Murder at Union Station - Margaret Truman [103]
Before departing the station, he went to a bank of public telephones next to Best Lockers and dialed his home phone.
“Hi,” he said. “How are you doing?”
“I am so happy to hear your voice,” she said. “I’m all right. You?”
“Okay.”
“The phone’s rung off the hook all day. I took a sick day. I shouldn’t have. Reporters. They’re so tenacious. Your father called.”
“I’m sure he did. Did Geoff call?”
“No, but Ellen did. How can I reach you?”
“You can’t. It’s better that way. I’d better go. I’ll get back to you.”
“So soon? I—”
“This’ll be over soon, Kathryn. Just think about that vacation we’ll be taking.”
“I will,” she said. “You take care.”
He hung up, left the station on to Massachusetts Avenue, and took a taxi back to Winard Jackson’s apartment. Had he stayed on the phone much longer or lingered by it, he would shortly have had the pleasure of meeting Timothy Stripling.
Stripling had spent most of the afternoon in the FBI’s central communications room at the Hoover Building, where a series of wiretaps had been initiated, under a special order from the attorney general of the United States. His authority to authorize such invasive measures had been widely expanded in the interest of homeland security, Tim knew, and indeed, no home seemed to be safe any longer.
The first tap had been placed on the phone registered to Richard Marienthal and had become operative at the tail end of Kathryn Jalick’s conversation with Ellen Kelly. Kathryn’s call from Marienthal had not only been recorded but was traced to a specific bank of public phones at Union Station. Stripling left the Hoover Building before the call was over, but no one resembling Marienthal was at the station. He drove the streets around the station but came up empty. Meanwhile, the agents back at the Hoover Building were placing additional taps on phones when Stripling left, and said they’d contact him twenty-four hours a day on the cell phone they’d provided if another lead developed. He’d now been given a number he could use to call directly into the com center, and used it first to report his failure to locate Marienthal.
He drove to Georgetown and had a sundae. Back in his car, he dialed a number on his cell phone.
“Jane? It’s Tim Stripling.”
“Hello, lover. Bad timing.”
“Got a client, huh? Any time later?”
“In an hour. Make it two.”
“Yeah, two. I prefer you fresh. And rested. See you then.”
With any luck, his cell wouldn’t ring at an inopportune time.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Mullin was at the unoccupied bar, the flowers sitting next to a vodka on the rocks, when Sasha came down from her room pulling a suitcase with wheels. She spotted him and entered the bar. You get better looking every time I see you, he thought.
“Right on the button,” he said, indicating his watch. He wanted to kiss her.
“I try to be.”
“Drink? We have time.”
She seemed unsure.
“If you don’t want, it’s okay.”
“All right. I checked out earlier.”
Her eyes went to the flowers, and Mullin handed them to her, accompanied by an inexperienced grin. “Just a little something to say goodbye. They’re not much.”
“They’re lovely, as lovely as the thought,” she said, sniffing the petals and taking the stool next to him. He lighted her cigarette and said to the bartender without checking with Sasha, “A white Zinfandel for the lady.”
Her mood was somber, which wasn’t lost on him. “Problem?” he asked.
“I didn’t know,” she replied.
“Didn’t know what?”
“Why Louis came to Washington. I haven’t watched the news since coming here. I don’t watch it at home much, either. Always sadness and sorrow on the news. In Israel. Here. But I watched this afternoon. I didn’t know.”
“That what, he came to testify at that Senate committee?”
“Yes.