Murder at Ford's Theatre (16 page)

“About the murder?”

“I guess so. Why don’t you tell Smith and the other lawyer to sue the city for police brutality? That’s what they ought to be doing.”

“I’m sure they’ll consider that in due time. Now listen to me, Jeremiah. It is vitally important that you do what the lawyers tell you to do, and that you not do anything wrong. Your father and I cannot have you doing things that put us in a bad light. Do you understand?”

“Sure.”

“Good. Jeremiah, unfortunately this is an especially busy time for me. You know I have to go through a hearing in the Senate about heading the NEA, and there’s so much going on at the theatre. But when it’s all over, you and I are due to go away on a long, well-deserved vacation. Just the two of us. You pick the place—the Caribbean, Mexico, Europe, wherever you say. How does that sound?”

“Okay, I guess. Sure. Whenever you’re not so busy.”

“Fine. I’ll call later today after you’ve seen the police and the lawyers. Just be good, Jeremiah. This all will be over soon, and we can go away and laugh about it.”

“Okay. Bye.”

The click was loud in her ear.

She placed a series of calls from the patio, including one to Mac Smith, whom she reached at home.

“I just spoke with Jeremiah, Mac. He says the police are coming to question him this afternoon.”

“That’s right. I’ll be there, too. Yale is tied up with a deposition. Can you be there?”

“I don’t think so, although I’ll try.”

“Well, it’s not urgent that you be there. The senator will be.”

“Oh. Well, that’s good. Will you let me know how it goes?”

“Of course.”

“Mac.”

“Yes?”

“There isn’t any possibility, is there, that they might actually accuse Jeremiah of the murder?”

“Anything is possible, but let’s not even consider that at this juncture, Clarise. I’ll be in touch later today.”

She felt satisfied after the call. She left the house and returned to Ford’s Theatre where, in the structured refuge of work, things seemed to be less confusing on the personal front. What she didn’t know was that after she and Smith had concluded their conversation, he’d turned to Annabel and said, “When this is over, I don’t think I’ll ever view Clarise the same way as before it happened. I knew she was ambitious, and admired that ambition and her successes, but she is one cold woman, Annie. She’s ice.”

“And we’ve seen her when that ice has thawed, Mac. Let’s not rush to judgment.”

He smiled and kissed her. She was right, of course. He’d spent most of his professional life fighting prosecutors who’d jumped to judgment in indicting some of his clients, and secretly considered himself to be a thoughtful and not-too-quickly judgmental person.

“I’m glad you decided to become involved,” she said, returning the kiss.

“The jury is still out on that, Annabel. But I’m glad you’re glad. See you tonight.”

TWENTY

“I
MPRESSIVE,
C
LARISE.
Most impressive. I just wish all the groups with which I’m involved had their financials in order the way you’ve managed.”

“I’d love to take the credit, Sol, but I can’t. The credit belongs over there.” She pointed to Crowley, who stood in a knot of members of the finance committee. “I hired smart.”

“The sign of a good administrator,” Sol Wexler, chairman of the theatre’s finance committee, said. “Well, no matter where the credit belongs, the numbers look solid.”

Another member of the committee interrupted to offer congratulations. The woman, barely five feet tall, expensively dressed, tanned, and with silver hair expertly arranged—and whose life was a series of meetings of boards and committees to which she belonged—took Clarise aside. “I just want you to know, my dear, that the board stands solidly behind you in this dreadful mess you’ve found yourself in.”

Clarise’s blank expression prompted the woman to say, “The business with your son.”

“Oh, yes. It’s all a mistake. I’m sure it will be settled shortly.”

“I certainly hope so. We’ll miss you once you’ve gone over to the NEA, but I know your heart will still be here at Ford’s.”

“You can count on that, Melinda.”

The finance committee member leaned closer and became conspiratorial. “Is it true that your son is suspected of—”

“No, of course not. As I said, it’s all a mistake, bureaucratic fumbling.”

“Well, as long as it doesn’t jeopardize your confirmation to the NEA. You know how politicians can twist things and use them for their partisan advantage. We’re with you, Clarise.” She squeezed Clarise’s arm as physical affirmation of her support, and left to speak with someone else.

An understanding and supportive Crowley filled the void at Clarise’s side.

“Pleased?” he asked.

“Oh, yes, Bernard. The presentation was top-notch. Truly professional. Everyone is impressed with your efforts in getting our finances in order. Well done!”

“Thank you. By the way, I spoke with the assistant director on the teen show, Ms. Riva.”

“And?”

“She says that despite Sydney’s absence”—he chuckled—“in fact, she said it might be
because
he’s not here, the show is in good shape. No hitches. I just wanted to put your mind at ease on that front.”

Truth was, Clarise hadn’t given that production a thought. But she thanked him for following up as he’d promised, and excused herself to go to the rest room. Once there, she checked her watch. One-thirty. The police and Mac Smith would be on their way to her former husband’s house to question their son. She was tempted to jump in her car and drive there to be present during what would surely be an ordeal for Jeremiah. But knowing Bruce was planning to be on hand led her to abandon that idea. She had unbridled confidence that Mac Smith would provide all the necessary legal protection for her son, and prevent any abuse of his rights.

She went to her office, closed the door, and began poring over the possible questions that Senator Sybers and his committee might raise at her confirmation hearing, and the kind of answers she’d been instructed by her handlers to give.

Compartmentalize.

It worked. Her only thoughts were of the hearing, and how she would breeze through it, Sybers and his outdated view of art, morality, and women be damned!

“Y
OU EVER BEEN
to a U.S. senator’s house before?” Johnson asked.

Klayman turned a corner and said, “Oh, sure. Once a week at least.”

They’d left First District headquarters at 1:45 to drive to Senator Bruce Lerner’s home in Kalorama.

“Hathaway says the senator’ll be there, loaded for bear.”

“So I hear. Mac Smith, too.”

“The lawyer?”

“Yeah. I’m going to his class tomorrow.”

“You are? How come?”

Klayman explained the nature of Smith’s class, and why it appealed to him.

“Man, you’d better be careful.”

“Why?”

“Don’t talk to him about the case.”

“Of course not. I’m not stupid.”

Johnson said nothing; Klayman looked over at him.

“No, no, Ricky, I didn’t say you were. Just be careful, that’s all. You have the warrant?”

“Uh-huh. Right here.” He patted his jacket’s breast pocket.

They were escorted into the house by a maid and led to Lerner’s study, where the senator, Mac Smith, and Jeremiah Lerner waited. After introductions, they were invited to sit on a couch across from two leather armchairs occupied by Jeremiah and Smith, on the opposite side of a coffee table. The senator, dressed in a British-cut dark blue suit, white shirt, and burgundy tie, stood at the edge of the desk, a dispassionate expression on his craggy, handsome face.

“A question,” Smith said to open the discussion. “Has Jeremiah been targeted as a suspect in the murder of Nadia Zarinski?”

“No, sir,” Klayman answered. “We just want to ask him some questions about his relationship with the deceased.”

“I told you I didn’t have one!” Jeremiah said.

Smith put his hand on the young man’s arm to quiet him, and said to the detectives, “Any questions about the assault or resisting charges are off the table for now.” He looked pointedly at Johnson, who’d been on the receiving end of Jeremiah’s punch at the Millennium Arts Center. Johnson nodded.

“Okay,” Smith said, “ask away.”

S
MITH,
J
EREMIAH, AND
S
ENATOR
L
ERNER
had met before the detectives arrived. During that meeting, Smith told Jeremiah that he did not have to answer any of the police’s questions, and suggested that he not—“. . . in the event you have information about the victim, or the murder itself, that might be incriminating.”

Jeremiah had assured Smith he had no reason to not answer questions: He did not know Nadia Zarinski, had never even met her.

“Why, then, Jeremiah, are people—the police say there are two people—saying that you not only knew her, but that you’d had some sort of a romantic relationship with her?”

“I don’t know. Whoever they are, they’re liars.”

But Smith was now convinced that the only lying was coming from Jeremiah’s lips. What was the young man thinking, that by denying it, he could will it to be the truth? Deny, deny, deny, and you’ll eventually be believed? Had growing up in Washington, D.C., contributed to Jeremiah’s belief, a city where lying was routinely indulged in, and plenty of people got rich teaching others the subtle art of misinformation, so-called?

K
LAYMAN ASKED THE SAME QUESTIONS
while Johnson noted the answers in a small spiral pad, and received responses identical to what Jeremiah had told Smith.

“Who are the people who claim that Jeremiah knew the deceased?” Smith asked. He knew the answer about one of them, a student at American University.

“We’re not at liberty to divulge that at this point in the investigation,” Klayman replied.

“I thought you could face your accusers,” Jeremiah said. “That’s the law or something, isn’t it?”

Klayman ignored the comment and asked, “Where were you last Monday night, Mr. Lerner?”

Jeremiah didn’t respond.

“Answer the question, son,” the senator said, the first words he’d spoken since the questioning began.

“I don’t remember,” said Jeremiah. “I was home, I think.”

“In your apartment in Adams-Morgan?” Klayman asked.

“Yeah.”

“Anybody there with you, your roommate, a date, anybody?”

Jeremiah shook his head.

“Nobody to confirm you were there? Did you leave the apartment that night?”

“I don’t think so. No, I stayed there all night.”

“Last night of the long weekend?” Johnson said, looking up from his notebook. “No partying?”

Smith injected, “This isn’t a trial, gentlemen. This isn’t cross-examination. You’ve asked your questions, and he’s given you his answers. Move on.”

Klayman and Johnson glanced at each other; both were thinking the same thing:
The kid’s lying.

Klayman continued. “Would you be willing to appear in a lineup, Mr. Lerner?”

“No, he wouldn’t,” Smith said. Did they have a witness to the murder? he wondered. “Next?” he said.

Before Klayman could ask another question, Senator Lerner left the desk, came around behind Jeremiah, and placed his hand on his son’s shoulder. “I believe we’ve been extremely cooperative, gentlemen,” he said in measured tones, as though beginning a speech on the Senate floor. “But I think it’s time for this to end. Are there any last-minute questions you have, any final pieces of business? If not, I’d appreciate my son and I being left alone.”

Klayman and Johnson said nothing for a few moments. Klayman looked at Smith, whose posture and expression were noncommittal. Finally, Klayman pulled a piece of paper from his pocket and said to Jeremiah, “We have a warrant for your shoes, Mr. Lerner,” realizing as he said it that it sounded like a joke.

“His shoes?” Smith said, taking the warrant from Klayman.

“That’s correct,” said Johnson. “Are those the only pair of shoes in your possession, Jeremiah?”

“This is ridiculous,” the senator said.

Klayman and Johnson stood. “Sir,” Klayman said, “the warrant is valid. It extends to your son’s apartment, too. Officers are there as we speak.” To Jeremiah, who’d gotten up and walked to a window overlooking a garden: “Are those Ecco shoes you’re wearing?”

“What?”

“The shoes you’re wearing. They’re Eccos. Right? Are they the only Eccos you own?”

“Yeah. So what?”

“Please remove them and give them to me.”

Jeremiah looked to his father, then to Smith.

“The warrant is valid,” Smith said. “You’ll have to turn them over, Jeremiah.”

“What room is he staying in, Senator?” Johnson asked.

“Upstairs. A guest room.”

“Please take me there, sir.”

As Senator Lerner led the imposing black detective from the study and to the staircase, Jeremiah sat on a window bench and slowly removed his shoes. Klayman picked them up from the floor, careful to hold them by the tongues and to not touch the soles.

Johnson returned a few minutes later and announced, “He doesn’t have any other shoes upstairs, Rick. Let’s go.”

Smith accompanied the detectives to the front door and out to where they’d parked.

“You’re skating on thin ice,” he told them.

“Oh?” said Johnson.

“You said he wasn’t a target in the investigation, but you obtain a warrant for his shoes. How many other pairs of shoes have you gotten a warrant for? How many other possible suspects are walking around barefoot?”

“We just want to—”

Smith cut Johnson off. “I assume you’ve gotten footprints from the scene, and your forensic people say they were made by Ecco shoes.”

“I can’t discuss it, Mr. Smith,” Klayman said.

“Neither can my client. He’s off-limits from now on.”

“Sure,” said Johnson. He looked up at the home they’d just left. “Nice house,” he said.

Smith looked hard at Klayman. “Maybe you’d better reconsider attending my class tomorrow, Detective. I’m liable to flunk you on general principle.”

Klayman grinned. “I’ll take my chances, sir,” he said. “Tomorrow, I’m not a cop, just a student interested in Lincoln the lawyer, and you’re not a defense attorney, just a learned professor. See you then, and please thank the senator for his time. I’m sure he’s a busy guy.”

Smith lingered outside for a few minutes, processing what had transpired, before returning to the study where father and son sat in silence.

“Is there any reason why your footprints would be behind Ford’s Theatre, Jeremiah?” Smith asked.

No one spoke. Then, the senator said in a tone so low, it was difficult to hear him, “Yes, there is.”

Smith took them in, going from one to the other.

“Jeremiah has something to tell you,” the senior Lerner said.

Now, Smith focused his eyes on Jeremiah.

“Yeah, I knew her,” the young man said. “Yeah, I dated her.” He came forward in his chair. “But I didn’t kill her, dude. I did not kill her!”