Robert Andrews - A Murder of Justice

“You about through?” Jose asked an hour later.

Frank checked his notes. “Frederick Dumay Rhinelander the Third, born with a silver spoon in each hand.” He passed an Architectural Digest clipping to Jose. “The homes of Frederick Rhinelander.”

Frank watched Jose’s eyes widen.

A 23,000-square-foot lodge in Aspen, complete with its own mountain and helicopter hangar.

A palace in northern Virginia: 40,000 square feet fronting the Potomac, just upriver from a Saudi prince.

An apartment in Paris: gilt, mirrors, and Louis XVI furniture overlooking the Place Vendome.

Jose handed the article back. “Must be tough,” he said with a roll of the eyes, “camping out in Paris.”

“Yeah. Life’s unfair. A lousy three thousand square feet… cramped accommodations.”

“Guy makes… what?”

“Congressional salary? Hundred fifty, sixty. Somewhere in the neighborhood.”

“Chump change. Think he even notices it come in?”

“Don’t think he balances his own checkbook, Hoser.” Frank took a cautious first sip of his coffee. “Our boy Zelmer?” he asked Jose.

Jose picked up his notebook. “Found in the middle of Eaton Road, ten forty-five Thursday night, April 15, 1999. M.E. report: Death by multiple trauma, manner of death automobile impact.”

“What’d he have on his sheet?”

“Assault with deadly weapon. Assault, intent to maim. Vehicular manslaughter. Burglary. Breaking, entering. Grand theft auto.”

“Time?”

“He and Skeeter and Pencil came from the same neighborhood. The three of them hand in hand to Lorton in ’eighty-seven. Skeeter met up with one of Juan Brooks’s top boys doing time. All three get out in ’eighty-eight. Now they’re back, business gets big. Then our FBI man Atkins busts Brooks in ’ninety-two. Skeeter takes over. Goes low-profile. Stealth operator. Narcotics knows he’s up to his ass in the business, but nobody can lay a finger on them. Austin is a hanger-on. One of Skeeter’s gofers.”

“Until he kills Gentry.”

“According to the story as told by Cookie as supposedly told to Cookie by Pencil Crawfurd.” Frank tossed his pencil onto his desk in frustration. “We got zip. We got absolutely… positively… zip.”

“One thing we got.”

“What?”

Jose gestured to the clock. “An appointment to meet the MFWIC of the Subcommittee on D.C. Appropriations. You think he’ll introduce us to his real estate agent?”

There he is,” Frank said.

Janowitz stood in the hallway opposite the door to the Subcommittee on D.C. Appropriations.

“You’re on time.”

“You’re surprised?” Jose asked.

“On time for what?” Frank asked.

With an index finger, Janowitz pushed his glasses back so they touched the bridge of his nose. “Nothing definite,” he said. “Al… Mr. Salvani… said Rhinelander wasn’t happy about me digging in the files.”

“You didn’t talk to Rhinelander yourself?”

Janowitz shook his head.

“You getting stonewalled?”

“No. Al’s been helpful. Had one of his staffers show me around. Got me a parking pass and a building badge, a cubicle and a computer. But”-Janowitz held up two empty hands-“no files until Rhinelander approves.”

“Almost four.” Frank gestured toward the subcommittee doorway.

Janowitz pushed through the door. Frank and Jose followed him in. At a desk in the middle of the room, a largish formidable woman looked up at them. She wore a worried frown, and held a pencil frozen in midair over an appointments register.

Janowitz walked up to the desk. “Marge, Detectives Kearney and Phelps have an appointment with Congressman Rhinelander at four.”

She eyed Frank and Jose, then brought her pencil down and moved it over the register. The pencil stopped. She bent closer, as though to make certain of the entry, then looked up.

“Have a seat.” She aimed the pencil at an L-shaped leather sofa. Janowitz settled down, pulled a Palm Pilot from a jacket pocket, and began tapping with a stylus. Jose picked out a Reader’s Digest from a nearby magazine rack, while Frank found an issue of People.

“These guys must get their reading material from my dentist,” Jose said. Marge rewarded him with an acid look.

By four-thirty, Janowitz had finished tapping the Palm Pilot, but he held it anyway, apparently unsure what to do with it. Frank dozed, his chin dropped to his chest, the People open in his lap to a spread on Madonna. Jose sat with his eyes fixed glassily on a seemingly paralyzed wall clock.

Suddenly Frank awoke, snapping his head up, momentarily confused about where he was. His head cleared. “Why don’t we come back tomorrow?” he asked Janowitz.

“Rhinelander won’t be here.”

“What?”

“He’ll be back in his district,” Janowitz explained. “Congress usually breaks for the weekend Thursday evenings.”

“Come back Monday, then.”

Janowitz shook his head. “They usually don’t start up again until Tuesday morning.”

“Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday,” Jose said in wonderment. “How’d I ever miss out on something like that?”

“You live in the District,” Janowitz said. “Foreigners, felons, and D.C. residents can’t be elected members of Congress.”

“I guess we wait,” Jose said unhappily.

Another half-hour passed. The hands on the clock had slowly, almost painfully, crawled toward five.

Marge’s phone chirped once. She answered, listened, and eyed Frank, Jose, and Janowitz.

“Yes,” she said, “they’re still here.”

The Rayburn Building’s architect had attempted to graft the ornate nineteenth-century decor of the Capitol onto Frederick Rhinelander’s mid-twentieth-century office. The expensive operation had failed. Heavy velvet drapes, patterned carpets, and faux plaster crown moldings clashed with modern windows, fluorescent lighting, and government-bland pseudo-Danish teak furniture.

Frederick Rhinelander sat at his desk, the only genuine antique in the room, a massive piece with a sweeping, flaring grain that looked crafted from a solid block of oak. On the desk, a richly embossed leather-trimmed blotter, a Cross pen-and-pencil set, and a brass banker’s lamp with a green glass shade.

Rhinelander, a man of medium build, wore his dark hair short and neatly combed. He had on a well-tailored dark blue pin-striped suit, a snowy white shirt with an English spread collar, and a silver-gray silk tie.

Frank’s first thought was that Rhinelander looked younger than in his photographs. But that wasn’t it. In some indefinable way, Rhinelander looked more juvenile. As though he didn’t quite fit into the adult costume he was wearing. And there was an alertness about him, as though he was constantly sniffing the air for danger.

Al Salvani sat in an armchair to the side of his desk.

“Congressman Rhinelander,” Frank said, “I’m Detective Kearney, and this’s my partner, Detective Phelps. Detective Janowitz is working with us on the Gentry case.”

Frank and Jose offered their credentials. Rhinelander took them, examined them, then handed them back. He pointed to three chairs that had been drawn up in front of his desk.

“Please, gentlemen.”

Rhinelander spoke with a studied, careful enunciation. His New England accent carried a foppish nasal overlay of Old England.

“Please don’t think me brusque,” he said, “but there’s going to be a vote on the floor any moment. If so, there’s no telling when I shall return. So… shall we cut to the chase?” He touched his fingertips together, making a tent of his hands. “Detective Janowitz has already had access to Kevin Gentry’s appointments calendar.”

“Yes,” Frank said.

“But now he wants to go fishing in the subcommittee’s financial records.” Rhinelander spoke as though Janowitz weren’t in the room. “This line of investigation is presumptive of a motive for Mr. Gentry’s death arising from the subcommittee’s activities.”