Murder on the Potomac Read Free Page A

full of canaries during the festivities. Up they went, straight to the tarp, where they immediately died from the cold and fell at the feet of the gathered.”
    “How terrible,” Annabel said.
    “It was—for the birds.”
    “Oh, my.”
    “Sorry. But true story.”
    When they reached her car, Tierney said, “Be sure to say hello to Mac for me.”
    “Of course.”
    “Shame what happened to the child up at the falls. You say Mac saw it happen?”
    “Horrible. Mac had driven up to get away for a few hours and was about to leave when it happened. He can’t shake it, keeps seeing the child in the water.”
    “I suppose we don’t easily shake such images,” Tierney said. “My foundation is setting up a scholarship fund in the girl’s name.”
    “That’s good,” Annabel said.
    “You do what you can do. See you and Mac on the cruise?”
    “We’ll be there. Thanks, Wendell, for putting me on the board. I think it’s going to be extremely interesting and fulfilling.”
    “A proper mix of both, I hope. Safe home.”

4
    That Same Night
    “No! No! No! No! No!”
    Seymour Fletcher, director of the Potomac Players, flung his script across the room and stomped onto the stage. His baggy blue pants, unlaced white high-top basketball sneakers, khaki workshirt, and multicolored bandanna, tied around the neck to give the appearance of a bow tie, combined with long strands of colorless hair flowing down and around wire-rimmed glasses tethered to his neck by a pink-and-white string, gave him the appearance of a man coming loose.
    “You are making a mockery of this script,” he shouted at actors and actresses on the stage.
    Stuart, the young actor playing the role of Congressman Dan Sickles, swore under his breath. “You said we could take liberties with the dialogue, Sy,” he barked.
    “That’s right,” said Carl, who played Key. “You did say that.” Key had been U.S. district attorney for the District of Columbia and son of Francis Scott Key, author of “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
    “Liberties? Yes. Butcher it? No! No! No! Sickles and Key did not call each other ‘bastards.’ The dialogue is very clear and important. Key had been cuckolding Sickles for a long time. He’s been climbing under the sheets with his wife, and half of Washington knows it. That’s why when Sickles approaches Key with the revolver near Lafayette Square, he says, ‘Key, you scoundrel, you’ve dishonored my house.’ He didn’t say ‘you bastard.’ ”
    A female voice offstage said, “Maybe this is a good time to discuss that line again, Seymour.” The voice was that of Madelon St. Cere, who had written the script. She stepped into the light. “ ‘House’ falls so flat,” she said. “Key hadn’t dishonored Sickles’s
house
. He’d been sleeping with Teresa Sickles for a year, waving his handkerchief to let her know he was on his way to that house they rented. He dishonored Sickles’s
bed
, not his whole house. Besides, ‘house’ is a weak word. Bed has strength. It says something. This was lust, not housebreaking.”
    Fletcher fumed. “I thought we resolved this two weeks ago. I will not discuss it again.”
    St. Cere went to the stage apron and looked out into the house. Scattered throughout the small auditorium was an assortment of onlookers, including “Chip” Tierney, son of developer and National Building Museum chairman Wendell Tierney; Chip’s fiancée of most recent vintage, Terri Pete; Sun Ben Cheong; and Monty Jamison, a professor of American history at GeorgeWashington University. Jamison was unofficial historical adviser to the theatrical troupe rehearsing in the basement of a small, run-down church on O Street.
    The Potomac Players had been performing in the D.C. area for ten years. As with most small, semiprofessional theater groups, its existence was perpetually precarious—an occasional handout from a Washington arts organization, ticket sales that rose, when they did, for Neil Simon, and were