.”

  Simmons changed subjects. “I keep thinking of what Walter told me when he dropped me at the house that night, that Jeannette and I should get away for some R-and-R. I could use some right now.”

  Rotondi shifted his posture to look out the window. The light in the room was low, table and floor lamps the only illumination in the large, handsomely furnished and decorated space. Outside, lights on government buildings further glorified them. Washington, D.C., was a beautiful city, with its wide avenues and gleaming marble edifices; its visual grace befit the nation’s capital. It was what sometimes went on inside those places that could detract from their beauty.

  Simmons seemed folded within himself, his face expressionless, eyes drooping from fatigue and alcohol. Rotondi had never seen him look this tired—or defeated.

  “You know about the envelope,” Rotondi said, breaking a silence that had descended upon the room.

  “Yes, I do, Phil. I understand it’s ended up in your hands.”

  There was no need for Rotondi to acknowledge it.

  “What you have in your possession, Phil, can destroy a lot of people.”

  Beginning with you, Rotondi thought. Especially you.

  Simmons’s lip curled into what could be taken as the beginning of a rueful smile. “Ironic, isn’t it?” he said.

  “What is?”

  “How after all these years, you end up with my life in your hands. You used to seem content to play second fiddle to me. Philip Rotondi, the straight arrow, always taking the moral high road as you defined it. I used to admire you for it, Phil. I don’t anymore.”

  “How you view me is irrelevant.”

  “I know that,” Simmons said. “For me, it’s always been more important how you viewed me. I don’t know why. Hell, I’ve done pretty well for myself.
Why I should give a damn what my college friend thinks?”

  “It doesn’t make any sense to me, either,” Rotondi said.

  But it did. Lyle Simmons needed a conscience, an external one to compensate for the lack of an internal moral compass. Still, Rotondi wasn’t about to play shrink. He said, “I admire you, Lyle, for what you’ve accomplished.”

  “What I’ve accomplished,” Simmons muttered. “I have a wife who became so unhappy that she turned to the bottle. My daughter has an even lower opinion of me. No, that’s an understatement, and I know you’re not a fan of understatement. My son is weak, no backbone. And I got caught with my pants down in Chicago because I’m human.”

  Simmons got up and refreshed his drink at the rolling bar. He didn’t ask Rotondi whether he, too, wanted a refill, which would have been declined anyway.

  “You said on the phone that you wanted my counsel,” Rotondi said. “That’s why I’m here.”

  “That’s right, Phil. You’re here as my friend. You’ve always been there when I needed you.” He raised his glass: “Here’s to friendship, Philip. Nothing more fulfilling than having good friends.”

  Rotondi had seldom seen Simmons drunk. Lyle always enjoyed his drinks, and there were a few times over the years that the alcohol’s effect became apparent, but never to the point of inebriation. Rotondi wondered whether this night was about to become an exception.

  Still standing at the bar, Simmons said, “Are you satisfied, Phil, now that I’ve admitted to you my failures and weaknesses?”

  Rotondi started to say that he took no pleasure from hearing it, but Simmons cut him off. “It’s good for a man to come clean once in a while,” he said. “But once you have, there’s no sense in dwelling on your failures. You know what I find interesting about you, Phil? You’ve never reached very high, which means you’ve had less to lose, not as far to fall.” The senator resumed his seat. He leaned forward, an elbow on his knee, and extended the glass of whiskey as though it were a finger. “I haven’t gotten to where I have without taking chances and cutting deals. That’s what politics is, risk and deals. You wouldn’t know about that because Philip Rotondi doesn’t cut deals. Philip Rotondi doesn’t negotiate.”

  “I’ve done plenty of negotiating, Lyle,” Rotondi said, not especially pleased at his need to defend himself.

  Simmons drank. “Let’s get down to it, Phil,” he said. “I’ve known about that garbage from Chicago for a while now. Has it caused me to sweat, to lie awake nights? It hasn’t, because I know that nothing will ever come of it. Neil told me that Jeannette became aware of it and threatened to do something stupid, like give it to someone who could use it against me.” He forced a guffaw. “Naturally, I wanted her to give me the copies she’d received. She wouldn’t. I searched the house for them, Phil, looked in every place I could think of. Nothing. I wondered whether she was just blowing smoke, trying to use it as leverage against me. She wanted a divorce.”

  “I know.”

  “Of course you do. The farther Jeannette and I drifted apart, the closer she got to you. You know what I should have done, Phil?”

  “Tell me.”

  “The day Jeannette and I decided to get married back at good old U of Illinois, I should have dropped you for the loser you are. But I didn’t because I figured I owed you for the way things worked out with Jeannette and me. I’m loyal to my friends, Phil. I’ve always had a soft spot for you, which was a mistake, a big one. You don’t get to where I’ve gotten by being soft. You get soft and they take you down and chew you up, spit you out like a piece of rotting meat.”

  Rotondi’s stomach growled. He thought of Emma and the party she was catering for the Marshalk Group, wondering idly what was being served, food and otherwise.

  Simmons read his mind. “Hungry, Phil?” he asked, “or have you lost your appetite for breaking bread with your old college chum?”

  “Did you have Jeannette killed, Lyle, because she knew about you and your Chicago connections?”

  Rotondi’s directness had an impact on Simmons. He looked quizzically at his old friend.

  “Did you?” Rotondi said again. “She was killed by someone who had a lot to lose if she’d ever gone public with the information. You had plenty to lose, Lyle.”

  Simmons took a deep breath, stood, and came around behind Rotondi. He placed his hands on Rotondi’s shoulders and dug in with his fingers. “You think I killed Jeannette, Phil?”

  Rotondi didn’t move. “I asked whether you had, Lyle.”

  “You’re right, pal. I did have plenty to lose—and still do.” He removed his hands and walked to the bar, where he picked up the menu. “Steaks?” he asked. “Or maybe you’d prefer quiche.”

  Rotondi was poised to get up and leave. He’d found the exchange deeply distasteful. Simmons’s demeaning remarks, while not as hurtful as he might have intended them, still nettled. Instead, he sat back, smiled, and said, “Make it a steak, Lyle. I’m interested in hearing more.”

  Rick Marshalk, Neil Simmons, and Jack Parish were in Marshalk’s office on K Street. Marshalk sat in his red, high-backed, tufted leather office chair, which rested on a small platform, assuring that he always looked slightly down at whomever was on the other side of his oblong, tempered-glass desk.

  His tone had been soft and conciliatory at the beginning of the meeting. He’d encouraged Simmons to expand on what he’d said at the National Building Museum, which Neil did in bursts, tossing out a sentence and then retreating, going to extremes to clarify what he’d said to avoid confusion on the part of Marshalk and Parish, and to avoid adding to his own confusion.

  “So tell us again about Rotondi,” Marshalk said softly. “He’s your father’s best friend. Your dad has mentioned him a few times.”

  “He was,” Simmons said. “Dad’s best friend. He’s not! I think that he wants to blackmail him.” Perspiration appeared on Neil’s forehead. “What I mean is, why would he be holding on to the papers and photos unless he intended to do something with them? Dad’s always trusted him. I did, too. I mean, he comes off like a nice guy and all but—”

  “Go over again for me what he said to you, Neil,” Marshalk suggested, with a smile to indicate that he was only trying to be helpful.

  “He said he only wants to get to the bottom of Mom’s murder. He said…”

  “Go on, Neil. It’s important that I fully understand what we’re dealing with here.”

  Simmons made a false start, ran his index finger across his forehead, and said, “He’s never forgiven Dad for stealing my mother from him back at school. I think Phil and my mother were lovers.”

  “Back at school?”

  “And after.”

  “A real friend wouldn’t have done that to your dad.”

  “I don’t know. I mean, I just think that…My mom was having some problems the last few years, drinking—I already told you about that—and troubles with Dad. She wanted a divorce.”

  “Yes, I recall you saying that when you came to me about the package she’d received. I want you to know, Neil, how much I appreciated you coming forth with that information. As you know, we have a lot at stake here. You’re the president of this firm. You have a fine future with us. I trust I’ve made that abundantly clear over the few years that you’ve been here.”

  “Of course,” Neil said, “and I hope you know how much I’ve appreciated it.”

  Marshalk had listened with his hands formed into a tent, his chin resting on it. Now he lowered his palms and leaned forward, resting them on the glass surface. “I’ve been hearing rumors lately, Neil, that you might be thinking of leaving us.”

  “That’s not true,” Neil said, his voice cracking. “That’s just not true.”

  Marshalk went back to his original position. “So, tell me more about this Rotondi fellow. He’s married?”

  “Not anymore. He has a girlfriend here in D.C. She’s a caterer, Emma Churchill. She caters all our events.”

  “Of course. She’s the best i
n the city.” He took a business card that had been on the desk and handed it to Simmons. “Her card,” Marshalk said. “It has her home address on it. I’ve kept it in case I wanted to have a personal, private party catered by her. This Rotondi, he lives with her?”

  Simmons tossed the card back on the desk in front of Parish, who sat slightly behind Neil. “Sometimes, I think. He has a house or a condo somewhere down on the Eastern Shore. He stays with her when he’s in town.”

  “And he’s in town now.”

  “Of course.”

  Marshalk gave an understanding nod. “And you say he has the envelope that your mother received from someone in Chicago.”

  “He told me about it in the restaurant tonight. Like my mom did. Horrible stuff that claims that Dad is on the take from the mob, and that we’re laundering money for the mob here at Marshalk and funneling it to Dad for his campaigns. As I told you when I came and mentioned what my mother had said, I don’t want to see us or Dad hurt in any way. That’s why I urged you to cut off any ties with people in Chicago—if it was true—and clean house, make sure everything is on the up-and-up.”

  “If you’ll recall, Neil, I assured you that we had nothing to hide, nothing to clean up, as you put it.”

  Simmons looked down while deciding what to say next. As he did, he never noticed Parish quietly get up and leave the room, Emma’s business card in his hand.

  “I don’t understand about Jonell,” Simmons said to Marshalk. “Rotondi claims he’s been framed by someone here, and that—”