Murder at Union Station

Margaret Truman

Murder at Union Station

Book 20 in the Capital Crimes series, 2004

In memory of William Wallace Daniel

ONE

HAMILTON, BERMUDA

A nasty squall had blown across Pitts Bay earlier in the day, the wind tossing sheets of water against the landmark pink facade of the famed Hamilton Princess Hotel. Blue sky and sun followed the storm; the hotel was now bathed in lambent light.

Kathryn Jalick unlatched the sliding glass door of the second-floor suite, slid it open, and stepped out onto the small balcony overlooking the bay. She’d carried a large, fluffy white towel with her from the bathroom, which she used to wipe residual water from the two plastic chairs and glass-topped table. She returned inside to retrieve a glass of white wine she’d poured from a bottle purchased that morning in one of Hamilton’s downtown liquor stores, and took a chair.

Below was a pitch-n-putt green on which two men were engaged in conversation between putts. She knew both, one better than the other.

She’d been dating Richard Marienthal for three years. The a

They’d met at Irish Times, a popular place a block east of Union Station, in the northwest corner of the Capitol Hill area. Irish Times was one of three establishments within a block of each other catering to those seeking a wee bit o’ Ireland; The Dubliner and Powers Court Restaurant were the other two. A hundred years ago, when nearby Union Station was on the drawing board, its pla

He had been at the bar with Winard Jackson, an up-and-coming tenor sax player, when another friend brought Kathryn and a female friend into the room. If there was such a thing as love at first sight, Kathryn experienced it that evening, and try as she might to appear cool and disinterested, her immediate infatuation with him was almost comically obvious. Marienthal’s black musician friend, Jackson, eventually whispered in his ear, “I think the lady’s smitten with you, man. Time for me to split.” Marienthal and Kathryn were soon alone at the bar, where they lingered over fresh, bubbly tap beers.

It became apparent to Kathryn as they drank and talked that this Richard Marienthal was different from other young men she’d met since moving to Washington six years ago to pursue a career as a librarian. First hired by the Daughters of the American Revolution’s Library of Genealogy and Local History, she later landed a plum job at the prestigious Library of Congress, where she still worked. The daughter of a plainspoken Kansas pharmacist, Kathryn found most other men with whom she’d worked or dated too slick and sure of themselves, consumed with their appearance, terminally ambitious, and always pretending to know more than they did. Like Geoff Lowe, the young man practicing putting with Rich on the grounds of the Hamilton Princess.

Marienthal was none of those things. He was big and tousled, a teddy bear type. His face was boyish, although she judged him to be in his late twenties or early thirties. His smile, too, was boyish, meaning it looked the way it probably had when he was a little kid, with a hint of mischief in it. Smiles change with age, she knew, but his hadn’t. She liked it. This night in Irish Times, he wore a gray-and-red-checked shirt, baggy chino pants, and a tan safari jacket frayed at the neck.

Slightly tipsy, they decided to have di

“He’s so gentle and kind, and really fu

Three months later, she moved into Marienthal’s apartment in the Capitol Hill district, a block from the bustling Eastern Market at Seventh and C Streets, where they’d been living since, discovering more about each other every day and liking what they learned; haunting the market in search of fresh produce and honing their cooking skills for small di

She wrapped the white terrycloth robe tighter around her against a chilled wind off the bay and continued to watch Rich and Geoff Lowe on the putting green. She couldn’t hear their words, but she knew what they were discussing. How could she not? That’s all Richard had talked about for the past year. He was consumed with it, driven. “I’m a man on a mission,” he would often say when she questioned the long hours he worked on the book. She wished Rich hadn’t gotten involved with Lowe, a pretentious sort if she’d ever seen one, and she’d seen plenty of them in Washington, D.C., basking in the reflected glory of their powerful political bosses, like secretaries to high-profile physicians who assume their bosses’ status and press it upon patients.

Meeting like this in Bermuda was Lowe’s idea, silly cloak-and-dagger stuff, Kathryn thought. She didn’t like the influence Lowe seemed to have developed over Rich. The man she’d fallen in love with had been changing before her eyes since hooking up with the young Senate staffer, and not for the better.

Marienthal looked up and waved, gave her that boyish grin. She returned the greeting and raised her glass. “Up in a minute,” he yelled, and walked off the green with Lowe.