Murder at Union Station - Margaret Truman [104]
“I just found that out, too. From the radio. How come you didn’t know? He didn’t tell you why he was coming here?”
She shook her head and sipped her wine. “All Louis told me was that Richard—”
“Marienthal. The writer.”
“Yes. All he told me was that Richard wanted to introduce him to some politicians who were interested in his story.”
“Did he also tell you that he shot people, especially that Central American dictator?”
She shuddered and reached for the flowers on the bar, brought them to her chest and closed her eyes.
“He didn’t tell you that?”
“My God, no.” She turned, eyes wide open, as though imploring him to understand, to believe her. “Louis told me something about his life with the Mafia, about the killing of enemies, the other crimes in which he was involved, the things that caused him shame. But to kill a man who is a leader of a country?”
Mullin was unsure of what to say. “Maybe he didn’t,” he said.
She said nothing.
“Maybe this writer, Marienthal, made it up. You know, to sell his book. They do that all the time.”
She shook her head. “No, that is not what it says on the news. It says that Louis was to testify at the hearings in your Senate, to say under oath that he killed the man on orders from your president when he was with the CIA.”
“Yeah, I know, but—”
“Louis told me that the book was about his life in New York, his days with his gang. Nothing about assassinations. I should have asked more, but I didn’t.” She touched the top of his hand with her fingertips. “Richard is missing. I heard that, too. Do you think—”
Mullin shrugged and downed his drink, motioned for another. “What do I think, that maybe something happened to him, too?”
Her eyes said she wanted an answer to that question.
Another shrug from the big detective. “I don’t think so,” he said. “I mean, who knows, huh? They say your friend was killed by his former buddies he ratted on.”
“They say? Who are they?”
“The brass. The boys upstairs where I work.”
“Do you believe that?”
“I don’t know what I believe,” he said, starting on his new drink. “I just hear things, like you do. I sensed earlier that they want the tapes of Louis telling his story. There’s a senator here, an old guy from Alaska, who’s in charge of the hearings. There’s always hearings going on around here. Waste of taxpayer money. All political. Widmer—he’s the senator holding the hearings—he hates Parmele. The way I see it, he wants to hold the hearings to sink Parmele’s chance for another four years in the White House. That’s the scuttlebutt I hear.”
She cupped her glass in both hands and stared into it.
“I know what you’re thinking,” he said. “What I said. Yeah, sure, maybe it wasn’t the mob that killed Louis. Maybe it was somebody working for Parmele’s cause, in the White House itself, out to save his political rear end.”
“We don’t think such things happen here,” she said.
He guffawed. “Think again,” he said. “We had the two Kennedy brothers shot dead. Hey, next time you’re over, visit Ford’s Theatre, where Lincoln was hit. Yeah, it happens here, too.”
He didn’t continue with what he was thinking, that Louis Russo wasn’t in the same league as JFK or RFK. Getting rid of an aging, sick mafioso wouldn’t be a big deal to someone with political aspirations or motives. The old guy’s life was meaningless in the larger scheme of things. The same with LeClaire, the Union Station shooter. You want to get away with murder, get rid of anybody who helped you pull it off. Murder 101.
“Richard has the tapes,” she said to herself.
“That’s what the senator wants, they say. The tapes, Russo’s own voice saying what he did. Any idea where he might be?”
“Richard? No. I spoke with his girlfriend today.”
“Did you? What’d she have to say?”
“She said he was away working on another book.”
“No way to reach him?”
“She said there wasn’t.”
“Hmm. Doesn’t sound kosher to me,” he said. She looked puzzled. He laughed at his choice of words.
She didn’t respond.
“Drink your wine,” he said. “Want another?”
“No, thank you.”
“Well,” he said, downing the remainder of his drink, “I guess