Murder at the Library of Congress (10 page)

Silly, she thought as she swiped the card, opened the door, and started up the narrow stairs. I have every right to be here. That’s why they issued the two passes, one for the Hispanic stacks, the other authorizing her to be there after closing hours.

She paused at Sue Gomara’s small desk in the hallway dominated by tall piles of Cuban newspapers. She couldn’t help smiling. A nice kid, she thought, continuing the short
distance to her own desk. But she stopped short of reaching it and came to a halt before crossing Michele Paul’s space. It was dark on the upper gallery; the only light came from a gooseneck halogen lamp on Paul’s desk. But that was all the light necessary to see him seated, sleeping, at his desk. Paul was hunched over, his arms on the desk, his head resting on them.

Well, Annabel thought, it happens to the most diligent of scholars.

“Michele?” Annabel said quietly.

He didn’t move.

Louder this time: “Michele?”

She took a few tentative steps toward him, coming close enough to be able to reach out and touch his shoulder with her fingertips.

She recoiled, brought those same fingertips to her mouth.

“Are you—?”

But she knew the answer. He wasn’t sleeping.

She returned to the reading room and picked up the first phone she came to. But she didn’t know what extension to call. She hung up and went to the European reading room, where two uniformed officers stood talking.

“Excuse me,” Annabel said. “There’s been an accident.”

“Accident?”

“Someone is—Mr. Paul is dead.”

“Paul?”

“In Hispanic. Please, I’ll show you.”

Fifteen minutes later, Annabel took her cell phone from her purse and dialed Mac’s cell number.

“Hi,” he said. “I’m at the restaurant. Running late?”

“Mac, there’s been a tragedy here at LC.”

“Tragedy? Are you all right?”

“Yes, I’m fine. But Michele Paul is dead.”

“Good Lord. How? What happened?”

“I’m not sure. I discovered his body at his desk and—”

“
You
discovered the body?”

“Yes. The Hispanic division is overrun with police—library cops, Capitol police, MPD. I can’t leave.”

“I’ll be right over.”

“They won’t let you in. Why don’t you head home. I’ll call you there and you can pick me up once I’m free.”

“Nonsense. I’m coming now. Right now. Does it look like the police will want to take you downtown?”

“I can’t imagine why they would.”

“I’ll be parked outside the main entrance, cell phone on. Keep in touch.”

“Mrs. Smith?” a Washington MPD detective said.

“What? Yes, I’m Mrs. Reed-Smith.”

“Would you give me a few minutes, please? Just a few questions.”

“Mac, I have to go. I’ll call you in the car.”

“Right.”

10

The two uniformed members of the library’s police force had taken immediate charge once Annabel had led them to the body. While one stood guard over the scene, the other placed three calls.

The first was to the library’s twenty-four-hour security communications room. The second was taken by the officer on duty at the Capitol police’s communications room beneath the Russell Senate Office Building. He immediately passed it on to the CERT commander—Contingency Emergency Response Team—who dispatched officers wearing bulletproof vests and carrying M-249 automatic weapons. The third call went to MPD headquarters on Indiana Avenue.

Within minutes, the elegant Hispanic reading room, with its specially commissioned painted steel mural of the Columbus coat of arms looking down, was swarming with police from the three agencies. An explosives expert from the Capitol police was called in to determine whether such a threat existed—just in case. The Capitol itself was sealed off, including the underground tunnel leading to the Cannon House Office Building from LC’s Madison Building.

After assuring that the crime scene was properly secured, the first uniformed MPD officers to arrive sought out anyone who’d been in the immediate area, including
Annabel. After giving her name and her reason for being there, she was asked to wait at one of the reading desks until homicide detectives arrived.

“I’m Detective Shorter,” he said. He consulted a notebook. “You’re Mrs. Reed-Smith?”

“That’s right.”

“You were the one who discovered the body?”

“Yes. I’d forgotten something on my desk and … my desk is next to the one used by Mr. Paul.”

“You knew him?”

“Not well. I’ve really only had one conversation with him.” Annabel saw Dr. Broadhurst and Mary Beth Mullin being escorted into the room by LC’s director of security.

“When was the last time you saw him alive?” the detective asked.

Annabel judged Shorter to be in his early thirties, a light-skinned black man with clear green eyes and close-cropped curly black hair. He wore a gray suit, white shirt, and plain maroon knit tie. His manner was calm and seemingly detached, as though taking a political poll rather than asking about murder.

“I saw him briefly at a party on the terrace outside the Librarian’s office,” Annabel said. “That was maybe forty-five minutes ago. Could have been an hour.”

“Who was he with? You?”

“No. I don’t think he was with anyone in particular. We exchanged a few words, that was all.”

“Would you describe for me how you came to discover his body, Mrs. Reed-Smith?”

“Sure.”

Annabel provided a step-by-step description of having left the party, starting to leave the building, then realizing she’d left her notes and coming to the Hispanic room to retrieve them. Shorter took notes while she spoke.

“That’s about it for now,” he said, closing the notebook and slipping it into his jacket’s breast pocket.

“Is there any indication how he died?” Annabel asked.

Shorter ignored her question.

“Oh, when I arrived at the Hispanic room this evening, I heard someone over on that side of the room.”

“Who was it?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t see anyone, just heard movement.”

“I see. Well, I’m sure we’ll want to speak with you again. I have your address and phone number.”

“Am I free to leave?”

“I’ll ask my case supervisor.”

“Can I call my husband?” she asked, pulling her cell phone from her bag.

“Sure.”

The Washington, D.C., medical examiner arrived while Annabel called Mac in their car. The ME was accompanied by medical emergency personnel wearing white lab coats who guided a hospital stretcher on wheels through the reading room’s tables to the door leading to the stairs to the upper gallery.

“I suspect they’ll let me leave any minute,” Annabel told her husband.

Five minutes later, Detective Shorter and another man, who introduced himself as Detective Nastasi, came to Annabel and told her she was free to leave. She again called Mac before leaving the building. She spotted the Buick parked on the opposite side of First Street, away from the knot of official vehicles blocking the front of the library.

“Hell of a night for you,” he said, pulling away after she’d joined him.

“Certainly not what we’d planned.”

“How was he killed?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t see any blood when I discovered him. I mean, I wasn’t looking for it. All I wanted to do was get out of there and find help. Not much of a witness.”

“Of course you wanted to get out of there.”

They stopped at a Chinese take-out restaurant and brought the food to their apartment in the Watergate complex. After Mac walked Rufus, and they’d changed for bed, they settled in chairs in front of the television set. The death led the ten o’clock newscast.

“One of the nation’s leading scholars on Christopher Columbus, Dr. Michele Paul, who worked at the Library of Congress, was found dead tonight in his office at the Jefferson Building. According to a spokesman for the Metropolitan Police Department, who requested anonymity, the cause of death appears to have been a blow to the head. We’ll report more details as we receive them.”

“Murder,” Annabel said to the room. “Guess I’ve been resisting the idea.”

“Unless he hit himself in the head. You said you heard someone when you walked into the Hispanic room?”

“Yes, but didn’t see anyone.”

“No hint of perfume trailing behind, no male smoker’s cough?”

“No. I fail the test.”

“Not with me. I’m off to bed.”

Annabel stayed up, her eyes focusing blankly on the images on the TV screen, her mind sorting through the evening’s events. It was a futile exercise, and she decided to join Mac in the bedroom. But before she did, she
changed channels to the all-news network on which Lucianne Huston had built her reputation. Yes, indeed, Lucianne stood in front of the Jefferson Building, the flashing lights of police cars tossing shards of red light over everything, amplified voices creating a background din as she reported:

“This is the front of the Jefferson Building, the oldest of three buildings comprising the Library of Congress, the world’s largest and most important repository of information. Tonight, a man I had interviewed this afternoon, Michele Paul, was found murdered in the small area he occupied above the Hispanic and Portuguese reading room. He was killed by a blow to the head, according to sources who spoke with me on condition of anonymity. Michele Paul was a respected expert on the subjects of Christopher Columbus and more specifically Bartolomé de Las Casas, whose diaries—and possibly even a treasure map—have been the subject of searches by many scholars, some of whom have lost their lives in the effort. Whether Dr. Paul’s murder tonight is yet another tragic example of this remains to be seen. I’m Lucianne Huston reporting from Washington.”

Annabel clicked off the set. Ms. Huston was certainly on the case, as the saying goes. Would she change her plans and stay in Washington to continue covering Paul’s murder? Interesting, Annabel thought, as she headed for the bedroom, how Lucianne instantly wove Paul’s murder into the larger but vaguer Las Casas story.

What had started out to be an enjoyable two-month hiatus from running the gallery had, in two days, mushroomed into high-profile murder against the sedate, genteel background of the Library of Congress.

Who would have wanted to kill Michele Paul? she wondered as she slipped into bed beside her husband.

A cast of thousands, she decided as the warmth of his body helped lull her to sleep.

11

“Warren A. Munsch, a two-time loser. Armed robbery, possession of stolen goods. Four other arrests—a couple of gambling charges, kiting checks—no other convictions. A wise-guy wannabe.”

“A jerk. So, what’s he doing stealing a painting?”

The two Miami detectives sat in a room used for interrogation, surprisingly clean and modern considering its use. An empty Dunkin’ Donuts bag, paper napkins, and coffee cups cluttered the Formica table. A file folder containing the report on the theft of the Reyes painting from Casa de Seville and the murder of the security guard was between them.

One of the detectives said, “His two amigos gave him up fast enough once the maintenance guy with a habit surfaced. Honor among thieves.”

“You believe the Cuban was the shooter?”

“Yeah, why not? The weapon was in his apartment, and his partner said he pulled the trigger.”

“But the Cuban—what’s his name? Garraga—Mr. Garraga says the missing Mr. Munsch did the deed.”

“Where the hell is Munsch? He flew to L.A. We know that. Used his own name to buy the ticket.”

“And then he goes to Mexico City. With the painting? Hey, I don’t get what’s the big deal about this painting
they stole. The manager of the museum said it wasn’t worth much, was just sort of a backdrop, like wallpaper.”

“There’s mega-bucks in some stolen art. Don’t you know that?”

“Yeah, I know that, but come on. A lowlife like Munsch isn’t out stealing art. What does he know from paintings?”

“Like Jankowski says, he must have lifted it for somebody else, on assignment. Maybe some big-shot art collector.”

“I feel bad for the guard who got it. Christ, his first night on the job.”

“Guarding a second-rate museum. Who’d figure getting shot in a second-rate museum?”

“Yeah, who’d figure. You’d think that gut of his would have stopped a bazooka, let alone a Saturday night special.”

“Look who’s talking. You’re not exactly a male model.”

“What do you expect, you keep bringing in doughnuts. Did you see that newscast last night about some expert on Christopher Columbus getting killed in D.C.?”

“No. What about it?”

His partner shrugged. “Columbus, that’s all. That painting had something to do with Columbus, and the guy in D.C. was an expert.”

“On Columbus?”

“Yeah. Lucianne Huston was there reporting.”

“Where?”

“In D.C. She’s everywhere these days, huh? Never sleeps, it looks like.”

“Who
with
, that’s what I’d like to know. She’s a real fox.”

“Not my type. We going back out to the museum again?”

“No. Jankowski wants us on that automotive parts
break-in. The after-market in car hardware is big bucks. Bigger than
C
-plus paintings. Finish your coffee.”

The man in the white jacket and straw hat who’d relieved Warren Munsch of the painting on the terrace of Ivy on the Shore in Santa Monica had, as instructed, taken the rolled-up canvas home with him that night to his Venice apartment and put it in a closet. The next morning, with the painting on the seat next to him in his BMW convertible, he drove into downtown Los Angeles and parked in a garage on Olvera Street, near the El Pueblo de Los Angeles monument, the historic core of the city. The cafes, shops, and stalls along the brick sidewalks were busy, the surrounding streets swimming in go-to-work traffic.

He walked a block until reaching the entrance to a three-story building with a plaque announcing its architectural significance, went up the stairs to the second floor, and opened a door at the end of a short hallway. A sign on the door read:
ABRAHAM WIDLITZ, ART RESTORATION AND CONSERVATION.