Murder on Embassy Row

by Margaret Truman

  Morizio dressed in gray slacks, a gray Harris tweed jacket, white button-down shirt, and black knit tie, used a shoehorn to slip into penny loafers, and went to the living room and checked himself in a mirror. Five feet eleven inches tall, thick, close-cropped black hair with gray at the temples, dark skin and fine features. He was slender, no thanks to his life-style. He seldom exercised and ate what he wanted. Metabolism, he’d been told, insides always churning that kept him thin and gave him an ulcer at thirty, now in remission. He looked out the window. It was a sunny, clear November day and the forecast promised that the fair-weather pattern would hold for at least another two days.

  He picked up the phone and dialed. “Good morning, sunshine,” he said.

  “Hi, Sal,” Constance Lake said through a yawn.

  “Up and at ’em, kid,” he said. “It’s a fat morning out there.”

  “I am up. I just finished working out.”

  “I’m jealous.

  “Of what?”

  “Of Richard Simmons. You spend every morning naked with him.”

  Lake laughed. “He inspires me.”

  “And I don’t.”

  “Different inspiration. You’re on your way out?”

  “Yeah. Don’t forget the meeting at eleven.”

  “I have it down. See you there.”

  “Right. Just remember, Richard Simmons doesn’t love you. I do.”

  “I’ll keep it in mind, Sal.”

  He checked his pockets to make sure he hadn’t forgotten anything and went to a basement garage where he kept his car, a Chevy Cavalier he’d taken delivery on two weeks earlier. He pressed a button on the wall that opened the overhead doors and headed for the Rochambeau Memorial Bridge. Twenty minutes later he pulled into a reserved parking spot behind MPD Headquarters at Third and C streets. Having his name on a parking slot was his most prized perk since being named coordinator of intracity security, which involved liaison between MPD’s 4,000 cops, the 1,200 members of the U.S. Capitol Police, and Jake Feinstein’s 1,000 uniformed personnel.

  “Captain Morizio,” a sergeant said the minute he walked through the office door. “Urgent message.” He handed Morizio a slip of paper. Written on it was the name “Paul Pringle” and a phone number. Pringle was a security officer at the British Embassy. Morizio had done him a couple of favors, including a personal one that involved Pringle’s teenage daughter, Harriet, and they’d stayed in touch. Although it breached embassy rules, Pringle often filled Morizio in on embassy events that might be of interest to him.

  Morizio dialed the number which, he knew, was not an embassy extension. Pringle answered on the first ring. “Hello, Sal,” he said quickly. “Just arrive?”

  “Yeah. Where are you?”

  “A friend’s. Listen to me, Sal. You’ve heard about the ambassador?”

  “Sure. Sorry to hear it. Was it a heart attack?”

  “That’s what’s being put out, but some things have occurred that make me wonder, which is why I called.”

  “I appreciate it. Go ahead.” Morizio waved people away who started to enter his office, cradled the phone between his ear and shoulder, and poised a pen over a blank yellow legal pad.

  “First, Sal, the ambassador’s personal valet, a young Iranian named Nuri Hafez, has disappeared.”

  “When?”

  “Last night. He evidently drove off in the ambassador’s limo and hasn’t been heard from since.”

  “And?”

  Pringle told him about Hafez’s failure to show up to drive Marsha James and her guests home after the show.

  “You say he’s Iranian. Did the ambassador meet him over there?”

  “Yes, he arranged for him to leave Iran and to work for him as a valet and chauffeur in London. Then he brought him here.”

  “Any idea where he might be or why he took off?”

  “None whatsoever, unless it has to do with the other thing that prompted me to call.”

  “Which is?”

  “Kitchen scuttlebutt that the ambassador was poisoned.”

  “Who’s saying it?”

  “The chef’s wife. She claims somebody told somebody else that the embassy physician, Dr. Hardin, mumbled after he’d examined the corpse that it looked like cyanide to him, not a bloody coronary. It’s all seventh-hand, but I thought you’d want to know.”

  Morizio made a few notes, then said, “It sounds like the folks in the kitchen ought to be writing murder mysteries instead of peeling potatoes. Who did it, the butler?” He laughed.

  Pringle didn’t laugh. “The butler, Sal, or the valet.”

  “The Iranian?”

  “Yes. Why would he run?”

  “No idea. Want me to put out an APB on him?”

  “No. You’re not supposed to know any of this.”

  “I could do it unofficially, look for the limo.”

  “All right. That might clear the water a little. Thanks. I’ll get back to you later in the day.” He gave Morizio information about the limousine and hung up.

  There was a knock on his door. Before he could respond, it opened and Constance Lake poked her head in. “Good morning,” she said brightly.

  “Hi. Come in.”

  She tossed a large wine-colored leather shoulder bag on the desk and pulled up a chair. “Kiss?” she said, with lots of play in her voice.

  Morizio picked up the yellow legal pad from the desk and frowned.

  “Come on, Sal, just a peck. No one’s looking.”

  He peered over the pad and said, “We go through this act every morning. Not in the office. Never in the office.”

  Connie laughed, crossed one shapely stockinged leg over the other, and dangled a black pump from her foot. It was a morning ritual and she loved it. They’d started dating three years ago, two years after she joined MPD. Because she was a woman and because she had a master’s degree in psychology, she was assigned to the rape unit, where she dealt with victims of sexual assault. At that time, Morizio was second-in-command of a tactical street-crime unit. They met on a case, liked each other, and launched the relationship with occasional dinners.

  They were as different as they were similar. Morizio was a thesis away from a Ph.D. in sociology, which he’d grimly pursued at night at Catholic University. His master’s degree was from Harvard in the same field, although his undergraduate work at Boston University had been in political science. He’d put in a stint with the Army, interrogating returning Korean POWs, ended up in Washington on the staff of a one-term Massachusetts congressman, spent two quiet, unsettling years with the Central Intelligence Agency, then decided to join the MPD. Sal Morizio was a cop’s son. His father had been Sergeant Carlo Morizio, 12th Precinct, Boston, who’d walked a beat in the North End until his retirement and who died exactly one year after his farewell dinner.

  Connie Lake was from Seattle. She, too, had come to Washington as an aide to a politician. Five feet five inches tall, fair skinned and with long hair the color of wheat, she was, as Morizio told a friend after first meeting her, “the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.” It took him a year to tell her that. When he did, she replied, “Isn’t it nice that you think so.”

  Connie’s parents were Swedish. Her father, Jens Lake, had owned a succession of restaurants in the Seattle area, none of which made much money. Her mother, who was born in Malmö, Sweden, met Jens when he accompanied his parents on a vacation to visit relatives in “the old country.” Connie Lake’s grandmother still lived in Malmö, although Connie had never met her.

  When Morizio was named coordinator of intracity security, he was allowed to pick his own staff. Connie Lake pleaded with him to join the unit. Although he was against working that closely with his lover and held out for two months, she eventually prevailed and was now his assistant.

  She’d brought with her that morning a list of pending events in the city that required close coordination between MPD and the other security forces. They went over them and formulated the approach Morizio wanted
to take at the weekly meeting, which was to begin in twenty minutes.

  “Let me lay something on you that I picked up this morning,” Morizio said. “Strictly between us.”

  Her eyes widened and she leaned forward.

  He told her of Pringle’s call without mentioning his name. When he was done relating what Pringle had reported, he asked, “What’s your reaction?”

  She sat back and raised her eyebrows. “Sounds like a gossipy gang in the embassy kitchen. Should be easy to corroborate.”

  “Why? We can’t get involved unless we’re invited. Section 167, the Vienna Convention, 1961. Remember?”

  “I know, Sal, but if this Iranian, Hafez, is loose in the city and the limo is stolen, how could we not be invited in?”

  Morizio grinned and stood, stretched his arms and twisted his neck against a pain that had suddenly developed. “Let’s forget about it until after the meeting and there’s more information from my contact.”

  “Why won’t you ever share your contacts with me?” she asked.

  “Because then they wouldn’t be mine anymore. Come on, let’s go.”

  As they went into the meeting, Morizio asked Jake Feinstein whether he’d heard anything about the possibility of Ambassador Geoffrey James being poisoned. Feinstein shook his head. Morizio didn’t know whether he was telling the truth. The MPD was powerless to intervene in any embassy affairs without specific invitation. Each embassy was a sovereign nation within Washington, its borders and internal affairs off-limits to anyone except embassy personnel and those designated by the embassy’s mother country.

  The major item on the meeting’s agenda was to beef up security in the Capitol Building. A recent pipe bombing in a coatroom and assaults on American personnel and property overseas had prompted an urgent review of congressional security. There was to be a special meeting that afternoon on the subject and Morizio assigned Lake to represent MPD. He had lunch in his office after the eleven o’clock meeting and spent most of the afternoon disposing of paperwork that had accumulated, including six weeks of expense accounts. It was days like this that he periodically closed his eyes and second-guessed leaving the mainstream of the MPD for what was basically a political job. He was always awash in paperwork and in attending social functions with politicians and bureaucrats. When he was with the street-crime unit, there’d been daily action that was real—cops-and-robbers, white hats and black hats. It was what a cop was supposed to be.

  But those self-doubts seldom lasted long because he would remind himself of the prestige of his present job. He was known to officials in Congress, the Supreme Court, the diplomatic corps, and even the White House as the person on the Metropolitan Police Department to turn to when security was at stake. His father would have burst with pride—and Morizio often thought about his father. His mother was happy about his position, too, although for other reasons. She’d constantly worried about his being out on the street dealing with “scum” and she liked the fact he was finally back in a “dull job,” which was the way she’d viewed his years with the CIA.

  Paul Pringle called at four-thirty. “Sal, the kitchen rumors might be true,” he said. He sounded out of breath.

  “Poisoned?”

  “Perhaps. Have they contacted you about an autopsy?”

  “Who?”

  “The arrangements are being handled by our head of chancery, Nigel Barnsworth. He’s working through the Home Office.”

  “Nobody’s contacted me.”

  Another button on Morizio’s phone lighted up. “I’ve got another call, Paul.”

  “I’ll call you at home tonight.”

  “Right.” He pushed the other button. “Captain Morizio.”

  “Please hold for Dr. Gibronski,” a female voice said.

  “Werner Gibronski?” Morizio asked himself.

  “Captain Morizio?”

  “Yes.”

  “This is Dr. Werner Gibronski at the White House.” The heavy Slavic accent left little doubt he was who he said he was.

  “Yes, sir. What can I do for you?”

  “I would like to discuss an urgent matter concerning the death of Ambassador James.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t know much about it, sir, except what I’ve seen on TV.”

  “Perhaps you will know more after we meet. Could you be at my office within the hour?”

  “Sure. Yes, sir, of course.”

  “Please hold.”

  A woman came back on the line and asked, “What is your date and place of birth, Captain Morizio?”

  He was momentarily taken aback, then said, “June 22…” Before he could finish, she asked where he was born. “Boston, Massachusetts.”

  “Thank you. Dr. Gibronski expects you within the hour. Please use the West Entrance.”

  All four buttons on his phone came to life. He started left to right; “Captain, Aiken in Communications. UPI is carrying a story about reports from the British Embassy that the ambassador might have been poisoned.” MPD’s communications center monitored both AP and UPI, as well as all four local television channels.

  “Thanks,” Morizio said, pushing the next button. It was the senior Washington correspondent for Reuters, the British wire service. He asked what Morizio knew about the embassy reports. “Nothing,” Morizio said. The reporter pressed, but Morizio excused himself and took the next two calls, neither of which were about Geoffrey James.

  He checked his watch, got up, went to the bullpen, and said to his secretary, “Ginnie, I’m on my way to the White House.” She gave him her “I’m impressed” look. “Take all the calls until I get back. If Lake arrives, tell her to wait here for me. Refer all press inquiries to public affairs. I’ll pop in there on my way out.”

  “Do I have to wait around until you get back?”

  “I’d appreciate it.”

  “I had a dinner date and…”

  “Do whatever you have to do.”

  He went to the public affairs office and pulled its chief, Rod Dexter, out of a meeting. “Look, Rod, something big is brewing at the British Embassy over the ambassador’s death, a possible homicide. I’ll find out more. For now, the word to the press is that my department is gathering the facts and will have a statement when those facts are organized. Until then, no comment.”

  4

  A guard at the West Entrance of the White House confirmed that Morizio had an appointment with Dr. Gibronski, verified the date and place of his birth, and directed him to the Appointment Lobby, which had formerly housed the press room where reporters lounged in massive leather chairs, often napping in them while waiting for something newsworthy to occur. But when President Nixon took office, he floored over the White House swimming pool in a protest of sorts and moved the press corps there.

  The appointment lobby had taken on a distinctly more feminine character since its media days. The walls were covered in a pale yellow silk. Ceiling, moldings, and wainscoting were painted linen white. Drapes on the tall windows were of the same yellow silk as the walls. The oak floor was polished to a high, hard glow. A large, muted antique rug of yellow and green flowers covered the center of the room. It was sparsely furnished; two Sheraton Pembroke tables, an assortment of Queen Anne and Chippendale chairs, a small but handsome walnut bonnet-top secretary, and an eight-legged mahogany Hepplewhite sofa upholstered in a rose-colored brocatelle. Morizio sat on the couch, then stood. It was uncomfortable.

  He perused a breakfront bookcase housing official gifts presented to presidents over the years, and admired a series of oil paintings of the American landscape. He was studying Winslow Homer’s Maine Coast when a young man with a cowlick appeared and said, “Dr. Gibronski will see you now.”

  Gibronski’s office was large and spartan. The blinds were drawn; two floor lamps and a brass desk lamp with a green shade cast pools of soft light over walls the color of talcum powder and over the burnt umber carpeting.

  Gibronski was dwarfed by a massive teak desk that was completely clean—not a scrap
of paper, not a pencil, not a pad or paper clip. A matching credenza behind Gibronski contained an elaborate telephone system and two individual phones—one red, one white. He was on the white phone when Morizio arrived.

  A door at the side of the office opened. A man entered, came to where Morizio stood, halfheartedly offered a fleshy, cold hand, and said in a whispered British accent, “George Thorpe. Sit down.”

  Thorpe and Morizio took leather chairs across the desk from Gibronski, who continued a hushed conversation on the white phone. Thorpe fumbled through the pocket of a wrinkled brown tweed jacket with elbow patches and pulled out a large, fat, black cigar, carefully positioned a lighter’s flame so that its heat ignited the tobacco but didn’t actually touch it, snapped the lighter shut, and returned it to his pocket. He drew on the cigar, coughed, and exhaled.

  Morizio observed the Englishman as he went through his cigar ritual. He was big—six feet two inches, Morizio decided, and about 250 pounds. Everything about him was rumpled. He had a puffy face, heavy jowls, and the red, watery eyes and veined cheeks of a heavy drinker. The collar of his white shirt was too tight and a brown tie was ridiculously narrow against the shirt’s broad expanse.

  Gibronski concluded his conversation, quietly placed the phone in its cradle, and turned to face his visitors. Morizio stood and said, “Captain Morizio, Dr. Gibronski. I got here as fast as I could.”

  “Yes, thank you, Captain.” Gibronski neither stood nor offered his hand. He stared at Morizio over half-glasses until he sat down. Gibronski was in shirtsleeves and Morizio noticed that his hands were free of rings. As clean as his desk, he thought.

  “Mr. Thorpe represents Her Majesty’s government regarding Ambassador James’s death,” Gibronski said in a tight, controlled voice. “He has been given authority to oversee every aspect of the disposition of the matter. He will carry out that responsibility under my supervision as it relates to this government’s policies.”

  Morizio wanted to smile at Gibronski’s flat, blunt statement. There had been no preliminary conversation, no welcome, not a cough or a pause. He simply recited it in his Slavic accent. When he was through, he sat back in a leather chair that rose above the top of his head, twined long, tapered fingers about each other, and continued peering at Morizio over his glasses.