Murder on K Street - Margaret Truman [28]
“As soon as I hang up on you.”
“I have to go to see the police this afternoon.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I’m bringing a lawyer.”
“Can’t hurt, although you probably don’t need one at this stage.”
“You’re saying I will later?”
“Bring a lawyer, Neil. Look, I have to run. I’ll call your dad. Anything I can do for you?”
“Yes. Make it all go away.”
“If only I could.”
Rotondi had called Neil Simmons’s cell phone from the District ChopHouse and Brewery on Seventh Street, where he’d settled at the bar and enjoyed a beer and a cheeseburger. Although the restaurant was crowded and noisy, he felt very much by himself. He was good at that, creating solitude in the midst of chaos. Kathleen used to comment after leaving a party that he seemed in his own little world. To which he invariably replied, “I was, and it was a more pleasant place than the party.” He wasn’t necessarily antisocial, nor was he a stereotypical loner. But he treasured his inner spaces, and his ability to summon them when it suited.
He called Senator Simmons from outside the restaurant.
“Oh, Mr. Rotondi, the senator is waiting to hear from you. He’s in an important meeting, but he said to put you through.”
The senator’s voice broke in. “Hello, Phil. Polly arrived all right?”
“Yes. She’s at the hotel. I’m sure she’ll be calling.”
Would she?
“Hold on a second, Phil.” Rotondi heard Simmons ask those meeting with him to leave. When they had, he came back on the line. “Phil. I need a favor from you.”
“Sure.”
“The police have told me that I can go back to the house. I’d like you to come with me.”
Rotondi hesitated. “Sure you wouldn’t rather have Neil and Polly?” he said.
“I’d like you with me.”
Another pause from Rotondi.
“Please, Phil.”
“Okay. Emma and I are having dinner with friends tonight at seven. Other than that—”
“Come by the office at five. Walter will drive us.”
“I’ll be there. Oh, Lyle, by the way. I spoke with Neil a few minutes ago. He’s giving an interview to the police this afternoon.”
“I know. He was going without a lawyer. I told him to get smart. I’m negotiating now for a convenient time and place for them to interview me. It’s bad enough when you lose your wife, but they’re making it doubly hard. I can’t even arrange for a proper funeral for Jeannette. The medical examiner says he won’t release the body for God knows how long. See you at five. And thanks, Phil. I knew I could count on you.”
Rotondi went to Emma’s house, where he took Homer for a walk. He intended to make it a long one, but the combination of the heat—when would it break?—and his aching leg precluded that. He settled on the couch and watched the ongoing TV news reports about Jeannette’s murder. He tried to focus on what the talking heads were saying, but it was a lost cause. Images of times past dominated, rendering the words from the TV nothing more than a drone. He turned off the set, closed his eyes, and allowed his thoughts to take him where they wanted him to go, back to his senior year at the University of Illinois.
Back to when Jeannette was alive.
• • •
It had been two months since Rotondi first got up the courage to ask Jeannette Boynton out. He’d dated little during his first three years at the university. Between his studies, and basketball and track practice, there didn’t seem to be time for the opposite sex. At least that’s what he told himself. He often closed the library at night, and was the last athlete to leave the gym and weight room.
Not that he’d failed to notice the multitude of attractive coeds in his classrooms and around the campus. Nor was he a virgin. The sexual freedom of the 1960s was pervasive on campus, as it was across America. As a freshman, he’d had sex with a “townie,” a young woman from Champaign-Urbana. The experience had been revelatory. He wasn’t sure what he’d learned, but it had been pleasurable aside from the fear that she might become pregnant, which as far as he was concerned would ruin his life. Fathering a child out of wedlock, before his education was completed and he’d become a married man, would devastate his