Murder at the Library of Congress

by Margaret Truman

  “Well, I’m glad you’re here. I understand Lucianne Huston is doing a story at the library.”

  “She was. I was interviewed this afternoon. She was supposed to do a piece on the Las Casas diaries, but I don’t think she’s pleased with what she’s gotten so far. Her network’s doing a show to coincide with the Columbus celebration. I think whatever she got may end up on that special.”

  Cale Broadhurst joined them.

  “Glad you could make it,” the Librarian said to Annabel. “Senator Menendez tells me he’s working closely with you on the special issue of Civilization.”

  “That’s right. He’s my editor.”

  “In name only,” Menendez said. “I leave the real editing to the magazine’s professional staff. It is a great magazine.”

  “I wonder if I might buttonhole you for a few minutes?” Broadhurst asked the senator.

  “Of course. Excuse us, Annabel.”

  She watched them enter Broadhurst’s office, stopping along the way to say something to another guest.

  “Where’s your husband?”

  Annabel turned to face Michele Paul.

  “At his own party,” Annabel said. “We’re meeting later for dinner.” She was annoyed at herself for even volunteering an answer to the question.

  “You didn’t say you’d be here.”

  “Because I didn’t know I would be. Excuse me.”

  She walked off, not with any specific destination in mind but simply to move away from him. The word smarmy came to mind as she joined Consuela Martinez, Dolores Marwede, and Mary Beth Mullin, who were chatting with Senator Bruce Hale, the central-casting, silver-haired senior Democrat from Massachusetts who chaired the Senate Appropriations Committee. Annabel was introduced to Hale as an expert on pre-Columbian art.

  “Dr. Martinez was just telling me about these missing diaries,” Hale said.

  “Missing … if they even exist in the first place,” Dolores offered.

  “What do you think, Mrs. Smith?” Hale asked. “A wasted exercise trying to find something that isn’t there?”

  Annabel shook her head. “No,” she said, “I don’t think it’s a wasted exercise at all. There’s enough tantalizing evidence—well, maybe calling it evidence is wishful thinking—let’s say enough tantalizing hints in the literature over the centuries suggesting that Las Casas did, in fact, write his own diaries about the first three

  voyages. He did write about Columbus later. And there is reason to think that a real

  writer would not have passed up the chance to at least make notes while the little ships were under way. Anyhow, as so often happens, when you’re trying to run down one story, you get on to something else. Do the diaries exist? It can’t be dismissed out of hand.”

  “And a map?” Hale said. “A treasure map? Sounds like the stuff of fiction to me.”

  “Far less credence is given the map than the diaries,” Consuela said.

  “And is anyone close to coming up with either?” asked Hale.

  “No,” Consuela said, “but lots of dedicated people are looking, trying to trace other written links to Las Casas and his relationship with Columbus.”

  Annabel looked past the others to where Broadhurst and Menendez were emerging from the office. A single drop of rain landed on her nose. She looked up at low, dark clouds scooting quickly by, then saw guests being ushered inside. Annabel followed the crowd.

  The hour passed quickly. Dr. Broadhurst stood at the door and personally thanked each person for coming. Left behind with him were the two senators and their wives, General Counsel Mullin and her husband, and Broadhurst’s chief of staff, Helen Kelly, whose husband had arrived just as the cocktail party was ending; Broadhurst’s wife, Patricia, was out of town visiting one of their daughters who’d given birth to their third grandchild.

  Annabel looked at her watch. Oops. Five after eight. She was meeting Mac at B. Smith’s in Union Station, a ten-minute walk at best, two minutes by cab. She started for the building’s main entrance, opening her briefcase as she went in anticipation of it being searched, stopped, fished in the bag for the notes she’d taken in the Manuscript reading room the previous day, couldn’t find them, went down the stairs to the underground tunnel leading to the Jefferson Building, and walked at a brisk pace, almost a run, muttering to herself how careless she’d been to have left them in her cubbyhole. She was to revisit the Manuscripts room the next day and wanted to spend an hour or two at home after dinner planning how to make optimum use of the time.

  They joke in the Library of Congress about how the three buildings turn into ghost towns the minute the doors close to visitors. Annabel certainly had that feeling as she traveled through the tunnel. No one passed her, and frequent glances over her shoulder confirmed she was alone. The clack of her heels was the only sound.

  She reached the Jefferson. The elevators could be painfully slow, so she took the stairs two at a time to the second floor and entered the Hispanic room. She peeked into Consuela’s office, which was empty, then heard a noise, far off. She looked, saw no one.

  She was about to swipe her magnetic card in the door leading to the stacks and the private research spaces but hesitated. Somehow, she felt intimidated entering that off-limits area without an escort. She knew how important security was at LC, the new system initiated eight years ago in response to a rash of thefts and defacing of materials. Back then, almost anyone could wander into the stacks; more than one person had been found sleeping in them by security guards during routine morning rounds. Not anymore. The enhanced system prohibited everyone from the stacks

  except those staff members with an absolute need to enter. Even the library’s

  hundred-person uniformed police force wasn’t allowed access to them, unless, of course, an emergency demanded it.

  Silly, she thought as she swiped the card, opened the door, and started up the narrow stairs. I have every right to be here. That’s why they issued the two passes, one for the Hispanic stacks, the other authorizing her to be there after closing hours.

  She paused at Sue Gomara’s small desk in the hallway dominated by tall piles of Cuban newspapers. She couldn’t help smiling. A nice kid, she thought, continuing the short distance to her own desk. But she stopped short of reaching it and came to a halt before crossing Michele Paul’s space. It was dark on the upper gallery; the only light came from a gooseneck halogen lamp on Paul’s desk. But that was all the light necessary to see him seated, sleeping, at his desk. Paul was hunched over, his arms on the desk, his head resting on them.

  Well, Annabel thought, it happens to the most diligent of scholars.

  “Michele?” Annabel said quietly.

  He didn’t move.

  Louder this time: “Michele?”

  She took a few tentative steps toward him, coming close enough to be able to reach out and touch his shoulder with her fingertips.

  She recoiled, brought those same fingertips to her mouth.

  “Are you—?”

  But she knew the answer. He wasn’t sleeping.

  She returned to the reading room and picked up the first phone she came to. But she didn’t know what extension to call. She hung up and went to the European reading room, where two uniformed officers stood talking.

  “Excuse me,” Annabel said. “There’s been an accident.”

  “Accident?”

  “Someone is—Mr. Paul is dead.”

  “Paul?”

  “In Hispanic. Please, I’ll show you.”

  Fifteen minutes later, Annabel took her cell phone from her purse and dialed Mac’s cell number.

  “Hi,” he said. “I’m at the restaurant. Running late?”

  “Mac, there’s been a tragedy here at LC.”

  “Tragedy? Are you all right?”

  “Yes, I’m fine. But Michele Paul is dead.”

  “Good Lord. How? What happened?”

  “I’m not sure. I discovered his body at his desk and—”

  “You discov
ered the body?”

  “Yes. The Hispanic division is overrun with police—library cops, Capitol police, MPD. I can’t leave.”

  “I’ll be right over.”

  “They won’t let you in. Why don’t you head home. I’ll call you there and you can pick me up once I’m free.”

  “Nonsense. I’m coming now. Right now. Does it look like the police will want to take you downtown?”

  “I can’t imagine why they would.”

  “I’ll be parked outside the main entrance, cell phone on. Keep in touch.”

  “Mrs. Smith?” a Washington MPD detective said.

  “What? Yes, I’m Mrs. Reed-Smith.”

  “Would you give me a few minutes, please? Just a few questions.”

  “Mac, I have to go. I’ll call you in the car.”

  “Right.”

  10

  The two uniformed members of the library’s police force had taken immediate charge once Annabel had led them to the body. While one stood guard over the scene, the other placed three calls.

  The first was to the library’s twenty-four-hour security communications room. The second was taken by the officer on duty at the Capitol police’s communications room beneath the Russell Senate Office Building. He immediately passed it on to the CERT commander—Contingency Emergency Response Team—who dispatched officers wearing bulletproof vests and carrying M-249 automatic weapons. The third call went to MPD headquarters on Indiana Avenue.

  Within minutes, the elegant Hispanic reading room, with its specially commissioned painted steel mural of the Columbus coat of arms looking down, was swarming with police from the three agencies. An explosives expert from the Capitol police was called in to determine whether such a threat existed—just in case. The Capitol itself was sealed off, including the underground tunnel leading to the Cannon House Office Building from LC’s Madison Building.

  After assuring that the crime scene was properly secured, the first uniformed MPD officers to arrive sought out anyone who’d been in the immediate area, including Annabel. After giving her name and her reason for being there, she was asked to wait at one of the reading desks until homicide detectives arrived.

  “I’m Detective Shorter,” he said. He consulted a notebook. “You’re Mrs. Reed-Smith?”

  “That’s right.”

  “You were the one who discovered the body?”

  “Yes. I’d forgotten something on my desk and … my desk is next to the one used by Mr. Paul.”

  “You knew him?”

  “Not well. I’ve really only had one conversation with him.” Annabel saw Dr. Broadhurst and Mary Beth Mullin being escorted into the room by LC’s director of security.

  “When was the last time you saw him alive?” the detective asked.

  Annabel judged Shorter to be in his early thirties, a light-skinned black man with

  clear green eyes and close-cropped curly black hair. He wore a gray suit, white shirt,

  and plain maroon knit tie. His manner was calm and seemingly detached, as though taking a political poll rather than asking about murder.

  “I saw him briefly at a party on the terrace outside the Librarian’s office,” Annabel said. “That was maybe forty-five minutes ago. Could have been an hour.”

  “Who was he with? You?”

  “No. I don’t think he was with anyone in particular. We exchanged a few words, that was all.”

  “Would you describe for me how you came to discover his body, Mrs. Reed-Smith?”

  “Sure.”

  Annabel provided a step-by-step description of having left the party, starting to leave the building, then realizing she’d left her notes and coming to the Hispanic room to retrieve them. Shorter took notes while she spoke.

  “That’s about it for now,” he said, closing the notebook and slipping it into his jacket’s breast pocket.

  “Is there any indication how he died?” Annabel asked.

  Shorter ignored her question.

  “Oh, when I arrived at the Hispanic room this evening, I heard someone over on that side of the room.”

  “Who was it?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t see anyone, just heard movement.”

  “I see. Well, I’m sure we’ll want to speak with you again. I have your address and phone number.”

  “Am I free to leave?”

  “I’ll ask my case supervisor.”

  “Can I call my husband?” she asked, pulling her cell phone from her bag.

  “Sure.”

  The Washington, D.C., medical examiner arrived while Annabel called Mac in their car. The ME was accompanied by medical emergency personnel wearing white lab coats who guided a hospital stretcher on wheels through the reading room’s tables to the door leading to the stairs to the upper gallery.

  “I suspect they’ll let me leave any minute,” Annabel told her husband.

  Five minutes later, Detective Shorter and another man, who introduced himself as Detective Nastasi, came to Annabel and told her she was free to leave. She again called Mac before leaving the building. She spotted the Buick parked on the opposite side of First Street, away from the knot of official vehicles blocking the front of the library.

  “Hell of a night for you,” he said, pulling away after she’d joined him.

  “Certainly not what we’d planned.”

  “How was he killed?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t see any blood when I discovered him. I mean, I wasn’t looking for it. All I wanted to do was get out of there and find help. Not much of a witness.”

  “Of course you wanted to get out of there.”

  They stopped at a Chinese take-out restaurant and brought the food to their apartment in the Watergate complex. After Mac walked Rufus, and they’d changed for bed, they settled in chairs in front of the television set. The death led the ten o’clock newscast.

  “One of the nation’s leading scholars on Christopher Columbus, Dr. Michele Paul, who worked at the Library of Congress, was found dead tonight in his office at the Jefferson Building. According to a spokesman for the Metropolitan Police Department, who requested anonymity, the cause of death appears to have been a blow to the head. We’ll report more details as we receive them.”

  “Murder,” Annabel said to the room. “Guess I’ve been resisting the idea.”

  “Unless he hit himself in the head. You said you heard someone when you walked into the Hispanic room?”

  “Yes, but didn’t see anyone.”

  “No hint of perfume trailing behind, no male smoker’s cough?”

  “No. I fail the test.”

  “Not with me. I’m off to bed.”

  Annabel stayed up, her eyes focusing blankly on the images on the TV screen, her mind sorting through the evening’s events. It was a futile exercise, and she decided to join Mac in the bedroom. But before she did, she changed channels to the all-news network on which Lucianne Huston had built her reputation. Yes, indeed, Lucianne stood in front of the Jefferson Building, the flashing lights of police cars tossing shards of red light over everything, amplified voices creating a background din as she reported:

  “This is the front of the Jefferson Building, the oldest of three buildings comprising the Library of Congress, the world’s largest and most important repository of information. Tonight, a man I had interviewed this afternoon, Michele Paul, was found murdered in the small area he occupied above the Hispanic and Portuguese reading room. He was killed by a blow to the head, according to sources who spoke with me on condition of anonymity. Michele Paul was a respected expert on the subjects of Christopher Columbus and more specifically Bartolomé de Las Casas, whose diaries—and possibly even a treasure map—have been the subject of searches by many scholars, some of whom have lost their lives in the effort. Whether Dr. Paul’s murder tonight is yet another tragic example of this remains to be seen. I’m Lucianne Huston reporting from Washington.”

  Annabel clicked off the set. Ms. Huston was certainly on the case, as the saying
goes. Would she change her plans and stay in Washington to continue covering Paul’s murder? Interesting, Annabel thought, as she headed for the bedroom, how Lucianne instantly wove Paul’s murder into the larger but vaguer Las Casas story.

  What had started out to be an enjoyable two-month hiatus from running the

  gallery had, in two days, mushroomed into high-profile murder against the sedate,

  genteel background of the Library of Congress.

  Who would have wanted to kill Michele Paul? she wondered as she slipped into bed beside her husband.

  A cast of thousands, she decided as the warmth of his body helped lull her to sleep.

  11

  “Warren A. Munsch, a two-time loser. Armed robbery, possession of stolen goods. Four other arrests—a couple of gambling charges, kiting checks—no other convictions. A wise-guy wannabe.”

  “A jerk. So, what’s he doing stealing a painting?”

  The two Miami detectives sat in a room used for interrogation, surprisingly clean and modern considering its use. An empty Dunkin’ Donuts bag, paper napkins, and coffee cups cluttered the Formica table. A file folder containing the report on the theft of the Reyes painting from Casa de Seville and the murder of the security guard was between them.