Murder at Union Station - Margaret Truman [73]
The reporters in the rear did what they usually do on these flights, filled up on food served by White House stewards assigned to the plane and swapped the latest political jokes and D.C. rumors. Those who’d covered previous presidents had learned to be circumspect when the jokes involved chiefs of state. Parmele was different. He laughed heartily at humor in which he was the target, and often repeated what late-night talk-show hosts had quipped about him during their opening monologues.
“Must be something heavy-duty going on up front, huh?” a wire service reporter said.
“Maybe he’s planning to invade Mississippi, punish them for not voting for him.”
“He doesn’t want to answer questions about his wife,” someone else offered.
“Mississippi, hell. If he’s going to use the military to get anybody, it’ll be Senator Widmer.”
“What’ve you got on those hearings coming up?”
“Nada. Zip. I’ve seen a tight clamp on hearings before, but nothing like this. Even the best leaks aren’t talking. What are we coming to?”
The press representative from the Washington Post had chosen a seat apart from his colleagues. One called to him: “Hey, Milton, you pick up anything new on the Widmer hearings?”
“No,” Milton said, and went back to a magazine he’d been reading.
The reporter who’d asked the question leaned close to the ear of a correspondent from CNN. “Widmer’s got some surprise witness,” he said.
“Yeah, I heard that, too.”
“Got something to do with that murder at Union Station.”
“Get outta here! Where’d you hear that?”
“I’ve got a source who—”
Robin Whitson’s sudden entry into the press section from where she’d been sitting midships brought the conversation to a halt.
“Hey, Robin, come sit here,” someone suggested.
“In a minute,” the press secretary said, plucking a sandwich from a tray being passed by a steward and bantering with reporters nearby. A few minutes later, she slipped into an empty seat next to Milton from the Post.
“What’ve they got, a thing going?” someone whispered to a colleague.
“Milton? Come on.” Now he lowered his voice so that it could barely be heard over the jet’s four engines. “”He’s got something on the Widmer story.”
“How do you know?”
“I hear things.”
Robin sensed the undercurrent of talk and came to the front of the section. “Okay,” she announced, “here’s the drill in Miami. The president will be talking about his new initiative on education and the escalating tension in North Korea, and he’ll float some ideas on strengthening the crime bill currently under discussion in Congress.” She motioned for her assistant press secretary to distribute advance copies of the speech Parmele would deliver in Miami.
“What’s with his wife canceling, Robin?”
“A scheduling conflict.”
“Hours before she’s due to make the trip?”
“That’s what happened. Hey, get off this nonsense about the president and first lady. Okay? You’ve got better things to think about.”
The first lady and her absence was the last thing on the minds of Parmele, Fletcher, and Brown as they sat in a tight circle of club chairs in the president’s office compartment.
Brown, who had just briefed Parmele and Fletcher on new information concerning the pending Widmer hearings, had learned over the months to leave the president and his political adviser alone after delivering sobering news. “Nobody in until the chief says so,” he told a uniformed Marine lance corporal, who stood at rigid attention outside the president’s flying office.
Parmele swiveled in his leather chair to look through the