Murder at the Library of Congress - Margaret Truman [42]
“Slow down,” Annabel said, holding up her hand and laughing. “I’m here researching a magazine article. I have nothing to do with—”
A member of the public affairs staff emerged from the office.
“You’re supposed to take care of the press, not stonewall us,” Lucianne said sharply to her.
“And my priority, Ms. Huston, is to represent the Library of Congress and its interests. We’re being as cooperative as possible with you, with all the press, for that matter.”
“You call this cooperation? I’ve had more cooperation from the goddamn CIA and the Kremlin.”
“Excuse me.” Lucianne’s handler walked away.
“I was just going out for a quick bite. Join me?” asked Annabel.
“Sure. And a stiff drink. Then I’m coming back here and raise hell.”
“Looks like you already have,” said Annabel as they walked toward the main entrance.
“Just getting warmed up,” said Lucianne. “If I can get a rebel leader in the mountains of some godforsaken banana republic to talk to me, I’ll sure as hell get an interview with a librarian. Besides, I’m a taxpayer. I pay their salaries. So do you. How about a steak place? I need red meat.”
“Librarians can be tough-minded, Lucianne—don’t go by the cartoons or caricatures.”
As they left the building and debated where to eat, Dolores Marwede burst through the doors and started past them.
“Hi,” Annabel said. “This is Lucianne Huston.”
Dolores hesitated, shoved out her hand to the journalist, said, “Nice meeting you. Sorry … I have to run.”
“Lunch?” Annabel asked.
“No, I have to—I have to be someplace and I’m late. Thanks anyway.”
Annabel and Lucianne watched her almost break into a run.
“Who’s she?” Lucianne asked.
“She works in the Hispanic division.”
“Did she kill Michele Paul?”
“Did she what?”
“When I don’t know who killed somebody, I figure everybody did.”
“Including me?” Annabel asked.
“Did you?”
“No.”
“I’m glad to hear that. I’d hate to lose the only normal person I’ve met around here.”
“Thanks. Steak you want? If we pass a cow you can shoot your lunch on the hoof.”
“I’ve already done that. A pig in Somalia.”
“Spare me the details. There’s a decent steak house a few blocks from here.”
Chapter 15
Dolores Marwede’s apartment, on the top floor of a three-story row house on tree-lined G Street, in the Capitol Hill area, was the only home she’d known since moving from New York nine years ago to take the job at LC.
She’d lived in it alone for the first two years until meeting, falling in love with, and marrying George Bibby, a staffer for a congressman from Illinois. At first, she found his drinking and enjoyment of nightlife to be exciting, and happily joined him on his nightly forays into Georgetown, where they hopped from bar to bar, making and meeting friends, and feeling very much a part of Washington’s active young professionals’ social scene.
But Bibby’s drinking soon escalated from high-octane social to morose serious. They separated, then divorced, Bibby returning to Illinois to work in his father’s real estate office, Dolores throwing herself into her work at the library as a way of mitigating the bitterness and loneliness.
“Home early,” the elderly woman who occupied the ground floor said as Dolores arrived, breathless.
“Yes, but only for a few minutes, Mrs. Simone. I forgot something important.”
“I don’t know how you do it,” the older woman said, using the sleeve of her sweater to wipe imaginary dirt from a low black wrought-iron fence defining a narrow front patch of grass. “You’re always working, always running someplace.”
Dolores forced a smile and disappeared through the front door, took the stairs two at a time, unlocked her door, threw it open, and stepped inside the apartment. Although it was a small one-bedroom, sun streaming through a row of windows at the front of the living room gave a feeling of openness. The furniture was pedestrian—she’d bought it all at once from a discount store in Virginia the week after moving in—but Mexican art and artifacts put her stamp on the space. She’d made multiple trips to Mexico for the library,