Murder at the Library of Congress (14 page)

She walked away, back up Second Street, toward the Library of Congress, where tourists congregated on the sidewalk outside the Jefferson Building. She retraced her steps down Second Street until coming to three trash cans with lids in front of a row house. Curtains were drawn over the windows. No one looking out at her. A mother and child passed, laughing as they sang a children’s song. Dolores pretended to examine something on the manila envelope until they’d passed, then removed the lid from one of the cans and emptied the contents of the box into it, replaced the lid, realized she still held the empty shoe box, took off the lid again, placed the empty box in with the envelopes and photos and unknown person’s garbage, snapped the lid in place, and returned to Jefferson, sweating, certain her smile at the guard was recognized as forced and insincere, and went directly to her tiny office off the Hispanic reading room. She sat quietly for a few minutes collecting herself, then ventured out, carrying the envelope she’d brought from home. The yellow crime scene tape was gone; the stacks and upper gallery were open again. Dolores swiped her magnetic card in the door’s slot and entered the stacks. She paused and looked up the narrow stairway leading to the upper gallery, where Michele Paul’s body had been. She felt light-headed and grabbed a shelf for support. The wave of weakness passed as quickly as it had come. She walked deep into the stacks. She stopped in an area where file boxes containing donations to the collection rested on shelves. Crudely handwritten labels identified
the source of the materials. Dolores knew that the contents of most of the boxes had been given a cursory examination upon their arrival, and would probably sit there for years before anyone found the time to give them a second look.

She opened the top to a box marked
AARONSEN COLLECTION
, slid her manila envelope beneath the dusty, yellowed papers in it, replaced the top, and returned to the reading room, where Consuela Martinez had just emerged from her office.

“Back to some semblance of normality,” Consuela said, indicating where the crime scene tape had been.

“What a relief,” Dolores said.

“Dolores, the police have asked me to accompany them to Michele’s apartment to look at what library materials he might have had there. Annabel Reed-Smith is coming, too. I thought you might join us. You’re familiar with what Michele was working on.”

“I couldn’t,” Dolores said. “It’s too … too spooky going there.”

“I understand,” Consuela said. “Are you okay? You look pale.”

“I’m fine,” Dolores said. “I suppose this is just now hitting home for me. There’s a murderer around, probably in this building, Consuela.”

The division chief’s mouth became a tight line. “I know,” she said. “I know it only too well.”

16

Andre Lapin, the Library of Congress’s director of security, had held four similar jobs at federal agencies over the past twenty-four years. Like other federal law enforcement officers, including the hundred-plus members of the library’s own police force, Lapin had trained for ten weeks early in his career at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Georgia. He was a whippet of a man, compact, thin, active even when at ease. Bushy salt-and-pepper eyebrows formed perfect tents above his eyes.

MPD detectives Nastasi and Shorter had been meeting with him for the past half hour in his office adjacent to the twenty-four-hour command center.

“… and so Mr. Vogler attacked Dr. Paul?” Nastasi said.

“It appeared that way,” Lapin said. “Always hard to pin down who starts a fight, but I was pretty sure Vogler threw the first punch. Of course, you never know what prompts a guy to hit somebody. In Paul’s case …”

The detectives cocked their heads and looked at the security chief.

“In Michele Paul’s case, I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d said something to nettle Vogler.”

“What did Vogler say about it?” Shorter asked.

Lapin consulted his file on the incident. “All he said was that Paul insulted him.” Lapin looked up from the
folder and smiled. “Some insult. Lots of rumors about Paul messing with Vogler’s wife.”

“That so?” said Nastasi. “Vogler was cuckolded?”

“Can’t prove it by me, and that’s not the way it’s usually described, but that’s what I heard. Vogler and his wife divorced.”

Shorter, who was writing his own notes, said, “Any other incidents like the one between Vogler and Paul?”

“Physical assaults? No.”

“Did you personally know the deceased?”

Lapin nodded. “Not well, but we had a few conversations over the years. I didn’t seek him out. Frankly, I never liked the guy.”

“You and the rest of the library,” Nastasi muttered.

“True,” said Lapin. “Anything else I can do for you today?”

“Yeah,” Nastasi said. “What’s new with the stalker?”

Lapin rolled his eyes and shook his head. “Still stalking according to the stalkee. Is there such a word?”

Shorter laughed. “I don’t think so. We had another complaint filed with us yesterday.”

“I’ve got a plainclothes officer working the main reading room. You can’t tell the stalkers without a program. We attract our share of kooks. The main reading room is open to all, even the District’s more … colorful types.”

“Nice way to put it,” said Shorter.

“At least we know it’s a man,” Lapin said. “That rules out the Bride of Christ.”

“Say again?”

“The Bride of Christ. She’s been coming here in her white wedding gown for more than a year looking for proof in one of the Bibles in the collection that Christ was her husband.”

“That so?” Nastasi said. “How many Bibles do you have?”

“Enough to keep her going another couple of decades. The main reading room librarians are wearing their badges upside down to make it harder to read their names. Have you met Ms. Gomara?”

The detectives shook their heads.

“If I was going to stalk somebody from the library,” Lapin said, “I’d pick her. A knockout. A little young for me but … Everybody seems a little young for me these days. What’s new in the murder investigation?”

“Not much,” replied Nastasi. “No prints on the weapon. Tough to pick up prints off that burlap that covered the lead weight. Now it’s at the FBI lab. They’ve got new equipment that might do the trick. Some of your people are meeting this afternoon with ours at the deceased’s apartment to look at library materials. It’s been searched. Didn’t come up with much. He had a black book filled with names, lots of women. I take it that despite being hated around here, there were women who found him charming.”

“Oh, yes. He had a reputation of being a ladies’ man. Much water fountain scuttlebutt. But Paul kept pretty much to himself. Didn’t have any real friends, no confidants at the library as far as I know.”

“He lived pretty good,” Shorter said. “Nice big apartment. Nice car. Thirty-foot boat. A ton of credit card receipts from when he traveled, which seemed to be often. Didn’t skimp when he was on the road.”

“By the way,” Nastasi said, “have you finished going through background security checks on people in the Hispanic division?”

“No. Maybe by the end of the day.”

“How extensive are those checks?” Shorter asked.

“Depends on the employee and what they have access to. Anyone authorized to get close to the rare books, maps, and manuscripts goes through a fairly rigid check
before starting work. In some cases, like the Kissinger papers we have, there’s material that bears on national security. Employees working in that section have to get a top-secret clearance. Same with anybody working in the congressional research division.”

“Let us know when you’re done,” Nastasi said.

“Shall do.”

“You have any info on where Paul got the money to live the way he did?” Shorter asked Lapin.

The security chief shook his head. “Rich uncle, maybe. Moonlighted as a male escort, maybe. Lucky at the lottery …”

“Maybe,” Nastasi said.

17

Warren Munsch sat at a table outside the San Angel Inn on Diego Rivera, a few blocks from the Hotel Polanco, where he’d been staying since arriving in Mexico City. He’d left his room early that morning carrying his possessions in his overnight bag. Fortunately, the clerks at the desk hadn’t seen him leave. If they had, they might have asked whether he was checking out and presented him his bill. That would have been embarrassing. Munsch didn’t have any more money.

He’d checked in for only one night, paying cash. The next day he informed them he’d be extending his stay a few days and would settle the bill when he left. Well, now he’d left, and they could go whistle for their money.

He sipped from a mug of hot black coffee the consistency of motor oil and pondered his next move. This morning, as with most mornings of his adult life, he silently cursed what had been and reflected what his life would be if only he hadn’t …

He flew into Mexico City feeling good despite the thought that he was probably now being sought on a murder charge instead of simple theft. That assumed, of course, that Garraga or Morrie had named him as part of the team. Chances were they had. They were a couple of losers who couldn’t be trusted.

He’d left L.A. with plenty of money in his pocket to enjoy a pleasant night in a decent hotel and to book a flight to Cuba the next day. The Hotel Polanco was recommended to him by the cab driver who drove him into the city from the airport. When he checked in, he intended to have a few drinks in some neighborhood bar and get to bed. But as he sat nursing tequila on the rocks and watching a parade of pretty Mexican women, his libido got the better of him. He set off to buy some female companionship. After stopping in a few more bars, and with the tequila clouding what had always been flawed judgment anyway, he found his true love for the evening, a middle-aged lady dressed like a teenager who promised him a trip to paradise.

“You come with me back to my place, huh?” he’d said after buying her a glass of “champagne” for twenty dollars, U.S.

“No, no,” she insisted. She lived just down the street, she said, and had plenty of whiskey there for him and a big, comfortable bed.

He never got to enjoy either. He followed her into an alley and to a door she said led to her apartment. When she didn’t make a move to open it, Munsch grabbed her and tried to kiss her. The next thing he knew he was attacked from behind by two men who threw him against the building. One of the men straddled him and held a knife to his throat while the second managed to reach into his rear pants pocket and extract the wallet into which he’d put all the cash he’d brought from California. The man with the knife smiled, exposing a mouth full of gold, called him something in Spanish that Munsch thought might have meant fat gringo pig, got off him, and the two men and Munsch’s heavenly lover ran from the alley.

He considered going back to the bar in which he’d met her and looking for them, but summoned up his only wisdom of the evening and walked back to the hotel, muttering all the way.

Now, with three dollars in his pocket that had been left as a tip on an adjacent table, and sourness in his stomach, he drank coffee and tried to come up with a way to make a fast score, enough to get to Cuba. He was deep into his thoughts when two men dressed in suits, who’d taken a table shortly after Munsch arrived, got up and slowly approached. They stood on either side of him but said nothing.

Munsch looked up. “Yeah? What’a you want?”

The taller man, who looked American, said, “Warren Munsch?”

Munsch looked at the other man, a Mexican.

“Mind if we join you?” the American said, sitting.

“Suit yourself,” Munsch said. “I was just leaving.” His heart pounded.

As he started to stand, the Mexican placed his hand on his shoulder, holding him down. The American said, “Let’s have a little talk, Warren. Might be worth your while.”

Munsch again looked up at the Mexican, who’d unbuttoned his suit jacket to reveal a revolver in the waistband of his trousers.

Munsch said to the American, “So, go ahead. I’m listening. What are you, cops?”

The American shook his head. “Private investigators. You can call me Smitty. My Mexican colleague is Jose.”

“Smitty and Jose, huh? What are you, some kinda comedy team?” He sounded confident; inside he was Jell-O.

“We’ve been looking for you, Warren,” said the American.

“Yeah? Why?”

“Someone’s anxious to talk to you.”

“Like who, an ex-wife?”

“Like someone who wants to know what happened back in Miami when you forgot to pay for a certain painting you walked away with.”

“Painting?” He guffawed. “Do I look like an art collector?”

“No, you don’t, Warren. What you look like to me is a two-bit hustler. So, what say we go see the man, let him ask his questions, and you can go on your way. Okay, Warren?”

“Hey, look, quit calling me Warren. I don’t know you, so don’t get familiar.”

“Just wanted to be friendly—Warren. I get the feeling you don’t intend to cooperate with us.”

“What’a you mean, ‘cooperate’? Cooperate with what?”

“I’ll give you the choices, Warren. Either you come nice and easy with us, or we roll you up like an umbrella and carry you there.”

“Get lost. What’a you gonna do, shoot me here in a public restaurant?”

“Maybe. Depends on you. See those
federales
over there?” He pointed to three uniformed Mexican police with automatic rifles slung over their shoulders standing twenty feet away. “They know we’re here to make a citizen’s arrest. If you, the fugitive, don’t cooperate, they’ll help us
shoot you right here in this restaurant
.” He’d been speaking softly, but delivered this message in a growl.

“Do I have your attention, Warren?”

“I guess so. What’a you do, pay off those cops over there?”

“You aren’t suggesting Mexico’s law enforcement officers are open to bribes, are you? If you are suggesting that, Warren, you’ll upset Jose.”

A glance at Jose’s surly face. “I sure wouldn’t want to do that,” Munsch said, finishing his coffee and standing. “Where are we going?”

“Not far.”