Murder in Georgetown

by Margaret Truman

  “Yes.”

  “Relax, Ms. Amster. These things usually just stop.”

  When he got there, she unlocked the gallery door for him. He stepped inside, glanced around, and let out a whistle of appreciation. “Beautiful,” he said.

  “Thank you.”

  “It looks… Indian.”

  “Pre-Columbian.”

  “Oh, yeah? Hmmmm.”

  They sat at her desk and she reiterated the history of the calls. He said, “And the caller says something like ‘You won’t get away with it’?”

  “Yes, ‘You won’t get away with it.’”

  “What does he mean by that, do you figure?”

  “I haven’t the slightest idea, and I told you, I’m not even sure it’s a man.”

  “Sex undetermined.” He scribbled it on a note pad. “Tell you what,” he said. “Next time a call comes in, keep talking. I’ll set up a trace back at the department. It doesn’t always work, but it’s worth a try.”

  “Thank you. I appreciate it,” Amster said.

  Languth put the pad in his pocket and surveyed the gallery again from where he sat. “You teach this stuff at American, don’t you?”

  Amster paused. “How do you know that?”

  Languth shrugged and laughed. He said casually, “I heard about you through Mr. Bowen.”

  “George?”

  “Yeah. I know you mentioned him when you called.”

  “That’s right, but…”

  “That’s some mess he’s involved in, huh, having his student killed.”

  “Yes, it was terrible, although I wouldn’t say he’s in any sort of a mess because of it.”

  “I didn’t mean it literally. It’s just that when you get that close to somebody and she gets her head bashed in, it must be tough on you.”

  Amster stared at him, said nothing.

  “They were pretty close, weren’t they?”

  “It just occurs to me, Sergeant Languth, that you haven’t come here because of the crank calls I’ve been receiving.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’re in charge of the Valerie Frolich investigation, aren’t you?”

  He started to say something, but she cut him off. “I remember seeing you on television at press conferences about the case.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t say I’m in charge. We have lots of people on the case. When the daughter of a U.S. senator gets killed, we pay attention.”

  “That’s beside the point. You’re here because you want to talk to me about George Bowen.”

  “Ms. Amster, I responded to your complaint about annoying phone calls, but while I’m here I figured—”

  “You figured wrong, sergeant. Please leave.”

  He narrowed his eyes and glared at her across the small desk. “Why so uptight, Ms. Amster? All I did was mention that Mr. Bowen was pretty close with the kid.”

  “Meaning what?”

  Another shrug, a boyish grin. “I think you know what I mean.”

  “I resent very much the inference in what you’ve said, and I’m sure Mr. Bowen will, too.”

  “That’s your problem—and his.”

  Amster stood and walked to the door, turned and said to Languth, who was still sitting, “Leave my gallery immediately.”

  “Okay,” he said, standing and stretching. He paused on his way to the door to admire a small Chibcha carving on a pedestal. “What’s this worth?” he asked. She didn’t answer. He came to where she stood and looked into her eyes, pulled his card from the breast pocket of his suit jacket, and handed it to her. “Call me anytime, Ms. Amster, about more crank calls or… or anything else that’s on your mind. Have a good day.”

  Languth spent the rest of the day going over reports on the Frolich case. Up until that day he’d handled press inquiries himself, but they’d become too burdensome and a spokeswoman from Public Affairs was handed the job. He had trouble concentrating. His head hurt, and acid indigestion caused him to wince periodically. He’d stayed out late the night before, hitting a succession of his favorite bars until fatigue, and alcohol, sent him stumbling home to bed.

  He checked his watch. Time to leave for the morgue. The spokeswoman from Public Affairs called. “Pete, I just got a call from a reporter at WRC. He wanted to know what we had on the disappearance of Walter Nebel?” The name obviously meant nothing to her.

  “Disappearance?”

  “Yes. He said this Nebel had dropped out of Georgetown University and was nowhere to be found. He wants to know whether we know anything about it.”

  “Tell him we know nothing.”

  She sighed. “Who is Walter Nebel?”

  “Some student we questioned who knew Frolich. He’s not a suspect.”

  “We know nothing.”

  “Right, nothing.”

  Languth hung up and found a transcript of the interview one of his detectives had done with Nebel, in which Nebel admitted having dated Valerie Frolich, and having had an argument with her between the time she was at the barge party and the time she was found in the canal. He claimed he’d left her after the argument and had gone to a friend’s apartment where he studied until almost dawn. The friend—Sam Maruca—had verified the story. The interviewing detective’s comments indicated he believed Nebel and saw little reason to pursue him as a suspect.

  “So much for intuition,” Languth said angrily as he stuffed the transcript into his raincoat pocket. On his way to D.C. General, he stopped at a drugstore, bought a large bottle of multiflavored Tums, popped two in his mouth, and put the bottle in his raincoat. He decided as he drove to his meeting that he’d have an early, light dinner and be in bed by eight.

  John Finnerty, the deputy chief medical examiner, was waiting for him in a small office off the main autopsy room. Finnerty was a tall, rotund man who seemed perpetually to be laughing and humming Broadway show tunes.

  “Hello, Peter, my boy,” Finnerty said in a loud, friendly voice. “Sit down, sit down.”

  Languth sat heavily in a straight wooden chair and belched.

  “You look like some of the guests in there,” Finnerty said, indicating the morgue with a nod of his head. “I almost feel I should start cutting.” He laughed heartily.

  Languth grinned. “It’s my stomach, John. Damn heartburn.”

  “Could be ulcers.”

  “Yeah, maybe. I’m hung over. Was out late last night.”

  “You’re getting too old for that, Peter. Carousing is a young man’s game.”

  “Yeah, I suppose. Look, John, let’s go over Valerie Frolich again. I keep rereading your report and thinking that there’s got to be something the autopsy revealed that would help us. I can’t find anything specific, but I figured it was worth taking another shot.”

  Finnerty grunted and opened a thick file folder on the small, battered desk. “Let’s see,” he said, placing half-glasses on his bulbous nose and squinting at what he read.

  “You say it was a blunt, rounded instrument that killed her. Can’t get more specific than that?” Languth asked.

  “Afraid not.”

  “A rock? We’ve never found the weapon.”

  “Undoubtedly at the bottom of the C and O,” said Finnerty, “along with a million other rocks.”

  “So you do think it was a rock.”

  “It wasn’t a hammer or any other instrument with a small, defined shape. The wounds to her skull were star-shaped, typical of what a blunt object creates. Blows from sharper instruments generally create a crescent in the skull.”

  “Her skull was fractured,” Languth said flatly.

  “Yes, multiple fractures—some simply cracks in the bone structure, some of them depressed and comminuted.” Finnerty flipped through pages. “The attack came from the front initially, I’d say, although she probably received additional blows after she was on the ground. The first blow to the front of her head killed her, but whoever did it wasn’t looking to simply strike her once. She was struck at least twice more after she fe
ll.”

  “Sure about that?”

  “Yes. The secondary radiating fissures would indicate it.”

  “What else?” Sometimes words on paper took on a different meaning when they came from the mouth.

  Finnerty sighed, leaned back, and softly hummed “Memories” from Cats as he continued to peruse the pages in the folder. He said without looking up, “She obviously tried to ward off her attacker. Her arms and hands sustained numerous defensive wounds. She fought hard.”

  Languth thought for a moment. “She obviously knew her attacker.”

  Finnerty looked up and frowned. “Not necessarily.”

  “She was attacked from the front,” said Languth. “It wasn’t anybody coming up from behind and hitting her. She had time to try and fight him off—”

  “Or her.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Why not? It’s the weight of the rock—if it was a rock—that would do the damage, not the strength of the arm.”

  “But what about height?” Languth said.

  “Valerie Frolich was a short girl,” said Finnerty.

  “Exactly where was the initial blow, the one you said probably killed her.”

  “Just as I indicated in the sketch.” He turned the folder around so that Languth could see it. The frontal view showed the wound to be in the middle of the forehead and to the top, at the hairline.

  Languth slid the folder back to Finnerty and shook his head. “It’s a dead end, John,” he said, resignation in his voice. “We have nothing, just a bunch of people who knew her.” He remembered Walter Nebel, which caused a momentary twinge of optimism, quickly wiped away by another attack of heartburn. He pulled the bottle of Tums from his raincoat and took two.

  “Why don’t you come in for an exam, Pete?” Finnerty asked.

  “Yeah, maybe I will, as soon as this case is over.”

  Finnerty laughed. “From the way you’ve been talking, that’ll be long after you’re dead from bleeding ulcers.”

  Languth stood, put on his coat, and said, “That’s what I like about you, John, you’re a real fun guy.”

  Finnerty’s laugh was loud and long as they left the office. They crossed the autopsy room, where two young doctors were cutting up the naked body of a young female who’d been raped and killed in the National Zoological Park the night before, and went into the hall.

  “Thanks, John,” Languth said. “See you around.”

  “I’m sure you will. Take care of yourself, Pete. No sense getting sick just when you’re about to retire.”

  Languth walked away from the doctor, heard him start humming “Hello Dolly” as he returned to the autopsy room.

  He picked up frozen dinners on his way home, put one in the toaster oven in his pullman kitchen, poured himself a full glass of scotch, and slumped into an overstuffed chair that spouted its stuffing through numerous holes in its sides and back. The small room was dark. A sofa bed occupied one wall. Old newspapers were scattered on the floor, bare except for two large and stained powder-blue bathroom rugs.

  Languth slowly drained his glass and closed his eyes, drifted into a light sleep until he was awakened by the sound of the couple next door fighting. He pulled his large frame up from the chair, poured more scotch into his glass, and walked unsteadily to the kitchen, where he removed the foil-covered dinner and dumped its contents on a plate.

  He returned to the combination living room/bedroom and pushed magazines and newspapers from a small table to make room for the plate. He stood by the chair, as though unable to decide whether to sit or continue standing. He looked toward a makeshift bookcase beneath a window. On it was an eight-by-ten color photograph of a young woman, perhaps eighteen years old. She had freckles and was smiling. Languth stared at the picture, then closed his eyes as tears stung them. He drew a deep breath, swallowed hard, and dropped back into the chair, the force of his weight popping a puff of stuffing through one of the holes.

  | Chapter Fifteen |

  On Tuesday morning Gil Gardello not only confirmed to Potamos that he was to stay away from the university and its students, but told him he was off the Frolich story altogether.

  “Why? Just because that phony stuffed shirt Bowen has a thing for me?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Joe,” Gardello said. “I got the word from upstairs that I have too many people on the Frolich story. They think we’ve gone thin on other crimes and they want you back on the beat.”

  “‘They.’ Translated: George Alfred Bowen.”

  “I don’t know about that, Joe. Look, I have a meeting and I’m late. Get over to State and talk to Johnson in Embassy Security. Somebody’s been defacing Arab embassies.”

  “And?”

  “Do a story.”

  “I already have the lead,” Potamos said disgustedly. “Jewish graffiti artist ravages city.”

  “Not bad,” said Gardello, laughing. “Call me.”

  Potamos wrote the graffiti story, as well as covering the mugging of an elderly woman within shouting distance of the White House, and an MPD raid on a house in which drugs, cash, and weapons were confiscated. He knew the cops had been led there by a disgruntled member of the drug ring, but he went with the MPD version: “…diligent and painstaking police work over many months…”

  By Tuesday night he was seriously considering looking for a job as a short-order cook. The appeal was obvious—keep track of the orders, don’t overcook the eggs, and slap the butter on the toast before it gets cold.

  “You’d really like to do that?” Roseann asked as they sat at his kitchen table after an early dinner.

  “Nah,” he said, grinning, “but it did cross my mind. Something else did, too.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I think I’d better make my deal with Tony Fiamma before he figures out that I’m not on the Frolich case anymore.”

  “What deal?”

  “Ring him in, promise him credit, get ahold of whatever it is he has, including Valerie Frolich’s diary.”

  “Do you really think he has it?”

  Potamos shrugged and poured more wine into their glasses. “Worth a shot.”

  Her face turned pensive. He asked why.

  “You’d be lying to him.”

  “What’a you mean? What lying?”

  “You’d let him think you could do something for him when you can’t. You’d ask him to share with you what he knows without…”

  Potamos reached across the table and clutched her hand. “Hey, Fiamma’s a hustler. I used to be. It’s time I suited up again.”

  “Joe…”

  “What? What’s the big deal?”

  “You aren’t even on the story anymore. What do you care?”

  Potamos sat back and slung his arm over the back of his chair. He licked his lips and shook his head. “What do I care?” he said slowly and deliberately.

  “That’s what I said,” said Roseann.

  He waved his hand. “I know, I know, and maybe that’s what’s wrong with us, with this relationship.”

  “What?”

  “You don’t understand me at all. You can ask why I care about the Frolich story with a straight face. You can really wonder why I won’t let go of it no matter what Bowen and Gardello and the rest of them say.”

  “Joe…”

  “What?”

  “Don’t lay this on me, and don’t blow it up into some major squabble between us. You make it sound like we’re married.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “The way you said ‘relationship’ made it sound that way.”

  “It’s not a relationship?”

  “Of course it is, but—”

  “Yeah, there is a big but, isn’t there?”

  Blackburn got up and scrubbed the pan in which he’d cooked breaded veal. She glanced back at Potamos, who was still slouched in the chair, head drooping forward, fingers rolling over the tabletop. She started on the broccoli pot and said quietly, “Joe, I don’
t want to marry you.”

  “Huh? What did you say?”

  “I said I don’t want to get married.”

  “Jesus.” He came to her at the sink. “I didn’t think I proposed.”

  “You will,” she said, looking up at him.

  “I will?”

  “Yes, I can feel it.”

  He put his arms over her shoulder and said good-naturedly, “Not me, Roseann. I’m a two-time loser.”

  “And you’d happily take a shot at three.”

  “You’re crazy.”

  She started to say it, decided not to.

  “Hey, Blackie, I have to make a call. I’ll finish the cleanup.”

  “Thanks. Who are you calling?”

  “Tony Fiamma.”

  “Oh. I wish you wouldn’t.”

  “Trust me.” He kissed her cheek, and his hand found a breast through the thin fabric of her blouse. “Don’t run away,” he said.

  He tried the number he’d originally been given by Fiamma, his girlfriend’s apartment. She answered; Fiamma was there.

  “Let’s get together,” Potamos said.

  “Yeah? Why?”

  “I think we can work together.”

  Fiamma’s silence said a lot. Potamos knew he was pleased but had to play the hustler’s game. “We’ll do it the way I want?”

  “Yeah, Tony, we’ll do it the way you want.”

  More silence, the faint sound of a contented sigh. “How do you want to start?”

  “A meeting.”

  “Now?”

  Potamos glanced over at Roseann seated at the table, long, slender legs crossed, a wisp of hair hanging over her forehead. “Ah, not now, Tony. How about eight? You ever go to Martin’s?”

  “Martin’s? Oh, yeah, the bar. Yeah, I’ve been there.”

  “Good, and bring that diary.”

  “Let’s talk first,” Fiamma said.

  Street-wise, Potamos thought. He said, “Look, all kinds of things are about to pop with the Frolich case. I don’t have time to play games, Tony.”

  Fiamma reluctantly agreed, then said, “I haven’t seen any stories by you lately.”

  Potamos hoped his casual laugh would help dispel what thoughts Fiamma might have. He said through it, “They put me on a couple of rush things, but we now have a special unit for Valerie. We want to break the case, Tony, before the MPD does. Nice if you were part of it.”