Murder in the White House (Capital Crimes Book 1) by Margaret Truman Read Free Book Online Page A

motioned to her did she come in, and only when he indicated a chair facing his desk did she sit down. “I waited for the end of the day to try to see you,” she said. “I wanted to see you alone.”
    He had switched off all the lights in his office but the lamp on his desk, as he often did when he was tired; and the light from the shaded lamp fell on her only from the shoulders down, leaving her face in the shadow. He could see that she wore glasses and that her hair was tied back, otherwise that her face was plain and unblemished; but the light was not enough for him to read her expression. He saw her hands clasped tightly in her lap.
    “About the investigation?” he asked.
    “Yes.”
    “Well…?” He tipped back his chair and clasped hishands behind his head. His own face was only half in the light.
    “Mr. Blaine…” she began in a low voice. “Last night… he was talking on the telephone. I read in the papers that he was talking on the telephone when he was killed.”
    “Go on.”
    “He was talking to me.”
    Ron tipped his chair forward again and, leaning over his desk, peered up at her from beneath the shade of the lamp. Her shadowed face was solemn, apprehensive. “Did you hear…?”
    She shook her head. “I thought he hung up on me.” She lowered her face for a moment and sighed. “I think I heard him die,” she whispered.
    Ron’s immediate reaction was to be skeptical. “Miss… uh, Kalisch,” he said. “I would like to turn on this Dictaphone and make a tape of our conversation—”
    “Before you do…” she said with indrawn breath. “I… I want to know what you have to make public.”
    “Since I don’t know what you’re going to tell me, I don’t know what I have to make public.”
    “Do you know why he was talking to me on the telephone?”
    “I’m beginning to have an idea, but I’d rather you told me.”
    She drew her chair closer to his desk. Her face was in the light. “He was calling me to tell me when he would come home. I was in his apartment. When you have it gone over, you’ll find my fingerprints on everything. I slept there last night, even after he was dead, because I didn’t know. I thought he had just hung up. He sometimes did when he was interrupted—”
    “You were living with him?”
    “No, Not really. Not all the time. I… It has to come out, doesn’t it? There’s no way to keep it secret.”
    Ron shook his head. “I don’t know. I can’t promise to keep it a secret, and I can’t vouch for what someone else will find out and publish.”
    “I’m divorced, Mr. Fairbanks,” she said quietly, grimly. “I have custody of my little daughter, but my ex-husband would like to take her away from me. Lan and I were discreet, but—”
    “Lan?”
    “Lansard Blaine.”
    Ron nodded. “Well… may I turn on the tape?”
    “Yes.”
    He took a tape cartridge from his center drawer and inserted it in the machine. He switched the Dictaphone to “Conference” and laid the microphone on his desk. “Let’s start with your name.”
    “My name is Marya Kalisch,” she said reluctantly.
    “It is… a little after nine, and this is Wednesday, June 13,” said Ron. “Miss Kalisch, will you say for the record that you are talking with me voluntarily and have consented to my making a tape?”
    “It is voluntary,” she said. “And I have consented.”
    He heard in her speech the trace of an accent. She adjusted her glasses and clasped her hands in front of her on the edge of his desk.
    “Go ahead,” he said. “Tell me where you work.”
    “I work here in the West Wing of the White House,” she said. “I am an administrative assistant to Alfred Eiseman, the President’s Special Assistant for National Security Affairs. Among other things, I do some translationfor Mr. Eiseman. My parents are Russian, and I am fluent in Russian.”
    “Tell me about your relationship with the Secretary of State.”
    She sighed, audibly enough that it would be on the tape.