Margaret Truman - Murder at Union Station

“I’ll try,” she said, kissing him on the cheek.

When they were gone, Smith called down to the desk. “Is Mr. Lowe still there?” he asked.

“Yes, he is, Mr. Smith.”

“Send him up.”

Lowe’s first words upon entering the apartment were “Where’s Kathryn?”

“She left,” Smith said.

“Left? Where did she go?”

“I have no idea, Mr. Lowe. We haven’t been formally introduced.” Smith extended his hand, which Lowe took weakly. “Iced tea?” Smith asked. “My wife makes very good iced tea.”

“No. Thanks anyway,” Lowe said, looking past Mac into the apartment’s recesses.

“I told you she’s not here,” Smith said. He walked to the open sliding glass doors to the terrace and looked back. “Join me, Mr. Lowe?”

They stood side by side, their hands on the terrace’s railing, their attention on the Potomac River. “I’m well aware, Mr. Lowe, why you and Senator Widmer would like to have those tapes. Your hearings won’t have much bite without them.”

“We can do without them,” Lowe said, his voice betraying his true feelings.

“Perhaps,” said Smith. “Let me ask you a question. There’s considerable doubt about the veracity of what Mr. Russo said on those tapes. What I don’t understand is why you and the senator would want to hold a public hearing based upon allegations that can’t be substantiated.”

Lowe’s hands in motion substituted for words. “The book, the taped voice of a dead man, the questioning. It’s politics,” he said finally.

“Politics,” Smith repeated, not trying to keep scorn from his voice. “The game of politics. Well, though everybody seems to say it is, I don’t consider politics a game, Mr. Lowe. Politics are more important than that. Is winning the political game that vital to you and your boss, Mr. Lowe? Are you and the senator really willing to destroy a president of the United States in order to win what you consider a game?”

“Parmele doesn’t deserve a second term,” Lowe said.

“Isn’t that for the voters to decide?”

“As long as they have the facts.”

“The facts as you perceive them. Mr. Russo’s claims don’t represent facts. They might be true, but there’s not a shred of evidence to back them up. I’m a lawyer, Mr. Lowe. I deal in evidence. I deal in the facts. And one fact, as far as I’m concerned, is that you and others like you don’t belong in government on any level. I find you despicable. I think it’s time you left. Thanks for stopping by.”

“You’re part of this, aren’t you?” Lowe snarled. “You’ve been helping Marienthal hide those tapes all along. Well, Smith, you and anybody else involved in this cover-up will answer to Senator Widmer and the committee. We’ll drag you in front of it and make your life miserable.”

Smith left the terrace, went to the apartment door, and opened it. Lowe glared at him from the terrace, fists clenched at his sides, his face red and sweaty.

“Good day, Mr. Lowe,” Smith said from the door.

Lowe stormed from the terrace and pushed past Smith, his shoulder bumping him. Smith watched him go down the hall to the elevators and disappear into one.

Smith went to his office, where he called Frank Marienthal’s room at the Watergate Hotel to tell him what had transpired.

“He’s gone to New York?” the father said. “What’s he doing there?”

“Visiting Mary, according to Kathryn, and then having a meeting with his publisher.”

“I will never understand that boy,” Marienthal said. “I will never understand any of his generation.”

“Well, Frank,” said Mac, “I suppose they’ll never understand us, either. Look, I suggest you grab a flight back home and catch up with Rich there. In the meantime, Kathryn will decide what to do with the tapes. That’s the way it should be.”

Kathryn Jalick entered the apartment she shared with Rich Marienthal. She changed into shorts and a Library of Congress T-shirt. She poured a glass of wine and put a Buck Hill CD on the stereo. She sat on the couch, the bag of tapes at her feet, leaned back, closed her eyes, and thought of him, of what they’d been through since he started the book. Was it all behind them now? She hoped so. She wanted things to be the way they were when they first met, easy and loving, finding the time to draw upon that love. She was deep in that reverie when the phone on the table next to the couch rang.

“Hello?”

“It’s me.”

“Hi. Where are you?”

“On the train. You’ll never believe what happened. We were pulling into the Baltimore station. I had this sudden urge to go to the bathroom and went. I left my shoulder bag on my seat. When I came back, it was gone.”

“Somebody stole it?”

“Yeah. Can you believe it?”

“What was in it?”

“Socks, shorts, a toothbrush, my overnight kit. Why would anybody want to steal stuff like that is beyond me. How are you?”

“Fine. I saw Mac and Annabel.”

“And?”

“Mac said the tapes belong to you and that you’ll have to make the decision about what to do with them.”

“After what I’ve put you through, Kate, they belong to us. Like I told you before I left, if Mac didn’t have any definite ideas about what to do with them, I leave it up to you. Yours is a good, clean, clear mind.”

“That’s a heavy burden. I know how hard you worked to get them.”

“That doesn’t matter anymore. Have you heard from Geoff?”

“Oh, yes, I certainly did.” She told him of the confrontation at Union Station and what occurred after that.

Marienthal laughed. “He was sitting in a cab with you right next to the tapes and never knew it.”

“The irony wasn’t lost on me. You’re breaking up.”

“Batteries are low. I’ll call you from Mom’s.”

As she twisted on the couch after hanging up, her foot caught the shopping bag, tipping it over and spilling its contents on the rug. She picked up one of the plastic bags and removed tapes from it. Rich had written on them in ink: Russo, where the interview took place, the date, and a few words to describe the contents. “Assassination” appeared on some of them.

She got up, turned the air-conditioning control on the window unit to its coolest setting, grabbed old newspapers from the kitchen, balled them up and placed them on the floor of the fireplace. She added kindling and logs left over from the previous winter that were stacked next to the fireplace, and lighted the paper. The orange flames were comforting; she and Rich had spent many nights together with the fire going, discussing their dreams-and each other.

One by one, she fed the tapes and Rich’s handwritten notes into the flames. When the last tape had been consumed, she returned to the couch, raised her wineglass, and said with a satisfied smile on her lips, “To you, Louis Russo. May you finally rest in peace-wherever.”

FOUR MONTHS LATER

Ihave an announcement to make,” Mackensie Smith said to the thirty guests gathered in his apartment. A blue spruce Christmas tree festooned with colorful decorations from their single days, augmented by more recent joint purchases, took up a corner of the living room. Other judiciously selected and placed representations of the Christmas season that was only a week away added to the party’s festive spirit. Annabel had arranged an array of food on the dining room table.

“I don’t have permission to make this announcement, but somehow I don’t think the subjects of it will mind,” Mac said. He raised his champagne glass: “To Rich and Kathryn, who informed me only today that they’ve decided to tie the knot, tie one to the other for life. Here’s to them and to many blissful years together-close together.”