Murder at Union Station by Margaret Truman Read Free Book Online Page B

the detectives went in and talked to the maître d’ at the front door of the restaurant. It featured southern cooking, which attracted a sizable African-American clientele.
    “Yeah, I remember him,” the maître d’ said in response to Mullin’s question. “You say he shot somebody inside the station? Boy, he sure didn’t look like someone who just shot somebody.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “He was—well, he was very casual, didn’t seem in any rush. I asked if he wanted a table and he said he didn’t, but he wasn’t out of breath or anything. I mean, he didn’t run out of here. He just told me he didn’t want a table—I think he said ‘not today’—and left through those doors.” He indicated the restaurant’s main entrance leading to Massachusetts Avenue at the front of the station.
    After noting what the maître d’ said and informing him he’d be asked later for a formal statement, Mullin told the two detectives to work the outside to see if anyone remembered seeing the alleged killer, and returned to the crime scene. The medical examiner was finishing up his preliminary examination.
    “We ID him?” Mullin asked.
    He was handed Russo’s wallet, as well as an Israeli passport. The wallet contained an Israeli driver’s license, a single Visa card, a photo of a woman posing on what appeared to be a beach, and slightly more than a hundred U.S. dollars in cash. Other travel documents included a round-trip airline ticket between Tel Aviv and Newark, with a plane change in Barcelona, Spain, and a one-way Amtrak ticket between New York’s Penn Station and Washington’s Union Station.
    “Louis Russo?” Mullin said aloud. “That’s Italian. What’s he doing with an Israeli passport?”
    Those around him didn’t have an answer.
    Mullin handed the wallet and travel documents to an evidence technician and left the station, climbed in his car, and drove to First District headquarters on North Capitol Street N.W., where he sat with fellow detectives who’d been at the murder scene. They began to compare notes, speculate, joke, and put together a preliminary report.
    “What do you figure the old guy was doing in D.C.?” someone asked. “Or going to do?”
    “Visit family maybe,” someone else answered.
    “Next of kin?”
    “Back in Israel maybe,” Accurso said.
    “You checked Russos in the D.C. directory?” Mullin said.
    Accurso nodded. “You figure the shooter knew Russo?” he asked. “It comes off like a mob hit.”
    Mullin laughed as he said, “Russo. Italiano. Maybe he’s some geriatric godfather nobody ever heard of. Or from some family the New York cops know well. Get New York on the phone.”
    “Or the computer. It doesn’t make sense. Doesn’t make sense,” the youngest of the detectives said.
    “What doesn’t?”
    “Why some black guy would come up behind an old Italian guy named Russo, who’s here from Israel, and do him in public. The witnesses say the shooter was cool, unflustered, in no rush. A pro. So why pick Union Station? Who is Louis Russo, and why would a certified hit man want to whack him? For what? It doesn’t make sense.”
    “You ever see a murder that made sense?” Mullin offered.
    “Yeah, sometimes. You know, some people, well, deserve to get killed,” the young detective said. “Sometimes it’s justifiable. Justifiable homicide. That’s how they get off. Like a guy whose wife is screwing around and gets caught, and he pops her or the boyfriend. In Texas, that’s justifiable murder.”
    “In Texas, that’s routine.”
    Mullin glanced at Accurso, who was putting the finishing touches on their initial report. “See what you can learn by hanging around here, Vinnie?” he said, his voice mirroring his amusement. “Your wife plays around, it’s okay to pop her.”
    “I didn’t necessarily mean that,” the young detective said defensively.
    “You up for a drink?” Mullin asked Accurso.
    “Thanks, no, Bret. Got to get