Murder at Ford's Theatre Read online

  “I did. A son. He and my first wife were killed by a drunk driver on the Beltway.”

  Lerner’s voice didn’t change in response to that grim statement. “They break your heart, don’t they?” he said.

  Smith didn’t know how to respond. Yes, his heart had been broken, but not by his son—by an irresponsible drunk who ended up being convicted of negligent manslaughter. Where was he now? What was he doing? Did he wake up in the middle of the night as Smith sometimes did and recoil at the horrible memory of that rainy night?

  “What’d the drunk get, a slap on the wrist and probation?”

  “Four years.”

  Lerner snickered. “Obviously some wimp of a judge put on the bench by the liberals.”

  Smith sat in silence.

  “You give all you can to your kids, Mac, and they turn on you. Like Jeremiah. He wanted for nothing, was taught to be a good citizen, work hard, make something of himself.” He suddenly straightened, as though struck by an important thought. “Is this indicative of where young people are heading today?”

  “Not all young people,” Smith said, thinking of the Lee J. Cobb role in Twelve Angry Men, the vengeful juror who’d been disappointed by a son and took it out on a young defendant.

  “They’ve got their values wrong, Mac. They get twisted messages from the media, movies, TV, those damn video games. The liberals don’t seem to care what kind of garbage they fill kids’ heads with these days. There’s a lot of blame to be laid there.”

  Mac hadn’t expected to be on the receiving end of a political speech. Lerner’s conservative politics were well known. Had his right-wing beliefs butted heads with Clarise’s more liberal thinking, and contributed to the breakup of their marriage? It didn’t matter. Politics, and any discussion of it, seemed grossly out of place at that moment.

  “I’d like to spend more time with Jeremiah, Senator, before I leave.”

  “Yes, I’m sure you would. So would I. Maybe this situation has rammed enough fear into him that he’ll sit down and listen to reason.” He slowly got up and came around the desk. “I’ll get him.”

  But before he could leave the room, the sound of a powerful automobile engine was heard from downstairs. A garage door opened, a car door slammed shut, and the vehicle noisily left. Senator Lerner peered out the window and saw his black vintage Jaguar head down the street and disappear around a corner.

  “He’s gone,” Lerner said.

  “That’s a shame,” Smith said. “Any idea where he might go?”

  “None at all. I’m sorry, Mac, for the trouble he’s causing you. Maybe you can see what Clarise and I have had to put up with all these years.”

  “Well,” Smith said, standing, “at least he must have found another pair of shoes.”

  “Oh, he had another pair upstairs. That detective didn’t see them, and I didn’t see any reason to mention them to him.”

  Just answer the questions, offer nothing. Smith had delivered that sage legal advice to countless criminal defendants over the years. Evidently, the senator had received the same wisdom, or naturally came by it.

  “I’ll be going,” Smith said. “I suggest you do everything possible to find Jeremiah and bring him back here.”

  “I’ll do that, Mac. Everything that’s happened stays in this room.”

  “Of course.”

  The phone rang. Lerner picked it up and launched into an animated conversation with the caller. He waved good-bye to Smith, who left the house and headed home, stopping on the way at Annabel’s gallery, where she was taking inventory of pre-Columbian pieces displayed on the shelves, and those stored in a back room.

  “How did it go?” she asked.

  “Not well.”

  He’d realized as he drove there that since meeting, falling in love with, and marrying Annabel, he’d been faced only a few times with the dilemma of balancing attorney-client confidentiality with a need to discuss things with her. When married to his first wife, he’d made the decision whether to discuss a case on an individual basis. Most lawyers he knew, depending upon the solidarity of their marriages—as well as their faith in their wives to keep secrets—would discuss certain cases in which they were involved. You had to talk to someone. He decided early on that he would bring Annabel in on everything that was occurring. She, too, was a lawyer, and had been instrumental in convincing him to help Jeremiah and his parents. She knew the players. Most important, he hadn’t the slightest fear that what he told her would escape the confines of the gallery, or their apartment.

  “He’s in trouble,” he said. “He now admits that—”

  The door opened, and a well-dressed couple came in to browse.

  “I’m going to run by the school, Annie,” Mac said, kissing her on the cheek. “Feel like dinner out?”

  “Sure.”

  “Meet you at home at six. We’ll go from there.”

  He’d no sooner settled in his office at the university when Dean Mackin looked in. “Got a minute, Mac?” he said.

  “Sure.”

  “We’ve been getting calls from the media wanting to interview you,” said the dean.

  “They’re on the prowl, huh?” Smith said with a small laugh. “Sorry if they’re bothering you. Give me their names and numbers and I’ll get back to them. Maybe.”

  “More than you bargained for,” Mackin said.

  Smith’s expression invited elucidation.

  “You didn’t think you’d end up on a murder case, did you?”

  Smith leaned back and held up his hands. “Wait a minute,” he said. “Where did you hear this?”

  “On the news a few minutes ago.”

  “On the news? What did they say?”

  Mackin assumed an announcer’s voice: “A highly placed but reliable source has told this station that Jeremiah Lerner, the son of Senator Bruce Lerner, and of Clarise Emerson, who’s been nominated to head the NEA, has emerged as a suspect in the murder earlier this week of a young woman at Ford’s Theatre. This is the same young woman rumored to have had an affair with the senator . . . etc., etc., etc.”

  “The MPD is a sieve,” Smith said.

  “It’s true, Mac?”

  “He’s been questioned about it, Ralph. That’s all.”

  “The newscast makes it sound more serious than that.”

  “Trust the press to get it wrong,” Smith said.

  He didn’t want to mislead the dean, but also was reluctant to share what he knew. What did he know? Only that despite earlier protests to the contrary, Jeremiah had dated Nadia Zarinski. No crime in that, although denying it could do nothing but raise suspicions. The police had asked whether Jeremiah would participate in a lineup. That could only mean they had someone claiming to have witnessed the murder, or events closely allied with it. And what about obtaining a warrant for Jeremiah’s shoes? Undoubtedly, footprints had been lifted from the scene of the murder, and the police wanted to match sole patterns with those prints. What concerned him most was his conviction that Jeremiah’s shoes were the only ones seized under warrant. He hoped he was wrong. But if he was right, it meant Jeremiah was now the prime suspect in Nadia Zarinski’s killing.

  Where had Jeremiah gone? Hopefully, he’d drive around a while to cool off, and return to his father’s house. But if he’d decided to flee, his problems would be compounded. He’d been released to his father’s care. The court would be calling to check on him. The police would undoubtedly want to interview him again. The hole he was digging was getting deeper; soon, it might be too deep to climb out of.

  “Mac.”

  “Yes?”

  “Sure you don’t want to reconsider?”

  “No, I’m not sure. I’ve been questioning it ever since I first became involved.”

  “My recommendation?”

  “Shoot.”

  “Leave the matter to Yale Becker. I know you want to help friends, and I admire that. But by bringing in Yale, you’ve already done your friends a huge favor.”

 
; Smith nodded.

  “There’s also the question of the university, Mac. Becoming embroiled in a scandalous murder case, especially one involving such high-visibility people, could kick back on us, on our fund-raising efforts, to say the least.”

  Smith wished Dean Mackin hadn’t injected fund-raising into the equation. A young woman had been brutally murdered, and a young man, as unpleasant as he might be, faced possible indictment as the murderer. Smith knew, of course, and was respectful of any university’s need to raise funds, and was not reacting personally to Mackin’s comment. Among the dean’s many responsibilities was the need to generate contributions to further the law school’s programs. Mac had taken part in his share of events designed to do that.

  But we teach the law here, he thought, not fund-raising. He’d made a commitment to Clarise Emerson and to Yale Becker, and commitments were important to Mackensie Smith.

  “Think about it, Mac,” said the dean.

  “I will, Ralph. Thanks.”

  Dean Mackin left the office, stopped, returned, and said, “I’m getting nothing but positive feedback on your Lincoln course. The Saturday session had to be closed.”

  “The Saturday session,” Mac repeated. “That’s tomorrow. I’d almost forgotten.”

  “Mustn’t do that, Mac. You’d have a classroom full of very unhappy students.”

  Smith realized he wasn’t in the mood for paperwork, packed up, and left the building for home. As he did, Klayman and Johnson were at American University talking again with the student, Joe Cole.

  They began by asking a series of questions similar to what they’d asked during their previous visit, and received basically the same answers. Yes, he’d dated her; yes, they’d been together the previous Saturday night; yes, they’d made love at her apartment; and yes, he’d left and returned to his room in the dorm.

  “You were pretty pissed, weren’t you?” Johnson said, leaning against the closed door.

  Cole displayed his most charming smile from where he sat on his bed. “Why should I be pissed? Come on, guys. We had a great roll in the sack. What would I be mad about?”

  “The other guy she talked about,” Klayman said. “That’s what.”

  “What other guy?”

  “The one she compared you to,” said Johnson. “The one she said was better in bed than you.”

  The smile faded. “How do you know that?” Cole asked.

  “What’d she do, laugh at your sexual performance?” Johnson asked. “If some woman did that to me, I’d be pretty mad, too.”

  “She never said anything to me about that. I mean, about the other guy being better.”

  Klayman, who’d been content to allow Johnson take the lead, spoke. “So she did talk about another guy,” he said.

  Cole nodded.

  “Who?” They’d decided on the way to the campus to not offer that they knew about Jeremiah and his alleged relationship to Nadia. Hopefully, the other students who’d told them about Cole dating Nadia, and being angry over her comments about Lerner, wouldn’t have shared it with him, considering his BMOC status.

  “Lerner. Jerry Lerner.”

  When they didn’t respond, Cole added, “He’s already a suspect, right? I heard it on the news.”

  “What did Nadia say about him?”

  “Have you talked to him?” Cole asked.

  “Mind if we ask the questions, Joe?” said Johnson.

  “Do you know Jeremiah Lerner?” Klayman asked.

  He shook his head.

  “Ever see him together with Nadia?”

  “No.”

  “What did she tell you about him, Joe?”

  He made an embarrassed false start before saying, “She thought he was some kind of a stud. I guess she’d know, huh, considering what a slut she was.”

  Johnson came from his position at the door and stood over Cole. “Let me give you a little good advice, my man,” he said in his best baritone. “I am getting tired of hearing you trash the victim. I am getting tired of hearing you talk like you’re the original macho man and slandering a young woman who was beaten to death. Is my message getting across?”

  “I didn’t mean anything. It’s just that—”

  “So you were angry with her. Right?” said Klayman.

  “Yeah, I was, and I told her so.”

  “How did she react?”

  “She laughed and told me to get out.”

  “And this was Saturday night?”

  “Right.”

  “Not Monday night.”

  “Monday? No. Hey, look, if you think I got mad enough to kill her, you’re all wrong.”

  “You own a pair of Ecco shoes?” Klayman asked.

  “What’s that?”

  “Mind if I look at your shoes?” Johnson asked, opening the closet door.

  “No. Why should I mind?”

  “Which shoes are yours, and which ones are your roommates?”

  Cole showed them his shoes. No Eccos among them.

  Klayman opened the door, and he and Johnson stepped into the hall, with Cole following anxiously.

  “So you know I didn’t kill her. Right?”

  Johnson replied, “You just remember what I said about slandering the dead, Joe.”

  “Okay.”

  On their way back to First District headquarters, Johnson said, “Man, I don’t like that smug bastard.”

  “Think he’s lying? Think he was with her Monday night?”

  “Wouldn’t surprise me. We should check the restaurant he says he took her to.”

  “Right.”

  “You know, buddy, I’ve got to give it to you about the shoes.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Noticing that the Lerner kid was wearing a pair when we brought him in, and remembering it when forensics came back with a match of the prints to that sole pattern.”

  They stopped at a light, and Klayman raised his right foot off the accelerator. “Eccos,” he said, returning his foot to the pedal. “My parents bought me this pair last time they visited.”

  Johnson chuckled. “I’m impressed. Yeah, I am impressed.”

  “I was more impressed with the judge who gave us the warrant. Hardly compelling evidence to base it on.”

  They pulled into the parking lot at the rear of the building.

  “What about Bancroft, the old actor?” Johnson asked. “We know Lerner lied to us about knowing the victim because of what Cole says. We get Bancroft on the record about it and the kid is dead meat. He’s due back tomorrow?”

  “That’s what he said. I figured we could check him out tomorrow afternoon, after my class.”

  “How’d you get Hathaway to give you the morning off? He’s got us on twenty-four/seven until we break this case.”

  “Herman’s a believer in education,” Klayman responded wryly.

  Johnson chuckled. “Like Lincoln, huh? Hey, by the way, since you’ve become a shoe expert, what kind of shoes did Lincoln wear? Eccos?”

  Klayman said without hesitating, “He wore size fourteen boots made by a New York boot maker named Kahler. Lincoln made tracings of his own feet and sent them to New York.”

  Klayman opened the rear door to headquarters and held it for Johnson, who’d stopped a few feet away.

  “Coming?” Klayman asked.

  “I should have known better than to ask,” Johnson said.

  TWENTY-TWO

  “CLARISE. It’s Bruce.”

  “I just walked in the door.” She cradled her cell phone between shoulder and cheek as she kicked off her shoes and moved through the Georgetown house. “I have guests arriving in a half hour and—”

  “Have you heard from Jeremiah?”

  “No. Oh, the interview with him this afternoon. I’d almost forgotten. I meant to call you. How did it go?”

  “Badly. He lied to the police when he said he didn’t know the girl. He did know her. He dated her.”

  “Oh, my God. Are you sure?”

  “I was there, re
member? He admitted it to me, and to Mac Smith. The police took his shoes.”

  “What?”

  “His shoes. They had a warrant for his shoes.”

  “Why?”

  “As evidence, of course. He left, drove off in my Jag. You haven’t heard from him?”

  “No. I told you I hadn’t. Where did he go?”

  “Damn it, Clarise, if I knew that I wouldn’t be calling you. Look, this is serious. He’s obviously in big trouble with the law and—”

  “Can’t you do something?”

  “Such as?”

  “Such as—you’re a U.S. senator, for Christ’s sake. Maybe it’s political, a way to get at you—and at me. My confirmation hearing is looming and—”

  “I don’t give a damn about your hearing, Clarise. Jeremiah is—”

  “Thank you very much, Senator Lerner. What do you want me to do about Jeremiah, get in my car and cruise the streets looking for him?”

  She felt her internal thermostat rising, becoming hotter. She could see her ex-husband sitting in his study, probably wearing one of his dozens of custom English suits, debonair and smug, viewing her as a hysterical woman unable to control herself and not making sense. She prided herself in her ability to manage her anger, to force cognition to trump emotions, to use any anger she might feel in a positive way, channeling it to achieve whatever goal was in her sights at the moment. But she hadn’t always been successful in doing it.

  THERE WAS THE TIME less than a year ago when rumors had begun to circulate about a possible sexual affair between her former husband and Nadia Zarinski. Clarise had first heard about it when a friend, who consumed gossip and thrived on it the way health fanatics consume and thrive on sprouts and personal trainers, called.

  “Clarise, dear, how are you?”

  “I’m fine. How are you, Sissy?”

  “Well, I must admit I’d be considerably better if my very good friend, Clarise Emerson, wasn’t being trashed the way she is.”