Murder at Ford's Theatre Page 24

  Klayman said nothing.

  “Rick?”

  “Yeah. Sorry, Herman. I’m glad they found her.”

  “I just thought you’d want to know.”

  “I appreciate the call. Is Ong still there?”

  “Yeah. He’s doing his number on what’s left of her.”

  “I’ll swing by.”

  “Nothing you can do.”

  “I’d just feel better. Thanks again.”

  “That was Herman,” Klayman told Johnson as he rejoined the other guests. “They found Connie Marshall.”

  “Who’s that?” someone asked.

  “An intern who went missing a couple of years ago, the one supposedly having an affair with the House majority leader, Tomlinson. A fisherman found her in the bay.”

  “Rick’s been following the case,” Johnson announced.

  “Is there a connection with the intern at Ford’s Theatre?”

  “I doubt it,” Klayman said. He turned to Rachel: “I need to stop by headquarters.” To the others: “Hate to eat and run, but I really have to go.”

  “You didn’t eat and run, Rick,” Etta said. “You’ve barely touched your food.”

  He stood, and Rachel did, too.

  “No, you stay,” Rick said. “I’m sure someone will drive you home.”

  “No,” she said pleasantly, “I’m old-fashioned. I leave with the guy I came with.”

  “Take a doggie bag home,” Etta said, jumping up and disappearing inside the house. She emerged seconds later with plastic food bags into which she placed their steaks and a few other items. Mo walked them to their car.

  “I’m sorry, Mo, to cut out like this,” Klayman said. “It’s just that—”

  “Hey, buddy, no apologies necessary. I know how much this case means to you.” He said to Rachel, “Just don’t let my main man here get too bent out a’ shape over it.”

  “I promise,” she said, kissing him on the cheek.

  Rick wanted to drop her at her apartment, but she insisted on staying with him, stipulating it didn’t mean accompanying him into any room where there were dead bodies.

  As Rachel sat in a reception area reading a paperback book, Klayman entered Dr. Eric Ong’s office, where the ME sat at his desk writing a report. “Sit down, Detective,” Ong said, motioning toward a chair. “I’ll only be a minute.”

  Klayman passed the time questioning his decision to leave the barbecue. It wasn’t very polite, he knew, and certainly wasn’t necessary. The Marshall case was two years old. The fact that her remains had been found was good; at least it might bring her family some measure of closure. Funny, how important it is to families to have someone to bury, he thought. It didn’t bring them back to life. In a sense, it was an exclamation point to their grief. He sometimes wondered how he would react if a loved one disappeared, and murder was the suspected cause. As long as there wasn’t a body, there was hope, as unreasonable as it might be as time dragged on, that the person would one day surface healthy and happy, and hopefully embarrassed at having caused so much consternation and worry.

  He’d interviewed Connie Marshall’s parents on a few occasions when the crime was fresh, and saw in them the same expression of confusion, sadness, and anger as Nadia’s parents had exhibited. Constance Marshall’s disappearance had been big news for months, fueled by rumors that she’d been involved in a sexual relationship with the married House majority leader, Willard Tomlinson. But media attention eventually and predictably drifted to other stories, and only an occasional call to Klayman from one of the parents to ask whether anything was new had kept him in direct touch with the case. The C. Marshall folders had been placed in the unsolved homicide files—this was when homicides in D.C. were called homicides, not “crimes against persons”—and the active investigation ceased.

  The Marshall case had become borderline obsessive for Klayman; he’d volunteered on weekends and days off to follow up on leads that became less frequent as the months went by. And his interest had waned, too, as leads dried up and his only link to the case was the computer file he kept at home. Accessing it gave him a feeling of still being connected, a poor substitute for the real thing.

  “So, Detective Klayman, the missing person is no longer missing,” Ong said in his shrill voice.

  “The ID is definite?”

  Ong laughed. “With reasonable medical certainty, as the lawyers like to say in court. Yes, it’s Ms. Marshall. The dental records confirm it. And there are the general physical characteristics of the skeleton, length, approximate weight and age—a female, of course. There are also the facial characteristics as shown in photographs provided by the family when she disappeared. There are three basic facial types, you know, square, tapering, and ovoid. She’s an ovoid.”

  So was Nadia Zarinski, Klayman thought. And she was approximately the same height and weight as Constance Marshall, same color hair and eyes. Not that that was especially significant. Lots of young women in Washington fit that description.

  “Any evidence of how she died?” Klayman asked.

  “Oh, yes,” Ong replied. “There’s a nasty crack on the left side of her skull.”

  “Could it have happened when she went into the water, hit a rock or the side of a boat?” Rick asked.

  “Anything is possible, Detective, but I would say not. I need to do further examination, but my opinion at this moment—”

  “With reasonable medical certainty,” Klayman said with a smile.

  “Yes, with reasonable medical certainty. She died from the blow to the head and was placed in the water sometime thereafter.”

  Klayman stood and extended his arms into the air against a backache. “Well,” he said, “this opens the case again. Anything else?”

  “Whoever did it wasn’t interested in robbing her.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “The jewelry she was wearing. We’re fortunate that it didn’t disintegrate over time, or get ripped off by the crabs.”

  “What sort of jewelry, Eric?”

  “An expensive wristwatch, gold ring, and gold chain.”

  Klayman leaned on the desk. “She was wearing those?”

  “Oh, yes. Of course, the watch had stopped, and everything is badly corroded. Not much value to them.”

  “Yeah, not much value. Thanks, Doc. I appreciate the time.”

  “Anytime, Detective. Always happy to contribute to the cause of justice.”

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  “HOW DOES THE DEFENDANT PLEAD? Guilty or not guilty?”

  “Not guilty,” Jeremiah muttered.

  “Speak up. Guilty or not guilty?”

  “Not guilty.”

  U.S. Attorney LeCour had filed written murder charges against Jeremiah, and went on to verbally present the State’s formal charges against him at the Monday morning Presentment hearing. The charge was murder in the first degree, with a lesser-included charge of murder in the second degree. The murder-one charge assumed malice aforethought and premeditation. The lesser charge contained all the ingredients of first degree, but without premeditation. LeCour had presented only two witnesses to corroborate his allegations, Herman Hathaway, MPD’s chief of the Crimes Against Persons Unit, who testified about Jeremiah’s lies to detectives concerning a prior relationship with the deceased; statements from unnamed witnesses who had knowledge of that relationship, and who LeCour promised would testify to that fact; and the defendant’s previous assault on a police officer, resisting arrest, and violation of a court order placing him under the custody of a “family member.” Becker objected when Hathaway mentioned previous complaints against Jeremiah, including assault on a woman, and was sustained. Not that it mattered at this juncture. There was no jury; the judge alone would make the decision whether the State had ample grounds to formally charge Jeremiah with the murder. LeCour and the U.S. Attorney’s office had the option of presenting the case to a grand jury, but had informed Smith and Becker that they did not intend to do that.

  Foren
sic expert Wallace Wick gave testimony about the shoe print matching the pattern of the defendant’s sole.

  On most mornings, Presentment hearings drew few spectators, usually retired men and women whose favorite avocation was hanging around the courthouse and sitting in on legal proceedings. They knew every judge and court officer, and zealously debated the merits of each case.

  This morning, however, the visitor benches were filled, including a large contingent of press. Judge Walter Jordan, a veteran on the bench, had to admonish the crowd more than once to be quiet or risk being expelled from the room. He was a kindly looking older black man with a sweet smile, soft voice, and kind eyes, but with a reputation for running a tight ship. He was considered a fair judge, although he had little patience with defense attorneys who practiced theatrics in defending their clients.

  Yale Becker’s cross-examination of Hathaway and Wick was cursory. Such hearings were an opportunity for lawyers on both sides to gain a sense of their opponent’s projected tactics, and the evidence they might present at trial. The advantage was clearly with the defense. It was incumbent upon the prosecution to lay out its case in detail in order to justify the charges against a defendant. Becker and Smith knew that unless they had a bombshell that would derail the proceedings, it was prudent to keep their cards close to the vest. They’d submitted a pro forma Motion to Dismiss earlier that morning in order to have it on the record. There would be multiple motions filed before trial, all to make a record in the event an appeal was in the works somewhere down the road.

  “Let’s deal with the matter of bail,” the judge said. “Mr. LeCour?”

  “Under the circumstances, your honor, the state feels that no bail should be set for the accused. He’s being charged with a heinous crime, the murder of an innocent young woman. He’s already proved to be a flight risk. Bail would be highly inappropriate.”

  Smith responded, “Your honor, Jeremiah Lerner is from a distinguished family. His father is a highly respected U.S. senator, and his mother heads Ford’s Theatre and is in line to head the NEA. The U.S. Attorney’s claim that he’s already demonstrated a tendency to flee is unfounded. It isn’t as though he left his father’s house and winged off to South America. All he did was go from his father’s house to his mother’s house. He stayed well within the family.”

  “He was charged with resisting arrest and—”

  “Objection, your honor,” Smith said. “We’ve asked that those charges be dropped by Mr. LeCour’s office.”

  “I’m well aware of that, Mr. Smith,” said the judge. “Anything else, Mr. LeCour?”

  “Just that we ask that no bail be set, Judge.”

  “Under the circumstances, I don’t see the need for an excessive amount of bail. Two hundred thousand.” He rapped the handle of his gavel on the bench.

  “Your honor.”

  “You aren’t about to argue with me and upset me, are you, Mr. LeCour,” the judge said softly, and with a smile.

  “I wouldn’t think of it, Judge.”

  “Good. It’s the opinion of the bench that the state has presented evidence sufficient to hold the defendant over for arraignment a week from today, same time, same station. Who’s putting up bail?”

  “The family, your honor,” Smith replied.

  “Well, work it out with the court.” He leaned forward and glared at Jeremiah. “You, young man, have two of the best lawyers in this city, and you’re being allowed to spend your time with them and your family while you prepare yourself to face these charges. I suggest you wipe that snarl off your face and count your blessings. Dismissed.”

  Smith and Becker watched their client be led from the courtroom. LeCour came to where they stood. “You got off with pocket change,” he said.

  “Seems fair to me,” Becker said.

  “Where’s his family, the distinguished senator and his lovely ex-wife?”

  “Attending to affairs of state,” Smith said. “Why do I have the feeling that you don’t have much of a case, and that the judge thinks so, too?”

  “Enough to arraign him,” LeCour said. “That is, if he shows up next week.”

  “Oh, he will,” said Becker, gathering up papers.

  I hope so, Smith thought.

  LeCour took a few steps, turned, and said, “If you want to discuss pleading this out, give me a call.”

  “Thanks,” said Smith, “but don’t take it personally if you don’t hear from us.”

  “I would have felt better if one of his parents were here,” Becker said as he and Smith left the courthouse.

  “I would have, too, although it really didn’t matter. I spoke with the senator last night and told him we were hoping for a reasonable bail. He said he’d come up with whatever was needed. I’ll call and let him know what it’s going to cost him, unless he wants to use a bail bondsman, which I doubt. He doesn’t need to. Frankly, I’m just as happy having Jeremiah cool his heels a while longer. Maybe it’ll get through to him that being behind bars isn’t fun.”

  “That would be nice. Let me know when the senator wants to post bail, and I’ll handle it. Where are you off to?”

  “School. I need to talk with Dean Mackin about missing classes.”

  “How do you want to divvy up the depositions? You work around your other commitments. I’ll handle most of them.”

  “No, Yale, I’ll make myself available. Now that I’m in, I want to be all the way in. Hello to Sue, and thanks again for the swim and barbecue. Refreshed us both.”

  He went to his office and made calls, including to Annabel.

  “How did it go?” she asked.

  “Fine. Two hundred thousand bail. A bargain.”

  “I’d say so. You caught me going out the door.”

  “Oh, that’s right. The luncheon. I tried Clarise, but no answer. She’s probably already on her way. I’ve got to call Senator Lerner and inform him of the bail arrangement.”

  “Neither of them was there this morning?”

  “No, which is no longer a surprise. Plenty of press, though. Maybe it’s just as well they stay away.”

  “Jeremiah will be staying with his father?”

  “Or mother. The judge didn’t stipulate, but it’s got to be one or the other. Going back to that apartment he shares with some roommate won’t do. He’ll have to be available at all times to the police, to say nothing of for Yale and me. At any rate, enjoy the luncheon. Tell Clarise what’s transpired. Should put her mind at ease a bit—if that’s necessary.”

  “I will. Love you.”

  “The feeling is entirely mutual. See you this evening.”

  RICK KLAYMAN HAD SPENT a sleepless Sunday night.

  After leaving the ME’s office, he’d taken a hungry Rachel Kessler for a burger before dropping her home.

  “Come in?” she asked as they sat in the car in front of her apartment building.

  “No, thanks,” he’d said. “I really have to go.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Work.”

  Voicing his thoughts for the first time, he’d told her of what he’d learned from Dr. Ong, that there were similarities between the two slain young women that might indicate the same person had killed them. Nothing definitive, but the possibility existed.

  “That’s comforting,” she’d said. “There’s a murderer walking around Washington who preys on young women, one of them two years ago, and now another. Gives me the chills.”

  “May not be true,” he’d said, “but I want to follow up on it. Sorry I dragged you away from Mo’s house and a steak.”

  “You made up for it with the burger. Besides, I have the steak for tomorrow. Sure you won’t come in?”

  “I’d just be lousy company.”

  “Okay,” she said, “but I think my mother was right.”

  “About what?”

  “About not falling in love with a cop or fireman.”

  “She said that?”

  “Yeah. Her father was a fireman, and she had a co
usin who was a cop.”

  “And she told you not to get involved with either.”

  “No, Rick, she told me never to fall in love with one.”

  “Oh. And you’re—?”

  “Go to work. Solve all the city’s crimes. Save us all. When you’re finished, call me.”

  “Hey, don’t be mad.”

  “You’re too cute to get mad at.” She grabbed him by the ears, pressed her lips tightly to his, lingered there, released him, left the car, and ran up the steps to the building, leaving a befuddled detective sitting in his car.

  He drove to First District headquarters, went to the records room, and pulled out the Constance Marshall files, which he pored over until past midnight, making notes, drawing diagrams linking names of people who’d known her and trying to inject order into a fragmented mind.

  He went home to sleep but found that impossible. Among many thoughts and questions was what every veteran cop had told him, that the minute you became personally involved in a case and with a victim, you lost your ability to think clearly and rationally. You lost your impartiality. They said the same about doctors, particularly surgeons. A patient was a body, an anatomical unit to be opened and its disease cut out and discarded.

  But wasn’t that the problem with too many cops and doctors? he mused as he sat in his living room. He knew cops, too many of them, who carried the notion of detachment to an extreme, dismissing victims as just another case with a file number on it, and approaching victims’ families, or anyone else with something to offer, as moronic, congenital liars.

  If that’s what it took to be a successful cop, his parents were right. He was in the wrong business.

  HE WAS PREPARING TO LEAVE the apartment at six Monday morning when a call from his sister in Boston stopped him.

  “Rick, it’s Susan.”

  “Hi. How are you?”

  “Not too good. Harry had a heart attack last night.”

  “I’m sorry. Is he okay? I mean, is it serious?”

  “Is any heart attack not serious?”