Murder at The Washington Tribune: A Capital Crimes Mystery

by Margaret Truman

  “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?”

  “Oh, come on, Paul, that’s—”

  “That’s thinking outside the box, Joe.”

  “Maybe it is, but it does nothing for me.”

  “Follow up on it.”

  “How, asking the roommate whether she’s a whore?”

  “That’s not a bad start.”

  Wilcox knew it was futile to argue the point at that moment and changed the subject. “I’m meeting tonight with a good contact at MPD. She sounded as though she might have something for me.”

  “Who, the spic cop, Vargas-Swayze?”

  Wilcox’s frown was one of disapproval.

  “All right, the Spanish cop.”

  “She’s the lead detective on the Kaporis case,” Wilcox said. “By the way, L.A. police interviewed a former boyfriend of Jean’s. He’s clean, was nowhere near D.C. the night she got it.”

  “Where’d you pick that up?”

  “A friend at lunch.”

  “Get somebody out in L.A. to interview him, get a better handle on what she was like out of the office. Or out of her clothes.”

  Wilcox nodded. “I’m meeting with Rick Jillian and the rest of our group at six. Want to join us?”

  “No. I’m tied up tonight.”

  As Wilcox started to leave the office, Morehouse said, “Why don’t you pick Hawthorne’s brain. He’s really wired in around the District.”

  “Sure.” Wilcox said. “I’ll talk to Gene.”

  He had no intention of asking his least favorite young reporter for anything.

  He called Georgia at home to say he’d be late that night.

  “You reporters,” she said lightly. “Roberta was going to stop by for dinner tonight, but she was given a last-minute assignment.”

  “A couple more years and I’ll be home for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.”

  “I’d like that.”

  “No you wouldn’t, Georgia. I don’t play golf or make pretty wooden furniture. No hobbies. I’ll drive you mad.”

  “Try me,” she said. “Take care. Don’t be too late.”

  The six o’clock meeting was no more productive than most meetings, although it did result in a semblance of organization, with Wilcox handing out specific tasks, including assigning someone from the L.A. bureau to track down and interview Kaporis’s ex-boyfriend. It ended at 6:45. Wilcox left the building and drove to busy Georgetown where he found, of all things, a parking space only a few feet away from Martin’s Tavern, the oldest such establishment in Washington. Management knew him and plopped a RESERVED sign on a corner booth in the most secluded portion of the restaurant. He considered having a drink but decided to wait. He window-shopped up and down Wisconsin Avenue for an hour, stopping in Britches to admire a sport jacket that was too expensive for his budget, and in Olsson’s Books and Records where he browsed the classical music section without purchasing anything. Having killed sufficient time, he returned to the tavern, took the booth, and indulged in some serious introspection and reflection, a Scotch, neat, oiling the process.

  He was dismayed that Morehouse saw a story potential in the possibility that Jean Kaporis’s roommate might be a prostitute, and was sorry he’d even mentioned it. He worked for the prestigious Washington Tribune, not some supermarket tabloid. Was it so important for the paper, particularly its Metro section, to have a story every day about Jean Kaporis’s murder that it would be content to manufacture “news?” It seemed that way, although he knew Morehouse would have a tough time getting his bosses to run an article based upon speculation and innuendo.

  Morehouse’s suggestion that he, Joe Wilcox, a twenty-three year veteran reporter, enlist the help of the self-righteous, smug Gene Hawthorne, was especially galling. Morehouse knew of his dislike for the young reporter. Had he made the suggestion in order to humiliate him? If that was his intention, he’d succeeded, at least momentarily.

  He finished his drink, checked his watch, and ordered a second. While waiting for it and Edith Vargas-Swayze to arrive, he found himself smiling, and feeling, suddenly, strangely buoyant.

  Morehouse had said that the Kaporis story might be the big one Wilcox had been seeking his entire career. Maybe Morehouse was right. Maybe it was time to suck it up and summon new energy to attack the story with the zest he’d demonstrated in the past. He’d recently been going through the motions, he knew, disheartened and dejected, wondering where his career had taken him. He was in the midst of that thought when Edith came through the door, spotted him, and slid on to the bench across from him.

  “I was afraid you were standing me up,” Wilcox said.

  “I’m not that late,” she said. “I see you’ve started without me.”

  “Just killing time. Drink?”

  She shook her head. “Afraid I’ll be called back. The natives are restless tonight. Three shootings so far, more to come.”

  He was glad he wasn’t back at the paper. The night reporters assigned to the cops beat would have been dispatched to cover the shootings, and he would have been pressed into service, too. There was always the possibility that he’d receive a call at home or on his cell phone, but that was unlikely now that the Kaporis murder had taken center stage. He’d be left alone to produce something worthy of the Metro section’s front page. Hopefully, the attractive woman seated across from him would help.

  “So,” she said after they’d ordered their meals, Virginia crab cakes for her, lamb chops for him. “Level with me, Joe. Who’s the smart money on at the Trib?”

  “Meaning?”

  “Who tops the rumor list in the Kaporis story?”

  “Oh,” he said, pursing his lips and nodding. “Who done it, you mean?”

  “Let me put it another way. Is the paper trying to cover anything up?”

  “Protect who killed her? Come on, Edith, be reasonable. The brain trust wants to find the killer itself, clean up its own act, make a splash with it. We’ve been interviewing everyone who was there that night, or at least those who admit they were.”

  “And?”

  “Nothing, so far. I went over the list of people you interviewed. Obviously, you didn’t come up with any more than I did. I was disappointed about the ex-boyfriend.”

  “Disappointed?”

  “Yeah, in you, Edith. I found out through a friend at lunch.”

  “I wasn’t involved, Joe. I knew about it but—”

  “I know, I know. It’s just that—”

  “The LAPD interviewed the kid. Clean.”

  “Still. You interviewed the roommate, Pruit?”

  “Right. Icy lady.”

  “What do you know about her?”

  “The roommate? Nothing. Why?”

  He hesitated for a moment. “You should run a background on her. She might be a call girl.”

  Vargas-Swayze’s eyebrows went up. She sat back to allow their food to be placed before them. When the waiter left, she came forward and asked, “Do you know that? I mean, for a fact?”

  “No, but it’s possible. Worth checking out.” It was awkward passing along such a salacious, unsubstantiated rumor, but it was all he had at the moment.

  She started to eat, and Wilcox observed her from across the table. He’d always found her appealing, and sometimes lusted for her in a Jimmy Carter sort of way. Passive, ca
rnal thoughts but nothing more than that—the remarkable exception being that one totally unexpected, unplanned, and unlikely night in bed together. He couldn’t take credit for having seduced her, which was just as well.

  She exuded a fleshy solidness, nothing loose anywhere on her as far as he could see. Coppery skin stretched taut across wide cheekbones beneath large, oval dark brown eyes. Her mouth, of normal size at rest, blossomed into something larger and sensuous when she smiled, a set of very white teeth framed by bloodred lipstick, and rendered whiter against the duskiness of her skin. She was, he estimated, about five feet, four inches tall, with a compact body she probably didn’t have to work hard at keeping firm. One thing was certain: there were no rules at MPD against female detectives wearing jewelry. Vargas-Swayze wore lots of it, multiple gold strands dangling down over the front of her white turtleneck, large gold earrings in the shape of fish, and rings of various sizes and design on three fingers of each hand, fingernails nicely manicured and painted to match her lips.

  “I interviewed the roommate again this afternoon,” Wilcox said, biting into a chop and wishing it had been pinker.

  “She said something to indicate she might be in the life?”

  “Calls herself a freelancer, but won’t elaborate. Who did you talk to today?”

  “Aside from my partner and my boss? We interviewed some of the people from outside the Trib who’d signed in there that night.”

  “And?”

  “Some possibilities.”

  “Enough to shift emphasis from somebody at the paper?”

  “Could be. We’re running background checks on them, which we should have done the first time around.”

  “Why now?”

  “Pressure to solve this thing.”

  Wilcox smiled. “I’m under pressure, too,” he said. “Tell me more about these outside people.”

  “Off the record?” she said.

  “Absolutely.”

  “Okay. We talked to—”

  Her cell phone rang. She fished in her purse, retrieved it, opened the cover and announced, “Vargas-Swayze.”

  Wilcox watched as she muttered responses to the caller. A few seconds later, she closed the phone and said, “Got to go, Joe. A female down in Franklin Park.”

  “Not my night,” he said, pulling out his wallet.

  “Stay,” she said, standing. “Finish your chops. Sorry.”

  “Might as well tag along,” he said, also standing and waving for the waiter. “Be there in a few minutes.”

  FIVE

  While waiting for the waiter to return his credit card, Wilcox called the Trib’s night Metro editor. “Joe Wilcox, Barry. I’ve got the Franklin Park call covered.”

  “We just got it on the radio. What are you doing there?”

  “Happened to be on the scene. I’ll be back to you.”

  He signed the charge slip, got in his car, and headed for Franklin Park, or Franklin Square, depending upon which tourist map you trusted. He drove faster than he usually did, and felt his adrenaline flowing faster, too. He hadn’t raced to a crime scene in years, having learned over the years to pace himself. Five or ten minutes seldom made any difference; the bodies weren’t getting up and going anywhere.

  But this was different. Tonight was different. The pervasive blanket of self-pity and self-loathing had lifted, at least for the moment. He felt better than he had in months.

  Vargas-Swayze was directing uniformed officers at the K Street entrance to the spacious downtown park when Wilcox pulled up. A half-dozen marked police cars, their red lights flashing, were parked haphazardly along the street. Wilcox started into the park but was stopped by an officer. “He’s okay,” Vargas-Swayze said, waving him through.

  He followed a sloping footpath leading toward the park’s central fountain, passing a series of benches beneath tall trees that made it a favorite fair weather brownbag lunch spot for office workers. The cynosure was a bench not far from the fountain. On it was sprawled a woman’s body, illuminated by the dancing beams of flashlights wielded by uniformed cops. A handbag that appeared to be made of straw or some other woven material was on the ground in front of the bench.

  Wilcox attempted to get closer, displaying the press credential tethered to his neck, but was kept away by another uniform. He looked around for Vargas-Swayze, who was nowhere to be seen. As he squinted to get a better view of the body, additional uniformed police arrived, accompanied by a couple of EMTs. Save your mouth-to-mouth for someone who can benefit from it, Wilcox thought.

  A young man and woman in white lab coats with EVIDENCE TECHNICIAN emblazoned on their backs and carrying crime-scene investigation kits joined the EMTs. Wilcox knew them from dozens of other homicides he’d covered in the District. Vargas-Swayze walked into the scene and came to Wilcox.

  “Know anything yet?” Wilcox asked over the cacophony of walkie-talkie and cell phone chatter. Two cops unrolled yellow crime scene tape and began to cordon off the immediate area.

  “No.”

  “Who discovered the body?”

  “Over there.” She pointed to a middle-aged man and younger looking woman sitting on a bench a dozen yards from the victim. A uniformed officer stood guard over them, arms folded across his chest.

  Vargas-Swayze left Wilcox and went to where the crime scene investigators had begun scouring the ground surrounding the body. They were joined almost immediately by another face familiar to Wilcox, an assistant from the medical examiner’s office. Wilcox had forged a friendship of sorts with this doctor, had done him a few favors over the past years, including securing a summer intern slot at the Trib for his teenage daughter. The ME waved to Wilcox before approaching the woman’s lifeless body. He placed his hand on her neck and cheek, but withdrew it as though it had been hot to the touch. Holding a flashlight of his own, he more closely examined her face and neck. As he did, the techs began photographing the scene using digital still and video cameras.

  The ME motioned for Vargas-Swayze to accompany him to a spot outside the roped-off area. Wilcox made his way in that direction, too, but kept a respectful distance until they’d finished their conversation. “Got a minute?” he asked, looking at Vargas-Swayze for a sign that she wouldn’t prohibit him from questioning the ME. “Strictly off the record,” Wilcox added.

  “Looks like a homicide,” the ME said, moving to where Wilcox stood, “unless she decided to hang herself from the nearest tree. Of course, she wouldn’t have ended up on the bench if she had.”

  “Hang herself? That’s how she died?” Wilcox asked. “Asphyxiation?”

  “That’s my guess at this juncture,” said the ME. “The autopsy will be more specific, but judging from the fingernail marks on her throat, I’d say somebody choked her to death.”

  “How long do you figure she’s been dead?” Wilcox asked.

  “Not long. An hour maybe. We’ll know more after the autopsy. Speaking of that, I’d better get going.”

  The ME joined the EMTs as they put the lifeless body into a body bag and removed it from the park.

  “Any ID?” Wilcox asked Vargas-Swayze.

  “Yeah, but not for you, Joe.”

  “Forget the name for now,” he said. “I know the drill. I saw you talking with the cop who had her purse. Come on, Edith, give me something about her. I’ll sit on it until you give the okay.”

  “She had plenty of cash in her purse,” the detective said.

  “No robbery.”

  “Evidently. Twenty-seven years old, according to her driver’s license. She’s got a press pass.”

  “A press pass?” he said incredulously. “Who’d she work for?”

  Edith shook her head. “I’ve already said too much, Joe. Try me later.”

  She turned to leave but he grabbed her arm. “What about the couple over there who discovered her?”

  “Older guy, pretty young lady. He lives in the burbs. The way I figure it, he’s married and in town for an evening with his young honey. But I don’t kn
ow that.”

  “I want to talk to them.”

  “Be my guest, but you’re wasting your time. The guy’s panicked that his name will become public. She says he didn’t want to get involved, but she insisted they call nine-one-one. Good luck.”

  She was right. The man and woman refused to give him even their names, the man snarling, “Get the hell away from us!”

  Wilcox was on his way back to the crime scene when a voice said, “Hey, Joe.” It was a cops reporter from a rival newspaper, who’d just arrived. “What’ve you got?” he asked.

  “Not much,” Wilcox replied. “One dead female. That’s all I know.”

  “Homicide?”

  “Probably. See you later.”

  As he retraced his route up the path to K Street, Wilcox saw that two TV remote trucks, their antennas extended, had been positioned at the park’s entrance. Coming down the path was Roberta, followed by a cameraman and sound technician.

  “Hey,” Joe called to her, “fancy meeting you here.”

  “Hi, Dad. Looks like we missed the action.”

  “Yeah. It’s been buttoned up.”

  “What’s the scoop? Another murder? Must be the full moon.”

  “Apparent homicide. Female. That’s all I know, hon.” He was surprised how easily he could lie to his own daughter.

  “How come you were here?” she asked, that question suddenly crossing her mind.

  “I was in the neighborhood,” he said.

  She looked at him quizzically.

  “Look, I’ll give you a call tomorrow. Right now I’d better get back and file.”

  “Based on what?” she asked.

  “I’ll make some calls, like you will.” He kissed her cheek and was gone.

  His guilt kicked in the minute he was back in his car and on his way to the newspaper, but it didn’t last long. He was too focused on the events of the evening and his need to write about it. He evaded questions by others in the newsroom as he went to his computer terminal and began the story. When he was finished and had printed it out, he walked into the night Metro editor’s office and laid the draft on the desk in front of him.

  “This is good stuff, Joe,” Barry said after reading it. “You can’t nail down who she worked for?”