Murder Inside the Beltway

by Margaret Truman

  He’d never imagined he would end up in a quandary like this, not the trap-minded, focused, clearheaded, insightful attorney that he’d always been. Along with the guilt, it was anger at having succumbed to such a basic instinct, cognition overruled by sheer passion and lust.

  He’d cheated on Sue. That was bad. He’d slept with one of his wife’s best friends. That was worse. And the woman with whom he’d been arranging sexual trysts was poised to become the nation’s first lady. Certainly that transcended mundane adultery.

  His furtive lunch with Deb had been unsettling, at best.

  He’d known for some time, certainly for the past few months, that she was close to unraveling. During recent assignations, there had been more talk than sex. That didn’t disappoint Rollins. A chill had set in between them that was hardly conducive to steamy, naked romps. He was actually relieved that their occasional meetings involved no more than a cursory kiss, maybe a squeeze or two, and long and occasionally intellectual conversations of the sort that had drawn them to each other in the first place.

  He sat in his office pondering the situation. He’d been doing a lot of that lately, trying to codify his thoughts and feelings, attempting to cram sense and inject order into what were, damn it, jumbled thoughts. He knew that were he and Deborah no more than a married man and married woman who’d lapsed into an affair, the ramifications would be purely moral, with the possibility of something legal injecting itself should their affair be discovered and result in divorce. He and Sue had friends for whom that scenario had played out, creating domestic turmoil, accusations and guilt, damaged children, and hefty counseling and attorneys’ fees.

  But this was different, as any third-party observer would certainly agree. He’d found himself sucked into the cortex of a presidential campaign. His friend of many years, Robert Colgate, former governor of Maryland and poll leader in the presidential race, depended on him to offer sage counsel, and to always do the right thing, say the right words, do nothing to derail what had become Colgate’s freight train to the White House. That the man himself had acted recklessly countless times wasn’t the issue, at least not for Rollins. He’d always prided himself on the ability to compartmentalize and to detach himself from a situation in which he’d been fully attached. Take Colgate’s marital transgressions, as an example. Rollins was not only aware of some of them, he’d played the beard at times, booking a hotel room for his politically ascending friend, knowing all too well what would transpire in that room. But here was detachment at its finest. Booking the room, and forgetting that he had if asked, had nothing to do with who was in that room, or what he did there. Don’t ask, don’t tell. Ignorance is bliss. My hands are clean.

  If only he’d been able to do that with Deborah Colgate. There was no ignorance of what he’d done, nor was there bliss beyond the purely physical type. His hands were dirty.

  He fielded a call from the insufferable Karl Scraggs, who asked what Rollins had thought of his book proposal.

  “Very interesting,” Rollins said, as he told friends who’d performed poorly in a community theater production and awaited his evaluation backstage. A very interesting performance. That seemed to placate them, although God knew what a cliché it was. We hear what we want to hear.

  “I thought you might have a check for me for a half-million bucks,” Scraggs said, laughing. Always laughing.

  “I want to give it some more thought, Karl,” Rollins said. “I’ll need a few more days.”

  “You take all the time you need, Jerry Boy. I’m not going anywhere.”

  No, you’re not, was Rollins’s thought as he hung up the receiver.

  His secretary appeared at the door. “Jerry, there’s a reporter on line two.”

  “A reporter. From where?”

  “City Paper. His name is Langdon.”

  “What does he want?”

  “He wants to talk to you.”

  “About what?”

  She shook her head and bunched her lips together.

  He sighed, swung around in his swivel desk chair, stared at the phone for a few seconds, and picked it up. “Rollins here.”

  “Hi, Mr. Rollins. I’m Josh Langdon. With City Paper.”

  “Hello.” It occurred to Rollins at that moment that he knew the name of the reporter, not from City Paper, but from a blog the reporter ran that purported to expose corruption in Washington, sort of a poor man’s Drudge Report. Watch what you say, Rollins silently told himself.

  “What can I do for you, Mr. Langdon?”

  “I’m wrapping up a story on the murder of that prostitute in Adams Morgan, Rosalie Curzon.”

  “Yes?”

  “I understand that videotapes found in her apartment included some of her clients on them.”

  “That’s interesting. But why call me about it?”

  “My sources tell me that your friend Governor Colgate might have a… well, a tangential connection with the victim.”

  “Is that so?”

  “I thought you might be able to help me shed some light on this.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about, Mr. Langdon.”

  “No comment on it?”

  “It sounds to me that you’re chasing after some politically motivated rumor that’s nothing but trash.”

  “Okay, Mr. Rollins. I appreciate you taking the time to talk with me.”

  “You mention your ‘sources.’ Who might they be?”

  Langdon’s laugh was dismissive, and nasty. “Can’t say, Mr. Rollins. But I will say that they’re pretty reliable. Nothing like a good story about sex and politicians. Craig, Vitter, Spitzer. Who’s next? There are all those rumors about Governor Colgate and other women that—”

  “Anything else?” Rollins asked.

  “Not unless you have something to offer, Mr. Rollins.”

  “I don’t. Good-bye.”

  Rollins realized he’d begun to sweat, and wiped his brow with a tissue. His secretary called on the intercom: “Your wife’s on the phone.”

  “Tell her to hold on,” he said, getting up, going to the wall safe, and laying fingertips on the dial. He snapped out of the momentary trance he’d lapsed into, returned to the desk, and greeted Sue on the phone. “Hi,” he said.

  “I don’t know how your weekend is shaping up,” she said, “but I thought that if you could get free on Saturday we could attend the Smithsonian folk music festival on the Mall. Samantha would enjoy it, so would I, and we haven’t done a family thing in too long. Can you shake free on Saturday?”

  He glanced down at his large desk calendar. He was scheduled to meet with Colgate at noon to go over speeches he was scheduled to give on the economy and health care.

  “Sure,” he said, pleased that he hadn’t hesitated to make the decision. “I was supposed to meet with Bob, but I’ll cancel. You’re right. We need some time together as a family.”

  He could see the smile on her face.

  “Yeah, let’s do it.”

  TWENTY

  When Jackson and Hall returned from their Patmos interview, they sat with Hatcher to go over reports of their questioning of those captured on Rosalie Curzon’s tapes. Jackson gave a brief oral recap of what Patmos had said; Hall provided the two names Patmos had given them to confirm his whereabouts the night of the murder.

  “Follow up on them,” Hatcher said.

  “Shall do,” said Hall.

  “I also want you two to go back to the building where the murder took place and reinterview everybody.”

  “Everybody?” Jackson said.

  “Oh, I’m sorry, Detective Jackson. Will that be too much of a burden for you?”

  “Not at all, Detective Hatcher.”

  “Don’t cop an attitude on me, Jackson,” Hatcher said.

  Jackson turned away, visibly ignoring him.

  As they were about to break up the meeting, Mary asked Hatcher, “Did you ever write up a report on that guy who owns the restaurant in Adams Morgan, Yankavich?”

>   “No,” Hatcher said. “Haven’t gotten around to it yet. Doesn’t matter. He’s not at the top of the list. I interviewed him. His alibi is tight.”

  Jackson and Hall said nothing, although their thoughts were similar: It wasn’t like Hatcher to summarily dismiss a suspect, or to ignore writing a report of his interview.

  “Where will you be later on today, Hatch?” Mary asked.

  Hatcher’s hesitation spoke loudly. He grimaced and closed his eyes, opened them and stared at Jackson. “Among other things, I’m meeting with Amos and Andy.”

  Jackson looked at him quizzically.

  “Williams and Shrank. Your buddies.”

  Jackson’s jaw tightened.

  “They say I’m a racist. You think I’m a racist, Jackson?”

  Mary looked back and forth between them.

  Jackson didn’t respond.

  “I have to tell them I’m not a racist, tell them I shouldn’t have said some of the things they claim I said. That make you happy, Jackson?”

  “We’ll interview people at the building,” Jackson said, and left the room.

  “He’s got a thin skin, kid, too thin to be a good cop,” Hatcher told Mary.

  “Why don’t you lay off him, Hatch?”

  His grin was crooked. “I just want him to be a good cop, like the way I want you to be. That’s what I’m supposed to do, turn the two of you into good cops. Anything wrong with that?”

  “No, Hatch, nothing wrong with it.”

  She’d seen him slip into this combative mood plenty of times since being assigned to his squad and had learned that it was best to get away as quickly as possible.

  “You know, Mary, I’m really not a bad guy. I just care too damn much.”

  She nodded and was gone.

  Hatcher prepared to leave, too, but his wife called.

  “Hey, babe, what’s up?”

  “I’m just making sure you don’t miss the doctor’s appointment I made for you this afternoon.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I’ll go.”

  “It’s important, Hatch.”

  “I know it is. Don’t worry. He’ll tell me to take a couple of aspirin and forget about it.”

  “You’re probably right, but better safe than sorry. That’s my motto.”

  “You got a lot of mottos, Mae.”

  She giggled. “I guess I do. Don’t be late for your appointment, Hatch. Promise?”

  “I’ll probably have to sit there for an hour. You know how these damn doctors are. But I’ll be on time. Gotta run. Things to do.”

  He’d agreed to see their family physician to stop Mae from nagging him, although he’d finally, albeit reluctantly, admitted to himself that the severe headaches he’d been suffering, and the occasional nausea, had worried even him. Actually, their “family” physician pretty much had Mae as his only patient. The kids were gone, and Hatcher hadn’t been seen by him since a physical three or four years ago that pronounced him in relatively good health aside from high cholesterol, high blood pressure, swelling in his legs, nagging lower back pain, almost constant acid reflux, and assorted other ailments that made it sound to Hatcher as though he was about to keel over. The doctor urged him to have further tests, and Hatcher assured him that he would. He never did. Nor did he tell Mae what the doctor had said. All that would have accomplished was to initiate a new round of badgering. He didn’t need that.

  For Mae, that he’d agreed to see their physician that afternoon represented a major breakthrough. Men could be so stubborn, she was fond of telling her female friends at their weekly gathering to play cards and swap stories about their husbands.

  Hatcher had a few hours to kill before his doctor’s appointment. There was paperwork to catch up on, including writing the report of his “interview” with Yankavich, but he wasn’t in the mood for it. He decided to go to Joe’s Bar and Grille for lunch, and maybe a vodka or two to steady his nerves. Wouldn’t do to breathe high-octane bourbon fumes on the doc, would it?

  As cavalier as he was with Mae about his health, the thought of actually seeing a doctor had set him on edge. The worst possible scenarios filled his thoughts: “You have a month to live, Mr. Hatcher. I suggest you go home and put your things in order.” Or “You have a very aggressive form of cancer, Mr. Hatcher. Our only hope is an equally aggressive form of chemotherapy that will wipe you out for at least six months. And oh, by the way, there’s no guarantee it will work.”

  He was all bravado on the outside, somewhere inside a frightened little boy.

  Hatch was on his way out of the building when fellow detectives Shrank and Williams arrived.

  “Hello, Hatch,” Williams said, gruffly.

  “Yeah, hello,” Hatcher said. “You two got a minute?”

  “Just a minute,” Shrank said.

  They stood outside. “I understand you two heard me wrong,” Hatcher said. He shifted from one foot to the other.

  “That so?”

  “Yeah. It seems you guys were filing some sort of complaint against me, like for not being politically correct.” He gave them a toothy grin.

  “You’ve got a big mouth, Hatch,” said Shrank. He was even taller and heavier than the white detective.

  “Yeah, well, sometimes I like to kid around, you know? That’s all it was, kidding around.”

  “You’ve got a different sense of humor,” Williams said. He was shorter and older, with cotton patches of white hair at his temples.

  “You’ve gotta have a sense of humor in this job, huh?” Hatcher said. Another smile. “Anyway, no hard feelings. You misunderstood me, that’s all.”

  “You got anything else to say, Hatch?”

  “No, that’s it, except if what I said got your noses outta joint, I—I apologize. All right?”

  “All right, Hatch,” Williams said, leading his partner through the doors.

  “Screw you,” Hatcher muttered. “What’a you want from me, blood?”

  He needed that vodka more than ever.

  • • •

  Yankavich wasn’t in the restaurant when Hatcher arrived. He took his usual spot at the end of the bar and ordered a Bloody Mary from a waitress doing double duty as barmaid. “Where’s Joe?” he asked.

  “At the bank. He’ll be back in a couple’a minutes.”

  A pile of that week’s edition of City Paper rested on the bar. Hatcher absently took one and started skimming it. He wasn’t a fan of the paper, didn’t particularly like any newspaper, especially the Post and the New York Times and all the other media he considered knee-jerk liberal. He often called the Times “Pravda,” which brought a laugh from like-minded friends. City Paper was termed an alternative weekly, focusing on local news and the arts. It had been around since the early ’80s. Its stated circulation figure was more than eighty thousand readers. It was one of the most prestigious and influential of the nation’s alternative weeklies, a must-read for everyone in D.C. wanting a different take on D.C. politics.

  The Josh Langdon article on the Rosalie Curzon murder took up all of page three, and it caused Hatcher to stop scanning and to read more closely. The article’s thrust was that the call girl’s murder had politicians scurrying for cover. The writer relied on a few “unnamed but credible sources,” including the possibility raised by someone “high up in political circles” that presidential front-runner Robert Colgate might have had a connection with the victim. Langdon had referred to his call to Colgate friend and senior campaign advisor Jerrold Rollins, quoting Rollins as saying “…you’re chasing after some politically motivated rumor that’s nothing but trash.”

  Langdon went on to mention the possibility that the murdered call girl had videotaped some of her trysts with prominent politicians, and that a source within the Metropolitan Police Department indicated to the reporter that cops in that agency might, too, have bought sexual favors from the deceased and been caught on tape.

  Hatcher angrily closed the paper and cursed the leaks alluded to in the story. You couldn’t keep anything
under wraps in Washington, D.C., leak city. Reporters were worse whores than Curzon ever was. Hatcher had once heard on a cable news show that the Constitution protected only two classes of people, two specific professions: lobbyists and journalists. Between them there wasn’t an ounce of honor, as far as Hatcher was concerned. He was stewing in that thought, his glass half-empty, when Yankavich walked through the door. Seeing the hulking detective prompted a sour expression on the owner’s face. He tried to ignore him, but Hatcher motioned for the owner to join him.

  “How’s things, Joe?”

  “Things are fine. You?”

  “Fine. I need to talk to you again about the hooker murder around the corner.”

  “What for?”

  “To go over your alibi.”

  Yankavich snorted. “I don’t need no alibi.” He whispered into Hatcher’s ear. “So I got me a piece now and then. That makes me a normal guy, right? It don’t make me a murderer.”

  “You never told me how much she charges, Joe.”

  “What’s it matter?”

  “Tell me.”

  “We worked out a deal.”

  Hatcher’s face brightened. “Like a barter deal?”

  The waitress answered a phone call and told Joe it was for him. “I got things to do,” he told Hatcher, walking to where the waitress waited, the phone in her outstretched hand.

  When Yankavich hung up, he returned to Hatcher. “I’ve got to go someplace, Hatcher. Enjoy your drink. It’s on me.”

  “Keep your drink, Joe,” Hatcher said, tossing bills on the bar. “I’ll be back. We’ve got more to talk about.”

  Yankavich watched Hatcher exit into the sunlight. He noticed that the detective was walking funny, a little unsteady on his feet. He mumbled curses under his breath. He’d shed no tears if Hatcher dropped dead on the sidewalk, as long as his body didn’t prevent customers from coming through the door.

  Hatcher arrived at the doctor’s building early and sat in his car until it was time for his appointment. The receptionist greeted him and asked that he fill out some forms.