Murder at The Washington Tribune

by Margaret Truman

  “Thanks,” Wilcox said. “Nothing else?”

  “Hey, I don’t cover the cops beat, Joe. That’s your bailiwick.”

  “Yeah, I know. Sorry. It’s just that I need—”

  “Need what?”

  “A story. An angle, something new on this story. You know that old joke about Casey, crime photographer?”

  “No.”

  “They called him Casey, crime photographer, because the way he took pictures, it was a crime.”

  “Sounds like a line from some old Borscht Belt comic.”

  “It was. They’re looking at me at the Trib like Casey.”

  “No.”

  “I’m serious.”

  “Tell ’em to go screw. What’ve you got, a year, two, to the pension?”

  “Two, but that’s not the point.”

  They took a table away from the bar and ordered BLTs.

  “You okay, Joe?” Grant asked mid-meal.

  “Yeah, sure. Why do you ask?”

  “I don’t know, you seem down, really down. Everything okay at home?”

  “Sure. Fine.”

  “Your daughter’s doing great. I catch her on the news. Ratings up since she went over there, or so I hear.”

  “That’s right. She’s terrific. Makes her old man look like an amateur.”

  They went to the lobby where Wilcox pressed the elevator button.

  “You up for some poker?” Grant asked. “Carlos has a game going in the back.”

  “Thanks, no, John. I’ve got some interviews this afternoon.”

  “About the Kaporis case?”

  Wilcox nodded as the elevator doors opened.

  “If I pick up on anything, I’ll call.”

  “Great. Thanks,” Wilcox said as the doors slid closed, leaving him alone with a knot in his stomach for the thirteen-floor descent.

  FOUR

  Task forces in Washington, D.C., are as ubiquitous as Frisbee tossers on the Mall. When in doubt, and the pressure is on in the military, in government, in corporations—whatever—announce the appointment of a task force by whatever name. Which is what the MPD did that morning for the unsolved Jean Kaporis murder at The Washington Tribune. In reality, it consisted only of the two detectives already working the case, Edith Vargas-Swayze, and her partner of the past year, Wade Dungey. They met with their boss, Bernard Evans, over a lunch of hoagies and Diet Cokes in a cramped office at First District headquarters at 415 Fourth Street, SW. On the scarred table were recent clips of stories that had appeared in newspapers and magazines, and transcripts of radio and television news reports.

  “See what I mean?” Evans asked.

  “Big deal,” Dungey said. “Since when do we march to what the media says?”

  Evans, whose nickname was “the Professor,” was a sixteen-year veteran with a reputation for calmness under fire. He leaned back in his chair and squeezed his eyes shut as though seeking inner calm. Evans removed his tortoiseshell-rimmed glasses, rubbed his eyes, replaced the glasses, and opened his eyes. He was a slight man with a chiseled wedge of a face, wisps of gray hair on his bald pate, and a known fondness for tweed jackets and books about the Civil War. He seldom raised his voice, which carried a trace of his North Carolina roots, and was especially adept at resolving personality and professional clashes between his detectives, a valuable, intangible skill in an MPD that sometimes resembled the war he loved to read about.

  Dungey had been promoted to detective in the Violent Crimes Branch a year earlier after six years in uniform. Tall—six feet, four inches—and painfully thin—155 pounds—he was a D.C. native who’d spent three years in the army before applying to the MPD. Everything about him was long: his neck with a prominent Adam’s apple, fingers, nose, and arms. His nickname, of course, was “Slim.”

  “The Kaporis murder isn’t the only one we’re working,” said Dungey, uncrossing his legs because one had fallen asleep.

  “It is now,” Evans said. “I’ll give you all the backup I can spare. Look, I don’t decide which cases are high profile. The public decides that.”

  “The media decides it,” Dungey offered, his disdain of the press worn on his sleeve like the elbow patches of his sport jacket.

  “Whoever,” Evans said, not about to get into a debate. “The point is that the Kaporis case isn’t about to go away unless we make it go away.” Dungey started to say something but Evans held up his hand and sighed wearily. “Beautiful blonde working for one of the nation’s most important newspapers is killed right there, on the premises. Chances are good—no, they’re better than good—that another member of that Fourth Estate institution did the deed. Unless another murder occurs that involves somebody more interesting than Ms. Kaporis, like a senator or congressman, or cabinet member, she’s number one.” He pushed the clippings and transcripts around on the tabletop. “This is why the brass wants us to pick up the pace. The brass—our brass—tends to get testy when the press asks why we’re not doing our jobs. So starting right now and until the case moves from cold to solved, you two think about nothing else. Any questions?”

  “We’re it, huh?” Vargas-Swayze said with a laugh. “The task force.”

  Evans joined her laughter. “What a task. What a force. The mighty duo, Dungey and Vargas-Swayze. Put on your capes and save Gotham.” His expression shifted to serious. Okay,” he said, “lay out for me everything we’ve done so far and what we intend to do.” He turned to his female detective: “You’re well-sourced at the Trib, Edith. Somebody inside there must know something about who was cozy with the victim, some reporter she’d been making eyes at and seeing after hours, somebody who got mad enough to squeeze the life out of her.”

  “I’ll talk to them again,” she said.

  “Good.”

  “But give me something to offer.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “My sources at the Trib are looking for news from us. If I can dribble out some new stuff, it’ll go a long way to getting somebody over there to do the same.”

  “Just don’t give away the store.” To Dungey: “While Edith works the Trib, go back into Kaporis’s personal life, friends, roommates, family, anybody and everybody who knew her since she came to D.C.”

  “I’ve already interviewed them,” Dungey said.

  “Wrong, Wade. We’re starting from square one. It’s a brand-new case. We start today looking outside the box. Toss out everything anyone has said and push harder this time.” Evans stood and started to leave. He stopped, returned to the table, picked up his half-eaten hoagie, and disappeared through the door.

  Meanwhile, the daily two o’clock editorial meeting at the Trib was under way. The assistant managing editor of each section of the paper—National and International; Metro, including the Government Diary and obituaries; the Panache section with its gossipy columns and features, comics, horoscope and crossword puzzles; Sports; and Business—gathered in an eighth-floor conference room to pitch stories they intended to include in the next day’s edition. The run-up to the meeting had produced a discernible increase in activity throughout the newsroom. The leisurely pace of the morning had been replaced by a growing sense of urgency, matched in other departments throughout the building. The advertising department coordinated closely with editorial to determine the number of pages that would comprise the paper the following morning. The more ads, the more editorial material would be needed. Simultaneously, a separate editorial staff responsible for the special section that would be inserted the next morning—Health, Food, Home, Weekend, or Real Estate, depending upon the day of the week—put the finishing touches on their product.

  “What’s new on Kaporis?” Paul Morehouse was asked after he’d gone over the list of stories he intended to include in his Metro section.

  “Not enough to lead with. MPD announced a task force this morning, whatever the hell that means.”

  “What does it mean?” asked the deputy managing editor chairing the meeting.

  “We’re working on it
,” Morehouse replied. “Mary’s greenlighted money for our own task force.” Mary Lou Castle, the Trib’s comptroller, was the voice of money. “I’ve got Joe Wilcox heading it.”

  The deputy managing editor’s face went sour. “Is he making any headway?”

  “Not yet, but we’re ratcheting things up. Joe’s been—how do I say it? He’s been distracted lately, but that’s over. He’s well sourced at MPD.”

  “Well, he’d better get his sources to start saying something. Mail is heavy, asking why we’re covering up. You know, protecting one of our own.”

  “That’s nonsense.”

  “You want to answer the mail, Paul?”

  Morehouse didn’t reply.

  “Jeanette’s going to do something on it in her Ombudsman column day after tomorrow.”

  “Good.”

  “In the meantime, get something we can run front page this week, some break in the case.”

  “We’re on it,” said Morehouse to the man who outranked him in the Trib’s hierarchy.

  Which sufficed for the moment.

  They would meet again at six when final decisions would be made, including which stories would appear on the coveted front page of each section. For reporters writing the stories, being on Page One was like hitting a game-winning home run, grabbing the brass ring, and winning the Medal of Honor, an Oscar and the America’s Cup all at once. They wore their front-page placements like notches on a belt or gunstock. How effectively their bosses lobbied for them at the two and six o’clock meetings went a long way toward determining how many notches they’d end up with—or how many flesh wounds.

  Wilcox was on his way out of the newsroom when Morehouse came from the meeting.

  “Got a minute?” Morehouse asked.

  “No,” Wilcox said. “I’m on my way to see Jean’s roommate again. Running late.”

  “Check in when you get back.”

  You forgot the please, Wilcox thought, and nodded.

  Mary Jane Pruit lived in a twelve-story apartment building across the Potomac, in Crystal City, Virginia. The doorman buzzed her and Wilcox was directed to apartment number 8-C on the eighth floor where she stood in the open doorway.

  “I appreciate you taking time to see me,” Wilcox said.

  “It’s okay,” she said.

  Wilcox had been surprised at the apartment’s size during his first visit. The living room was larger than his at home, and sliding glass doors opened on to a balcony from which D.C., as well as arriving and departing flights from nearby Reagan National Airport, could be seen. A dining area and kitchen were at one end. A hallway led to what he assumed were the bedrooms, probably a couple of them considering that two single people had lived there.

  Mary Jane was a tall, slender young woman with an elongated face framed by blond hair with a bleached coarseness, worn long and straight. She was dressed that day in white shorts, a sleeveless navy blue tank top, and flip-flops. He judged her to be somewhat older than Kaporis, maybe by three or four years. Kaporis had been twenty-two. Her former roommate might by pushing thirty, he thought, but certainly no older than that. She sat in a chair, crossed her legs, and lit a cigarette. An ashtray on a table next to her was almost filled with extinguished butts. Wilcox wasn’t sure where to sit. The last time he was there, he’d taken the couch. But that would place her to his side, an awkward arrangement. Instead, he pulled an ottoman from in front of another chair and positioned it directly in front of her. He pulled a reporter’s notepad and pen from his inside jacket pocket and said, “I know we’ve already gone over things, Ms. Pruit, but I have some additional questions to ask. Okay?”

  She drew on the cigarette, snubbed it out in the ashtray, and said, “Go ahead, only you’re wasting your time. I don’t know anything more than I told you before.”

  “Fair enough. How long did you and Jean Kaporis live here together?”

  “You already asked me that question, Mr. Wilcox. Is this a truth test? Jean moved in here about a month after she came to Washington. That was a year ago, give or take.”

  “How did she end up living with you? I mean, was this your apartment, or did the two of you find it together?”

  “It was mine. Another roommate moved out. A friend of mine met Jean and told her I was looking for someone. That simple.”

  Wilcox nodded and made notes. He looked up and asked, “Did the two of you get along?”

  Pruit laughed and lit another cigarette. “Sure we did.”

  “I mean,” he said, “sometimes roommates have conflicts about—well, about things like noise or friends spending time here or—”

  “We got along.”

  He noted it and said, “The last time we spoke, Ms. Pruit, I asked about Jean’s boyfriends. Remember?”

  “Yes, I remember.”

  “You said you didn’t know anything about the men in her life.”

  “I still don’t.”

  “That strikes me as strange,” Wilcox said.

  “Why?”

  “Well, I have a daughter who’s had roommates. From what she’s told me, the most popular topic of conversation among young female roommates is the men in their lives. Or out of them.” He cocked his head, pen poised over the notepad.

  “We didn’t talk about things like that, Mr. Wilcox.”

  “What did you talk about?”

  “Not much. We were on different schedules. I work nights, she worked days at the paper.”

  “Ships passing in the night.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Where do you work, Ms. Pruit?”

  “I’m a freelancer.”

  “Oh? Writer? Artist?”

  “I’m a freelancer,” she repeated. “Let’s leave it at that.”

  Wilcox wrote “freelancer” on his pad, but he was thinking beyond those simple words. What was she, a prostitute, perhaps working for one of the city’s many so-called escort services? A freelance what?

  “Could you be more specific?” he asked.

  “Look, I have to be someplace. Could we wrap this up?” Another cigarette.

  “Jean’s mother said that her daughter was seeing someone who works at the Trib. She never mentioned that to you?”

  She shook her head, sending her hair into motion.

  “Never?” Wilcox said.

  “Yeah. Well, she said something about it.”

  “What did she say?”

  A shrug and a stream of exhaled air. “Just that she had a fling with somebody there, some reporter, I guess. That’s all I know. We didn’t talk much.”

  She snuffed out her cigarette, stood, and said, “Sorry, but I have to go.”

  Wilcox replaced the pad and pen in his jacket and followed her to the door, which she opened, standing back to allow him to exit. He was glad to be leaving. He’d begun to sweat despite the apartment’s coolness, and felt lightheaded.

  “Thanks,” he said, stepping into the hallway. The door closed behind him.

  He hadn’t been there long; it was only three-thirty. He considered calling it a day and going home. Reporters determined how they spent their days, their time pretty much their own when working a story. But Morehouse had asked him to check in, and he’d also scheduled that meeting of his reportorial team at six.

  He stopped in a luncheonette where he had a cup of coffee, and checked his voice mail back at the paper. One call piqued his immediate interest. He caught Vargas-Swayze on her cell phone while she and her partner drove to a second interview with a delivery man. He worked for an office supply outlet and had signed in at the Trib early on the evening Kaporis was murdered.

  “Up for a drink after work?” Wilcox asked.

  “After work?” She laughed. “When is that?”

  “Whenever you say, Edith. And don’t make it sound like you’re the only one in town working twenty-four hours a day.”

  “Oh, I forgot, Joe. You media types work long hours, too. Sure. I’ve been meaning to catch up with you anyway.”

  “Something new in
the Kaporis case?”

  “Maybe. What do you have for me?”

  “We have a task force, too, now. I’m in charge,” he said.

  This time it was more of a giggle. “Where and when?”

  “Let’s make it dinner. Eight good for you?”

  “Sure, as long as it’s dark and out of the way. Can’t risk my reputation being seen with a reporter.” She said it lightly, but he knew there was substance behind the remark.

  “Martin’s Tavern. As Yogi said, it’s so popular nobody goes there any more.”

  “Are you going to propose to me, Joe?”

  “Huh?”

  “Propose. Like in marriage proposal. That’s where JFK proposed to Jackie.”

  “I didn’t know that. Besides, I’m a married man.” The minute he said it, he wished he hadn’t.

  “And I’m still a married woman, at least legally. Get a corner booth.”

  Their thoughts were similar, and they didn’t involve pink elephants.

  “What was that all about?” Dungey asked as Vargas-Swayze pulled up in front of a commercial building.

  “My source at the Trib, Joe Wilcox.”

  “Sounded like you’re in love.”

  “Just goofing with him. He’s a good guy, a straight-shooter.”

  “Can’t be if he’s a media whore.”

  She ignored him and led the way into the building.

  “What did the roommate have to say?” Morehouse asked Wilcox.

  “She confirmed to me that Kaporis had told her she’d been seeing someone from here.”

  “A reporter?”

  “She didn’t elaborate. She’s a tough cookie. I think she might be a hooker of some sort.”

  Morehouse’s thick eyebrows went up. “A hooker?”

  “She calls herself a freelancer. When I pressed, she cut me off.”

  “Do you think there’s an angle in this?”

  Wilcox shrugged and lifted his hands, palms up. “Like what?”

  Morehouse massaged his nose. “Do you think—and I’m only playing what if, Joe—what if Jean was in some way moonlighting? What if she was turning tricks on the side and got one of her Johns mad enough to kill her?”