Murder at Union Station

by Margaret Truman

  “You, too.”

  It was at this moment that Mullin knew why Charlie was familiar. He’d seen him leaving Marienthal’s apartment building.

  “You spend much time with Marienthal at his apartment?” Mullin asked.

  “What?”

  “I just figured you might hang out there, know his girlfriend. That’s all.”

  “Sorry,” Stripling said. “Got to run. See you in the morning, Sasha.”

  Mullin watched him quickly walk away and turn the corner.

  “You knew him before?” Mullin asked Sasha.

  “No. He called out of the blue. We had coffee. He’s very nice.”

  She pulled a cigarette from her purse. Mullin quickly whipped out his lighter and held the flame out to her, pleased that he could.

  “Yeah, I’m sure he is,” Mullin said. “Well, now that we’re here, how about a drink?”

  “Oh, I couldn’t possibly. I almost said no to Charlie when he suggested a cup of coffee.” She laughed. “Decaf coffee. I would never get to sleep if I had regular.”

  “Yeah, I know what you mean. Well, like I said, I just happened to be driving by and-”

  “I am glad to see you again.”

  “Maybe I’ll give you a call in the morning, you know, just to say goodbye. What time do you leave?”

  “At eleven at night.”

  “Okay. You’re having breakfast with Charlie. Right?”

  “Yes. But if I don’t get to bed, I will not wake up in time. Good night.”

  “Good night, Sasha.”

  He decided not to suggest walking her inside. He watched her go into the lobby, admired her legs again, returned to the car, and drove to a bodega, where he picked up a large cup of coffee to take with him to headquarters.

  “Hey, pal, how’s it going?” he asked the officer manning one of the computers.

  “It’s going, Bret. That’s all I’ll say. What are you doing here?”

  “Run a vehicle ID for me.”

  “Sure.”

  Mullin handed the officer a scrap of paper on which he’d noted the make, model, and plate number of the car he’d seen “Charlie Simmons” get into after leaving the apartment building in which Rich Marienthal and Kathryn Jalick lived. He’d found it among a fistful of receipts he’d stuffed into his glove compartment. It took less than a minute for the information to pop up on the screen. The vehicle was registered to a Timothy Stripling.

  “Charlie Simmons, huh?” Mullin mumbled.

  “Huh?”

  “Nothing. See what you can bring up on Mr. Stripling.”

  “Who’s he?”

  “If I knew that, I wouldn’t need you,” Mullin said gruffly.

  The officer didn’t say what he was thinking, that Bret Mullin couldn’t retire soon enough. He typed in the appropriate commands, added the name Timothy Stripling to them, and hit ENTER. A picture of Stripling filled the screen. That’s Charlie, Mullin thought.

  The officer scrolled down to where available information about the subject was written. There was surprisingly little on Stripling. The MPD’s central data bank, augmented by the considerably more extensive FBI data bank, had been collecting and adding information to its files for years. Dossiers on D.C. citizens, famous and not so famous, had burgeoned recently as more focus was placed on gathering information and new software had made the larger files possible. Some subjects had information on them that ran for pages. Not Stripling. Facts of his life were contained in a single paragraph.

  There was his Foggy Bottom address; his Social Security number; two moving vehicle violations, one for speeding, the second for running a light; place and date of birth (Dover, Vermont-1951); no felony arrests or convictions; credit score of 730; no bankruptcies; registered handguns-9-millimeter Tanarmi parabellum model and snub-nosed Smith & Wesson.44 Magnum, custom; Occupation: Consultant.

  “Consultant,” Mullin said aloud.

  “Government,” said the officer.

  “Sensitive job. What’s he need two handguns for?” Mullin said.

  The officer shrugged.

  “CIA maybe. The Bureau,” Mullin added.

  Mullin took a printout of the listing back to his office, where he drank his cooling coffee and thought about the past few hours. This guy Stripling contacts Sasha Levine, uses a phony name, claims he’s a friend of the writer, Marienthal, and gets her to spend time with him.

  One thing was certain. Stripling’s meeting with Sasha was no social visit. The Russo murder? Marienthal’s disappearance? An hour later, after having left a message for Chief Leshin that he was taking a personal day off, and fortified with fresh coffee and a half-dozen doughnuts, Mullin was parked up the street from the Lincoln Suites Hotel.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  Washingtonians awoke that morning to thunderstorms that dumped torrential rain on the nation’s capital. It wasn’t an unwelcome event. The downpour broke the intense heat wave that had gripped the city the past week and boosted spirits, although that didn’t apply to Geoff Lowe and Ellen Kelly. He sat in a chair by a window and watched the rain cascade down the panes. Ellen sat up in bed. Next to her was an advance copy of Rich Marienthal’s book, which Lowe had taken from Senator Widmer’s office the previous night.

  It was now a little after six A.M. They’d been up since five arguing.

  He turned in the chair and said to her, “Don’t you get it, Ellen? How many times do I have to explain it to you?”

  She bristled at his tone, but said nothing. He’d been ranting since they awoke, pacing the floor, standing over her, yelling, lowering his voice to an almost inaudible level for effect, slapping his hand on the nearest surface, chopping the air with open hands as though the gesture would cut through what he considered her denseness.

  “Okay,” he said in a less strident voice, sitting on the edge of the bed and taking her hand, “we have got to find Rich and the tapes. It’s just that simple.”

  “Maybe we don’t need the tapes or Rich,” she offered tentatively, “now that we have the book.”

  “Oh, man,” he said. “Don’t you get it? The book only has what Rich wrote, what he claims Russo told him. But Russo saying it on tape in his own voice is something else. Come on, Ellen, get with the program. Christ!”

  She wished she were back in her own apartment, away from him, away from Washington and politics and senators and hearings, all of it. “Don’t you think I would do something to help if I could?” she said.

  “The Dems on the committee caucused late last night,” he said. “They’re holding a press conference this afternoon condemning the hearings in advance. They’re dismissing the charge against Parmele as nothing more than a writer’s unsubstantiated claims in a book. Somehow they got their hands on a copy of his contract with Hobbes House. The contract is for a novel. They’re using that to claim the book is fiction, made up, his imagination.”

  “But Rich can testify to the book being true, Geoff.”

  “Jesus, you still don’t get it, do you?” he said, repeating what had become a mantra that early morning. “Read my lips, Ellen. The Dems will destroy Rich and his credibility. Widmer made it plain to me last night that unless we have Russo’s own voice implicating Parmele in the Eliana assassination, there’ll be no hearing.”

  “Maybe that’s just as well.”

  “No, Ellen, Widmer’s not saying he’s willing to call off the hearing unless we find Rich and the tapes. What he is saying is that if he has to call off the hearings because I fell on my face, I can kiss my job goodbye. So can you.”

  Lowe wasn’t aware as he uttered this threat that losing her job with Senator Widmer wasn’t an unpleasant idea for Ellen at that moment. She’d considered resigning for weeks, not only from her job with the senator, but from her relationship with Lowe, too. She’d discussed quitting with her father, a former mid-level corporate executive who’d been downsized out of his job and was currently selling cars to make ends meet. His advice: “Never leave one job until you’ve landed anot
her, Ellen.” His words made sense, but did the same wisdom apply to leaving boyfriends? Looking for a new job while accepting a paycheck from a current employer smacked of disloyalty, although it was done all the time. Shopping for a new boyfriend while sharing a bed with the current one didn’t sound any more admirable.

  What’s a girl to do?

  Lowe left the bed and stood in the center of the room, hands on hips, jaw jutting out, a commander about to launch his troops into battle. His pillow-disheveled hair and frayed yellow terrycloth bathrobe detracted from the image.

  “Look, Ellen, here’s what we do. I’m going to take another crack at Mac Smith. There’s no sense in me trying to get through to Kathryn. She sounds like a broken record: ‘Rich is off on a research project and I don’t know how to reach him, etc., etc.’ Yeah, right! I never liked her. What Rich ever saw in her is beyond me. She’s dumb as hell. But maybe she’ll open up to you, huh? Woman to woman. Get hold of her and tell her Rich’s life is in danger. Tell her that all we want is to keep him safe and at the same time help him promote his book. She’s obviously nuts about him, although why I don’t know. What a pair. You tell Kathryn that the best thing she and Rich can do is to give you the tapes and notes and whatever else he has.” He stepped toward the bed, as though what he’d just said was an especially intelligent breakthrough. “That’s it. Tell Kathryn that once we have the tapes and stuff, it’ll be out in the open and Rich won’t have to worry anymore. Who do they think they’re kidding with him hiding out? He’s not on any goddamn research trip. He figures if he’s not available for the hearings, they’ll be canceled and he’s off the hook. That means you and I are on the hook, Ellen, big-time, strung up by Widmer and left to dry.”

  Ellen swung her long, shapely legs off the bed and shook her tangled mass of carrot-red hair. She wore a short pale blue nightgown. Lowe plopped down next to her and began to knead her neck. “You can do it, baby. I know you can. Get her at work or the apartment, wherever you can. Come off sweet and caring-like you are naturally.” He grinned and pressed her neck harder to reinforce his words.

  “Easy,” she said, pulling away, standing, stretching and heading for the bathroom.

  Lowe went to the window and looked out. The rain continued to fall, hard and wind-driven. He’d pull this off. He had to pull it off. Once it was over, maybe it was time to move on, use the leverage of his position with Widmer to land a bigger and better job on the Hill. Hell, once Parmele lost his bid for a second term and a Republican was in the White House, there might be a spot there for Geoff Lowe. The new president would know it was the Widmer hearings that brought down Parmele, and that Geoff Lowe was the brains behind it.

  He’d been pursuing a dream of having political clout since high school, where he was elected senior class president, not an especially impressive victory considering the caliber of the opposition, but heady nonetheless. In college, at the University of Wisconsin, he majored in political science and became active in a small but growing student Young Republicans’ Club, practicing the art of shaping the message and getting it out, proselytizing the party line, and basking in the satisfaction the wielding of power inevitably delivers. He returned home to Orange County, California, where he’d been born and raised, and worked on the campaigns of a variety of county and statewide Republican candidates, learning as he went and establishing a name for himself as a tireless, committed campaign worker with bedrock Republican beliefs. There was a time early in his life when he aspired to elected office for himself. Pragmatically, however, he soon realized that his political future lay not with running for office, but with pulling the strings behind those better suited to the more public act of asking for votes-and for money. Surprisingly-and it surprised even him-he developed a scorn for politicians and their need to straddle fences, abandon core values in order to win, and promise but only sometimes deliver on those promises. Public service? Self-service was more like it. But such occasional contradictory thoughts never dampened his fervor for the political process. It was all about power, and power was Geoff Lowe’s aphrodisiac. Ask his former wife, whom he married a few days after graduating college. That marriage lasted four months; her parents managed to have it annulled.

  His first job in Washington was as an aide to a right-wing California congressman. When that pol lost his reelection bid, Lowe accepted an invitation to join the staff of Alaska Senator Karl Widmer. Lowe’s seeming tirelessness and commitment to the senator’s agenda impressed the aging Widmer, and promotions came quickly. Lately, he wondered whether Widmer was becoming senile, so intent was he on his crusade to deny Parmele a second term to the exclusion of myriad other legislative concerns. That was all that seemed to matter these days to the silver-haired Alaskan-destroying Adam Parmele, which was okay as far as Lowe was concerned. He didn’t carry a brief one way or the other about the president. What was important was that if Widmer, and by extension Geoff Lowe, succeeded in the effort, he, Lowe, would see his stock rise within Republican circles, leading to bigger things.

  If there was one political operative Lowe admired, it was Parmele’s political guru, Chet Fletcher, and he enjoyed projecting himself into Fletcher’s role with a Republican president, the power behind the throne, the consummate insider, the one the president of the United States turned to in his darkest hours.

  That was power!

  He heard the shower go on and pictured a naked Ellen Kelly soaping herself. No doubt about it, she was a great-looking fox. But she was wearing thin, like Widmer and his tantrums. It would be time for a new job and a new fox, somebody with more sophistication. He smacked a fist into the palm of his other hand, stood, and nodded in self-affirmation.

  THIRTY-SIX

  Winard Jackson lived in a basement apartment on upper 16th Street, on the edge of Washington’s so-called black Gold Coast, home to many of the city’s successful African-American men and women. He’d found the apartment shortly after moving to D.C. from Boston with a degree in jazz performance from the Berklee College of Music. While most of his fellow students at the prestigious jazz school had headed upon graduation for jazz hot spots like New York, Chicago, or Los Angeles, Jackson had opted for D.C. because it was home to legendary tenor saxophonist Buck Hill.

  Hill had visited Berklee as a guest lecturer and was impressed with the young Jackson’s improvisational talents. He invited him to look him up after graduation and agreed to accept him as a private student. Jackson didn’t hesitate to accept the offer, and Hill not only became his musical mentor but helped the young black man acclimate to the city, introduced him to a wide circle of musicians, and found him the apartment in a well-kept row house owned by a friend who rented units to young jazz performers, especially those recommended by Buck Hill. With monthly financial help from supportive parents in Texas, Jackson managed to get by with occasional jobs playing around town, anything that paid-rock bands, Latin bands, occasional studio work, wedding bands, and when the planets were properly aligned, jazz groups.

  The apartment consisted of a large living room, two tiny bedrooms, a bath, and a kitchen. Photographs and posters of jazz giants idolized by the young musician covered the walls. A Yamaha electric piano sat in one corner of the living room; Jackson used this to work out new chord changes to old tunes. There was a couch and two easy chairs, a TV, a small table off the kitchen that served as a dining table, and a state-of-the-art sound system for hundreds of CDs housed in tall, free-standing racks.

  It was to this basement haven that Richard Marienthal had fled.

  Jackson had been playing a job when Rich arrived at the apartment; he’d left a key with the landlady. When he returned from his job at four the next morning, he found his writer friend asleep on the couch.

  “The bed in that other room is yours, Rich,” he said after his noisy entrance had awakened Marienthal.

  “I wasn’t sure which bedroom to use,” Marienthal said. “I can’t thank you enough for letting me crash here.”

  Jackson’s laugh was easy and fr
equent. “It works out great, man,” he said, pointing to a suitcase and two saxophone cases near the door. “The place is yours ’cause I won’t be around for a while.”

  “You said when I called that you were heading out of town on a gig. What’s it all about?”

  “It’s like a gift from heaven, man. When Charlie called me-Charlie Young, the alto player-and said Buck had recommended me for a band Charlie’s taking on the road, I almost fell over. We’ve got seven weeks in some good clubs around the country.”

  “I know who Charlie Young is,” Marienthal said.

  “Right. We caught him together, what, a month, two months ago? He’s a monster. Anyway, we’ve been rehearsing for the past two weeks and leave tomorrow morning for the tour, so the joint is yours, man, for as long as you want. But you’ve got to tell me what’s going on. I catch the news on the tube and see that you’re, like, at the center of a big storm.”

  “Afraid so,” Marienthal said.

  Jackson brewed herbal tea in the tiny kitchen and brought two cups to the living room, along with fresh blueberry scones. He raised his cup to Marienthal and said, “Okay, man, lay it on me.”

  “I don’t know where to begin,” Marienthal said. “You know how when you’re improvising on some song and get lost?”

  “Moi?” Jackson said, laughing, hand to his heart.

  “You know what I mean. If you hadn’t started in that direction, had stuck closer to the chords-”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “That’s the situation I’m in. It’s like you taking gigs strictly for the money. Bad music, but the pay is good. Making a living as a writer can be as tough as being a jazz musician. I did all kinds of writing I didn’t enjoy and kept thinking that if I stuck to my goals and didn’t sell out-at least not in the long run-I’d make it.”

  “I know what you mean,” said Jackson.

  “So, anyway, my father-he’s a big-shot lawyer, represents Mafia types, or at least he did-he represented a mobster named Louis Russo. Russo was nailed on a drug charge and accepted a deal my father choreographed: testify against his mob friends in exchange for immunity and a new life in the witness protection program.”