Murder at Ford's Theatre Read online

  “I’m sorry, Sissy, but I have no idea what you’re talking about, and I have an appointment I’m already late for.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. Maybe I’m speaking out of turn. You haven’t heard?”

  “Heard what?” Her pique was palpable.

  “About Bruce and his intern.”

  “What about them?”

  She lightened her voice to soften her response. “About them having . . . well, I suppose there’s no delicate way of putting it . . . having a thing.”

  Clarise’s immediate reaction was muted. Politicians becoming involved with female interns was nothing new in Washington. She laughed and said, “Don’t you just love this city’s rumor mill, Sissy? Thanks for sharing the latest with me. Have to run. Bye, sweetie.”

  But after hanging up and chewing on what she’d been told, she found herself becoming increasingly agitated. And when, an hour later, she turned on all-news radio WTOP and heard mention of the rumor about Bruce and the intern, she experienced a painful wave of disgust, which quickly escalated into rage. She considered calling her former husband but held back—until the rumor developed legs and seemed to dominate every newscast. Worse, it soon became the centerpiece of whispers all over Washington. When she walked into a room, the sudden silence, then the shift to any inane subject other than what had been being discussed, was transparent.

  Of course, she was asked about it by those who considered themselves close enough to tread on such delicate ground, and honed lighthearted answers that she considered sophisticated but that in no way truly reflected what she was feeling. Her favorite line was, “At Bruce’s age, talking after making love is as important as making love itself. Having sex with an empty-headed twenty-two-year-old isn’t his style.” She’d said it so many times, to so many people, that she sometimes thought she believed it.

  She finally confronted him about the rumor after a Washington Post writer questioned what impact his affair with Nadia Zarinski would have on her future in Washington. He wrote:

  Despite the adamant denials by Senator Lerner and the intern, Nadia Zarinski, that they’d engaged in sex in his Senate office after hours, the story just won’t go away. Obviously, the extent to which it has sullied his reputation as it might affect a future presidential run is worthy of serious discussion. But what of his high-powered former wife, Clarise Emerson, who heads the oh-so-staid and proper Ford’s Theatre, and who has recently been nominated to head the controversial agency, the National Endowment for the Arts? Pundits say the ripple effect might swamp her, Hillary Clinton’s successful ‘divorce’ from her husband’s shenanigans aside.

  “YOU BASTARD! How could you?” she demanded as they stood in his study. It was night; landscape lighting in the gardens beyond the windows tossed ribbons of white light across the room. The senator was dressed in suit, tie, and white shirt: “I have a dinner appointment in an hour,” he’d told her when she arrived unannounced at his door.

  “I don’t give a damn about your dinner dates,” she said. “What were you thinking, playing doctor-nursey with some kid bimbo? You couldn’t find a mature woman to satisfy your goddamn sexual urges?”

  “Calm down, Clarise. Hysteria doesn’t become you.”

  She tried, tried very hard to get hold of her emotions, and partially succeeded, at least to the extent that her voice lost some of its shrillness, and her hands shook less.

  “Don’t you realize what this is doing to me, Bruce? To you? We’re not a couple of slugs whose life isn’t impacted by this kind of cheap scandal. Our futures are at stake.”

  “Clarise,” he said calmly from where he sat behind his desk—she paced the room—“Who I choose to sleep with is my business and my business alone. I’ll worry about my future, thank you, and you take care of yours.”

  She was speechless. She stopped pacing and grabbed the back of a chair to steady herself. She’d expected a denial from him, a blanket refutation of the rumor. Instead, he seemed to be saying—

  “Are you admitting to me that you did sleep with that little bitch?”

  “I think it’s time you left, Clarise.”

  “No, I will not leave, Bruce. Has it ever occurred to you the embarrassment Jeremiah must feel about his father taking up with a woman his son’s own age?”

  “She’s older than Jeremiah, Clarise. It would help if you’d deal with the facts, not flashes of imagination. Besides, I’m sure Jeremiah is worldly enough to not fall apart, as his mother seems to be doing.”

  She suffered the sort of frustration she’d always felt when engaged in an argument with her ex. He was unflappable, low key, his law training of many years ago still ingrained, a stolid wall of seeming reason and wisdom. Infuriating!

  She fell silent, pulling herself together, searching for the right words to say next, words that would penetrate his armor.

  He came around the desk and reached to put his hands on her shoulders. She recoiled and stepped back. “I heard she’s still working for you,” she said softly, tentatively.

  “Yes. I won’t allow rumors and the press to destroy a young woman’s life.”

  “How princely.”

  “Let it go, Clarise. You’ve got more important things on your plate than to fixate on something this trivial.”

  “Trivial?”

  “Insignificant. Go home. I have to leave. Maybe we can discuss this at another, calmer time. Have you heard from Jeremiah?”

  “Yes.”

  “He’s well?”

  “Yes.”

  “One of these days, he’ll come around and realize how silly he’s been acting. He’ll grow up. They take longer these days to grow up, don’t they?”

  She smiled and said, “And some never do, Bruce.” A welcome steely resolve had replaced her previous frenzy. “I’ll tell you this, Bruce Lerner,” she said. “I will never allow you, or one of your young sluts, to ruin my life.”

  The amused grin on his face as she turned to leave made her want to kill him. It wasn’t the first time she’d felt that.

  “CALL ME if Jeremiah shows up at your house, Clarise,” Lerner said.

  “And you do the same.”

  KLAYMAN AND RACHEL KESSLER met at ten at the Georgetown Café, one of Washington’s few restaurants open all night. Rick and Mo Johnson had finished their day at nine-thirty interviewing Nadia Zarinski’s parents, particularly about their deceased daughter’s financial situation.

  “The parents claim they didn’t know that their kid was being paid by Senator Lerner’s office,” Klayman told Rachel over chicken salad sandwiches and iced tea. “They paint her as a young woman struggling to make ends meet in a big city, you know, always writing or calling home and asking for money. I hated to burst their bubble by telling them about her being a paid intern, but there was no choice. I mean, she probably didn’t get paid much and needed extra to live on. Interns don’t get paid much, right?”

  “I didn’t know they got paid at all.”

  “That’s right. Anyway, the father took it well, but the mother actually accused Mo and me of lying about it. She’s a tough lady, and who can blame her? Her daughter gets murdered in an alley and it sounds like we’re prosecuting her.”

  “I don’t envy what you have to do in your job,” Rachel said. “I couldn’t do it.”

  Rachel Kessler was a large girl, with strong features, prominent nose and cheekbones, and a wide mouth. She wore her brunette hair short, which tended to exaggerate her broad face. She worked as a statistical analyst at HUD, a job she described as deadly dull but without pressure. She wore an oversized, midnight blue sweatshirt, jeans, and a lightweight white windbreaker. Klayman liked many things about her, particularly her quiet nature and infectious laugh. And, like her job, dating her didn’t apply pressure to him in their fledgling relationship. She was easy to be with, like a welcome weekend houseguest who immediately falls into the flow of things and doesn’t cause problems or create tension, someone who eats anything and helps clean up.

  “You said
she had a lot of jewelry,” Rachel said.

  “Yeah. We asked the parents whether their daughter had any independent source of money. They claimed she didn’t, at least not that they knew of. They’ll get the jewelry at some point. Right now it’s evidence.”

  “Are there any leads?”

  He shook his head. There were some things he was willing to share with family and friends, but most aspects of an investigation were off-limits.

  “Amazing,” she said, shaking her head.

  “What is?”

  “You being a detective. I mean—don’t misunderstand—what I mean is that I think of cops as”—she laughed heartily—“as big and not especially bright. That’s not you.”

  “Thank you,” he said.

  “I didn’t mean it to compliment you, Rick. I suppose what I’m doing is admitting to my own stereotyping, my own occupational profiling. You know, all Irishmen drink, and all Greeks dance like Zorba.” Another laugh. “I’m not making sense, am I?”

  “Sure you are. We all do that. What counts, I think, is whether we recognize what we’re doing and don’t let it affect how we treat others.”

  “I agree,” she said. “Feel like dessert?”

  “Sure. Ice cream.”

  They’d reached that awkward moment when it was time to decide how they would spend the remainder of the night. Klayman had read in some magazine that women make up their minds whether to go to bed with a date far in advance of being asked. While she dipped into her bowl of chocolate–peanut butter ice cream, he went through the internal debate of whether to suggest they extend the evening at his apartment, or hers. His emotions were mixed. On the one hand, he was sexually attracted to her; their few previous episodes of lovemaking had been pleasurable. On the other hand, he was still operating on police time, his mind filled with thoughts of what had transpired that day, and what future days might hold.

  “It’s been a tough day,” he said.

  “And a long one for you,” she said.

  “Yeah.”

  He tried to read her: Would she be disappointed if he called it a night, to the extent that she would decide to look elsewhere for male companionship? Or, if he transformed himself from cop to lover and suggested they spend the night together, would she turn him down because she’d decided she wasn’t interested in sex that night, and make him feel foolish?

  She answered his questions by saying, “You have your class in the morning. What did you say it’s about, Lincoln as a lawyer?”

  He nodded. “Taught by one of the lawyers for—”

  Her eyebrows went up.

  “Mackensie Smith. He used to be a criminal lawyer, but now he teaches at GW.”

  “You started to say—”

  “Nothing. Yeah, I have his class tomorrow, and then back on the investigation. You should meet my partner, Mo Johnson. A great guy.”

  “You’ve mentioned him before.”

  “He’s got a nice family. He’s a big jazz buff.”

  She laughed. “Another stereotype.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Jazz is a black music. That’s the stereotype. It’s wrong, I know, but—”

  “He’s serious about it. A real scholar. I never see Mo as being black. I mean, sure, I know he’s Afro-American because his skin is darker than mine, the way I know you’re a female, or somebody is short or tall. But he’s just my partner, a guy. When I was in college, I voted against allowing a black student into my fraternity, not because he was black, but because he was a jerk, a real pain in the butt. I figured that represented true racial equality because I would have done the same for a white pain in the butt.”

  “That’s nice,” she said.

  “I suppose he views me a little differently. He brings up the black-white thing every once in a while. Can’t blame him. I understand.”

  She finished her iced tea and said, “I think it’s time we head home. I have a busy morning, too.”

  They parted on the sidewalk with a light kiss on the lips, then a more passionate one but not so engaged that the question would have to be resolved again.

  TWENTY-THREE

  “IN EIGHTEEN FIFTY-SIX, Lincoln drew up some legal papers for a client. This was after he’d served one term in the U.S. Congress, and had returned to practicing law. The client sent Lincoln a check for twenty-five dollars for the work he’d done.”

  Smith surveyed the faces in his classroom. There were grimaces and grins at the mention of Lincoln’s fee. Rick Klayman sat at the back of the classroom. He’d quietly slipped into his seat before the start of class and hadn’t attempted to greet Mac.

  “Do you know what Lincoln did?” Smith asked. “He wrote his client and said, ‘You must think I am a high-priced man. You are too liberal with your money. Fifteen dollars is enough for the job.’ He sent the client a ten-dollar check.”

  “Did you ever do that when you were practicing, Professor Smith?” a young woman asked. “Send money back to clients?”

  “No,” Smith said. “And I don’t cite this anecdote to suggest you should, either. Good law and good lawyers cost money, and good lawyers, practicing good law, should be adequately paid. But maybe that story says something about why Lincoln rose to the top of the legal profession, and was considered an attorney without peer. Maybe that attitude of fairness contributed to his courtroom successes.”

  “I don’t understand,” said another student. “Courtroom law is an advocacy situation, isn’t it? There really isn’t a lot of room for fairness when you’re fighting for your client.”

  “Ah-ha,” said Smith. “You are right. A good lawyer fights for his or her client, and does whatever is necessary within the law, and courtroom rules and decorum, to win. But let’s not confuse fairness as a moral issue, with fairness as an effective courtroom tactic.”

  He could see by the looks on their faces that they weren’t following.

  “Let me explain,” he said, “using fairness as practiced by Abraham Lincoln. He was famous in courtrooms across Illinois and Indiana for seldom challenging the opposing lawyer, or the judge, in court. He was known for saying countless times during a trial, ‘I reckon it’s fair to let that piece of evidence in,’ or, when an opposing lawyer really couldn’t prove something, Abe would say, ‘I reckon it’s fair to admit that to be the truth.’”

  “Pretty passive,” a student said.

  “And effective. You can all learn from it. Maybe it’ll head you off from becoming a trial lawyer always jumping up to object, or conducting interminable cross-examinations of witnesses because you like the sound of your own voice, even when it’s obvious you’re turning off judge and jury alike. The fact is, Lincoln focused on what was important. He’d concede six issues but hammer hard at the seventh—because he knew it was the seventh issue that was really important in the jurors’ eyes.”

  Smith shifted into an in-depth discussion of some of Lincoln’s more famous cases, which included murder, civil actions, and extensive involvement in litigation between the railroads and municipal and state governments. Lincoln was not, Smith pointed out, a lawyer with a cause. He deftly represented defendants and plaintiffs alike, switching from one side to the other depending upon who paid for his services.

  He closed the session with an anecdote about Lincoln’s most celebrated criminal case. The son of a friend had been accused of murdering another man during a religious camp meeting in 1857, and the accused’s mother, Lincoln’s friend, pleaded with him to defend her son. He agreed, and represented the young man, William “Duff” Armstrong, at no fee to the family. The chief witness for the prosecution during the trial was Charles Allen, who claimed to have seen Armstrong strike the victim, causing his death. Although the incident took place at eleven o’clock at night, and Allen admitted to being more than a hundred feet away, he testified under oath that he could see the assault clearly because of a full moon that illuminated the area. During cross-examination, Lincoln had Allen repeat his story numerous times on the witness st
and. Then, in a Perry Mason moment, Lincoln produced an almanac from 1857, which showed that the moon had already set on the night in question, provoking loud laughter in the courtroom.

  “This was a rare case in which Lincoln became emotional during his closing argument to the jury,” Smith said. “He actually had tears in his eyes as he played on the jurors’ sympathies. It was unusual because Lincoln was known as an attorney who presented low-key closing arguments, clearly stating what facts he knew would lead jurors to the logical conclusion he sought. Of course, Armstrong was acquitted.”

  Smith ended the class with, “Thank you for being here this morning. I’d like you to spend some time at Ford’s Theatre before we meet again next Saturday. If you haven’t already done so, time spent in the Lincoln Museum downstairs in the theatre is time well spent. Enjoy the rest of your weekend.”

  Klayman approached Smith, who was packing notes into his briefcase, and waited until other students had finished their post-class discussions with the professor.

  “Enjoy the class, Detective?” Smith asked.

  “Very much. I didn’t realize Lincoln was such a successful lawyer. My study of him has pretty much been limited to his presidency and assassination.”

  “That makes sense,” said Smith. “If President Lincoln had had a few good cops protecting him the night Booth decided to kill him, he might have lived.”

  “Incredible,” Klayman said, “how little protection there was for him that night. There was only one uniformed cop assigned to protect him—his name was Parker, I think, John Parker—and he left his post just outside Lincoln’s box. And his valet—someone named Forbes-—let Booth into the box because he recognized him as a popular actor. Couldn’t happen today with all the Secret Service surrounding a president.”

  “But it has, too many times. You know, of course, that the Secret Service had been established prior to Lincoln being shot, but its duties hadn’t been expanded to protecting presidents.”

  “Yes, I did know that. Lincoln hated bodyguards, didn’t he?”