Murder at Union Station (46 page)
There would be no party this holiday season at one home.
A jogger running through Rock Creek Park in the first day of December stumbled upon a lifeless body, which was partially obscured by brush and low bushes. Chet Fletcher had died of a single gunshot to his right temple. The remaining bullets in the revolver gripped in his right hand matched the shot that had taken his life. His were the only fingerprints on the weapon.
The police thoroughly searched the area surrounding his body and found little in the way of useful evidence—a discarded jogger’s shoe, a hiker’s map of the park, a ballpoint pen, a discarded fresh Good Humor toasted almond ice cream wrapper, a used condom, an earring of the costume jewelry variety, and a Washington Redskins T-shirt that had obviously been there for a very long time.
His wife, Gail, told the police that her husband had become increasingly depressed since resigning from his White House position, particularly after rumors found their way into second-tier media that he’d resigned after having ordered the murder of Louis Russo and the killing of Russo’s assailant, Leon LeClaire.
“The people circulating these vicious rumors, and the irresponsible media that reported them, killed my husband,” Mrs. Fletcher said in the only press conference she gave before packing up their home and moving away. She characterized the city she left behind as “a place where the only thing that matters is personal gain and greed, winning and losing, and where the lives of decent people like my husband mean nothing. He was driven to take his life, and those who drove him to it should rot in hell.”
The president called Chet Fletcher a brilliant man, whose contributions to the political process and to the nation were incalculable. “He was my friend,” said the president, now about to begin a second term. “I shall miss him, and so shall this wonderful nation. God bless America!”
A
LSO BY
M
ARGARET
T
RUMAN
First Ladies
Bess W. Truman
Souvenir
Women of Courage
Harry S Truman
Letters from Father: The Truman Family’s
Personal Correspondences
Where the Buck Stops
White House Pets
The President’s House
I
N THE
C
APITAL
C
RIMES
S
ERIES
Murder in the White House
Murder on Capitol Hill
Murder in the Supreme Court
Murder in the Smithsonian
Murder on Embassy Row
Murder at the FBI
Murder in Georgetown
Murder in the CIA
Murder at the Kennedy Center
Murder at the National Cathedral
Murder at the Pentagon
Murder on the Potomac
Murder at the National Gallery
Murder in the House
Murder at the Watergate
Murder at the Library of Congress
Murder in Foggy Bottom
Murder in Havana
Murder at Ford’s Theatre
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
A Ballantine Book
Published by The Random House Publishing Group
Copyright © 2004 by Margaret Truman
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. 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 simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.
Ballantine and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available from the Library of Congress.
eISBN 0-345-48072-4
v1.0