Murder at the Kennedy Center (26 page)

They rode down together in the elevator and stood outside the main entrance to the hotel. “Do you know what I think I’ll do this afternoon?” he said.

“What?”

“I think what I need is exercise. I’ll hit the gym later this afternoon. Dinner tonight?”

“Sure. In or out?”

“In. A quiet evening at home with Nick and Nora Charles.”

Smith’s attempts to reach Marcia Mims were unsuccessful. He called the Ewald house and was told that Marcia had called in and said she would be taking a couple of additional days off. “Do you know where she’s gone?” Smith asked. No.

He called Marcia’s cousin Tommy, in Annapolis, and asked the same question. Tommy hadn’t heard from her since she left the bar so suddenly.

When he couldn’t reach Joe Riga, either, Smith decided to act on his plan to get in some exercise that afternoon. He wasn’t devoted to physical activity, had never become one of what a friend termed “health Nazis,” suddenly allergic people who sniff out smokers in restaurants like bounty hunters, drink only a little white wine despite serious cravings for gin, and run marathon miles each day in pursuit of eternal youth while turning their knees into centenarian joints. But because he had been an athlete, and because he did enjoy the mental clarity that usually followed physical activity, he did his best to work some form of it into his routine.

He’d been a member of the Yates Field House at Georgetown University for years, and even though he’d joined the faculty at George Washington University and had access to facilities there, he preferred to stick with familiar surroundings. He changed into shorts and a T-shirt in the club’s locker room, and began a slow trot around the indoor running track. He was the only person on the track when he started, but by the time he’d gone halfway around, a familiar
face came through the door, waved, and caught up to him. It was Rhonda Harrison. “Hello, Mac,” she said. “Burning off major-league dinners?”

Smith laughed. “Always a need to do that, but this has nothing to do with calories.” They jogged next to each other. “This is for the mind today,” he said. “I need to clear it out.”

“Same here,” Rhonda said. “I don’t know where I’m going to find the time, but my agent just got me a good fee to do a piece for
Washingtonian
on Andrea Feldman.”

Smith stopped running, and Rhonda halted a few feet ahead. She turned to him. “You look spooked, Mac.”

“That name does tend to get my attention these days.”

She leaned against a railing and wiped beads of perspiration from her forehead. “Yes, I guess it should. I was going to call you in a day or two. I have a list of dozens of people to interview, and you’re high up on it.”

Smith gave her a friendly smile.

“And, Mac, don’t tell me that you can’t talk to me because you’re defense counsel for Paul Ewald. He’s out, which means you don’t have a client anymore.”

“True.”

“Let me ask you a question.”

“Shoot.”

“I’m slanting the article along the lines of a young, attractive woman with a law degree hooks up with some political heavy hitters in Washington, and gets herself killed as a result. Her mother immediately disappears, doesn’t even come forward to claim the body. The son of a leading candidate for the White House is the prime suspect. This young woman, who meets an unfortunate end, is killed with a weapon belonging to this potential president of our country. Still, no one knows who killed Andrea Feldman.”

Smith shrugged. “Sounds like an interesting human-interest piece. I’m sure you’ll do your usual bang-up job.”

“Funny choice of words. I intend to. I’ve talked to Feldman’s associates. Not many of them, Mac. She defined ‘loner.’ No buddies, no steady boyfriends, no family. If it weren’t for the Ewald family paying to bury her out in San Francisco, she’d be planted in the District cemetery along
with the tombs of the unknown winos and druggies. How come?”

“I’m listening, Rhonda, you’re talking. Keep going.”

“Damn,” Rhonda said, laughing. “The more I talk about it, the better it gets. Andrea Feldman sleeps with Senator Ewald’s son. Do you figure she was carrying information about Ewald out to his enemies—you know, pillow talk from Paul?”

“I wouldn’t know.” He hoped she would have the answer. Knowing what a good reporter she was, Smith wondered whether she’d uncovered anything about Andrea’s affair with not only Paul Ewald, but with his father, too. He thought she might mention that next, but she didn’t. Instead, she asked, “Do you have any idea where to find Andrea Feldman’s mother?”

“No, I don’t.”

“I checked the birth records at Moffitt Hospital in San Francisco where Andrea was born. No father-of-record. A real mystery woman. Her last known address is in the Sunset district. I talked to her landlady, a flaky former opera singer who told me the mother left.”

“Didn’t know where she went?”

“Not according to her. The whole family is shrouded in mystery.”

“Evidently.”

They continued to jog, but without words. A man and a woman sprinted past them. Smith realized how long it had been since he’d done any running. He was getting winded quicker than usual. As they approached the door, Rhonda punched him on the arm and said with a grin, “That’s it for me. See you around the quad, Mac. Can I call you in a few days about this?”

“Sure. Happy to talk to you again, Rhonda.” He watched her disappear through the doors, did another lap, and headed for the gymnasium, where he lifted weights, did a series of stretching exercises that he knew he should have done before he started running, showered, dressed, and returned home. There he changed into a gray sweatshirt from his university, baggy khaki pants and Docksiders, and took Rufus for a long walk through the neighborhood.

He walked back into the house and made himself a cup of coffee. As he sat at the table, Rufus looked up with soft, watery eyes. Smith looked down into the dog’s trusting face and said to him, “Doesn’t make any sense to you, either, huh? Well, think about it. We’ll talk more tonight.” He went to his study and made notes until he realized Annabel would be there for dinner. He ran to a local market and bought the ingredients—pâté, swordfish, salad makings, new potatoes, and French bread—and made whatever preparations he could before she arrived.

After they had consumed and saluted Smith’s culinary gestures, they made a gesture of another sort at each other.

Now, an hour later, they sat together in bed, naked, watching a documentary on television.

“We’ll take a ten o’clock shuttle,” she said. “The noon flight to San Francisco out of Kennedy on Saturday was the only one open.”

“That sounds fine. We pick up three hours going in that direction anyway.”

The commercials ended, and they watched the next section of the documentary. When it was again time to move into a commercial break, Ted Koppel’s face came on the screen and he announced his guest for that evening’s
Nightline
.

Annabel asked whether he had watched Colonel Gilbert Morales Tuesday on the Koppel show.

“Some,” he said. “I really didn’t focus on it.”

“He mounts a convincing argument,” Annabel said.

“In substance or in style?”

“A little of both.”

“I think he and his cause are frauds. The Manning White House makes continual public proclamations of the drug epidemic in this country, but they keep wrapping their arms around Morales, who, everybody knows, was one of the leading drug pushers in Central America.”

“He
was
an ally.”

“Allies like that we don’t need.”

“You are such a liberal, which, I must admit, is part of
your charm. An old liberal. Hubert Humphrey found old liberals to be sad. I don’t. I ended up in love with one.”

Smith laughed. “I probably should have taken up with an eighteen-year-old Georgetown hippie instead of a middle-aged, relatively conservative beauty. We could have protested together.”

“And died prematurely in bed. Think of the embarrassment to family and friends. Besides, you’re dating yourself. They’re not called ‘hippies’ anymore.”

“That’s one thing I’m damned enthusiastic about with Ken’s campaign,” he said.

“Dying in bed with young girls?”

“No, wench. If he
does
become president, I think he’ll take quick and decisive steps to cut off all aid to that fraud Morales, as well as that charlatan evangelist Garrett Kane, who claims he’s set up ministries in Panama. Bull.”

“We promised ourselves we would never discuss politics, remember?”

“Sure, and for good reason.” He looked over at her beautiful breasts above the comforter that covered her legs, reached to touch a pink tip, and growled.

Rufus raised his head from the floor at the sound, then put it back down.

“Mac, what are you doing?”

“Something apolitical.”

“Are you suggesting twice in one night?”

“As you say, Annabel, you’re in love with a liberal. I can’t think of anything more liberal …”

Her eyes widened, and a wicked smile crossed her mouth. “And I’m not nearly as conservative as you think I am when it comes to matters of the flesh. I just thought that—”

“That this
old
liberal isn’t capable of repeating a triumph? Remember FDR.”

“So long ago. But.”

She kicked the covers off, moved her leg over to straddle him, and looked down into his eyes. “On second thought, no buts.”

After a moment, she said, “My God, Smith—do you think a third term is out of the question?”

Early Saturday morning, Smith took Rufus to the local kennel, where the Dane was enthusiastically welcomed. “Don’t worry about Rufus, Mr. Smith,” the owner said, “just view it as him taking a nice vacation at a fancy dog hotel.” The owner always said that when Smith delivered Rufus, but Smith always responded as though he were hearing it for the first time; he was very appreciative of the good care his friend received there.

Heavy weather had hit the East Coast overnight, delaying flights in and out of Washington and New York. They made their American Airlines flight from JFK to San Francisco with only minutes to spare.

“Did you talk to Ken or Leslie?” Annabel asked after they’d settled in their first-class seats and had been served Bloody Marys.

“Yes. I talked to Leslie yesterday. She kept thanking me for all I did for Paul, and I kept reminding her I didn’t do anything.”

“Maybe you did more than you think.”

“In the meantime, we have this business with Greist to iron out.”

“Well, Mr. Geist is probably nothing but a bumbling con man looking for a fast buck. Funny, but I’m anxious to meet Tony. I can’t say he’s my favorite person, based on the stories you’ve told.”

“He’s all right. What I want to hear from him is why the hell he was breaking into this Carla Zaretski’s house after he’d taken her to dinner and the opera. His message on my machine indicated that she was a real—”

“ ‘Dog’? Don’t use that word, Mac.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it. She was not the sort of female that particularly appealed to him. Better?”

“Much.”

“So, I wonder why he was breaking into her house. Something must have developed during the evening that turned her into the girl of his dreams.”

Annabel giggled. “You think he was breaking in to rape her?”

“No, just anxious to continue communing on a philosophical level. We’ll find out soon enough.”

After the flight to San Francisco, they got into a cab driven by a portly gentleman in his sixties with a swooping walrus mustache, a tweed jacket, and an Irish tweed cap. When everyone was settled inside, he turned to them, but failed to ask the expected “Where to?” Instead, he said, “And what political persuasion might you two be?”

Annabel and Smith looked at each other and stifled laughter. Smith said, “A Roosevelt Democrat.”

“And you?” the driver asked Annabel.

“A conservative who has whatever it takes to make Roosevelt Democrats happy.”

As Mac Smith and Annabel Reed were winging their way west, Senator Jody Backus was finishing a speech to a group of supporters in the Antrim Lodge in Roscoe, New York, a little more than two hours from New York City and known as the trout capital of the world.

“Great speech, Senator,” an aide said as the corpulent candidate for president climbed down from a platform at the end of the large dining room. A hundred people had paid twenty-five dollars each to break bread with him at lunch and to hear him call for a return to decency, family values, and morality in the media. He’d been warmly received. The “morality in media” issue had only recently been injected into his otherwise-standard canned speech.

He’d ended with, “And I’ll tell you one more thing. When I’m president of these United States, you’ll see a president with a total commitment to the environment. They don’t call Roscoe the trout capital of the world for nothin’, and I’ll see to it that these beautiful waters, and these big, fat trout, are around for years to come.” The crowd had erupted in applause. Backus added, “As a matter of fact, as soon as we break this up, I’m headin’ for Zach Filler’s
lodge, where I’m intendin’ to spend the rest of this day and tomorrow morning haulin’ ’em in.”

The limo, followed by a string of cars in which press rode, turned onto the quiet little main street of Roscoe and stopped in front of a sporting goods store. “Be back in a minute,” Backus said as he pulled himself out of the limo. “Got to see what the local folks are catchin’ them on these days.” He disappeared into the store followed by an aide and Secret Service agents.

The luncheon, like the fishing trip itself, had been decided on at the last minute by Backus. An old friend from Georgia, Zach Filler, owned a small fishing lodge in the area, and Backus’s staff knew their boss needed such days. They just wished he’d plan ahead a little better.

Usually, his press aides were able to turn these sudden deviations into something positive. Ewald might seem to have the nomination wrapped up, but Backus’s boys were going to take him into the convention with strength. There would have to be some dealing. The staff had managed to bring in enough upstate New York Democrats for the luncheon, and made plans to take photographs of Backus fishing, which they would release to fishing magazines and sports pages. “Fly fishing’s hot these days,” one of them said. “Might as well sell the old man to those fanatics, too.” When they announced their plans to Backus, he dampened their assiduity by telling them this was to be pure relaxation, with only a few close advisers and a single Secret Service agent accompanying him. One of the aides mounted an argument. Backus snapped, “Damn it to hell, I am sick and tired of people and press and pressing the flesh! I need a day with the fish, just me and some big, fat ol’ trout.” And when a senior aide questioned whether they should run the change of schedule through Backus’s campaign braintrust, he erupted. “I don’t need to clear nothing through nobody, and it’s time people around here got to understand that! Jody Backus is his own man.”