Monument to Murder (9 page)

CHAPTER   12

Some pundits compared Mitzi Cardell to that famed D.C. hostess of yesteryear, Perle Mesta, who reigned over Washington society as the “hostess with the mostest,” particularly during the Truman and Eisenhower presidencies (Truman would eventually name her ambassador to Luxembourg).

Married to Pittsburgh’s steel baron George Mesta, she was the only heir to his $78 million fortune when he died in 1925. Feeling unaccepted by Pittsburgh’s social elite, “Pearl” Mesta changed the spelling of her name to “Perle” and moved to the nation’s capital, where she brought together presidents and their first ladies, senators, congressmen, cabinet members, and other political movers and shakers at lavish bipartisan soirees. Her fame eventually reached far beyond the District of Columbia: the composer Irving Berlin based his smash Broadway musical
Call Me Madam,
starring Ethel Merman, on her.

Mitzi eagerly accepted having the Mesta torch passed to her. She’d married John Muszinski, founder and CEO of Muszinski Financial Group, a man twenty years her senior, and it was his wealth that supported their glittering Washington lifestyle. Mitzi decided early on to use her maiden name, Cardell, which she felt would be more readily accepted than Muszinski by Washington’s social set.

An invitation to Mitzi’s parties at her Georgetown mansion was one of the most coveted in town.

But there were differences between dinner parties hosted by Mitzi Cardell and those staged by Perle Mesta. Perle had been a Democrat who liked Republicans and was an early supporter of the Equal Rights Amendment. Mitzi Cardell and her wealthy husband were staunch supporters of the right-wing Fletcher Jamison administration and had little tolerance for alternate viewpoints. Too, Perle Mesta’s parties were almost purely social; whatever political advantages resulted from having attended were incidental. Not so with the gatherings choreographed by Mitzi. They often had a motive behind the gaiety, gourmet food, and top-shelf liquor, and she built the guest lists around a political issue, bringing together Washington political power brokers with similar interests in the subject du jour.

The major difference between being a D.C. social hostess back in Mesta’s day and the society in which Mitzi Cardell functioned was the city itself. Washington’s bitter political partisanship had torn apart social niceties between Republicans and Democrats. No longer did rivals on the floor of the Senate or House of Representatives put aside their policy differences at the end of the day and get together at dinner parties, or sit down for a friendly game of poker. Mitzi’s guest lists had to be carefully vetted to ensure that like-minded people sat next to and across from one another. Elected officials raced to their home districts as often as possible, leaving behind bureaucrats, agency heads, and staffers to fill spots at her dinner table. It was a new, often dismal era in which Mitzi Cardell was forced to entertain, and she was well aware of it.

This unseasonably cool evening was no exception. The unstated topic was the law, and the guests represented various members of D.C.’s legal community. Among the dozen guests were Mackensie Smith and his wife, Annabel Lee Smith.

Smith had been one of the city’s most respected defense lawyers, his client list ranging from drug dealers to politicians whose greed had reached the criminal level. When his first wife and their only son were slaughtered one rainy night on the Beltway, victims of a drunk driver—and when the drunk driver received a minimum sentence—Mac’s zeal for the courtroom waned. He closed his practice and accepted a teaching position at George Washington University’s law school, where he imparted his legal wisdom and keenly honed cynicism to a new generation of attorneys. Although he no longer practiced law, he was much sought after as a consultant and had advised Mitzi Cardell on a few legal matters, his primary role having been to refer her to attorneys for whom he had respect and who he knew would do right by her.

Annabel, too, had been an attorney, a busy and successful matrimonial practitioner. She had not married, although the lineup of potential suitors was long. After eventually tiring of mediating between warring spouses, she decided it was time to abandon the law and pursue her private passion, pre-Columbian art. She, too, shuttered her law practice and opened a gallery in Georgetown.

Mac and Annabel knew each other professionally and had ended up at some social events together. He was well aware and appreciative of Annabel’s natural beauty, and his good looks and quiet, thoughtful demeanor hadn’t escaped her. She was tall and striking, with ivory skin and copper hair, her laugh infectious, slightly wicked. Mac was a man whose self-confidence never strayed over the line into egotism, as was the case with too many attorneys Annabel knew. They started dating, although Mac quipped that
dating
was too youthful a word for people their age—both were in their early fifties. Their courtship progressed to Mac’s marriage proposal, which Annabel eagerly accepted. They were married in the National Cathedral and set up blissful housekeeping in an apartment in the Watergate complex, its name infamous, its amenities many.

Of the twelve guests at the dinner table, the attorney general of the United States was the most prominent, at least in terms of government rank. “Delighted you agreed to join the commission, Mac,” he said, referring to a task force established by Justice to study proposed new legislation affecting sentencing guidelines. Smith knew that his inclusion in the group was a tip of the hat to creating a nonpartisan look to the commission; he’d not made a secret of his dissatisfaction with the Jamison administration.

“The ramifications of the legislation are substantial,” Smith said. “It could dramatically change the legal system.”

“And as far as you’re concerned, not for the better I take it,” the AG commented lightly.

“I haven’t made up my mind yet,” Smith said. “We still have testimony to get through.”

A law professor from Georgetown University, an acknowledged Jamison supporter, weighed in with his views on the proposed legislation, his stance at odds with the way Smith saw things. Smith turned to Annabel and said, “Wonderful dinner.”

“Superb,” she said, understanding his need to shift conversational gears. She lightly placed her hand on his.

Mitzi Cardell occupied the seat at the head of the table. It was no surprise to anyone that her husband, the “man of the house,” hadn’t been assigned that seat. Although Mitzi’s wealth was the result of her husband’s financial success, she ran the show when it came to dinner parties. That she was the first lady’s closest friend only added to her clout.

Along with being well connected in Washington, Mitzi Cardell was an extremely attractive woman who turned heads wherever she went, with soft blond hair always perfectly coiffed, a slender figure that wore designer clothes well (she was on
Washingtonian Magazine
’s best-dressed list every season), and a politician’s penchant for saying the right thing and smiling at the right time. There were those who resented her wealth and position, who viewed her marriage to the older John Muszinski as representing gold digging at its finest. But those comments were always whispered, by those who vied to be elevated to inclusion on her guest lists.

“How is Mrs. Jamison?” Annabel asked.

“She’s terrific!” Mitzi replied. “She’ll go down in history as the most effective first lady ever.”

Mac Smith silently considered that a gross overstatement, but others at the table heartily agreed with their hostess’s assessment.

Following dinner, Mitzi announced that cordials would be served in the library. As everyone left the table, a housekeeper came to her and said that she had a call. “Be a dear and take it,” she said to her husband, who nodded and disappeared into another room.

“So, Mac, how’s the tennis game?” a congressman asked after their drinks had been served.

“Slow,” Mac said. “My knee keeps acting up.”

“But he never uses it as an excuse when I beat him,” Annabel said. “He’s still tough on the court, although I let him win now and then.”

“A wise wife,” the congressman agreed. “Can you believe this weather? In all my years in Washington I’ve never seen it so cool at this time of year.”

“I’m sure the president will take credit for it,” Smith said.

“As well he should,” the congressman said, laughing.

Smith just smiled.

Mitzi asked Annabel, “Looking forward to Jeanine’s tea?”

“Very much,” Annabel said. “I’m eager to see the redecorating she’s done at the White House.”

“You’ll love it,” Mitzi said. “She has such wonderful taste—in everything.”

“So I’ve heard.”

Smith sneaked a look at his watch and said quietly to his wife, “Time to be going.”

Mitzi had already decided the same thing and smoothly indicated that the party was over. She and her husband stood at the door and said good night to their guests. When the last one had gone, and after checking on the cleanup being performed by the household staff, they retired to their bedroom, where she sat at a dressing table removing her makeup while John changed into pajamas and a robe.

“Your father called,” John said.

“Is he all right?”

“He’s fine. He said some private investigator visited Waldine Farnsworth at CVA.”

“A private investigator? Did he say why?”

“Something to do with a photograph of a black girl and you that was taken at a retreat at the school.”

“
What
black girl?”

He shrugged. “Louise something. He wants you to call him first thing tomorrow. It sounded important.”

Mitzi said nothing as she turned and stared into the mirror.

“Something wrong?” he asked.

“What? No, nothing’s wrong. I can’t imagine what it’s all about.” Her laugh was forced. “A picture with a black girl taken when I was a student there? God, that’s aeons ago.”

Her husband climbed into bed and returned to a book he’d started nights earlier. Had he looked over at his wife, he would have seen the changed face that peered back at her from the mirror. It hadn’t changed because she was now without makeup, or because of fatigue she felt after the party and the long day leading up to it.

The change came from within.

CHAPTER   13

Emile Silva cupped a mug of steaming black coffee in his hands as he stepped out onto his secluded rear patio. It was two days since he’d played tourist and visited Washington Harbour. The cooler weather had held, although that morning’s forecast called for a return of heat and humidity later in the day.

He wore a red silk kimono over his nakedness, and flip-flops. The coffee was to his liking. Silva was a coffee snob who took pains to buy and to mix what he considered the perfect brew. A pair of cardinals that called his property home flew between trees, causing him to smile and to imitate their call. Life was good. He’d slept well and felt rested, ready for the day, which would involve an hour of strenuous exercise followed by an alternating hot and cold shower. His meeting wasn’t until eleven that morning, plenty of time for him to continue cataloging his extensive CD collection before he needed to leave.

He chose to drive the Porsche that morning. The feel of its powerful engine and the control he exerted through its manual transmission was orgasmic. He took Western Avenue, crossed the Potomac on the Chain Bridge, and proceeded southeast on the Washington Memorial Parkway until reaching his destination, a relatively new two-story modern office building a few miles south of the Pentagon. While it had all the trappings of any other small office building in the area, it differed because of its lack of large windows. The stucco structure had only a pair of narrow vertical windows flanking the entranceway, and horizontal ones of the same size across the second level.

He swiped his card in a reading device at the door, entered, and walked down a hallway to a rear office in which two men sat leaning over papers on a low, oval coffee table. They looked up at Silva’s arrival. One closed the folder they had been reading.

“Good morning, Emile,” he said.

“Good morning to you.”

“Coffee?”

Silva’s grimace delivered his answer.

“It went well?”

“Of course,” Silva said as he took a hard candy from a bowl on the table.

“He was hospitalized,” said the other man.

“Two, three days,” Silva said. “He’ll be gone. You told me to be here this morning. You have another assignment for me?”

“Yes. Dexter has the details.”

Silva followed them down a set of stairs to a basement room. The use of a card as well as a key was necessary to gain access to it. It was a windowless space with thick concrete walls and soundproof baffling on all surfaces. Heavy locked metal cabinets lined one wall; a workbench ran the length of the opposite one. A folding metal table surrounded by four folding metal chairs sat in the middle of the room. A short, slender bald man with thick glasses and wearing a tan suit sat in one of them.

“You have your bags packed?” he asked in a pinched voice that matched his appearance.

“They’re always packed,” Silva replied.

“Good. You’re needed overseas. Here is what it involves.”

•  •  •

At George Washington University Hospital, Afran Mutki was fading fast. His wife had brought him there from the hotel in which they were staying when he complained of difficulty breathing. His chest had felt heavy and constricted, and he ran a fever. By midnight he’d begun to turn blue and his lungs had started to fill. His blood pressure dipped precariously low.

“We have a diagnosis on him yet?” a nurse asked the senior physician who’d been assigned the case.

“No, dammit. I’ve ordered more tests, but the way he’s going, I doubt if the results will matter.”

By the next day, Mutki had begun to hallucinate and suffered a series of seizures. There was blood in his urine.

“His body’s shutting down,” the physician told colleagues as they pulled out everything from their medical bag of tricks in an attempt to save his life.

That afternoon, Mutki’s kidneys, spleen, and liver failed. He was pronounced dead at 8:51 that night.

Afran Mutki was fifty-three years old, married, had three children, and worked as a journalist. His home was Erbil, the largest Kurd city in northern Iraq. As far as the hospital staff knew, he and his wife were in the United States on a tourist visa, seeing the sights, buying souvenirs and gifts to take back to their children. His wife, shaken by the sudden loss of her husband, was now faced with arranging for his remains to be transported back to Iraq. But those plans would be put on hold after two calls from the hospital.

The first was made to Dexter, the slender man with the pinched voice, by a member of the hospital’s administrative staff. “There’s been a death in the family,” was all he said before hanging up.

The second call was to the Washington MPD. It was placed by Dr. George Bennett, the physician who’d tried valiantly to save Afran Mutki’s life. Bennett had been practicing medicine for forty years and was close to retirement. He’d seen it all and was considered a superb diagnostician. Before making the call, he’d huddled with the younger physicians who’d assisted him.

“He went fast,” one said.

“A hell of an infection,” said another.

“Ricin,” Bennett said flatly.

They looked at him quizzically.

“It has all the trappings of ricin poisoning,” Bennett said. “You’re too young to remember the Markov case. About thirty years ago in London. He was a Bulgarian, a journalist who defected to London, where he kept up his criticism of the Bulgarian government. They—or someone working on their behalf, probably the Russians—got rid of him, poisoned him with ricin. That red pimple on Mr. Mutki’s lower leg. He complained about it, said he thought that he’d been stung by some insect. Markov, as I recall, had a similar complaint. His assassin—and he
was
assassinated—had used a specially rigged umbrella to inject him with a tiny pellet containing ricin.”

“Real cloak-and-dagger stuff,” said one of the younger physicians, chortling.

“Real life-and-death,” Bennett corrected. “I have no idea whether it was ricin or not but it’s a suspicious death in any case. The police have to be informed, an autopsy performed.”

Bennett reported Mutki’s death to the authorities and ordered an autopsy with instructions to pay particular attention to the tiny raised red mark on the deceased’s lower leg.

•  •  •

Interest in the sudden, unexplained death of the Kurdish journalist, Afran Mutki, wasn’t limited to the physicians who’d treated him, the MPD, and the man known as Dexter.

Mutki’s handler at the State Department knew of his illness only hours after he’d been admitted to the hospital. His death spurred an emergency meeting of the handler and others at State who gathered in the Iraq Section in the agency’s Foggy Bottom facility. Also present were two CIA agents who worked the Iraq Desk at Central Intelligence.

“Go over Mutki’s importance again,” one of the agents said.

The handler obliged. “Mutki, as you know, has been a leading voice in the Kurds’ dissatisfaction with the approach taken by Baghdad. He’s been writing and broadcasting his belief that the Kurds are victims of the Iraqi central government and of our government. President Jamison has been particularly interested in Mutki and his activities and isn’t happy with what he’s learned. This is a delicate time in Iraq. We don’t need someone like Mutki stirring up trouble in the north.”

“We’ve been tracking him since he arrived in the States,” the CIA representative said. “What was the purpose of his trip?”

“He was here at State’s invitation,” the handler explained. “We were hoping to help nurture a different perspective on his part.”

“He was loose in the city,” the CIA agent said.

“His choice,” replied his handler. “He said that he and his wife wanted to spend time exploring the city. We worked with the Kurdistan embassy to schedule their trip, got them sightseeing and theater tickets. It’s not like he was in any danger. Nobody knew who he was, just another foreigner exploring D.C.”

The second CIA agent raised his eyebrows. “It looks like
somebody
knew who he was,” he said curtly. “The hospital and MPD are treating it as a suspicious death. We hear that the doctor in charge of the case even mentioned the possibility of ricin poisoning.”

That bit of news brought a momentary halt to the conversation.

“Does the embassy know that?”

Mutki’s handler at State answered, “We’re meeting with them at noon. Hopefully we can keep this under wraps until an autopsy determines how he died.”

“Lots of luck,” the CIA agent said.

“We’ve had a few media queries,” the representative from State said. “We’re working on a response now.”

“Ricin? Jesus! If it’s true, the Iraqi government is going to have the spotlight trained on it big-time.”

“The White House?” a CIA agent asked. “Have they been informed?”

State nodded. “Of course. The president is calling the Kurdish prime minister later today.”

“To say what?”

“To say how sorry he is that one of their leading journalists has died.”

“How sorry
is
he?”

“Let’s not be cynical. The president didn’t like what Matki was writing and broadcasting, but—”

“Forget I said that.”

“Ricin! Don’t tell me it’s another umbrella attack,” said the older of the CIA agents.

“It’s all speculation at this juncture,” said State.

That’s the way it was left—for the moment. The two CIA agents departed the meeting and headed back to CIA headquarters at Langley.

“We need someone present at the autopsy,” the older agent said. “Get one of our cleared docs to sit in on it.”

“Shouldn’t be a problem.”

“Everything’s a problem,” was his older colleague’s terse reply.

•  •  •

At noon that day, Dexter met with a man at a local McDonald’s.

“Has Emile left yet?” Dexter was asked.

“He’s flying out tonight.”

“Cancel the trip.”

Dexter looked up from the cheeseburger he’d just picked up.

“We need a low profile for a while. Keep Emile here. I’ll let you know when it’s time to activate him again.”

“All right,” Dexter said and took a bite of his burger.