Murder on K Street (37 page)

“What do you want?” she managed, fighting to inject calm into her voice. “You want money. You can have it. Just don’t hurt me.”

“I don’t want your money,” he said. “Your boyfriend has something I need. He’s got an envelope that he shouldn’t have. You tell me where it is and I go on my way. You don’t—”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said.

He slapped the side of the automatic against her face, cutting her cheek.

“Where is Rotondi?” he asked.

“I don’t know.”

He threatened to strike her again.

“I don’t know where he went tonight. I swear it. And I don’t know about any envelope.”

The weapon’s barrel was pushed into her temple again. She squeezed her eyes shut in anticipation of having her brains blown out. As she did, the sound of a car door being slammed shut in front of the house reached them.

“Sounds like your boyfriend’s home,” Parish said.

Emma looked up into Parish’s face. His mouth was a slash, a cruel smile that at the moment was more frightening to her than the gun.

Parish got up, the weapon still pointed at her. “Come on,” he said. “Time to greet your honey.”

Emma slowly pulled herself to a sitting position. She touched her cheek and observed the blood on her fingertips.

“Don’t hurt him,” she said, standing unsteadily.

He came around behind her and again jabbed the gun into her temple. “Let’s go downstairs,” he said. “It’s showtime.”

Rotondi walked up the driveway toward the rear of the house. He saw Emma’s car and was pleased she was home. He had a lot to tell her.

The extended time spent with Lyle Simmons in his suite at the Willard had been a roller coaster of emotions and debate. It was as though Simmons had crashed against a wall that he’d always previously managed to circumvent. Over steak dinners delivered to the room, he and Rotondi talked of many things, of their years in college, the situation with Jeannette, Rotondi’s steadfast determination to go his own way, Kathleen Rotondi’s tragic slaying, Polly’s estrangement from her father, and Neil’s meandering adult life. Simmons ricocheted from one extreme to the other. He was, at times, maudlin and filled with remorse about certain aspects of his personal life. Then, without warning or smooth transition, he became belligerent and critical of Rotondi’s life choices, of his rigidity and deep convictions. Rotondi did little talking. His role was as it often was when alone with Simmons—foil, audience, superego.

There came a time when Rotondi brought the dialogue around to Jeannette’s murder.

“Marshalk arranged for her killing, Lyle, and framed Jonell Marbury,” he said bluntly.

“I don’t know this Marbury fellow,” Simmons retorted, “and I have serious trouble believing that anyone at the Marshalk Group would have murdered Jeannette.” When Rotondi started to follow up, Simmons said, “But if what you say is true, whoever was behind it should pay.”

“What about Neil?” Rotondi asked.

“Are you suggesting that he was a part of it?”

“No, I’m not, Lyle, but he is the president of the firm. It will impact him, too.”

“And you intend to take that information Jeannette got from Chicago, including those disgusting photos, to the police?”

“I’ve thought a lot about that, Lyle. I don’t see how the photos are relevant to the murder case, unless they provide a motive for you to have had Jeannette killed. I don’t believe that you did.”

“Then I’d like you to give me those photos, Phil.”

Rotondi didn’t commit.

“Neil thinks you intend to blackmail me about them, along with the other accusations about Marshalk funneling dirty money into my campaigns.”

“Neil is wrong.”

“Then give the pictures to me. I think I can ride out the laundering charges. Hell, I don’t know where most of my campaign money comes from. I leave that to other people. If someone connected with my campaign knowingly took mob money from Marshalk, I’ll have his head.”

There he was, Rotondi thought, playing the politician to the hilt. As long as there was someone else to blame, politicians could always feign ignorance and faulty recall to get off the hook. Sadly, there was never a shortage of lackeys willing to take the rap to protect their superiors, good soldiers with skewed senses of duty.

“I intend to go to the police in the morning,” Rotondi said, “and lay out for them what I believe. I may need that envelope and what’s in it to help make my point.”

Simmons finished his drink, patted his mouth with a napkin, got up from the table, and walked to the door. “You do whatever you think you have to, Phil. Not that you need my permission. I just ask that you remember how much we’ve meant to each other over the years.”

Rotondi left, his mind filled with nothing but.

He reached the end of the rear of Emma’s house and turned in the direction of the kitchen door.

“Homer?” he said. The dog sat on the steps wagging his tail at seeing his master.

“What are you doing out here?”

Emma’s car was there. She was home. She never would have let Homer out without having him on a leash. Rotondi was adamant about that, obsessive when it came to protecting Homer from harm.

What was going on?

A long wire lead used to tie Homer outside was attached to a tree ten feet from the door. Rotondi quickly clipped the dog’s collar to the lead and returned to the driveway, this time staying close to the house as he moved toward the street. He stopped. A pretty fabric shade Emma had purchased just that week was raised a few inches off the sill. Rotondi peered through the opening into the living room. At first, he wasn’t sure what he was seeing. Emma was standing in a corner of the room. With her was a man—holding a gun to her head. Rotondi blinked to clear his eyes. He looked again. He wasn’t seeing things.

He backed away from the window, went behind one of the trees that lined the driveway, and dialed 911: “There’s a woman being held at gunpoint in a house in Foggy Bottom.” He gave the address. The 911 operator tried to ask for additional information, but Rotondi had clicked the phone closed. He opened it again, dialed Emma’s home number, and returned to the window, the phone to his ear.

He could see from his vantage point that Emma said something to the man holding her hostage. He couldn’t tell what she was saying but assumed it had to do with the ringing phone. The man with the weapon shoved Emma across the room, and she fell on the couch. Rotondi ducked away as the man came to the window and lifted the shade. Rotondi was inches from his face. Parish’s eyes darted back and forth before he allowed the shade to fall again. Rotondi raised his head at the distant sound of a siren. He moved as quickly as his lame leg would allow to the street and was standing there when the marked squad car came to a screeching halt. Two uniformed officers jumped out, leaving their doors open.

“What’s going on?” one of them asked Rotondi.

He gave the officer a fifteen-second précis.

“Who’s the woman?” the cop asked.

“My fiancée,” Rotondi said, a word he’d not used before when describing Emma. “I’m going in,” he added as two more cars arrived, each occupied by a pair of officers.

Rotondi didn’t wait for a response. As the cops fanned out around the house, Rotondi went to the rear door, opened it, and stepped into the kitchen. “Hey,” he shouted, moving to the doorway to the living room. Emma cowered on the couch while Parish stood over her, the gun pointed at her head.

“I don’t know who you are,” Rotondi said, “but the house is surrounded. There are cops everywhere. Drop the gun and—”

Parish’s face mirrored his genuine puzzlement. He lowered the gun. Rotondi reacted instantly. He lunged at Parish, his cane extended in front of him to shorten the distance between them. The point of the cane caught Parish in the eye and sent him sprawling on top of Emma on the couch. Rotondi closed the gap between them and twisted Parish’s wrist violently, sending the weapon to the floor. Phil kicked it across the room and pounced on Parish, his hands closing around his neck, guttural, animal sounds erupting from his throat.

The kitchen door was flung open and police rushed in. They’d watched the fracas through the same window Rotondi had peered through. Parish was jerked to his feet, pushed to the floor, and cuffed.

“Are you okay?” Rotondi asked Emma as they got to their feet.

“Yeah, I’m okay,” she said. “You?”

“Fine. I’m fine.”

She looked at the six uniformed officers who now crowded the room. “How did they know?” she asked. “How did
you
know?”

“A four-legged friend named Homer.”

“I
stand here today with a heavy heart as I announce that I will not seek my party’s nomination for president of the United States, nor will I seek reelection to the United States Senate.”

Illinois senator Lyle Simmons faced a sizable crowd of journalists and supporters in the rotunda of the U.S. Capitol. Dozens of microphones jutted up from the lectern on which an American flag had been carefully affixed. A bevy of TV cameras ringed the rear of the crowd. Standing next to Simmons were his daughter, Polly; his press aide, Peter Markowicz; and his chief of staff, Alan McBride.

“I think of what Theodore Roosevelt once said: ‘Death is always and under all circumstances a tragedy, for if it is not, then it means that life itself has become one.’ A man is meant to absorb only so many personal blows without sagging beneath the weight of such burdens, and that is true of this man. The tragic deaths of my beloved wife, Jeannette, and my beloved son, Neil, have forced me to look deep inside myself for the strength and courage to weather these tragic losses. I believe I have done that, but at the expense of the energy necessary to continue representing the state of Illinois, and the American people in the United States Senate, or in any other position of public trust and extreme responsibility. After many years of dedicated public service, I find it extremely difficult to come to this decision. But I must, for my own sake and for the sake of my daughter, Polly, who stands beside me today.”

He looked at her and managed a smile. Her expression didn’t change.

“While I shall no longer seek elected office, I intend to commit myself as a private citizen to such good acts to which I am able to contribute something positive. I do this in the name and spirit of Jeannette and Neil Simmons, whose love shall always sustain me. Thank you for your years of support. It has been a profound privilege to have served the American people. God bless America!”

As grieving father and daughter turned from the lectern, McBride whispered to Markowicz, “Nice speech, Peter.”

“He delivered it well,” Markowicz replied as they fell into step behind Lyle and Polly.

Phil Rotondi and Emma Churchill watched Simmons’s televised farewell in her Foggy Bottom home. They hadn’t spent much time there during the month following the incident with Jack Parish. After meeting with Morris Crimley the following morning at MPD headquarters, where they gave formal statements and Rotondi laid out for the detective his take on the Jeannette Simmons and Camelia Watson murders—and after Emma had arranged for some of her upcoming catering jobs to be handled by Imelda, her loyal and longtime employee—they packed Homer and some of Emma’s clothes into Phil’s SUV and headed for the Eastern Shore in search of what solitude and peace they could manage.

It hadn’t been easy for Rotondi to not attend Jeannette’s memorial service, but he decided that she would understand his absence under the circumstances. Chances are she would have skipped it herself. He watched portions of it on TV and cried.

“I feel bad for Lyle,” Rotondi said after turning off the TV.

“He brought it on himself,” Emma said.

“True,” Rotondi said, “but let’s not be so hard. He played the game his way and lost. Everything in his life, personal and political, has come crashing down around him. I don’t wish that on anyone.”

Within days of being incarcerated, Jack Parish had cut a deal with prosecutors. In return for turning state’s evidence against Rick Marshalk, the Marshalk Group, and by extension Senator Lyle Simmons, he was promised minimal jail time and an eventual place in the federal Witness Protection Program.

“Not a bad deal for a guy who murdered two people,” Emma said after Rotondi had been filled in about the deal over the phone by Crimley,
entre nous
, of course.

“It’s the system,” Rotondi said.

He fell silent.

“What?” she asked.

“I’m just thinking that what happened at your house wasn’t all bad.”

“You’re joking! That scum Parish almost killed us!”

“I don’t mean it was good what happened to you, Emma. But the way it turned out, I didn’t have to reveal anything from that envelope. I didn’t have to contribute to bringing Lyle down. There were plenty of others to do it.”

Swarms of law enforcement agents had invaded the Marshalk offices and removed anything of potential evidentiary interest. The raid, which quickly uncovered the link between Marshalk and Simmons, prompted a change of heart in the Chicago AG’s office. The damaging material about Simmons, kept under wraps theretofore thanks to political pressure, was released to various law enforcement agencies—which meant, of course, that it soon found its way into the press, including two of the photos, which ran in a tabloid publication. Federal indictments would soon be coming down against Simmons, according to Rotondi’s sources.

Rotondi and Emma sat in the kitchen of his condo on the Eastern Shore drinking coffee and passing pieces of that day’s newspapers back and forth.

“I hope he wins,” Rotondi muttered.

“You hope
who
wins?”

“The Asian American detective who got booted off the Simmons case. Charlie Chang.”