“It isn’t a matter of being supportive, Richard. You certainly can’t accuse me of not supporting you. You wouldn’t have a book unless I’d put you in touch with Russo.”
“You’re right, and I appreciate that. Look, I’m as sorry as the next person that Louis was killed. I guess the mob doesn’t say let bygones be bygones, exactly.”
“
If
it was the mob that killed him.”
“Had to be.”
His father said nothing.
Rich’s cell phone rang. He pulled it from his pocket and answered. It was Kathryn.
“Hi,” he said.
“Hi. Where are you?”
“At Mom and Dad’s house. What’s up?”
“Mac Smith called. He reminded me we’re having dinner with them tomorrow night.”
“I forgot.”
“So did I. With all that’s happened I—”
“I’d rather skip it. Mac is a great guy but—”
“I don’t see how we can. I told him we’d be there.”
“Okay.”
“When are you leaving there?”
“A couple of minutes. I’ll give you a call from the airport.”
“Sorry,” he told his father, turning off the phone and returning it to his pocket.
“Have you spoken with Mac Smith lately?”
“No, but Kathryn and I are having dinner with Mac and his wife tomorrow night.”
“You’ll discuss this with him?”
“Discuss what?”
“Your book. Pulling it in view of what’s occurred.”
Rich floundered before coming up with a response. “Pull it? That’s ridiculous. I wouldn’t think of it.”
“Maybe it’s time you did a little thinking, Richard. Why haven’t you given me the book to read?”
Rich made a point of looking at his watch. He stood. “I have to go, Dad. There’s a train back into the city in a half hour. Drive me to the station?”
“Your mother will. It will do her good to get out of the house.”
Frank Marienthal left the room. It was the last time Rich saw him that day. His mother happily announced that she would take him to the train station. After saying goodbye to Carrie, Rich joined his mother in her green Mercedes and they pulled away from the house.
“Have a nice chat with your father?” she asked, obviously unaware of what father and son had discussed.
“I’m not sure I’d characterize it that way,” Rich said.
“He worries about you,” she said. “So do I. How is that lovely young lady you’ve been seeing?”
“Kathryn? She’s fine. She said to say hello.”
Kathryn had accompanied Rich on a few of his infrequent visits home, and Mary Marienthal had once traveled to Washington to spend a week touring the city with them.
“Well, please say hello back from me,” she said, pulling up in front of the station.
Rich kissed her on the cheek and opened the door on his side.
“Richard,” she said.
“Yes?”
“Don’t be too harsh with your father. He loves you very much.”
“I know, I know,” he said. “And I love you both. I’d better get inside. The train will be here in a few minutes.”
He went to the platform and looked back to where his mother still sat in the car. She waved and blew him a kiss. He returned her wave as the train came into the station and wiped her from view.
EIGHTEEN
D
etectives Bret Mullin and Vinny Accurso spent the morning showing the composite sketch of Louis Russo’s killer to people in the predominantly black community of Logan Circle, in the city’s northeast quadrant. Once a fashionable neighborhood, Logan Circle had deteriorated into an area known more for its drug dealers, pimps, and prostitutes than for its once stately and genteel four-story Victorian mansions and town houses. For a while, prostitution was less of a problem after the police rounded the prostitutes up and took them to Virginia, to the chagrin of residents of that state. But they eventually drifted back. A few working their shifts on the hot streets of Logan Circle this morning watched warily as Mullin and Accurso passed.
“Good morning, ladies,” Mullin said, chuckling.
“You know anybody looks like this?” Accurso asked, showing the prostitutes the composite sketch.
Heads shook.
“You take care,” Mullin said as he and his partner continued down the street. “Don’t get mixed up with any wackos.”
They showed the sketch to doormen and bellhops at the Vista International Hotel on Thomas Circle, the infamous scene of former mayor Marion Barry’s arrest for possession of crack cocaine, and went through Meridian Hill Park, also known as Malcolm X Park. The gardens there, which re-created the splendid formal gardens of seventeenth-century France and Italy, were in stark contrast to the assortment of down-and-out men and women occupying the park’s benches. On one was a hefty, brooding black man wearing a hooded blue sweatshirt despite the oppressive heat and humidity.
“Hey, Lucas,” Mullin said, sitting on one side of him. Accurso took the other end of the bench.
“What’s happening?” Mullin asked, wiping perspiration from his face with a handkerchief.
“Not much,” Lucas said. “What are you guys doin’ here?”
“Looking for him,” Accurso said, holding the composite sketch in front of Lucas, one of a number of informants developed by Mullin.
Lucas swiveled to take in the park. Mullin and Accurso seldom spoke with him in public, preferring clandestine meetings out of the sight of others.
“Who’s he?” Lucas asked.
“Thought you might know,” Mullin said. “He’s the shooter at Union Station yesterday.”
“Oh, yeah. Read about it. Saw it on TV. Never seen him before.”
“Sure?”
“Yeah, man, I’m sure. What I read, he’s too expensive a stud to be from around here. Least that’s what the papers say.”
“Anybody around here talking about the shooting?” Accurso asked.
“Nah. Got other things to rap about, you know what I’m sayin’?”
“Yeah, we know,” Mullin said, getting to his feet and gesturing for his partner to do the same. “You hear anything, give us a call, Lucas.”
“You got something for me?” Lucas asked, again nervously surveying the park.
“We would if you had something for us,” Accurso said as he and Mullin walked away.
“Waste a time,” Mullin grumbled, loosening his tie.
“How come you always wear a tie?” Accurso asked. He wore an open-neck yellow polo shirt and slacks. A tie wasn’t required of detectives unless you were scheduled to attend some official event. Visiting Logan Circle and the northeast quadrant didn’t qualify.
“Take it off,” Accurso said, referring to Mullin’s tie.
“Waste a time,” was all Mullin said as they continued to walk through the neighborhood, which, while rundown, exhibited occasional signs of gentrification. As they passed the splendid Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, the largest Roman Catholic church in the hemisphere, Accurso glanced at Mullin, who surreptitiously blessed himself. He knew Mullin was Catholic, but had never before seen an outward manifestation of his faith.
“You hungry?” Mullin asked.
“Sure.”
They went to 12th Street, which passed for an old-fashioned Main Street, and settled at a table by the front window in Murry & Paul’s, a southern soul food fixture for years.
“What’d you do last night?” Accurso asked after they’d been served large glasses of ice water.
“Nothing. Had dinner, went home, fed the cat, and watched a little TV.”
“Where’d you have dinner?”
“What are you, keeping a diary of where I go, what I do?”
“Just curious.”
“The Jockey Club.”
Accurso shook his open hand as he said, “Ooh, fancy, fancy.”
Mullin ignored him.
“That’s some beautiful church, huh?”
“What is?”
“That Catholic church we passed. You ever been there?”
“No.” Mullin looked at the menu. “Ribs,” he said, “and slaw. You know that guy they say knew the dead guy’s name?”
Accurso looked up from his menu. “Huh?”
“That guy they said told the TV reporter he knew the victim’s name. Who the hell is he?”
Accurso shrugged. “Beats me. Ribs, I guess. And slaw.”
“I figure this guy, whoever he is, knows more than Russo’s name. You know what I mean?”
“Maybe he does. We’ll never find him unless he decides to walk in. You want a Coke?” He knew that his big, beefy partner would like a beer or something stronger.
“Yeah, I guess,” Mullin said, wishing he were alone in a dark bar.
They’d finished lunch and were on coffee when Mullin’s cell phone went off.
“Mullin.”
He listened, then flipped the phone’s cover closed.
“What’s up?” Accurso asked, laying down his half of the bill on the table. Mullin stood and tightened his tie, using his reflection in the window.
“Like I told you, Vinny,” Mullin said, heading for the door, “showing the sketch was a waste of time. They already found the shooter.”
NINETEEN
A
s Mullin and Accurso left Murry & Paul’s, Tim Stripling was arriving at the FBI Building for his second meeting with the two agents with whom he’d met the previous day. They huddled in the same secure room at the rear of the building.
“So, it looks like the hunt is off for Mr. Louis Russo,” Stripling said. He’d removed his suit jacket and sat at the end of a short conference table, flanked by the agents.
“Yeah,” one said. “Somebody found him before you did.”
“If I was being paid as a bounty hunter, I’d be unhappy,” said Stripling. “Maybe the guy who shot him collected a hefty fee.”
When there was no response, he said, “Any word on who did the deed? I read his description in the papers, saw it on TV.”
The agent to Stripling’s left consulted a paper on the table in front of him, and read from it in a monotone.
“Leon LeClaire. Age forty-three. Residence listed as New York City. Born in Haiti, French passport.”
Stripling’s eyebrows lifted. “You’ve nailed him?”
“Somebody did. Literally. They discovered his body down in Kenilworth Gardens. We just got the word.”
“A positive ID?”
“That’s what we hear. We thought you’d get some info for us.”
Stripling chuckled. “Why me?” he asked. “You’re the fabled Federal Bureau of Investigation.”
His comment was confrontational, but he didn’t care. Stripling had always been distrustful of the FBI, having spent a good part of his professional life in the culture of the CIA, where the view of the Bureau was inherently less than positive. Now, as an independent operator, he was free to express what he felt without fear of retribution. But Mark Roper’s words came back to him:
“Be cooperative.”
The agents ignored his remark. One said, “The case is being handled at MPD by a detective named Mullin. Bret Mullin. They should be at the scene now. Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens, off the Anacostia Freeway, Northeast.”
“I’ve been there,” Stripling said. “Nice place. An ex-girlfriend was a plant freak, loved the water lilies at Kenilworth.”
“That’s nice to hear,” an agent said.
The dig wasn’t lost on Stripling. “So,” he said, “just what is it you want me to find out?”
“Information about how the investigation is going.”
“The MPD investigation?”
“That’s right.”
Stripling shook his head and flashed a smile. “I know I’m going to get the same answer I got last time, but I’m asking anyway. Why have
me
keep tabs on what MPD is doing? Hell, you guys work with them all the time.”
“They’re not always—well, as cooperative as we’d like them to be.”
“Okay,” Stripling said. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“Good. And while you’re at it, see what you can find out about this so-called mystery man who blurted out Russo’s name to a TV reporter.”
“I saw that on TV,” Stripling said.
“We’d like to know who he is.”
“That won’t be easy.”
“Which is why they want you to do it.”
They.
There was no sense asking who
they
were, so Stripling didn’t bother. “Anything else?” Stripling asked.
“No. We’ll keep in touch on the cell phone we gave you.”
“Okay,” Stripling said, standing and slipping on his jacket. He went to the door, turned, and asked, “What do I do if I find this mystery man? Who do I tell?”
“Let your control at the Company know you have something you want to tell us. We’ll call and set up a meeting.”
Stripling looked at him. A retired CIA agent with a control? The FBI guy was just rubbing it in. He held the man’s eyes for a long moment, then left the room and the building and walked to a Hard Rock Café at Tenth and E Streets, relatively quiet at mid-afternoon. He took a table and ordered an iced coffee from the waitress, removed his jacket to allow the AC to reach him, and thought back to the meeting.