Murder on the Potomac Read Online Free PDF Page B

staff assistant to his friend, former senator Paul Ewald, then running for president on the Democratic ticket, had been slain outside this living memorial to the slain JFK. Smith and Rufus had discovered the body during just such a walk, and Smith found himself sucked into the vortex of the case, much to Annabel’s chagrin.
    And that was
before
they were married.
    Their marriage took place in a simple service in the Bethlehem Chapel of the National Cathedral. It was performed by another friend, Reverend Paul Singletary. Only days after the wedding, Singletary was found murdered in that same chapel, his skull crushed. Once again, Mackensie Smith, former criminal attorney, now docile and contented law professor, was brought into it by yet another friend, the cathedral’s bishop, George St. James. Again, Annabel was displeased with Mac’s decision to allow murder to intrude upon their quiet, loving life. But she seemed less adamant in her objections; perhaps she was getting used to that cell in him that sounded a bell on occasion and compelled him to become involved. He enjoyed teaching law, but he simultaneously missed, now and then, the practice of it.
    But knowing how much Annabel preferred that he stick to teaching, Smith promised himself, and her, followingthe resolution of the cathedral murder, that he would assiduously avoid further involvement.
    That resolve lasted a year. A former law student, Margit Falk, air-force major, helicopter pilot, and on the secretary of defense’s general-counsel staff at the Pentagon, was assigned to defend the accused murderer of a leading military scientist. She sought out her former mentor for help, and he responded, but only after considerable soul-searching. And with Annabel’s reluctant, but nonetheless supportive, blessing.
    Since his Pentagon involvement, no one close to Mac and Annabel Smith had been mugged, much less murdered. Things were quiet and calm, for which both were grateful. He believed his wife was content with things as they stood. But he also sometimes sensed a vague restlessness in her that was uncharacteristic. Not that she wasn’t a proven go-getter. She’d built her art gallery into one of substance and had recently expanded it into an adjoining storefront. Simultaneously, she’d taken courses in a variety of subjects to, as she put it, “keep this brain oiled.”
    Now she was on the board of directors of the Building Museum and expressing interest in the Scarlet Sin group, that childish obsession of Wendell Tierney’s that had captured the imagination of half of Washington, including his friend and distinguished professor of history Monty Jamison. What was she looking for? What are women ever looking for?
    Each time he’d ventured out of his safe and secure academic cocoon, it had been Annabel who’d urged him back. Well, he was back, but it was as though she were attempting to escape the silky threads of her own cocoon. It was getting complicated. That had been thepoint of the dramatic shifts in their lives in the first instance, hadn’t it? To cut down on complications, to become more self-contained and enjoy their considerable love in a peaceful atmosphere.
    He continued his stroll, taking a route that took him through the George Washington University campus. He started to feel better, less apprehensive. These were familiar surroundings; rubbing shoulders with the spirited young people who sat on the front steps of their housing units—laughing, joking, enjoying the lack of complication in
their
lives—was a welcome tonic. By the time he reached Twenty-fifth Street and came through the front door, anxiety had drained from him. He was ready to join his wife for a good night’s sleep.
    “I was worried about you,” she said sleepily from the couch in the study.
    “Sorry. I felt like a longer walk. Rufus can use the exercise.”
    She smiled. “Rufus? Come on, Smith, let’s hit the sack.”
    As he clicked off the light next to the bed, she turned