Murder on Embassy Row

by Margaret Truman

  “Well?” Goldberg said as Morizio put the paper in his jacket pocket and swallowed against a large lump in his throat.

  “That’s it. Thanks.”

  “I’m glad you found it. Of course, my book is now damaged.”

  “Gee, I…”

  “Just kidding. Sure you won’t join us upstairs? Nice group, all family.”

  “I can’t, but thanks for letting me barge in on Thanksgiving.”

  “Glad I could help.”

  Morizio looked at the plate of turkey. “Maybe I could take this with me. I have a friend who…” He realized there was no way he could explain.

  “Of course. One minute.”

  Goldberg returned from upstairs with a large plastic bag filled with turkey. Two smaller bags contained stuffing and mashed potatoes. Morizio emptied the platter Betty had brought into the larger bag. “I appreciate it,” he said, feeling foolish, like a bag lady at a city welfare agency.

  “See you again at Piccadilly,” Goldberg said as Morizio left.

  “I hope so. Thank your wife for me, and happy Thanksgiving.”

  His car had a ticket, which he tossed into the gutter. He drove slowly, trying to remember everything he’d read in Pringle’s letter. He couldn’t deal with it, the broad ramifications, the issues it raised. “Jesus,” he muttered as he pulled up to a corner, got out, and pushed a dime into a public phone. He dialed a number, waited for it to be answered. “Hello?” a female voice said.

  “Mrs. Trottier, this is Salvatore Morizio, Captain Morizio. I’m sorry to bother you at home on a holiday but…”

  “Happy Thanksgiving, Captain,” she said. He could hear music and laughter in the background. “I’ll get Don for you.”

  “Hello.”

  “Chief, this is Sal Morizio.”

  “Yes.”

  “Sorry to bother you but…”

  “You’re back.”

  “Yeah, I… you knew I was away?”

  “Yes. What can I do for you?”

  “I… I have to see you right now.”

  “Now? It’s Thanksgiving. I have family here and…”

  “It’s…” He couldn’t find a word that would convey what he felt. “It’s goddamn important, Chief. I have Nuri Hafez with me, and a letter that explains the murder of Ambassador James, Paul Pringle, everything. I have it all. I…”

  “You have Hafez with you?”

  “Well, not exactly. He’s with Officer Lake and he’s willing to straighten everything out. I have the proof.”

  “Of what?”

  “You son of a bitch.”

  “What did you say to me?”

  “Jesus, look, I don’t give a flying… I’m sorry, I’ve gone through a lot.”

  “Excuse me,” Trottier said. He returned to the phone a minute later and said, “I understand, Sal. You took me by surprise, that’s all. Of course I’ll meet with you. Where are you?”

  Morizio hesitated. Was he doing the right thing? It had occurred to him earlier in the evening that a better approach might be to go to the press, to Jack Anderson, Woodward and Bernstein, maybe even one of his casual acquaintances at local radio and TV stations. But that frightened him, too. Their needs didn’t match up. They’d view it as a story. He needed resolution within MPD, for himself and for Lake.

  “Where are you now, Sal?”

  “In a booth in Georgetown. I’m heading back to meet Lake and Hafez. They’re at… okay, they’re at the Iranian Embassy, 3005 Mass. Ave.”

  “Why there?”

  “Hafez had a key. Are you coming now?”

  “Yes.”

  “Alone?”

  A pause. “Yes, if that’s what you want.”

  “Good. Come down the driveway to the rear of the building. The door is the first one you come to after the garages. I’ll leave it open. I don’t know if there’s a buzzer. There’s no electricity. Knock when you get there. Knock loud, yell. I’ll come down and get you.”

  “All right. Give me some time to explain to my guests. We eat late. We were just sitting down.”

  “Yeah, well…”

  “I’ll be there inside an hour.”

  “Okay.”

  This time he didn’t worry about driving too fast. He took Lake aside the minute he arrived and showed her Pringle’s letter. “That’s it, isn’t it?” she said when she was finished reading it. “We’ve got it all.”

  “I think so. It’s scary as hell. I can’t even begin to deal with a friendly government like Great Britain getting together with our top people to plan a murder.”

  “Assassination, Sal. There’s a difference to them.”

  “Greater good. It’s still murder, and Paul’s death sure as hell doesn’t rank as an assassination.”

  “To them it does. It’s awful, I agree, but that’s what Gibronski and Thorpe and Trottier were telling you all along.”

  “And I couldn’t buy it.”

  “I’m glad you couldn’t. There’s got to be room for personal honor in the midst of national goals. There has to be.”

  “We’ll find out soon enough.”

  They returned to the tiled conference room where Nuri Hafez was adding a log to the fire. He looked at them as though he wanted to know what had occurred, but he didn’t ask. Morizio said, “Everything’s going to work out, Hafez. I found what I was looking for, and it makes it plain you didn’t kill anyone. This will be over soon. You did the right thing coming back with us. We’re all going to be cleared very soon.”

  Morizio remembered the food he’d brought from Goldberg. “It isn’t much, especially for Thanksgiving, but maybe it’s the best holiday dinner we’ll ever have.” He tossed Pringle’s letter on the table and held up the plastic food bags. They tore them open at the seams and used them as plates, ate with their fingers, savoring every bite, Morizio and Lake looking at each other and smiling.

  “How did Trottier sound?” Lake asked.

  “Annoyed at first, but he came around. Paul was right. We shouldn’t judge him too harshly. He was just doing his job, too, like…” They heard what sounded like an automobile in the driveway.

  “He’s here,” Morizio said.

  “I think it was on the street,” Lake said. She looked at her watch. It’s only been forty minutes. He said an hour.”

  “I told him to open the door and yell.” He looked at Hafez, said, “The person who’s coming here is the chief of police for Washington, our boss, Chief Trottier. We’ll tell him the story, show him what I found when I was out and go from there. You’ve trusted us all along, Hafez, and I want you to keep doing it. We have as much to gain as you do, and going through the proper channels is the only way. We all stand together. In some ways this has worked out better than we ever hoped for. We’ll take it a step at a time and…”

  “Sal.”

  Morizio looked at Lake, who was looking through the door into the hall. A bouncing flashlight beam came closer, and there were heavy footsteps. Then, the large, dark figure of a man filled the doorway.

  “Thorpe,” Morizio said, sheltering his eyes from the light the Englishman trained on him.

  “Sal,” Thorpe said. “Happy Thanksgiving. It looks as though you’ve feasted.”

  “Goddamn it,” Morizio said, taking a step toward him. “What the hell are…” He stopped when he saw the .357 Magnum in Thorpe’s other hand.

  “The three of you move closer to the fireplace and raise your hands. Do it now!”

  “You’re crazy, Thorpe,” Morizio said as he started to comply with the order. “I’ve already talked to Chief Trottier and…” Wasted, empty words, he knew, and the awareness of it brought a stinging bile to his throat. So did the sudden, sinking realization that in all the excitement and confusion of the past few hours he’d never thought about having a tape recorder rolling. Lake? Had she thought of it? He knew she hadn’t. He wanted to call time out, to correct the lapse in professionalism. “Jesus,” he muttered.

  “Why this?” Hafez asked Morizio as he
stood with his back to the fire, his hands above his head. Morizio didn’t have any answers. He was trying to think, to calm down, to analyze the situation they were in and to make a sound judgment how to handle it. His attempt at reason was short-lived, however. He’d been looking at Thorpe, and at the weapon in his hand, but his eyes shifted to the conference table where he’d laid Paul Pringle’s letter after showing it to Lake. Thorpe saw it too, and quickly scooped it up.

  “That’s my property,” Morizio said.

  Thorpe laughed as he scanned the letter in the light of a flashlight on the table.

  “That’s mine,” Morizio shouted. He moved toward Thorpe. The sound of the magnum’s discharge reverberated off the tile walls in a deafening explosion. The shell hit above the fireplace, sending wood raining down on Lake and Hafez.

  “The next one finds the heart,” Thorpe said casually. He waved the gun. “Move,” he said, “that way.”

  Morizio stepped back into line with Hafez and Lake, and they stepped sideways, away from the hearth and to the nearest long wall. Thorpe crumpled up Pringle’s letter, stepped near the fireplace and tossed it into the flames. They shot up as they licked away at the new fuel, and in seconds the charred remains of the letter were part of the other ashes.

  “You bastard,” Morizio said to Thorpe, reaching for Connie’s hand.

  “Don’t do anything foolish,” Thorpe said.

  “What do you think, Thorpe, that you destroyed the only copy?” Morizio said, forcing a laugh into his voice. “Copies have gone to the appropriate people. You’re not as smart as you think you are.

  “I’ll have to take that chance, won’t I?”

  “We know everything, Thorpe,” Morizio said, “about you and your murders—Ambassador James, Paul Pringle, others. You’re scum, the game’s over.”

  “I quite agree,” Thorpe said. “So here we have the infamous Nuri Hafez. I’ve been looking forward to meeting you, young man. Obviously, reports of your demise were exaggerated.” He laughed. “Come forward. Let me see you. Come, come, toward the fireplace. Let the light shine on your face.”

  Hafez looked at Morizio, and Morizio could feel emotion from the young man, fear, confusion, as though he were asking Morizio for guidance. Morizio didn’t have any, for Hafez or for himself.

  Hafez did as instructed by Thorpe, and flames from the fireplace played across his young, handsome face, catching his eyes for split seconds, dancing away, black curls glistening, then falling into momentary shadow as the eyes caught the light again.

  “You’ve done a fine job, Sal,” Thorpe said.

  “Meaning?”

  “You’ve broken all the rules, defied all authority, and yet have come up with a fugitive of international repute, a brutal murderer of an esteemed world diplomat and of a loyal security agent named Pringle. Obviously, your brief holiday from duty is over. In fact, I can guarantee it.”

  “Wrong, Thorpe,” Connie said. “Hafez didn’t kill anyone and you know it. You’re the one, perhaps for some vague nationalistic aim, but the killer nonetheless.”

  “You’re very sweet,” Thorpe said, smiling. “What a shame that you couldn’t have dissuaded your lover here to take another tack, to honor tradition and higher authority, to…” He said it to Morizio, his smile broadening “…to take the highway instead of those treacherous winding country roads he seems so fond of. Pity. We could have forged a wonderful friendship, the three of us, lunches together, good conversation, sparkling moments of laughter and companionship between chums. I would have liked that. I don’t have much of it, unfortunately, because it seems the world is full of people like you, knights on their white horses, veins filled with what they consider honor and integrity, all that bloody nonsense that gets in the way.”

  “Of what?” Morizio asked.

  “Of life. Those misguided souls do not usually live long, Sal. Their purified blood runs before its time.”

  “You’re big on threats, Thorpe.”

  “And quite good at carrying them out. It’s my profession.”

  “My brother,” Hafez said softly.

  Thorpe raised his eyebrows. “What about your… deceased brother?”

  “You killed him.”

  “No, of course not. There are others in this world who are able to separate ideals from practical actions. Your brother lost his head, as it were, because our friends in Iran understood the necessity of not only punishing him for his crimes against the state, but for telling the world it was you. We needed that to give us time to find you and to make sure you were punished.”

  “The punishment’s over,” Lake said. “I don’t know about large, international matters, but I do know that even governments must stand accountable for their actions.”

  A smile from Thorpe, then a belch which he covered with his hand. “Part of your sweet nature, Miss Lake, is your wonderful naiveté. I like that in a woman.”

  “If I had a gun,” Morizio said, “I’d…”

  “But you don’t,” said Thorpe. “I do, and…”

  Lake and Morizio looked at each other. Morizio said, “And what, Thorpe?”

  “And it is time for the guilty to pay.”

  The flashlight on the table was aimed at Nuri Hafez’s chest and face. Thorpe raised the gun, held it with both hands, and squeezed the trigger. Again, the room exploded with sound as the bullet left the barrel and struck Hafez squarely between the eyes. His face disappeared; bright red blood burst over the room like a huge firework in a black sky on the Fourth of July, pellets of crimson splattering Morizio and Lake’s faces, tiny pieces of bone stinging them like red ants.

  Another discharge before Hafez’s faceless body fell, this one opening a gaping hole in his chest and driving him back into the fire.

  Lake’s scream was as loud as the revolver’s discharge. She fell toward Morizio, who grabbed her and held her up. He slumped back against the wall, his head hitting the red and blue tiles.

  Everything was still, except for the lingering vibrations of explosion and scream, and a sickening change in the sound from the fireplace as Hafez’s hair and skin ignited, accompanied by a pungent odor.

  “I’ll call the police,” Thorpe said. “I thought Mr. Hafez was about to draw a weapon. Pity. Much might have been learned from questioning him. Good job, Sal. You, too, Miss Lake. You’ll undoubtedly be commended by your chief.” He went to the fireplace and dragged Hafez out by his legs. “It’s over,” he said, “finally over.” He looked to where Morizio and Lake leaned against each other. “You’ve been splendid throughout this,” he said. “Bloody splendid.” He belched and left them alone.

  26

  THE SEATTLE TIMES, SUNDAY, JUNE 24.

  Constance Birgit Lake, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Jens Lake of Seattle, was married yesterday to Salvatore Morizio, son of Mrs. Lucille Morizio and the late Carlo Morizio, Sr., of Boston. Justice Glenn Beers, a friend of the bride’s family, performed the ceremony, which took place in the Cabinet Room at the Four Seasons Olympic Hotel.

  The bride, who was attended by her sister Karin, wore a simple white silk suit. Miniature white roses and Dendrobium orchids were woven into her upswept hair. The groom was attired in a navy vested suit. Carlo Morizio served as best man for his brother.

  The new Mrs. Morizio was recently appointed assistant director of the privately funded Seattle Women’s Crisis Center. A former policewoman with the Metropolitan Police Department in Washington, D.C., she holds a master’s degree in psychology from Washington State University. Her father is a retired Seattle restaurateur.

  Dr. Morizio, the son of a policeman, was also a member of the Metropolitan Police Force before taking a post at the University of Washington where he is associate professor of sociology. He earned his undergraduate degree in political science from Boston University, received his master’s in sociology at Harvard and recently was awarded his Ph.D. in sociology from Catholic University.

  Following a honeymoon in London and Copenhagen, the couple will reside in S
eattle.

  Other Books by Margaret Truman

  Murder on Capitol Hill

  Murder in the Smithsonian

  Murder in the White House

  Murder at the FBI