Murder in the House

by Margaret Truman

  Mondrian laughed involuntarily. “Is it, now?”

  He went to his desk, picked up the receiver, and punched the lighted button. “Bob Mondrian.”

  “Bob. It’s Marge.”

  He sat up straight and cupped the mouthpiece with his hand. “Marge? Where are you?”

  “I have to see you.”

  “Yeah. Sure. Where the hell did you go?”

  “That’s not important. Are you free now?”

  “No. Meetings. I have people here.”

  “When?”

  Mondrian looked around the office. The committee meeting was at seven. He wouldn’t be there because only committee staff was involved. Others in the office would be gone by six. He’d see to it that they were.

  “Here?” he said softly. “Seven-thirty? Eight?”

  “The office?”

  “Yeah.”

  She exhaled loudly into her mouthpiece, audibly sending air into Mondrian’s ear.

  “Okay? You still have your pass? Yeah, you do. I’ve never rescinded it.”

  “Okay,” she said. “Seven-thirty. You’ll be alone?”

  “Yes. I know what you want, Marge.”

  “I’m sure you do. All I want to do is talk about it with you.”

  “Seven-thirty.”

  “I’ll be there. Make sure we’re alone. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  Mondrian returned to where Jack Emerson waited.

  “Problem?” Emerson asked.

  “Everything’s a problem,” Mondrian replied. “Where were we?”

  The moment Marge Edwards hung up on Mondrian, she called Anatoly, reaching him at home.

  “Where are you?” he asked.

  “That’s not important,” she said. “It’s where I’m going to be that matters.” She told him of her scheduled meeting that evening with Bob Mondrian.

  “What do you hope to accomplish?” he asked.

  “I’m not really sure, Anatoly. But if I can get him to come forward with me, corroborate what I know, I’ll have that much more credibility.”

  There was silence on the other end.

  “Anatoly?”

  “Yes. I’m here. It sounds good, Marge. You will let me know what happens?”

  “Of course. I love you, Anatoly.”

  “And I—I love you, too.”

  The click in her ear said the conversation was over.

  And maybe more.

  31

  Since the murder of Paul Latham, Mac and Annabel Smith’s routine had been anything but that. Which was why they decided on the phone late that afternoon to meet for drinks in pleasant surroundings, and to indulge themselves with an early dinner at their favorite Washington steakhouse, Ruth’s Chris, on Connecticut Avenue, N.W. The Smiths ate little red meat, but when the mood struck, they wanted the real thing.

  They started their evening at the Hay-Adams Hotel, settling into comfortable stuffed chairs in the handsome John Hay Room. They toasted each other with perfect martinis, straight up, and reveled in the soothing refrains of a pianist.

  “I could use a week here,” Annabel said.

  “A week anywhere but Washington,” Smith said.

  He’d filled her in earlier on his meeting with Warren Brazier.

  “How did he react when you told him Paul had confided in you about Brazier’s illegal activities? Money laundering? Contract killings? I’m surprised he didn’t shoot you on the spot. And grateful he didn’t.”

  Smith shrugged. “He suggested I come to work for him.”

  “And?”

  “I told him I was gainfully employed, happily. Arrogant bastard.”

  “Is this the end of it, then?” she asked in the genteel surroundings of the richly appointed room.

  “Of my involvement? Absolutely.”

  “Have you heard from Jessica Belle or her boss?”

  “No.”

  “So you don’t know whether confronting Brazier accomplished anything.”

  “That’s right, although it’s a little early for results—if there are any. I’m still wondering whether I should drive out to Ashburn to see Marge Edwards’s half sister.”

  “For what purpose?”

  “Just to follow up on what Tony uncovered.”

  “The fact that this private investigator Perrone met with her doesn’t mean anything, at least on the surface. I thought your involvement was over.”

  Smith laughed, took her hand. “I guess I forgot. I actually was able to focus this afternoon on the Russian project. It felt good.”

  “Glad to hear it. Which reminds me, I’d better start thinking about what to pack for Moscow.”

  “Maybe we’d better pack guns first,” he said. “The crime problem there is staggering, from everything I read.”

  “But we’ll be safe, won’t we?”

  “Of course, provided we follow sensible security precautions. Let’s not worry about it.” They finished their drinks with yet another toast. “Hungry?” Smith asked.

  “Famished.”

  “I think I’ll check the machine before we head out.”

  “Expecting an important call?”

  “No. Just like to keep in touch.” He went to the hotel lobby in search of a pay phone.

  Annabel’s smile said many things. Her husband was hardly finished with Paul Latham’s murder. But who could blame him for wanting to follow through? Once he’d made the decision to inject himself into the case, it was a natural tendency to want to keep tabs on progress, if only out of curiosity. Or to help make progress.

  “Any calls?” she asked when he returned.

  “Marge Edwards,” he said, sitting.

  Annabel sat up a little straighter. “Did she say where she was?”

  “No. Said she’d call again tonight.”

  “How did she sound?”

  “Breathless. Anxious.”

  “Want to call off dinner, go home in case she does call again?”

  Smith thought about it.

  “Red meat isn’t good for us anyway,” Annabel said bravely.

  “Yes, it is, in moderation. Besides, nobody seems to know what really is good or bad for us. Next thing we know they’ll be selling cholesterol pills to get the levels up. Come on. I’m famished.”

  Annabel had mixed emotions about going through with their plans. On the one hand, it had been a while since they’d gone out to dinner together, just the two of them. She loved the restaurant and its homey atmosphere. And, she was hungry.

  On the other hand, she knew Mac would be distracted by Marge Edwards’s latest attempt to reach him.

  “You’re concerned I’ll be distracted at dinner,” he said.

  “We haven’t been married long enough to read each other’s minds,” Annabel said.

  “But you were thinking that.”

  “Yes.”

  He grinned. “My mind is only on a rare fillet, Annabel, shared with an even rarer woman.”

  “Who is it?” Alekseyev asked, going to his apartment door in response to a knock.

  “Fodorov. From Brazier.”

  Alekseyev peered through the security peephole and recognized the distorted face of the creepy young man he’d taken to dinner a few nights ago.

  “What do you want?” Alekseyev asked through the closed door.

  “Mr. Brazier wants for me to give to you a message. It is a very important message.”

  “So, tell me.”

  Fodorov said nothing.

  Alekseyev reconsidered his response toward Fodorov. Better to be polite and cooperative with someone sent by Brazier. He was hardly in a position to be surly with the boss’s emissary.

  Alekseyev had barely managed to save his job in Washington with Brazier Industries. He did it by telling its leader he knew of a report that could prove extremely damaging to the company, and to Warren Brazier himself.

  “And what do you expect me to do with this startling information, Mr. Alekseyev?” Brazier had asked.

  Alekseyev responded wi
th a speech he’d rehearsed while waiting his audience. He spoke of his loyalty to the company and its goals, emphasizing that what he’d learned of the report would remain with him. When Brazier didn’t respond, Alekseyev went so far as to promise to use his best efforts to obtain the report from the person who’d told him about it.

  “And who might that be?” Brazier had asked.

  Alekseyev hesitated. He hadn’t intended to mention Marge.

  But when he did, Brazier’s recognition of the name was obvious. He thanked Alekseyev for coming forth, and said he would reconsider the transfer back to Moscow.

  “Come in,” Alekseyev said, opening the door to allow Fodorov to enter the apartment. When he was inside, Alekseyev said, forcing a smile, “Good to see you again, Yvgeny. A drink?”

  “Nyet.”

  “Okay. What’s the message from Mr. Brazier?”

  Yvgeny slid the weapon from his waistband so quickly and smoothly that Alekseyev wasn’t immediately aware what was happening. But when Fodorov raised the gun, a silencer extending the barrel, and aimed it at Alekseyev’s face, the reality screamed out. Alekseyev’s reflex action was to raise his hands in front of his face. The first shot tore through the back of his hand and into his cheek. The wounded hand pressed against the gaping hole in his face. Blood ran freely down his wrist and drizzled to the floor.

  Alekseyev’s mouth and eyes opened in pain and shock. Before he could do or say anything else, the second slug entered his mouth and smashed through the back of his head, carrying with it skull and brain and a streamer of crimson blood. Alekseyev’s body followed, stumbling back six feet until falling into a heap on the floor.

  Fodorov replaced the weapon in his waistband, looked at his watch, cast a final, fleeting glance at the lifeless body of Alekseyev, and left the apartment. Ten minutes later he was back at the Washington headquarters of Brazier Industries, just in time to join Brazier and his contingent of janissaries as they piled into cars and drove to the Capitol, where they were met in the underground garage by a staffer from International Relations. The staffer handed them visitor badges, led them past security, and up to the committee room.

  Jack Emerson, majority staff director of the House International Relations Committee, left his meeting with Bob Mondrian and rode the subway back to the Capitol Building. He walked into Room H 139, where other committee staffers, and some House members, waited for the meeting to start.

  “Where’s Mr. Jessup?” Emerson asked.

  “On the floor. He’ll be here soon,” an assistant answered.

  Tom Krouch, Brazier Industries’ chief lobbyist, entered the room. His reputation in Washington, built over years of service to House and Senate committees, as well as to individual House members and senators, was considerable and deserved. His decision two years ago to join Brazier Industries raised a few of his colleagues’ eyebrows, but no one questioned his motivation. Speculation was that Warren Brazier had given Krouch an offer he couldn’t refuse, making him the highest-paid lobbyist in Washington. He’d earn his pay, they knew. Not only was Brazier’s autocratic, often brutal management style well known, his executives were on call twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.

  Krouch called Emerson aside. “We’ll need another room, Jack, for staff.”

  “Yeah, I heard you were bringing an army. Why?”

  “Brazier wants his troops here. You know, feed him economic data if we get into technical areas.”

  Emerson screwed up his face. “What’s your boss doing here in the first place? The glitches in the bill don’t need him to get fixed.”

  Krouch leaned close to Emerson’s ear. “A last-minute decision, Jack. You know how he is. I wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t show up. It’s minute-to-minute with him. If he does show, it’s probably because he wants to press the new chairman’s flesh, let him know how strongly he personally feels about this bill.”

  “He’ll accomplish that, I suppose.”

  “Level with me,” Krouch said.

  A smile from Emerson: “Of course. This is Washington. Remember?”

  “Jessup. What’s his view of Brazier and Brazier Industries?”

  “Want it straight?”

  “Sure.”

  “He’s no Paul Latham when it comes to championing your boss’s agenda.”

  “Against this bill?”

  “You know he is.”

  “All of it?”

  Emerson shrugged. “Enough to gut it.”

  “Thanks for being candid. Anything I can do to soften him?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And?”

  “Put Brazier in a box and keep him away after tonight. Jessup dislikes him even more than the bill.”

  “Advice noted. What room can staff use?”

  “Over here.” Emerson led him to an adjacent, empty conference room with a dozen chairs around an oblong teak table. “This do?”

  “Perfect.”

  The arrival of Warren Brazier caused a speculative buzz among the staffers, some of whom had never seen him in person. Brazier’s own staff hung back as he shook hands with members of the committee. Tom Krouch knew his boss’s style well, and was impressed at how the generally pugnacious Brazier could, in a blink, like Khrushchev, become friendly and outgoing when the situation called for it. Twenty minutes ago, he’d been cruelly tyrannical with everyone.

  “Sure you brought enough people with you?” Congressman Jessup asked.

  Brazier laughed, said, “I can get another dozen here with a phone call.”

  Jessup, a tall, courtly North Carolinian with silvery, senatorial hair and an easy, slow southern manner of speaking, laughed. “Please don’t do that, Mr. Brazier. No place to put ’em. I wasn’t expectin’ you personally to attend this meeting. But now that you’re here, I’m sure you’d like to get down to business.”

  “That makes sense, Congressman.”

  The large room seemed smaller once the many participants took their seats. Brazier was flanked by Tom Krouch, his chief lobbyist, and a pudgy, middle-aged gentleman wearing a plastic-looking toupee, who was introduced by Brazier as the company’s vice president of banking. Joining Congressman Jessup were five other members of the committee, and six of the more than eighty committee-staff members, including director Jack Emerson.

  Jessup said, “This committee is in a little bit of flux, Mr. Brazier, as you can imagine. The tragic and damnable murder of Paul Latham, a good friend of yours, I know, and my good friend, too, has caused us to hold up on any further consideration of this bill.”

  “And I can certainly understand a certain amount of confusion,” said Brazier. “I just hope that the fine work Paul Latham did all these years on this committee, and especially on this critical piece of legislation, which, I hasten to add, will advance America’s vital interest in seeing Russia become a successful free-market economy and vibrant democracy, wasn’t in vain.”

  Tom Krouch kept a watchful eye on Congressman Jessup for signs of reaction. His read as the meeting progressed was that as hard as Jessup tried to be courteous—to be political—his distrust of the truculent Brazier, indeed his dislike, was evident in subtle facial expressions and body language.

  The meeting, everyone knew, was unusual. Brazier had testified on occasion before the committee and its subcommittees in the past. But to gather like this, at night, with so many interested parties present, was unprecedented, at least from Krouch’s perspective, and he was surprised that his last-minute request for it had been granted by the majority and minority leadership.

  As the meeting progressed, the discussion widened to include others in the room. But it was Jessup who got to the meat when he said, “Mr. Brazier, I have some serious reservations about this legislation, especially the amendments you advocate.”

  “I’m listening,” Brazier said.

  Jessup went on to cite two amendments that had been pushed by Krouch and his lobbying staff. Brazier asked his banking chief to provide figures on the financial impact of
those amendments on the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, and the Russian central banking system. That prompted the banking expert to ask for two of his staff from the adjacent room to join them.

  In the smaller room, the ten remaining representatives of Brazier Industries continued to while away the time. They weren’t sure why they were there, but that wasn’t unusual. Working for Warren Brazier often meant waiting around, killing time until summoned by the boss. But you’d best remain focused and sharp, ready to respond when the call to do something came.

  Yvgeny Fodorov, glum and uncommunicative, not a usual member of the group, sat stoically, picking at skin on his hands. Resting against his chair was the slim briefcase given him by Aleksandr Patiashvili earlier that afternoon. He felt superior to the others in the room, hated them for their smug disdain of him. Inside, he felt satisfied. It had been a good evening so far.

  Not so for Warren Brazier.

  As the meeting in the main room droned on, he continued to present his reasons why the legislation pending before the International Relations Committee was not only good for his company, but for the United States as well. His tone answering the long, drawn-out questioning had become more arrogant and impatient, which was not lost on the others. He leaned heavily on the late Paul Latham’s supposed commitment to the bill, and Latham’s unparalleled understanding of its U.S.-Russian ramifications.

  Krouch hoped the meeting would end soon, before Brazier allowed more of his true nature to surface. The lobbyist’s professional respect for Brazier tempered his privately held personal view—that his boss was the most unpleasant man he’d ever met.

  Marge Edwards took a deep breath as she stood on Independence Avenue, in front of the Rayburn House Office Building. It was twenty minutes to eight; she was ten minutes late.

  She went up the steps and entered the building, relieved that the uniformed Capitol police officer on duty was not one of the regulars who might recognize her. A conveyor belt passed her bag into the X-ray machine as she stepped through the archway without causing beeps from the metal detector. She thanked the officer when he handed her bag back to her, and headed for Congressman Paul Latham’s office.

  She paused outside the office. Hopefully, Mondrian was alone. The click of high heels on the marble hallway floor prompted her to open the door and step inside. The door closed behind her. Latham’s private office was open.