Margaret Truman - Murder at Union Station

She sighed with relief. It didn’t matter what decision he’d made, as long as it resulted in some sort of action. As the shrinks say, “Any action is better than no action. At least you have a fifty-fifty chance of being right.”

“I’m glad,” she said. “What are you going to do?”

“I’ll fill you in when I see you. You going in to work today?”

“I haven’t made up my mind.”

“Go. I’ll contact you there this afternoon. Can you get out early?”

“I suppose so. Rich, what’s going on? What have you decided?”

“I’m going to New York.”

“New York? When?”

“Later today, after you and I do a few things. Look, I have to run. Call you.”

He hung up.

As she showered, the FBI agent monitoring the tap on her phone cursed under his breath. He’d picked up only the last few words of the conversation, not enough to nail down the location from which the call had been placed.

When the second call came moments later, she’d emerged from the shower wrapped in a terrycloth robe, her wet hair secured with a towel. The phone tap was working fine.

“Kathryn, it’s Ellen.”

“Hi.”

“So what are you and Rich going to do?”

“I don’t know, Ellen. Rich just called and-”

“He did? Where is he?”

“I honestly don’t know.”

“Kathryn, for God’s sake, Rich has to turn over those tapes.”

“Ellen, I can’t help you or Geoff. Please try and understand. Look, I just came out of the shower and have to go to work. When I talk again with Rich, I’ll tell him how much you and Geoff want to speak with him and urge him to call. Okay?”

“It doesn’t look like I have much of a choice, does it?” Ellen said, not sounding happy.

Tim Stripling checked in from home with the Com Center at the Hoover Building and was told of the conversation between Kathryn and Ellen Kelly. The botched pickup between Kathryn and Marienthal wasn’t mentioned. Stripling told them he’d be available all day, his cell phone on. After going through a pot of coffee, he abandoned an earlier plan to hang around the house and decided instead to get in the car and cruise the neighborhood surrounding Union Station, where the previous call from Marienthal had been made. If Marienthal called again, he wanted to be able to respond as quickly as possible to the location.

He called Mark Roper from the car.

“Where are you?” Roper asked.

“In my car.”

“Make something happen, Tim. Your client is getting nervous.”

“Who’s my client?”

“Timothy, just resolve this as quickly as possible. There’s a lot riding on it.”

“If I have to go beyond simply coming up with the tapes, I’ll expect the usual fee.”

“We can discuss that later.”

“No, we can discuss it now.”

“I’m hoping it won’t be necessary to go beyond that.”

“So am I. But if I do-”

“Yes, the usual fee.”

“More later,” Stripling said.

Ellen Kelly’s call to Kathryn Jalick had been prompted and monitored by Geoff Lowe, who stood next to her in their apartment.

“What did she say?” he asked.

“She heard from Rich.”

“Where is he?”

“She doesn’t know. She said she’s going to work today.”

“At the library?”

“That’s where she works, isn’t it?”

He walked away from her and paced the room. “Maybe he’s going to meet her there,” he said into the air.

Ellen picked up her briefcase and went to the door. “Coming?” she asked.

“No, you go ahead. Tell Widmer I’m running down the tapes.”

She dropped the briefcase. “No, Geoff, you tell him. I’m not in the mood to be yelled at this morning.”

“I’ll call.”

“Good.”

She was out the door.

Lowe followed soon after. He climbed in a cab parked at the corner and told the driver, “The Library of Congress.”

The driver’s expression said it wasn’t familiar to him.

“Independence and Second Street Southeast,” he growled. “Christ, you never heard of the Library of Congress?”

The driver heard the tone. He slipped the aging taxi into gear and lurched from the curb, forcing Lowe against the rear seat.

Mac Smith taught his class that morning. He returned home immediately following it and called Frank Marienthal’s room in the Watergate Hotel.

“Anything from Richard yet?” Marienthal asked.

“No,” said Smith. “Nothing on the machine. Where will you be the rest of the day?”

“Here. I’ll stay close. I could wring his neck.”

Smith ignored the comment. “I’ll be here at the apartment most of the day,” he said. “Annabel’s at the gallery but should be home early afternoon. We’ll let you know the minute we hear anything.”

Smith turned on the TV to CNN to catch up on the news. Rich Marienthal’s book and its charges against President Parmele continued to lead the newscast despite there being nothing new to report-no statement from the White House, a press release from Senator Karl Widmer’s office repeating the senator’s intention to hold hearings into the “Parmele matter.” The anchor ended the segment reporting that reliable sources had informed CNN that the president’s trusted political adviser, Chet Fletcher, was close to tendering his resignation to return to private life, in order to spend more time with his family. No confirmation from Fletcher.

Interesting, Smith thought as he turned off the set and went to his office, where a sizable pile of paperwork awaited him. He’d never met Chet Fletcher, but from what he’d heard about the man, he wasn’t the sort to run from a fight, to bail out when the going got tough. To spend more time with his family. Where had he heard that before?

The large reel-to-reel tape recorder in the FBI’s Com Center turned slowly and often for the next few hours. Every call to Marienthal’s apartment was dutifully recorded.

Simultaneously, calls to and from Mac and Annabel Smith’s Watergate apartment were taped. Intercepting calls involving an attorney was problematic, should any of the conversation involve the discussion of legal issues. The agents on duty had been warned to turn off the recorder and their earphones in the event that happened. Whether those monitoring the calls would heed that admonition was conjecture.

Tired of looking for Marienthal on the streets surrounding Union Station, Stripling dumped his car in a parking garage and entered the station, where he took a small table in the bar area of America, a street-level restaurant affording a view of the front of the station on Massachusetts Avenue. He ordered a burger, fries, and a Coke and gazed out the window at people milling about, mostly tourists from the look of them and their silly hot-weather clothing, taking pictures of each other in front of the Columbus statue or the large yellow fountain, whose dancing waters had been turned off for reasons unknown. Fountains in Washington, D.C., seem always to be off on the hottest days.

He’d just finished his lunch and ordered a triple-scoop butterscotch sundae when the cell phone on the table rang.

“Yeah?”

“We have an address for you.”

He wrote down the house number on upper 16th Street and other information, pressed End, and asked for a check. Minutes later he was on his way out of Union Station and headed for the garage, the sundae just wishful thinking.