Murder at Ford's Theatre - Margaret Truman [30]
“I’m calling about the hearing, Bruce. Remember? I have been nominated to head the NEA.”
“Oh, yes. Of course I remember. Let’s stop fencing, Clarise. What about the nomination?”
“I want to get together and discuss it with you. I’m worried.”
“Why? You’re a shoo-in.”
“I don’t see it that way. This unfortunate incident at the theatre might muddy things. You won’t meet with me about it?”
“Of course I will. When?”
“Tonight?”
“I’m occupied tonight.”
“‘Occupied.’ A quaint way to put it. Bruce, please, I really do need to talk with you about the hearing. If not tonight, then—”
“An hour?”
“Where?”
“Your apartment.”
“Fine. Thank you.”
“The least I can do for the next head of the National Endowment for the Arts—and the mother of my child. No need to go out of your way to entertain me. I’ve eaten.”
Shirley Lester was coming down the stairs as he left the library. She flashed a wide smile. “I know,” she said, “affairs of state. High-level meeting.”
“Something like that.”
“I got used to it. Nelson was always fleeing the house in the middle of the night. Thanks for a lovely dinner, Bruce, and the concert. I thought the cello player’s intonation was faulty, but failing that, it was enjoyable.”
She kissed his cheek; he pulled her into an embrace. “I like that perfume,” he said into her hair. “You should wear it more often.”
“I’ll try to remember.” She stepped back. “Maria called a taxi for me while you were on the phone. It’s in front.”
“Good.”
She avoided his attempt to kiss her on the lips, moved to the front door, turned, and said, “Call if there’s anything I can do to help, Bruce.” His expression was quizzical. “This business about Nadia Whatever Her Name Is. I mean it, darling. Just call.”
CHAPTER TEN
FOR MOSES JOHNSON, physical fitness was an obsession. He had all the usual reasons: feeling and thinking better, relieving stress, keeping weight off, looking better, increased stamina on the job, sex appeal, an enhanced masculine image. On a deeper level, it represented a shield against mortality. There were times that he wondered whether he would be Nature’s exception, never dying, which would be a good thing because as far as he was concerned, the world, more specifically his family and the Washington MPD, simply could not function without him.
He was up early Wednesday morning, before the sun, leaving Etta and their sons asleep. After splashing water on his face and exchanging pajamas for shorts and a T-shirt, he headed for the finished basement of their home in Rockville, Maryland, where an array of exercise equipment stood at attention. One wall of the room held floor-to-ceiling shelves on which Mo’s extensive collection of jazz LPs and CDs were alphabetically arranged. There were more than a thousand recordings, the majority of them LPs, whose warmer sound he preferred to that of compact discs, the occasional scratch and pop be damned. Not only was Johnson a devoted collector of recorded jazz, he’d built a sizable library of books about the music and its innovators—Ellington, Armstrong, Waller, Tatum, Parker, and Goodman—which occupied their own special place in the family room. It was more than just a love of the music, however. Mo was a scholar of jazz, knew as much as anyone making a living at it, and prided himself on being able to identify a soloist after hearing only a few bars of improvisation.
His workout routine seldom varied. He perused the albums on the shelves and chose the recording of Duke Ellington’s famous 1956 appearance at the Newport Jazz Festival to set that morning’s pace. As the first strains of “Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue” filled the room, he positioned himself in front of a full-length mirror and started with a few minutes of stretching exercises before getting on a stationary bike. He pedaled until the historic recording finished, his speed increasing as the band roared through a series of choruses featuring tenor saxophonist Paul Gonsalves,