Murder at Union Station

by Margaret Truman

  The large reel-to-reel tape recorder in the FBI’s Com Center turned slowly and often for the next few hours. Every call to Marienthal’s apartment was dutifully recorded.

  Simultaneously, calls to and from Mac and Annabel Smith’s Watergate apartment were taped. Intercepting calls involving an attorney was problematic, should any of the conversation involve the discussion of legal issues. The agents on duty had been warned to turn off the recorder and their earphones in the event that happened. Whether those monitoring the calls would heed that admonition was conjecture.

  Tired of looking for Marienthal on the streets surrounding Union Station, Stripling dumped his car in a parking garage and entered the station, where he took a small table in the bar area of America, a street-level restaurant affording a view of the front of the station on Massachusetts Avenue. He ordered a burger, fries, and a Coke and gazed out the window at people milling about, mostly tourists from the look of them and their silly hot-weather clothing, taking pictures of each other in front of the Columbus statue or the large yellow fountain, whose dancing waters had been turned off for reasons unknown. Fountains in Washington, D.C., seem always to be off on the hottest days.

  He’d just finished his lunch and ordered a triple-scoop butterscotch sundae when the cell phone on the table rang.

  “Yeah?”

  “We have an address for you.”

  He wrote down the house number on upper 16th Street and other information, pressed End, and asked for a check. Minutes later he was on his way out of Union Station and headed for the garage, the sundae just wishful thinking.

  Stripling wasn’t the only one with upper 16th Street as a destination.

  Kathryn Jalick had just started removing materials from the first box of the physician’s papers at the Library of Congress when a colleague summoned her to a phone.

  “Kathryn, it’s Rich. Can you leave now?”

  “I-I’ll just have to. Where are you?”

  “At Winard’s house.”

  “Is that where you’ve been all along?”

  “Yeah. He left on a tour with a band. Can you come right now?”

  “Yes. He’s on Sixteenth, right?”

  “Right. You’ve been here before.”

  “I know where it is. What are we going to do?”

  “Fill you in when you arrive. Make sure nobody follows you.”

  “Follow me? I don’t think-”

  “Just be sure nobody does. See you in a few minutes.”

  She went into her director’s office and announced she had to leave.

  “Is everything all right?” the director asked.

  “Yes, I’m okay,” Kathryn answered.

  “Does it have to do with Richard and his book?”

  Kathryn nodded. “It’ll be over soon.”

  “I hope so. Take care, Kathryn.”

  “I will. And thanks for understanding.”

  Geoff Lowe’s level of understanding of anything had reached its nadir. Upon arriving at the Library of Congress, he’d taken a seat at a table in the main reading room and looked for Kathryn Jalick to emerge from behind the scenes. He saw her a few times as she passed from one area to another, and covered his face with a magazine he’d taken from a rack. Although the air-conditioning was welcome, he was uncomfortable sitting there in the midst of a hundred people buried in books. Weirdos, he thought, taking in those in his immediate vicinity, some of whom looked strange-were different-in how they dressed and allowed their hair and beards to grow wild.

  He made frequent trips to the men’s room or outside to escape the reading room’s atmosphere. He couldn’t justify being there like some hotel detective hiding behind potted plants in search of straying spouses, but he didn’t know what else to do. Ellen had been unsuccessful in convincing Kathryn to lead him to Rich. Senator Widmer had become irascible, even by his standards, and most of his wrath was directed at Lowe. He understood the senator’s anger to some extent; the whole idea of hearings into Parmele’s days as CIA director had been Lowe’s, prompted by his having met Richard Marienthal. It was like handing Widmer a prized political gift, the sort of scandal that despite its origins had legs, would capture the media, and by extension sway public opinion. Was it true? It didn’t matter. This was politics. Indeed, this was war, and Lowe viewed himself as a consecrated combatant.

  All he wanted that day was to get lucky, to see Marienthal walk into the library to meet Kathryn, carrying a bagful of tapes. If he didn’t listen to reason about handing them over-he’d use his best “It’s for the good of the country” speech-he’d hit him over the head and just take the damn tapes, run back to Widmer’s office and present them to the old bastard like a sacrificial offering: “Here! I offer you this young virgin! I came, I saw, I conquered! Reward me!”

  He was sitting on a low concrete wall outside the library, tie pulled loose, collar open, sweat running down his face, watching people come and go, when Kathryn Jalick emerged through the main entrance after having offered her handbag for inspection by security guards inside. Keeping employees and visitors from leaving with purloined books was as pressing an issue at the Library of Congress as guarding against the unbalanced entering with guns.

  Lowe turned so that his back was to her as she ran past thirty feet from him and waved down a taxi.

  “Damn!” Lowe said as he got up and watched the cab with Kathryn in it pull from the curb and go to the corner, where it stopped for a red light. Another empty taxi approached from the same direction as the previous one. Lowe stepped into the street and stopped it, climbed in the back. “See that cab up there at the light?” he said to the driver. “Follow it.”

  The driver, a burly black man with a beard, turned and frowned. “Like in the movies?”

  “Yeah, yeah, I know,” said Lowe. “Just do it, okay? I’ll take care of you.”

  Rich Marienthal anxiously awaited Kathryn’s arrival at Winard Jackson’s apartment. After having contacted her at the Library of Congress, he’d placed a call to the family home in Bedford, New York.

  “Mom? It’s Rich.”

  “Are you all right?”

  “Yes, I’m fine.”

  “We’ve been so worried about you,” she said. “You’ve been on the news. No one knew where you were. Your father is furious. He’s in Washington looking for you. He’s with Mackensie Smith.”

  “I know. I spoke with him there. He didn’t tell you?”

  “No. Richard, what is going on?”

  “I’ll explain it all later, Mom. Look, I’m sorry about what’s happened, but it’s all going to work out fine. Just fine. I’m coming to New York.”

  “When?”

  “Today. Tonight. I’ll come to the house.”

  “Thank God you’re all right,” she said, and started to cry.

  “Come on, Mom,” he said, “no tears. You’ll make me feel guilty.”

  “I know,” she said. “I don’t mean to-”

  “I have to go now,” he said. “See you later.”

  “Be careful.”

  “I will.”

  His next call was to Greenleaf at Hobbes House in New York.

  “Sam, it’s Rich Marienthal.”

  “Jesus, where have you been?”

  “Staying with a friend.”

  “I don’t mean where you were. I mean, why did you disappear? The book’s just coming out. The media’s going nuts wanting to interview you. Geoff Lowe-”

  “How is my buddy Geoff?”

  “Rich, what about the tapes and the hearings?”

  “What about them?”

  “Don’t get cute with me, Rich. You may be enjoying your reclusive little game, but I’m not. There’s a lot riding on those Widmer hearings. The Democrats are already spinning the hell out of it, claiming the book is nothing but the figment of Russo’s overactive imagination. They’re saying you’re afraid to face the media because you know it’s all fiction. It’s time to step up to the plate, Rich, get out there and use the tapes to validat
e the book.”

  “I’m not sure I want to do that, Sam.”

  Greenleaf’s voice rose in volume. “Now, hold on, Rich, and listen to me. You entered into a deal with us, and that included cooperating with the Widmer hearings. Russo getting killed wasn’t your fault. You couldn’t control that. But you can control the tapes and how they’re used.” He paused for breath. “I’m getting the impression that you knew all along that Russo’s claims weren’t valid, that you conned us.”

  “I didn’t con anybody,” Marienthal said, feeling his own ire rising. “It doesn’t matter whether I believed Russo or not. All I did was write a book based on what he told me, and that’s what you bought, nothing more, nothing less. You’re right; Louis Russo’s death was beyond my control. And you’re right that I can determine what happens with the tapes. I’m sorry if things haven’t turned out the way we all wanted them to. I still haven’t decided what to do with the tapes, but I’m getting close.”

  Marienthal could almost see Greenleaf in his office chair, willing himself to become calm and to inject reason into the argument. Judging from Greenleaf’s revised tone, that’s exactly what he’d done.

  “Okay, Rich, let’s approach this in a reasonable, rational manner. There’s an opportunity here to salvage the book and see it achieve the sort of success we all envisioned for it, especially you. I must admit that I don’t understand why you’ve adopted this protective attitude toward the tapes. All they represent is what Russo told you, true or false. Playing them for the public at the hearings is the fair way to go-the American way to go, it seems to me. Let people hear what the man had to say in his own voice, and make up their own minds about his veracity.”

  The American way, Rich thought. A nation ruled by the political sound bite.

  Senator Widmer would proclaim in stentorian tones that the American way did not include assassinating visiting foreign leaders, and that those responsible were not fit to hold high office.

  The White House would disperse its cadre of talking heads to the Sunday morning talk shows to accuse Widmer and his Republican supporters of blatant political motives in an election season, and to brand Russo and Marienthal as kooky pawns of the right wing.

  Either way, and no matter how the public reacted, this was not the end result Richard Marienthal intended when he set out to write a best-selling book, his breakthrough, his claim to fame, his credential for a long and lucrative writing career.

  “I’ll get back to you no later than tomorrow,” Marienthal said.

  “Tomorrow?”

  “Yeah, tomorrow.”

  He ended the conversation and waited for Kathryn to arrive.

  Stripling parked across the street from the building in which Winard Jackson’s apartment was located, and where Rich Marienthal had been holed up. He’d received another call on his cell phone from the Com Center in the Hoover Building, advising him that intercepted messages indicated that the subject had announced his intention to go to New York later that day, and that the subject did in fact have in his possession certain tapes.

  He wasn’t sure what his next step should be. He had no way of knowing how many people might be with Marienthal inside the building, and was reluctant to attempt to confront the writer there. Marienthal was going to New York-which meant he’d be coming out, hopefully soon. Better to wait for that to happen, and trust he’d be alone. He pressed his elbow against the Smith & Wesson in its holster beneath his arm, comforted by its presence, although confident he wouldn’t have to use it. Marienthal was a writer, probably effete, lightweight-a lover, not a fighter. The worst that could happen was that he’d have to display the gun to show Marienthal that he meant business. “Don’t be stupid, kid. Just give me the tapes and go write a poem somewhere.”

  A taxi arrived. Stripling slid lower in the seat, but not so low that he couldn’t see the attractive young woman in a short skirt and wearing large glasses get out of the cab, pay the fare, and go to the building’s front door.

  A second cab came around the corner and pulled up to the curb a half block from the first. A short, stocky young man wearing a suit got out and leaned through the open front passenger window. Stripling couldn’t hear the words, but it was obvious the passenger wasn’t flattering the driver. He shoved his hand in the window and backed away; both cabs drove off.

  The woman with glasses read names on the intercom panel, pressed a button, and spoke into the panel. There was the faint sound of a buzzer; she pushed open the door and disappeared inside.

  Stripling returned his attention to the short, stocky guy standing on the sidewalk. He’d moved behind a tree, shielding him from view of the door through which the woman had entered.

  Who’s he? he wondered. Who’s she? Must be Marienthal’s live-in girlfriend. Nice legs. She could do better than get involved with a writer. With so many more single women than single men in D.C., women must get desperate, he reasoned, more or less.

  What’s the stocky guy going to do, just keep standing there behind the tree? Is he waiting for the writer, too, or has he got the hots for the leggy gal with the big glasses? Was he the writer’s buddy? That could complicate things.

  Nothing to do but wait.

  FORTY-TWO

  It is so good to see you,” Marienthal said when Kathryn walked through the door to the apartment. They sustained their embrace and kissed until Marienthal stepped back, his hands on her shoulders, and smiled. “You look so sexy in those glasses.”

  “Stop it,” she said. “I sure don’t feel sexy. But I am relieved to see you. We’re going to New York?”

  “Not us. I’m going.”

  She looked at him quizzically.

  He led her into the small kitchen, where they sat at the table. He took her hands in his and said, “I owe you a big apology, Kate.”

  “For what?”

  “For being blind to reality. For being greedy. For forgetting who I really am.”

  She wiped away a tear that had escaped her right eye and smiled. “You were all of those things, Rich, and maybe more. But that’s past tense.”

  “You bet it is. Here’s what I want to do.”

  It took him only five minutes to outline his plans for her. When he was finished, he asked, “Make sense?”

  “I think so,” she said.

  “Good. Let’s get going.”

  He went to a small corkboard on which Winard had pinned up a typewritten list of useful phone numbers, dialed the one for a local cab company, and gave the dispatcher the address.

  Five minutes later, he picked up his canvas shoulder bag from the floor, opened the front door, and locked it behind them, and they went up the narrow stairs to the front foyer. Marienthal looked through a small window. “The cab’s here,” he said.

  They went directly to the taxi. Marienthal tapped on the front passenger window. The driver lowered it slightly, and Marienthal said in a loud voice, “Union Station.”

  Stripling and Lowe watched the departure of Rich and Kathryn from their respective vantage points. Stripling started his engine and fell in behind the cab. Lowe left the tree and stood helplessly on the sidewalk. He’d heard Marienthal say, “Union Station,” but was without transportation.

  Marienthal looked back before the cab turned the corner.

  “Did you see that guy?” he asked Kathryn.

  “What guy?”

  “Up the block from the house. It looked like Geoff.”

  She, too, looked back, but by then they were off 16th Street. “Are you sure?” she asked.

  “No, but I think it was.”

  Lowe walked south on 16th until finding a cab. “Union Station,” he said. “I’m in a rush.”

  The driver laughed without mirth. “You guys slay me,” he said. “You got to catch a train? Leave earlier! I’m not getting a ticket because you don’t leave early enough.” He repeated: “Slays me.”

  It just might, thought Lowe.

  Stripling pulled into a vacant one-hour parking spot near the sta
tion, jumped out of the car, and shoved quarters into the meter. Hopefully, he’d be back before the hour was up. If not, Roper could pay for the ticket and tow charges. He ran across the plaza and reached the main entrance just as Marienthal had finished paying their driver and he and Kathryn headed inside. Told Marienthal planned to travel to New York, Stripling assumed the couple would go to one of Amtrak’s booths, which they did. Marienthal and Kathryn stood in a short line in front of the ticket counter and checked the departure board. The next train to New York was scheduled to leave in fifteen minutes. Stripling fell in behind them, his attention focused on the canvas shoulder bag Marienthal carried.

  What now? Should he make a grab for the bag and run? Not a good idea. Too many people, including plenty of security guards patrolling the area. Besides, it wasn’t his MO to play purse snatcher. His best bet, he decided, was to stay close and pick a moment when there were fewer people. He was certain the girlfriend wouldn’t pose a problem, although you never knew about people. People like him. He’d been mistaken over the years for a bank clerk, an insurance salesman, and worse. He liked it that way, the faceless face in the crowd, that nondescript guy in the drab suit who was probably married to a domineering woman, a milquetoast of the first order.

  He couldn’t hear the transaction between Marienthal and the ticket agent, but when it was completed, Marienthal backed away from the counter and stepped on Stripling’s foot.

  “Sorry,” said Marienthal.

  “It’s okay,” said Stripling.

  “Sir?” the agent said to Stripling.

  “What? Oh, right. Round-trip to New York.”