Murder at Ford's Theatre - Margaret Truman [103]
“You said you paid cash,” Johnson said when they’d left the restaurant and were back in the car.
“That’s right.”
“Do you have credit cards?”
“Yeah, an American Express. My father got it for me.”
“Nice father. How come you didn’t use it at the restaurant?”
“I don’t know. I guess I didn’t want to run up too many charges on it.”
“You guess you didn’t?” Johnson asked. “Can’t remember?”
“I’m not saying anything else,” Cole said, folding his arms across his chest and assuming an expression intended to confirm it.
They dropped him back on campus.
“We’ll be in touch again, Joe,” Johnson said. “Good luck with your exam.”
“What do you think?” Klayman asked as they drove downtown.
“I wouldn’t rule him out,” Johnson responded. “Of course, I don’t like him, but I don’t like Lerner, either. No, Cole’s a possibility—assuming Lerner didn’t do it. I’m not convinced.”
“Neither am I, but I thought it was worth touching base again with some of the others.”
“Like Mr. Shakespeare?”
Klayman laughed. “Yeah, I’d like to talk with Sydney Bancroft again. And some of the people at the theatre. I just have this feeling we didn’t ask all the right questions. Know what I mean?”
“No, but I’ll go along. Give the actor a call. Etta gave me a hard time this morning about coming in on my day off. I could use a good laugh about now.”
MAC SMITH MANAGED to track down Senator Lerner and arrange for him to contact Yale Becker regarding Jeremiah’s bail. That detail out of the way, Smith met with Dean Mackin to discuss the possibility of missing an occasional class, depending upon how the case against Jeremiah developed. Mackin had evidently accepted Mac’s decision to take part in Jeremiah’s defense; he didn’t raise again the question of whether his colleague had erred in that decision.
After meeting with the dean, Smith closed the door to his office and quickly went through professional journals that had piled up over the past week. It was almost noon when a colleague knocked. “You pulled off a coup this morning,” he said. “Two hundred thousand for bail. I would have bet a million.”
“To be honest,” Smith said, “I wouldn’t have been disappointed if the judge had denied bail. At least I’d know where my client is.”
“You’ll be at the press conference?”
“What press conference?”
“Senator and Mrs. Lerner. I mean, the former Mrs. Lerner.”
“When is it taking place?”
“Five this afternoon, according to the radio. At the senator’s home.”
Smith wondered if Becker had been informed about it. At this juncture, Mac wasn’t sure holding a press conference was a good idea, especially if an attorney wasn’t present to field potentially damaging questions. Then again, Lerner considered himself an attorney, no matter that he hadn’t practiced for most of his adult life. A fool for a client …
There was decided arrogance in deciding to hold such a press conference without having notified their son’s attorneys, but Smith wasn’t surprised. Arrogance, it seemed, was a natural outgrowth of power, especially for those who equated the popular vote with a mandate to practice self-importance beyond reason. Then again, was the arrogance there to begin with, a requisite for anyone seeking high office?
Such thoughts were gone as quickly as they’d formulated. He checked his watch. Annabel would be arriving at the luncheon for Clarise Emerson at the Lafayette. Would Clarise show up? Would Vice President Dorothy Maloney? He’d find out soon enough. In the meantime, there were his classes to prepare for, including the next session of Lincoln the Lawyer, and within minutes he was immersed in analyzing cases in which the sixteenth president of the United States had been involved.
“I DON’T KNOW how she does it.”
Fifteen women had gathered in the Federal-Baroque–style brick town house on Sixteenth Street, NW, home from the 1950s to the 1980s to the Gaslight Club, a retreat for wealthy Washington men, now a combination residence, office building, and opulent small catering facility. The luncheon honoring Clarise