Capital City

by Lee Hurwitz

  “I know almost all the P.D.s in the City of Washington,” Altman said, his voice lazy but his eyes alert. “But I don’t believe I know you, Mr. Clarkson.”

  “I just transferred in from Prince George’s County,” Clarkson said. That voice would sure grate on a jury, Mitch thought.

  “Just transferred in from PG.” Altman seemed to mull this over. “I know most of the PDs in PG, and yet I don’t know you.”

  Clarkson smiled, shrugged. “I need a moment to confer with my client.”

  “Actually, counselor, Mr. Copland has executed a waiver of his Miranda rights.” Altman waved the document up and down, as if making a visual pun. “I have a copy for you, if you’d like it.”

  “I’m not entirely certain the waiver was fully informed,” Clarkson said. He smiled and held his hands out in front of him. “You can assure yourself that if Mr. Copland wishes to cooperate, I will certainly not stand in his way.”

  Altman looked at Pitts, and then at Mitch. He stood up. “Five minutes,” he said. This was bullshit, Mitch knew; Clarkson could have as long as he wanted with a client. They walked out the door, single file.

  Once in the hall, Altman turned on Pitts. “What the fuck is this shit, we get him a P.D.?”

  “Well, gee, Mr. Altman,” Pitts said, shuffling his feet. “If you’d like we can go down the hall and call the Chief of Po-lice hisself and find out!”

  Inside, P. Traum considered his options. It would be easy to kill Copland on the spot. He was scrawny and wouldn’t put up much of a fight. But P. didn’t know how much Copland had already told. He decided to wait. Putting his arm around the suspect’s shoulders, he began to talk.

  A few minutes later he opened the door. “We’re ready,” he said.

  When they had all gotten back into the room Clarkson said, “We are prepared to proffer an account which places the Mayor of this City on the scene of a murder in the District Building. In return, we expect all charges to be dropped against Mr. Copland.”

  Altman took a recorder out of his pocket and turned it on. “May I interview your client on the proffer, counselor?”

  “Yes, with the stipulation that this is proffer material only, and none of this is available unless we come to an agreement,” Clarkson replied, enunciating every syllable.

  “I’d like to get to know you a little better, Mr. Copland,” Altman began. “You’re thirty-eight years old?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Your folks big music buffs?”

  “Hah?”

  “Music?” Copland stared at Altman. “You know, the composer?” Altman encouraged. “Your parents named you after uncle or something?”

  “Hah,” Copland said. “I dunno.”

  “Dum-diddle-diddle. Dum diddle-diddle. Dum diddle-diddle-diddle dum de dah,” Altman sang. Mitch recognized it—it was the opening strains to Appalachian Spring, but Copland looked at him blankly. “All right, never mind. Why don’t you take us to your second stay at the hotel Lorton?”

  “What?”

  “Your second prison sentence. How did you find out about the security guard job with the City of Washington?”

  “Guy tole me. Inside.”

  “Inside the prison? As what, part of a jobs program inside the prison?”

  “Nah. It was another guy in the joint. Jimmie St. Clair. He was in for unseemly conduct.”

  “Jimmie St. Clair was in for rape, Mr. Copland. I put him there myself.”

  Copland shrugged. “He said unseemly conduct.”

  “What else did Mr. St. Clair tell you?”

  “He said the City was like under a court order or something to hire more city residents, especially from places with poor people. He told me especially Tenleytown.”

  Washington had never been under a court order to hire City residents. This had been one of the Mayor’s initiatives; a political no-lose proposition.

  “I was a poor person, so when I got out I applied. A week later, they call me up and interview me. And after the interview, they hire me on the spot.”

  “Mr. Copland, do you have any idea how it was that you got hired, with your criminal record?”

  “He hired me.” Copland made a vague gesture toward the wall behind him.

  “Who?”

  “Him. The Mayor.”

  “Wendell Watson hired you personally?” Altman was beside himself.

  “Yeah. He likes me. He got me assigned to the District Building.”

  “The Mayor got you—why did he do that?”

  “Like I say, he likes me. ‘Cause I’m discreet. Said it many times.”

  “And he is,” Clarkson added smugly. “Except in the context of an agreed-upon proffer.”

  Altman dropped his head into his hands and studied a curious scratch on the table. “Please tell us what happened in the District Building on the evening of December second,” he said when he emerged.

  “I was working the late shift on Friday night, three weeks ago. Nothin’ was really happenin’. I was smokin’ a cigarette outside around seven thirty, maybe eight, when John Stone and this woman walks over and tells me they got to find some papers they left in the Mayor’s office.”

  “Did you recognize the woman?”

  “Nah. Never saw her before.”

  “What did she look like?”

  “Good-lookin.”

  “Could you be more specific, Mr. Copland?”

  “Pretty tall, about five-ten. Say, you ever see that movie, Jackie Brown? Looks sort of like her.”

  “I’m afraid I missed that one. What happened then?”

  “I let them in.”

  “Where did Mr. Stone and the woman go?”

  “They took the elevator up.”

  “Which floor did they get off on?”

  “I dunno. I guess the fifth floor.”

  “The fifth floor is where the Mayor’s office is?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “Stone came back down a little later. Tells me he couldn’t get into the Mayor’s office. And he gave me a hundred dollars.”

  “Why did he give you a hundred dollars?”

  “He didn’t want me to say nothin about the woman he was with.”

  “Okay, what happened next?”

  “Said to come with him. So we took the elevator up to the fifth floor with Mr. Stone.”

  “Where did you go on the fifth floor?”

  “To the Mayor’s Office.”

  “You and Mr. Stone walk together from the elevator to Mayor Watson’s office?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What happened then?”

  “Um. The Mayor was standin’ in his office. He wasn’t wearing any clothes. He was holdin’ a big towel on his head. There was blood all over the floor. There was a dead woman on the floor.”

  “Please describe the body on the floor.”

  “Um. A light skinned Black woman. I really don’t remember. There was blood all over the place.”

  “Was the dead woman naked?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Was anyone else in the room with Mayor Watson and the dead woman?”

  “Yeah, uh, Hightower.”

  “Are you referring to Sergeant Aloysius Hightower of the Metropolitan Police Department?”

  “Yeah.”

  Altman looked at Mitch. “Is that the man you’re trying to find?”

  “That’s him.”

  “We’ll take five minutes.” Altman strode out of the room. Mitch and Pitts looked at each other and followed.

  When they got to the hall they saw that Altman was on the phone. “Bring him in,” he was saying, “I want him identified.”

  He could return to the police force, Hightower thought. He could just walk in, saying nothing, sit down in front of his locker, open it, and put on the uniform. Who would say anything? The lieutenant? The Mayor?

  And—no. Hightower stopped pacing and sat down at the edge of the couch. What was going on with Evelyn? They were lovers and par
tners in crime. Yet when they returned to her condo after the Christmas party, staggered by Watson’s capitulation, Evelyn immediately turned him out. “I need some time, Hi,” she said. Since then she had managed to duck his calls.

  A knock on the door interrupted his reverie. He hauled himself out of his easy chair and put his eye to the peephole. There were two uniforms outside.

  Should I get the .45? he thought, then immediately put the thought out of his mind. If these guys were here to do him, they wouldn’t be wearing uniforms.

  He wasn’t when he went to get Evelyn Boone.

  He opened the door. “Officer Aloysius Hightower?” the larger of the two cops said.

  “Yeah. That’s me.”

  “Officer Hightower, would you mind coming down to HQ? We have a matter which needs to be cleared up.”

  Hightower thought for a minute. “I gotta make a phone call first,” he said.

  The cop cleared his throat. “Captain Pitts asked that we bring you right away. It won’t take long.”

  Hightower eyed the man, who had not made any attempt to step into the apartment. “You got a warrant?”

  “No.” The cop smiled, held up his hands. “This is not a big deal.”

  “I gotta make a phone call,” Hightower said, closing the door. He knew he had a reputation as sort of a hothead. That reputation was standing him in good stead, he guessed. These guys were using extreme caution. They were probably calling for backup right now.

  He dialed frantically for Evelyn. He heard the phone ring once, twice, three times…

  “Hi, Deenee.” Evelyn’s voice was a sort of a croon, the music a mother sings to an unhappy child. Hightower didn’t know who it was intended for, but he knew it wasn’t him.

  “Evelyn, I’ve been trying to get hold of you.”

  “Oh. Hi.” Evelyn didn’t try to keep the disappointment out of her voice. “I was expecting a call from my sister.”

  “Evelyn, there’s some cops at the door. They want me for questioning.”

  “So? Just be cool, baby.”

  “What do they know? What do they want?”

  “Don’t say anything. Tell them you want a lawyer.”

  “I need you to get them off me, Evelyn.”

  “What can I do?”

  “Call the Mayor,” Hightower said. “Tell him to call these guys off me.”

  Evelyn chuckled. “I think we tapped the Mayor for all he got,” she said. “Just be cool. Don’t say nothing.”

  “I love you, Evelyn. I want to be with you.”

  There was a pounding on the door and a new voice, a loud one. “Officer Hightower, we need you to come with us.”

  “I gotta keep the line open for my sister,” Evelyn said. “See you later.” She hung up the phone.

  “We need you to open the door, Officer Hightower,” the loud voice insisted. Hightower hung up his phone, walked to the door, and opened it. There were eight cops outside now.

  “I’m a member of the Mayor’s protective service,” Hightower said with as much dignity as he could muster.

  “We understand that.” A huge cop, six foot seven, maybe, had stepped forward. “This is just a formality, but would you assume the position?” And when he did, somebody began to pat him down.

  “Was there anyone else in the room other than Mayor Watson, Sergeant Hightower, and the body of the dead woman?”

  “Nah.”

  “What happened when you and Mr. Stone walked into the Mayor’s office?”

  “The Mayor start yellin’ at us.”

  “That is, Mayor Watson started yelling at you and Mr. Stone?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What did the Mayor yell at Mr. Stone?”

  “He says somethin’ like, ‘you are three hundred fifty pounds of asswipe. Get out, you mother fuckin’ turkey.’”

  Pitts snorted. “And what did the Mayor say to you?”

  “He tells me to give Hightower my gun. Then he makes me take Hightower’s gun. He said I discharged the gun accidental and I was suspended with pay. He says I should go see the parks and such in the city.”

  “Did he say anything about the body?”

  “He say she takin’ a nap. But she’s already dead, anybody could see it.”

  There was a commotion at the door and a burly cop strode into the room with Hightower. Altman stood up.

  “Identification, you morons,” he screamed. “I said I wanted him brought in for identification.”

  Clarkson practically threw himself on Copland. “I demand you get these men out of here,” he screamed.

  Mitch’s brain was working overtime. Something was seriously off kilter with this public defender. It made sense that a lawyer would be upset that his client was being confronted by the man he was giving state’s evidence against before he signed his proffer. But Mitch had never seen a lawyer be so bold as to thrust himself between his client and a cop. And why had he claimed to have been from “Prince George’s” county? People from around Washington called it “PG” County, as they called everything by its initials. He shook his head; poured himself another cup of hot sludge from the thermos.

  Hightower was making a speech. “This is bullshit, Mr. Altman. You can’t arrest me. I’m a sergeant with the Metropolitan Police Department in our nation’s capital. I’m old enough to remember a time, not that long ago, when Black people had no role in law enforcement. The law was enforced by white folks and us Black folks didn’t have any choice in the matter. We had to endure a redneck, racist, police department in the capital of the free world…”

  “I demand that my client be enrolled in the witness protection program immediately,” Clarkson screamed.

  Although he was screaming and red in the face, P. Traum was secretly delighted. He could not only eliminate Copland, he could make up for past inefficiencies by taking care of Hightower too.

  And everyone else as well. Numbers one hundred four through one hundred nine. Pop! Pop! Pop!

  “We’re looking at obstruction of justice, witness tampering. We might even get a warrant for manslaughter.” Altman was winding up for some sort of pitch. “We could get a warrant for kidnapping. That’s why Agent Dennis is here, from the FBI.” Altman gestured to Mitch.

  Kill the most dangerous one first, then the next most dangerous, and so on down the line. Copland and Hightower, who were in handcuffs, would be last.

  There were only two armed men. Deftly, almost casually, P. Traum pulled the gun out of Captain Pitts’ holster. He shot the burly cop with Hightower right between the eyes.

  Then he turned the gun on Mitch Dennis.

  Chapter 16

  Stupid women have their charms, Wendell Watson thought, the chief among them being that you had to use only half your brain to listen to them after you were done fucking them. They were unlikely to say anything original, and you could generally placate them with a few platitudes. This one, Karma, was the best. She said nothing at all. After sex she liked to turn on the television and watch soap operas.

  “Durwood, I…I saw the photographs.”

  “Oh, God, Melba. She meant…it was just a fling. She meant nothing to me. I swear on my mother’s grave!”

  “Durwood, last time I—I told you it was the last time, last time.”

  Watson laid on his stomach and let the dialogue wash over him. Was it really written that badly? Or were the actors improvising? Karma shifted, half-sat on his leg. Perhaps she meant it as a gesture of intimacy.

  “Karma, your ass is cutting off circulation to my foot,” the Mayor pointed out.

  “Sorry, babe,” she whispered, getting off him. She had a contented murmur in her voice, and no wonder. He had brought her to four screaming climaxes over the last hour. Not a lot of men his age who could do that. Here he was, forty-five years old, with the crisis of his life staring him in the face, the witness to his worst secret ready to turn and in the hands of his enemies at the US Attorney’s, and yet he got it up like a nineteen-year-old—got it up and sustained i
t for the better part of an hour, driving this pea-brained bitch crazy.

  “Get me some coffee, wouldya, sweetheart?” Watson had been smelling the coffee since he first came in and, truth be known, it was never far from his mind while he was performing his sexual acrobatics.

  “Inna minute,” Karma said, eyes glued to the screen.

  “We interrupt this show for an important bulletin from the DC Jail.” The voice, crackling with tension, compelled Watson to turn over. “A daring attempt by an alleged mob hit man to kill a prisoner who had allegedly accused City Officials of gross malfeasance was dramatically thwarted by FBI agents today. The suspect arrived at the jail this morning masquerading as a lawyer.”

  Mitch Dennis, identified by orange letters at the bottom of the screen, stared impassively at Watson through the television screen. “We’re told you threw a thermos of coffee at the suspect, Agent Dennis,” an off-screen voice proposed.

  Dennis’ expression remained unchanged. “I’m afraid that I’m not going to be able to give you much information until after the indictment,” he said. “We did overcome the suspect, and he is in custody.”

  “Shit,” Watson said.

  “Baby, I didn’t know you liked the soaps,” Karma said, smiling slyly. But Watson was already getting dressed and heading toward the door.

  Mitch was pleasantly surprised by the way Altman had reacted to Mitch’s capture of the gunman. A lot of prosecuting attorneys would have praised Mitch profusely and gone home for the rest of the day. Altman thanked Mitch, shook his hand, and then suggested that they surprise John Stone in his office.

  That was fine with Mitch. Once the inevitable interview with the press was over, he wanted to get back to work.

  They were so close!

  Mitch, Altman, and Pitts walked into Stone’s office. Mitch, taking charge, noted the nameplate on the secretary’s desk. “Hello, Miss Streab, I’m Mitch Dennis, Special Agent, Federal Bureau of Investigation. These are my colleagues, Mr. Altman and Captain Pitts. We need to talk to Mr. Stone.”

  “Mr. Stone just got in a few minutes ago. I think he’s in a meeting right now. Do you have an appointment?”

  “Uh, no. Miss Streab, could you please tell Mr. Stone that someone from the FBI would like to talk with him for a few minutes?”