He drove back to Washington. Anacostia was down to his right, the Pentagon behind him, Chevy Chase beyond, a little necklace of spies-what did they actually do? — ringing the unsuspecting city. Or half of it, the only part he’d seen. He looked up at the Capitol in the distance. If he kept going straight on Constitution, he’d be there. The house on 2nd Street. He turned a sharp left. Never.
“I think he spotted us,” he said to Molly when he got back to the hotel room, slumping on the bed. “Going away the next day.”
“It might not be the next day to him. Maybe he’s on vacation.” She smiled slyly. “That’s why he got a magazine for the plane.”
She took out the telephone book and flipped some pages.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m finding out. If you want to know something, the easiest way is to ask.” She started dialing.
“What about Irina?”
“She works at the embassy,” she said over her shoulder.
“So.” Then, to the mouthpiece, “John Brown’s office, please.” A minute. “Yes, is he in, please? Oh, and he told me to call today. I see. Well, when do you expect him? Uh-huh. All right, I’ll try back. No, no, it’s just a friend of his mother’s.” She hung up and turned to Nick. “Was that hard? Not a vacation. He had to go out of town today, she doesn’t know why, he just called from the airport. But I should try back. He’s very good about checking in.”
“Which tells us what?”
“That he wasn’t planning to go. Something came up. I suppose we could try the New York field office, but that’s probably stretching it. I mean, what if he is there?”
“We don’t even know if he’s actually with the Bureau,” Nick said.
“Mm. Or just someone down the hall.”
“So now what?”
“Well, I knew you’d be bored. While they were at work. So I had a little idea of my own. Remember the police report on Rosemary? I got the name of the signing officer. Retired, but still alive. So I called. He’ll see us. I think he was amazed.”
“I’ll bet. Where does he live?”
“Actually, not too far from Ruth Silberstein. Al McHenry. He wheezes. Maybe he drinks. Still.”
The house smelled of medicine and old age, an oxygen tank and face mask standing guard near the lounge chair. He made tea, shuffling around in a cardigan and slippers. “It’s the emphysema. There’s not a damn thing you can do for it, either. It’s all the smokes, I guess. Well. Just throw it over there,” he said to Nick, who was fiddling with the bulky sofa pillow. “So what can I do for you? I wasn’t on that case long, you know. The FBI took it over. Moved right in, the way they do. National security. Noses up in the air, all of them. Like we’re just flatfeet. But I don’t see they got anywhere either, did they? We did everything right, you know, at the scene-the dusting, the plastic bags, the whole works, the way it should be. They’ll say we didn’t, but it’s a lie. We did it all. The fact is, there was nothing left for them to do, that’s the truth of it. If there’s one thing I’m always careful about, it’s the scene of the crime.”
“So you didn’t think it was suicide?”
He looked carefully at Nick. “Well, let me put it this way. If it was, someone drove her to it. Right there with her. She was entertaining, you know. That’s a crime to me, never mind what the book says.” He stopped and looked again at Nick. “No, I never thought it was suicide. They didn’t either, the Bureau boys, that was just the official line. I could never see it. They have a lovers’ quarrel and she gets hysterical and jumps out the window? Hell, by the time she got it open he could’ve stopped her. No.”
“Unless he never turned up. Maybe she got depressed, waiting, knowing he wasn’t coming,” Nick said, playing devil’s advocate.
“Oh, he was there all right. They had a drink. Now look, you don’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to get the lay of the land here. Girl checks into a hotel. No clothes, just her nightgown-not the wool kind, the other kind. You know. And she brings her douche.” He turned to Molly. “Pardon. Then she orders a setup from room service. For two, mind you. Ice, bottle, mixer, two glasses. I’d say she had company.”
“But no one saw anybody going in.”
“No. That was a bad break. You know hotel people. Notice everything. Can’t wait to help you out, whether they’ve seen anything or not. Gets them off work. But that night-well, they had everyone running around with that dance. People everywhere. Nobody’s got time to notice anything.”
“Like somebody leaving the dance and taking the elevator to the sixteenth floor.”
McHenry looked up from his tea. “I thought about that too. Couldn’t prove it, though. Couldn’t prove it. Might have been anybody. The only one I can prove went into that room was the waiter.”
“And he didn’t see anybody.”
“No. Hadn’t got there yet. But she was getting ready for company. Said she was putting her lipstick on when he brought the setup.”
“Then how do we know he was there?”
“There was liquor in both glasses. Why pour two?”
“Prints?”
“No,” McHenry said slowly, looking at Nick, as if trying to assess where the question came from. “But he was there. He was there and he killed her. I’m sure of it.”
“Because both glasses had liquor?”
“Because it makes sense. And there were the marks on the window.” He waited for Nick’s reaction. “You see, I thought to look. Even a flatfoot could figure that out. They had those sash windows, you know, you lift it up.” He stood up to demonstrate. “Now you don’t usually push someone out face first. I mean, what would they be doing at the window in the first place, getting some air? Usually their back’s to it and you surprise them, they don’t know there’s nothing behind. Then they start falling, and the natural reaction is to grab on to something. Like this.” He turned his hands around and lifted them as if he were holding on to the sash, then fell back in the chair. “The nails dig in, you see? Then they slip. Or someone loosens them for you. And down you go. But you’d leave the scratches.”
“And she did.”
“Yes, sir, she did. But I couldn’t prove that either.” He gasped, out of breath from the demonstration, and sucked some air from the mask. “These days, there’d be all sorts of ways. Just one little flake of something under those nails and the lab boys’d have it licked in a minute. But back then-” He took more air. “We just had eyes.”
“The report says you found a lighter,” Nick said, getting to it.
“Yes, I did.”
“My father’s.”
“Yes.”
“So you think he killed her.”
“No, I don’t,” he said flatly, looking up at Nick. “Does that surprise you? You thought he did, is that it? Well, he didn’t. I’m not trying to be nice. As far as I’m concerned, he was a traitor. I’d have put him away for that in a minute. But murder, that’s something else, that’s police work. I suppose it isn’t easy having a traitor for a father.
“Course, mine thinks he has a fool for a father, so take your pick. But you don’t have to have this hanging over your head too. No, I don’t think he did.”
He took a deep breath, wheezing slightly, then continued. “Everybody else thought so. Everybody wanted it to be him. Nothing makes me more suspicious than everybody wanting it to be someone. I think, you know, they just wanted to nail him for something. They couldn’t get him for what he did do, but if they got him for this, it sure as hell would look like he did the other-why else kill her? Of course, in the end they couldn’t get him for anything. You can’t try a man who isn’t there, not even the Bureau.” He smiled. “I have to say, I guess they were frustrated, the bastards. They keep the murder stuff out of the papers, thinking they’re going to get him-you know, pull the rabbit out of the hat the way they liked to do. I kept my mouth shut. They want to say it’s suicide, fine, I can’t prove otherwise. I can see they’re just waiting. Then by the time they find out where he is, it’s too late. Who gives a rat’s ass? You can’t hang a man who isn’t there. You can’t even accuse him. No point.”
“If you’ve already proved your point. That he’s a traitor,” Nick said, thinking.
“Well, he gave them that one himself. From what I saw, they weren’t going to prove nothing. But I guess he
