Darkness Descending: A Mimi Patterson/Gianna Maglione Mystery (The Mimi Patterson/Gianna Maglione Mysteries)

by Penny Mickelbury

  What the hell was he saying! “Ray, you’ve just proved my point.” Gianna stood directly in front of him, forcing him to look at her, forcing him to climb down off the bully pulpit and return to the hard chair in the interrogation room. “What you’ve just said, Ray, proves what I said about Mike not being quite up to speed. He might have killed the wrong woman, Ray. The mother is fine, Ray. Reverend Doctor Christine Hilliard is at this moment in a suite at the Radisson Dupont Circle. Felicia is who Mike kidnapped—his ex-wife, Natasha’s sister. He killed Natasha like you told him to, but not the mother, Ray. He messed up, and now he’s messed it up for you, too. Reverend Dr. Hilliard will be sermonizing about you for years.”

  Anger replaced fervor in Washington’s face. “He is an obedient servant of God. He would not transgress as you suggest.”

  “He got the reporter, Ray. You know, the one writing all those stories about homosexuals and about Natasha? He went to the paper to tell her to stop, but of course she won’t. People like her don’t take orders from people like Mike Nelson. Or you.”

  “It is the word of God that should be read daily, not that trash.”

  “But what about the other thing, Ray? What do you want Michael to do about the other thing? He’s got the sister, not the mother. The mother will be in her pulpit Sunday morning preaching the Gospel, just like always.”

  “Harlot! Whore! No woman can preach the word of God. The Imam knows.” Washington brought his palms together, then raised them, looked up, and said something nobody could understand. Then he dropped to his knees, leaned forward and touched his head to the floor.

  Gianna rushed to the door and opened it. Shirley McManus was standing there. “A warrant for the Imam,” Shirley said without Gianna having to utter a word, then rushed away, not waiting to hear the answer. Gianna turned back to Washington and waited for him to finish praying.

  “I was wrong about you, Ray,” she said when he stood up. “Or should I call you Imam? You’ve been studying Islam, I see.”

  “The one true religion.”

  “Maybe Mike told the real Imam where Felicia is, maybe he didn’t think you’d understand enough of what he was feeling. After all, Felicia and Natasha were very close. Maybe he thought that Natasha had perverted Felicia, his wife.”

  Ray Washington smiled. Then he nodded. “We work together, the old religion and the oldest religion. The God of Abraham and the God of Mohammed.”

  “Maybe you don’t know this, Ray, but Christianity is older than Islam. You should’ve studied more, I guess.”

  He looked at Gianna as if seeing her for the first time. The look turned to a hate-filled glare. She held his gaze, again able to outwait him. The effort seemed to cost him. He deflated like a balloon. Then he sat down hard and inhaled deeply. “She is where whores go. You know where that is, I’m sure, for all women are whores.”

  “If that’s the case, then I need to be where Felicia is. Tell me where to go, Ray, and I’ll go there. I’ll go be with Felicia.”

  “The back room,” Ray said. “Whores belong in the back room.”

  When Gianna rushed out of the interrogation room, Bobby and Kenny were already half way up the stairs. She heard Eric yelling instructions to the others. Shirley McManus was yelling orders at her people. They already had search warrants for the Pink Panther. All they needed now was to find Felicia Hilliard alive.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  FELICIA HILLIARD FOUND ALIVE

  IN MIDTOWN NIGHTCLUB

  By R.J. Jones

  Staff Writer

  Felicia Hilliard, a 26-year old

  Philadelphia resident believed

  kidnapped last Friday by murder

  suspect Michael Howard Nelson,

  was found alive last night in a secret

  back room of the Pink Panther

  nightclub, the scene of another

  recent violent crime. Even though the

  Federal Bureau of Investigation had

  assumed authority over the case, it

  was the D.C. Police Department’s

  Hate Crimes Unit investigators who

  discovered the victim handcuffed to

  a bed in a locked room at the rear

  of the downtown nightclub, which

  is located on Harley Street.

  “We got lucky,” said Police Chief

  Benjamin Jefferson. “Our officers were

  executing a search warrant at that

  location in connection with another

  crime and happened upon Miss

  Hilliard.” Chief Jefferson dismissed

  as “preposterous” charges that his

  officers interfered with a Federal

  investigation.

  “Besides, I’m sure Miss Hilliard

  and her family don’t care who

  broke down the door and freed her.”

  Felicia Hilliard is the sister of

  Natasha Hilliard, the American

  University history professor who was

  murdered September 19th after

  leaving a nightclub on Lander

  Street. The suspect in that case is

  Michael Nelson, who happens to

  be Felicia Hilliard’s ex-husband.

  One theory police are pursuing is

  that Nelson, a graduate student at

  Howard University, blamed Natasha

  Hilliard for the break-up of his

  marriage. Natasha was a lesbian and

  Nelson is a convert to Islam.

  Nelson also is charged with assault

  and battery, among other things, for

  his attack on M. Montgomery

  Patterson, a reporter at this newspaper,

  who is recuperating from emergency

  surgery to repair injuries sustained

  during Nelson’s attack.

  Gianna folded the paper and poured herself another cup of coffee. She’d read enough. Besides, it wasn’t the same reading Mimi’s story written by another reporter. Yes, the facts were there, and correct as far as they went, but she could see, could feel, the gaps in the reporter’s knowledge. It wasn’t R.J.’s fault, whoever he or she was. Just as it was difficult for Gianna’s team to play catch-up on a case other cops had worked, it was difficult for a reporter to step into a story, especially one as devilishly murky as the Hilliard/Nelson/Brown/ Pink Panther/Snatch story. She did think it was a nice touch, however, for R.J. to quote the chief as having said “preposterous” to the FBI claim that D.C. cops poached their case. What the chief had said, loudly and clearly, was “bullshit,” followed by the suggestion that the FBI couldn’t find flowers in spring. There’d never been any love lost between D.C.’s finest and the myriad Federal forces that exercised authority over the various outposts and agencies of the U.S. Government, but things had worsened after the 2001 terrorist attacks. Federal officials behaved as if D.C. was their personal turf, under their control, and the people who lived in and were responsible for the city, didn’t like it. The District of Columbia was not just the nation’s capital, it was home to half a million people.

  She looked at the clock when the phone rang and willed it not to be anything to do with the case. She’d given her team the morning off and she herself was taking her time about getting downtown. Still, she was showered and dressed and if it was absolutely necessary, she could head into work.

  “Come get me right now!”

  “You’re obviously feeling better,” she said to Mimi.

  “I feel like shit! Did you see that crappy story?”

  Gianna was glad Mimi couldn’t see the grin on her face. “I thought it was a very good story. Not as good as if you’d written it, of course, but still a very good story.”

  “Come get me out of here or I’ll take a taxi home. I swear I will.”

  “What’s the rush? You’re supposed to spend the next two days recuperating.”

  “Fat chance!”

  “I’m not saying don’t run the story, Mimi,”
the Chief growled, “I’m just asking that you hold it for a few weeks, give me time to identify all the rotten apples. Once I’ve got ‘em all lined up in a row, you can start picking ‘em off.”

  Mimi shook her head. “I’ve got to do my job, Chief, you know that. I can’t hold a story this important.”

  “It’s because it is so important that I’m asking you. You know I’m no censor, no subverter of the Freedom of the Press Amendment.”

  The chief was up on his toes, pacing up and down his office. Mimi had faxed him a copy of the story she’d written detailing Inspector Frank O’Connell’s long term relationship with Edgar Burgess, and detailing Burgess’s management of a clandestine organization that funded, endorsed, and instigated acts of violence against Blacks and other racial minorities, homosexuals, and women. The story identified by name half a dozen D.C. police officers who either belonged to Burgess’s church or worked for O’Connell and participated in illegal acts against homosexuals, hiding behind the protection of a badge, and implied that there were other officers involved. The chief wanted to find those other officers before Mimi’s story ran.

  “You’ll drive ‘em under and we’ll never find ‘em,” he said, and she didn’t doubt that. She just doubted that it was her problem.

  “Tell you what, Chief. Call my boss. Tell him what I’ve got and tell him what you want. I’ll abide by whatever the decision is.” The big bosses were vetting this story now, though Carolyn still was the editor of record, the editor to whom Mimi had turned in her story. But Carolyn couldn’t refuse or agree to hold a story. That was a decision for the top editor, one Mimi wasn’t going to ask him to make. If the chief wanted the story held, he’d have to ask for that.

  He stopped pacing and looked down at her. It was still too painful for her to turn her torso so she didn’t try to look up at him. Besides, she knew what he looked like when he was mad, and she knew he was mad. He wanted her to agree to his terms, not have her boss order her to. “That’s a cop out,” he said.

  “No, it’s not, Chief, it’s me bending my own rules to find a way to give in to you. Don’t you see that?”

  He saw it. He didn’t like it but he saw it. They both were pretty certain that the editors would tell Mimi to hold her story for a couple of weeks, given the guarantee that the story wouldn’t leak to another news organization. All the top brass were involved, and Mimi had to be extra vigilant to prevent them from closing Carolyn out all together. Mimi still would get her story and the chief still would gather up the bad apples in his department and try his best to hang felony charges on all of them. That’s after he fired them and took their pensions. He nodded as his phone buzzed. He crossed to the door and opened it. Gianna stepped in, controlled a look of surprise at seeing Mimi sitting there, and kept her eyes on the chief.

  “Sit down, Maglione, make yourself comfortable.”

  She sat next to Mimi in the other wing chair opposite the chief’s massive desk but didn’t know what to say to her, didn’t know what was going on between her and the chief.

  Mimi told her.

  “Sounds reasonable,” Gianna said.

  “Cops,” Mimi snorted derisively.

  “You know what the story says?” the chief asked, and Gianna shook her head. He didn’t believe her. “You really don’t know what she’s got?” He grabbed the copy from his desk and tossed it into her lap. “Read this and weep.”

  Gianna read and almost did weep. It was worse than she thought. Roger Holcomb and Thomas Murphy and Farrell and O’Connell and McGillicuddy weren’t even the half of it, nor were ministers Bailey and Washington. Disgust rose up in her like bile when she read about Burgess and his long-term connection to the Department. She gave the papers back to the chief and looked over at Mimi. “That’s incredible stuff.”

  “You two really don’t swap stories?” The chief looked from one to the other of them, his expression both skeptical and incredulous. “You take principles and ethics to new levels.”

  When Mimi had arrived home from the hospital she’d asked Gianna whether she’d read the files in the computers.

  “But that’s why I gave you the pass codes,” Mimi said, when Gianna told her that she hadn’t accessed her files. “I knew I had information that could help you.”

  “Your information is your information,” Gianna had said. “Besides,” she’d added, “I have to be able to go to court on my information, and I’m not sure I’d be able to do that on yours. Where do you get this stuff?” Then, when it looked as if Mimi were going to answer, she raised her hand to stop her. “Never mind. I don’t want to know.”

  Now she told the chief what she’d told Mimi about being able to testify in court about her investigations and he actually blanched.

  “Mimi, go home. I’ll call your editor and yell and complain and jump up and down about yellow journalism. He’ll agree to hold the story for a couple of weeks, which is all the time I need,” he turned to Gianna, “to collect court-worthy dirt on these low-life bastards.”

  Mimi struggled to heave herself up from the chair. Gianna jumped up to help her. Because of the pain, she no longer carried her purse or rucksack. She also didn’t need them, since she was spending no more than two or three hours a day at the paper, and that in meetings with editors. She’d done all the writing at home. She had money and a cell phone in her pocket. She’d take a taxi to the paper, meet with the editors, and, like the chief said, go home.

  He walked her to the door. “This is damn good stuff, Mimi. The department owes you a debt of gratitude. But in case you’re wondering, I won’t be saying those exact words to that smarmy little editor of yours. I don’t like that guy.”

  “You know the Weasel?” Mimi said, surprised.

  “I know everybody,” he said, closing the door behind her.

  Gianna started to talk before the chief could. “I hope your plan doesn’t include holding off on announcing arrests in Joyce Brown’s rape.”

  “What difference does a few weeks make?”

  “A big difference to Joyce. She wants to go back to work, to get on with her life, and she’ll do that a lot easier knowing that Thomas Murphy, Jim Johnson and Vinnie DeCecchio are where they belong. We can leave Holcomb out it if you want, since he didn’t actually participate in the rape.”

  “He’s going to be charged as an accessory.”

  “I just want to be able to tell Joyce and the Phillips sisters and all those women who thought they didn’t matter to us that they do. I messed up, Chief, and I want to clean up my mess.”

  “Not a word about the connections between Murphy and the Washington men and Nelson, beyond the fact of his arrest for Natasha’s murder. Agreed?”

  “Agreed.”

  “And no more talk about O’Connell.”

  “OK,” she said.

  “And beyond the fact of her rescue, you’re to say nothing about Felicia Hilliard. Not a word, Maglione, and I mean it.”

  Gianna started to balk, then changed her mind. Two of the men who had raped Joyce Brown had also raped Felicia Hilliard, and Roger Holcomb also had participated. She nodded. “Yes, sir,” she said.

  He came over and stood beside her. “I watched you interrogate that Washington creep. Damn fine work, Maglione. But I gotta tell you, I thought for sure you were gonna punch him.”

  “I for sure wanted to.”

  “We’re going to have to make you a captain pretty soon, give you a Command. You saw how much fun Shirley McManus is having.”

  Gianna stood up quickly. “I like where I am just fine, sir.”

  “I know you do but that’s not the point. If the mayor gets re-elected and I get re-appointed I may need you in another role. But don’t worry about that now. For now, Maglione, focus on a job well done.”

  “Thank you, Chief.” She headed for the door, almost got there, then turned back to him. He was still looking at her. “There’s something you should know, Chief, and I’m only telling you in case it should become public knowledge, though t
here’s no reason that it should. I just don’t want you caught off guard.”

  “What are you talking about, Maglione? You sound like one of the PR flacks issuing one of those statements that means nobody’s to blame for whatever it was that officially didn’t happen.”

  “I’ve registered with the city as Mimi’s domestic partner, and that’ll be reflected in my personnel file as well some time soon.”

  He looked at her over the tops of the reading glasses he’d just recently begun wearing. “Took you long enough,” he said, and waved her out of his office.

  THE END