Murder on the Potomac (28 page)

“Well put, Professor. See? No hearts on my sleeve. Or up them. Shall we go?”

He came around the table and drew out her chair. They walked side by side to the elevators, rode down in silence, and went to the parking lot. She fumbled in her purse for her keys, found them, and he held open the driver’s door. They were close. She raised her face and offered him flower-soft lips. The deeply sensuous bouquet of her reached his nostrils. Her large, glistening
eyes were, at once, pleading and demanding. “We could be friends,” she said softly. “Just talk. I would like that.”

As she spoke, she pressed her length against him and brought her lips to within inches of his. She purred as their mouths met. It began as a tentative kiss, lips lightly touching without breaking shape. Then they pressed harder. No longer tentative.

For Mac, the powerful, compelling sensation of their embrace was tainted by the realization that, like a pilot, he’d reached the point of no return. Cross it and you were committed to continuing on to your destination. No return to home base.

He stepped back. He drew a deep breath.

“Delicious,” she said. “We could be good friends.”

“I … Good night, Darcy.”

Later That Night

Smith took a detour on the way home, determined to put his mind on other matters. He stopped at the A & B Shellfish Company in Arlington to pick up two live Maine lobsters, cherrystone clams, and a container of red and sweet potatoes with onions. He used a phone booth outside the store to call Annabel and was surprised to reach her machine. He assumed she’d be home by now. A call to the gallery resulted in another recorded message.

He returned to a dark house. No Annabel. No note. No message on his machine from her. He was now worried. This was uncharacteristic of her, of them. They made a ritual of keeping in touch to avoid anxiety. He was about to begin making calls when he heard a key in the front door. “I’ve been worried about you,” he said.

“Sorry, Mac. I know I should have left a message, but time got away from me.” She hung up her raincoat and disappeared into the bathroom. They met again in the kitchen. “I bought lobster for dinner,” he said.

“Sounds yummy, but I’ve already eaten. I have to talk to you.”

He scowled. “Sounds like something even more serious than lobster.”

“It is. Pour me some wine?”

He carried two glasses of a red zinfandel into the study, handed her one, and they sipped. Seated on the love seat, she said, “I’ve had a provocative day.” She recounted her conversation with Joe Chester, told of going to the gallery to train Sally Frasier, getting instead a lesson in and receiving a lesson in radio music programming, and then about her Chinatown tour and lunch with Sue Yoy.

“Sounds busy,” he said. “But I have a hunch we haven’t come to the good part yet.”

“Right.” Her face and voice now took on additional animation as she twisted on the couch, placed her hand on his knee, and said, “After Sue and I parted company, I returned to the restaurant. I went back because while I was having lunch with her—she had gone to the ladies’ room—I was looking out the window on H Street and saw Sun Ben Cheong come along.”

“Sun Ben? Wendell told me he was staying at the compound for a couple of days, depressed.”

“He must have changed his plans. Or his mood. It was him, Mac. No question about that. He appeared, at least to me, to be nervous, kept looking over his shoulder. He stopped in front of a small Chinese take-out
place directly across the street from the restaurant I was in, did his swivel-neck routine, and went inside.”

Smith sipped his wine.

“Then I saw his twin come up the street and go into the same restaurant.”

Smith’s eyebrows went up. “Twin?”

“Not a literal twin, but someone who sure looks like him. A little shorter maybe, but the same family. I’d bet my life on that.”

“Okay. And then?”

“I went across the street and looked into the restaurant but couldn’t see them. Immediately adjacent to the restaurant is the entrance to a small office building. Three floors, I think. The door was open, so I went in and looked at the list of tenants on the walls. Most of the names were in Chinese.”

Smith smiled. “Did you learn Chinese before lunch?”

“There was a set of symbols that, for some reason, were familiar.”

“From a previous life?”

She slapped his knee. “Stop it. No, I kept staring at it and trying to remember why those symbols looked familiar. Then it dawned on me. I’d taken the photographs with me, the ones you gave me that included the shots of Tony on Wendell’s dock. Hold on a minute.” She jumped to her feet, went to the kitchen and returned with the package of pictures, went through them, and handed Mac the print. “See? On the racing boat behind Tony.”

Smith held up the photograph to better catch the light. “MOR,” he said. “I can read that.”

She was on her feet again, opened his desk drawer, and returned with a magnifying glass, which he used.
“Those Chinese symbols underneath? Is that what you’re talking about?”

“Yes.”

Smith dropped the photo on his lap and ran an index finger over his upper lip. “Let me see if I follow you so far. Those symbols evidently translate into ‘MOR’ in English. Your new assistant talked about MOR meaning middle-of-the-road in music programming. And the same Chinese symbols, which evidently mean MOR, were on the tenant board in the lobby of an office building in Chinatown.”

“Like I always say, Mac, your mind is a steel trap.”

“Don’t pick on me, Annabel. Sorry, but I don’t see the significance.”

“Then allow me to provide it for you,” she said pleasantly and not without a certain egoism. “This morning, I went through the vouchers at the museum that Pauline Juris created each time she took money from the special fund. Her handwriting was atrocious, but on more than half of them she’d scribbled
MOR
.”

“To indicate where the money had gone?”

“Yes. Who knew? I mean, maybe her jottings on the vouchers indicated companies that had provided services. Contractors. Linen suppliers for the catering operation. No matter. A lot of the missing money, at least according to the vouchers, went to something or someone called MOR.”

“To Sun Ben Cheong.”

“How else can you read it?”

“No one at the museum ever checked on what this MOR was?”

“No. According to Hazel Best-Mason and Don Farley, the only people who had access to the account were
Pauline and Wendell. It started small, petty cash really, but then grew. Farley told me that because Tierney was such a strong force at the museum and raised so much money, nobody was about to challenge him.”

“I see,” Smith said.

Annabel refilled their glasses. “Well, that’s almost all my report. I gave Tony Buffolino a run for his money today, became a real snoop. Even staked out—that is the expression, isn’t it?—staked out the building.”

Smith couldn’t help but smile. “How did you do that? Where did you do that?”

“From the restaurant across the street. I ordered a pot of tea and watched.”

“Sure nobody saw you?”

She shook her head. “No, no one saw me.”

“And what was the result of your stakeout?”

“Ready for this?”

“I’m not sure, but try me.”

“I was tempted to leave but decided to gut it out. After a few hours I stayed for dinner and continued my surveillance. The baby bok choy was excellent. So was the asparagus.”

“Skip the vegetables, Annabel.”

“I’d paid the tab and was getting ready to leave—I realized how late it had gotten and felt terrible having you come home and not knowing where I was—and I took one last look out the window. Suzanne Tierney.”

“She went into the restaurant?”

“No. Into the office building. The restaurant is in the same building. The doors are next to each other. She was carrying a very large duffel bag. It looked heavy.”

“What do you think was in it?”

She shrugged. “Beats me. But isn’t the connection interesting?”

“Yes, it is. We’ll have to give it some additional thought. You say you’ve eaten. What am I going to do with two live lobsters?”

“You eat them. I’ll just nosh a little. That Chinese food didn’t … well, you know.”

Annabel, whose appetite was voracious but who also possessed an internal engine that burned up food as fast as it was ingested, ate one of the lobsters and a hearty portion of potatoes and onions. They cleaned up and returned to the study. “I had a drink this evening with Darcy Eikenberg,” Smith said.

“You did. Why?”

“I called to make an appointment with her to discuss the letters and decided not to do it at headquarters. I ended up in Arlington late this afternoon to touch base with Jerry Malone—he thinks I ought to shift some of my Keogh assets into some livelier investments—and met her at the Key Bridge Marriott.”

Annabel’s smile was knowing. “Riskier investments, you mean. She must have been thrilled.”

“I’m not sure I’d characterize it that way.”

“I just mean that she’s obviously infatuated with you.”

“Oh, maybe once—student-and-professor sort of thing, way back.”

“Go on. How did she take the news that you had copies of the letters?”

“Stunned her. Naturally, she wanted to know how I got them. I gave them to her along with the history Pauline had written and suggested she compare them. I
told her I was certain Wendell had not written them, and that I was convinced Pauline had.”

“And what was the ravishing detective’s reaction to that theory?”

“Skepticism at first, a little more open-minded after that. She commented that she could understand a woman frustrated with unrequited love falling into such fantasies.”

“Meaning you.”

“Yes. It was awkward at best.”

“Do you find her attractive? No, strike that. Of course you do. I find her attractive. Were you tempted to follow through?”

“No.”

“Not even a little?”

“A little. Not to follow through, as you put it. I did have a fleeting visceral reaction.”

“I love it when you talk euphemisms.”

“I straightened her out.”

“Gently, I hope.”

“Gentle but firm.”

“Good.”

“I kissed her.”

“You did?”

“It just happened. Actually, she kissed me. No. We kissed each other. That was it. I thought you’d want to know. She wants to be my friend.”

“A kissin’ cousin?”

“No more kisses. I have a feeling you understand her.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re both beautiful women. You know how it is. I remember talking with you about it not long
after we met. How beautiful women—and men who are too handsome—aren’t always taken seriously. Takes a while for people to get past their looks and recognize they have brains. In your case, a big one.”

“In Darcy’s case?”

“Also a big brain.”

“I love you, Mac.”

“And obviously I love you, Annabel.”

“You won’t kiss her again? Even as friends?”

“No, I won’t.”

Mac awoke with a start in the middle of the night.

“What’s wrong?” Annabel asked.

“A nightmare. I saw that child go over the edge at Great Falls. Only it was me. Falling, spinning, screaming.”

She cradled him until his trembling stopped and his breathing was normal. “Sorry to wake you,” he said.

She started to say, “Go back to sleep. It was only a dream.” But it hadn’t been. He’d seen the child in the water, and she wished there were something she could do to erase that dreadful, haunting vision from his mind. She’d never loved him more than at that moment.

The Next Morning—Saturday

The Scarlet Sin Society evidently had a friend in high places. Saturday morning dawned sunny and cool, a perfect day in Lafayette Park for a murder.

The weather had coaxed people to the park far in advance of the noon production. The few permanent, perpetual protestors who called the park their home were joined by hundreds, soon over a thousand, theatergoers, curiosity-seekers, and tourists of all ages. Many carried folding chairs or blankets and staked out the best plots. Individual pieces of turf assured, they strolled the park’s seven acres, pausing at the five large statues that dominated the square, some to read the plaques, others to have their pictures taken while striking their own heroic poses.

National Park Service ranger Lloyd Mayes stood
proudly next to the statue honoring the Frenchman for whom the park was now named, Marie-Joseph-Paul-Yves-Roch-Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette, the adopted American son who’d become a Revolutionary War hero, and whose friends and military colleagues called him Gilbert. At Gilbert’s feet was a nubile, partially naked young woman who, Mayes had learned in his training sessions, symbolized the fledgling nation of America. One of her delicate arms held aloft a sword. Supposedly, Mayes was taught, she was pleading for Marquis de Lafayette’s help. But depending upon the individual tourist group—especially those comprised primarily of young adults whose sensitivities would not be offended—Park Service rangers often remarked on what the young woman was actually saying to Lafayette: “Look, I’ll make a deal. You give me back my clothes, and I’ll give you back your sword.”

Mayes would have preferred to be at his old post on Roosevelt Island, but he’d been transferred to duty in Lafayette Square following the discovery of Pauline Juris’s body. Although he hadn’t been the one that night to leave open the gate across the pedestrian causeway, a particularly nasty superior had decided that he, too, was culpable. His change in assignment was a form of punishment.

Mayes knew the transfer to be blatantly unfair, but everything and everyone seemed to be unfair to him these days. Marge had packed up and gone home to her mother in Cincinnati. While her departure created a peace in his life—at least there was no one to fight with—he was lonely. The only thing that made him smile occasionally was that she’d gone to Cincinnati instead of Los Angeles, Detroit, or Miami. Cincinnati was
a funny word, he thought, almost a funny city, and he would smile. Other than those infrequent moments, these were dark days and long nights for Lloyd Mayes.