Murder at The Washington Tribune: A Capital Crimes Mystery

by Margaret Truman

  “I’d love to see them—if you wouldn’t mind.”

  “I don’t know. I—”

  “If you’d rather not.”

  “No, I guess you can see them. Excuse me.”

  Connor left the kitchen, and Wilcox moved his chair in an attempt to see the people in the adjoining room. A middle-aged couple sat in chairs to one side of the couch. The man saw Wilcox and glared at him. Wilcox averted his eyes and shifted back to his original position as Connor returned and laid a large photo album on the table. Wilcox opened it, and a large color photograph of Colleen McNamara looked up at him. She was beautiful in an obvious Irish way, fair skinned with a few strategically placed freckles on her nose and cheeks, and large, sparkling, emerald-green eyes filled with life—and love. He looked at a few more pages. The kid’s a pretty good photographer, he thought. Then again, he had a good, accessible, photogenic subject.

  “Did the police ask to see these?” Wilcox asked.

  “No. They had a picture from the station, from her personnel files. They said they’d be back to talk to me again.”

  “Did you get their names?”

  He fished two business cards from his shirt pocket and handed them to Wilcox, who recognized the detectives’ names.

  “I’d like one of these pictures, Philip.”

  “You would? Why?”

  “Let me be candid with you. We’ll be running a story about Colleen’s murder—in the Tribune—and I’d hate to have to use some inferior photograph from her personnel file. It probably wasn’t any better than pictures on driver’s licenses and passports.”

  “It wasn’t very good,” he said.

  “I’m sure it wasn’t. I think she deserves to have a better picture used, like one of these great shots you took of her. It’s only fair. It’s only right. I’m sure you agree. You obviously took these pictures with love. It shows.”

  He thought the young man would cry again, but he didn’t. “Sure, go ahead and take one,” he said.

  “I like this one,” Wilcox said, carefully removing the photo from the first page. “It’s beautiful,” he said. “She’s beautiful.”

  Wilcox stood and extended his hand. “I’d better be going,” he said. “You’ve been very generous with your time, Philip, and I don’t want to wear out my welcome. May I call you again if I have further questions?”

  “That’ll be okay. Do you have any idea when we’ll be able to have a funeral for Colleen? Her mom and sister keep asking about that.”

  “It’ll be a while, I’m afraid,” Wilcox replied. “When a death is the result of a homicide, the police need to keep the body for a period of time. Here’s my card, Philip. Call any time. I’d like to help.”

  “Thanks. I appreciate that, Mr. Wilcox.”

  “And please express my condolences to Colleen’s mother and sister and other family members. I may try and talk with them in a day or two, once the shock is past.”

  Wilcox went to his car and dropped down into the driver’s seat. While talking with Connor, he’d suffered the same mild lightheadedness and vague nausea he’d experienced when interviewing Jean Kaporis’s roommate, Mary Jane Pruit. He rested his head against the seat’s back and closed his eyes until the feeling passed, and spent the next few minutes making descriptive notes about the apartment to use in the article.

  He knew he’d taken advantage of Connor’s vulnerability. The young man was obviously a naÏf, his lack of worldliness evident. There had been instances in Wilcox’s journalistic career when he’d backed off in deference to the grieving, and had paid the price for that sensitivity by losing some of the emotionally charged aspects of those stories. But he’d operated under his own set of values, and hadn’t regretted it.

  Tabloid journalism had always been anathema to him, and he’d promised himself that if he couldn’t work for a mainstream paper, a newspaper respected for its integrity, he’d find another line of work. He’d held true to that pledge. The problem was, he felt, journalism had violated his principles.

  He’d seen it happen at the Tribune. As circulation dropped off, along with advertising revenues, standards had slipped, too. The almighty bottom line became increasingly powerful; the choice of stories, and the way they were treated, mirrored what had become an almost insatiable drive to return profits to the paper’s shareholders. Yes, The Washington Tribune had retained respectability through its coverage of national and world events, particularly politics. The Trib, along with The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, Cleveland Plain Dealer, his former employer, the Detroit Free Press, and others, had managed to avoid all but a trace of overt capitulation to base public tastes, which seemed to prefer daily doses of dirt from the celebrity murder trial du jour, the sexual escapades of elected officials, and titillating tales of show-business debauchery.

  But his level of disdain for tabloid journalism had slowly but surely begun to evaporate—or wasn’t there to begin with—along with Underwood typewriters, green eyeshades, and gruff, hard-nosed reporters yelling, “Copy boy!” and “Stop the presses!” New blood at the Trib, like the bumptious Hawthorne, carried with them their shallow, one-dimensional view of the world. He knew how they viewed him—an anachronism, a square, over-the-hill hack who’d lost touch with their sadly depleted, morally bankrupt world. Were he writing editorials for the paper, he would write about that reality as he saw it.

  He became tense, physically angry, as such thoughts came and went: He’d forgotten more about reporting than they’d ever know.

  The ringing of his cell phone startled him.

  “Hello?”

  “Dad, it’s Roberta.”

  “Oh, hi. I—”

  “Where are you?”

  “I just came from—I’m in the car.”

  “I’d thought I’d check in with my best source.”

  Wilcox forced a laugh. “That’s a switch,” he said. “I always figure you’ve got the ins these days.”

  “I wish. What do you have on the Franklin Park murder, the McNamara woman?”

  “You got her name.”

  “Next of kin has been notified. I’m doing a piece on the six o’clock news tonight.”

  The immediacy of TV, he thought. She’d have the name out before his article would run. But she didn’t have the serial killer slant.

  “What’ve you gotten from MPD besides her name?”

  “Hey, I was the one looking for leads.”

  “Wish I could be more helpful, sweetheart. I, ah—I interviewed the victim’s fiancé.”

  “Damn!” she said. “I called the house but he stiffed me. How did you get him to sit?”

  “It wasn’t easy. He didn’t have much to offer. Nice kid. Broken up, of course.”

  “Connor. Philip Connor.”

  “Right. That’s his name.”

  “Dad?”

  “Yeah?”

  “You wouldn’t hold out on me, would you? You wouldn’t stonewall your own hardworking daughter?”

  “Of course not. Why would you even ask such a question?”

  “Because I get a feeling you’re onto something with this homicide. Is it linked in some way to the murder at the Trib?”

  He didn’t reply.

  “Dad?”

  “You can’t prove it by me,” he said. “They were in the same business, sort of: media. Which reminds me, young lady, you work in it, too. You be careful. There might be some nut out there carrying a hatred of media types.”

  “Don’t worry about me. I talked to mom. How about getting together for dinner at the house? I told her I needed an injection of her fried chicken. Besides, there’s someone I’d like you to meet.”

  “Oh? Who’s that?”

  “A fellow I’ve been seeing. You’ll like him. He’s a lot like you.”

  “Really? Is that good?”

  “You know it is. I’ll let you guys know a good night for me.”

  “Looking forward to it, Robbie. Got to run.�
� He pursed his lips and sent her a kiss, ending the call.

  EIGHT

  MPD detectives Edith Vargas-Swayze and Wade Dungey spent most of the day conducting follow-up interviews with people personally involved with Jean Kaporis. Like others questioned for a second time, Mary Jane Pruit offered nothing beyond her original answers. But because Wilcox had raised the possibility at dinner with Vargas-Swayze that Pruit might be involved in prostitution, the detective did what she hadn’t done the first time around, probed into how the dead girl made a living.

  “I’m a freelancer,” May Jane replied to the question of how she made a living.

  “A freelance what?” Dungey asked.

  “I don’t think I have to answer questions like that,” Mary Jane said, lighting a cigarette. “What does that have to do with Jean’s murder?”

  “You mind not smoking?” Dungey said, waving his hand in front of his face.

  “It’s my apartment,” Pruit said.

  “That’s true,” Dungey said, “but I’m allergic to smoke.” He stared at her until she snuffed out the cigarette.

  “Maybe what you do for a living has nothing to do with Jean’s murder,” Vargas-Swayze said, “but we’ll be the judge of that. Now, what kind of freelance work do you do, Ms. Pruit?”

  A huffy sigh preceded, “I work for an escort service.”

  “Which one?”

  “It’s not what you think. It doesn’t involve sex. There are wealthy men who come in from out of town and like to have an attractive, intelligent woman on their arm.”

  “Yeah, yeah, we know how it works,” Dungey said. “What’s the name of the service you work for?” In contrast to his partner, who sat ramrod straight in a chair, the gangling Dungey enveloped his, arms and legs draped around the chair like a skinny octopus.

  “I think I want a lawyer,” Mary Jane said.

  “Why?” Vargas-Swayze said. “If your escort duties don’t involve sex, there’s nothing you’ve done that’s illegal. Which agency?”

  “Starlight,” she said in a barely audible voice.

  Vargas-Swayze noted it in her pad. She asked without looking up, “Did Ms. Kaporis know what you do for a living?”

  “Sure she did.”

  “Did she approve?”

  Mary Jane guffawed and lit up, caught Dungey’s harsh look, and put it out. “Why should she approve or disapprove? Like I said, it doesn’t involve sex or anything else illegal.”

  “Did Jean ever express an interest in working for the Starlight agency, maybe part time?”

  “No, but she would have made more money than at the newspaper.”

  Or as a cop, Dungey thought.

  “Did you suggest she make some extra money by working as an escort?” Vargas-Swayze asked.

  “We talked about it.”

  “You tried to recruit her?” Dungey asked.

  “No,” she said emphatically. “I don’t recruit people. I told her that she could make good money, that’s all. She said she wasn’t interested.”

  “Never even gave it a try?” Dungey said, his tone incredulous.

  “Never.”

  “We’ll check with the agency,” Dungey said.

  Vargas-Swayze picked up the questioning again, asking about boyfriends about whom Kaporis might have confided in her roommate. And again, Mary Jane’s reply did no more than hint at a mention of someone at the Trib having had some sort of fling with Kaporis. They asked a few more questions before announcing they were leaving. When they reached the door, Dungey turned. “You go to college?”

  The expression on her face indicated surprise. “Yes,” she said.

  “You graduate?” Dungey asked.

  “Yes, I did.”

  “What kind of degree?”

  “What is this?” she asked.

  “Just curious,” he said.

  “If it’s any of your business, I have a degree in education.”

  “That’s nice,” Dungey said. “You should get yourself a teaching job and get out of the escort biz. The next time we see you, it’s liable to be on a slab down at the morgue, either because one of your fat-cat johns didn’t like the service you gave him, or because of those coffin nails you suck on.”

  When they were in their car, Vargas-Swayze asked Dungey, “Why did you get into her education?”

  “Because broads like that bug me. Here she is a teacher and all, and she ends up selling her bod to a bunch of sleazy rich guys, probably Arab potentates and fat politicians, all for a buck. She’s a great-looking chick, but she’s dumb. I hate dumb women.”

  “I didn’t realize that,” Vargas-Swayze said, smiling.

  “Well, now you do.”

  She didn’t intrude on his unexpected mood all the way back to headquarters where they were scheduled to meet with other detectives and their boss, Bernie Evans. Dungey was not usually forthcoming about his personal thoughts and feelings, as though to reveal such things might render him vulnerable. She knew little about how he spent his off-duty hours except that he was a bachelor who, as far as she knew, dated occasionally when he wasn’t playing basketball in amateur leagues around the city. Basketball seemed his consuming passion, and she’d been told he was a good player. But even that aspect of his life was mentioned to her only in passing, usually when asked by a male detective how a game had turned out the night before. Okay, she thought, he doesn’t like dumb women. She didn’t like dumb anybody, male or female. There was obviously more to learn about her spindly partner.

  Roberta Wilcox sat in an editing room with the producer of the six o’clock news and the male anchor. They were editing a piece about the recent increase in murders in the District, leading with the most recent killing of Colleen McNamara in Franklin Park.

  “It’s weak,” the anchor said as the partially edited report played on a large computer screen. “Murder isn’t news in D.C.”

  “I agree,” Roberta said, leaning closer to the screen to better see a piece of video tape.

  “Roberta says it might be a serial killer,” said the producer.

  “No I didn’t,” Roberta responded, swiveling in her chair and facing the anchor. “All I did was speculate whether it could be. Jean Kaporis at the Trib, and this latest victim, both worked in media. Both good-looking. Both strangled.”

  The anchor’s laugh was dismissive and degrading. “Come on, Roberta,” he said, “that’s ridiculous. Kaporis was killed by somebody at the Trib, pure and simple.”

  “Oh? Maybe the person at the Trib is a serial killer,” Roberta said. She was tempted to repeat what her father had said, but didn’t. But she had called MPD’s public information officer earlier that afternoon to raise the possibility.

  “Jesus,” the IO had replied, “we don’t need the press creating a soap opera, Roberta. The Kaporis and McNamara murders are two separate cases, with two separate assailants. Please, don’t start a rumor like this.”

  “I’m not intending to,” she’d said. “Just thought I’d ask whether you people are considering the possibility.”

  “Well, we’re not.”

  “Gotcha.”

  “I raised the question with the IO over at headquarters,” she told the anchor. “He responded the way you have.”

  “Of course . . .” the producer said.

  “Of course what?” the anchor asked.

  “Maybe we could raise the possibility. Maybe we could—”

  “Not on my newscast,” he said in his familiar stentorian voice. “Let’s not sink to speculation. I have to get to makeup. Ciao!”

  With the anchor out of the room, Roberta told her producer about what her father had hinted at.

  “Your dad thinks it could be the same killer?”

  “He didn’t say that, but it’s obviously on his mind.”

  “Your father’s one of the best crime reporters in the city. If he thinks it’s a possibility, I—”

  “He’s just blue-skying,” Roberta said, returning her attention to the editing screen. “He does it
all the time. Let’s get this piece finished. I’m tired of looking at it.”

  Bernie Evans sat in the First District’s squad room with eight detectives from the Violent Crimes Unit, all of whom reported to him. Four others were missing: two had called in sick; the remaining pair were in the field working the initial investigation of a domestic homicide that had occurred only hours earlier when a woman, who walked in on her husband in bed with a neighbor, knifed the neighbor to death.

  “She should have done the husband,” a detective said after Evans had explained the absence of the two detectives.

  “He’d better keep his jock strap on,” said another. “Right, Edith?”

  She ignored him and suggested to her boss that they get on with the meeting.

  Evans had initiated these regular get-togethers in an attempt to ensure an exchange of information. The intelligence debacle that had consumed Washington since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks wasn’t lost on him, and he was determined that a failure to share information among his detectives wouldn’t happen on his watch. While it was rare that findings from one homicide investigation proved useful in another, there had been times when it had.

  “Okay, what do we have?” Evans asked the detective seated to his right.

  “Not much at this stage,” he said, consulting a pad. “Deceased was McNamara, Colleen, white female, age twenty-six, employed as a TV producer. Death occurred in Franklin Park, approximate time of death between eight and nine P.M. Manner of death strangulation, although not firm yet. Crime scene search revealed nothing so far, except for footprints in dirt surrounding the bench on which she was found. Prints might be the assailant, but maybe not. That’s about it, Bernie.”

  “Edith?”

  Vargas-Swayze, one of two female detectives in the room, flipped open her notebook and gave a rundown on the interviews they’d done that day, including the admission by Mary Jane Pruit that she worked as a paid escort.

  “What’s she look like?” a male detective asked.