Murder at Ford's Theatre - Margaret Truman [131]
She walked in the direction of the entrance and was confronted by the park ranger who’d gotten up from his small desk and was looking out on the activity on Tenth Street. She’d seen him a number of times previously when she’d visited Clarise at her office. Her arrival startled him.
“What went on in there?” he asked.
“A long story,” Annabel replied.
“Secret Service was here until they got a call to go outside. Something about somebody trying to kill the vice president?”
“I’m afraid so,” she said. “Do you know if Ms. Emerson is upstairs in her office?”
“I think so,” he said, his attention more on the street than on Annabel.
“I can go up?”
“Sure, Ms.—”
“Annabel Reed-Smith. I’m on the board.”
“I know. I recognize you. Go ahead.”
The stairs were illuminated only by ambient light coming from the street, and by lamps burning in offices off the landings. Annabel went up slowly—sirens, walkie-talkies, and shouts from the street punctuated the solitude of the staircase. She reached the first landing, the second floor, and paused, cocked her head, and listened. “Clarise?” she called. There was no response. She looked back down the stairs in search of Mac. No sign of him yet.
She crossed the landing and ascended to the third floor, where Clarise’s office was located. She reached the top. Directly in front of her was the office. The door was wide open; every light in the office burned bright. She called Clarise’s name again. A few steps brought her to the doorway. Her gasp was involuntary and loud. Clarise was in her chair, leaning back, arms akimbo, mouth open, her head flopped to one side.
“Oh, my God,” Annabel mouthed as she entered, came around the desk, and examined her friend more closely. There was an ugly bruise on her left temple; the force of whatever caused it had broken the skin, and blood oozed from the wound. Annabel also saw blood forming in one of Clarise’s ears. She didn’t bother reaching for a pulse. She grabbed the phone and was about to dial 911 when Bernard Crowley, his girth filling the doorway, said, “Put it down, Mrs. Smith.” When Annabel didn’t immediately respond, he crossed the short distance between door and desk and ripped the phone from her hand, followed by a sharp yank that separated the cord from the wall.
“What have you done?” Annabel said, trying to control her breathing.
He was sweating profusely, and his round face was mottled, blotchy red. He took a step back, the phone still in his hand, and stumbled, back against the wall. His sudden loss of balance startled him, but not to the extent that he couldn’t recover quickly and block Annabel’s attempt to flee. She ran into him, a human wall. He grabbed her hair, pulled back her head, and looked down into her eyes. “I’m sorry,” he said in a voice on the verge of breaking.
“Let me go,” Annabel demanded. She tried to drive her knee up into his groin, but before she could, he released her, pushing her back across the desk. For a dreadful moment she thought he was about to throw himself on top of her. Instead, he retreated to the doorway, breathing labored, wiping perspiration from his brow with the back of his hand.
“I’m sorry,” he repeated.
Annabel slid off the desk and circumvented it so that she was next to Clarise. She wasn’t sure how to deal with him. Mac would be coming soon, she hoped. She had to placate Crowley long enough for him to arrive.
“You just don’t understand what it’s been like,” Crowley said.
Annabel’s mind raced. She knew she was face-to-face with a possible murderer. Her conversation with Clarise at the gallery had been sobering, and frightening. According to Clarise, the outside auditors of the theatre’s books had uncovered a series of misdirected payments to a fictitious small company that never existed, except for Crowley. He’d been issuing checks to the company and cashing them, using an alias.
But that wasn’t the worst of the CPAs’ findings.
Two bills from