Murder on K Street Read online

  He backed away from the window, went behind one of the trees that lined the driveway, and dialed 911: “There’s a woman being held at gunpoint in a house in Foggy Bottom.” He gave the address. The 911 operator tried to ask for additional information, but Rotondi had clicked the phone closed. He opened it again, dialed Emma’s home number, and returned to the window, the phone to his ear.

  He could see from his vantage point that Emma said something to the man holding her hostage. He couldn’t tell what she was saying but assumed it had to do with the ringing phone. The man with the weapon shoved Emma across the room, and she fell on the couch. Rotondi ducked away as the man came to the window and lifted the shade. Rotondi was inches from his face. Parish’s eyes darted back and forth before he allowed the shade to fall again. Rotondi raised his head at the distant sound of a siren. He moved as quickly as his lame leg would allow to the street and was standing there when the marked squad car came to a screeching halt. Two uniformed officers jumped out, leaving their doors open.

  “What’s going on?” one of them asked Rotondi.

  He gave the officer a fifteen-second précis.

  “Who’s the woman?” the cop asked.

  “My fiancée,” Rotondi said, a word he’d not used before when describing Emma. “I’m going in,” he added as two more cars arrived, each occupied by a pair of officers.

  Rotondi didn’t wait for a response. As the cops fanned out around the house, Rotondi went to the rear door, opened it, and stepped into the kitchen. “Hey,” he shouted, moving to the doorway to the living room. Emma cowered on the couch while Parish stood over her, the gun pointed at her head.

  “I don’t know who you are,” Rotondi said, “but the house is surrounded. There are cops everywhere. Drop the gun and—”

  Parish’s face mirrored his genuine puzzlement. He lowered the gun. Rotondi reacted instantly. He lunged at Parish, his cane extended in front of him to shorten the distance between them. The point of the cane caught Parish in the eye and sent him sprawling on top of Emma on the couch. Rotondi closed the gap between them and twisted Parish’s wrist violently, sending the weapon to the floor. Phil kicked it across the room and pounced on Parish, his hands closing around his neck, guttural, animal sounds erupting from his throat.

  The kitchen door was flung open and police rushed in. They’d watched the fracas through the same window Rotondi had peered through. Parish was jerked to his feet, pushed to the floor, and cuffed.

  “Are you okay?” Rotondi asked Emma as they got to their feet.

  “Yeah, I’m okay,” she said. “You?”

  “Fine. I’m fine.”

  She looked at the six uniformed officers who now crowded the room. “How did they know?” she asked. “How did you know?”

  “A four-legged friend named Homer.”

  THIRTY-TWO

  ONE MONTH LATER

  “I stand here today with a heavy heart as I announce that I will not seek my party’s nomination for president of the United States, nor will I seek reelection to the United States Senate.”

  Illinois senator Lyle Simmons faced a sizable crowd of journalists and supporters in the rotunda of the U.S. Capitol. Dozens of microphones jutted up from the lectern on which an American flag had been carefully affixed. A bevy of TV cameras ringed the rear of the crowd. Standing next to Simmons were his daughter, Polly; his press aide, Peter Markowicz; and his chief of staff, Alan McBride.

  “I think of what Theodore Roosevelt once said: ‘Death is always and under all circumstances a tragedy, for if it is not, then it means that life itself has become one.’ A man is meant to absorb only so many personal blows without sagging beneath the weight of such burdens, and that is true of this man. The tragic deaths of my beloved wife, Jeannette, and my beloved son, Neil, have forced me to look deep inside myself for the strength and courage to weather these tragic losses. I believe I have done that, but at the expense of the energy necessary to continue representing the state of Illinois, and the American people in the United States Senate, or in any other position of public trust and extreme responsibility. After many years of dedicated public service, I find it extremely difficult to come to this decision. But I must, for my own sake and for the sake of my daughter, Polly, who stands beside me today.”

  He looked at her and managed a smile. Her expression didn’t change.

  “While I shall no longer seek elected office, I intend to commit myself as a private citizen to such good acts to which I am able to contribute something positive. I do this in the name and spirit of Jeannette and Neil Simmons, whose love shall always sustain me. Thank you for your years of support. It has been a profound privilege to have served the American people. God bless America!”

  As grieving father and daughter turned from the lectern, McBride whispered to Markowicz, “Nice speech, Peter.”

  “He delivered it well,” Markowicz replied as they fell into step behind Lyle and Polly.

  Phil Rotondi and Emma Churchill watched Simmons’s televised farewell in her Foggy Bottom home. They hadn’t spent much time there during the month following the incident with Jack Parish. After meeting with Morris Crimley the following morning at MPD headquarters, where they gave formal statements and Rotondi laid out for the detective his take on the Jeannette Simmons and Camelia Watson murders—and after Emma had arranged for some of her upcoming catering jobs to be handled by Imelda, her loyal and longtime employee—they packed Homer and some of Emma’s clothes into Phil’s SUV and headed for the Eastern Shore in search of what solitude and peace they could manage.

  It hadn’t been easy for Rotondi to not attend Jeannette’s memorial service, but he decided that she would understand his absence under the circumstances. Chances are she would have skipped it herself. He watched portions of it on TV and cried.

  “I feel bad for Lyle,” Rotondi said after turning off the TV.

  “He brought it on himself,” Emma said.

  “True,” Rotondi said, “but let’s not be so hard. He played the game his way and lost. Everything in his life, personal and political, has come crashing down around him. I don’t wish that on anyone.”

  Within days of being incarcerated, Jack Parish had cut a deal with prosecutors. In return for turning state’s evidence against Rick Marshalk, the Marshalk Group, and by extension Senator Lyle Simmons, he was promised minimal jail time and an eventual place in the federal Witness Protection Program.

  “Not a bad deal for a guy who murdered two people,” Emma said after Rotondi had been filled in about the deal over the phone by Crimley, entre nous, of course.

  “It’s the system,” Rotondi said.

  He fell silent.

  “What?” she asked.

  “I’m just thinking that what happened at your house wasn’t all bad.”

  “You’re joking! That scum Parish almost killed us!”

  “I don’t mean it was good what happened to you, Emma. But the way it turned out, I didn’t have to reveal anything from that envelope. I didn’t have to contribute to bringing Lyle down. There were plenty of others to do it.”

  Swarms of law enforcement agents had invaded the Marshalk offices and removed anything of potential evidentiary interest. The raid, which quickly uncovered the link between Marshalk and Simmons, prompted a change of heart in the Chicago AG’s office. The damaging material about Simmons, kept under wraps theretofore thanks to political pressure, was released to various law enforcement agencies—which meant, of course, that it soon found its way into the press, including two of the photos, which ran in a tabloid publication. Federal indictments would soon be coming down against Simmons, according to Rotondi’s sources.

  Rotondi and Emma sat in the kitchen of his condo on the Eastern Shore drinking coffee and passing pieces of that day’s newspapers back and forth.

  “I hope he wins,” Rotondi muttered.

  “You hope who wins?”

  “The Asian American detective who got booted off the Simmons case. Charlie Chang.”
r />   “What is he trying to win?”

  “A sense of justice for himself and the system. I don’t think I ever mentioned that Lyle brought pressure on Chief Johnson to get rid of Chang. The chief caved and told Morrie Crimley to transfer him to another unit. Crimley was boiling mad about it, but with retirement on the near horizon, he played good soldier. Chang quit the force and has brought a suit against MPD for racial discrimination.”

  “You don’t think Lyle wanted him gone because he’s Asian, do you?”

  “No. I think he didn’t like that this Chang refused to kowtow to him. Crimley says that Chang never did fit in and was tired of the way other detectives were treating him. According to Crimley, Chang has a master’s degree and is going after a Ph.D. He’s better off gone.”

  Jeannette Simmons’s memorial service wasn’t the only funeral that Rotondi had elected to avoid during the past month.

  Neil Simmons’s service was held in a small church near his home. According to Polly, it was sparsely attended: “His wife and kids seemed to hold up okay,” she reported during a call to Phil that afternoon.

  “How are you doing, Polly?” he asked.

  “Confused, so confused. God, Phil, poor Neil. He said in that note he left behind that he’d killed Mom by going to Marshalk and telling him of the damning information she had against them. All he wanted was for them to do the right thing and clean up their act. Mom. Camelia Watson. And now Neil. Marshalk sure left a trail of bodies, didn’t he?”

  A vision of Neil Simmons sitting in his car in a closed garage, a hose from the exhaust pumping noxious, fatal fumes through a small opening in the window, flooded Rotondi. He willed the grim visual away. “How’s your dad?” he asked.

  “Okay, I guess. I haven’t spoken much with him. He asked me to stay around D.C. until he makes his announcement about not running—for anything. I said I would. Have you spoken with him?”

  “Yes, once.”

  Rotondi hadn’t tried to contact Lyle, but had received a call from him just a few days before his announcement that he was abandoning politics.

  “Hello, Philip,” Simmons had said, his voice strong. “How goes it?” “Just fine, Lyle. You?”

  “Under the gun, but I’ll come out all right. Phil, the reason I’m calling is to see if you’d be interested in working with me on a committee I’m thinking of launching.”

  “What sort of committee?”

  “A private organization made up of concerned citizens who are fed up with the way lobbyists run the show in Congress. It’ll take outside pressure, I’m afraid, to force the House and Senate to come up with any meaningful legislation.” Simmons laughed. “I’m the perfect one to spearhead such a movement, don’t you agree? I’m trying to make something positive out of all this, Phil.”

  “That’s good, Lyle. I’ll think about it.”

  “Of course you will. Get back to me about it, Phil. We make a hell of a team. We always have. Stay in touch.”

  Rotondi hadn’t stayed in touch but knew he would, not to become involved in any committee, but to maintain contact with his former college roommate and friend of so many years. Whether he’d ever see Polly again was pure conjecture. And Marlene? He doubted their paths would ever cross again, either.

  The phone rang. It was Mac Smith.

  “How are things?” Rotondi asked.

  “Good. You?”

  “We’re doing all right, Mac. How’s Jonell Marbury?”

  “He’s landed a new job, White House liaison for a Wisconsin congressman.”

  “Good for him. He deserves the best.”

  “And he and Marla have set the date.”

  “Nothing but positive news,” Rotondi said. “I like that.”

  “Staying in Washington for a while, Phil?”

  “As little as possible. Emma’s second-in-command is doing a bang-up job, so we can spend more time down at the shore.”

  “That’s why I’m calling. Annabel and I are thinking of spending next weekend there—you know, some sun, sand, get our toes wet. We’d love to catch up with you and Emma.”

  “It’s a date,” said Rotondi.

  They promised to follow up with details later in the week.

  “Time for Homer’s walk,” Rotondi said. He yelled the dog’s name, which awoke him from a deep, fidgety sleep. “Come on, buddy, time to fertilize the grass.”

  As man and beast were about to go through the front door, Rotindi turned and said, “Do you know what I said the night Parish was here?”

  “No, what?” Emma asked.

  “When the cops arrived, they asked who the woman was being held inside the house.”

  “And?”

  “And—I said it was my fiancée.”

  Emma laughed. “Remember our deal,” she said.

  “I’m remembering,” he said, “only as I get older, my memory isn’t as good as it used to be. Back in a minute.”

  She smiled and went to the kitchen to fill the dishwasher. As she did, she found herself singing, for no discernible reason, the old Doris Day hit, “Que Sera, Sera.”

  “Que sera, sera, whatever will be will be, the future’s not ours to see…”

  Come to think of it, her memory wasn’t what is used to be, either.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  MARGARET TRUMAN has won faithful readers with her works of biography and fiction, particularly her ongoing series of Capital Crimes mysteries. Her novels let us into the corridors of power and privilege, and poverty and pageantry, in the nation’s capital. She is the author of many nonfiction books, including The President’s House, in which she shares some of the secrets and history of the White House, where she once resided. She lives in Manhattan.

  BY MARGARET TRUMAN

  First Ladies

  Bess W. Truman

  Souvenir

  Women of Courage

  Harry S Truman

  Letters from Father: The Truman Family’s

  Personal Correspondences

  Where the Buck Stops

  White House Pets

  The President’s House

  IN THE CAPITAL CRIMES SERIES

  Murder in Foggy Bottom

  Murder at the Library of Congress

  Murder at the Watergate

  Murder in the House

  Murder at the National Gallery

  Murder on the Potomac

  Murder at the Pentagon

  Murder in the Smithsonian

  Murder at the National Cathedral

  Murder at the Kennedy Center

  Murder in the CIA

  Murder in Georgetown

  Murder at the FBI

  Murder on Embassy Row

  Murder in the Supreme Court

  Murder on Capitol Hill

  Murder in the White House

  Murder in Havana

  Murder at Ford’s Theater

  Murder at Union Station

  Murder at The Washington Tribune

  Murder at the Opera

  Murder on K Street

  Murder on K Street is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2007 by Margaret Truman

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

  BALLANTINE and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Truman, Margaret,

  Murder on K Street: a Capital crimes novel / Margaret Truman.

  p. cm.

  1. Legislators—United States—Crimes against—Fiction. 2. Police—Washington (D.C.)—Fiction. 3. Lobbyists—Washington (D.C.)—Fiction. 4. Political corruption—Fiction. 5. Washington (D.C.)—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3570.R82M86
2007

  813'.54—dc22 2007028781

  www.ballantinebooks.com

  eISBN: 978-0-345-50242-1

  v3.0