Murder in the Smithsonian

by Margaret Truman

  “Anybody who goes around setting off bombs is disturbed, Mr. Tierney.”

  “Yes, of course. I take it he’s confessed.”

  “No, but he turned himself in. We wouldn’t take a confession without an attorney to represent him.” Hanrahan sounded calmer than he felt.

  Tierney nodded. “Naturally I’ll advise Harold to say nothing.”

  “Naturally.”

  “Even if he did confess it wouldn’t stand up, not with his history of institutional confinement.”

  “Remains to be seen. What are you suggesting, Mr. Tierney, that we let him go?”

  “I can think that’s reasonable—”

  “He might have killed people. As it turned out he injured a few. If he’s as disturbed as you say, he ought to be back in an institution.”

  Tierney sat on the edge of a desk. “Captain Hanrahan, I agree with you. If I promise to see that he’s confined and receives treatment, would you allow him to leave with me? In my custody?”

  “I can’t do that and you know it. Let me ask you something, Mr. Tierney. Is he disturbed enough to have run a sword through Dr. Lewis Tunney?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “Well, I’m still going to have to book him. I’d like his statement.”

  “I won’t allow that. I don’t practice criminal law. I’m basically a real estate and tax attorney. I’ve been handling Harold’s aunt’s investments for years. But I can’t allow him to incriminate himself. There’s enough money to hire the best counsel, which we’ll do.”

  “Fine. Thanks for filling me in.”

  “My pleasure, Captain.”

  An hour later, and despite Tierney’s objections, Harold Benz gave a complete if rambling statement to Hanrahan. He was filled with remorse, he said, that people had been hurt, especially women.

  Hanrahan’s final question was, “Harold, did you kill Dr. Lewis Tunney?”

  He seemed confused by the question. He frowned. “Kill someone? Me? I’d never do that.”

  “Okay, Harold.” Hanrahan said.

  Harold was led away by the uniformed patrolmen.

  “Buy you a beer, Mac,” Pearl said when they were gone.

  They went around the corner to a bar popular with cops. Sergeant Arey had gotten off duty and was there with a couple of buddies.

  “Weil, Captain,” Arey said. “Was he the one?”

  “Looks like it.”

  “Did you get my message from the McBean woman—?”

  “What? No, no I didn’t.”

  “Yeah, she called a few times. I left the message on your desk.”

  “I’ll be back,” Hanrahan told Pearl.

  He returned to his office and found Arey’s message shuffled in a pile, of papers. “Miss McBean called. Is meeting a Miss Prentwhistle at seven. Something to do with a Harsa medal.” Hanrahan tried Heather’s apartment. No answer. The same when he phoned Chloe Prentwhistle’s house.

  He called Cal Johnson and filled him in on Harold Benz. Johnson was pleased. “Good job, Mac.”

  “I didn’t do anything. He walked in and gave himself up.”

  “Well, we’ll prepare a statement in the morning for the press. Can you be in early?”

  “How about eight?”

  “Make it seven.”

  Hanrahan returned to the bar and downed a beer. “Where are you headed, Joe?”

  Pearl shrugged. “I was just hanging out at the apartment when they called. I suppose I’ll go home and finish War and Peace. Going in for the light stuff these days.”

  “Yeah. Funny. How about staying around the office?”

  “For what?”

  “In case I need you. I’ve got to take off… the Tunney case. I’d like you on hand in case Heather McBean calls in—”

  Joe started to protest, cut it short. It had been a long cold month of Sundays since Mac had shown even a passing interest in a female of the species.

  “Okay, Mac. You got it.” He smiled.

  “Don’t be a jerk, Joe.” And he told Pearl about the message from Heather. “It’s got to be damned important for them to be meeting at seven o’clock on the Fourth of July. I don’t much like it.”

  “Probably nothing, Mac. They’re pretty strange folk, that whole museum crowd.”

  “I’d still feel better trying to hook up with them. The fact that Heather McBean called means she’s worried too. I’ll get back to you.”

  He got in his car and headed for the Mall. Traffic was heavy as tourists tried to get close to the site of holiday festivities. He cursed and slapped a flashing red light with a magnetic base on the roof, activated it and sounded his siren. Cars slowly made room as he snaked his way to the Constitution Avenue entrance to the Museum of American History. He went to the administrative offices, found them deserted except for a security guard. He showed his badge and asked if anyone was working. The guard shrugged. “Just me up here, Captain. They’re never around on holidays.”

  “Has Miss Prentwhistle been in?”

  “No, sir. Her assistant, Mr. Saunders, was up here for a while but he’s gone.”

  Hanrahan left the museum by the Mall entrance. He stood on the steps and looked out over three hundred thousand heads. The aroma of barbeque and chili was thick enough to feel. “Where would someone be meeting at seven o’clock on the Fourth of July?” he muttered. “Heather McBean, where the hell are you?”

  ***

  Evelyn Killinworth walked through his front door, saw the disarray in his living room, went to the kitchen and opened a cabinet. The box of cat food was gone. He hurried upstairs and used his key to enter Heather’s apartment. The box was in her kitchen, the top open, the chamois sack gone. “Damn that girl,” he said aloud as he returned to his apartment. He dialed MPD, where Sergeant Arey was on duty. “Sergeant,” Killinworth boomed, “Dr. Evelyn Killinworth here. Is Captain Hanrahan there?”

  “No sir. Was he expecting your call?”

  “No. Actually, I was looking for Miss McBean. Captain Hanrahan wanted me to contact her concerning the Tunney case.”

  “Yeah, well, she called in looking for the captain.”

  “Did she say where she was?”

  “No. She’s meeting up with a Miss Prentwhistle at seven. She said—I’ll tell Captain Hanrahan you called.”

  “Thank you.”

  He called a local cab company and ten minutes later was squeezing himself with difficulty into the back seat of a compact sedan. “The Mall,” he said.

  “No way,” the driver said. “That’s like New Year’s Eve in Times Square.”

  “I don’t care if it’s like VE Day in Trafalgar Square, you twit. Take me there.”

  ***

  Heather arrived fifteen minutes early at the courtyard between the National Gallery’s East and West buildings. Saunders had been right. It was all but empty. The afternoon’s threatening weather had blown through without depositing a raindrop. The air was again fresh and comparatively bracing for a July day in Washington.

  A young man sat in a corner strumming repetitive chords on a guitar. His girl friend, a frail young blond who needed sun to look healthy, sat at his feet and listened. Or was it absorbed? Whatever, Heather was glad they were there. She sat on a sculptured stone bench and felt the Harsa through her leather purse. She began to relax. Chloe would be here soon. For all her shifts in mood, Chloe was a strong woman. Between them they would somehow make sense of this…

  She looked at her watch. Seven straight up. She walked to a phone booth and rummaged about in her purse for the change she’d taken care to get earlier. She inserted a dime in the slot and started to dial MPD’s number when a hand reached into the booth and depressed the switch hook. Startled, Heather quickly turned her head.

  “Hi,” Ford Saunders said. He was dressed in white jeans, a blue Popeye T-shirt and brown deck shoes. His bizarre getup diverted her from her initial scare.

  “You… you startled me,” Heather said.

  “Sorry about that. Also that I’m
late. I assume you were calling to see where Chloe was.”

  “Yes, I was… where is she?”

  “She’s been detained. She asked me to come ahead.”

  “But I wanted to talk to her.”

  “Relax, Miss McBean. Chloe told me to find out what you had to say that was so important. Not to keep you waiting.”

  “I… I’d like to see her. She is coming?”

  “Yes. Let’s sit down and talk.”

  “Where is she?”

  “As I told you, she’s on her way.” He took hold of her upper arm, holding it too tightly.

  “You never told her about the meeting, did you?”

  His answer was to press harder. And then: “What did you find, Miss McBean?”

  “Let go of me.”

  “When you give it to me. You know what I’m talking about.”

  “No, I don’t I—” But by now she was afraid she did.

  “The Harsa, damn it. Give me—”

  What Heather gave him was what she had given the London masher. She brought her knee up into his groin. Saunders doubled over, his face contorted. The guitar player looked up briefly, went back to playing chords for his worshipful companion.

  Heather ran toward the Mall. She looked back, saw Saunders still clutching his groin. The mass of people loomed as a refuge, and she plunged into it. She felt sharp stabs in her injured foot as she moved through the throngs, adroitly skirting some clusters of sightseers, pushing her way through others. Ahead she saw the Arts and Industries Building and the Castle. Crowd noise was all around her, yet penetrating through it were the constant, tinkling sounds of the Mall’s permanent carousel playing, “Wonderful, Wonderful Copenhagen.” A green-and-white “Spirit of ’76 Tours” bus offered refuge but pulled away too soon.

  She was surrounded by people, not one of them a friend.

  She reached the carousel, stopped and looked back. If Saunders had come after her, he’d apparently been swallowed up by the crowd. She drew a sharp breath, checked that she still had her purse and its prize, then started west toward the Washington Monument. Hanrahan’s suggestion that she go up to its top while visiting Washington came into her head. What a thing to think of now, she told herself as she pressed on, constantly checking behind her…

  The National Symphony Orchestra started playing “The Stars and Stripes Forever,” and three hundred thousand voices cheered as one.

  She had almost gotten to Fourteenth Street. She looked to her right. The Museum of American History stood silhouetted against a sky streaked with orange-and-white clouds. The music was louder; people around her sang, mostly out of tune. She closed her eyes against a pain in her head that rivaled the one in her foot. She took a deep breath and cut across the Mall to the museum. The steps were filled with people using their elevation to better observe the festivities. Uniformed security guards had abandoned their interior posts and now occupied the top step.

  Heather snaked her way through them and stopped at the doors. A series of cannon volleys, part of the orchestra’s program, shook the air. She looked back at the mass of people; more cannon fire, cheers, hats tossed into the air.

  She pushed through the doors, and was assaulted by silence. The museum was dark except for low-wattage perimeter lights. She blinked against the abrupt change, and then her eyes focused on the outline of the Foucault pendulum shaft as it slowly, relentlessly moved back and forth against dim light coming through windows facing out on Constitution Avenue. It was strangely hypnotic, seductive…

  She went to it, laid her purse on the railing and looked down. Oh, God…. Lewis had fallen from here, the sword in his back… She slowly lowered her gaze as though she were following his body, all the way to its landing with a sickening thud on the floor below her. And, involuntarily, she let out a cry of misery and terror that pierced the stillness as the sword of Jefferson had pierced her lover’s back—

  “Heather…?”

  Chapter 28

  She turned around. Chloe Prentwhistle came out from the shadows.

  “Oh, thank God, it’s you.”

  “Yes, Heather, it’s me, I’m glad you finally got here. And that you’re safe.”

  Heather slumped back against the railing. Chloe stopped a few feet from her. “I’m very glad to see you, Heather. What kept you?”

  “Kept me? Oh, I see… he told you to meet me there, then told me the National Gallery and met me himself—”

  “He? You mean—”

  “Mr. Saunders. He must have been the one who ransacked Evelyn’s rooms. He couldn’t find it and when I called you, well… he must have guessed I had it and…”

  “And what, Heather? What did he guess you had? Don’t hold back now, Heather. I’m your friend, I’ve proved it. I don’t blame you for being suspicious, even of me. My God, what you’ve been through… Heather? Is it the Harsa…?”

  “Yes… how did you know?”

  “Good lord, girl… I’ve been looking for it for a very long time now. It’s difficult to explain, Heather. Come with me to my office where no one will bother us. I’ll explain there.” She held out her hand. “I’ll take it now, dear.”

  Heather opened her purse, clutched the chamois bag.

  “I know it’s been a nightmare, Heather, but it’s over now.”

  Heather pulled the bag halfway from her purse, paused. “I’m very confused about something, Chloe. I have the Harsa, but there’s a Harsa on display. Two Harsas? Why?”

  Chloe nodded vigorously. “Yes, there are two Legion of Harsa medals, Heather. One is real, the other is an expert reproduction. I’m afraid there has been a terrible scandal inside the Smithsonian, and the Harsa is at the core of it. Not because it’s especially valuable, but because it surfaced at the wrong, or right time, depending on which side you’re on—”

  “Which side? Which side should I be on, Chloe? Was Lewis on the wrong side? Is that why he was killed?”

  “Oh God, I’m afraid so. He found out about the scandal from Peter Peckham and came to Washington to expose it. Those behind it couldn’t allow that to happen…”

  “But what could be so terrible that someone would kill a person to keep it secret?”

  “Yes… I agree, but there are people who will do anything to preserve their reputation, however ill deserved. They knew Lewis and I were close to exposing them and their schemes. It would all have been resolved much earlier but I had to wait until the Fourth for it to become public. Even now, I’m afraid, it will badly reflect on the Smithsonian, but perhaps the impact won’t be quite as traumatic… The Harsa you have there in your purse is the key. I’m so terribly sorry you had to go through what you have, Heather, but at least we must take advantage of it, if only to see that Lewis’s awful death wasn’t for nothing. That would be unpardonable.”

  “I don’t know, Chloe…” Heather allowed the sack to drop to the bottom of her purse, turned and leaned on the railing. Chloe did not move. She did not speak. Heather watched the giant pendulum move back and forth across the compass rose, silent, perpetual, its brass bob sparkling as it caught rays of incidental light. “Which Harsa do I have, Chloe?”

  “The real one.”

  “The one on display is a… a—?”

  “A replica. Yes. We had to create the impression that it was real so that the public wouldn’t be aware of the investigation.”

  “What about that man in London? The Arab? Who killed him? And who killed Peter Peckham?”

  “Heather, please, let’s go to my office. I’ll make some tea and we can go over everything in detail. Answer all your questions. You’re certainly entitled to know…”

  Heather stayed as she was. She heard the faint strains of music and crowd noise from outside. She was breathing normally now, and the air conditioning had evaporated her perspiration, leaving her skin cold, clammy.

  “Come on,” Chloe said kindly.

  Heather turned. She badly wanted to believe, to trust in this seemingly warm and understanding woman. She went bac
k to her purse, took the sack from it but did not yet hand it over.

  Chloe smiled reassuringly.

  “Don’t, Heather,” a male voice said. Both women looked in its direction and saw the huge outline of Evelyn Killinworth as he stepped out from behind a glass display case. “I’m surprised at you, Heather, and very disappointed,” he said.

  “With me?” Heather said.

  “Yes, indeed, Dr. Killinworth. How dare you, considering your role in this—” Chloe said.

  “What are you doing here?” Heather said, holding tight to the chamois sack.

  “I am here, young woman, among other things, to attempt to help you distinguish friend from foe, something it seems you have difficulty with on your own—”

  “You had this,” Heather said sharply, raising the sack with the Harsa. “I found it in your apartment.”

  “Of course you did, and I would have expected you to have waited to talk to me about it. Instead you ran off in quite the wrong direction, to very much the wrong person—”

  “Stop it, damn you, Evelyn, I still hate having to face it… you were my friend, or seemed to be. My uncle swore by you. But you fooled us all, and for too long… you went to Belgravia and killed that Arab and took the Harsa from him. I think I knew it even then… at least the killing part… but I refused to accept it—”

  “Tell her, Chloe,” Killinworth finally broke in.

  “Tell her what, Dr. Killinworth, that she is looking at the man responsible for her fiancé’s death—?”

  “Nonsense… Heather, you know that I was not even here the night of Lewis’s murder.”

  “But those who have been involved with you for all the years you’ve plundered the Smithsonian were here to do your dirty work,” said Chloe. “He’s been behind it for years, Heather, stealing pieces from the back rooms and selling them on the black market—”

  “Is that what happened to the Harsa my uncle donated?”