My phone started ringing, shaking me from my thoughts. I checked the caller ID. It was Doug, who must be wondering if I had been arrested. In the midst of the pandemonium, I had forgotten to let him know the lawyer wasn’t necessary, at least right now. I picked up the phone.
“Kit, are you okay? What’s going on? CNN is reporting Senator Langsford was murdered this morning. While Clarence and I were at the vet I got messages from Meg saying you might need a lawyer.” Doug’s voice sounded frantic. My brilliant boyfriend, extremely accomplished for someone in his early thirties, had recently received tenure from the history department at Georgetown. His first book on early American presidents had earned favorable reviews in top scholarly journals. Academia was the perfect fit for Doug. He didn’t like the unpredictable and appreciated routine more than anything. Something like this was bound to throw him for a loop. If I didn’t calm him down, he’d need a stiff shot of whisky and a Xanax.
“Everything’s fine. Don’t worry. But that’s right. The senator is dead.” Saying those words out loud made me choke back a sob. “He was murdered. But I talked to the police and I’ve been released, at least for the time being.”
“Why would the police consider you a suspect?” Anxiety escalated in his voice.
There was no way around it; I had to tell Doug I’d been the one to find the senator. I braced myself for his reaction. “Well, I walked into his office this morning and discovered his body.”
His voice roared. “You what?”
“It gets worse. I also pulled the murder weapon out of him.” Better he heard it from me than read about it later in the Washington Post.
He was silent, which wasn’t exactly what I expected. It was too much for Doug to process at once. “Doug, are you still on the line?”
Finally, he said quietly, “Yes, I’m here. Are you sure I shouldn’t call my father and have a lawyer come to the office to meet you?”
I paused. Doug came from a wealthy New England family with deep roots and strong political ties. I already had a complex that his connections had helped me get the job with Langsford. It was inevitable his family would find out I had stumbled across the body. Hopefully, that revelation could be delayed as long as possible, and in the meantime, the police would find the real killer.
“No, I’m sure the police will find who did this quickly. I mean, you can’t just murder a United States Senator in a congressional office building and get away with it, right?”
The line went silent again for a moment. Doug finally said, “I guess you’re right. It’s not like you can just carry a knife or gun into the building.”
He had a good point. Since the era of terrorist threats and mass shootings, the United States Capitol had been on lockdown. Everyone who entered the Senate office buildings had to go through a security scanner. The police officers operating the scanners were vigilant. A few months ago, Kara had attempted to bring in a knife to cut the huge cake the office had bought for Langsford’s birthday. She was stopped at the entrance and detained until Lucinda came to her rescue. The police kept the utensil, and we had to cut the cake with a plastic knife instead.
Carrying out a premeditated murder was complicated. A weapon or firearm was out of the question. Senators could sometimes bypass security when they arrived from the parking garage, but anyone accompanying senators, including staff and spouses, had to pass through the scanner.
Maybe someone had argued with Senator Langsford, and seeing a sharp object handy, had stabbed him in the heat of the moment.
Kara interrupted, leaning over my desk. She whispered, “Matt wants to see you, pronto.”
I nodded. “Listen, I have to go, Doug. My boss needs to talk to me. I’ll call you when I find out anything more. In the meantime, don’t worry. I have everything under control.”
I could sense Doug’s furrowed brows over the phone. “I was afraid you were going to say that. Please, Kit, don’t do anything stupid. Let the police do their job so they can find the person who did this. Remember, chances are if Senator Langsford knew the person who killed him and the murder took place in his Senate office, it’s likely someone you knew too.”
I shuddered as I hung up the phone. He was right. I had worked for Langsford for four years and knew most of the major players in his political world. Had an insider ended the senator’s life?
Walking down the hall, I glanced inside Lucinda’s office. Her face was red and puffy, and tears streamed down her mature face. If Vivian wasn’t bawling, Lucinda was certainly making up for her lack of waterworks. Her phone headset was on and her Rolodex in front of her. As the chief of staff, Lucinda had the unenviable task of calling the senator’s closest associates to let them know personally about his death. She wouldn’t beat the cable news reporting the murder, but the senator’s long-term friends and donors deserved to be personally notified.
I knocked, then cracked open Matt’s office door. “You wanted to see me?”
Matt seemed to have aged about a decade since this morning. Judging from the dishevelment of his mane, a record-breaking amount of hair tugging had taken place in the past hour. Matt had known the senator since his first campaign for office. This was an emotional blow. Also, if Trevor was right, Matt had to figure out how the senator’s office would continue to function until the governor appointed a replacement.
Matt motioned for me to sit. “I hear that despite emerging from the senator’s office with the murder weapon in your hand, you’re no longer being detained.” He managed a small, wry smile.
“According to Detective O’Halloran, I’m not supposed to leave town,” I said. “I’m sorry. I probably caused you even more trouble this morning than you were already handling.”
He waved his hands in earnest denial. “I’m glad you’re okay and you weren’t the second victim.”
The possibility hadn’t occurred to me. If I had arrived earlier, I might have stumbled across the perpetrator. The detective said the senator was probably killed about an hour before my discovery of the body. I racked my brain to access knowledge of forensics from television shows. That timeline was a crude crime-scene estimate. The coroner would confirm the time of death within an hour, give or take. I could have come close to spotting the killer, especially if the person had stayed in the office for any length of time after the murder. But I had passed no one in the hallway or the building before entering the office. Nothing stuck out. With security cameras monitoring the entrance to the building, I wondered, how had the killer escaped detection this morning?
Matt seemed to have something else on his mind besides celebrating the fact I hadn’t been killed. I waited.
He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “Kit, there’s something you should know. You probably haven’t had a chance to turn on your computer.” I had printed the memo for the senator the night before. All I had done this morning was unlock my file cabinet drawer underneath my desk and head toward the senator’s office.
“No, I haven’t even logged on.”
He hesitated and gave his hair another tug. “Pull your chair up and take a look at the news reports.” Matt turned his computer monitor around so I could read it. My jaw dropped. A color photograph of me in handcuffs appeared, with the headline STAFFER LEAD SUSPECT IN SENATOR’S DEATH.