“Morning, everybody,” he said, and made the introductions.
Carpenter began by recapping the problem. “Admiral Sherman, this matter concerns an accidental death, as we’ve previously discussed. Detective Mcnair would like you to help him with his inquiries.”
“How can I help you, Detective?” Sherman said. He was not smiling, and he focused intensely on the detective.
Mcnair cleared his throat before beginning. “Admiral Sherman, this concerns a Ms. Elizabeth Walsh. I assume the admiral here has told you what happened?”
Karen saw Sherman’s face tighten. “Yes. He said that she had an accident of some kind in her house and died from her injuries. Is that correct?”
“Yes, sir. That’s what it looks like to us right now. We understand that you, ah, knew Ms. Walsh?”
“Yes.” He looked down at the table for a moment before continuing. “Ms.
She and I were … dating. Until about six months . ago.
“And may we ask, sir, why you stopped dating?”
Sherman hesitated, and Carpenter stepped into the conversation.
“Detective, I think we need to know where everybody stands before Admiral Sherman answers that. Could you please explain where you are in your investigation and what Admiral Sherman’s status is?”
Mcnair opened his notebook. “Last Saturday morning, the police were called in when Ms. Walsh’s neighbor, a Mrs. Klein, reported that she had found Ms. Walsh lying at the bottom of the stairs going down into her town house basement level. It appeared to Mrs. Klein that Ms. Walsh had fallen down the stairs, and that she was deceased. Mrs. Klein was very upset.”
Karen watched Sherman as he listened to the detective recite the grim facts. She realized from his expression that the relationship between Elizabeth Walsh and Sherman had gone well beyond dating. Von Rensel was also studying Sherman’s face.
“The Homicide Section was called in as a matter of routine,” Mcnair continued. “As you probably know, we are required by law to investigate any unexplained death. We arrived at the scene within an hour of Mrs.
Klein had a key, and she had let the EMTS in. was no sign of violence in the house, no sign of forced entry, or that anyone else had been in there other than Ms. Walsh and Mrs. Klein, who stated that she had not seen anything missing or out of order. The medical examiner’s preliminary judgment as to the cause of death was a fractured cervical vertebrae broken neck. Time of death was probably early Friday evening.”
“And she just felt down the stairs?” Sherman asked.
Mcnair gave him an appraising stare, which made her wonder if this was more than just a friendly little chat after all.
She realized at that moment that the detective had not answered Carpenter’s other question about Sherman’s status.
“Well, sir,” Mcnair replied, “there was one of those plastic laundry baskets at the bottom of the stairs. It looks like she was carrying it downstairs and maybe tripped. Hard to tell,.really.”
“Laundry?” Sherman said, frowning.
“It was clean laundry,” Mcnair said. “You are familiar with the layout of the town house.” It was a statement, not a question.
“Yes, I am,” Sherman replied, staring back almost belligerently.
“Could you tell us where you were on Friday evening, Admiral Sherman?”
“Detective,” Carpenter interrupted. “An answer to my original question, if you please. Is Admiral Sherman a suspect in a homicide investigation?”
“No, sir,” Mcnair answered immediately. “This isn’t really a homicide ‘ investigation. If it becomes one, we’ll of course have to start over. We can do the Miranda bit if you’d like, Admiral.” Sherman started to shake his head, but then he looked to Carpenter for guidance. Carpenter nodded, indicating to Sherman that he should go ahead and answer their questions.
“Friday.” Sherman thought for a moment. “Friday, we were preparing for internal Navy budget hearings. I was here-I mean here in the Pentagon-until, oh, I’d say twenty-thirty. Sony. That’s eight-thirty.
Then I drove home.
I live in Mclean.”
“We,’ meaning you and members of your staff?”
“Yes.
My deputy, Captain Gonzales, and two OP-32 branch heads-Captains Covington and Small.”
“And home is at nineteen Cheshire Street, the Herrington Mews complex, is that right, sir? Off Old Dominion?”
Mcnair was letting him know that he had done some checking.
“Yes, that’s right. The traffic was pretty much done by then; it takes about forty minutes from the Pentagon to my house.”
“So you were home by nine-fifteen, nine-thirty?”
“Yes, somewhere in there. Then I changed clothes and went up to Pucinella’s. That’s a restaurant about a ten minute walk from my house.
I had dinner there and went home, where I remained for the rest of the night.”
“Did you pay with a credit card, by any chance?”
Sherman paused. “I think I used cash. Oh, I see-if I’d used a card, you could verify that I was there, and at what time. Sorry. But I’m a regular there. They’d probably remember. Now, my turn. Why do you ask?”
Mcnair frowned but then said, “Sir, as I told Admiral Carpenter yesterday, we have no probable cause to suspect foul play here, although there are some minor forensic ambiguities. It’s just that the only lead to other persons we turned up in our preliminary work was that Ms. Walsh had a life-insurance policy nan-thing you as beneficiary. Did you know about that policy, sir?”
Sherman shook his head. “Not until Admiral Carpenter told me about it yesterday. Elizabeth and I didn’t talk much about personal business affairs. No, the insurance policy is news to me.”
The detective looked straight at him. “The death benefit is two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, Admiral.”
Revelation of the actual amount cast a hush over the room. Sherman’s eyebrows went up, but then he said, “I’d trade it back for Elizabeth.”
Good answer, Karen thought. And yet, despite his quick reply’, even Sherman appeared to be surprised by the sum of a quarter of a million dollars. “I knew nothing about this,” he said. “I wonder-“
“Yes, sir?” Mcnair had his notebook open and pen poised.
“Detective, Elizabeth Walsh and I had an intimate personal relationship for a little under three years. That relationship ended on my initiative-when it became evident to Me! that she wanted to get married.” He stared down at the table for a moment. “For reasons I won’t go into, I was not prepared to remarry, so I began to put the brakes on.
I’d been married before. It turned out badly. I had told her from the start that I did not want to remarry-ever. Elizabeth iswas, I guess is the appropriate word now-a lovely woman.
She would have made a very fine wife for someone.” He paused again for a moment, his lips pressed together, while he looked down at the table.
Then he continued.
“We parted amicably, and we even saw each other socially from time to time. I think both of us kind of hated just to let go. I was about to speculate that maybe she’d had this policy from her previous marriage, then changed the beneficiary while we still had prospects, and simply forgot to do something about it. I don’t know. I can’t offer any other explanation.”
“Yes, sir,” Mcnair said. “To your knowledge, was she seeing anyone else after the two of you broke up?”
“Not to my knowledge, but then, I wouldn’t necessarily know. I didn’t ask. Besides, I’d just been promoted, and the pace of my work here has increased considerably.”
“And when did you last see Ms. Walsh, sir?”
“About three weeks ago. We went to a benefit dinner for the Wolftrap Farms concert center. But other than that, I don’t know anything about her current social life. Mrs. Klein would probably know more about that.”