That was when the female voice crackled through the speaker: “Reported unconscious person, alley behind Ford’s Theatre, Tenth and F.”
“Seventeen responding,” Johnson barked into the handheld microphone as Klayman pulled from the curb and turned the corner down Tenth, coming to a hard stop a minute later in front of the theatre. They bolted from the car and entered, flashing their badges at two uniformed park rangers standing at an interior door leading down into the theatre itself.
“Where’s the unconscious person?” Johnson asked one of them.
“Really unconscious,” a ranger said. “She’s stone-cold dead.” He pointed to the stage. Sirens could be heard from both in front of and behind the theatre. The detectives moved quickly down an aisle, skirted the narrow orchestra pit, and bounded up onto the stage.
“Police,” Klayman announced. “Where’s the victim?”
The older stagehand’s nod indicated the door leading to Baptist Alley.
Johnson went to it and stuck his head through the partial opening. He was faced with four uniformed MPD officers who’d driven into the alley from F Street. They were looking down. Johnson did, too, and saw the young woman whose lifeless, bloody body blocked the door. He turned to Johnny Wales sitting on a wooden chair, head in his hands. “Another way out there from here?”
“Huh?” Wales’s head came up. “Yeah, over there.”
Klayman beat Johnson to the second exit door and went through it, followed closely by his partner. A few people had walked up the alley from F but were kept away from the scene by one of the officers. Another uniform held a scruffy man against the brick wall with a straight-arm. The man’s advanced dishevelment made it hard to determine his age. Thirty? Seventy? His hair was a helmet of matted salt-and-pepper hair, his scraggly beard hanging far below his chin and cheeks. Large, dark circles on the crotch of filthy, baggy chinos testified to his not being housebroken. Klayman took special note of his eyes; they were large, wild, and watery, giving him the look of a crazed soldier who’d just emerged from behind enemy lines. He wore a dirty white sweatshirt with ARMANI written on it.
“Cordon it off,” Johnson ordered a patrolman, who went to his car for a roll of yellow crime scene tape. Klayman turned at the sound of other vehicles coming up the alley. Both were white mini-vans; one had EVIDENCE TECHNICIAN written on it, the other OFFICE OF THE MEDICAL EXAMINER. The two detectives didn’t need to discuss what they would do next. Johnson returned inside the theatre to round up everyone who’d been there when the body was discovered, while Klayman took charge of the crime scene itself, making sure nothing was touched or moved, and working with the evidence technicians and ME as they went about their routines.
Klayman went to where the uniformed cop held the vagrant at bay against the brick wall. “Who’s he?” Klayman asked.
“An unemployed gentleman,” the cop said, grinning. “Claims he’s with the FBI.”
“That so?” said Klayman. “What are you holding him for?”
“Eyewitness. Says he saw who killed her.”
“Ease up,” Klayman said. The cop released his grip. Klayman stepped closer to the bearded man. “You saw it happen, sir?”
“You bet I did,” the man said, wiping spittle from his mouth and beard. “Saw it plain as day.”
“What’s your name?”
“Joseph Patridge. That’s the name I use undercover.” His smile revealed missing teeth; the smell of whiskey curled Klayman’s nose.
“What’s your real name, when you’re not undercover?”
“John Partridge.”
“I see.” To the uniformed officer: “Take him downtown, material witness.”
“Okay.”
The evidence technician took pictures of the deceased from many angles with a digital camera, then took positions from which he could photograph the surrounding area. Klayman crouched next to the ME, who was gently moving the girl’s jaw to determine the level of rigor mortis.
“She’s dead,” Dr. Ong said. What was obvious to the casual observer didn’t become official until the ME had decreed it so.
“What do you figure, time of death?” Klayman asked.
“Not stiff as a board yet, Detective. Legs still flexible. Less than eight hours. Maybe six.”
“She look like maybe she was moved here from where she was killed? Dumped here?”
Ong pressed fingertips against the girl’s abdomen, exposed because her purple shirt had ridden up to her neck. Klayman observed that there was no discoloration from pooled blood, or livor mortis, on her stomach, indicating that she’d fallen on her back when struck and had stayed in that position. Ong shook his head. “No livor on her belly. I’d say the deed was probably done right here.”
Klayman stood and slowly took in the broken macadam and concrete surrounding the girl. He asked Ong from his standing position, “Blow to the head?”
“Appears that way. More than one. Head, the face. She was beaten quite badly.”
Klayman summoned one of the evidence technicians with his index finger. “See those prints over there?” he asked, pointing to areas of crumbled concrete where two footprints were visible in the gray dust. “Get those.”
Inside, Mo Johnson had instructed those gathered on the stage to separate. When they were a dozen feet apart from one another, he asked the group, “Anybody know who she is? Was?”
Their reply was affirmative. “Nadia,” some of them said. “Zarinski.” “Nadia Zarinski.”
Johnson raised his hand to cut off the chorus. “Just one at a time. You?” He nodded at Johnny Wales.
“Nadia Zarinski,” Wales said.
“She work here?” Johnson pulled a small pad from his jacket pocket and started writing.
“She was an intern,” someone else said.
Johnson kept his attention on Wales, his expression urging him to continue.
“Nadia was an intern. I mean, not really an intern. Not here. She’s a paid intern in Senator Lerner’s office. She sort of volunteered here once in a while, a night or two now and then. She liked being around the theatre.”
“Paid intern?” Johnson said. “I didn’t think interns got paid.”
“Yeah. Well, she did. Get paid. By Lerner’s office.”
“Who could do such a thing?” Mary asked.
“Anybody got any ideas?” Johnson asked.
Silent shrugs.
“I want an informal statement from each of you. Has anybody left who was here earlier?”
“No. Well, Clarise was here.”
“Who’s she?”
“She’s the boss.”
“Where is she?”
“Up in her office, I suppose. The building next door.”
Mo Johnson pulled his cell phone from his belt and called headquarters: “This is Johnson. We need backup here. Plenty of witnesses.” He clicked off and told uniformed officers who’d entered the theatre to go next door and round up anyone there, including a woman named Clarise. “She runs the place, I think,” he explained.
He looked down at the front row of seats. “Come with me,” he told Wales, indicating the stagehand was to follow him down to the house, where they settled into adjacent seats. Johnson asked for a brief explanation of why Wales was there that morning, asking him to describe what he’d seen, and gathered his full name, address, phone number, e-mail address, and other specifics. “We’ll go to headquarters after we get all the informal statements.”
“What for?”
“To get your formal statement. So hang around. Don’t talk to anybody except me. Got it?”
“Yeah.”
“Next!”
Klayman entered the theatre after Dr. Ong had released Nadia Zarinski’s body to be taken to his office and lab. An autopsy would be performed that afternoon. The members of the stage crew who’d been questioned by Johnson, or by a backup team of detectives, had been told to take seats throughout the theatre with plenty of space between them, and were instructed to not talk to one an
other until their formal statements had been taken at headquarters.
The slight young detective stood on the stage and stared up to the box in which President Lincoln had been assassinated, kept pretty much as it was that fateful night. Klayman was no stranger to Ford’s Theatre. He’d spent many hours there soaking in its historic meaning and listening to tourist lectures delivered by park rangers. The presidency of Abraham Lincoln and his tragic death were passions of his; he’d read countless books on the subject, and attended lectures presented by Lincoln scholars. In the good weather, on days off, or when he convinced Johnson to accompany him with their brown-bag lunch, he enjoyed sitting on the steps of the gleaming white marble Lincoln Memorial, the soaring figure of a seated, serene Lincoln peering down on the millions of tourists who visited his shrine, the small children racing up and down the steps, citizens paying homage to the man who’d freed the slaves. Others simply enjoyed the view across the Reflecting Pool, inspired by Versailles and the Taj Mahal, to the Washington Monument and beyond to the Capitol.
Mo Johnson had never had a particular interest in Lincoln history—until he’d teamed up with the bookish Klayman. One day, after reading an account of the design, building, and dedication of the Lincoln Memorial on Memorial Day 1922, he asked Klayman—as they were eating sandwiches on the steps—“Did you know, Rick, that when it was dedicated, the president of Tuskegee Institute—he was black, you know—they wouldn’t let him sit with the other speakers—he was supposed to speak—and made him sit across the street with the rest of the black folk?” Anger edged his voice.
“I know,” Klayman replied. “Ironic, huh?”
“That’s all you have to say?”
“What do you want me to say? It was wrong. If Lincoln had been there, he would have denounced it. I denounce it. Okay?”
“Okay.” After a thoughtful pause, Johnson asked, “Do you think your people had it worse? You know, the Holocaust. Slavery. Who had it worse?”
Klayman stood, brushed off the seat of his pants, crumpled his brown bag, and said, “I think everybody got screwed, Mo. Everybody.”
Their discussion was interrupted by a call on the police radio Johnson carried. It wasn’t the first discussion they’d had about race, nor would it be the last. Johnson liked talking about it; Klayman didn’t, concerned that no matter what he might say, Johnson would never fully accept that his white partner, Jewish at that, didn’t harbor some deeply buried prejudice.
“HEY, RICK,” Johnson called, interrupting Klayman’s momentary reverie on the stage. Their attention turned to the door leading to the Ford’s Theatre Society offices.
“I can’t believe this,” Clarise Emerson announced loudly as she strode into the theatre, accompanied by two officers; another man, whale-like and balding, wearing a white shirt, red tie, and red suspenders, tried to keep pace with her.
Johnson stood and held out his badge. “You’re the—?”
“Clarise Emerson,” she said curtly.
Klayman, who’d come down into the house, offered his badge, too. “Detective Klayman, Crimes Against Persons Unit, Ms. Emerson.” He was well aware who she was from photographs in the Style section of the Post, and from having attended productions at which she spoke.
“Is it true?” Clarise asked. “There’s been a murder?”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Johnson.
“It appears that way,” Klayman clarified. “You’ve been here all morning, ma’am?”
“Not all morning. I did arrive early.”
“Did you see Ms. Zarinski?”
“Zarinski? Nadia Zarinski?” Her face sagged; it was obvious she knew who the victim was, but equally apparent that she was shocked. “She’s been murdered here?”
“Why don’t we go over there and talk?” Klayman suggested, touching Clarise’s arm and guiding her toward an isolated seating section. As they went, Clarise said, “She works for my former husband, Senator Lerner.”
“I know, ma’am, I know,” said Klayman.
“There was the scan—the rumors. What was she doing here?”
“We’ll find that out, ma’am,” Klayman said, taking a seat next to her.
“I’m Bernard Crowley,” the heavyset man told Johnson, dabbing with a handkerchief at perspiration on his forehead.
“You work here?” Johnson asked.
“Yes. I’m the theatre’s controller.”
Johnson noted that Crowley’s eyes were moist. “You and Ms. Zarinski were pretty close.”
“Oh, no,” Crowley said quickly. “She—oh, my God. How could this happen?”
“We’ll talk over there,” Johnson said, pointing to the opposite side of the theatre from where Klayman and Clarise sat.
“Does Clarise know it was Nadia?”
“I believe so,” Johnson replied.
“She’ll be devastated.”
“She knew her well?”
“No. Knew of her. There was talk about her and Senator Bruce Lerner. That’s Clarise’s former husband. I told her to stay away.”
“Who?”
“Nadia. The victim. When I realized who she was, I told her in no uncertain terms that it was totally inappropriate for her to be here, considering the rumor and Clarise’s sensitivities.”
“You can tell me all about it, sir, over there.”
An hour later, the only people left upstairs in Ford’s Theatre were park rangers and two uniformed MPD officers, one of whom stood in the lobby to make sure no one not officially connected with the theatre could enter—tourist lectures and tours were cancelled for the remainder of the day. Outside, in Baptist Alley, another cop stood guard over the crime scene, which was bordered in yellow crime scene tape. It would remain that way until another evidence collection team had returned to complete its examination of the alley. The stage crew that had been present that morning were at police headquarters on Fourth Street, SW, giving formal statements; Clarise and Crowley had returned to their offices, promising to show up at headquarters later in the day.
Rick Klayman had wandered out of the alley to F Street, turning every few feet to look back at the rear of the theatre where Nadia Zarinski’s body had been found. He turned left and walked up F to the corner of Tenth Street, pausing in front of Honest Abe Souvenirs, which offered shirts, hats, posters, and myriad other items featuring Lincoln’s likeness. Klayman grinned. If Lincoln were alive and had a piece of all the action, he thought, he’d be a very rich man.
He went up Tenth and entered the theatre through the front doors. The uniformed officer greeted him and watched as Klayman slowly went downstairs to the Lincoln Museum, where artifacts were displayed in Plexiglas cases. The museum was cool and modern in contrast to the historically preserved theatre upstairs. It was peaceful being there without the usual knots of tourists wielding camcorders and snapping at their children not to touch things. He meandered past the cases, stopping only briefly to admire their familiar contents: a pair of the president’s boots, size 14, made by a boot maker in New York named Pater Kahler from tracings Lincoln had made of his own feet. There was Lincoln’s overcoat stained with blood, its sleeve torn off by souvenir seekers in 1876. There was a violin played on the night of the assassination, and dozens of Playbills filled another display.
Klayman went to a life-sized photo of Lincoln on a far wall and stood before it. Red footprints were painted into the floor; the purpose was to stand in those footprints and compare your height with that of the sixteenth president, who was six feet four inches tall. Klayman placed his shoes on the prints and looked up into Honest Abe’s face. “You were some big man,” he muttered, “both ways,” smiling and feeling shorter than his five-foot seven. “You going to help me with this one, boss?” he asked Lincoln.
He heard only the gentle whoosh of cooled air coming through a vent above his head.
Lincoln stared down at him. Did one eye move, a wink? Had a trace of a smile come and gone on his strong mouth?
“Thanks, Mr. President,” Klayman said, turn
ing to head back to headquarters.
There was work to be done, and they’d barely started. But he felt inspired.
THREE
KLAYMAN STOOD NEXT to Eric Ong in the ME’s autopsy room. The detective found the autopsy process inherently fascinating, something his partner, Mo, did not. But while Klayman didn’t have any problem watching Dr. Ong work on Nadia Zarinski as the body lay naked on his stainless steel table, he was distinctly uncomfortable calling a next of kin to break the news that a loved one was dead. Mo was good at that, his deep, resonant voice calming those on the receiving end of his call or personal visit.
“What have we got?” Klayman asked Ong, a slender, edgy man wearing round, oversized glasses tethered to his neck by a psychedelic blue-and-pink ribbon.
“Cause? Subdural and subarachnoid hemorrhages. Manner of death? Blow to the head with blunt, broad object. Definitely a homicide.”
“We didn’t find anything at the scene that was broad and blunt,” said Klayman. “No sign of her being dragged?”
“No. But I’d say she spent a little time on her knees before dying. See those scrapes on her knees?”
Klayman leaned over the table for a closer look at the victim’s legs.
“She might have gone down to her knees from the blow to her face. Whoever did it finished the job with the blow to the head.”
“Or she was pleading.”
Ong glanced at Klayman. “Yes, that’s possible, but there’s no way for me to determine that.”
They went to Ong’s small, crowded office, where they removed their blue hospital smocks. “Blood and tissue samples will tell us more, of course,” Ong said, placing the cassette tape onto which he’d recorded his running comments during the autopsy in an envelope, to be transcribed later. “Sexual activity. A better approximation of time of death.”
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