Murder in the Smithsonian Read Free Page B

British naval forces in September, 1814. A young lawyer on a ship that fateful night observed that the “flag was still there” by the “dawn’s early light” which inspired him to create America’s national anthem.
    Tunney felt a chill as he looked up at the huge red, white and blue banner that had been so painstakingly restored by museum experts.
    The room was dark except for low-wattage perimeter lights. A single spotlight illuminated the lectern. To its left were a large movie screen and two speakers. Tunney went to the lectern and looked out over the sea of metal chairs. Behind them was the opening through which the Foucault pendulum dangled.
    He turned and faced the reason he was here, the Harsa-Cincinnati exhibition. In the morning the exhibit would be open to the public, another chance for Americans to touch base with their heritage. He steppeddown from the lectern and entered the shadowy exhibition space. A massive oil painting of George Washington stared down at him from one side, an equally large portrait of Thomas Jefferson from the other.
    He went over to a wall that had been constructed in the center of the exhibit, two glass cases housing precious memorabilia. Swords belonging to Washington and Jefferson hung vertically on either side. Behind each of the two glass windows were gem-studded medals, symbols of the Harsa and Cincinnati societies.
    Tunney listened to the carefree sounds from the floor below; a woman’s loud laughter cut through the din. Suddenly he looked to his left, thinking he’d heard someone.
    He saw nothing.
    He was conscious of the baroque music.
    He took three steps forward and looked through the glass at the Harsa medal.
    “I’ll be damned,” he said aloud to himself, and downed half his drink.
    The hostesses at the party downstairs moved through the crowd and urged people to go into the dining room.
    Bill and Joline Oxenhauer stood with six other people at the railing surrounding the pendulum. Another red marker was about to be toppled. Everyone laughed as Joline suggested they bet on how many seconds before the earth rotated sufficiently to bring the pendulum into contact with it.
    “Want to get in on the bet?” Oxenhauer asked the Secret Serviceman nearest him.
    “No, sir, but thank you,” he replied, his eyes never straying from the crowd.
    “Twenty seconds. I’ll count,” Oxenhauer said. He looked at Joline, who was staring at the ceiling. “What’s the matter?” he asked.
    A drop of bright red oxygenated blood hit the floor in front of him.
    “My God,
look
,” a woman said, pointing upward.
    Now a series of red drops splattered the edge of the compass rose. The pendulum reached the side where the group stood, then swung back in the other direction, catching the marker and toppling it.
    “Lewis…?” Joline said.
    Slowly, as though having been photographed in slow motion, Lewis Tunney’s body slipped over the second floor railing and fell to the compass rose. Protruding from his back was a sword that had once belonged to Thomas Jefferson.
    The pendulum reached its apex on the other side, then headed back toward the vice president, stopping for the first time in years as it thudded into the lifeless body of the night’s keynote speaker, the late Dr. Lewis Tunney.

Chapter 3
    Tunney’s body was removed from the National Museum of American History in a black body bag. As it passed, Alfred Throckly shook his head. “My God…” The tone in his voice seemed a blend of shock and impatience.
    The man next to him said, “It takes time, Mr. Throckly. Procedures.”
    “What now, Captain?”
    “More procedures.”
    Captain Mac Hanrahan, chief of detectives of Washington’s Metropolitan Police Department, excused himself from the museum director and went to the Constitution Avenue entrance. He stepped back to allow two uniformed policemen to carry the body bag outside, then followed. The street was choked with vehicles, some from MPD, most belonging to news media.