Murder on the Potomac (7 page)

“Ten is fine,” Annabel said.

Mac confirmed it with Eikenberg. “Yes, I’ll be here,” he said, “unless you prefer that I not be. All right. Fine. See you then.”

The Next Morning

Anthony A. Buffolino, private investigator, gasped as a sharp pain stabbed him in the back. He was on the floor of his office on G Street, between Fourteenth and Fifteenth. He grimaced and rolled onto his side. “Al!” he yelled.

The door between the office and reception area opened, and his third and most recent wife—one half of what was undoubtedly his most successful marriage—stood in it. “What’s the matter?”

“I pulled something,” he groaned, trying to arch his back into a less painful position. He wore a purple-and-white polyester sweat suit. Beneath him was a red-white-and-blue starred-and-striped plastic exercise mat.

The phone rang. Alicia disappeared into the reception
area. “Al, for Christsake, I’m dyin’ here,” Buffolino moaned.

She returned. “You’d better take this, Tony. It sounds like a client.”

“Take it? I can’t even get up.” He painfully rolled himself into a sitting position.

Alicia came to him and helped him to his feet. “You’d better take it,” she repeated, supporting him with the aid of the desk. “It sounds like business. We haven’t had a new client for weeks.”

He slumped into his desk chair, picked up the phone, and said, “Hello.”

“Mr. Buffalino?”

“That’s right. Anthony Buff-OH-lino.”

“Mr. Buffalino, I was recommended to you by Walt Symington. I believe you handled a case for him last year.”

Tony flipped through his Rolodex, which was entirely mental. Symington? He had done work for somebody with that name. A matrimonial. The guy, a bank big shot, as Tony recalled, thought his wife was cheating on him and wanted proof. The husband had been right. There was an overabundance of proof. Tony delivered a surveillance log and photographs and collected his check. What Mr. Symington eventually did with the information was his own business. You never ask about those things.

“All right,” Buffolino said, adjusting himself in his chair. The pain had subsided. “What can I do for you?”

“I’m not sure we should discuss this over the phone. Is your line secure?”

Buffolino frowned. Secure? What does he think this is, the CIA? “We can talk,” he said.

“I believe my wife is having an affair with my best friend. My former best friend.”

“Sorry to hear that. So why are you calling me?”

His blunt question caused the caller to pause before saying, “I would like you to prove my suspicion for me.”

Buffolino didn’t dare look up at Alicia, who now stood at the desk, hands pressed into it. “Sorry,” Tony said, “but Buffolino and Associates don’t do matrimonials.”

The responses from both ends—through the phone and on the other side of the desk—were instantaneous.

“T-o-n-y!” Alicia hissed.

“But Walt told me you did that sort of thing and were very good at it.”

“Look, thanks for calling, but we don’t do matrimonial cases. Me and my staff strictly do corporate security and espionage, government assignments. Minimum fee is three hundred thousand.” He hung up.

“What is
wrong
with you?” Alicia shouted. “We’re behind on the rent again, the bills are piling up at home, and—”

Buffolino waved her off. “I told you, Alicia, doing matrimonials is lowlife. I told you that if we’re gonna make a score here in D.C., we have to take the high road. Class. Image. Be politically correct, I think they call it. That’s where it’s at.”

She slapped her hands against her sides. “Some high road,” she said. “Tell that to the phone company when they yank the phones—Mr. Class.” She stomped from the room, her feet hitting the floor for emphasis like a sumo wrestler.

Buffolino sat back and closed his eyes. She was right.
But he had to stick to the decision he’d made recently to take only cases that enhanced his reputation. All he had to do was hold out. How long he could do so was the big question.

The phone rang. Buffolino stared at it until Alicia opened the door and said, “It’s the high road calling. Wendell Tierney.”

Buffolino sat up straight and adjusted a tie that wasn’t there. He cleared his throat. “Hello,” he said in his deepest voice, then picked up the phone and repeated, “Hello, Mr. Tierney. How nice to hear from you. What a pleasure … Yes?…Of course we can meet today.… At your home?…My sincere pleasure, Mr. Tierney. I’ll be at there at two sharp—I was sorry to hear about the untimely death of your associate. Terrible tragedy. Like in a Shakespeare play.… Yes, sir. Two this afternoon.”

He hung up.

“So?” Alicia asked.

“So everything’s cool, Al. Tierney has a big assignment for me. You know what that means. I get to meet more of his big-shot friends like I did last time, only that assignment didn’t last long enough for me to score. This time, I get a feeling it might be long term. See what I mean, babe? You stick to the high road, you don’t get stuck in the mud. Run my suit down for a quick clean and press. Please. I’m going out to get a haircut.”

“How’s your back?” she asked.

“My back? Never felt better.”

That Same Morning

“… and you say you observed nothing unusual about Ms. Juris at the board meeting.”

Annabel, Mac, and Detective Eikenberg sat at the Smiths’ kitchen table. Darcy Eikenberg had been late for their ten o’clock interview. She’d arrived at 10:12; it was now 10:20.

Annabel reaffirmed what she had said moments earlier. “I noticed nothing unusual,” she said. “But that in itself was not unusual. Pauline was not what you would call a terribly open person. At least that was my evaluation of her, bearing in mind that I didn’t know her well. But no, she seemed to do what I suppose she always did at those meetings, took notes and occasionally reminded Mr. Tierney of business to be raised.”

“The relationship between them?” Eikenberg asked. “Between Mr. Tierney and Ms. Juris.”

“Professional, as far as I know. I’ve always understood that she was a trusted assistant. Her behavior with him—and his with her—suggested nothing else.”

Annabel glanced at Mac, who sat opposite her, hands folded, gaze fixed firmly on the tabletop. He looked up, knew what she was thinking, and asked Eikenberg, “Do you have any reason to suggest a more personal relationship between Wendell Tierney and Pauline Juris?”

Eikenberg smiled. “Yes, I am looking for that. Guess you’ve seen through me, Professor.” Another exchange of looks between Mac and Annabel.
How nice to have a fan club
. Her silent message was eloquent.

The detective leaned back in her chair, smiled, and shook her head. She said to Annabel, “I must admit, Mrs. Smith, that I’m slightly overwhelmed sitting here with the two of you.”

“I can’t imagine why,” Annabel replied.

“Well, here you are, both former successful attorneys, your husband a professor of law and highly respected in every quarter of the city, and you the owner of an important art gallery
and
on the board of the National Building Museum. Those are pretty heavy credentials to be contained in one household.”

“That’s kind of you to say,” said Annabel, “but the only thing we attempt to overwhelm, or control, at any rate, is our dog, Rufus. Usually, he won’t stand for it and prevails.”

Eikenberg laughed. “I do appreciate Rufus not joining us this morning,” she said. “From the way you described him, he’d overwhelm me, too.” She turned to
Mac with her next round of questions. Annabel sat back, folded her arms, lowered her chin, and listened.

“You know Wendell Tierney pretty well, don’t you, Professor?”

Smith shook his head. “I wouldn’t say that. We’re certainly friendly and have been for a number of years. But not close friends. I think the distinction is important.”

“I understand,” Eikenberg said. “Mr. Tierney is one of your many friends in high places.”

“If you wish, although ‘high places’ doesn’t quite define it. Successful and rich? Absolutely.”

“But you were the one he called to be at his side.”

“His reasons for doing that had little to do with the depth of our friendship.”

“What
were
his reasons?”

“He considers me to be knowledgeable in criminal law. And I suppose he wanted advice from an unbiased observer.”

“As opposed to?”

“As opposed to those who have a stake in saying the right thing to him. His own lawyers, for example. I don’t.”

“But you know him well enough to be aware of—well—to be aware of any affairs he might have had outside his marriage.”

Smith, too, leaned back in his chair. Then he leaned forward. “Detective Eikenberg, I have no interest in anyone’s personal life aside from my own, nor do I have any knowledge of how Wendell Tierney conducts his … personal life.”

Eikenberg lightly touched his arm. “You understand
where I’m going with this, Professor Smith. I have to. That’s my job.”

Smith knew, of course, where she was leading. She had asked the questions knowing it was unlikely he would have the details, or, if he did, was unlikely to volunteer them. She would ask the same question of as many people as possible, hoping that someone would inadvertently let something slip. There were seldom touchdown bombs thrown in the business of criminal interrogation. The answers were dug out one muddy yard at a time.

Smith said, “I don’t know of any relationship other than professional between Wendell Tierney and Pauline Juris.”

“Others?”

“Pardon?”

“Others in Mr. Tierney’s sphere who might have been romantically involved with Ms. Juris?”

“Sorry.”

Annabel stood. “If you won’t be needing me anymore, I’ll tend to some other things.”

Eikenberg looked up. “Of course, Mrs. Smith. You’ve been very gracious to give me this time. Thank you.”

“A pleasure meeting you,” Annabel said without excessive warmth, extending her hand, which Eikenberg took without standing.

With Annabel gone, Eikenberg continued her questioning. “What do you know about the Scarlet Sin Society?”

“Probably the same thing you know about it. A fund-raising organization that recreates historical Washington murders.”

“It was started by Mr. Tierney, wasn’t it?”

“Yes. A special interest of his.”

“The term I hear used is ‘obsession.’ An obsession of his.”

Smith shrugged. “Call it what you will. I wouldn’t know how to define obsession with Wendell Tierney. He has many interests.”

“So I understand. But Tri-S is particularly important to him. At least that’s what I’m told.”

“Then it probably is.”

“Are you involved with Tri-S? That is what they call it, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“You are?”

“Yes. No. I mean, it is commonly called Tri-S. But no, I am not involved with it.”

“Do you know any of the people in it?”

Smith thought of his professor friend, Monty Jamison. “A few,” he said.

“Seymour Fletcher?”

Smith frowned, drumming his fingers on the tabletop. “He’s their director, I believe.”

“Correct. Ever meet him?”

“No, I don’t believe I have.”

“He was the last person to see Pauline Juris alive.”

“I didn’t know that,” Smith said.

“That’s our information. They fought, arguing loudly at the church where a rehearsal was taking place for their next production. Familiar with the drama?”

“Only from what I read. The murder of Philip Barton Key by Congressman Sickles.”

“I’ve been reading about that case, too. A lot of fascinating overtones.”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

“Mr. Tierney sent Pauline to confront Fletcher the night she was murdered.”

Smith said nothing.

“Another member of the board I interviewed overhead a conversation between Tierney and Juris at the conclusion of the board meeting.”

“And?”

“That board member was certain your wife overheard the same conversation.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I wonder why she didn’t tell me that.”

For the first time that morning Smith felt uncomfortable. He was sitting with a shrewd interviewer who’d done her homework. But her questions up to this point had been innocuous. Now she seemed to be questioning Annabel’s veracity. Enough, he decided. “I have no idea whether Annabel overheard any such conversation. If she did and failed to mention it to you, it was because she’d forgotten about it. Would you like her to come back in so you can ask directly?”

Eikenberg pursed her lips and stretched her arms above her head, straining the fabric at the front of her blouse. She’d been sitting with both feet flat on the floor beneath the table. Turning in her chair, she faced Smith and crossed her legs. She wore a short beige linen skirt, a black blouse with the top buttons unsecured, and a white jacket cut safari-style. Smith had recently purchased such a jacket from Banana Republic in Georgetown, but Eikenberg’s was cut for a woman and had obviously cost a great deal more than his version.

“May I ask you a personal question, Professor Smith?”

She’d caught him looking at her legs. As he snapped
his eyes up to meet hers, a smile crossed her lips. “Sure,” he said.

“Who do you think killed Pauline Juris?”

“That’s personal?”

“I think so. I mean, I’m asking you for your personal gut opinion as opposed to what you might
know
. Understand?” She wet her lips.

“Sorry, Detective, but I haven’t the slightest idea who might have killed her.”

“Pardon me for being skeptical, Professor—would you be offended if I called you Mackensie?”

“Mac.”

“Oh, yes.” She laughed. “Mac. Pardon me for being skeptical, Mac, but I can’t believe you don’t have some instinctive feel for who might have killed her.”

Smith’s eyes went to the door, then back to Eikenberg’s face. “Sorry to disappoint you, Detective, but—”

“Please. Let’s not have our relationship informal one-way. Darcy.”

“Have you interviewed her former husband?” Did she know that Pauline had been briefly married years ago?

She did. “Not yet,” she said. “He’s in New York, and we’ve contacted him. We expect him here in a day or two. Why do you ask?”