Murder at Ford's Theatre (17 page)

TWENTY-ONE

“M
AYBE YOU
’
D BETTER TELL ME
about it, Jeremiah,” Smith said. “The truth this time. And do not call me ‘dude.’”

Senator Lerner could barely contain his anger. He stood at the window, his back to the room, taking in air to calm himself.

“How close were you to Nadia?” Smith asked Jeremiah.

“Just a couple a’ dates. That’s all.”

“What’s a couple?” Smith asked. “Two? Four?”

Jeremiah responded angrily. “How the hell do I know? It’s not like she was my girlfriend or something. She was wild, man, hot, loved a good time, so, like, I showed it to her a couple a’ times.”

“Damn it, Jeremiah, show some respect,” Senator Lerner growled. “Why did you lie to the police?”

“’Cause they’d think I had something to do with her murder. Man, what is this, some kind of railroad job?” He turned to Smith, his face red with anger. “What kind of lawyer are you, huh? They beat me up. How come you’re not suin’ them for police brutality?”

Senator Lerner approached. He looked down with disgust at his son, and Smith wondered if he was about to strike him. Lerner asked Smith, “How serious is this?”

“Very serious,” Smith replied. “The detectives who were here will write their report, reflecting what Jeremiah has told them. If he ends up charged and goes to trial, they’ll use these lies against him. My suggestion is that I call them, ask them to come back, tell them Jeremiah wishes to correct some misstatements he made, and get him on the record with the truth.”

Smith said to Jeremiah, “But I have to know the whole story, Jeremiah, before I can proceed in your defense. Did you kill her?”

Jeremiah erupted. He jumped up, smashed his fist into the back of the chair, knocking it over, and stormed from the room. His father called after him to no avail.

“Damn kids!” Lerner spewed, taking the chair behind his desk.

“Some kids are their own worst enemies, Senator. They think they know everything, and don’t realize the ramifications of their actions. It’s obvious that your son is going to face some tougher times in the weeks ahead, whether he had anything to do with the girl’s death or not. His attitude won’t help.”

Lerner started to reply, but Smith said, “I don’t have your son’s faith as an attorney, which is necessary. It would be better if you found someone else to represent him.”

“Absolutely not,” Lerner said with a slap of his hand on the desk. “Clarise says you’re the best defense lawyer in town, and—”

“Clarise is being kind. I retired from criminal law years ago, and have been teaching at GW. My former law partner, Yale Becker, has agreed to become involved, too.”

“Of course. I knew you were a professor, and Mr. Becker’s reputation is certainly known to me.” He’d calmed down and was again the senator, in charge and sure of himself. “I appreciate your agreeing to help us. I’m sure it wasn’t an easy decision.”

Smith righted the chair Jeremiah had toppled and sat in it. What had been a sunny sky was now overcast; light through the windows was flat and gray. Lerner looked older than when Mac had first arrived. He sat behind his desk, chin resting on clenched hands, eyes focused on the desktop but thoughts elsewhere. He asked absently, “You have kids, Mac?”

“I did. A son. He and my first wife were killed by a drunk driver on the Beltway.”

Lerner’s voice didn’t change in response to that grim statement. “They break your heart, don’t they?” he said.

Smith didn’t know how to respond. Yes, his heart had been broken, but not by his son—by an irresponsible drunk who ended up being convicted of negligent manslaughter. Where was he now? What was he doing? Did he wake up in the middle of the night as Smith sometimes did and recoil at the horrible memory of that rainy night?

“What’d the drunk get, a slap on the wrist and probation?”

“Four years.”

Lerner snickered. “Obviously some wimp of a judge put on the bench by the liberals.”

Smith sat in silence.

“You give all you can to your kids, Mac, and they turn on you. Like Jeremiah. He wanted for nothing, was taught to be a good citizen, work hard, make something of himself.” He suddenly straightened, as though struck by an important thought. “Is this indicative of where young people are heading today?”

“Not all young people,” Smith said, thinking of the Lee J. Cobb role in
Twelve Angry Men,
the vengeful juror who’d been disappointed by a son and took it out on a young defendant.

“They’ve got their values wrong, Mac. They get twisted messages from the media, movies, TV, those damn video games. The liberals don’t seem to care what kind of garbage they fill kids’ heads with these days. There’s a lot of blame to be laid there.”

Mac hadn’t expected to be on the receiving end of a political speech. Lerner’s conservative politics were well known. Had his right-wing beliefs butted heads with Clarise’s more liberal thinking, and contributed to the breakup of their marriage? It didn’t matter. Politics, and any discussion of it, seemed grossly out of place at that moment.

“I’d like to spend more time with Jeremiah, Senator, before I leave.”

“Yes, I’m sure you would. So would I. Maybe this situation has rammed enough fear into him that he’ll sit down and listen to reason.” He slowly got up and came around the desk. “I’ll get him.”

But before he could leave the room, the sound of a powerful automobile engine was heard from downstairs. A garage door opened, a car door slammed shut, and the vehicle noisily left. Senator Lerner peered out the window and saw his black vintage Jaguar head down the street and disappear around a corner.

“He’s gone,” Lerner said.

“That’s a shame,” Smith said. “Any idea where he might go?”

“None at all. I’m sorry, Mac, for the trouble he’s causing you. Maybe you can see what Clarise and I have had to put up with all these years.”

“Well,” Smith said, standing, “at least he must have found another pair of shoes.”

“Oh, he had another pair upstairs. That detective didn’t see them, and I didn’t see any reason to mention them to him.”

Just answer the questions, offer nothing.
Smith had delivered that sage legal advice to countless criminal defendants over the years. Evidently, the senator had received the same wisdom, or naturally came by it.

“I’ll be going,” Smith said. “I suggest you do everything possible to find Jeremiah and bring him back here.”

“I’ll do that, Mac. Everything that’s happened stays in this room.”

“Of course.”

The phone rang. Lerner picked it up and launched into an animated conversation with the caller. He waved good-bye to Smith, who left the house and headed home, stopping on the way at Annabel’s gallery, where she was taking inventory of pre-Columbian pieces displayed on the shelves, and those stored in a back room.

“How did it go?” she asked.

“Not well.”

He’d realized as he drove there that since meeting, falling in love with, and marrying Annabel, he’d been faced only a few times with the dilemma of balancing attorney-client confidentiality with a need to discuss things with her. When married to his first wife, he’d made the decision whether to discuss a case on an individual basis. Most lawyers he knew, depending upon the solidarity of their marriages—as well as their faith in their wives to keep secrets—would discuss certain cases in which they were involved. You had to talk to someone. He decided early on that he would bring Annabel in on everything that was occurring. She, too, was a lawyer, and had been instrumental in convincing him to help Jeremiah and his parents. She knew the players. Most important, he hadn’t the slightest fear that what he told her would escape the confines of the gallery, or their apartment.

“He’s in trouble,” he said. “He now admits that—”

The door opened, and a well-dressed couple came in to browse.

“I’m going to run by the school, Annie,” Mac said, kissing her on the cheek. “Feel like dinner out?”

“Sure.”

“Meet you at home at six. We’ll go from there.”

He’d no sooner settled in his office at the university when Dean Mackin looked in. “Got a minute, Mac?” he said.

“Sure.”

“We’ve been getting calls from the media wanting to interview you,” said the dean.

“They’re on the prowl, huh?” Smith said with a small laugh. “Sorry if they’re bothering you. Give me their names and numbers and I’ll get back to them. Maybe.”

“More than you bargained for,” Mackin said.

Smith’s expression invited elucidation.

“You didn’t think you’d end up on a murder case, did you?”

Smith leaned back and held up his hands. “Wait a minute,” he said. “Where did you hear this?”

“On the news a few minutes ago.”

“On the news? What did they say?”

Mackin assumed an announcer’s voice: “A highly placed but reliable source has told this station that Jeremiah Lerner, the son of Senator Bruce Lerner, and of Clarise Emerson, who’s been nominated to head the NEA, has emerged as a suspect in the murder earlier this week of a young woman at Ford’s Theatre. This is the same young woman rumored to have had an affair with the senator . . . etc., etc., etc.”

“The MPD is a sieve,” Smith said.

“It’s true, Mac?”

“He’s been questioned about it, Ralph. That’s all.”

“The newscast makes it sound more serious than that.”

“Trust the press to get it wrong,” Smith said.

He didn’t want to mislead the dean, but also was reluctant to share what he knew. What
did
he know? Only that despite earlier protests to the contrary, Jeremiah had dated Nadia Zarinski. No crime in that, although denying it could do nothing but raise suspicions. The police had asked whether Jeremiah would participate in a lineup. That could only mean they had someone claiming to have witnessed the murder, or events closely allied with it. And what about obtaining a warrant for Jeremiah’s shoes? Undoubtedly, footprints had been lifted from the scene of the murder, and the police wanted to match sole patterns with those prints. What concerned him most was his conviction that Jeremiah’s shoes were the only ones seized under warrant. He hoped he was wrong. But if he was right, it meant Jeremiah was now the prime suspect in Nadia Zarinski’s killing.

Where had Jeremiah gone? Hopefully, he’d drive around a while to cool off, and return to his father’s house. But if he’d decided to flee, his problems would be compounded. He’d been released to his father’s care. The court would be calling to check on him. The police would undoubtedly want to interview him again. The hole he was digging was getting deeper; soon, it might be too deep to climb out of.

“Mac.”

“Yes?”

“Sure you don’t want to reconsider?”

“No, I’m not sure. I’ve been questioning it ever since I first became involved.”

“My recommendation?”

“Shoot.”

“Leave the matter to Yale Becker. I know you want to help friends, and I admire that. But by bringing in Yale, you’ve already done your friends a huge favor.”

Smith nodded.

“There’s also the question of the university, Mac. Becoming embroiled in a scandalous murder case, especially one involving such high-visibility people, could kick back on us, on our fund-raising efforts, to say the least.”

Smith wished Dean Mackin hadn’t injected fund-raising into the equation. A young woman had been brutally murdered, and a young man, as unpleasant as he might be, faced possible indictment as the murderer. Smith knew, of course, and was respectful of any university’s need to raise funds, and was not reacting personally to Mackin’s comment. Among the dean’s many responsibilities was the need to generate contributions to further the law school’s programs. Mac had taken part in his share of events designed to do that.

But we teach the law here,
he thought,
not fund-raising.
He’d made a commitment to Clarise Emerson and to Yale Becker, and commitments were important to Mackensie Smith.

“Think about it, Mac,” said the dean.

“I will, Ralph. Thanks.”

Dean Mackin left the office, stopped, returned, and said, “I’m getting nothing but positive feedback on your Lincoln course. The Saturday session had to be closed.”

“The Saturday session,” Mac repeated. “That’s tomorrow. I’d almost forgotten.”

“Mustn’t do that, Mac. You’d have a classroom full of very unhappy students.”

Smith realized he wasn’t in the mood for paperwork, packed up, and left the building for home. As he did, Klayman and Johnson were at American University talking again with the student, Joe Cole.

They began by asking a series of questions similar to what they’d asked during their previous visit, and received basically the same answers. Yes, he’d dated her; yes, they’d been together the previous Saturday night; yes, they’d made love at her apartment; and yes, he’d left and returned to his room in the dorm.

“You were pretty pissed, weren’t you?” Johnson said, leaning against the closed door.

Cole displayed his most charming smile from where he sat on his bed. “Why should I be pissed? Come on, guys. We had a great roll in the sack. What would I be mad about?”

“The other guy she talked about,” Klayman said. “That’s what.”

“What other guy?”

“The one she compared you to,” said Johnson. “The one she said was better in bed than you.”

The smile faded. “How do you know that?” Cole asked.

“What’d she do, laugh at your sexual performance?” Johnson asked. “If some woman did that to me, I’d be pretty mad, too.”

“She never said anything to me about that. I mean, about the other guy being better.”

Klayman, who’d been content to allow Johnson take the lead, spoke. “So she
did
talk about another guy,” he said.

Cole nodded.

“Who?” They’d decided on the way to the campus to not offer that they knew about Jeremiah and his alleged relationship to Nadia. Hopefully, the other students who’d told them about Cole dating Nadia, and being angry over her comments about Lerner, wouldn’t have shared it with him, considering his BMOC status.

“Lerner. Jerry Lerner.”

When they didn’t respond, Cole added, “He’s already a suspect, right? I heard it on the news.”