Murder on the Potomac (27 page)

“Just do as I say, Suzanne.” His hang-up rang in her ear.

FBI Special Agent George Jenkins grinned as the conversation between Sun Ben Cheong and Suzanne Tierney came to an end. He was set up in a small apartment across H Street from the Chinatown office used by Cheong. White take-out containers of cold, half-eaten Chinese food littered a folding table. A small telescope on a tripod was by the curtained window. A ten-inch reel-to-reel tape machine behind Jenkins turned slowly as the wireless tap on Cheong’s phone sent the conversation with outstanding clarity to the receiver.

The listening post had been established a month ago once the Bureau, and other federal agencies, had concluded that Cheong was engaged in money laundering.
From that point forward, every call made from the office was on tape.

Jenkins turned to the other special agent in the room, Max Johnson, a slender black man who’d heard the conversation through a speaker. “Nice guy, huh, Max? He’s got plenty of willing slimeballs to pick up the dirty money, and he recruits his own sister. Class act.”

“Family business,” Johnson said. “America was built on it.”

“Yeah. Well maybe they can get a family group rate at Leavenworth. You hungry? Want me to order up?”

“Sure. If you can find a Chinese soul-food restaurant that delivers. I’ve eaten my last spring roll.”

Off-Broadway drama was not confined to the Arthur Saul School in New York City. In Washington, Seymour Fletcher, director of the Potomac Players, was on the phone pleading with Carl Mayberry, the actor originally scheduled to play the role of Barton Key. Fletcher had received a call from Chip Tierney informing him that due to unfortunate personal circumstances, he would be unable to participate in Tri-S’s latest production.

“Carl, I know I was hard on you,” Fletcher said. “But I’m a director. It’s my job to get the most from my actors and actresses. Frankly, I wouldn’t care so much if I didn’t think you were the most talented person in the cast.”

Mayberry, his brain fuzzy from drinking all night, said, “I know, Sy. But you have to respect my sensibilities. You can’t treat me like you treat the others, like some dog. Every actor needs to be handled differently. I don’t respond to your anger and yelling.”

“I know, I know, and I will be the first to admit that
I misjudged how to bring out the best in you.
Mea culpa
. Can I do more than admit my inadequacies?”

“I respect that, Sy, but talent isn’t something I can turn on and off like a faucet. It needs to be nurtured.”

“Of course it does,” Fletcher said. “Look, do this thing tomorrow. This show needs you and your insight into the Key character. Don’t stick me with this rich, spoiled kid. But let me tell you something else. I may be directing the road company of a big Broadway show when it comes to Washington. I can’t say more, but there’s a role in that show that was written for you. I mean, like, the playwright knew you in another life when he wrote the part.”

“Seriously?”

“I couldn’t be more serious. Will you do it?”

“What time?”

Detective Eikenberg had left work early and gone to her apartment to shower and to change into something less workaday. She would be working, but maybe more.

It had been important to her from her first day on the force to not succumb to the “uniform” of her work—the drab suits and sensible shoes worn by her female colleagues. Darcy’s father had told her to always dress a little better than others at work, no matter what career she pursued. She’d taken his advice. Perhaps she dressed too fancy at times for a detective, she sometimes knew, but that was all right. Better to err on the side of fashion.

She arrived at the rooftop restaurant looking fresh and vivacious, the very words that went through Mac’s mind as she came to his window table.

He, on the other hand, did not look fresh and vivacious. He’d been staying up later than usual the past
few nights and was tired. The dark beardline that always appeared at the end of a day was especially pronounced.

“Lovely view,” she said. Washington’s lights were beginning to be defined against a smudging horizon.

“Drink?” Smith asked.

“Absolutely. Officially I’m off duty.” She ordered a vodka-and-tonic. “I must admit, Mac, that I was pleased to receive your call this morning, even happier when you suggested a drink together. Frankly, I’m growing weary of responding to just the official obligations of my life. Nothing but bureaucracy and rules and regulations. Superiors to placate, politicians to appease.” She raised her glass, narrowed her eyes, and said, “To a pleasant,
unofficial
evening.”

Smith participated listlessly in the ritual; the sentiment of the toast made him uncomfortable. He asked how the investigation was going.

“I thought we were off duty,” she said.

“According to the clock? That’s union thinking. Civil service.”

“You forget I am a civil servant. Salary paid by the taxpayer.”

“How’s the investigation going?” he repeated, smiling wryly.

“All right. Round one to you. Is that why you suggested we get together? To ask
me
questions? You said you had information
for
me about the Juris case.”

“And I do, but I’ll get to it in a minute. I thought you might bring me up to speed. Unofficially, of course.”

“Okay. Let’s see. Joe Chester.”

“The director of the Building Museum.”

“Yes. His plaster is cracking. We’ve kept the pressure
on him, knowing it would. No love lost between him and Pauline.”

“You think he is a suspect?”

“I think it’s an outside possibility. We’re going to keep pushing him. I’ve seen his type, passive but bitter, spill it all when the going gets tough.”

Smith thought of Annabel’s recent conversation with Chester. Were he the man’s attorney, he’d tell the police to either charge him or back off. But he wasn’t Chester’s attorney, or anyone else’s for that matter.

Eikenberg said, “I spent an hour with Chip Tierney this morning.”

“And?”

A delicate laugh. “You are amazing, Mackensie Smith. I’ve been here only a few minutes, and I feel like I’m on the witness stand.”

“Which is exactly what I don’t want you to feel,” he said. “What did Chip have to say?”

“He denies having had an affair with Pauline Juris.”

“Does that surprise you?”

“No, but I don’t believe him. He’s a weak sister. Not much backbone there. Daddy’s boy all the way. He also denies that his father had any romantic attachment to Juris. He didn’t want to meet me alone. He wanted his fiancée, Terri, to be with us. I vetoed the idea.”

“Because he’d be reluctant to discuss in front of her an affair with Pauline.”

“Uh-huh. I interviewed her after I left him.”

“And, of course, you brought up your suspicion that her fiancé was having an affair with his father’s personal assistant.”

“You bet I did. I suggested that she might have
known about it, which, of course, would give her a motive to kill off her competition.”

“Did she? I mean, did she acknowledge that Chip was—”

“No. But I didn’t believe her, either.”

“That’s one of the dangers of being a cop, isn’t it? You end up not believing anybody, about anything.”

“Not true. I believed you when you said you had information for me.” He started to respond, but she shook her head. “I’m in no rush to hear what you have to say, Mac. This is too pleasant to have it ruined by talking business. I like the fact that you and I are not adversaries. I’d like to keep it that way.”

“No reason why we should. Become adversaries, that is. Let me get to the reason I called you today.”

“Do you have dinner plans?” she asked.

He’d started to reach under the table for the envelopes containing copies of the Pauline Juris letters and family history, and said from that awkward posture, “Yes.”

“With Mrs. Smith?” Darcy’s grin was mischievous. “What are you doing under there?” she asked.

He returned to an upright position, envelopes in hand. “Yes. My wife and I are having dinner.”

“Do you eat out often?”

“Less often than before,” Smith responded. “We prefer eating in. I fancy myself a cook, although I suppose my friends are right when they say the secret of my success is keeping it simple and fresh.”

“A meat-and-potatoes man. I like that.”

“Not so much meat these days. More like tuna or pasta.” He placed the envelopes on the table. “I came into possession of—”

“I love a good piece of meat now and then,” she said. “I’m partial to filet mignon, although a rare sirloin gets my juices flowing, too.”

Smith sat back and fixed her across the table. “I always enjoy talking about food, but the subject is murder.”

“I wish you didn’t feel that way. I am off duty, Professor.
Very
off duty.”

“But I’m not, and really can’t stay much longer.”

“I’d like another drink. Join me?”

“No, but you go ahead.” He ordered her another vodka-and-tonic and continued to nurse his bourbon-and-soda.

“Mac.”

“Yes?”

“I don’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”

“Uncomfortable? I’m not—”

“I think you are, and I can only speculate why.”

He came forward again, picked up the top envelope, and opened the clasp.

“I’ll be direct with you,” she said. “You are—”

He withdrew the sheaf of letters. “These are copies of the letters Wendell Tierney purportedly wrote to Pauline Juris. The infamous love letters.”

Her coquettish play was dashed.

“Where did you get them?”

“I refuse to tell you that. You’ve got a serious leak in your Evidence division. These copies were passed on to an acquaintance of mine, who gave them to me. I’m giving them back to you.”

She took the letters and stared at the one on top of the pile. “Damn it!”

Smith opened the second envelope and took out the
history. “This is a family history that Pauline was writing before her death. She’d evidently been working on it for many years.”

“What does that have to do with it?”

“A great deal, I think, if you read both the letters and the history with an eye toward comparing them. I believe they were written by the same person.”

The expression on Eikenberg’s face mirrored her confusion. She started to speak, stopped, looked at the second letter in the pile, then at the cover page of the history. “You say Pauline Juris wrote this history. I accept that. But do I understand that you think she wrote the letters herself.
To
herself?”

“Exactly.”

She made another false start, then summed up her feelings with a nervous laugh. “Preposterous.”

“That she wrote love letters to herself? Unusual, certainly. But I believe that’s what happened.”

“She must have been demented.”

“Not necessarily. She was madly in love with Wendell Tierney but never enjoyed having her feelings reciprocated. At first, I thought she might have done it in a misguided attempt to create a blackmail scenario. Reveal the letters to Tierney’s wife, Marilyn, in the hope it would break up the marriage. But I don’t think so. I don’t know what the shrinks would call it, but it satisfied a simple need for her. She was providing herself with the very words that she desperately wanted to hear but wasn’t about to.”

The detective, having regained the composure she’d lost, said, “Who released these letters?”

The staunchly direct Mackensie Smith fudged. “A journalist obtained them and passed them on to the acquaintance
I mentioned. Who released them from MPD really isn’t my concern—that’s your problem. But I do encourage you and your colleagues to read them against the history. I think you’ll come to the same conclusion I have. By the way, it looks to me as though the last portion of the history was written on the same typewriter she used to write the letters.”

“I must say … I didn’t expect this when we made a date tonight. Along with all your other attributes, you’re capable of delivering big surprises.”

He looked at his watch. “Darcy, I really have to go.”

Eikenberg returned the material to its envelopes and looked out the window. The ever-darkening city was now studded with the lights of office buildings and the glow of powerful floodlights that gave the city’s famed monuments life after dark. She looked at Smith and said, “Maybe I do understand a woman writing love letters to herself.”

Smith said nothing.

“Will you have dinner with me tonight?”

“I’m afraid I can’t, Detective.” He scribbled in the air, signaling their waitress to bring the check. “I’m glad to see you,” he said. “But maybe having a drink wasn’t such a good idea.”

“You know, don’t you?”

“Know what?”

“How I feel about you. I’m afraid I haven’t been very subtle.”

The waitress took his American Express card and the check. “Detective Eikenberg, I think there might have been some missed communication between us. If I’ve done anything to—”

She slowly shook her head, folded her hands on the
table, and looked down at them. “No, you haven’t done anything—except be Mackensie Smith. I fell in love with you when I was your student. I recently had dinner with Nick, my ex, and he reminded me of how I used to talk about you all the time. Real schoolgirl stuff. Not unusual. Students fall in love with their professors every day. I’m sure I’m not the first to have fallen in love with you. Funny. I sometimes wonder whether that in-your-face crush I had on you contributed to Nick and me breaking up.”

“You accused me earlier of being uncomfortable. I am now very uncomfortable. Let’s go.”

“Can’t I at least complete my embarrassing confession?”

“I wouldn’t deprive you of that, Darcy.” Smith signed his name to the receipt and returned his card to his wallet. “Why don’t we forget we ever had this conversation,” he said. “Maybe I misled you. I didn’t mean to. I don’t think I said anything, but maybe my face, my voice, indicated that I find you extremely intelligent, to say nothing of attractive. You were an impressive student, and you’re an impressive woman, Detective Eikenberg. But I’m married to another beautiful, bright, and impressive woman. Just that simple.”