Murder at The Washington Tribune (21 page)

It was more of a snort than a laugh from Wilcox. “I've noticed,” he said.

Morehouse propped himself on the edge of a two-drawer file cabinet. “You've been a hell of a good cops reporter, Joe. I mean that. There's nobody in this city who could top you.”

“ ‘Could?' ” Wilcox said. “That sounds past tense.”

“The way things are going,” Morehouse said, “we're all about to become past tense—but only if we let it happen.”

“Meaning?”

“When I hired you, Joe, I was the boy wonder around here, the youngest editor of a major section in the paper's history. I have to admit that it was awkward at first bossing around grizzled veterans, guys who'd forgotten more than I knew. And it was all guys, the old-boy fraternity at work, women need not apply.” He paused and glanced through the glass again. “I was a lot like Hawthorne and the other Young Turks out there, Joe, full of myself and looking down at the old-timers.” He laughed. “Funny how fast you become an old-timer, too.” He snapped his fingers. “Like that! One day the wunderkind, the next day the guy with the bad back and molded shoes.”

Wilcox didn't know how to respond. In all the years he'd worked for Morehouse, he'd never heard him slip into retrospection like this, even after their professional relationship had morphed into a friendship of sorts. Morehouse's asperity was well known, his temper on a hair-trigger. But quiet soul-searching wasn't incorporated into his psychological map.

What are you getting at?
Wilcox wondered.

Morehouse addressed Wilcox directly now, his index finger poised to lend weight to his words. “Now, you listen to me, Joe Wilcox. You may not like what's happened to this business over the years any more than I do. You don't like Hawthorne and his ilk and neither do I. But times have changed big time. We don't as much report the news any more as we turn it into a story that has marketability. Sales, Joe, the bottom line, ad revenue, increased circulation, dollars and cents, that's where it's at these days, and like it or not, we either embrace that reality, or we get out of the way before the Hawthornes of the world run us over.”

“I know you're right, Paul,” Wilcox said. “The news business isn't what it was when I saw myself as the next Ed Murrow or Ernie Pyle. But I won't take a backseat to anyone, including guys like Hawthorne.
Especially
guys like Hawthorne.”

Morehouse grunted and resumed his chair behind the desk. “We're in a fight to survive, Joe, like the airlines. People no longer automatically open their daily newspaper every morning and catch up on the news. There's cable and the networks, the bloggers on the Internet, the radio talk shows and the Matt Drudges of the world. We're losing ground every day. That's why we have to give readers what they want, in this case a reason to buy the
Trib.
”

Wilcox said nothing, and an awkward silence settled over the office.

“I'm putting Hawthorne on the serial killer story, Joe.”

Wilcox fairly came out of his chair. “You're
what
?”

“Putting Hawthorne on the story. I know you two don't get along, so I'm not suggesting you work together. You go ahead and continue to work your sources, and do the writing. He can't hold a candle to you when it comes to that. But he'll be working his contacts, too.” He slid a sheet of paper across the desk. Wilcox picked it up and read a statement from the mayor, in which he called upon the city's women to go about their daily lives as usual, but to also exercise prudence and caution until the killer is brought to justice.

Wilcox threw the paper down on the desk. “Why didn't he give this to me?” he demanded.

“For the same reason you won't have anything to do with him, Joe. You guys act like you hate each other.” Wilcox tried to say something but Morehouse said, “I don't give a goddamn whether you and Hawthorne ever say a word to each other. What I do care about is following through on the serial killer story we initiated. You catch your daughter on the noon news, Joe?”

“Roberta? No. Why?”

“She reported that AP is investigating the possibility that there may be a connection between Jean's murder and what her roommate does for a living.”

“That's unconscionable,” Wilcox said.

Morehouse came forward. He'd been calm until this moment. Now, his face reddened and his voice mirrored his anger. “I asked you, Joe, about that connection with Kaporis's roommate, and you told me nothing panned out. You lied. I called Jillian and Lansden in and asked them about it. Lansden said she'd told you that the roommate—what's her name? Pruit?—worked for the Starlight agency. Did she?”

“No. She said the guy at the agency hesitated or something when she mentioned Pruit's name. That was it.”

“So, where did AP come up with it?”

“Ask somebody at AP.”

“Ask your daughter.”

“Yeah, I will. Is that it?”

“I could say don't let me down, Joe. Take what Hawthorne gives you, work your own side of the street, and keep this serial killer story on the front page. Better yet, Joe, don't let yourself down. Make me a hero upstairs and we'll both go out in a blaze of glory.”

Morehouse watched his veteran reporter slowly get out of the chair and go to the door. His hand was on the knob when Morehouse said, “Believe me, Joe, I don't like this any more than you do.”

Wilcox turned, smiled, nodded, and left, wishing his boss hadn't felt compelled to add that final disingenuous comment.

TWENTY

Wilcox went to his cubicle and placed a call to the detectives' room at First District headquarters.

“Edith,” Wilcox said, “I just heard about the AP story on the Kaporis murder and that her roommate, Pruit, worked for an escort agency.”

“Right.”

“I talked to my daughter who used it on the noon news today. She says it came from MPD.”

“It might have, Joe. I don't know.”

“But you knew about the possible link,” he said. “I was the one who told you.”

“I remember. Sure. My partner and I followed up on it. Ms. Pruit said she worked for the Starlight agency.”

“Why didn't you tell
me
?” Wilcox asked, audibly exasperated.

“Because—because it didn't occur to me to tell you, Joe.” She lowered her voice. “There's nothing to it. It's a red herring. Look, I can't talk now. I'll get back to you.”

He pulled up the AP story and added portions of it to his article: “MPD is investigating a possible link between the murder of
Washington Tribune
staffer Jean Kaporis and a Washington escort service for which the victim's roommate is alleged to have worked.”

Next, he wove the mayor's statement into the story, using it as the new lead. And he added Jean Kaporis's father's comment that his daughter had indicated she was dating a married man in Washington named Paul.
No,
he thought,
I promised I wouldn't use that,
and struck the line.

Satisfied that the article read right, but not feeling especially good about having written it, he filed it electronically with Paul Morehouse. As he prepared to leave, Gene Hawthorne sent him a computer instant message, asking whether Wilcox had gotten the mayor's statement.

“Yes,” Wilcox wrote back.

“I'll see what else I can come up with,” Hawthorne wrote.

Wilcox didn't bother responding.

He called Roberta at the TV station.

“Hi,” he said. “It's Dad.”

“Hi,” she said. “Only have a second. What's up?”

“You're coming to dinner tomorrow night?”

“Yes.”

“What's this thing you want to speak to your mother and me about?”

“I'll tell you tomorrow, Dad.”

“Okay. Hey, I just learned that you went with an AP story about Jean Kaporis's roommate working for an escort service.”

“Dad, I really have to run.”

“I had that information, Robbie, but decided to not use it.”

She said nothing.

“Where did you get it?”

“MPD.”

“Oh? Who?”

“I'll see you tomorrow night,” she said.

“Using the escort service slant is real tabloid journalism, Roberta, and I—”

A click in his ear ended his speech.

Rick Jillian, who'd been told to develop a short chronological feature on the Son of Sam serial killer case in New York for possible inclusion as a sidebar to Wilcox's article, tapped Wilcox on the shoulder, causing him to jerk to attention.

“I wake you?” Jillian asked.

“Wake me? Of course not. I'm just leaving.”

“Here's the Son of Sam piece, Joe.”

“Great. File it with Paul. I'm out of here.”

The phone rang. It was the VP of human resources asking why Wilcox hadn't kept his three o'clock appointment.

“Sorry,” Wilcox said, “but I got busy. The serial killer story, you know.”

“You're doing a great job with that,” the VP said. “When can we meet?”

“Tomorrow.”

“Three?”

“Sure.”

Wilcox beat a hasty retreat to the elevators, not because he was running late, but because he wanted out of the newsroom and building, to be as far away from it as possible. He got in his car and headed for Michael's apartment building on Connecticut Avenue NW, arriving a little after four-thirty. A parking space across the street and a few buildings up from Michael's opened up and Wilcox maneuvered into it. He was about to get out of the car but reconsidered, remaining instead inside and watching the door to the apartment building. Minutes later, Michael appeared carrying an envelope, which he slid beneath a large flowerpot near the front entrance. Michael came to the sidewalk and looked around before heading on foot in a direction opposite from where Wilcox was parked.

Wilcox waited long enough to be sure his brother wouldn't be returning to get something he'd forgotten and went to the flowerpot. The envelope contained two keys on a simple key ring. Wilcox tried one in the front door. It worked, and he entered the building's interior, went down the long hallway, and stopped in front of Michael's apartment. He was in the process of inserting the second key into that door when a man's voice said, “Who are you?”

Wilcox turned to face a burly man leaning on a cane.

“Who are you?” the man repeated.

“Mr. Wilcox's—Mr. LaRue's friend,” Wilcox answered. “Who are
you
?”

“Rudy. I'm his friend, too. He ain't here.”

“I know. He gave me his key.”

Wilcox turned his head to avoid the alcoholic fumes coming from this man named Rudy. “Excuse me,” he said, opening the door and stepping into the apartment, aware of Rudy's eyes boring into his back. He closed the door and drew a deep breath. Maggie came from the kitchen, looked up at him, meowed, and preceded him into the living room.

Wilcox stood in the center of the room. It was quiet; only an occasional honk of a car horn on Connecticut Avenue violated the silence. He went to each window and looked out, his thoughts as jumbled as the apartment was neat. In the narrow, old-fashioned kitchen, the day's dishes had been washed, rinsed, and left to dry in a blue dish drainer. A vase of wilting flowers sat next to the drainer.

Back in the living room, Joe sat in a chair next to where Michael's guitar and amplifier stood. He picked up the instrument and ran his fingers over the strings, the sound barely audible without amplification. He considered turning on the amp but was afraid he'd do something destructive, push the wrong button or turn the wrong knob.

The hollow core door on file cabinets on the opposite side of the room was as tidy as everything else in the apartment. The only items on its surface were the old electric typewriter, a desk calendar, and a halogen lamp. He sat at the desk, opened the file cabinets' drawers, and perused their contents, barely disturbing papers as he went through them. He withdrew an envelope from a photo processing shop and rifled through the small color snapshots, most of them of Michael at an undetermined outdoor social event. He removed one from the pack that showed Michael alone, smiling into the camera, and placed it in his inside jacket pocket. A recurring chorus of ideas accompanied his seemingly aimless search. Were he pressed, he would have denied the thoughts he was having at that moment. But they were present, coming and going like mental dust bunnies.

Michael had murdered a young woman when he was a teenager and been found legally insane.

Michael had moved to Washington prior to the first of the two murders having taken place.

Michael worked for an office supply company and had made deliveries to the newspaper, including the night Jean Kaporis was killed.

Michael was in excellent physical condition, certainly strong enough to have strangled Kaporis and Colleen McNamara.

Michael was using a false name.

Edith Vargas-Swayze and her detective partner had questioned Michael; the partner found something troublesome about the deliveryman with the funny, French-sounding name.

None of which meant Michael had had anything to do with the murder of Jean Kaporis or McNamara. Still, it was a provocative notion, albeit unlikely, to ponder, and he continued to do that as he finished rifling through papers in his brother's desk.

He went to the small bedroom. The bed was made, the corners of the sheet tight and precise, military style. He looked in the room's only closet. The few clothes were hung carefully, the fronts of shirts and two suits facing in the same direction, slacks and jeans folded over hangers and occupying their own space. Three pairs of shoes on the floor were polished and lined up heel-to-heel, toe-to-toe.

A round table covered by a black cloth served as a night table. On it was a digital alarm clock, a lamp, and a five-by-seven color photo in an easel frame. Wilcox picked it up and examined the woman more closely. She appeared to be in her thirties. She wore large, round glasses with black frames; her hair was long and dark, with streaks of silver. She had a nice smile.

He checked his watch. It was five-fifteen. Michael said he wouldn't be back until six or six thirty. He returned to the living room and again sat at the desk, Maggie occupying one corner of the table, where she licked her paws clean. He'd carried with him into the apartment a file folder in which he'd collected hardcopy clips of the
Trib
's stories about the Kaporis and McNamara murders, including the articles he'd written, and placed it on the small table next to the desk, arranging papers so that they partially obscured it.

The cover was off the typewriter. He turned on the power, pulled open one of the file drawers, removed a sheet of blank paper and rolled it in behind the platen. Five minutes later he pulled the page from the typewriter, folded it carefully, and put it in the inside pocket of his sport jacket. Next, he found a blank Number Ten envelope, placed it in the typewriter, and typed an address on it. He turned off the typewriter, made sure everything on the desk looked the way it had earlier, sat on the couch and browsed magazines until Michael walked through the door.

“Ah, Joseph,” Michael said, extending his arms as though expecting Joe to run into them. Joe didn't leave the chair. “You obviously found the keys. Good. They're yours to keep, and I hope you make frequent use of them. Drink? I need a glass of wine. You?”

“Wine will be fine, Michael.”

“Stay right where you are, Joseph. The service in this establishment is first-rate.”

Michael returned with the wine, handed a glass to Joe, and opened a yellow director's chair that had been folded in a corner of the room. He raised his glass: “To brothers,” he said.

Joe tilted his glass in Michael's direction before sipping. “You say you've quit your job,” he said, deliberately sounding nonchalant.

“That's right. It was a good job, and they treated me decently. But I felt it was time to look for something else, perhaps something more in line with my interests and abilities. I've decided to explore nonprofit opportunities.”

“Oh? Why?”

“To pay something back to society, Joseph. I feel a need for that. You probably don't understand, but—”

“Have you had any success finding such a job?”

“I've just started looking.”

“How long will you be able to go without an income?” Joe asked, not caring whether it represented an inappropriate intrusion into his brother's financial life.

“Oh, for a while,” Michael replied. “You'd be surprised how much I was able to save during those forty years in the hospital. They didn't pay patients much for the menial tasks we performed, but with nothing to spend it on, it mounted up. That, and the trust fund mother left, will tide me over for quite a long spell.”

“Trust fund? Mother left you a trust fund?”

“You didn't know?”

“No, Michael, I didn't know.”

He pressed his fingertips to his lips. “And she probably never wanted you to know,” he said. “Me and my big mouth.” He leaned forward and placed his hand on Joe's knee. “I'm sure she meant well, Joseph. She knew she didn't ever have to worry about you, not with the bright future that lay ahead for you, college, a career, family, all those things that money can't buy. But I suppose she reasoned that if I was ever released from the hospital, I'd have nothing on which to fall back, no education, no career, no income.” He sat back and smiled. “It is absolutely amazing how much interest builds up over forty years, even on a meager investment.”

“I imagine it does,” Joe said.

“At any rate, Joseph, you didn't come here to discuss my career aspirations. Are we going to dinner?”

“Not tonight, Michael. I can't stay long.”

“Pity. Oh, well, you will let me play one song for you. I'm anxious that you know my time in the hospital wasn't entirely wasted.”

Joe protested but Michael ignored him and went to the guitar, switched on the amplifier, and played random, rich chords until sliding into a bouncy version of what Joe eventually recognized as “Bye Bye Blackbird.” Although Joe was not musically trained, nor did he possess a sophisticated musical ear, it was obvious to him that his brother had become a talented guitarist. The fingers of his left hand moved quickly and effortlessly over the instrument's frets, while his right fingers plucked at the strings, singularly and in bunches, an adventuresome improvisation that threatened to stray from the familiar melody, but never did, anchored by it instead, Michael's creativity demonstrated within its framework. When he finished and the final chord had faded, Joe applauded. Michael bowed his head and turned off the amp.

“That was very good, Michael,” Joe said. “Impressive.”

“Thank you. Of course, it's just an example of something good coming out of something bad. Had I not been incarcerated in that hospital for so many years, I never would have had the inclination or time to practice the guitar. I was inspired by Joe Pass.”

“Who?”

Michael laughed as he sat in the director's chair. “You obviously are not a jazz lover. Joe Pass spent many years in prison because of his involvement with drugs. He had nothing to do but practice his guitar playing. When he came out of prison, he was the best jazz guitarist in the world.”

While Joe had been impressed by Michael's playing, he found himself gripped by resentment, particularly about being given a lecture on music and some obscure jazz guitar player. He felt at once a feeling of inadequacy sitting there with this older brother, who'd spent virtually his entire adult life committed to a hospital for the criminally insane, a sick, depraved murderer who'd sexually assaulted and brutally killed a young girl, a neighbor, an innocent being. He was grappling with these thoughts when Michael asked, “More wine?”