ELEVEN

Annabel Lee-Smith’s dinner conquered the oppressive heat. The entrée was lobster salad, the lobsters shucked and chopped with loving care by Mackensie Smith. Gazpacho was first on the table, accompanied by fresh French bread. Key lime pie would top things off.

“You look splendid in that apron,” Annabel told Mac as they awaited the arrival of their guests.

“Thank you, ma’am. You look pretty good yourself.”

“It’s a shame we can’t have cocktails out on the terrace. The ice wouldn’t last a minute out there. Neither would we.”

“I’ll have to hoist a toast to Mr. Carrier tonight.”

“Who?”

“Willis Carrier. He invented air-conditioning more than a hundred years ago.”

“And why do you know that?”

“In case I end up on a quiz show. Want to know who invented the chastity belt?”

“No.”

“Suit yourself.”

The front desk called to announce that Mr. Marbury and Ms. Coleman had arrived. A few minutes later Mac, Annabel, and Rufus, their blue Great Dane, greeted the couple at the door and led them into the living room, where Mac’s small bar was set up in a corner. “Drink?” Mac asked. “I have the ingredients for most concoctions. Just don’t ask for a pousse-café.”

Jonell Marbury’s laugh was a rumble. “I was counting on one of those, Mac, but I’ll settle for a gin-and-tonic.” The woman accompanying him, his fiancée, Marla Coleman, opted for the same.

Once everyone was settled with drinks and hors d’oeuvres in hand, the conversation almost immediately turned to the murder.

“I thought you might have to cancel, Jonell, because of it,” Annabel said.

“There’s really not much I can do,” he replied. “We all feel terrible for Neil Simmons. He was so close to his mother.”

“A terrible loss,” Marla said.

Marbury’s Caribbean roots were evident in the slight but discernible lilt to his voice. Considerably darker than Marla, who hailed from Savannah, Georgia, the thirty-seven-year-old was a man who turned heads and commanded attention when he entered a crowded room. Mac had met him when Jonell was chief of staff to an African American congresswoman from California. He’d established a reputation as one of the most effective staffers on the House side, and his influence in drafting legislation was considerable. He was, among other things, especially skilled at working with lobbyists who had a stake in a pending bill, weaving their input and legitimate concerns into the finished product. And he kept them all legitimate. Then, a year ago, he’d told Mac over lunch that he’d resigned from his post with the congresswoman to take a job with the Marshalk Group on K Street. His decision was not, he admitted, popular with Marla, an executive with the National Urban League in D.C.

She, his fiancée, was equally attractive. She’d been cited by Washingtonian magazine as one of the city’s up-and-coming influence makers; the photograph of her in the magazine was stunning. This night she wore an off-white linen suit that hugged her tall, slender body. Jonell’s suit was light gray and nicely cut. Seeing the couple featured in the pages of a fashion magazine wouldn’t have surprised anyone. One thing was certain. They’d outdressed their host and hostess, who wore casual clothing.

“Rick Marshalk is putting up a fifty-thousand-dollar reward,” Marbury said.

“That might generate some leads,” Mac said. “Do the police have any suspects yet?”

“Not that I know of. I was talking to Rick today and—”

Another call from the downstairs desk informed Mac that Phil and Emma had arrived.

“We invited another couple to join us tonight,” Annabel said as she stood to get the door. “I think you’ll enjoy them. Phil Rotondi was an assistant U.S. attorney in Baltimore, and Emma Churchill runs a top catering service here in Washington.”

“She caters all of our affairs at Marshalk,” Marbury said.

“Phil is a close friend of Senator Simmons,” Mac added. “They go back a long way.”

Rotondi and Emma were introduced and joined the group in the living room.

“I understand you and Senator Simmons are close friends,” Marbury said to Rotondi in his deep, well-modulated voice.

“That’s right. College roommates.”

“You should be on the radio,” Emma said to Marbury.

“I was. The college station.”

“The senator must be devastated,” Marla said.

“Of course.” Rotondi turned to Marbury. “Annabel tells me that you work for Neil Simmons.”

“Yes, I do. I’ve been there about a year now.” He turned to Marla. “Marla thinks I’ve sold out.”

“I never said that,” she said.

“Not in so many words.”

“Jonell used to be chief of staff to a congresswoman on the Hill,” Annabel said.

“Congresswoman Dustin,” Marla added.

“She’s a firebrand, I hear,” Emma said.

Marbury laughed. “She can be tough. I loved working for her.”

“Marshalk recruited you?” Rotondi asked.

Marbury nodded. “They offered me a deal I couldn’t refuse, like The Godfather.”

“Money,” said Marla.

“Nothing wrong with that,” Marbury said, defensively.

“I never said there was anything wrong with being paid more,” Marla said. “It’s just that—”

“Lobbyists have taken a beating lately,” Mac tossed in. “Refills anyone?”

“Sure,” said Rotondi, holding up his empty beer stein, which had been frosted in the freezer before use.

“They deserve to,” Marla opined.

“Oh, come on now,” Jonell said. “Lobbyists play an important role in the legislative process.”

Only in its purest sense, Rotondi thought.

“Had you ever met Mrs. Simmons?” Mac asked Marbury.

“Yes. A few times. In fact, I saw her yesterday afternoon.”

His statement caused a hush to fall over the room.

Rotondi broke it. “How was she?” he asked.

“Fine. I mean, I was only there for a minute or two. I delivered something for the senator, an envelope. Rick Marshalk asked me to drop it off. I handed it to her at the door.”

The conversation veered from that to a discussion of a developing scandal with a member of the House of Representatives that had made the papers that day. From there, it was on to some amusing stories from Emma Churchill about unusual catering situations she’d recently experienced, and Marla weighed in with the tale of a politician who’d fallen asleep during an Urban League–sponsored roundtable discussion on the state of race relations in America. Although Marbury and his fiancée, and Rotondi and Emma Churchill had never met before, they quickly fell into the sort of easy conversation typical of old friends. When Rotondi got up to fetch a plate of hors d’oeuvres, Marla asked what had happened to his leg.

Rotondi shrugged. “It’s a long story,” he said.

“When you were a U.S. attorney in Baltimore?” Marbury asked.

“Yeah. A creep I put away decided to get even when he got out.”

He hadn’t wanted a retirement party, and had made his feelings known to his bosses and fellow U.S. attorneys. But they weren’t about to be deprived of putting on a grand farewell for their iconoclastic colleague, and so the night was chosen and the site reserved—Caesar’s Den, Rotondi’s favorite haunt, on South High Street in Baltimore’s Little Italy.

Ninety men and women showed up that evening. Spirits ran high, the liquor freely. Rotondi ordered his usual twenty-ounce veal chop, a house specialty. His wife, Kathleen, opted for mussels in a white wine sauce. In Rotondi’s eyes, she looked especially beautiful that night, although there had never been a day in their sixteen-year marriage when he hadn’t felt that way. Her long hair was naturally blond, and she wore it simple and straight. She had a surprisingly dusky complexion for an Irish girl from Annapolis; her grandmother had been French. All Rotondi knew was that she was as kind and gentle as she was attractive, coolly efficient in court, loving and playful when away from the black robes and stuffy decorum of the courtroom.

They’d met on the job. A new addition to the criminal section, she was assigned to work with Rotondi on some high-profile cases he’d taken on. At first, she found his personality to be off-putting. He attacked every day with the zeal of a man possessed; smiles and relaxed moments were few and far between. But as the weeks went by, she began to see something in him that he wasn’t totally successful in hiding from public view—at least not from her, though he tried hard. And while he never veered from his professional approach, she also sensed a growing flicker of male interest.

One night, after a particularly grueling all-day court session that lasted into the early evening, she suggested they grab a bite together.

“Sure,” he said without hesitation, which surprised her. She’d assumed she would have to cajole him into accepting. “I’ll take you to my favorite place,” he added.

That was the first of many nights at Caesar’s Den, where the owners greeted Phil with open arms and extended the same warm welcome to the lovely lady who now regularly accompanied him. Conversation on their first few evenings together consisted primarily of office talk—lawyer talk—hashing over cases in which they were involved. But as the days extended into weeks, his defenses slipped, and his more personal side peeked through.

“…I used to think I’d never marry,” he told her one night. “I was immersed in my studies at law school, and joined the office here right after graduation. What about you?”

“Me? I think marriage is wonderful, provided you meet the right person. I’ve seen some of my friends settle because they’re convinced they have to get married by a certain age. I think that’s dumb.”

“Dumb?” He laughed.

“Well, maybe ill advised is a better term.”

“No,” he said. “I like dumb.” He swished the red wine remaining in his glass. “Maybe it was the thought of having kids,” he said to the wine. “I don’t think I’d make much of a father.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Just knowing myself. You might have noticed that I’m a little self-obsessed.”

“I’ve seen hints of it now and then,” she said with a smile. “I suppose I’d like children someday. But like getting married, I don’t think it’s something you have to do. There are so many pressures on us to do what others expect. Marry by a certain age. Have two and a half children, one and a half dogs. You might have noticed that I’m somewhat self-obsessed, too.”

“I’ve seen hints,” he said, lightly. “So tell me about your family, Kathleen.”

She obliged. Her father was a carpenter at an Annapolis boatyard. “He works hard,” she said. “He’s my hero, no pretensions, no posturing, just hard work every day. My mom is a receptionist in a dentist’s office. Every cent she made went into a college fund for me and my brother.”

“What’s your brother do?”

“Bart’s two years older. He teaches earth science in a local high school. His wife’s a doll. She teaches, too. They have one and a half children, no dog. I grew up with a border collie named—ready?—Lassie. I love animals.”

“Why don’t you get one?”

“Too busy. Wouldn’t be fair to the dog. What about you, Phil? I showed you mine. Your turn to show me yours.”

“Not a lot to show, Kathleen, or to tell.” He talked about his sisters and wayward brother, and his deceased parents. He found it difficult to discuss such things, and there was a moment when Kathleen thought he might cry. But he didn’t, and eventually he even smiled when recounting a few intimate—intimate in his mind—details of family life. “Like I said, not much to tell.”

“Your father sounds like he was a wonderful man.”

“Yes, he was. His Old World views caused some tension between us now and then, but nothing major. I had a couple of fights with kids in school who made fun of the way he talked.” He laughed. “I won.”

“I don’t doubt that. Were you a religious family?”

“Not formal religion. We were brought up Catholic, and I was baptized and confirmed. So were my brother and sisters. My father, he believed in individual faith but was distrustful of organized religion. I suppose I feel the same way. He taught me a lot of things, Kathleen, including the importance of always standing for something, standing tall. I like to think I practice that advice.”

They closed the restaurant that night and went to his apartment, where they made love for the first time. The next morning, they both knew without saying it that they were in it for the long haul.

“We should take a weekend and visit my folks,” she said. “You’d like them. My dad is every bit as hard-ass as you are.”

His thoughts flew back to the University of Illinois and to Jeannette Boyton, but only for a moment.

“I’d like that,” he said.

They made that weekend trip two weeks later. Kathleen had been right. Rotondi liked her parents and brother, felt very much at home with them. The wedding took place three months later. Phil’s sisters and their families attended the small ceremony; his brother sent his regrets but wished him well. Their honeymoon consisted of a long weekend at the acclaimed Inn at Little Washington, in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains in Washington, Virginia, where they got to know each other even better. Four days later, they were back in the courtroom.

Kathleen had come directly to Phil’s retirement party dressed in her all-business tailored black suit and white blouse. Had she been able, she would have chosen a dressy outfit for this special occasion honoring her husband. But she’d spent the day in court arguing before a notoriously dim-witted judge who moved things along slowly in order to keep up with what was going on. Kathleen Moran-Rotondi was a highly respected assistant U.S. attorney, as much at home in a courtroom as she was in the kitchen of their high-rise apartment in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor development.

“Come on, Phil, ’fess up,” a colleague yelled from across the table. “You use some kind of superman drugs, right?” His comment caused others to laugh, and to follow up with the same accusation. Rotondi was the star player on a once-a-week recreational basketball team that pitted prosecutors against defense lawyers. His intensity on the court matched his concentration in the courtroom, and although some joked about how seriously he took the games, few failed to appreciate his talent, on the court and off.

“All right, all right,” Rotondi said, standing and holding up his hands for silence. “I admit it. I’ve been taking steroids every morning with my granola. But even if I hadn’t, I’d still outplay all of you clowns.”

Kathleen looked up him and beamed. He’d started the evening stiff and reserved, but the drinks, and the outpouring of goodwill from everyone in attendance, had loosened him up. He was thoroughly enjoying himself.

Over dessert, Rotondi was roasted. It became raunchy as the evening wore on, but it was all in good fun, and the room roiled with laughter, Phil and Kathleen leading the charge.

Farewells took forever. Everyone wanted to shake Phil’s hand on the way out of the restaurant, and hug him, tell him how sorely he’d be missed, and warn Kathleen that having a retired husband was a recipe for marital disaster, wishing him many happy years of leisure and warning him to drive home safely lest he end up with a DUI and sully the department’s reputation.

“I’ll see you in the morning,” Phil told them. “I’ve got the Jensen case on the docket tomorrow. My retirement doesn’t kick in for another month.”

“Know what I’d love?” he told Kathleen after everyone was gone and they stood alone on the sidewalk in front of Caesar’s Den.

“What’s that?”

“A cigarette. Can you imagine that? I’ve never smoked in my life but I have this urge to puff on a cigarette.”

“Well, get over it, my dear,” she said.

“Maybe you’d be willing to substitute another vice when we get home,” he suggested.

She gave forth with a wicked laugh. “I’ve been planning that all evening,” she said. “Come on. I parked around the corner.” She’d dropped him off at the office that morning and driven to the courthouse for her appearance.

He put his arm around her and held tight as they walked down the street, their gait a little rocky from all the wine, their spirits equally as intoxicated. They turned the corner, waited for passing traffic to clear, crossed, and proceeded down a deserted, dimly lit street.

“It’s down there,” she said, indicating the cream-colored Toyota Camry parked at the end of the block. When they’d almost reached it, Kathleen pulled keys from her purse. “You okay to drive?” she asked.

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

They were within a few feet of the car when a man’s voice said, “Hey, Rotondi!”

Phil and Kathleen turned in the direction of the voice, which came from behind a tree. Its owner stepped out of the shadows. “Hey, Rotondi,” he repeated. “Remember me?”

Phil ignored him and moved Kathleen closer to the car.

“You bastard!” the man said.

“Look, fella, I suggest that—” Rotondi said.

The man moved quickly to cut off their path to the Toyota. Now the handgun he wielded was visible.

Rotondi squinted to better see his face.

“You put me away six years ago, Rotondi. Remember? Paulie Sims?”

“Get in the car,” Rotondi said to Kathleen. He said to the gunman, “Yeah, I remember you, Paulie. What the hell do you think you’re doing with the gun? Put it down before you end up in bigger trouble.”

“You and your cop buddies planted that evidence on me and used it to put me away.”

“The hell we did,” Rotondi said. “You did the crime and you did the time. Now wise up and get out of our way.”

Sims raised the weapon and pointed it at Rotondi’s head. Rotondi growled at Kathleen, “Get in the car, Kathleen.”

She didn’t move.

He turned to Sims. “You’ve got a beef with me, Paulie, fair enough, but this is my wife. She had nothing to do with your case, so let her get in the car. You and I can talk this out.” Rotondi extended his hand. “Give me the gun, Paulie. Give it to me!”

The tranquil silence of the side road exploded with gunshots, one after the other, a staccato barrage of bullets, the smoke and smell of cordite drifting up into the still night air. The pop-pop-pop of the gun was replaced by an anguished scream from Kathleen and a tortured groan from Rotondi as pain pulsated through his leg, causing it to collapse beneath him. He hit the sidewalk face-first, breaking his nose and taking the skin off his cheek. He twisted his head to see their assailant run out of sight. Rotondi turned in Kathleen’s direction. She was sprawled on the sidewalk six feet from him, on her back, legs akimbo, hands crossed defensively over her face.

“Kathleen,” Phil said. He tried to stand but his one leg was useless. He crawled toward her, a hand outstretched, saying her name over and over. He hauled himself on top of her body and pushed her hands away from her face. “Kathleen, say something. Say something, damn it!”

No words came, nor would they ever come from her again.

“…and so I spent two months in rehab for my leg,” Rotondi told those gathered in Mac and Annabel Smith’s apartment. “They arrested the punk the next morning. He’s doing life without parole. My sentence? They almost had to take the leg off, but the surgeons were great.”

Mac and Annabel knew about Rotondi’s wife but respected his decision to leave out that part of the story.

Emma squeezed Rotondi’s hand. His telling of the tale never failed to send chills through her, and to make her nauseous.

“What a horrible thing to go through,” Marla said.

“Yeah, but it’s history.” Rotondi turned to Annabel: “Hey, when’s dinner, sweetheart? I’m starving.”

As they enjoyed their dinner, a violent thunderstorm roared into the city. Blinding shafts of lightning were like strobe lights outside the glass doors to the terrace, and sharp cracks of thunder caused them to start. It was over as quickly as it had arrived.

“Maybe it’ll break the heat wave,” Emma commented.

Mac went to the sliding glass doors and opened them. “Heavenly,” he announced. “It must have dropped ten, fifteen degrees.”

The key lime pie was a hit, along with cups of cappuccino Mac brewed in the kitchen. He offered after-dinner drinks in the living room, but Rotondi and Emma declined. “I’ve got a seven o’clock breakfast at Homeland Security to cater,” she said. After they’d left, Mac, Annabel, Jonell, and Marla strolled onto the terrace.

“Turned out to be a lovely evening,” Annabel commented, taking a deep breath of the cooler air.

“Everything’s lovely about this evening,” Marla said.

“Phil left out the part about his wife,” Annabel said. “She was killed when that released criminal started shooting.”

“How sad. Poor man.”

“I think he preferred not to put a damper on the evening,” said Annabel.

The women stayed outside for a few more minutes before Annabel cleared some dishes; Marla followed her inside, leaving Mac alone with Marbury. “I imagine the police had plenty of questions for you, Jonell, about having been at the house the day Jeannette Simmons was killed,” Mac said.

“I haven’t spoken with them, Mac.”

“They’ll get around to questioning you.”

Marbury hesitated before saying, “I haven’t told them I was there.”

Mac looked at him quizzically. “I assume you intend to,” he said.

“I, ah—I’m not sure I should bother, Mac. I have nothing to offer. I rang the bell. She came to the door. I handed her the envelope and left.”

“Still, you have an obligation to tell them you were there. If the police come up with it on their own, they’ll focus in on you as a suspect.”

“I’m sure that’s good advice, Mac. Thanks. I’ll take care of it.”

Later that night as Mac and Annabel got ready for bed, Mac told her about his conversation with Marbury about his not having gone to the police.

“I hope he listens to you,” she said.

“I do, too, Annie. I had the feeling that it wasn’t because he considered himself irrelevant. It’s almost as though he had a more concrete reason for his decision.”

“Well,” she said, “if he’s smart, which we know he is, he’ll do what you suggested. The evening was a success, wasn’t it?”

“It always is with you at the helm.”

A kiss good night, then lights out.