Murder at the Kennedy Center Page 5

  “Yes, sir.” Morse led the aide from the room.

  “Well,” President Manning said, “here we are again, Colonel Morales. It’s getting to be a habit of sorts, isn’t it?”

  Morales smiled. “Yes, Mr. President, a habit of which I heartily approve. Your concern for my people, and for justice in my country, is very much appreciated, not only by me and Mrs. Morales, but by every freedom-loving Panamanian.”

  Morales looked at Chamberlain, a heavyset Texan who’d been elected to the Senate for seven consecutive terms and who anchored the Republican conservative caucus. “You, sir, of course, have always shared President Manning’s love of freedom. I bring you fond wishes from my wife.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “And, when you are elected the next president of the United States, Mr. Vice-President, our fight together for justice and democracy will continue.”

  “I can pledge you that, Colonel,” Thornton said. “Your cause is my cause.”

  “Sí, and I am grateful.”

  Secretary Budd said flatly, “We wanted to meet today, Colonel, to discuss certain realities that might have to be faced in November.”

  A wide, radiant smile had been on Morales’s face from the moment he entered the room; Budd’s words caused it to fade.

  “I suggest we have lunch,” Manning said, “then get down to business. I don’t have much time.” He touched a button on the side of the table, and three waiters appeared. “We’re ready,” the president said wearily. He slumped back in his chair and sighed.

  After twenty minutes of aimless chat between the Americans and Morales, the waiters cleared the remains of a grilled swordfish and avocado salad, biscuits, and rice pudding, and served coffee. Secretary Budd then leveled with Morales. “To be blunt, Colonel Morales, we in the administration don’t see any hope of further aid to you before President Manning’s term ends.”

  Morales lighted a cigarette and drew deeply on it. He looked at Senator Chamberlain, whose cigar added to the rising blue smoke in the room. “There is no possibility of passage of the new aid bill in Congress?”

  “Afraid not,” Chamberlain said, coughing. “It’s dead, absolutely dead. Damn shame.”

  “Yes, especially for my people, many of whom will be dead as a result. Of course …” He looked at Raymond Thornton, who sat ramrod straight. “You will be the next president, Mr. Thornton.” The smile returned to Morales’s broad face.

  Thornton spoke in measured tones. “Colonel, we fully expect victory in November, but, as you know, nothing is certain on Election Day. Promises to be a tight race. We expect Senator Ewald to be the choice the Democrats will make, and—”

  The president interrupted. “Senator Ewald has considerable popularity, Colonel Morales. It is my estimation that the next administration will probably be a Democratic one.”

  “That might be overstating things a bit, Mr. President,” Thornton said, his voice less modulated now. “I wouldn’t write us off yet.”

  “I’m too old, Raymond, to indulge in flights of fancy,” Manning replied. “The country’s ready for a change. It’s the cycle.” To Morales, he said, “We vote in cycles in this country, Colonel. We’ve had a long Republican run, and the odds are against it continuing any longer. As I said, you and your people had better be looking for other ways to regain power.”

  “I see,” Morales said. “There is, of course, the private sector that continues to help us.”

  “Not as much as it did before,” Secretary Budd said. “Any further help from individuals is going to have to be given with much more discretion than in the past. The indictments and the media have seen to that.”

  “The Reverend Kane has pledged his continued support to me,” Morales said. “He has told me as recently as yesterday that he will continue to fund the missions he has established in my country.”

  Reverend Garrett Kane presided over the most popular and richest television evangelical ministry in America. Blessed with a voice that one writer had described as sounding like “a one-man gang,” and with bright blue eyes that promised each television viewer he was speaking only to him or her, Kane had avoided the pits into which other TV evangelists had sunk in recent years. His ministry’s financial house was in meticulous order. The Kanes—his wife’s name was Martha, although she was popularly known as Bunny—lived a relatively modest personal life, Buicks rather than Jaguars, expensive but conservative clothing, a house in the hills of California’s Orange County that would have been appropriate for the president of any medium-sized high-tech company. As Kane explained it, “Jesus meant for us to live decently, but the man who needs to display his wealth is a man for whom Jesus would have wept in sympathetic contempt.”

  Garrett Kane had not lined his pockets with the millions that poured into his offices every week. Instead, they were directed to other causes precious to him: “Our artistic endeavors will forever mark us as a civilized and a decent people!” or, “The extent to which we devote our God-given energies and resources to eradicate from this earth the evils of Godless Communism shall determine, in the eyes of the Lord, our eventual place in His everlasting kingdom.” His favorite cause was the guerrilla resistance movement in Panama, where for years “freedom fighters” had been engaged on behalf of Colonel Gilbert Morales in an attempt to overthrow the regime in power. According to the Manning administration, Morales, and Garrett Kane, the regime was Communist-directed.

  President Manning pushed back in his chair and stood. “Colonel Morales, thank you for joining us for lunch. You, and what you stand for, will always have a place at my table.”

  Secretary Budd stood, too, and said, “Serving you lunch is one thing, Colonel. Money for your cause is another. The reality is that every sign points to Senator Ewald succeeding this president next January. Ewald, as you are well aware, not only vows to cut off any hope of further aid to your cause, he’s been pushing for an investigation into Reverend Kane’s financial support of you. Those so-called humanitarian missions Reverend Kane has set up in your country are pretty transparent. I wouldn’t bank on Kane’s support much longer.”

  Morales was led downstairs by Undersecretary Morse. Thornton left the White House for a campaign meeting across town, while Secretary of State Budd accompanied the president to the Oval Office.

  “I think I’ll take a nap,” Manning said.

  “You have two appointments this afternoon, Mr. President. The Canadian trade delegation is due here in fifteen minutes, and—”

  “Why are they coming?”

  Budd frowned. “To discuss extending the free-trade agreement into other areas. We met on that yesterday, remember?”

  The president stood in the middle of the room, confusion on his face.

  “Sir, I can always …”

  Manning’s tone was suddenly angry. “I’ll meet with them. I thought you meant some other group that I hadn’t agreed to meet with. Let’s be a little clearer around here in our communications.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Gilbert Morales and his aide climbed into the backseat of a very long black limousine. Seated on two jump seats were armed bodyguards. Another sat in the front passenger seat, a sawed-off shotgun on the floor beneath his feet. The driver turned and looked at Morales, whose face reflected his frustration. He shook his head and peered through the window at the White House. He realized the driver was waiting for instructions. “Headquarters,” he said.

  Fifteen minutes later, Morales and his entourage rode the elevator to the eighth floor of an office building across from the Kennedy Center and entered the Panamanian Maritime Mission. Morales ignored the receptionist’s greeting and went into a large office on whose door was a sign: DIRECTOR. He picked up a phone and dialed a number. When a male voice answered, Morales said, “Where is Miguel?”

  The person on the other end, who seemed confused at the question, said after a false start, “He is on his way to the airport, Colonel. You instructed us to—”

  “Bring him back. We
may have need of him again.”

  Morales hung up the phone and looked at the morning’s newspaper on his desk. A portrait of Andrea Feldman dominated the space. A headline accompanying the photo read EWALD CAMPAIGN AIDE SLAIN.

  He stared at the paper, then picked up the phone and dialed long distance.

  “Kane Ministries,” a pleasant female voice answered.

  “This is Colonel Gilbert Morales. I must speak with him.”

  7

  Smith placed a number of calls after meeting with Ken and Leslie Ewald. He was unable to reach MPD detective Joe Riga, but did connect with Rhonda Hamilton, a good friend and one of Washington’s best-known investigative journalists. They would get together for a quick lunch at the Foggy Bottom Cafe, a few blocks from his house.

  He was about to walk Rufus when the phone rang.

  “Mac, it’s Leslie.”

  “I was just on my way out. How are things?”

  “Horrible. Could we talk again today? I need very much to see you.”

  “Yes, of course. Has something else happened?”

  “It’s all so confusing, Mac, and I desperately need a steady hand like yours to help sort it out. I know I’m imposing but …”

  “No imposition, Leslie. I’m meeting someone for lunch, have a faculty meeting at three, a wasted hour, but I’ll be free after that.”

  “Could you come by the house at five?”

  “I’ll be there.”

  “Thank you, Mac.”

  “Don’t be silly. Is there something I should be thinking about before I get there?”

  She sighed. “No, I’ll explain when I see you.”

  The phone rang again. It was Annabel Reed.

  “Where are you?” Smith asked. “At the airport?”

  “No, I caught an earlier shuttle. I just arrived at the gallery.”

  Annabel’s art gallery, located in Georgetown, specialized in pre-Colombian art. Like Mac Smith, she’d given up a lucrative practice, although their reasons for abandoning law were different. For Smith, it had been fatigue and disillusionment. For Annabel, it represented a more positive career change. Art, particularly pre-Colombian, had begun as an interest, then became her passion. As law had once been for her.

  She’d graduated with every conceivable honor from George Washington University Law School, and within four years had built a reputation in Washington as an effective, shrewd, and compassionate attorney. Much of her practice was in divorce cases. Unlike some women specializing in that often-distasteful area of law, she was not known solely as a champion of women’s rights. She viewed men going through the pain of divorce with equal sympathy and understanding. At least, she tried to. Whatever her approach and philosophy, they worked, and her income reflected it.

  Then she’d bought a half-interest in the gallery from an elderly friend who’d retired as curator of the pre-Colombian collection at Dumbarton Oaks, and who’d opened the gallery to fill his retirement days. It was becoming too successful, to the chagrin of his wife, who viewed their retirement as a chance to travel. He needed a partner, and offered Annabel the chance. She didn’t hesitate, although she was less than completely honest about why she bought in. She rationalized to friends—more important, to herself—that she’d simply made a wise investment. But she knew deep down that going into the gallery would be a first step toward leaving the law and indulging herself in something with which she had greater psychic affinity. When her partner became terminally ill, she bought his half, continued to practice law and to oversee the gallery’s growth for a year, then announced she was closing her offices.

  “I heard in the cab what happened last night,” she said. “How horrible. You knew her?”

  “Yes. Some. I worked with Andrea Feldman on the gala committee. Smart as a whip. She’d been on Ken’s staff for about a year. It was a shock to everyone.”

  “I heard Brian Burns on WRC quoting the police as saying they have a lead in the murder.”

  “Really? They say who?”

  “No. I think they said there’d be a press conference tomorrow morning. The cabbie started talking, and I missed the rest.”

  “There are some upsetting aspects to this where Ken is concerned,” Smith said.

  “Yes, the cab driver told me the weapon belonged to Ken. Does that mean …?”

  “They’ve traced it to him already? I didn’t know that.” He mentioned his scheduled five o’clock meeting at Ewald’s house.

  “I thought we were having dinner.”

  “We are, after I see Ken and Leslie. Feel like Italian? I thought we’d go to Primi Piatti.”

  “Too heavy,” she said. “I’ve been wanting to go back to Nicholas.”

  “Fine with me. See you there at seven?”

  “You aren’t picking me up?”

  “I’m not sure how long I’ll be with them.” When she didn’t say anything, he said, “Seven. At the bar. We’ll have a drink. I’ll make a dinner reservation for seven-thirty.”

  “All right.”

  Rufus roared his desire for a walk as Smith hung up. “In a minute,” he said, dialing a number.

  “WRC,” a woman answered.

  “Rhonda Harrison, please. Mac Smith calling.”

  “Hello, Mac, canceling lunch on me?”

  “Of course not. Look, someone just told me that Brian Burns reported a break in the Feldman case.”

  “Right,” she said. “Brian got it from a source at MPD.”

  “Specifics?”

  “No, except having found the weapon. It was registered to Senator Ewald.”

  “Is there a press conference tomorrow?”

  “Supposedly, although we can’t confirm it. Another MPD surprise party.”

  “A surprise press conference?” Smith laughed. “Should produce a hell of a crowd. Can I talk to Brian?”

  “He’s in the booth. Want him to call you?”

  “If he has any hard news. I’ll be out for ten minutes. Thanks, Rhonda. See you at lunch.”

  As he walked Rufus, Smith felt the surge, the charge, and realized that events last night had opened a small valve in his body, releasing a shot of adrenaline. He was ambivalent about the sensation. Before he’d retreated to the life of a college professor—a decision he made shortly after his wife and son were killed by a drunk driver on the Beltway—those valves used to open all at once, sending a rush of energy and excitement through him. He lived for those moments, was sustained by them.

  Not anymore. Those valves had been rusted shut for a time, and he’d become used to doing without the juices.

  Until now. This moment.

  Rufus pulled on his leash in all directions, large nose to the ground bombarded by the scent of leaves, stilted grass, bricks and concrete, iron railings wet-marked as calling cards by previous visitors out for a walk, and discarded fast-food wrappers, several of which Smith picked up and tossed in a neighbor’s garbage can. “Slobs,” he muttered.

  Rhonda Harrison was seated at the Foggy Bottom Cafe’s small bar when Smith arrived. The restaurant, located in the River Inn on Twenty-fifth Street N.W., was packed. Groups of people waited in the hotel’s lobby for tables to open.

  “Hi, Mac,” she said as Smith managed to squeeze in behind her.

  “Hello, Rhonda. They must be giving away the onion rings.”

  “Looks like it.” She was an attractive woman in her early thirties. Inky hair cropped close made her small cordovan face seem larger than it was, and the overall effect was pleasing. She’d been with WRC for six years, and in that time had established herself as a tough but fair reporter who had the knack for getting a news source to talk, and who could find in a story an angle others missed. Besides broadcasting, she’d also been doing a considerable amount of writing lately, long, substantial investigative pieces for magazines.

  “Mr. Smith,” the bartender said over the multiple conversations along the bar. “Your usual?”

  “Sure.” He turned to Rhonda. “Want some onion rings to get
started?” She nodded, and he added them to his drink order. Soon a heaping plate of one of the inn’s specialties stood next to Harrison’s Bloody Mary, and the glass of Tecate beer with coarse salt and lime that had been served Smith. “Health,” he said, raising his glass.

  She returned the toast.

  “What’s new?” he asked.

  “Personal, professional, family, or the Andrea Feldman murder?”

  “Your choice, but if we opt for Feldman, let’s take a walk.”

  “Sure, okay, let’s see,” she said in a voice that was familiar to her listeners. “I have fallen madly in love with the man who will be my husband as soon as I get up the guts to ask him out. I got a raise yesterday. My agent sold a piece to Esquire. My family, what’s left of it, is fine. Okay? That’s my capsule update.”

  Smith placed a large hand lightly on her shoulder. “I’ll be invited to the wedding, of course.”

  “Of course.” She looked around; no one was paying particular attention to them. She leaned close to Smith’s ear and said, “Your friend the senator is in some mess.”

  He hadn’t expected such a direct statement from her, and his hesitant response testified to his surprise. “Tell me about it,” he said.

  “I was going to ask you the same thing. Rumor has it that you’re smack dab in the middle of it.”

  “Who’s putting that out?”

  He felt a shrug of her slender shoulders beneath his hand. “MPD, some press sources. Brian told me.”

  “Time for that walk,” he said. He told the bartender they’d be back, and they went outside. He asked what Brian Burns had told her.

  “That you’ve been called in to handle defense in the event someone in the family is charged with her murder.”

  “That’s news to me, Rhonda. Last I heard, nobody’s been charged with anything.”

  “I know that, Mac, but the scuttlebutt is that the MPD is looking very seriously in that direction. What will you do, take a leave of absence from the university?”

  “Washington, D.C.,” Smith growled, “a city of tightly guarded, widely circulated secrets. Where did they find the weapon?”

  “I have no idea.”