Murder at Ford's Theatre Read online

  He was pleased that the alleged eyewitness was a man like Partridge. It wouldn’t be difficult to challenge his reliability in court. Hathaway, he was certain, was well aware of this. Why, then, was he going through the motions of a lineup so blatantly tainted? Obviously, to fail to use Partridge, who claimed to have seen something, would place the police and U.S. Attorney in an awkward position. Chances were, they wouldn’t reference the lineup during trial, which posed another problem for them, the rock versus hard place argument very much present. Depend upon a drunken homeless man and you’re laughed out of court. Fail to mention the lineup during the trial and have to answer why to a blistering cross-examination before judge and jury. Either way, the lineup would work in Jeremiah’s favor.

  “Who are the others in the lineup?” Smith asked.

  “Cops,” Hathaway responded, “dressed like your client, and two guys from administration.”

  “Fine,” said Smith. “Let’s get to it.”

  Hathaway, Smith, Partridge, and a stenographer stood in a darkened room. On the other side of one-way glass was a large chart on a white wall; red lines marked off heights in six-inch increments, behind seven spots where the lineup participants would stand.

  “You ready, Mr. Partridge?” Hathaway asked. Partridge was dressed in a torn red-and-yellow flannel shirt, baggy chinos, and sandals. Despite not having had a drink for hours, his breath filled the small space with the odor of alcohol and bile, probably oozing out of his pores, Smith thought.

  “Do I get the reward?” Partridge asked.

  “We’ll see,” Hathaway said, looking at Smith with a please-try-to-understand expression. Smith understood perfectly. The steno had taken down Partridge’s comment. If the homeless man testified, it would be easy to make the point with the jury that he was motivated by the promise of money.

  “Ready, Counselor?” the detective asked Smith.

  “Bring ’em in,” Smith said.

  Five men of approximately Jeremiah Lerner’s height and weight filed into the lineup room before Jeremiah entered, leaving the seventh man to stand at his right. Hathaway hit a switch that flooded the room with harsh white light, causing everyone to shield their eyes with their hands.

  “Okay,” Hathaway said into a microphone, “hands down. Come on, get those hands down.”

  Smith focused on Lerner. He looked bewildered and frightened. He moved from foot to foot, his eyes scanning the room as though seeking an escape hatch.

  “Take a look, Mr. Partridge,” Hathaway said.

  Partridge stepped closer to the window and squinted.

  Smith approved of the men chosen by the police to join his client in the lineup. A witness would have to be especially astute and observant to pick Jeremiah from the seven.

  “Well, Mr. Partridge?” Hathaway asked. “Recognize anyone in there who you saw behind Ford’s Theatre when the girl was killed?”

  “That’s him!” Partridge said excitedly.

  “Which one?”

  “The one over there.” He pointed to the left side of the lineup, where Jeremiah stood.

  “What number?” Hathaway asked.

  “Six. That fella there, Number six.”

  He’d identified Jeremiah.

  “Number six, step forward,” Hathaway ordered through the speaker system.

  Lerner took a single step.

  “You sure?” Hathaway asked.

  “Oh, yes, sir. Year of training taught me how to spot ’em. Never forget a face.”

  “What kind of training is that, Mr. Partridge?” Smith asked.

  “CIA. Been all over the world.”

  “Okay, that’s it,” Hathaway said. He picked up a phone and said, “Come get Mr. Partridge. We’re finished with the lineup.”

  Partridge was led from the room, the seven men in the lineup left, and the stenographer departed, leaving Smith and Hathaway.

  “I know, I know, Counselor,” the detective said. “But he was sober when he made the ID, and he sure didn’t hesitate.”

  Smith smiled and picked up his briefcase. “I’m sure with his Central Intelligence Agency credentials, he’ll make a fine witness for the prosecution. Good to see you again, Hathaway.”

  Smith arrived home too late to catch the Lerner press conference live, but watched excerpts on the news.

  “. . . Clarise and I, Jeremiah’s parents, are understandably concerned and sad about what has happened to our son. But he is innocent. The supposed evidence against him is extremely weak and misleading, and I’m confident that once everything is sorted out, he will be found to have had nothing whatsoever to do with this tragic murder, and we can get on with our lives. I’m sure Clarise wishes to add something.”

  She delivered her set speech as it had been handed her at the house before the conference.

  “A dreadful mistake has been made, which I have no doubt will be rectified soon. Our son is a gentle, caring young man; hurting another human being simply isn’t in his makeup. I ask that you in the press give us the courtesy of respecting our privacy during this trying time, and not judge our son until all the facts are known. Thank you.”

  Questions flew from the assembled reporters, most of them about the alleged affair between the senator and Nadia Zarinski.

  “I won’t dignify those questions with an answer,” Lerner said sternly.

  “Will you take a lie detector test, Senator?”

  “About what?”

  “About the murder of the young woman from your office.”

  Lerner ignored him and turned to the next questioner.

  “Have you met with Nadia’s parents?”

  “Unfortunately, no. My schedule has been especially busy, and they had to return to their home in Florida. But I look forward to meeting them in the near future.”

  “Ms. Emerson, do you think any of this will jeopardize your chances to head the NEA?”

  “No. Now, if you’ll excuse us.”

  Clarise and her former husband disappeared inside his home. Mac had seen Annabel standing behind and to the left of Clarise, and was anxious to hear her perception of how it had gone. He didn’t have to wait long. She called on her cell phone.

  “How was the lineup?” she asked.

  “Amusing. I just saw some of the press conference. As awkward as it looked?”

  “Yes. I need soul food.”

  “Ribs and rice?”

  “Spaghetti and meatballs.”

  “Café Milano in an hour.”

  THIRTY

  “THAT’S A WRAP.”

  Ford’s Theatre’s stage crew had spent much of the day preparing for Thursday’s Festival at Ford’s telecast. Tours of the theatre had been cancelled for that day and the rest of the week leading up to the show. Sydney Bancroft had arrived at one that afternoon and attempted to inject himself into the process, to the chagrin of others.

  “Why doesn’t he just go to a bar and get drunk, get out of our hair?” Johnny Wales muttered to a colleague as they completed erecting a flat. “He’s not worth a damn around here.”

  “That flat should be moved a titch to the right,” Bancroft said from where he stood at the edge of the orchestra pit. The musicians had run through musical scores and were packing their instruments.

  Wales ignored Bancroft.

  “To the right,” Bancroft repeated, louder this time.

  The director of the show, who’d been brought in from New York by ABC-TV, came to Bancroft’s side and said, “It looks good the way it is, Sydney. I think it’s fine.”

  Bancroft failed to disguise his anger. “I’ve spent my life in the theatre,” he said, lip curled. “I know the way a stage should be dressed.”

  “Yeah, well, this is TV, Sydney. Time to undress. We’re finished here for the day. See you tomorrow.”

  Bancroft watched him walk away and involuntarily clenched his fists at his sides. “Television, indeed,” he mumbled. “Fools!”

  Disdain for him and his suggestions were in abundant evidence that da
y. All his suggestions had been summarily dismissed, and the snide comments whispered behind his back weren’t lost on him. Clarise had told him he was associate director of the festival, which should have carried with it at least a modicum of respect. The truth was, she’d thrown him another bone, and he’d had to lobby even for that. He was impotent; he might as well be invisible.

  HE’D STAYED IN BED until almost noon, although he’d awoken early and wasn’t tired. He lay under the covers paralyzed by fear, afraid to step out of bed and face another day of frustration and defeat. It was insufferably hot in the apartment, yet he shivered, and cried once when thinking about his childhood in England during the war.

  He was three years old when his mother sent him from London to a safer place, a farming community two hundred miles north of London, where he stayed with a distant relative for the duration of the war. Even there, the roar of German planes on their way to bomb Liverpool struck fear into the hearts of everyone in the community, and Sydney and his surrogate family routinely took shelter beneath a large oak kitchen table whenever the planes were heard.

  His bedroom in London had had wallpaper with a frieze of lions and tigers resting in a jungle setting, and they would come alive in his dreams as a small boy living with strangers, coming down from the walls and clawing and ripping at him. He would wake up screaming, bringing Mrs. Watterson running into his small room beneath a stairwell and holding him until the nightmare had passed.

  After the war, he was brought back to London to reunite with two sisters who’d also been provided safe passage to areas outside war-torn London. His father had been killed in one of the nightly raids, and his mother had died of natural causes, he was told, of an unspecified kidney disease. An uncle and aunt had completed the raising of the Bancroft children; he’d stayed with them until leaving to attend a theatre school in Manchester, and then to hit the road with a traveling Shakespearean troupe that appeared throughout the British Isles.

  He thought of his childhood more often these days, never pleasant, happy thoughts.

  “YOU HAVE A CALL, Sydney,” a theatre intern told him.

  “Oh? London?”

  “I don’t know. It’s a man who said he wants to speak with you.”

  Bancroft went to the phone dangling from its cradle on a backstage wall. “Hello?”

  “Mr. Bancroft, this is Detective Rick Klayman.”

  “Oh, yes, that nice young man who asks all those questions.”

  “Mr. Bancroft, I’d like to get together with you again.”

  “To do what, ask more questions? I can’t imagine what there is left to ask. You’ve admirably solved dear, poor Nadia’s murder, and I applaud you for that, you and your charming partner with the mellifluous voice. But I am very busy, as you can imagine. I’m directing the show to be televised Thursday on the ABC network. You’re aware of it?”

  “Ah, yes sir, I am. That’s quite an assignment.”

  “Well within my capabilities, I assure you.”

  “I’ll try not to take too much of your time,” Klayman said.

  Johnson sat across the desk from Klayman at headquarters, where he made the late-afternoon call to Ford’s Theatre. Attempts to reach Bancroft at home had failed. Johnson’s amused grin summed up his reaction to the call.

  “I’m really not interested in the murder anymore,” Klayman said, sounding sincere. “As you say, we’ve solved it. Actually, I’d enjoy chatting with someone like you about Abe Lincoln.”

  “Lincoln? You wish to discuss President Lincoln with me?”

  “Yes, sir. I’m a bit of a Lincoln buff, and I know you’re quite an expert on his assassination. You told us you’d made a study of John Wilkes Booth and his role in the assassination.”

  “Oh, yes, Detective, that is quite true, quite true, indeed. And I do recall you saying you had some minor interest in Lincoln. An unofficial visit is it, then?”

  “Yes. Unofficial.”

  Johnson’s thick salt-and-pepper eyebrows went up.

  “Let me see. Yes, I shall find the time for you, Detective. Shall we say at six?”

  “Okay. At your apartment?”

  “No. I’m suffering—what is it you call it?—cabin fever? I’ve been working here at the theatre all day. The incompetence surrounding me is staggering. I intend to treat myself to a proper drink at the Star Saloon, and a spot of dinner. Will you join me?”

  “I’d love to have dinner with you, Mr. Bancroft. Six it is, the Star Saloon.”

  “I’m appalled,” Johnson said when Klayman hung up. “An officer of the law lying to a citizen.”

  “I wasn’t lying. I’d enjoy having dinner with him.”

  “An ‘unofficial’ visit?”

  “Exactly. It’s my day off. I’m not on duty.”

  “Shameless!” Johnson said with exaggerated disgust. He laughed. “I’m going home,” he said. “Told Etta I’d take her out to dinner. If you change your mind about Bancroft, come join us. We’ll be at B. Smith’s in Union Station.”

  “Bancroft says you have a mellifluous voice.”

  “Then give him my best, by all means.”

  Klayman arrived at the Star Saloon, across the street from the theatre, a few minutes before six, and took a seat at the bar. He would have ordered a Coke but decided at the last minute to have something alcoholic to indicate he was off-duty. A white wine was placed in front of him.

  Bancroft arrived twenty minutes late.

  “So sorry, dear chap, but I had to run home for something before coming here.” He wore the tan safari jacket usually reserved for when he traveled, jeans, and a blue button-down shirt open at the neck. Theatrical makeup had been heavily applied, giving his face the color of a gnarled tree trunk. A well-worn leather satchel hung from his shoulder, which he placed on an empty stool next to the one he took at Klayman’s side.

  “The usual, Sydney?” the bartender asked.

  “Yes, yes, please.”

  The restaurant was sparsely populated. The cancellation of tours at Ford’s Theatre because of preparations for Thursday’s Festival at Ford’s had been bad for business in the area, the Star no exception.

  Bancroft lifted his glass: “To my new friend,” he said. Klayman touched rims with him. “I assume you know the historic meaning of where we sit, Detective.”

  “I think so,” Klayman said. “And please, it’s Rick.”

  “Of course. And I am Sydney.”

  Bancroft took in the room with a sweep of his head. “The infamous Star Saloon,” he said. “It was originally across the street, you know, where the box office now stands. Owned by a chap named Taltavul. After the president had been shot, it was suggested he be carried into Taltavul’s saloon, but the barkeep said it wouldn’t be fitting for the president of the United States to die in such surroundings.”

  Klayman nodded and took a tiny sip of wine.

  Bancroft took a healthy swig of his drink and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He turned and looked Klayman in the eye. “Historians have it all wrong, Rick. They say John Wilkes Booth had a few drinks before shooting Lincoln in order to fortify himself, to fill him with needed confidence. The truth is, young man, he went into Taltavul’s establishment to enjoy celebratory drinks for the heroic act he was about to engage in. Whiskey and water, unusual for him. He generally drank brandy.”

  “Heroic? Booth was demented.”

  Bancroft finished his drink and ordered another. “No, my new friend, he was not demented.” He placed his hand on his chest. “Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t.”

  Klayman looked quizzically at him.

  “Hamlet. Do you know what he said at the bar that night?”

  “I’ve read various accounts.”

  “A drunk said to Booth, ‘You’ll never be the actor your father was.’ And Booth smiled”—Bancroft adopted what Klayman assumed was a facsimile of that smile—“and said, ‘When I leave the stage, I will be the most famous man in America.’”

 
A second scotch in front of him, Bancroft continued to lecture Klayman on Booth and his actions leading up to the assassination. He had a few facts wrong, Klayman knew, but didn’t bother to correct him. Bancroft claimed that a German named Atzerodt, one of two conspirators working with Booth, had been assigned to assassinate Secretary of State William Seward, but Klayman knew that Atzerodt’s target was Vice President Andrew Johnson. Seward was to be killed by a brawny, violent man, Lewis Paine. Booth reserved Lincoln for himself. All three assassinations were to occur simultaneously, at 10:15 P.M.

  “You haven’t touched your wine,” Bancroft said, taking a break from his sermon.

  “I’m not much of a drinker,” Klayman said, “but I am hungry. Can I buy you dinner?”

  “That’s very generous of you,” Bancroft said. “Yes, much obliged.”

  They took a table and placed their orders, a shrimp cocktail, onion soup, broiled bay scallops, salad, side orders of French fries and spinach, and custard pie for Bancroft, pasta and a salad for Klayman.

  “Let me pick your brain a little about the Nadia Zarinski murder,” Klayman said. “Why do you think she would go out with a lowlife like Jeremiah Lerner?”

  Bancroft seemed pleased to be asked his opinion. He replied, “Who can ever determine why pretty young things take up with the men they do?” He slipped into his thespian mode. “Rebellious hell, If thou canst mutine in a matron’s bones, to flaming youth let virtue be as wax and melt in her own fire.”

  “Shakespeare?”

  “Hamlet again. Youthful lust. Nadia was a sensuous woman, Rick. I’m afraid it led to her unfortunate and premature demise.”

  “Do you feel—I mean, really feel in your bones, Sydney—that Jeremiah killed her?”

  “No question about it, sir. You and your colleagues should be immensely proud of your accomplishment in bringing him to justice. I salute you.” He motioned for another scotch.

  “Did Nadia seem to have money, Sydney? I mean, lots of available money?”

  One of the actor’s eyebrows arched impossibly high; Klayman was tempted to try it but knew he’d fail, and look foolish in the process.