Murder at Ford's Theatre - Margaret Truman [123]
“Yes. Annabel and I were with her last night until the wee hours this morning.” He briefly recounted part of the discussion that had taken place with Clarise at the Watergate apartment.
When Mac was finished, Becker said, “She didn’t seem like the type to cut and run.”
“We’ve all got our breaking points, Yale,” Smith offered. “We both know people who are rock-solid on the surface but turn to jelly when the spotlight is off. There’s something else involved here that prompted her to drop out, but I don’t know what it is. I do know that her decision makes me more determined than ever to ride this thing through to an acquittal for Jeremiah. As I told Annie, she might one day actually have a shot at enjoying a real mother.”
“That’s nice to contemplate.”
Before leaving, the two attorneys agreed that Smith would visit Jeremiah alone. He left the office and went to the university where he worked on his next Lincoln-the-Lawyer lecture until time to head for the jail.
DETECTIVES KLAYMAN AND JOHNSON WERE BUSY, too, that Wednesday. They met for most of the morning with U.S. Attorney LeCour, going over evidence against Jeremiah Lerner to be used in his trial. They reviewed written reports of interviews conducted with American University students, particularly Joe Cole, and Klayman’s conversation with Sydney Bancroft in which the actor claimed he was aware that Nadia Zarinski had been dating Jeremiah, and had counseled her against it.
“What kind of witness will Bancroft make?” LeCour asked.
Johnson replied with a snicker, “Oh, he’ll be terrific. He’ll spout Shakespeare and put on a great show. Of course, he’s liable to show up wearing a leopardskin leotard or dragon costume.”
“What is he, nuts?” LeCour asked.
“No, he’s not nuts,” Klayman said, “but he is strange. The problem you’ll have is getting him to simply answer your questions. He’s always on. Kind of pathetic, you know?”
“Has Lerner ever said how his shoe print ended up behind the theatre?” LeCour asked.
“Not to us,” Johnson replied.
“What about the jewelry found in her apartment?” LeCour asked. “Any link to Lerner?”
The detectives shook their heads.
“We’re running down the serial number on the Rolex,” LeCour said. “We should come up with where it was purchased. Hopefully, they’ll have a record of who bought it.”
It was toward the end of their meeting that Johnson said, “Rick here doesn’t think Lerner did it.”
His comment brought a worried expression to LeCour. “What’s this all about?” he asked the young detective.
“It’s not that I don’t think he did it,” Klayman responded, “but it just seems to me that we haven’t taken a hard enough look at other possible suspects.”
“Such as?”
Klayman wasn’t sure whether he should walk through that door opened by LeCour. It wasn’t his responsibility to make such judgments. But now that it was opened, he didn’t have much choice.
“Lots of people,” he said. “Anybody working at the theatre. Her landlord, the husband. Senator Lerner.”
“Oooh, let’s not go there,” LeCour said.
“Why not?” Johnson asked; Klayman was pleased to see his partner step into the conversation. “He was rumored to have been having an affair with her. He wouldn’t be the first high-and-mighty politician under the gun from some young mistress.”
“Blackmail,” LeCour said absently.
“Exactly,” Klayman said. “And what about Jeremiah’s mother? She lied when she said she didn’t know Nadia was hanging around the theatre.”
“Says who?”
“Says Bancroft, the old actor, and Bernard—what’s his name?—Crowley, the theatre’s controller. It’s in our report. There are those stagehands, some of them young, her age. And there’s the similar M.O. in the Connie Marshall killing, and the jewelry she was wearing.”
“What same M.O.?” LeCour scoffed. “Marshall was dumped in the river. Zarinski was left in an alley. No similarity whatsoever.”
“Look,” said Klayman, “I don’t know that somebody else killed her, but if I were you—”
“Yes?” LeCour said.
“If I were