Murder in the Smithsonian Read Online Free PDF

clasp, took a tentative step away from where she had posed between Sarah Polk and Betty Taylor Bliss. The mannequin-come-alive hesitated, listening for sounds of anyone approaching. Hearing nothing, she continued toward a door at the side of the exhibition room, opened it and stepped from the room to the visitor’s aisle in front of the glass. Long, dark eyelashes lowered, then came up again. A deep breath, a sigh, then disappearance behind one of hundreds of partitions used to separate the museum’s backstage activities from the tourists.
    “Tell Mr. Rowland we’ll be in touch,” Hanrahan said to the guard. He went outside, where reporters waited. It had started to rain. The steps leading up to the museum were tented with umbrellas. Hanrahan moved back under cover of a narrow overhang, pulled a sheet of notations from his pocket, cleared his throat and said in the best official voice he could manage, “The deceased’s name was Dr. Lewis Tunney, Caucasian, forty-three years of age…”

Chapter 4
    J UNE 5
    “Captain Hanrahan?”
    “Yes.”
    “The vice president of the United States wishes to speak with you.”
    Hey, Mac, he said to himself, your ma should be proud of you…
    “Captain Hanrahan?” asked the now familiar deep voice of William Oxenhauer.
    “Yes, sir.”
    “You get in as early as I do.”
    “I didn’t get in, sir, I never left.”
    “Oh… look, I’m sorry, Captain… I can’t go into details, but I’m afraid we’ll have to postpone our meeting.
    Hanrahan looked at his watch. It was seven-thirty. He’d intended to leave at nine for his appointment with Oxenhauer to make sure of being early. “Well, sir, may I ask when—?”
    “Something brewing on the international front. I just can’t get away today. I called you myself because I want you to know how much I want to cooperate with you. Lewis Tunney was a very dear friend. To bothmy wife and myself. If I can help you solve his… well, I’ll do everything and anything I possibly can. I want you to understand that.”
    “Yes, sir, when can we meet?”
    “Tomorrow morning, I should think. Same time, ten. That all right with you?”
    It will have to be, won’t it? Hanrahan wanted to say. Instead he said, “That’ll be fine, sir. But I can’t let this slide. If you have something to offer, sir, I need it. Fast.”
    “Of course. Tomorrow morning at ten. Thank you for your patience, Captain.”
    Hanrahan waited until his superior, Police Commissioner Calvin Johnson, arrived at MPD. He called and told Johnson’s secretary that he had to see him right away.
    “You’ll see him soon enough, Captain. He’s on his way down.”
    Johnson was a big man, six feet three inches tall. He came from a distinguished family of black educators and had a Ph.D. in sociology. Which made him somewhat partial to Hanrahan’s assistant, though he too occasionally winced at Joe Pearl’s penchant for the jargonish language of his field. He had been commissioner only two years, but in that brief time had managed to establish a reputation for having gotten a handle on D.C.’s crime problem, and even some solutions for it. He had also made Washington’s best-dressed list. This morning he wore a charcoal gray pinstripe suit that looked like it had been tailor-made to his lean, well-exercised frame, plus a pale blue shirt pinched at the neck with a gold bar, and a royal blue silk tie. What hair that was left on his fifty-two-year-old head was black and wavy.
    “Hello, Mac,” he said.
    “Hello, Cal.”
    “You look like you’ve been up all night.”
    “Can’t imagine why. You want coffee?”
    “Not your coffee. It’s terrible.”
    “Hire me a better coffee cook. Okay, you want to be filled in on last night.”
    “I appreciated your call at three this morning; Julia didn’t.”
    “Give her my apologies.”
    “I did. What’s new on this thing?”
    “Nothing. We searched the museum, logged every one of the two hundred guests and asked the usual