Murder at the Opera - Margaret Truman [59]
“You have to accommodate the Zieglers,” ball chairwoman Nicki Frolich said. “He’s funding the Mexico vacation door prize
“Fine. You call Dr. Federman and tell him we’ve changed his seats. I’m tired of being growled at
“All right, I will,” Frolich said.
Another board, on which personal likes and dislikes were listed, was placed on the easel as a reminder of how such details must be honored—nothing with peanuts on a certain senator’s meal, keep a certain journalist far away from a member of the administration who’d been savaged in a piece written by the journalist, and other admonitions that, if ignored, could result in unhappiness for those involved.
The woman in charge of party favors reported that the manufacturer of the custom-designed velvet bags in which an assortment of donated goodies would be placed had suffered a wildcat strike and might not be able to fulfill the order in time. A subcommittee, one of many, was formed on the spot to come up with a contingency plan, including driving to New York to pick up substitutes.
As the meeting wound down, Annabel, who’d agreed to be on the subcommittee exploring other sources of favor bags, sat back and reflected on this ambitious undertaking of which she’d chosen to take part.
There were those who viewed the Ladies of the Balls as dilettantes, wives of wealthy men, who clamored to serve on fundraising committees to advance their social status within the community. But Annabel knew that was flippant and often inaccurate. Yes, there were such women, but Annabel had observed that they were generally shunned by those in charge. It was serious business, this mounting of a major social event in the nation’s capital, with a lot at stake, and the women with whom she’d been working closely were anything but dilettantes. They put in twenty-hour days, and their painstaking planning would make any military commander about to launch a major invasion proud. Huge society events like the Opera Ball, and others, didn’t just happen. They resulted from the hard work and creativity of countless volunteers, and Annabel was proud to play a role, no matter how inconsequential.
• • •
Detective Carl Berry also had more meetings on his agenda.
He left the Holiday Inn after his introduction to Charise Lee’s parents and went directly to the Round Robin Bar at the Willard Inter-Continental Hotel, where Ray Pawkins sat nursing a mug of Irish coffee minus the Irish. The Round Robin was Pawkins’ favorite D.C. bar, which put him in good company. Looking down upon him were the photographs of former distinguished guests—Abraham Lincoln, whose first presidential paycheck went to pay his bill there; Mark Twain, whose white-suited forays from the bar into the hotel were, as his biographer Albert Bigelow Paine put it, “…like descending the steps of a throne room, or some royal landing place, where Cleopatra’s barge might lie”; Charles Dickens; Buffalo Bill Cody; John Philip Sousa; and Carrie Nation, the hatchet-wielding prohibitionist who prompted management to place a sign above the bar: ALL NATIONS WELCOME EXCEPT CARRIE
Berry slid onto a stool.
“Drink?” Pawkins asked.
“Too early for me,” Berry said. He ordered a tomato juice. “You’re buying, of course,” he said with a playful tap on Pawkins’ shoulder. “This place is too rich for my blood
“True,” Pawkins agreed, “but the drinks are large and the ambience agreeable. Besides, we’re surrounded by the ghosts of Washington history. So, tell me what’s going on at the great law enforcement agency in the sky
“There’s never anything new over there,” Berry replied, “but you know that
“Still working the Lee case?”
“Uh-huh
“Nothing new on that, either?”
“I just spent an hour with her parents. They’re in from Toronto
“And?”
“They had nothing to offer, except that the father—he’s a lot older than his wife—he’s not a fan of the pianist who roomed with the victim, or the two talent agents she hooked up with
“The Melincamp-Baltsa Artists Agency,” Pawkins said.
“You know them?”
“I did some research. She could have done better. They