Murder at Ford's Theatre (29 page)

THIRTY-FIVE

A
NNABEL REALIZED
she hadn’t been paying enough attention lately to the gallery, and decided to spend Wednesday in Georgetown catching up on paperwork and other administrative chores. Despite having had only a few hours’ sleep, she and Mac felt surprisingly awake and alert that morning. They breakfasted on the terrace, with Rufus at their feet.

“What’s on your plate today besides eggs over easy?” she asked.

“Deliver the motion for Clarise to take custody of Jeremiah after his bail is paid, and meet with Yale. We need to sit down with Jeremiah and start from page one. I want to know why his shoe print was found in that alley. Yale is contacting a forensic expert in St. Louis who specializes in shoe prints. The science isn’t all that scientific; we may need testimony to that effect at trial.”

“I can see a battle of the experts looming large in your future,” she said lightly.

“Guaranteed to confuse even the best of juries. Experts usually cancel one another out, and the jury ends up using what common sense it brings into the deliberations. I also want to set up a meeting with LeCour, the U.S. Attorney.”

“To discuss a plea possibility?”

“To hear what he has to say. You can always tell how strong a case the other side has by how lenient they’re willing to be in pleading out a case.”

“You’ve gotten dozens of defendants off who had much tougher cases against them.”

“I wish you wouldn’t put it that way. I prefer thinking that justice prevailed despite strong cases on the other side.” He smiled and looked at his watch. “I’d better walk Rufus and be on my way. I envy you a quiet day with your friends.”

“My friends?”

“Tlatilco and Teotihuacán and—”

She laughed and placed her hand on his. “The humor is in the mispronunciation,” she said playfully. “But you are right. I will enjoy spending the day with my pre-Columbian friends. I do intend to try to catch up with Clarise. The fallout from the announcement has got to make for an overfull day for her.”

“Her decision pleases me,” he said, standing and carrying his dishes into the kitchen, with Annabel close behind. “I think it might be good for Jeremiah—provided, of course, he doesn’t end up behind bars, and provided, of course, she means what she says about taking him with her back to California. It could be the first time she actually becomes a mother to him.”

Mac stopped at the H. Carl Moultrie D.C. courthouse and handed his motion to Judge Walter Jordan’s law clerk before heading for the downtown law offices of Yale Becker, on K Street.

“Where do we stand with bail?” Smith asked after Becker’s secretary had served them coffee.

“Senator Lerner had the funds wired to the court overnight. I’m picking up Jeremiah.”

“
You
? Not the senator?”

“He’s on some junket.” Becker didn’t attempt to disguise his scorn. “You delivered the motion about the mother taking custody?”

“Yeah. The judge has it. Just have to wait for a decision.”

Smith tasted his coffee. It wasn’t as good as what he made at home—he was an inveterate coffee snob—but it would do. He asked, “Have you worked out your fee schedule with the senator?”

“
Our
fee schedule, Mac. No, but it’s on my list.”

They spent the next twenty minutes going over details of the case and determining what pretrial motions to develop. In papers filed with the court, LeCour indicated he wanted to introduce prior acts of violent behavior by the defendant, which Smith and Becker would challenge on the basis of its prejudicial impact outweighing any probative value. Asking for a change of venue based upon the intense media coverage was being debated when Becker’s secretary interrupted: “Judge Jordan’s clerk for you,” she said. Becker took the call.

“The judge has granted your motion, Mac, to allow Jeremiah to reside with his mother,” Becker said after hanging up. “But there’s a caveat. Senator Lerner has to sign off on it.”

Smith shook his head. “The judge doesn’t want to cross a U.S. senator, huh? Not that it makes much difference. Lerner doesn’t want the kid living with him. The problem is getting hold of him. Where’s the junket?”

“Mexico City.”

“Can he be reached?”

Becker instructed his secretary to attempt to make contact with Lerner through his Senate office. He said to Mac, “Jeremiah will just have to cool his heels in jail until this gets straightened out.”

“I don’t want to wait until it is to sit down with Jeremiah and see if we can get a straight story from him.”

“I agree,” said Becker.

A call to the jail resulted in an appointment to meet with their client at two that afternoon.

“Changing the subject,” Becker said, “what’s the inside scoop on his mother dropping out of contention to head the NEA? You know that was coming?”

“Yes. Annabel and I were with her last night until the wee hours this morning.” He briefly recounted part of the discussion that had taken place with Clarise at the Watergate apartment.

When Mac was finished, Becker said, “She didn’t seem like the type to cut and run.”

“We’ve all got our breaking points, Yale,” Smith offered. “We both know people who are rock-solid on the surface but turn to jelly when the spotlight is off. There’s something else involved here that prompted her to drop out, but I don’t know what it is. I do know that her decision makes me more determined than ever to ride this thing through to an acquittal for Jeremiah. As I told Annie, she might one day actually have a shot at enjoying a real mother.”

“That’s nice to contemplate.”

Before leaving, the two attorneys agreed that Smith would visit Jeremiah alone. He left the office and went to the university where he worked on his next Lincoln-the-Lawyer lecture until time to head for the jail.

D
ETECTIVES
K
LAYMAN AND
J
OHNSON WERE BUSY,
too, that Wednesday. They met for most of the morning with U.S. Attorney LeCour, going over evidence against Jeremiah Lerner to be used in his trial. They reviewed written reports of interviews conducted with American University students, particularly Joe Cole, and Klayman’s conversation with Sydney Bancroft in which the actor claimed he was aware that Nadia Zarinski had been dating Jeremiah, and had counseled her against it.

“What kind of witness will Bancroft make?” LeCour asked.

Johnson replied with a snicker, “Oh, he’ll be terrific. He’ll spout Shakespeare and put on a great show. Of course, he’s liable to show up wearing a leopardskin leotard or dragon costume.”

“What is he, nuts?” LeCour asked.

“No, he’s not nuts,” Klayman said, “but he is strange. The problem you’ll have is getting him to simply answer your questions. He’s always on. Kind of pathetic, you know?”

“Has Lerner ever said how his shoe print ended up behind the theatre?” LeCour asked.

“Not to us,” Johnson replied.

“What about the jewelry found in her apartment?” LeCour asked. “Any link to Lerner?”

The detectives shook their heads.

“We’re running down the serial number on the Rolex,” LeCour said. “We should come up with where it was purchased. Hopefully, they’ll have a record of who bought it.”

It was toward the end of their meeting that Johnson said, “Rick here doesn’t think Lerner did it.”

His comment brought a worried expression to LeCour. “What’s this all about?” he asked the young detective.

“It’s not that I don’t think he did it,” Klayman responded, “but it just seems to me that we haven’t taken a hard enough look at other possible suspects.”

“Such as?”

Klayman wasn’t sure whether he should walk through that door opened by LeCour. It wasn’t his responsibility to make such judgments. But now that it was opened, he didn’t have much choice.

“Lots of people,” he said. “Anybody working at the theatre. Her landlord, the husband. Senator Lerner.”

“Oooh, let’s not go there,” LeCour said.

“Why not?” Johnson asked; Klayman was pleased to see his partner step into the conversation. “He was rumored to have been having an affair with her. He wouldn’t be the first high-and-mighty politician under the gun from some young mistress.”

“Blackmail,” LeCour said absently.

“Exactly,” Klayman said. “And what about Jeremiah’s mother? She lied when she said she didn’t know Nadia was hanging around the theatre.”

“Says who?”

“Says Bancroft, the old actor, and Bernard—what’s his name?—Crowley, the theatre’s controller. It’s in our report. There are those stagehands, some of them young, her age. And there’s the similar M.O. in the Connie Marshall killing, and the jewelry she was wearing.”

“What same M.O.?” LeCour scoffed. “Marshall was dumped in the river. Zarinski was left in an alley. No similarity whatsoever.”

“Look,” said Klayman, “I don’t know that somebody else killed her, but if I were you—”

“Yes?” LeCour said.

“If I were you, I’d be prepared for the defense lawyers, Smith and Becker, to make a big deal out of the rush to judgment.”

“You should enroll in law school, detective,” LeCour said. “And I think you watched too much of the O. J. trial.” He stood to indicate the meeting was over.

Klayman was tempted to say he hadn’t watched any of that infamous murder trial, but didn’t bother. Good soldiers, good cops, didn’t argue with superiors. He’d said his piece, and it was time to go. The afternoon would be spent again trying to find witnesses to the drug shooting that had occurred in Southeast, no easy task. Anyone who was in a position to have seen the killing go down was adopting the all too familiar see-and-hear-no-evil posture. You couldn’t blame them. Word got around fast when someone from the neighborhood snitched on a friendly drug dealer. Still, sometimes you got lucky. You had to try.

S
MITH SAT WITH
J
EREMIAH
L
ERNER
in a room reserved for attorney-client conferences. The young man was subdued, although not without an occasional demonstration of testiness. He asked almost immediately why he was still in jail. “I was bailed out, man.”

“That’s right,” Smith said, determined to not allow his client’s volatility to deter his own professional demeanor. “But I’ve applied to the court on your mother’s behalf to have her take responsibility for you while you’re out on bail. The judge wants your father to sign off on that. We’re trying to reach him. He’s on a trip to Mexico City.”

“He won’t care,” Jeremiah said glumly.

Mac didn’t offer his agreement. Instead, he said, “You’ll be out of here as soon as that hurdle has been cleared. Now, let’s get down to business. There are things I must know from you in order to mount a proper defense. Let’s start with why you lied about knowing the victim.”

Jeremiah repeated that he was afraid such an admission would lead the police to suspect him. Smith made notes as Jeremiah talked, not offering his own comments about how that lie had dug a deeper hole for him. After a series of other questions, he got to the shoe issue.

“The imprint of your shoe was found in the alley, Jeremiah. There’s a possibility that we can defuse that through expert testimony. But my question to you is, why was it found there in the first place? Remember, what we say to each other here today is protected by attorney-client privilege. It doesn’t ever go beyond us.”

“I was there, man.”

Jeremiah’s blunt statement caught Smith by surprise. He removed his half-glasses and sat back. “You
were
in the alley that night?”

Jeremiah nodded.

“With Nadia?”

“Yeah.” He leaned into the table. “But I didn’t kill her, man. I swear it.”

“Why were you there?”

“I came to see her. I knew she was at the theatre that night and figured we could go out, get something to eat, you know, then—”

“Don’t assume I know anything, Jeremiah. What did you intend to do, get something to eat and go somewhere to make love?”

“Right. Correct.”

“So, what happened then?”

“So, she gave me a hard time. Man, she could be a bitch sometimes. She said she’d go with me if I had any loot.”

“She wanted money?”

“Right. I got really pissed off. I hit her once, nothing hard, like a slap.”

“What happened then?”

“She yelled at me and went into the theatre.”

“What did you do?”

“I split.”

“Where did you go?”

“Some bar. I don’t remember.”

“So you weren’t at your apartment as you said previously.”

“What difference does it make?”

“It can make all the difference in the world in a murder trial, Jeremiah. Was anyone else in the alley when your confrontation with Nadia took place? Anyone else see it?”

“No.”

“What about the man who identified you in the lineup?”

“Him” He guffawed. “Maybe he was the old geezer sleeping it off back there.”

“Then there
was
someone else.”

“Yeah, the old drunk. He was out like a light.”

“Maybe he wasn’t out as much as you think. Is that the last time you saw Nadia?”

“That’s right. And she was alive, man. I swear it on a Bible.”

The meeting lasted an hour. When he left, Smith got into his car and dialed Annabel’s gallery.

“Mac, I’m so glad you called. I’ve got to talk to you.”

“Sure. I can swing by now. I just finished up with Jeremiah.”

She lowered her voice to barely above a whisper. “Clarise is here, Mac. She’s in the back office using the other line. What she’s told me is—well, it’s upsetting,
and
important.”

“How long is she staying?”

“She said she’ll be leaving in a few minutes. She came here to get away from the theatre. Look, I’ll leave as soon as I can after she’s gone. I’ll meet you at home.”

“All right. Annie, are you okay?”

“I think so. Have to run. See you soon.”

THIRTY-SIX

T
HE MEDIA DEVOTED
considerable space and airtime Thursday morning to Clarise’s decision to not seek leadership of the NEA. It wasn’t front-page news; the articles were treated more as feature stories, with boilerplate descriptions of her career, beginning with college and tracing it through her Hollywood years and eventual position as producing director of Ford’s Theatre. The
Post
ran a wedding photograph of Clarise and a young Bruce Lerner, and a picture of Jeremiah, “the now divorced couple’s young son currently being held on charges of murder.” President Nash’s comment about personal needs trumping career decisions was duly reported, and Vice President Dorothy Maloney, billed as a friend of long-standing, said the NEA had lost a superb future leader but wished Clarise all good wishes for whatever she chose to do in the future. “Ms. Emerson declined to respond to repeated requests for a comment for this article,” the writers wrote, although there were plenty of others more than willing to weigh in on why they thought she’d made her decision, regardless of whether they knew anything about it or not.

Klayman and Johnson had worked late Wednesday night, scouring the neighborhood in Southeast for witnesses to the drug murder, and writing their report at headquarters. “It’s almost ten,” Johnson said as they prepared to leave. “Come on back to the house for a nightcap and something to eat.”

“No, thanks, I—”

“You’ve got to eat, man. Don’t argue with me.”

Etta whipped up leftovers, and Mo poured beers. Klayman was glad he’d agreed to come. He found himself relaxing more than he’d been able to in recent days, and by the time he left—almost midnight—he was enjoying a drowsy reverie; he wouldn’t have trouble sleeping that night, and looked forward to a leisurely morning. Because they’d been assigned to duty at Ford’s Theatre Thursday night, they weren’t required to sign in until noon.

Wednesday was another late night for Mac and Annabel Smith. He’d met her at the apartment late in the afternoon and they talked for hours, interrupting their confab twice, once for Mac to fill in Yale Becker about the subject of their discussion, and to learn that his colleague had personally delivered Jeremiah to his mother’s house after Senator Lerner’s verbal assurances to the court that he approved of Jeremiah being with Clarise. The second intermission was to order in dinner from the Watergate Hotel’s Aquarelle restaurant.

Later in the morning, Mac went to GW to teach a class while Annabel met with a wealthy Japanese collector of pre-Columbian art at the gallery who’d flown to Washington specifically to examine items she had for sale.

In the afternoon, Mac worked out at his health club, and Annabel attended a tea honoring the retirement of a friend from the Library of Congress. They met back at the apartment at five, took a nap, showered, dressed in formal wear befitting the occasion, and headed across town to attend
Festival at Ford’s.

Security at the theatre was rigorous. After submitting their invitations to members of the Secret Service, Annabel’s purse was sent through an X-ray machine and searched by hand after it had emerged. Mac set off bells when passing through the portable metal detector that had been positioned in the lobby. The culprit had too many keys. Uniformed members of the Washington MPD, especially and hurriedly trained in security following the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, waved wands over the couple, apologizing as they did for any inconvenience they might be causing.

As they were about to be ushered into the theatre by park rangers with special clearances, Rick Klayman, who’d come to the lobby to deliver a message to an officer, stopped them and said hello.

“Hello, Detective Klayman,” Mac said. “This is my wife, Annabel Reed-Smith.”

“Nice meeting you,” Klayman said. “All set to enjoy the show?”

“If we ever get inside,” Mac said.

“I didn’t mean to hold you up.”

“I wasn’t referring to you,” Mac said. “Rule number one in Washington, D.C.—never attend an event when the president will be there, too.”

“He’s not coming,” Klayman said.

“Really? Why? I thought this was a yearly command performance.”

“It usually is, I guess, but there’s some last-minute crisis.” Klayman shrugged. “The vice president will be here, though.”

“Well, that’s one less person for you to protect. See you in my class Saturday?”

“Wouldn’t miss it, sir. Oh, would it be possible for my partner, Moses Johnson, to attend with me? Just this once? I was telling him last night about the class and he said he’d enjoy it.”

“Sure. Happy to have him.”

They were shown their seats on the aisle, stage-right, halfway back from the orchestra pit and stage. As the house filled they were greeted by a number of people. When they found a moment of privacy, Mac asked in Annabel’s ear, “Will Clarise be welcoming the audience?”

“She’s supposed to,” she replied, “although judging from her state yesterday, I wouldn’t be surprised if she begged off.”

Mac glanced up at the empty box in which Abraham Lincoln had sat the night he was murdered by John Wilkes Booth. You couldn’t be in Ford’s Theatre without experiencing some feeling, some thoughts of that tragic night more than 130 years ago when America suffered its first presidential assassination.

The presidential box, of course, was empty, and had been since the assassination out of respect for the slain president—and because, in reality, it was a poor location from which to watch what was occurring on the stage. It had been faithfully re-created, replete with white lacy curtains framing two openings through which the box’s occupants could see two American flags draped over the balustrade, a large engraving of George Washington—there was no presidential seal at the time, and the more famous first president’s likeness was displayed rather than Lincoln’s, the sitting president—and a reproduction of the red rocking chair in which Lincoln had sat that fateful night; the original was on display in the Henry Ford Museum, in Dearborn, Michigan.

The building had suffered another day of infamy almost three decades after the assassination when the government gutted the theatre and turned it into an office building, three floors of which collapsed in 1893, killing twenty-two people. It wasn’t until 1965 that the property was again restored to a working theatre.

Petersen House, the boardinghouse across the street in which the president died at 7:22 the morning after he’d been shot, was also maintained as a National Historic Site by the National Park Service, another monument to the tragedy that had befallen the nation’s leader, and the nation itself—so much sad history to digest surrounding a man who, it was said, had been chosen by God to do unequaled work, “not only for America, but for all mankind.”

“I
T
’
S ABOUT TO START,
”
Annabel said.

They directed their attention to the stage where final preparations were underway for the live telecast that would begin in a half hour. The vice president arrived and was escorted to her front-row seat by a knot of Secret Service. She turned to the crowd and waved, generating a round of applause. A few minutes later, with every seat occupied, Clarise walked from the wings to center stage and was handed a microphone.

“You have to give it to her,” Annabel whispered to her husband.

“The show must go on.”

Clarise flashed a wide smile and said, “Welcome, welcome, to all of you.” She looked at Dorothy Maloney. “And especially to you, Madam Vice President, my friend.” She took in the wider audience. “The show will begin in just a few minutes. Your presence here is heartwarming. This theatre is important, and your support of it testifies to that. President and Mrs. Nash send their regrets, and I know that whatever occupies them this evening must have been very important to miss this gala evening at Ford’s Theatre. So please, sit back, relax, and enjoy.”

“There’s Sydney Bancroft,” Annabel said quietly to Mac. The actor had crossed backstage and disappeared into the wings.

“Hmmm,” was Mac’s response, his jaw firmly set.

The countdown began. At precisely eight o’clock, an off-stage announcer proclaimed in a voice resembling a one-man gang, “Ladies and gentlemen, this—is—Festival—at—Ford’s—Theatre!”

K
LAYMAN AND
J
OHNSON STOOD
in the wings stage left. Other plainclothes detectives were dispersed throughout the theatre, some fortunate enough to have been assigned seats in the audience. They all knew how easy it was to become distracted by the performance and lose sight of the reason they were there: to be aware of everything and everyone within their sight and hearing. Those with seats had been given funds with which to rent tuxedos in order to better blend in, although it wasn’t difficult to identify them, solitary and silent men more interested in their seatmates than in the action on stage.

Earlier, in the midst of the seemingly frenetic yet orderly hustle-bustle on the stage, Klayman had spotted Bancroft and stopped him as he hurried past.

“Exciting night, huh?” the detective said.

“What? Oh, yes, hello, Detective.” He nodded to Johnson.

“Should be quite a show,” Klayman said. “I really enjoy Diana Krall.”

“Who is that? Oh, yes, Ms. Krall. Quite good, I hear. Excuse me. I have—I’m—I’m frightfully busy.”

Johnson laughed as they watched the British actor scoot away from them. “He’s wired, or high,” he said.

“High strung,” said Klayman.

“Showbiz hysteria.”

“I guess.”

“Hate to get stuck next to him on a long plane ride.”

“You don’t have to worry about that, Mo.”

Klayman was unable to take his eyes off Bancroft as backstage preparations continued. Although their encounter had been brief, there was a look in the actor’s eyes that both detectives had picked up on, and that Klayman hadn’t noticed during their earlier meetings. Yes, Bancroft was a manic personality, with eyes constantly in motion, emoting through them, using them to provide punctuation. But this was different. Was it fear Klayman had observed? Or something else?

Diana Krall and her quartet opened the show, the popular Canadian jazz singer and pianist setting an upbeat mood for the audience. As she romped through her first number, a pulsating version of Gershwin’s “The Man I Love,” Bancroft stood on the opposite side of the stage from where Klayman and Johnson were posted. He’d avoided members of the stage and TV crews since arriving at the theatre late that afternoon, and had come in close proximity with Clarise only once when she’d come down to the theatre from her office to check on something with the house manager. They locked eyes, but she turned away, which didn’t especially nettle Bancroft; his anger at her unwillingness to even speak with him had peaked the previous day when she’d refused, through her secretary, to meet. It took every ounce of self-restraint to keep from physically barging in.

He’d left the theatre after being rebuffed by the secretary and had spent the afternoon in Harry’s, downing scotch with beer chasers until he was sufficiently drunk to anesthetize the pain. A cab delivered him to his apartment building where Morris, the doorman, helped him through the lobby and into the elevator. He slept for fifteen hours. When he awoke at noon, he was confused as to where he was. But as the room, indeed his life, came into focus, he could see nothing but the past, his performances on British regional stages as a young man, his days at Stratford-upon-Avon, the applause, the adoring women, shooting films in exotic locations, the parties, the applause, the excitement of signing a new contract, and the applause, always the applause.

He consulted a small card on which the order of acts had been written. After someone named Diana Krall, it would be one of President Nash’s favorite performers, Washington’s venerable political satirist, Mark Russell, with Alan King functioning as MC between acts. It was noted on the card that King would do a six-minute standup routine toward the end of the evening, and those words seemed to be magnified as Bancroft stared at them. Alan King, funnyman, guaranteed to generate loud laughter with his one-liners and sage observations of love and life. Prior to him, Clarise was scheduled to say a few words.

He looked across the backstage area, saw Klayman staring at him, and stepped behind a flat to move out of the detective’s line of vision. The presence of the officers who’d questioned him was disconcerting; he wished they weren’t there. He took in others in his proximity. No one seemed particularly interested in him, for which he was grateful. It had been that way at Ford’s Theatre since Clarise hired him, disinterest in Sydney Bancroft, dismissive of him, scornful, snickering behind his back. Who did they think they were? Ford’s was a pathetic excuse for a theatre, mounting pedestrian plays with mediocre talent. He, Sydney Bancroft, had tasted what real theatre was meant to be, British theatre, great actors and actresses performing the thoughts and words of the world’s best playwrights. He hated every one of them at Ford’s Theatre, although that emotion had not been extended to Clarise Emerson—until now. She was worst of all, with her sophisticated facade and glib ease while mingling with the money people and bureaucrats.

Others backstage who obviously didn’t belong there exaggerated his unease. Uniformed police, and men in drab suits and with nondescript haircuts, were there to protect the vice president, Clarise’s friend, another politician, just another whore.

What was happening onstage was irrelevant to Bancroft. The music, and the audience’s reaction, originated from another place, vague and muffled, unconnected to the moment. He realized he was sweating, and felt light-headed. He made his way to an exit door guarded by two Secret Service agents and a uniformed D.C. cop. Bancroft lifted the large badge dangling from his neck, validating that he was entitled to be there. “Feeling a little woozy,” he said, forcing a smile. “Some fresh air will do the trick.”

The officer opened the door, and Bancroft stepped into the night air, where a contingent of police and agents were posted outside the theatre. Tenth Street was cordoned off at both corners, but the Star Saloon across the street was open, sans customers. Bancroft displayed his badge as he crossed the street and entered the bar where the thoroughly bored bartender lounged behind the bar. “Working tonight, Sydney?” he asked.