Murder in the Smithsonian

by Margaret Truman

  Paley flipped through a few more pages. “Yes, I did, ma’am.” He placed his hand over the page, cleared his throat. “You’ll be payin’ me the balance of my fee this night, I take it.”

  “That depends.”

  “On what?”

  “On whether you’ve earned it.”

  He slipped the pad back in his pocket, got up, went to the bar and bought himself another bitter. He returned to the table, downed half the dark brew, and turned a stare on Heather that was altogether unpleasant. He had a small face, pale and soft, but there was now an unmistakable hardness, cruelty, that made Heather lean away from him. He smiled, exposing yellowed teeth. “I’m not accustomed to havin’ my work questioned, Miss McBean. I’ve got me a good reputation. Like I told you when we first talked, there’s no guarantees in this business. I do my best. If I come up with something, that’s ducky. If I don’t, that’s hard beans but I get paid one way or the other.”

  “I’ll pay you what I owe,” Heather said. “Now please tell me what you can about Dr. Tunney.”

  Paley waited until she’d dug into her purse and extracted his remaining fee in pounds. He counted them, put them in his pocket, withdrew his pad and returned to the page he’d stopped at earlier. “Let me see,” he said, squinting at his writing. “Ah, yes, I did discover, with some difficulty, I might add, that Dr. Tunney did talk with the missing Dr. Peckham during that week.”

  “You’re certain?”

  “Yes, indeed. I never report anything that ain’t certain.”

  “Where did they meet?”

  “At Mr. Peckham’s shop on Davies Street. Someone saw a gent fittin’ Dr. Tunney’s description go into the Peckham establishment one day about noon and come out of it about an hour later.”

  “What else?”

  “That’s the size of it.”

  “Where else did Dr. Tunney go that week?”

  “I don’t know. I come up against a blank wall, if you catch my drift.”

  “Yes, I catch your drift. You’ve told me everything you know?”

  “For now. Of course, I can keep on the case—”

  “For another fee.”

  “I’m a workin’ man, luv. I get paid for my services like everybody else.”

  “No, Mr. Paley, I won’t be needing your services any longer.”

  “As you wish, ma’am. If I can be of any further assistance in the future, just ring me up. Care to linger a bit? I was about to get me a bite to eat. I’d be happy to have you join me and my friends—”

  “Thank you, no.”

  She pulled her raincoat tighter around her, stood up and went to the door. The rain was falling as hard as when she’d arrived. She considered going to a phone and calling for a cab but her need to escape the pub was overwhelming. She stepped out into the rain, opened her umbrella and walked up Cable Street. She was on the edge of tears over the lack of information Paley had given her. Her frustration turned to anger, and she walked faster. At Dock Street two local yobbos stood in an abandoned building’s doorway. One of them said, “What have we got here, a dolly-girl out lookin’ for a grind in the rain?”

  His friend laughed and stepped into Heather’s path. “Pretty bird, ain’t ’cha? You wouldn’t mind if I grabbed your arse, now would ya?”

  “Get away from me,” Heather said, hoping she sounded more confident than she felt.

  The other, ferret-faced and red-eyed, joined his friend in front of her. “I ain’t seen you before,” he said, cocking his head and leering.

  “Get out of my way—”

  One of them reached out and grabbed at her breasts through her raincoat. “You got nice titties, luv,” he said. The other one made a move to circle her.

  Heather didn’t hesitate. She brought her foot up into the crotch of the one in front of her as hard as she could, He doubled over and moaned, “She got me in the cobblers.” Heather rammed the tip of the umbrella into the other one’s face, opening a gash on his cheek. He howled and lunged for her. She used the umbrella to keep him away, dropped it, turned and ran toward the Quid. She heard them chasing after her and she ran blindly, the rain stinging her eyes, her feet sloshing through deep puddles on the uneven sidewalk.

  The lights of an automobile came around the pub’s corner, illuminated Heather and her pursuers. Heather waved wildly at the driver, who stopped, pulled down the window of his cab. “What’s the matter, miss?”

  “They’re after me—”

  “Get on your way, you little bastards, before I warm your lugs for you,” the driver said. The punks swore, reviled Heather, but turned and disappeared into the night.

  “Thank you,” Heather said.

  “Don’t be thankin’ me, ma’am, but you’d better get in if you don’t want to drown yourself.”

  She retrieved her umbrella and rode the cab back to considerably more genteel Mayfair and the warmth and security of the Chesterfield. The driver insisted on escorting her into the lobby, where Heather thanked him profusely. “You saved my life…”

  “Just a case of comin’ along at the right time. You get yourself into some dry clothes, and if you don’t mind my givin’ advice, keep away from places such as you’ve been tonight. It’s not safe for a lady on those streets.”

  “I’m convinced,” she said, and thanked him again. When she asked if she might give him something, he told her no, it was his pleasure. It was a lovely moment she wouldn’t soon forget.

  In her room she stripped off her wet clothes, drew a hot bath, wrapped herself in a robe and checked her watch. Nine-fifteen. She was to meet Evelyn in fifteen minutes.

  As Heather was finishing dressing, Killinworth was coming through the lobby carrying a paper bag and an envelope addressed to his Savoy luncheon companion containing the keys she’d given him. He gave the envelope to the desk clerk to mail and went directly to his room, double locked the door behind him, placed the bag on the bed, opened it. He removed a small chamois sack the color of burnt ocher. The top was secured with a leather drawstring. Killinworth loosened it and slipped his hand inside, fondled something, withdrew his hand, tightened the drawstring and put the sack in the bottom of a suitcase, which he put in the rear of a closet. He tossed the paper bag in a wastebasket, washed his hands and face and combed his hair, checked himself in a mirror and went to the restaurant, where Heather had just been shown to a table. “I’d hoped to be here first,” he said, “to help you through the… initial difficulties.”

  “After what’s happened to me tonight I had very little problem with it.” She told then about her meeting with Paley and being attacked on the street.

  “How dreadful for you,” he said, patting her hand. “I should have been with you…”

  “Yes, well, it’s over now… how was your meeting in Belgravia?”

  He smiled noncommittally and ordered for them—smoked salmon appetizers, steak au poivre for him, Dover sole for her. “Routine business, nothing of import,” he said. “Turned out, in fact, to be a bore and damnably unproductive.”…

  After dinner she said, “I’m exhausted Evelyn. I’d like to get to bed.”

  “Of course. I might tarry in the bar for a cognac. Positive you won’t join me?”

  “Positive, but thank you. I’ll see you at breakfast.”

  ***

  Killinworth ordered a double cognac, nursed it for ten minutes, then said to the bartender, “I’ll be back… forgot something in my room.”

  Where he went was to the hotel’s basement, where there were two public phone booths. He wedged his frame inside one of them, put fifty pence in the slot and pressed seven numbers. Moments later his call was answered with, “Scotland Yard.”

  Killinworth spoke through a handkerchief he had placed over the mouthpiece. “I wish to report a murder on Belgrave Place, in Belgravia, Number Seven.”

  “Who’s the victim?”

  “Number Seven Belgrave Place.”

  “Your name, please.”

  “Good night.”

&nb
sp; He stopped to polish his custom-made Church’s shoes on a machine provided for hotel guests, returned to the bar, finished his cognac, bid the bartender a pleasant good night and went to his room, where he promptly fell sound asleep.

  Chapter 21

  “I’m sorry, Captain, but Mr. Saunders isn’t in the office and won’t be back for two days.”

  “Is he away on business?” Hanrahan asked.

  “Yes, sir. He’s in New York attending gallery openings.”

  “Thank you. By the way, is there some way I can reach him in New York?”

  “He didn’t say where he’s staying.”

  “What gallery opening is he attending?”

  “There are several. He didn’t say which, I’m afraid. He usually doesn’t.”

  “Please have him call me when he returns.”

  Next on Hanrahan’s list was Congressman Jubel Watson. Watson was in committee but returned the call at noon. “Thanks for getting back, congressman. I wonder if I could have some of your time this afternoon. It’s about the Tunney case.”

  “The Tunney case? There’s nothing I could possibly tell you about that, Captain. I gave my statement the night of the murder. I was there, along with two hundred other people. That’s the extent of my knowledge.”

  “I realize that, sir, but I’d still appreciate a few minutes.”

  “Well, let me check my schedule… is four all right?”

  “That’ll be just fine. At your office?”

  “Make it my suite at the Hay-Adams.”

  “I’ll be there.”

  Hanrahan had lunch in his office and pored through transcripts of interviews in the Tunney case, making notes as he went. He left MPD at one forty-five for a two o’clock meeting with Borden G. Costain, the Smithsonian’s secretary, at the administrative center in the Castle.

  Costain was not what Hanrahan had expected. After spending as much time as he had with the Smithsonian’s hierarchy, Hanrahan had developed a museum archetype for himself. Costain didn’t fit. Tall and broad shouldered, he looked more like a former all-American college football player than the head of the nation’s leading museum empire and tourist attraction. He wore a double-breasted gray blazer and khaki slacks, pale blue button-down shirt and a dark blue tie with tiny gold emblems which, on closer examination, proved to be the Smithsonian’s emblem. Thick, bushy salt-and-pepper hair was short and grew close to the temples, almost a crew cut. His face was deeply tanned and etched. His eyes were deep blue and lively.

  “Good of you to see me, Dr. Costain,” Hanrahan said after he’d been ushered into a spartan office.

  “Sorry I wasn’t here earlier,” Costain said. “Coffee? A drink?”

  “No thanks.”

  “I think I will.”

  The Russian vodka Costain poured looked good. Hanrahan changed his mind and joined him. “Here’s to finding the bastard who killed Lewis Tunney,” Costain said, raising his glass in a half-hearted toast.

  “That’s worth drinking to,” said Hanrahan, surprised at Costain’s choice of words. “I understand you were away at the time, supervising an archaeological dig?”

  Costain nodded and opened blinds on the window. “That’s right. A lot of people don’t realize how involved the Smithsonian is in archaeology and anthropology around the world. There isn’t a day goes by that we don’t have a team in remote places trying to find answers to our origins. But that’s not why you’re here, Captain.”

  Hanrahan finished his drink. “No, it isn’t, but it’s sort of interesting. They’ve been kidding me ever since this case broke about my suddenly becoming cultured. At any rate, the reason I wanted to see you was to get whatever ideas you might have about the Tunney murder.”

  Costain shook his head, went to a file cabinet and picked up a shrunken head that had been tossed on top of loose files. He held out the head to Hanrahan for closer examination. “See this, Captain? It’s Jivaro Indian from Ecuador.” He handed the head to Hanrahan, who took it and ran his fingers over its leathery surface. The head was small and black. The eyelids were closed but bulged unnaturally. The lips were sealed with three pins of chonta wood that had string hanging from them.

  “Headhunters?” Hanrahan said.

  “Yes. We know it here as Item Number 397,131. You can read it on the tag… The Jivaros are interesting people, Captain. It takes them about twenty-four hours to prepare a head once they’ve severed it from a victim. They slit it up the back and skin it. They use a special herb from a vine known as chinchipi and boil the head in it until it shrinks. Then they fill it with hot rocks to continue the shrinking process, and then use hot sand. It’s very important to them that it be done right. The head is, after all, a tangible symbol of their recent success, a source of pride, satisfaction. After it’s shrunk to the right size they smoke it over a smudge to achieve this nice color. They shine it up like you and I buff our shoes, then bring it home with them.”

  “That’s sure fascinating, Dr. Costain, but I wonder what—”

  “It’s not worth a hell of a lot, Captain. One of our people bought this head, Number 397,131, in 1930 for twenty bucks.”

  “The point, Dr. Costain?”

  “The point is that I can understand a Jivaro Indian cutting off a head and preserving it as a trophy, but I can not understand some sick son of a bitch coming into the Museum of American History, ramming a sword belonging to Thomas Jefferson into the back of a leading scholar and walking away scot-free.”

  Hanrahan handed the head back to Costain, who returned it to the file cabinet with enough force to send papers scattering. He turned. “Dr. Tunney’s murder has reflected on this entire institution, Captain, and the failure to resolve it reflects further on everybody involved, including, if I may say so, the MPD and yourself.”

  “Dr. Costain, we don’t exactly enjoy unsolved murders either—”

  “What progress has there been?” Costain’s voice was edged with frustration, anger and pain. He sat behind his desk and rubbed his temples. “Ideally this business should have been taken care of internally. I’d hoped for that. Unfortunately it hasn’t worked out that way.”

  “I understand how you feel, Dr. Costain. But I also have to tell you that it looks like the answer to Dr. Tunney’s murder might be right here inside the Smithsonian.”

  Costain looked as though he’d tasted something sour. “I hope to hell you’re wrong. Let me explain something to you. The Smithsonian is at a crossroads. We have a vice president who believes in it, which, I might add, represents a distinct departure from the past. There’s a major funding bill in Congress right now that would provide important money for the Smithsonian. It would mean the world being brought into the Smithsonian. If what you suggest turns out to be true, all this could be lost.”

  And you’d go down in history as the man at the helm, Hanrahan thought. “Could you spell that out for me?” He thought he knew the answer, but he wanted to keep Costain talking. Who knew what he might drop…

  Costain sat back, made a tent with his fingers. “The nature of Congress and its elected officials… The arts have never exactly been at the top of the priority list when it comes to budgets. Usually, especially in hard times, we have to lobby like a cornered badger just to sustain our appropriations, let alone get them increased. But this time around we have a vice president who’s in our corner, and we have a champion in Congress who can use the vice president’s leverage in committee.”

  “Congressman Watson?”

  “Yes.” Costain seemed surprised that Hanrahan knew.

  “I have an appointment with him later on.”

  “That right? Why? Does he have something for your investigation?”

  “Who knows? In my business you check out everything, everybody. That’s the boring way we sometimes even get results.”

  Costain nodded, said he understood. Hanrahan thanked him for his time and for the drink. As he was about to leave he asked, “You don’t happen to know an Evelyn Killinworth, do you?”


  “Yes, why?”

  “What can you tell me about him?”

  “Eccentric, a maverick in the field, good teacher, some say unconventional in his approach, personally and professionally. Why do you ask?”

  “Just curious. I met him a little while ago.”

  “In connection with the Tunney murder?”

  “No, not really… well, again, Dr. Costain, thanks for seeing me.”

  ***

  Hanrahan waited in the lobby of the Hay-Adams until four-fifteen, when Congressman Watson finally arrived.

  “Sorry I’m late.” They stepped into an elevator and Watson pushed the button for the top floor. “I’m afraid I don’t have much time, Captain,” he said as he watched the floors light up on a panel. “I’ve got to be at an embassy reception at five.”

  “I’ll try to make it brief,” Hanrahan said.

  They rode the rest of the way in silence, the diminutive Watson bouncing up and down on black alligator shoes and fiddling with his tie. He led the way into his suite, which was spacious and airy and dominated by works of art on every wall and table surface.

  “Excuse me a moment,” Watson said as he disappeared into a bedroom. His housekeeper, an elderly black woman in a starched gray uniform and white apron, came out of the kitchen. “Can I get you something, sir?”

  “Oh, no, no thanks,” Hanrahan said. He was standing where Watson had tossed his briefcase and the day’s newspaper on a trumpet-leg lowboy. The paper was open to an inside page, from which a headline stared up at him: “VICE SQUAD RAIDS GEORGETOWN PARTY.” Hanrahan picked up the paper and read the story. He’d heard about the raid that morning. There was some joking about it around MPD, although no one seemed to have many details. All Hanrahan knew was that the MPD’s vice squad, acting on complaints from Georgetown residents, broke up what was reputed to be a monthly gathering of well-heeled Washington transvestites. Such raids had occurred before, and Hanrahan had been skeptical about the value of them. It was one thing to get the word out to such groups that there had been complaints, another to bust in, list names and expose them to public ridicule. He was glad to see that names had not been included in the newspaper account.