A Murder of Justice (15 page)

An old man in a yarmulke came down the path. He took a seat at a table opposite Frank and Talbot. From a pocket of his frayed overcoat he pulled out chess pieces and arranged them on the board set into the tabletop.

“So his old money was older than her old money,” Frank said.

“Problem is, his ran out.”

“Oh?”

“The Rhinelander fortune hit the rocks with a succession of bad mergers. A bunch of Greeks stripped the family down to its monogrammed boxer shorts. Young Frederick snagged Gloria just in time.”

“She brought the money to the party, he brought the ancestors.”

Talbot stubbed out her cigarette and stood up. “You do good with a few words, Lieutenant. Want a job?”

Frank shook his head. “Your work’s too dangerous.”

Talbot walked a few steps, then turned around. “You owe me,” she said. “First dibs on this Calkins and Gentry thing.”

Frank watched her walk away. He knew there had once been a Mr. Talbot, and he wondered if the guy had ever won an argument. He patted his jacket pocket where he’d put the envelope of clippings, and got up.

The old man in the yarmulke and overcoat was working out chess moves by himself.

Frank walked over.

“You used to play here with a black kid,” Frank said.

The old man didn’t look up. “Karim,” he replied. “He’s dead.”

The old man moved white king’s bishop on f1 to b5. He stared at the empty seat opposite as though waiting for his invisible adversary to make his move. He was still waiting when Frank left the park.

 TWENTY

F
rank finished off the cheeseburger and the cole slaw. He considered the fries against two additional miles in the morning. He pushed the plate away and reran José’s meeting with Cookie.

“Cookie says he got it from Pencil. But Milt says Cookie told him he got it from Austin’s woman.”

José pulled Frank’s plate over and picked out a French fry.

“I think we got it as straight as Cookie could give it . . . that he got it from Pencil, and not Austin’s woman like he told Milt.”

“So Pencil was either ratting out Austin two years ago for actually killing Gentry, or he was trying to frame Austin to cover for somebody else killing Gentry.”

José dipped the fry in a puddle of ketchup.

“Whatever . . . Milt bought it.”

“And Milt made it more credible, claiming that Cookie got it directly from Austin’s woman rather than Pencil.”

“Worse than the used-car business,” Frank said.

They sat on the terrace of Potowmack Landing, a
marina restaurant. The lunch-hour crowd filled the place. Lanyards and pocket clips carried ID badges from the Pentagon and Reagan National, a mile or two up the GW Parkway.

José dropped his chin to his chest and watched a 737 over the Potomac, wheels and flaps down for a landing at Reagan National.

“Rhinelander?” he asked Frank.

“We got an appointment with him at four. Janowitz’ll meet us there.”

“What’d the Dragon Lady have to say about him?”

“Nothing complimentary.”

José finished the French fry and studied the check.

“Even split?”

“But you ate my fries,” Frank protested.

José shot him his narrow-lidded Mike Tyson look.

“Even split,” Frank said.

B
ack in the office, Frank fired up the coffeemaker and José switched on the CD player. Frank spread out the clippings while José picked up Zelmer Austin’s case jacket. The coffee was ready just as Ahmad Jamal was wrapping up “Poinciana.” The two men settled into reading and making notes. Jamal moved on to “Ole Devil Moon.”

“You about through?” José asked an hour later.

Frank checked his notes. “Frederick Dumay Rhinelander the Third, born with a silver spoon in each hand.” He passed an
Architectural Digest
clipping to José. “The homes of Frederick Rhinelander.”

Frank watched José’s eyes widen.

A 23,000-square-foot lodge in Aspen, complete with its own mountain and helicopter hangar.

A palace in northern Virginia: 40,000 square feet fronting the Potomac, just upriver from a Saudi prince.

An apartment in Paris: gilt, mirrors, and Louis XVI furniture overlooking the Place Vendôme.

José handed the article back. “Must be tough,” he said with a roll of the eyes, “camping out in Paris.”

“Yeah. Life’s unfair. A lousy three thousand square feet . . . cramped accommodations.”

“Guy makes . . . what?”

“Congressional salary? Hundred fifty, sixty. Somewhere in the neighborhood.”

“Chump change. Think he even notices it come in?”

“Don’t think he balances his own checkbook, Hoser.” Frank took a cautious first sip of his coffee. “Our boy Zelmer?” he asked José.

José picked up his notebook. “Found in the middle of Eaton Road, ten forty-five Thursday night, April 15, 1999. M.E. report: Death by multiple trauma, manner of death automobile impact.”

“What’d he have on his sheet?”

“Assault with deadly weapon. Assault, intent to maim. Vehicular manslaughter. Burglary. Breaking, entering. Grand theft auto.”

“Time?”

“He and Skeeter and Pencil came from the same neighborhood. The three of them hand in hand to Lorton in ’eighty-seven. Skeeter met up with one of Juan Brooks’s top boys doing time. All three get out in ’eighty-eight. Now they’re back, business gets big. Then our FBI man Atkins busts Brooks in ’ninety-two. Skeeter takes over. Goes low-profile. Stealth operator. Narcotics knows he’s up to his ass in the business, but nobody can lay a finger on them. Austin is a hanger-on. One of Skeeter’s gofers.”

“Until he kills Gentry.”

“According to the story as told by Cookie as supposedly told to Cookie by Pencil Crawfurd.” Frank tossed his pencil onto his desk in frustration. “We got zip. We got absolutely . . . positively . . .
zip.
”

“One thing we got.”

“What?”

José gestured to the clock. “An appointment to meet the
MFWIC of the Subcommittee on D.C. Appropriations. You think he’ll introduce us to his real estate agent?”

T
here he is,” Frank said.

Janowitz stood in the hallway opposite the door to the Subcommittee on D.C. Appropriations.

“You’re on time.”

“You’re surprised?” José asked.

“On time for what?” Frank asked.

With an index finger, Janowitz pushed his glasses back so they touched the bridge of his nose. “Nothing definite,” he said. “Al . . . Mr. Salvani . . . said Rhinelander wasn’t happy about me digging in the files.”

“You didn’t talk to Rhinelander yourself?”

Janowitz shook his head.

“You getting stonewalled?”

“No. Al’s been helpful. Had one of his staffers show me around. Got me a parking pass and a building badge, a cubicle and a computer. But”—Janowitz held up two empty hands—“no files until Rhinelander approves.”

“Almost four.” Frank gestured toward the subcommittee doorway.

Janowitz pushed through the door. Frank and José followed him in. At a desk in the middle of the room, a largish formidable woman looked up at them. She wore a worried frown, and held a pencil frozen in midair over an appointments register.

Janowitz walked up to the desk. “Marge, Detectives Kearney and Phelps have an appointment with Congressman Rhinelander at four.”

She eyed Frank and José, then brought her pencil down and moved it over the register. The pencil stopped. She bent closer, as though to make certain of the entry, then looked up.

“Have a seat.” She aimed the pencil at an L-shaped leather sofa. Janowitz settled down, pulled a Palm Pilot from a jacket pocket, and began tapping with a stylus. José
picked out a
Reader’s Digest
from a nearby magazine rack, while Frank found an issue of
People
.

“These guys must get their reading material from my dentist,” José said. Marge rewarded him with an acid look.

By four-thirty, Janowitz had finished tapping the Palm Pilot, but he held it anyway, apparently unsure what to do with it. Frank dozed, his chin dropped to his chest, the
People
open in his lap to a spread on Madonna. José sat with his eyes fixed glassily on a seemingly paralyzed wall clock.

Suddenly Frank awoke, snapping his head up, momentarily confused about where he was. His head cleared. “Why don’t we come back tomorrow?” he asked Janowitz.

“Rhinelander won’t be here.”

“What?”

“He’ll be back in his district,” Janowitz explained. “Congress usually breaks for the weekend Thursday evenings.”

“Come back Monday, then.”

Janowitz shook his head. “They usually don’t start up again until Tuesday morning.”

“Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday,” José said in wonderment. “How’d I ever miss out on something like that?”

“You live in the District,” Janowitz said. “Foreigners, felons, and D.C. residents can’t be elected members of Congress.”

“I guess we wait,” José said unhappily.

Another half-hour passed. The hands on the clock had slowly, almost painfully, crawled toward five.

Marge’s phone chirped once. She answered, listened, and eyed Frank, José, and Janowitz.

“Yes,” she said, “they’re still here.”

The Rayburn Building’s architect had attempted to graft the ornate nineteenth-century decor of the Capitol onto Frederick Rhinelander’s mid-twentieth-century office. The expensive operation had failed. Heavy velvet drapes, patterned carpets, and faux plaster crown moldings clashed with modern windows, fluorescent lighting, and government-bland pseudo-Danish teak furniture.

Frederick Rhinelander sat at his desk, the only genuine
antique in the room, a massive piece with a sweeping, flaring grain that looked crafted from a solid block of oak. On the desk, a richly embossed leather-trimmed blotter, a Cross pen-and-pencil set, and a brass banker’s lamp with a green glass shade.

Rhinelander, a man of medium build, wore his dark hair short and neatly combed. He had on a well-tailored dark blue pin-striped suit, a snowy white shirt with an English spread collar, and a silver-gray silk tie.

Frank’s first thought was that Rhinelander looked younger than in his photographs. But that wasn’t it. In some indefinable way, Rhinelander looked more
juvenile.
As though he didn’t quite fit into the adult costume he was wearing. And there was an alertness about him, as though he was constantly sniffing the air for danger.

Al Salvani sat in an armchair to the side of his desk.

“Congressman Rhinelander,” Frank said, “I’m Detective Kearney, and this’s my partner, Detective Phelps. Detective Janowitz is working with us on the Gentry case.”

Frank and José offered their credentials. Rhinelander took them, examined them, then handed them back. He pointed to three chairs that had been drawn up in front of his desk.

“Please, gentlemen.”

Rhinelander spoke with a studied, careful enunciation. His New England accent carried a foppish nasal overlay of Old England.

“Please don’t think me brusque,” he said, “but there’s going to be a vote on the floor any moment. If so, there’s no telling when I shall return. So . . . shall we cut to the chase?” He touched his fingertips together, making a tent of his hands. “Detective Janowitz has already had access to Kevin Gentry’s appointments calendar.”

“Yes,” Frank said.

“But now he wants to go fishing in the subcommittee’s financial records.” Rhinelander spoke as though Janowitz weren’t in the room. “This line of investigation is presumptive of a motive for Mr. Gentry’s death arising from the subcommittee’s activities.”

José got through Rhinelander’s bureaucratese before Frank did. “Nobody’s presuming anything, Congressman. We want to know what Mr. Gentry was doing and why he was doing it. If we know that, we might find out who killed him. We’d appreciate your help to establish what Kevin Gentry was doing before he was killed.”

Rhinelander smiled condescendingly. “Very well put, Detective Phelps. And that means precisely . . . what?”

“It means we want to find out who he was dealing with and what the dealing was about.”

Rhinelander’s smile disappeared. “And
that
means . . . ?”

Irritated over Rhinelander’s none-too-subtle baiting, Frank cut in: “
That
means we need access to people and records so we can build a timeline for Gentry’s activities.”

“You don’t believe that it was a case of Kevin being unlucky?” Rhinelander persisted. “Someone with a gun looking for any available target?”

“That’s only one possibility,” José said.

Rhinelander, his face a flat, expressionless mask, stared steadily at José. “I am the first to appreciate the value of
good
police work,” he said, with a righteous air. “Some of my colleagues complain to me that they’ve seen too little of it here in Washington. But I support your efforts fully. I’m inclined to have the subcommittee assist you. I hope you appreciate that.”

Rhinelander looked expectantly at Frank, José, and Janowitz.

“Well?” he asked. “Do you?”

“I’m sorry,” Frank said. “Do I . . . what?”

“I didn’t hear you say that you appreciated it . . . that I’d have the subcommittee assist you.”

It took Frank a moment to realize what Rhinelander wanted. “Yes. Of course, Congressman, we appreciate it.”

Rhinelander almost purred. “Good,” he said. “That’s good.”

“If you have a moment?” José asked.

“Yes?”

“Mr. Gentry . . . could you describe your relationship
with him? He was your staff director for, what, four years?”