Murder at the Library of Congress (32 page)

When her body had stopped heaving, Annabel closed the gap and reached down to touch her shoulder.

“Why don’t we go see Consuela and others who’ll want to hear what you have to say.”

Annabel walked behind Dolores to the main aisle, where Lapin and some of his uniformed force were retracing their steps. Lapin instinctively pointed his weapon at Dolores.

“No, it’s all right,” Annabel said. “She’s being cooperative. She’s no danger to anyone—any longer.” She handed Lapin the box cutter. “She never meant to use this.”

Annabel went downstairs to where Consuela and Sue Gomara sat in Consuela’s office. Consuela quickly stood. “Is it true, Annie? It was Dolores?”

“Afraid so,” Annabel said. She sat, afraid that her trembling legs might fail her.

“My God!” Consuela said. “Why?”

“He hurt her too much, Consuela. Too much.”

Annabel looked at Sue. The intern had obviously been crying, the dried tears creating makeup streaks on her cheeks.

“The stalker,” Annabel said. “You found out who it was?”

“She says it’s—”

Sue cut Consuela off. “It
is
! I know it. I’d know his voice anywhere.”

“Who?” Annabel said.

“Dr. Vogler.”

“Dr. Vogler?”

“That’s what she says, Annie,” Consuela said.

“I knew it five minutes into his lecture,” Sue said, animated. “At first, I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Couldn’t be, I told myself. But then I listened more closely, really concentrated on his voice and the way he talks, you know, almost like he might start stuttering any time. And he kept looking at me, not directly, but I knew he was. He was so nervous, like he couldn’t remember what he was supposed to say, walking up and down in front of the room, always glancing at me. It’s him! I know it’s him.”

“Did you say anything to him?” Annabel asked.

“Are you kidding? I got up and ran out of the room.
I got here just when everything was happening with Dolores.”

Consuela asked, “Sue, are you certain enough to bring charges against him?”

“Charges? I’d like to string him up, boil him in oil. Charges? You mean in court and all?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t know. I—”

Chief Lapin appeared in the doorway.

“Is she all right?” Annabel asked.

“Ms. Marwede? I wouldn’t say so. Nothing physical, but she’s a mental mess, that’s for sure. You okay, Mrs. Smith?”

“Yes, I’m fine.”

Lapin turned his attention to Sue. “Now, what’s this about the person who’s been stalking you? You say you know who it is?”

“Yes.”

“Someone from the library?”

Lapin’s radio came to life.

“Chief, it’s Wozinzki. I’m down here in Manuscripts, Dr. Vogler’s office.”

“A problem?”

“Yeah, I’d say so. He’s sitting at his desk. I’m out in his reception room. He bagged me out in the hall and started saying he did a terrible thing to someone, some intern named Sue.”

All eyes went to Sue. She nodded.

“I’ll be right there.”

“Tell him to keep an eye on Vogler,” Annabel said to Lapin. “He’s liable to do something to hurt himself.”

Lapin instructed his officer to stay with Vogler until he got there.

“Want to come with me, young lady?” Lapin asked Sue.

“No,” she said, shaking her head for emphasis. “I don’t want to see him ever again.”

Lapin left the office. The three women sat in silence, each consumed with her own thoughts. Finally, Annabel pushed herself up out of the chair. “I have to call Mac,” she said. “I want to go home.”

39

Three Months Later

Mac Smith moved quickly to his right, intercepted the baseline drive, and sent a two-handed rocket back across the net.

“That’s game,” Annabel announced happily.

Cale Broadhurst and his wife, Patricia, met the Smiths at the net and shook hands.

“You looked good out there,” Cale said. “Like the old Mac Smith.”

Mac laughed. “Nothing like a little surgery to fix things up. I’m glad I didn’t put it off. Made my knee as good as new.”

He looked to Annabel, whose smile was pleasantly evil.

After showering, they drove to the Broadhurst home, where they celebrated Mac’s return to tennis form with drinks and snacks. Talk soon turned to the library.

“I’m sorry,” Annabel said after Cale had said something stern in passing about Dolores Marwede, “but I have a lot of compassion for her.”

“Even though she took a swipe at you with a box cutter?” Mac said.

“Even with that,” Annabel replied. “The woman was desperately in love with Michele Paul. He played off that, got her to help him dump John Bitteman’s body off
his boat, and kept stringing her along to protect his secret. I’m surprised she didn’t whack him a lot sooner.”

Mac laughed. “ ‘Whack him.’ Spoken like a true mafia wife.”

“Well, you made me an offer I couldn’t refuse a few years ago, didn’t you? I accepted your proposal.”

“Isn’t having compassion for someone like Dolores carrying women’s rights a little too far, Annie?” Patricia Broadhurst asked.

“I don’t mean it as a matter of rights, Pat, but I believe her when she says she never meant to kill Michele. She was terminally in love with him.”

“Terminal for him,” Mac said.

“Yes, it was,” Annabel said. “She’d reached the end of her patience and lashed out with whatever was close, in this case the lead weight on his desk. I spent an hour with Michele Paul, a disagreeable, anger-provoking hour. He was a horrible man.”

“Hardly the sort of man women fall in love with,” Cale said, “at least so deeply that they end up murdering him.”

“For every man there’s a woman,” Annabel replied.

Pat said, “The discs she hid in the Aaronsen collection—those were John Bitteman’s discs. How did
she
end up with them?”

“From what I’ve been told, Dolores knew Michele had taken them from Bitteman’s place the night he murdered him, and knew where Michele kept them in his apartment. After she killed Michele, she ran to his apartment and grabbed the files and discs. There were things on those discs that referred to her, at least by her initials. As she said in her statement, she started to panic once the police investigation started but didn’t know what to do with the discs. She dumped pictures and love letters from Michele in someone’s trash can but couldn’t quite bring
herself to discard the discs the same way. She needed thinking time. She even considered trying to sell the discs to David Driscoll and use the money to get away. But she never had a chance to do that.”

“She knew all about Michele Paul’s deal with Driscoll, I assume,” Pat said.

“Sure, she did,” Annabel said, “and she played her own game of hardball with Michele, threatening to tell library management that he’d been working for Driscoll. I told Consuela after my interview with Paul that he reminded me of a bullfighter, waving his red cape and enticing people, particularly women, into his arena. He waved his cape at Dolores Marwede and kept sticking those knives, or whatever they call them, into her until she turned. It doesn’t happen often, but in this case the bull killed the matador. Of course, even when a bull wins in the arena, its days are numbered. I’m afraid that’s the case with Dolores, too.”

“You’re the criminal-law expert, Mac,” Cale said. “What do you think she’ll get?”

“Serious time, Cale. There’s Michele Paul’s murder
and
her role as an accessory in the Bitteman killing. Still, you never know how a trial will turn out. I know her defense attorney well. His only hope is to plead her as being mentally disturbed—mental impairment, insanity. The jury might demonstrate as much compassion for her as Annie.”

“And what about David Driscoll?” Cale asked. “I’m furious at the scandal he caused the Library to suffer. Still, he didn’t kill anyone—did he?”

“My prediction?” Mac said, sitting back and dabbing at his mouth with a napkin. “If the DA in Los Angeles can tangibly link Driscoll to the theft of that painting in Miami, his having hired the people to do it—and don’t forget a security guard lost his life in that theft—they can
charge him with conspiracy to murder. But that’s a big
if
. Paying Michele Paul for his research broke your library rules, Cale, but it didn’t break any laws, unless the IRS decides to take a look at the charitable deductions Driscoll was taking for his inflated donations to the library. Funny about rich men like Driscoll, they don’t have to cheat the government. But it becomes a game of sorts, see how much they can get away with. Of course, if Michele Paul is named as an accomplice to Driscoll’s tax fraud, that means the Library of Congress might have some explaining to do about the way it values contributions.”

“Don’t even say it, Mac,” Broadhurst said.

“Unlikely, Cale. At any rate, if the DA can’t make that connection between Driscoll and Miami beyond a reasonable doubt, I suspect the worst penalty he’ll suffer is all the bad publicity, losing the esteem he enjoyed with the Library of Congress, and coming up empty with the Las Casas diaries and map. All this chaos and suffering for something that doesn’t exist.”

“Or
does
exist,” Annabel said. “That Michele Paul and David Driscoll didn’t come up with the diaries doesn’t mean they aren’t out there somewhere. As I said in my article, there’s enough evidence in the literature—although maybe not beyond a reasonable doubt—that Las Casas did write his own diaries. If so, somebody has them. Hopefully, if they ever do surface, they’ll end up at the Library of Congress.”

“I’ll drink to that,” Cale said, raising his glass.

Later that night, Mac and Annabel sipped an after-dinner cognac on their terrace at the Watergate.

“I have to hand it to Cale,” Mac said, “the way he handled the stalker situation.”

“I don’t agree.”

“Oh?”

“I can understand Cale’s concern about LC’s reputation. On the other hand, John Vogler got off too easy. The terror he instilled in that young woman by his vile phone calls was dreadful. I wanted Cale to put some pressure on Sue Gomara to press charges. Instead, he called Vogler in, had him apologize to her, and sent him off on a leave of absence. He only did that, I think, because he managed to persuade Jim Hutson to come back to run Manuscripts. Vogler should have been punished.”

“Cale’s a pragmatist, Annie. Besides, where did my compassionate wife suddenly disappear to? Dolores Marwede ‘whacks’ somebody, as you so delicately put it, helps dump a body off a boat, and you feel for her. Vogler’s a harmless, lonely eccentric.”

“Tell that to the women receiving the calls.”

“I know, and I think such people should be prosecuted. But Cale’s major concern is the library and its reputation. I think in this case, the resolution makes sense. Life in a library is supposed to be quiet, reflective, helpful—not bloody or kinky.”

“Like life in this household.”

Before going to bed, they watched the news on NCN. Lucianne Huston reported from Iraq, where the administration had launched still more air strikes on Saddam Hussein’s regime.

“He’s still in power,” Mac said, not happy.

“So is she. I sort of envy her, traveling the world like she does, reporting on monumentally important events.”

“She did a nice wrap-up on the Paul and Bitteman murders.”

“Yes, she did.”

“You came off well in the interview she did with you.”

“Thank you. How’s your knee after the match?”

“Feels fine. Ready for bed?”

“I wasn’t, but I am now.”

“Somehow, I don’t think my knee will be called into action tonight.”

“Not with what I have in mind,” she said, standing and pulling him up from the couch. “And leave any treasure maps at the door. You know where to find me.”

MURDER ON CAPITOL HILL

by
Margaret Truman

Between them, Senator Cale Caldwell and his blue-blooded wife wielded as much power on Capitol Hill as the law would allow. Sadly, it wasn’t sufficient to protect him from a killer, even surrounded by his friends at a champagne reception in his honor.

The senator’s death could benefit many people—among them a bitter political adversary, an ambitious talk show host, and a master of spin who makes even murder look good.

“A good old-fashioned mystery.”

—
Cosmopolitan

Published by Ballantine Books.
Available at bookstores everywhere.

MURDER IN THE WHITE HOUSE

The First Capital Crimes Novel
by
Margaret Truman

In a town where the weapon of choice is usually a well-aimed rumor, the strangling of Secretary of State (and accomplished womanizer) Lansard Blaine in the Lincoln Bedroom is a gruesome first.

In death as in life, Blaine is a power to be reckoned with. Only a few highly placed insiders had access to the Lincoln Bedroom that fateful evening. And one of them was the president. …

“The plot builds up to a superb denouement. One wonders if all is fiction.”

—
Time

Published by Ballantine Books.
Available at bookstores everywhere.

While set in a real place, this book is a work of fiction. The characters and events are products of the author’s imagination and should not be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual people is unintended. In the few instances where well-known or real names are used, the related characters, incidents, and dialogues are entirely fictional and are not intended to depict any actual people or events.

Published by The Random House Publishing Group

Copyright © 1999 by Margaret Truman

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and distributed in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

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