Margaret Truman - Murder at the Library of Congress (The Capital Crimes Series)

The First Capital Crimes Novel
by
Margaret Truman

In a town where the weapon of choice is usually a well-aimed rumor, the strangling of Secretary of State (and accomplished womanizer) Lansard Blaine in the Lincoln Bedroom is a gruesome first.

In death as in life, Blaine is a power to be reckoned with. Only a few highly placed insiders had access to the Lincoln Bedroom that fateful evening. And one of them was the president.

The plot builds up to a superb denouement. One wonders if all is fiction.

Time

Published by Ballantine Books.
Available at bookstores everywhere.

Esteban Reina looked down from the tall stepladder. Above him was the skylight hed just repaired. Hed explained to his boss, the museums manager, that the repair hed started that morning was more complicated than hed anticipated, and that he would have to remove the entire skylight to do the job right.

Before it rains, the manager said. Make sure its fixed before it rains.

Reina had taken his time, but kept an eye on the sky. Rain wasnt forecast until the night, plenty of time.

It was now five oclock. The skylight had been removed, the weather stripping replaced, and the skylight again rested in its opening, allowing gray light to filter into the small, single gallery of Casa de Seville, a not-for-profit museum of sorts supported by a grant from two Hispanic-American businessmen and donations at the door. Devoted to bringing a taste of Seville, Spain, to Miami, it was located on Southwest Eighth StreetLittle Havana.

The collection wasnt especially important in a historical sense, nor was the worth of the displays, maps, dioramas of fifteenth-century Seville, and costumes replicating what was then fashionable very high. If worth was determined by size, a large painting by an obscure, modestly capable nineteenth-century artist, Fernando Reyes (influenced by the respected seventeenth-century religious painter, Murillo), was the most valuable offering in the small space. The scene was Columbus on his knees in Seville offering up his Book of Privileges to King Fernando and Queen Isabel. It was but one of myriad paintings done over the centuries depicting that event; Reyess work was considered by collectors to be barely adequate; he was perhaps not influenced enough by Murillo.

Reina, Casa de Sevilles part-time maintenance man, went to a rear door, opened it, and placed the ladder outside. He then went to the mens room, where he washed his hands, changed out of work clothes into slacks, a floral shirt, and sandals, and left the museum, pausing to say good night to the manager.

Fixed good as new, Reina said. And before the rain.

Excellent. See you in the morning, Esteban.

S, maana por la maana.

Warren Munsch assiduously avoided Miamis fancier Chinese restaurants in favor of the one he sat in this night, a small storefront take-out place with four tables, in a strip mall near the airport. He wasnt particularly concerned with the quality of the food on his plate, as long as it wasnt foul. Warren Munsch ate to satisfy hunger, to fill the void three times a day. Thats how he approached most aspects of his life.

The ribs and fried dumplings rested heavily in his digestive tract as he left the harsh fluorescent lighting of Go Go Hunan and stepped into the relative darkness of the parking lot. It was oppressively hot and humid; he felt as though he were wrapped in a rubber sheet. He looked up at the sound of a jet approaching Miami International, the aircraft slicing across the full moon like a thin bug. Munsch hummed the old song Moon Over Miami as he walked to where hed parked his new black Cadillac at a far end of the lot, away from other cars. He got in, cracked open a window, turned on the AC, lit a cigarette, and checked his watch. Morrie would be leaving his house about now, he thought. Garraga, too, if he hadnt drunk his dinner and fallen asleep in a stupor. Two hours to go.

Another jet screeched overhead. Munsch opened the glove compartment and fingered an envelope containing airline tickets. He wasnt fond of flying, although he could brace himself when flight was unavoidable. He closed the glove compartment, leaned back against the vehicles headrest, and closed his eyes. Maybe Im getting a little too old for this, he thought. Lately, hed found himself becoming forgetful, small lapses but annoying: Why-did-I-come-into-this-room? sort of things. It wouldnt have worried him if he were in some other line of work. But since coming out of Raiford a year ago, his second stint behind bars, he realized that forgetting something, even a seemingly insignificant something, could land him back there, which he was determined to avoid. Maybe this job should be his last. It promised a good payday, plenty of money to get out of Miami, maybe go to his daughters house in Oregon. He grimaced at the thought. Not with all those kids running around. W. C. Fields was right about kids: Anyone who hates children and dogs cant be all bad. The Bahamas, the British Virgins, maybe even South America or Cuba. He opened his eyes, lit another cigarette, and smiled. Cuba was appealing. Warren Munsch liked Cuban women, and if there were plenty of them in Miami, imagine what Havana must be like.

Buenos das, seorita, he said to no one, drawing deeply, and coughing.

An hour later, after having dozed off, he left the parking lot and drove south on Red Road into Coral Gables, a ten-minute drive, where he slowly circumvented the European-style fountain at the intersection of Sevilla Avenue and DeSoto and Granada boulevards, one of fourteen such roundabouts written into the city plan back in the 1920s. He pulled to the curb, turned off the lights, and lit up, leaving the engine and air-conditioning running. The heavy heat and humidity, and now the rain, had cut down on the number of people on the street that night, although it wasnt deserted. It never was. Coral Gables, the City Beautiful, seldom failed to draw tourists day or night, summer or winter. Nothing dumber than a tourist, Munsch thought; hed relieved his share of them of their vacation money. No easier creature on earth to scam than a dumb tourist.