Murder at the Library of Congress - Margaret Truman [106]
Mac laughed. “ ‘Whack him.’ Spoken like a true mafia wife.”
“Well, you made me an offer I couldn’t refuse a few years ago, didn’t you? I accepted your proposal.”
“Isn’t having compassion for someone like Dolores carrying women’s rights a little too far, Annie?” Patricia Broadhurst asked.
“I don’t mean it as a matter of rights, Pat, but I believe her when she says she never meant to kill Michele. She was terminally in love with him.”
“Terminal for him,” Mac said.
“Yes, it was,” Annabel said. “She’d reached the end of her patience and lashed out with whatever was close, in this case the lead weight on his desk. I spent an hour with Michele Paul, a disagreeable, anger-provoking hour. He was a horrible man.”
“Hardly the sort of man women fall in love with,” Cale said, “at least so deeply that they end up murdering him.”
“For every man there’s a woman,” Annabel replied.
Pat said, “The discs she hid in the Aaronsen collection—those were John Bitteman’s discs. How did she end up with them?”
“From what I’ve been told, Dolores knew Michele had taken them from Bitteman’s place the night he murdered him, and knew where Michele kept them in his apartment. After she killed Michele, she ran to his apartment and grabbed the files and discs. There were things on those discs that referred to her, at least by her initials. As she said in her statement, she started to panic once the police investigation started but didn’t know what to do with the discs. She dumped pictures and love letters from Michele in someone’s trash can but couldn’t quite bring herself to discard the discs the same way. She needed thinking time. She even considered trying to sell the discs to David Driscoll and use the money to get away. But she never had a chance to do that.”
“She knew all about Michele Paul’s deal with Driscoll, I assume,” Pat said.
“Sure, she did,” Annabel said, “and she played her own game of hardball with Michele, threatening to tell library management that he’d been working for Driscoll. I told Consuela after my interview with Paul that he reminded me of a bullfighter, waving his red cape and enticing people, particularly women, into his arena. He waved his cape at Dolores Marwede and kept sticking those knives, or whatever they call them, into her until she turned. It doesn’t happen often, but in this case the bull killed the matador. Of course, even when a bull wins in the arena, its days are numbered. I’m afraid that’s the case with Dolores, too.”
“You’re the criminal-law expert, Mac,” Cale said. “What do you think she’ll get?”
“Serious time, Cale. There’s Michele Paul’s murder and her role as an accessory in the Bitteman killing. Still, you never know how a trial will turn out. I know her defense attorney well. His only hope is to plead her as being mentally disturbed—mental impairment, insanity. The jury might demonstrate as much compassion for her as Annie.”
“And what about David Driscoll?” Cale asked. “I’m furious at the scandal he caused the Library to suffer. Still, he didn’t kill anyone—did he?”
“My prediction?” Mac said, sitting back and dabbing at his mouth with a napkin. “If the DA in Los Angeles can tangibly link Driscoll to the theft of that painting in Miami, his having hired the people to do it—and don’t forget a security guard lost his life in that theft—they can charge him with conspiracy to murder. But that’s a big if. Paying Michele Paul for his research broke your library rules, Cale, but it didn’t break any laws, unless the IRS decides to take a look at the charitable deductions Driscoll was taking for his inflated donations to the library. Funny about rich men like Driscoll, they don’t have to cheat the government. But it becomes a game of sorts, see how much they can get away with. Of course, if Michele Paul is named as an accomplice to Driscoll’s tax fraud, that means the Library of Congress might have some explaining to do about the way it values contributions.”
“Don’t even say it, Mac,” Broadhurst said.
“Unlikely, Cale. At any rate, if the DA can’t make that connection between Driscoll