Murder at Union Station

by Margaret Truman

  “Russo. The old dude who got shot in Union Station.”

  “One and the same. At any rate, after Russo went into the program and moved to Israel-”

  “Israel?”

  “Yeah. He was in Mexico for a year, then headed for the Middle East. Some sort of deal we have with the government there. My father told me stories about Russo, his days with the mob, the murders he was supposed to have committed. The more he told me, the more I wanted to meet Russo and use his life as a basis for a novel I wanted to write. The public seems to have an insatiable appetite for mob books, movies, TV series. But after I spent some time with Russo, he started talking about another aspect of his life that really got my attention. Russo claimed he was the triggerman in the assassination of the Chilean president Constantine Eliana.”

  “Assassination? When was that?”

  “Almost twenty years ago.”

  “And?”

  “And who headed the CIA then?”

  Jackson’s eyes went up. “Are you saying…”

  “I’m not saying it, Win. Russo said it. He claimed Parmele authorized the CIA to contract with the New York Mafia to assassinate Eliana, and that he, Russo, did the deed.”

  “That’s heavy.”

  “That’s what I said when I heard it.”

  “More tea?”

  “Thanks, no. I got Russo to tell me the story, and I decided that that would be the basis for a book, a big book. My shot at riches and fame.” His laugh was rueful. “Know what I mean?”

  “Sure I do. So you wrote the book.”

  “I sure did. At least I wrote a proposal based upon what Russo told me. That’s when I met Geoff.”

  “Who’s he?”

  “A senior aide to Senator Karl Widmer.”

  “Alaska.”

  “Uh-huh. I met him at a party and had lunch with him a few days later. He set it up. He was all excited about the book and said he had friends at Hobbes House in New York. I agreed to let him send the proposal to them-provided I dropped the idea of a novel and turned it into nonfiction.”

  “And you did?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Are they the ones publishing it?”

  “Right. Hobbes House is a right-wing publisher, which turned me off at first. You know me. I guess if I had to take sides, I’d say I’m a Democrat like my father, only he’s a closet liberal. I never really cared about politics. I always dismissed it as a necessary evil, a bunch of men and women out to feather their own nests, but somehow things got done and the country ran. I voted for Parmele. Believe me, I knew the book might hurt him, especially his chances for a second term. But then I figured, just how much damage could a book do? It would get some attention and hopefully sell well, maybe even become a best seller. Parmele and his people would spin it, deny what Russo claimed ever happened, and that would be it.

  “But Geoff had other ideas. He convinced me-and Christ, Win, it didn’t take much convincing-that if we could get Russo to testify at hearings Widmer would hold with his subcommittee on intelligence, the book would really get a lot of exposure-network TV, the cover of Time, all of it.”

  “And sink the president, huh?”

  “Again, I really didn’t care. I mean, I cared on some level, but those feelings were always trumped by what I’d get out of it. Geoff wanted me to testify along with Russo, and that was too seductive for me to say no. Understand? You ever been in therapy?”

  “With a shrink? No.”

  “But you know about it. It’s like what you always hear. The therapist is going to say it all comes down to your relationship with your parents. I just figure that everything I did was in competition with my father.”

  “And was it?”

  “I don’t know. Could be. He helped me, but basically he was against my doing this book, so maybe I did it to challenge his authority. Maybe I bought into Geoff Lowe’s idea to use the book as a political tool to get the president, and get my father at the same time. I don’t know. I’m just a writer.”

  Jackson laughed. “You’re one of the smartest guys I know, Rich.”

  “Too smart for my own good.”

  Marienthal peered down at the rug in silent thought. When he looked up, Jackson saw that his friend’s eyes were wet.

  “What are you going to do?” Jackson asked.

  “Stick my head in the sand, like I’m doing now. What are my choices? I could give the Russo tapes and my notes to the White House and feel like maybe I saved a presidency. I could go ahead and turn everything over to Lowe and Senator Widmer, let them hold their hearings, and watch the book take off.”

  “But Russo is dead. He can’t testify.”

  “Right. But Lowe and others on Widmer’s staff evidently think that by playing the tapes of Russo making these allegations, it’s almost as good as having him there in the flesh.”

  “A question, my friend.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Do you think Russo was right, that Parmele ordered the assassination when he was head honcho at the CIA?”

  “Only according to Russo. That’s all I know.”

  Their conversation was interrupted by a phone call. At its conclusion, Jackson rejoined Marienthal, who’d gotten up and was examining the CDs in their racks.

  “This is some collection,” Marienthal said.

  “My inspiration. So, buddy, what are you going to do?”

  “Hole up here, thanks to you. Go to sleep and hope that when I wake up, it’ll all be over.”

  A serious cloud crossed Jackson’s face. “You in real danger, Rich?”

  Marienthal shrugged. “I don’t know. It depends on who killed Russo.”

  “Had to be Mafia. Right? You think they might be after you because of what Russo told you? Making you the only, well, witness to the Parmele thing?”

  “Like I said, I don’t know. Maybe by dropping out for a while, I can think a little clearer.”

  “Look, dude, I’ve got to catch me some sleep,” Jackson said. “You look like you could use some, too. I’ll go out later and stock the fridge, at least for a couple of days. Meantime, make yourself at home. The place is yours. Use the computer, phones, put on some sounds and relax.”

  “Thanks,” Marienthal said.

  While Jackson slept in his bedroom, Marienthal put on a Cedar Walton CD at low volume and sat in the kitchen, which opened onto a small patio at the rear of the narrow row house. The first vestiges of dawn provided enough light for him to make out a small round table with four chairs and umbrella. A patch of grass was beyond, ending at a tall stockade fence separating the property from another yard and house. A pervasive sense of loneliness overcame him. He’d never felt so conflicted in his life. Kathryn had a keen sense of how to compartmentalize things, something he’d never been good at. His mind was a sticky cotton-candy mess, everything mushed into one large, confusing panorama. He stared at the kitchen wall phone and considered calling someone, anyone. Kathryn. Mackensie Smith. His father.

  An urge to call Geoff Lowe and tell him he was destroying the tapes and notes came and went. Compartmentalize! Sort it out. Russo’s murder was one thing. Stick it away over there. The Widmer hearings? Stash that issue in one of Al Gore’s lock boxes.

  The book! No matter what happened with other complications surrounding it, there were all those months of hard work to be considered and salvaged. It was being published as he sat there, and he was pleased that it was. His regret, as the hands on the kitchen clock relentlessly ticked off his life, was that he hadn’t gone forward the way he’d originally intended, written it as a novel based upon Russo’s tales. Geoff Lowe had been instrumental in that decision, too, and he thought back to that lunch with Lowe after having met at the party.

  “I’m telling you,” Lowe had said at that lunch, “you’ve got one hell of a best-selling nonfiction book here, Rich. A novel? Waste of time.”

  “But it’s based on one man’s word, Geoff, a former mafioso in the witness protection program. I can’t corrobor
ate what he’s told me.”

  “You don’t need corroboration,” Lowe countered. “The guy has led the life, walked the walk and talked the talk. His word is as good as anyone’s. It’s not you attesting to the truthfulness of it. All you’re doing is being a good journalist, recounting his recollection of events and filling in some blanks when necessary.”

  They discussed it throughout lunch. Toward the end, Lowe said, “Look, I have a good friend at Hobbes House in New York. You know who they are.”

  “A publisher. Conservative nonfiction.”

  “Exactly. I have a friend there, the top editor, Sam Greenleaf. If you change your proposal to nonfiction, I know Sam will bite.”

  “I thought I’d submit it to other publishers, maybe those who liked what I’d submitted to them before.”

  “But who didn’t buy what you wrote. Right?” Marienthal had given him a thumbnail sketch of his writing career.

  “Right.”

  “So why blow a golden opportunity?”

  Marienthal’s expression was quizzical.

  “Hobbes House. The bird in hand, Rich. Let’s say I can sell it there right away. And let’s say I can get old Senator Widmer to base hearings of his subcommittee on intelligence on the book. Let’s say you can convince Mr. Russo to come and testify at those hearings, and I get Widmer to agree. Can you even imagine what publicity that would generate? Conservative books are hot these days, have been for years. Coulter-”

  Marienthal’s eyes rolled up into his head.

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know she’s a loony, off the wall, but her books make all the best-seller lists. There’s Bill O’Reilly. Hannity.”

  “Geoff,” Marienthal said, “you’re dredging up the wrong examples. I’m not a conservative. I don’t like those people. I’ve been a liberal all my life.”

  “I’m willing to forgive that,” Lowe said with a deep chuckle. “It doesn’t matter what you are, Rich. Like I said, all you’re doing in this case is being a good journalist.”

  “I’ll have to think about it,” Marienthal said.

  “You do that. In the meantime, come up with a nonfiction proposal I can send to Sam Greenleaf. No obligation. You can dismiss whatever comes of it. But at least it will give you an idea of what the market will bear. You have an agent?”

  “No.”

  “Great, then I’ll be your agent, at least with Hobbes House. No commission. The truth is, Rich, I really like you-despite your being a liberal. I think we have a lot in common. I’d like to be helpful, that’s all.”

  Lowe paid for lunch and they parted ways. A week later he called with an offer from Hobbes House. It was structured in such a way that the advance would go up as certain events fell into place, with the largest increase occurring when and if Louis Russo agreed to testify before the Widmer-chaired committee. The contract and all the other information released about the project would say it was to be a novel, a work of fiction, in order to preserve secrecy about its real form until it was time for the book to be published.

  Marienthal discussed it with Kathryn.

  “I’m thrilled for you,” she told him, “but what about the political fallout? This will be devastating to President Parmele. You don’t want to do anything to hurt him, do you?”

  “That’s not my concern,” he replied.

  “But what if what Russo says isn’t true?”

  “That’s not my problem, either. Geoff says I’m just a journalist reporting on an eyewitness to history. Think of what happened when journalists had their say at book length with Nixon, with Clinton, with Kissinger and all. Think of the journalistic reputations and money made with such books. Geoff is right. I think I really lucked out meeting him, Kathryn. He’s a terrific guy, a top aide to Senator Widmer. He got me the offer from Hobbes House and he doesn’t want a cent for doing it. I’m telling you, this is the break I’ve been waiting for my whole life.”

  She realized her arguing was fruitless and not very supportive to boot. She kissed him, and they celebrated with an expensive dinner at Bistro Bis in the Hotel George, where they drank too much wine and fell into bed intending to make love, but too fatigued and elated to summon the energy.

  Thinking back to that evening as he sat in Winard Jackson’s kitchen, the soft sounds of Just Friends in the background, he realized that evening had been celebratory in every sense of the word. He had his first book contract, and judging from the enthusiasm of the publisher and his editor, Sam Greenleaf, it had best seller written all over it. The struggle was over.

  But on this morning, months later in a friend’s basement apartment, his mood was hardly one of celebration. He’d been so blinded by ambition that he hadn’t taken a moment to step back and see what was really going on, the use he was being put to, the manipulation of him by others with their own self-serving agendas. Kathryn had seen it. His father had seen it. The only one who hadn’t seen it was Richard Marienthal, and he was too wrapped up in his pursuit of glory and money to listen to them.

  Louis Russo had been murdered because of him. He squeezed his eyes shut tight against that painful truth. The old mafioso had killed men in his criminal career, but didn’t deserve to be gunned down to help sell a book-and maybe bring down a president in the bargain.

  Had Russo told the truth when he claimed to have assassinated the Chilean dictator at the behest of the CIA, on orders from its chief, Adam Parmele? It didn’t seem to matter anymore whether Russo had lied or not. His story was between the covers of a book, to be read and judged by all those who plunked down their money in bookstores or online.

  His mind cleared in synchronization with the increasing brightness outside. His options narrowed to one, it seemed. The book would make its way without his help. There would be no public appearances, no signings, no interviews in which he’d have to justify what he’d written. And there would be no hearings, certainly not involving him. The tapes were his and would remain his. One day, maybe, he’d destroy them.

  He looked into the living room where the large canvas shoulder bag containing the tapes and other research materials rested against a chair. Trash them now, he told himself. Burn them, or go out and find a Dumpster. Pull the tapes from their cassette cases and cut them into strips, make confetti of them. Find a big magnet and run it over them, scrambling Russo’s words, true or false.

  But the clarity that had made a temporary stop in the kitchen was obscured again by uncertainty. He couldn’t destroy what he’d worked so hard to possess. He stood, feeling very old as he did, and walked slowly into the cramped room that would be his bedroom, at least for that day. Fully clothed, he fell on the bed, drew a deep breath, closed his eyes, and was asleep within seconds.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  Mullin’s head had fallen forward to his chest when a sharp tap on his window snapped him to consciousness. He looked up into the face of a uniformed police officer and rolled down the window, allowing wind-driven rain to splash against his face.

  “You sick or something?” the cop asked.

  “Sick? Nah.”

  “Then move it. This is a no-parking zone.”

  Mullin reached into his jacket pocket. The cop touched his holster, but Mullin quickly produced his shield.

  “You on assignment?” the cop asked.

  “Yeah. Thanks for stopping by.”

  The officer had no sooner walked away than Mullin saw Stripling pull up on the opposite side of the street, half a block down from the hotel. Stripling locked the car, ran down the street, and entered the hotel. Mullin looked around the interior of his vehicle. Why was there never an umbrella when you needed one? There were half a dozen back in the apartment. He spotted a beat-up NY Yankees baseball cap on the backseat, twisted with difficulty to grab it, slammed it on his head, and went to Stripling’s car. He looked up and down the street before trying the front passenger door. Locked. He leaned close to the tinted windows and attempted to see inside, but saw only indistinguishable images. Concerned that Stripling and Sasha might leave
the hotel and come to the car, he retreated to his own vehicle. He wished he’d picked up a newspaper or magazine, something to kill the time. He hadn’t read a book in years.

  He tuned the radio to all-news WTOP, where an announcer intoned that the stormy weather was expected to end by late afternoon, with another heat wave to push its way into the area the next day. Commercials followed. Then the day’s top stories were repeated.

  “This is Dave Stewart with an update on the breaking story involving the Mafia’s alleged role in the assassination more than twenty years ago of Chilean dictator Constantine Eliana. A soon-to-be-published book by Washington writer Richard Marienthal claims that the assassination in 1985 was carried out under a contract given a New York Mafia family by the Central Intelligence Agency. The allegation comes from Louis Russo, the Mafia member who claims to have pulled the trigger in that assassination, and who himself was murdered in Union Station only days ago. Russo, who had traveled here to Washington from Israel, where he’d been living under the federal witness protection program, was to have testified at a hearing conducted by Alaska Senator Karl Widmer into the intelligence agency’s possible role in the assassination. It’s further alleged in the book that President Adam Parmele, then head of the CIA, had personally approved of the assassination. Attempts to reach Marienthal through his publisher and other sources have been unsuccessful. There has been no statement from the White House. A statement issued by Senator Widmer’s press secretary says only that such hearings have been planned and that they will go forward despite Russo’s death. Tapes of him recounting the story will be available, according to the statement. Stay tuned for further updates as we receive them.”

  Mullin spent the next forty-five minutes mulling over what he’d heard. The official MPD finding-that Russo had been murdered by organized crime in retaliation for his testimony against them-made less sense than ever to the veteran detective. Had it happened somewhere else-Mexico, Israel, New York, or Los Angeles-he might have bought it. If it had been a revenge killing, why would they have waited until Russo had reached the place where he was scheduled to tell all? And why would the mob draw attention to itself at this stage, and after all these years, by rubbing out a dying turncoat? Mobsters weren’t the brightest bulbs in the drawer, but they did have a pretty good sense of self-preservation despite the decimation of the Mafia leadership.