Murder in the Smithsonian (7 page)

“‘Female’? Did you see the mugger?”

“I overheard a museum security guard tell one of your officers that a witness saw a
woman
hit me and steal my purse. And just before it happened I’m pretty sure I smelled perfume.”

“Let me talk with the officer.”

Heather put him on the line. “Hello, Captain, Officer Scheiner here. She’s right. A witness says she saw a tall woman hit Miss McBean with a cane.”

“Anything else?”

“No, sir; except whoever did it ripped off her purse and took off.”

“Look Scheiner, treat her nice. She’s also a prime source of information in the Smithsonian murder. Take her back to her hotel—she’s staying at the Madison—and don’t press her for a statement. I’ll take care of that myself.”

“Okay, Captain.”

Heather got back on the phone.

“Miss McBean,” Hanrahan said, “you go on back and get a good night’s sleep. I’m sure you can use it.”

“Yes, thank you…”

“Come by my office in the morning and we’ll talk about this. All about it. I’m not dismissing anything. I’ve got an open mind.” I better, he thought. There’s
sure as hell nothing in it at the moment to solve this thing…

“All right, thank you, Captain. I appreciate it.”

***

The two uniformed officers escorted Heather into the Madison, which of course had people turning to stare. She told the desk what had happened, adding that her room key had been in her purse. She was given a new one, told that the staff stood ready to help in any way it could, then went with the policemen to the twelfth floor. They stopped in front of her room. “I’ll open it,” one of the officers said. She handed him the key. He inserted it into the lock, turned the knob, stepped inside and flipped on the overhead light. “Damn,” he muttered.

“What’s the matter?” Heather asked, and didn’t wait for an answer. She looked into the room. “Oh, my God…” The room had been ransacked. Every dresser drawer was on the floor, along with her clothes. The bed had been stripped, the drapes torn from their rods.

“Could I have Captain Hanrahan’s home number again, miss?” Scheiner said. He dialed. “Captain, this is Scheiner—”

“What now, Scheiner?”

“We just brought Miss McBean to her room. It’s been torn apart. Obviously somebody was looking for something—”

“Let me talk to her.”

“I can’t believe it,” Heather said to Hanrahan. She felt herself shaking.

“Stay put, I’ll be there in fifteen minutes. Tell the officers to wait with you until I get there.”

***

Hanrahan hung up, turned off the television and went to the bedroom, where he took off his blue terry-cloth robe, dressed in what he’d intended to wear to the office the next day and got his car. It was not the way he’d planned to spend his evening. It was to be an early-to-bed night. He was deep-bone tired. His back ached, and his stomach, always on the verge, was in open rebellion.

He turned the ignition key, popped a Tums in his mouth and headed for the Madison.

They sat at a corner table in the Madison’s lobby bar. Heather hadn’t wanted to come downstairs but Hanrahan told her
he
needed a drink.

She cradled a glass of single-malt Scotch. Hanrahan had his usual gin on the rocks. (He’d ordered a martini without vermouth in the hope of avoiding a single measured shot of gin over ice. He needn’t have worried. This bartender poured from the bottle no matter what the order. Real class.)

“I still don’t understand the need for a policewoman in my room,” Heather said.

“Indulge me. At my age I like being indulged.”

Heather smiled. Hanrahan had called the policewoman, Sergeant Shippee, before he left his house. She arrived at the hotel carrying a small suitcase, told Heather that she was used to such assignments, that they’d get along fine, set about making up a pull-out couch with extra linen ordered from housekeeping.

“How old
are
you, Captain?” Heather asked.

“Depends on the day. Sometimes I’m forty-seven, sometimes I’m forty-seven going on seventy-four. Then again, there are days when I just turned twenty-one.

“Today? Well, I started off feeling old. Right now I feel as though I’ve shed a few years.” He checked to see whether she’d taken it as a line. He hadn’t meant it that way, and she didn’t seem bothered. She sat back, the glass in her hands. She’d changed into a tan corduroy skirt and green button-down shirt. Her hair was brushed back, and she wore no makeup. She didn’t need lipstick. Altogether, Hanrahan couldn’t help thinking, a delicious looking lady. He sighed.

There was silence as they sipped their drinks, looked off in different directions. Finally Hanrahan said, “Tell me about tonight. Start at the museum.”

“Is this the statement you said you’d take?”

“No. We’ll do that tomorrow. This is off the record.”

“What can I say? I was standing in the courtyard between the East and West buildings of the National Gallery when someone hit me over the head and stole my purse.”

“Did you see the person?” Joe Pearl, he thought, would have said “perpetrator.”

“No.”

“Any sense of anyone following you?”

“No… I felt a blow and the next thing I knew I was at the bottom of the fountains, my mouth full of water.”

Hanrahan winced. “I’m sorry… Look, your uncle seems to have been important in your life, and to have been linked with some of the aspects of this case. Should I know more about him?”

She look startled, then pleased. “An interesting question, Captain. Well… they called his death a suicide, which I’m sure it wasn’t.”

Hanrahan motioned to a waiter for a refill. Heather shook her head when Hanrahan pointed to her half-empty glass. He waited until his drink had been delivered
before saying, “They say your uncle committed suicide and you’re sure it wasn’t? Why?”

She sighed. “I guess I will have another whiskey, after all.”

Hanrahan gave the order. “You were saying…”

“My Uncle Calum did not commit suicide, no matter what the Edinburgh police claim. He’d disappeared for a year while he was investigating the Legion of Harsa. While he was gone rumors spread that he must have died. I knew it wasn’t true. He’d told me just before he left that no matter how long he was gone, no matter what sort of speculation there was, he’d be back safe and sound.”

“And?”

“That’s exactly what he did. He came home to the castle one day, gave me a hug, said it was good to see me again and went to work in his study.”

“Then?”

“A week later I found him in that same study, a bullet hole in his head, a gun in his hand.”

“Did they establish that the bullet came from the gun he was holding?”

“Yes, at least according to the police. It doesn’t
matter
, though. I don’t care about circumstantial evidence. I
know
Calum did not kill himself. My uncle was a Scotsman through and through. We have no law against suicide in Scotland, but we do have laws against making a public nuisance of one’s self. The last thing Uncle Calum would ever do is make a public nuisance of himself, or leave me that way.”

He was quiet, but she sensed he wasn’t overly impressed with her case against the suicide finding.

“Captain Hanrahan, I am not just saying that Uncle Calum didn’t kill himself because of his Scottish character. I
am
saying that he simply was not a man who would prematurely end his life. He was killed, just as
the only other man in my life has been, and I mean to sort out and find the truth if it takes me… well, I’ve got the time for it.” Too much, she thought.

Hanrahan knocked back the rest of his drink. “I believe you will, Miss McBean, and speaking for myself and the MPD, I’d like to help—at least where Dr. Tunney’s concerned… So let me ask you… you told me that you’d met Tunney through his relationship with your uncle. Do
you
think their deaths might be linked up in some way? Assuming you’re right that your uncle’s death wasn’t suicide.”

“It would seem quite a coincidence, wouldn’t it?”

“Let’s take it from there… What about whatever Dr. Tunney told you before he left for Washington. His problem he had to clear up. Nothing more concrete come to mind since we last talked?”

“No, I’m afraid not.”

Hanrahan popped a Tums into his mouth. “Indigestion,” he said. “Do this again,” he told the waiter, indicating his glass. To Heather he said, “About what happened tonight in your room… any idea who, why, what someone might be after? I have to tell you such things aren’t exactly unique around here. Yes… even in our nation’s capital, as they say. A mugger finds a hotel key in a stolen purse and hightails it to the room before the victim gets back.”

“Even my female mugger?” Her tone had an edge.

“Equality of opportunity, Miss McBean… But look, let’s not you and me get on each other’s case… You’ve been through a terrible experience, I’m the fellow who’s got to try to solve it. We’re natural allies.”

Her eyes filled up and she fought to hold back the tears. She nodded vigorously and managed a quick smile. Hanrahan wanted to reach out and touch her hand, but he fought the impulse. Change the subject,
he told himself… “Tell me about the Legion of Harsa.”

She pulled herself together, sipped her Scotch, sat back. “All right, Captain, you asked for it. Hope I don’t bore you. The society was named after Gaius Terentilius Harsa, a Roman who lived back around 460 B.C. He was a critic of Rome’s dictator, Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus, who believed in an elitist society. Harsa kept pressing for a code of written laws that would equally apply to patricians and plebeians but he never succeeded. After your Revolutionary War a group was formed by officers from your army. They called themselves the Society of the Cincinnati, after the Roman, Cincinnatus, and adopted what some considered his elitist views. I suppose their purposes were honorable… promoting friendship, keeping going the rights they fought for and helping each other and their families. Certain people didn’t see it that way, though.”

Hanrahan said it sounded sort of like a veterans organization. What was the big deal?

“It was the way they
ran
the society that bothered other people, like your Thomas Jefferson and a judge named Burke from one of your southern states. They attacked the Cincinnati for limiting membership to the eldest male descendant of existing members. The critics accused them of trying to create a race of… well, as it says on the placard beneath the medal, ‘a race of hereditary patricians or nobility.’”

Hanrahan nodded, and was impressed with her knowledge. He told her so.

“Thank you,” Heather said, “but being brought up by Calum McBean was an education in itself. He was probably the world’s foremost authority on Harsa and the Cincinnati.”

“And Harsa was set up in opposition to Cincinnati?”

“Exactly. Thomas Jefferson was its first president,
just as George Washington was the first president-general of the Cincinnati.”

“Are both groups still active today?”

“No. The Cincinnati is very much alive in America and in France. Its headquarters are right here in Washington, in a mansion donated by a former Cincinnati member, a Mr. Larz Anderson. I understand it’s magnificent and is open to the public. The society does a lot of fund raising to promote education.” She smiled. “Your city of Cincinnati was named after the society, not after the Roman dictator the way many people believe.”

“Interesting,” Hanrahan said. “What happened to Harsa?”

“Dissolved over the years. That’s what prompted my uncle to devote so much of his professional efforts to building a bridge of knowledge between today’s scholars and Harsa’s history. Lewis picked up that interest from him and got to be an authority in his own right.”

“Another link between them.”

“Another?”

“You, and Harsa. Are there more?”

“Not that I know of.”

“You think Harsa could play any sort of role in their deaths?”

“How?”

“Well… the medal that was stolen, the Harsa your uncle donated to the Smithsonian… maybe somebody from the Cincinnati—”

“What would that accomplish?”

“Getting even with the past? Sort of crazy, but fanatics never do make much sense.”

She shrugged. “It certainly would be the act of a
crazy person. The Cincinnati is a respected, worthy organization. Harsa hasn’t even existed for years. That could be why they only stole the Harsa medal. It’s much more valuable because the organization is extinct.”

“Okay, Miss McBean, you’re beat and upset and we can go on with this in the morning at my office. But be thinking some more about the Harsa medal… By the way, who’d buy a medal like that from the thieves?”

“Collectors? My uncle told me the world is full of unscrupulous collectors who buy through a black market.”

“I’d like to know more about that black market… tomorrow?”

“I’ll tell you whatever I can. And thank you for the drinks, and understanding…”

The policewoman answered the door. “Take good care of her,” Hanrahan said. “I’m getting quite an education.”

“You may discover, Captain, that I know less than you think.”

“I doubt
that
, Miss McBean. Anyway, good night to you… Officer Shippee will bring you to the office tomorrow morning.”

***

Hanrahan stopped at his favorite diner on the way home, sat at the counter across from the grill, took out a notebook and, as was his careful habit, jotted down what had been said by Heather. The short-order cook, 260 pounds, redfaced and perspiring as the heat from the griddle wiped away any benefits of the air conditioning, delivered orders of fried eggs, waffles, omelettes and a hamburger. He saw Hanrahan. “The usual, inspector?”

“No, give me a hamburger, no onions, and a vanilla milk shake.”

“Tum-tum acting up again?” The cook wiped his hands on a greasy T-shirt, tossed a patty on the grill and popped two halves of a bun in a toaster. Hanrahan watched him juggle a spate of new orders handed him by a waitress. He always enjoyed watching a top-notch griddleman, considered it an art form of sorts.

“Stretch a thick, white Bessie for Sherlock Holmes,” the griddleman called to someone working the fountain. He quickly arranged the platter—bun, lettuce and tomato, a pickle, plopped the meat on it and shoved it in front of Hanrahan with an arm that looked like a tattooed telephone pole.