Murder at the Watergate (6 page)

But this was a democracy, the most perfect form of government on earth—and the hardest to make work.

Because Aprile was already in the hotel, there wasn’t any need to arrange for security outside the entrance doors, except for making certain that anyone pulling up in a car for valet parking had been invited—and could prove it. Aprile and his party would leave the suite and be escorted to an elevator that gave the lower floors access to the Watergate’s modern health club, complete with Olympic-size swimming pool, sauna room, exercise area, and massage facilities. Downstairs, the elevator opened onto the banquet-room level in a reception area reached through two sets of sliding glass doors from the outside. Stairs down to a door leading to an underground passage to the Kennedy Center were secured by agents placed there by Swales.

The additional agents arrived at the Fairfax Room and were dispatched by Swales to where he wanted security beefed up. If he’d had his way, the hallway to the right of the reception area leading to the Watergate Hotel’s acclaimed restaurant, Aquarelle, would have been shut down, too. But there was a limit to how much a commercial establishment could be put out of business to satisfy security needs. Patrons of the restaurant were met at the bottom of the circular staircase from the lobby by three
agents, who guided them in the direction of the restaurant and away from the fund-raiser.

Because he’d secured so many events at the Watergate, Swales knew the layout by heart. A hundred feet of green carpet with red roses spanned the distance from the second set of sliding glass doors to the Crescent Bar, another thirty-five feet from there to the entrance to the ballroom.

When the vice president and his entourage walked from the health club elevator to the ballroom, they would pass one of multiple doors to the vast kitchen that served both special events like this one, as well as the Aquarelle’s Euro-American cuisine created by Germanborn chef Robert Wiedmaier, who’d come to the Watergate from the competitive Four Seasons Hotel.

Ever since Sirhan Sirhan gunned down Robert Kennedy in the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, being even in the proximity of a kitchen set Swales on edge. Some agents felt that way about the street, or stairs, or getting in and out of cars. Kitchens were Mike Swales’s thing. The only one he trusted was in his home.

The door to the kitchen opened, and a waiter in a black tux emerged carrying a pile of napkins. Swales eyed him. Definitely Hispanic. Mexican? Cognitively, he knew he couldn’t assume that every Hispanic was a potential assassin that night. But the CIA report had come out of Mexico City. Probably nothing to it as far as this particular evening was concerned. There were always cells of kooks planning to assassinate one leader or another, religious zealots, social misfits, righting perceived wrongs, ridding the world of their own personal devils.

He looked into the ballroom and saw Mrs. Dorrance
conversing with hotel staff. She was insisting that the liquor bottles behind the multiple bars be rearranged to feature a certain brand of single-barrel bourbon produced by a major campaign donor.

Quite a gal, Swales thought. Picture always smiling out at you from the
Post
’s Style section. He’d met her a number of times, usually in conjunction with events like this, but once when she raised a lot of money for a social agency championed by his wife. A piece of work. How many husbands? How many millions?

“Mike, Straight Arrow’s getting ready to come down,” an agent told him.

“Okay,” Swales said, casting another glance at the kitchen door. “It’s showtime. Let’s rock ’n’ roll.”

Fifteen minutes had passed since the driver of the green sedan had left Morin Garza alone in the car in the garage beneath the 600 office building of the Watergate complex. A stream of cars had entered since his arrival, people attending the Placido Domingo concert at what they called the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, across the street. Then, the cars stopped coming. It was Saturday night; the offices were dark except for the Aprile for President campaign headquarters and a few foreign embassy offices. New Hampshire Avenue, at least that section of it that ran past the Watergate complex, was considered one of the safest streets in the city. Security was extensive and tight at the white-marble Saudi Arabian embassy on the other side of the avenue, a welcome additional source of safety for Watergate residents and Kennedy Center visitors. Too, the Watergate’s three apartment buildings, two office buildings, and the hotel all had their own highly trained and ready security forces.

A safe place.

The metal door from the office building opened noisily. Garza, who’d almost dozed off, was startled into wakefulness. Lighting was dim, but sufficient for him to see two men come through the door and approach the car. He clasped his small overnight bag tighter to him. One man stood on the driver’s side, the other came to where Garza sat. He opened the door. Garza saw that he was Hispanic. The other man was the one who’d picked him up at Dulles.

“
Buenas noches
, Senor Garza.”

“Buenas noches.”

“Come, come. They are waiting for you.”

Garza got out of the car. The Anglo joined them. “Welcome to Washington,” he said.

The sound of their footsteps on the concrete floor was as resounding to Garza as the orchestra’s overture to the Domingo concert across the street was to the ears of the standing-room-only audience. All of Washington, DC, was an opera that night, tales of love and lust, treachery and betrayal, power, passion, and death being played out in every corner of the city, including the prestigious, magnetic, curious complex known as the Watergate.

The curtain was about to go up for everyone.

By the time Chris Hedras took the call from Elfie Dorrance that it was time for Aprile to make his appearance in the ballroom, the vice president had relaxed. He’d left the campaign office with jaw clenched and eyes narrowed. Now Mac saw that his friend’s previous tension had abated. Not that he was ever one to be called gregarious—jokes about Aprile’s reserved, poker-faced demeanor were abundant in Washington. Many of his supporters said, “It’s about time we had a straight arrow in the White House.” He now mixed easily with two dozen associates and friends in a presidential suite. It was one of a dozen such suites, each located on a different floor. Originally built as apartments by an Italian construction firm, with major funding from the Vatican, the Watergate Hotel’s suites were all oversize, with closets, bathrooms, and kitchens more appropriate to an apartment than a hotel room. Suite 1216 had been taken off the availability list three days earlier to allow the Secret Service to secure it for the veep’s pre-party gathering. Brochettes of smoked duck breast, Belgian endive with Boursin
cheese and toasted almonds, salmon mousse on pumpernickel bread, and assorted other hors d’oeuvres, and drinks, were served from the full kitchen by staff borrowed from the White House.

“Time to head downstairs,” Hedras said.

Aprile said, “Shame to break this up.”

“We could just stay here,” Carole Aprile said to Annabel. She wasn’t her usual radiant self, Annabel decided. Her college chum, now the nation’s second lady, was known as a vivacious, ceaselessly cheerful woman with a glass-half-full personality, fond of bright colors, gospel music, and fattening cookies. But this night, although she seemed on the surface to be happy and involved, Annabel sensed an underlying solemnness that simply couldn’t be explained, considering the time, place, and circumstances. Annabel wished they could find a few minutes alone.

“Not a chance,” Joe Aprile said. “If I have to suffer through another fund-raiser, so do you.”

“Team Aprile,” Annabel said. “That’s sweet.”

“Don’t encourage him.” Carole smiled.

“Got the jokes down?” the veep’s policy advisor asked, laughing.

“Did you hear the one about the vice president who got to his own fund-raiser on time?” Hedras said.

“Coming back here?” an aide asked.

“No,” Carole answered. “Straight home. But the place is yours for the evening. You’ll have to manage without the Secret Service.”

Agents lined the hallway between the suite and the elevators. Spirits were high in the vice president’s group.

“We get right in the car when it’s over?” Aprile asked Hedras.

“Yes, sir, although you’ll have to stay around to shake as many hands as possible, photos, the usual. Elfie has the really heavy hitters prepped. She’ll keep the glad-handers to a minimum.”

Aprile laughed. “Elfie Dorrance is incapable of keeping
anything
to a minimum,” he said. “She thrives on conspicuous overabundance.”

Mac and Annabel were directly behind the nation’s second couple. Carole Aprile turned as they neared the elevators, said, “It’s the shaking hands that gets to me. I was thinking a minute ago that anyone with a germ phobia could never run for office.”

“That rules out Donald Trump,” Mac said.

“For more reasons than that,” a man behind them offered.

The protocol for the entrance had been explained in the suite. Everyone except the VP, his wife, Hedras, and three top policy advisors would ride the large guest elevators to the lobby level, then be escorted by Secret Service down the winding staircase to where the Apriles and their party would arrive by the health club elevator. The Apriles would then lead the procession down the hallway to the ballroom. Aprile’s introduction would be handled by the vice chairman of the Democratic National Party, the chairman having declined the honor in order not to offend other Democrats who might contest the nomination.

Downstairs, agent Mike Swales stood with two colleagues next to the health club elevator and received a step-by-step progress report through his earpiece.

“They’re getting off the main elevators. Straight Arrow and group heading for this one.”

A minute later Mac, Annabel, and others descended the staircase and were lined up to one side of the elevator door.

“Straight Arrow on his way.”

The door slid open. Joe Aprile allowed Carole to exit first, then followed her.

“This way, sir,” Swales said, indicating the hallway leading to the public rooms.

Flanked by agents, the veep and his party followed Agent Swales’s lead in the direction of the laughter, the drone of conversation, and the faint strains of a piano.

Elfie Dorrance stood at the entrance to the ballroom. As Aprile approached, she extended her arms in a grand gesture of welcome, perfect white teeth made more so against the tan of her face, head slightly cocked as if to say, “You made it, you devil.” Behind her, the doorway was chockablock with guests craning to witness the veep’s arrival. Agents smoothly moved them back to create a clear passage for Aprile to reach a podium with
THE WATERGATE
prominently printed across it. Two large American flags hung limply behind it.

As the arriving party came almost abreast of the kitchen door, Swales saw that it was opened slightly to allow two kitchen workers to peer out.

“Get that closed,” he said to a young agent who hadn’t noticed. The agent said something to the workers and pushed his hand against the door, closing it.

Elfie took one of Carole Aprile’s hands in both of hers and offered her cheek to the vice president, which he kissed lightly. The pianist cued other members of his
band and they launched into a spirited “When the Saints Go Marching In.”

Guests closest to Aprile clamored for his attention and recognition. The vice president was pretty good about sticking to the script written by his Secret Service detail, but he had his moments. This was one of them. Instead of going directly to the podium, he detoured into the crowd, reaching over people to grasp the outstretched hands of others, smiling, tossing out stock greetings—“Good to see you again.” “Thanks for coming.” “Hey, you look great.”

Mac and Annabel stood side by side just inside the ballroom’s entrance, taking in the scene, their faces creased with smiles. What a remarkable spectacle this political system of ours is, she was thinking. It was natural to become skeptical of it, to find it hypocritical and distasteful, yet it was exhilarating when you were caught up in it.

“Mackensie, Annabel, this way,” Elfie Dorrance said, guiding them to a spot behind the podium where Aprile was to deliver his remarks. Although they’d both known Elfie before Mac had been drawn into Joe Aprile’s inner circle, and before Annabel had reestablished her close friendship with her former college roommate, they’d never been treated with the deference they now enjoyed. Elfie possessed many strengths, including a keenly honed sense of who was close to power and, more important, who could influence the powerful. That sort of behavior might be construed as disingenuous when played out by others. But somehow, it wasn’t when practiced by Elfie. It
was
Elfie Dorrance, to the well-bred bone, and
she had enough power of her own to pull it off with aplomb.

The DNC’s vice chairman, after having greeted Aprile and his wife and leading them to the podium, made a few amplified attempts at bringing order to the room. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “the longer you keep talking—and drinking, I might add—the longer it will be before you hear from the next president of the United States, Joe Aprile.” He glanced at Aprile for approval, received a pale smile in return.

The room eventually lapsed into a modicum of attentiveness, allowing the DNC spokesman to make his introductory remarks. Then, to boisterous applause, whistles, and shouts of encouragement, Aprile stepped to the podium, pulled his notes from his inside suit jacket pocket, and launched into what would become a boilerplate speech for the coming year.

He’d been speaking for five minutes. Mac Smith was pleased to see how relaxed his friend seemed to be. On other speaking occasions at which Mac was present, the VP was capable of losing energy and focus, and of sounding, well, somewhat disinterested. Not tonight. He was on a roll, and the gathering loved it.