Murder at Union Station (25 page)

One of the two cell phones Tim Stripling carried rang. He saw that it wasn’t the one provided by the FBI and flipped open the cover on his personal phone. “Hello?”

“Tim. It’s Fred Peck.”

Stripling had just finished breakfast at Patisserie Café Didier, in Georgetown.

“What’s up, Fred?” he asked.

Stripling smiled at Peck’s lowering of his voice. “I have what you want,” said the detective.

“Meaning?”

“The name of the witness at Union Station.”

Stripling pulled a pen from his jacket and positioned it over a white paper napkin. “Shoot.”

“No,” Peck said. “I want to give it to you personally.”

“Why? Just give me the name.”

“I have a picture, too.”

“The sketch?”

“And a photo.”

Stripling glanced around the popular patisserie and also lowered his voice. “Now?” he asked.

“I’m tied up this morning,” Peck said.

Sounds kinky,
Stripling thought. “Lunch?”

“Yes. But, Tim.”

“Huh?”

“This will cost you big.”

Greedy bastard,
Stripling thought.
His wife must be holding out on him in bed unless she gets paid.

“I’ll take care of you,” Stripling said.

“I mean, it’s got to be a lot more.”

“Yeah, yeah, okay.”

“South Austin Grill in Alexandria. Noon?”

Tex-Mex food,
Stripling thought, wincing. He disliked southwestern food. All beans and mush. “All right,” he said.

He’d no sooner closed the cover on his cell phone when the other one rang.

“Stripling.”

“We’d like to meet,” the FBI agent said.

“Why?”

“To get an update.”

“I don’t have anything to update you on.”

“That’s disappointing.”

“That may be, but—”

“One o’clock. Usual place.”

“No can do. I’ll have something for you later this afternoon.”

“What time?”

“Four.”

The agent hung up.

He used his personal phone to call Mark Roper at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia.

“What a pleasant surprise hearing from you,” Roper said.

“Always aim to please, Mark. I’ve got a breakthrough for your friends.”

“My friends?”

“You know who I’m talking about. I’m due for a raise.”

“Timothy, please, I—”

“Seven-fifty starting today. And a bonus of two thousand.”

“For Christ’s sake, Tim.”

“I’m serious, Mark. It’s either that or you get somebody else. My expenses have suddenly gone up.”

“What’s this breakthrough?”

“We have a deal?”

“All right. But—”

“I’ll get back to you. Or maybe your friends will. Ciao.”

Marienthal didn’t take time for a leisurely breakfast at a trendy Georgetown patisserie that morning. He was at the local branch of his bank when it opened at nine, presenting the keys to his safe deposit box to the by-now-familiar woman on the platform. He’d been in and out of the safe deposit vault on a daily basis for almost a year.

“How’s your book going?” she asked as she inserted his keys and the master key into his rented boxes.

“Oh, good. Yeah, pretty good.”

“That’s great.”

She discreetly left as Marienthal emptied the contents of the boxes into a large canvas shoulder bag. He signaled her; she returned and together they locked the boxes.

“Thanks,” he said.

“See you this afternoon?” she asked, aware of his habit of returning materials to the boxes just before the bank’s closing time each day.

“Not sure,” he said.

He walked quickly to his car parked around the corner, opened the trunk, deposited the canvas bag in it alongside a suitcase, slammed the trunk closed, looked around to ensure no one was paying attention to him, got behind the wheel, and eased his way into traffic. A half hour later, he was checked into the River Inn in Foggy Bottom, a small, all-suite hotel within walking distance of the Kennedy Center, a favorite of visitors contemplating a longer stay in Washington. He used his cell phone to call Kathryn Jalick at the Library of Congress.

“For you, Kathryn,” a colleague in the rare documents room said.

“Rich?”

“Yeah. I’m here.”

“Are you okay?”

“Fine. I’m fine. You?”

“Okay.”

“Look, Kathryn, just remember what I told you. Nobody, and I mean nobody, is to know where I am.”

“I know.”

“Don’t write down the number here. Don’t write down anything and leave it around the apartment.”

“I won’t. But, Rich, what about your folks? Mac Smith? What do I tell them?”

“Just say I’m out of town on business. I’ll be gone a week, maybe longer.”

“All right.”

“When will you tell Geoff?”

“I don’t know. I’m not sure what I’ll tell him. That’s what I have to figure out while I’m here. Don’t worry. Just go about your life like normal.”

“Normal.”

“It’ll be over soon. I love you.”

She glanced at her colleague, who was busy preparing a rare document for a researcher due to arrive later that morning. “I love you, too,” she whispered, hung up, and brushed a tear from the corner of her eye.

THIRTY

H
e was fortunate. The bullet didn’t do any major structural damage to the knee. Mostly soft tissue trauma.”

The young physician delivering good news to Katie Accurso, Bret Mullin, and a contingent of senior police officers led by the commissioner had just come from performing surgery on Vinnie Accurso’s leg. He wore OR greens and black clogs; a wilted surgical mask hung loosely around his neck.

“That’s wonderful,” Katie said, breaking into tears. “Can I see him now?”

“Give him a couple of hours in recovery,” the doctor said.

An MPD public information officer conferred briefly with the commissioner before going downstairs to brief press camped at D.C. General’s front door. The commissioner and others filed from the room after offering their good wishes to Katie, leaving her alone with Mullin.

“I’m so thankful,” she said, dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief he’d assured her was clean. “He could have been killed,” she said.

“The perp was a lousy shot,” Mullin said.

“Will you find him?” she asked.

“Our guys are all over the neighborhood,” he said. “Oh, I almost forgot.” He handed her the plastic bag of fruit from Eastern Market. “Vinnie bought this just before he got shot.”

“What is it?”

“Fruit. He said you wanted fruit. That’s all the fruitcake thought about. The fruit.”

She laughed, and he joined her.

“I have to go,” he said. “You need anything, you yell, huh?”

“I will. Thanks, Bret.”

Mullin stopped in a small neighborhood bar a block from the hospital and downed two shots of vodka before returning to the precinct, where the buzz was all about Accurso’s shooting. Mullin answered questions about how it had happened and what he’d seen, but soon tired of repeating the story. He secluded himself in an empty interrogation room and worked on multiple forms to be filled out regarding the shooting of a police officer. He was engrossed in the task when one of Chief Leshin’s lieutenants poked his head in: “Chief wants you in his office, Mullin.”

“Now?”

“No, next week. Yeah, now.”

Leshin was wrapping up a meeting when Mullin arrived. He watched through the glass as those in the room nodded at something the chief said, then came through the door. Leshin waved Mullin in.

“Close it, Bret,” he said, indicating the door.

“What’s up?” Mullin asked, directing his words away from his boss in case the supposedly odorless vodka wasn’t odorless.

“The Union Station case. It’s closed.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“I mean
really
closed, the Russo hit and the LeClaire hit.”

Mullin’s face indicated he didn’t understand.

“This guy you’ve been looking for, the one who knew Louis Russo’s name when he was shot.”

“What about him?”

“Drop it. Quit looking for him. It’s over.”

“You said—”

“What I said was that you could try to run him down, provided it didn’t take too much of your time. With Vinnie out of commission, you don’t have time. Okay?”

“If you say so.”

“I say so. Tough about Vinnie.”

“Yeah.”

“You’ll hook up with a new partner tomorrow.”

“I have a choice?”

“No.”

“Just don’t give me one of the young ones, huh? They get dumber every year.”

Leshin’s silence said it wasn’t a debatable issue, and that the meeting was over.

“How’s the drinking?” the chief asked as Mullin opened the door.

“How is it?” He laughed. “Better than ever.”

“Get out of here, Mullin.”

Leshin sat behind his desk and thought of the call he’d received earlier in the day from someone in the commissioner’s office instructing him not to pursue the identity of the Union Station witness.

“How come?” Leshin had asked, knowing his question wouldn’t be answered. It wasn’t.

“Okay,” he’d said, understanding without being told that someone in D.C. with clout had called off the hunt. Not that it mattered. As far as he was concerned, the official departmental finding—that Louis Russo had been killed in retribution for having testified against his Mafia goombahs a dozen years ago, and that his killer, Leon LeClaire, had been murdered by the same people—was good enough for him. Closed cases were good cases. The more you closed, the better it looked for you personally, and for the department. That’s what it was all about, wasn’t it? Looking good.

His thoughts shifted to Bret Mullin.
He
didn’t look good. All that damn booze. He’d given up on trying to lead Mullin into programs promising the chance of sobriety. With any luck, the big, beefy detective would walk with his pension in a year—after putting in thirty—and be out of his hair.

Mullin was thinking the same thing, that it was just another year to the pension. Accurso’s shooting was hitting home. Mullin was no different than any other cop who knows from the first day on the job that some creep’s bullet might have your name on it. He’d been lucky; he’d never taken a bullet, although one had come too close for comfort a few years back. The memory of that incident prompted him to abruptly leave the precinct, get in his car, and drive in the direction of the apartment he’d called home since the divorce. But going home wasn’t an option. Not yet. He parked at a hydrant in front of a restaurant, went inside, sat at the bar, and ordered a double Grey Goose. He was virtually alone in the damp coolness of the bar area. The barmaid, an older woman with sharp features and red hair piled high on her head, delivered his drink. “How about a glass of tomato juice with that?” Mullin said.