“No,” she said as she got out. She looked back and said, “I hope you reach that point when you can think more clearly quickly, Robert. Thank you for dinner.”
He watched her walk into the building and realized that another layer of sadness had been added to what he already felt.
CHAPTER
18
No matter what happened in Robert Brixton’s life, good or bad, he seldom had trouble sleeping. But this night was an exception.
He poured himself a tumbler of single-malt Scotch over ice, sat on his small balcony, and watched people passing below, couples holding hands, a drunk stumbling home, a boisterous crew of teenagers trying to out-macho each other. He could see into an apartment across the street where an attractive woman passed her window a number of times. She was dressed in pink shortie pajamas, and Brixton mentally created a life for her—single, perhaps divorced, works in some vast government bureaucracy, wishes she were out on a date. The play he was mentally writing ended when she closed her blinds.
He wanted a cigarette; he’d quit smoking just before leaving Savannah, but the urge was always there. He went to the kitchen, poured himself another Scotch, and returned to the balcony, where he sat staring into the night until the glass was empty and it was time to go to bed.
He’d fought against feeling lonely since breaking up with Flo, but he acknowledged it this night, another departure from the basic Robert Brixton. He didn’t believe in loneliness. You were lonely only when you were incapable of enjoying your own company. As much as he liked being with people—certain people—he was quite comfortable being with himself. Did the emptiness he felt at that moment mean he was aging and growing soft? He refused to answer the question. After tossing and turning for an hour, he put on the TV and watched the second half of a bad movie until sleep finally came, and when he awoke the following morning, he felt as though he hadn’t slept at all.
He skipped breakfast except for coffee, and after checking that no reporter was lurking outside, he retrieved that morning’s paper and read it on the balcony.
The murder of the French embassy employee, Georges Quarle, had generated an article. What was of particular interest to Brixton was that the reporter made mention of the other embassy killings and quoted a spokesman from the State Department: “The recent murders of foreign embassy staff members here in Washington are, as you can imagine, of concern. Whether it represents a pattern or is a series of unrelated incidents is under serious discussion at the State Department, as well as with Washington law enforcement.”
Brixton mentally prepared for the day. He would go to the funeral home at two. Following that, he was set to have dinner with Charlie McQuaid at his home, where McQuaid would hopefully provide useful information about the cult leader and alleged illegal arms dealer Samuel Prisler. But first, he intended to follow up on the lead Mike Kogan had given him, the man whose car Paul Skaggs had been driving prior to the café bombing.
After doing a series of exercises, he showered, dressed, and called Will Sayers at the editor’s office.
“What’s up, pal?” Sayers asked.
“I met with Charlie McQuaid last night,” Brixton said.
“You call him Charlie? Sounds like you’ve become bosom buddies.”
“That’s what he likes to be called. He’s a nice guy. I’m having dinner at his house tonight.”
“Did he have anything to offer about Prisler?”
“Plenty. He says he’ll tell me more tonight. Mike Kogan at SITQUAL gave me some info about Paul Skaggs’s movements before the bombing.”
“Anything to link him to the bomber?”
“Nothing specific, but I want to follow up. He told me that Skaggs was driving a car around D.C. that belongs to a guy named Zafar Alvi. Ring a bell?”
“No. Who is he?”
“That’s what I want to find out. I figured his name might have surfaced with you.”
“Sorry.”
“I also want to see if I can talk to Lalo Reyes again. Have you come up with anything new about him and Congressman Wisher?”
“No, but working on it. Maybe when you talk to him you can ask about it.”
“I’d rather not complicate things. What intrigues me is that he lived in Hawaii for a spell.”
“Lots of people live in Hawaii.”
“Not with Samuel Prisler.”
“He lived with Prisler?”
“That’s what I intend to find out.”
“What else have you come up with, Robert?”
“That’s about it. I had dinner last night with Ms. Banai, the gal who was at the Smiths.”
“Oh, ho,” Sayers said.
“Nothing like that. She’s a nice lady. Just a friendly dinner.”
“Sure.” Sayers was happy to hear that his old friend was socializing. With what he’d been through—and what was on the horizon—he needed whatever distractions he could find.
“Janet’s wake starts today.”
“I’ll be there.”
“You don’t have to, Will.”
“I know that. What do you make of the recent embassy killings?”
“I don’t make anything of them.”
“I thought you worked for the State Department.”
“Past tense. I have to run.”
“Don’t forget you owe me an interview.”
“After the funeral. Catch up with you later.”
Brixton decided to go to the Spanish embassy and see if he could entice Eduardo “Lalo” Reyes to give him some time. The young Spaniard had been skittish when he and Donna Salvos had interviewed him at the restaurant, and he had made a point that he did not want to be questioned at the embassy. It was a long shot but worth the effort.
The six-story embassy, its bottom half a dismal gray, its top floors blue, was located on a corner in the city’s West End neighborhood, an extension of Embassy Row. Brixton’s genes kicked in, and he found a parking spot on the street close to the entrance. He’d decided that he’d have to establish some sort of official reason for being there. They’d taken his SITQUAL-provided weapon, but he still had his ID card. Using it, considering his circumstances at the agency, wasn’t proper, but neither was the blowing up of his daughter.
He flashed his ID and asked the guard stationed inside the entrance for Mr. Reyes in the public-information section. The guard, an attractive, chunky female who looked as though the uniform was painted on her, asked him to wait while she called that division. A moment later she reported that Mr. Reyes was no longer with the embassy.
“That can’t be,” Brixton said. “Let me speak to his supervisor.”
Her sigh demonstrated that she wasn’t pleased with being challenged, but did as he’d requested. He was told to go to an upper floor and ask for Señor Marquez.
Marquez was waiting at the elevator when Brixton stepped off. Brixton showed him his SITQUAL card and shook his hand.
“You are with Security?” he asked Brixton.
“Yes. I had interviewed Mr. Reyes following the murder of someone from the German embassy, Peter Müller.”
“I know nothing about that,” Marquez said.
“That’s not what I’m here about,” Brixton said. “The guard downstairs said that Mr. Reyes no longer works at your embassy.”
“That is correct.”
“He worked here a few days ago.”
“Yes.”
“Don’t people usually give a couple of weeks notice before they leave a job?”
“That is customary,” Marquez said.
“But he didn’t?”
“I don’t wish to discuss his departure, Mr. Brixton. It is a matter of employee privacy.”
“Privacy, hell,” Brixton snapped. “We’re talking about murder here.”
“You said that was not why you are here.”
“Look, I need to talk to him. Where did he go, back home to Barcelona?”
“Again, sir, that is not information that I wish to—”
“Wher
e does he live here in D.C.?”
“I suggest that you contact our counsel for such information.”
“I’ll do that.”
Brixton felt the Spaniard’s eyes follow him as he stepped into the elevator and rode it down to the lobby. Once outside the building, he called Donna Salvos’s cell.
“What’s up?” she said.
“You got Eduardo Reyes’s home address before we interviewed him.”
“I have it.”
“What is it?”
“Why do you want it?”
“I need to follow up on something.”
“This isn’t kosher, but hold on.” She found the address and gave it to him.
Reyes lived in the Dupont Circle neighborhood, popular with the gay community—and with many others too. Brixton located the apartment building, parked, and checked the listings of residents in the lobby. Reyes’s name was next to the buzzer for apartment number 2D. He rang. No one replied. He tried again. Still no response. A woman carrying an empty shopping bag came through the door.
“Excuse me,” Brixton said, “I’m looking for Mr. Reyes in Two D.”
The woman shrugged.
“You don’t know him?”
“No, I never heard of him.” She walked away.
Brixton pondered his next move. He could locate the building super and use his ID to convince him to open Reyes’s apartment. He could use his knowledge of how to break into an apartment, a skill he’d used more than once when he was a cop and private detective. Leave a note for Reyes? No sense in tipping him off. He ruled out all three approaches after checking his watch. He didn’t want to be late to Janet’s wake, which started at two. He decided to head for Rockville, grab some lunch on the way, attend the wake, and come back to Reyes’s apartment later in the day.
As Brixton parked in the lot for the funeral home and walked to the door, his daughter’s stepfather, Miles Lashka, all smiles and dressed in a blue suit that might as well have had a price tag on it, greeted arrivals as though welcoming them to a family celebratory dinner.
“Glad you could make it,” he said to Brixton and extended his hand, which Brixton ignored.
“Why wouldn’t I be here?” Brixton asked, working hard to tamp down his annoyance.
“I just thought that with the pressure you’re under you might…”
Brixton shook his head and walked past him into the lobby, where a few familiar faces milled about, friends from when he and Marylee were married and who’d stayed in touch with her. He didn’t recognize most people. From inside the chapel the sounds of musicians tuning up reached him, and he grimaced. A knot of younger men and women, undoubtedly Janet’s friends from her music world, chatted; one laughed at something another said, which pleased Brixton. He’d always preferred wakes where the gathered found something to smile, even laugh about when remembering the deceased. He gave a short snort, realizing that what irked him about Lashka pleased him in the young people.
Will Sayers came through the door. “Hi, pal,” he said, slapping Brixton on the shoulder.
“Glad you came,” Brixton said.
Sayers started to say something but instead muttered a “See you later” as Marylee came up to Brixton. “We’ll be sitting together when the priest talks,” she said. “He said he would keep it short.”
“That’s good. Is your husband still planning to speak?”
“Not here. At the church.” She leaned closer to him. “There are people I don’t recognize,” she said. “I think they’re from the press.”
“I wouldn’t know,” Brixton said.
“I hope they don’t make a scene,” she said.
“Why should they? They just want to cover the story. If they ask to interview you, just refuse, walk away.”
Marylee left him to rejoin others, including their older daughter, Jill, who held Brixton’s grandson in her arms. Brixton went to them. Jill handed him the boy. He laughed as he bounced him up and down and blew against his soft cheek.
“I didn’t know whether to bring him,” Jill said.
“No harm,” Brixton said, giving him a kiss and handing him back. “He doesn’t understand what’s happened.
Jill sighed. “Neither do I.”
He looped his arm around his daughter’s shoulder and gave her a squeeze. “I know, sweetheart.”
An employee of the facility came from the chapel and asked everyone to follow him inside. The musicians, three of them, had set up in a corner of the space and prepared to play. The chapel filled up fast. Soon there were more than a hundred people standing around, including a couple of SITQUAL agents, who expressed condolences to their colleague and to Marylee. A succession of men and women paid homage to Janet by going to the closed casket. Some wept or blessed themselves with the sign of the cross or just knelt on the padded riser and slowly shook their heads. Others went to Marylee and said what people usually say in such situations, causing her to cry, to compose herself, and cry again as the next person whispered words of sorrow or sympathy.
Brixton stayed back from the crowd. He was aware that few of the gathered knew who he was; it had been that long since he and Marylee were a couple. He took note of a group of six people, four men and two women, who stayed together. None of them approached the casket or Marylee, and Brixton sized them up to be reporters. He turned his attention to two men in suits who stood by themselves at the rear of the chapel. Were they there to pay their respects to Janet? Brixton was certain that they weren’t. He’d had a reputation while on the Savannah PD and as a private detective as someone with a keen sense of people, an ability to look beyond what seemed obvious in order to paint a more accurate picture of them, their true motives, and their agendas, not what they claimed. Government types, he decided. No doubt about it.
Brixton sat with Marylee, Jill, his grandson, and Miles Lashka as Father Monroe stepped to a lectern and spoke briefly about the reason they were there and the greater meaning of Janet Brixton’s too-short life. He was mercifully brief; his longer sermon would be saved for church the following day. When he concluded his comments, Lashka, contrary to what Marylee had said, took the priest’s place and mentioned the three musicians who would play a few tunes in Janet’s memory, including a song she’d written about the fragility of life. Apropos, Brixton thought.
He might have stayed if the music came from a jazz trio playing music by Ellington, Brubeck, or Miles Davis, but the opening bars of what the young musicians played were grating to his ears. He’d considered staying, out of respect for his deceased daughter, but decided that she would understand if she were alive. Brixton leaned close to Marylee. “I’ll be back tomorrow,” he said. “Call me if you need anything.” He kissed Jill and his grandson and left.
He told Sayers that he was leaving and thanked him again for coming, walked from the chapel, through the lobby, and stepped into the fresh outdoor air, where he had a powerful urge to smoke. As he approached his car, he was aware that there were people behind him. Sure enough, three of the group that he’d pegged as media summoned him.
“Yeah?” he asked.
They began firing questions at him about the killing of Paul Skaggs. Brixton stood stoically, his head cocked, his lips pressed together to mask his anger. When there was a momentary break, he said calmly, “My daughter’s body is in there in a closed casket. She was killed by a suicide bomber who was accompanied by Paul Skaggs, Congressman Skaggs’s son. I shot him because it looked to me like he was pointing a gun at me. If you want a real story, go out and use your contacts to find out why a congressman’s son would take part in a suicide bombing. If you come up with the answer, let me know. My name and number’s in the book. Failing that, leave me and my family alone.”
A few additional questions trailed behind him as he went to his car and opened the car door. He looked up and noticed that the two men he’d assumed were government types stood next to another car two spaces removed. Brixton had one foot in the car, withdrew it, and shut the door.
&n
bsp; “Nice day for a funeral,” he said, approaching them.
The men didn’t respond.
“You friends of the deceased, of the family?”
Their response was to look at each other, climb in their car, and drive away.
Brixton now knew that he’d been right about them. The questions were Who did they work for? and Why were they there?
He returned to his own car, started the engine, and pulled from the lot. He’d been successful in sizing up the reporters and the two men in suits inside the chapel, but he’d missed another person who didn’t look like he belonged at Janet’s funeral—or any other funeral, for that matter. He wore a tan bush jacket over a crimson T-shirt, jeans, and brown desert boots. His tanned face was pockmarked; a small white mustache defined his upper lip. He’d pulled into the parking lot after following Brixton from the District, remained in his car until Brixton had emerged from the funeral home, and fell in behind as Brixton drove back to the District to take another swipe at finding Eduardo “Lalo” Reyes before heading for dinner with Charlie McQuaid.
CHAPTER
19
Brixton’s second visit to Lalo Reyes’s apartment was as unproductive as the first had been. No one answered the bell. Did Reyes’s name on the list of tenants in the lobby mean that he was still in town? If so, how long would it be before he decided to head back home to Barcelona, or to some other place? Brixton decided that he’d come back again following his dinner with McQuaid.
After stopping by his apartment to check on messages, he headed for the southwest quadrant of the city and McQuaid’s home. What he was confronted with as he pulled up in front of the house was both puzzling and upsetting. A marked police cruiser, its lights flashing, was parked in the short driveway, an ambulance directly behind it. Brixton approached a uniformed officer standing next to the patrol car.
“Robert Brixton, State Department,” Brixton said, flashing his ID.
The cop didn’t bother looking at it.
“What’s going on?” Brixton asked.
“An accident,” the officer said.
“Accident? Who?”
Margaret Truman's Undiplomatic Murder Page 16