Murder at Ford's Theatre - Margaret Truman [73]
“I’d like to spend more time with Jeremiah, Senator, before I leave.”
“Yes, I’m sure you would. So would I. Maybe this situation has rammed enough fear into him that he’ll sit down and listen to reason.” He slowly got up and came around the desk. “I’ll get him.”
But before he could leave the room, the sound of a powerful automobile engine was heard from downstairs. A garage door opened, a car door slammed shut, and the vehicle noisily left. Senator Lerner peered out the window and saw his black vintage Jaguar head down the street and disappear around a corner.
“He’s gone,” Lerner said.
“That’s a shame,” Smith said. “Any idea where he might go?”
“None at all. I’m sorry, Mac, for the trouble he’s causing you. Maybe you can see what Clarise and I have had to put up with all these years.”
“Well,” Smith said, standing, “at least he must have found another pair of shoes.”
“Oh, he had another pair upstairs. That detective didn’t see them, and I didn’t see any reason to mention them to him.”
Just answer the questions, offer nothing. Smith had delivered that sage legal advice to countless criminal defendants over the years. Evidently, the senator had received the same wisdom, or naturally came by it.
“I’ll be going,” Smith said. “I suggest you do everything possible to find Jeremiah and bring him back here.”
“I’ll do that, Mac. Everything that’s happened stays in this room.”
“Of course.”
The phone rang. Lerner picked it up and launched into an animated conversation with the caller. He waved good-bye to Smith, who left the house and headed home, stopping on the way at Annabel’s gallery, where she was taking inventory of pre-Columbian pieces displayed on the shelves, and those stored in a back room.
“How did it go?” she asked.
“Not well.”
He’d realized as he drove there that since meeting, falling in love with, and marrying Annabel, he’d been faced only a few times with the dilemma of balancing attorney-client confidentiality with a need to discuss things with her. When married to his first wife, he’d made the decision whether to discuss a case on an individual basis. Most lawyers he knew, depending upon the solidarity of their marriages—as well as their faith in their wives to keep secrets—would discuss certain cases in which they were involved. You had to talk to someone. He decided early on that he would bring Annabel in on everything that was occurring. She, too, was a lawyer, and had been instrumental in convincing him to help Jeremiah and his parents. She knew the players. Most important, he hadn’t the slightest fear that what he told her would escape the confines of the gallery, or their apartment.
“He’s in trouble,” he said. “He now admits that—”
The door opened, and a well-dressed couple came in to browse.
“I’m going to run by the school, Annie,” Mac said, kissing her on the cheek. “Feel like dinner out?”
“Sure.”
“Meet you at home at six. We’ll go from there.”
He’d no sooner settled in his office at the university when Dean Mackin looked in. “Got a minute, Mac?” he said.
“Sure.”
“We’ve been getting calls from the media wanting to interview you,” said the dean.
“They’re on the prowl, huh?” Smith said with a small laugh. “Sorry if they’re bothering you. Give me their names and numbers and I’ll get back to them. Maybe.”
“More than you bargained for,” Mackin said.
Smith’s expression invited elucidation.
“You didn’t think you’d end up on a murder case, did you?”
Smith leaned back and held up his hands. “Wait a minute,” he said. “Where did you hear this?”
“On the news a few minutes ago.”
“On the news? What did they say?”
Mackin assumed an announcer’s voice: “A highly placed but reliable source has told this station that Jeremiah Lerner, the son of Senator Bruce Lerner, and of Clarise Emerson, who’s been nominated to head the NEA, has emerged as a suspect in the murder earlier this week of a young woman at Ford’s Theatre. This is the same young woman rumored to have had an affair with the senator … etc., etc., etc.”
“The MPD is a sieve,” Smith said.
“It’s true, Mac?”
“He’s been questioned