Murder at The Washington Tribune (28 page)

“But he isn't cutting off contact with you. He says he'll be in touch again, maybe by phone. This line here: ‘We should discuss my feelings, Joe. Perhaps I'll call and we can have a long chat about that and other things.' ”

“He called me Mr. Wilcox in the first letter,” Wilcox said. “Now it's Joe.”

“Looks like the same typewriter,” Dungey said, holding the letter by its corner and slipping it into a plastic sleeve he'd carried from the car.

“How about some coffee, hon,” Wilcox suggested to Georgia.

“Not for us,” Vargas-Swayze said. “We have to get back.”

Wilcox walked them to their car.

“Did you talk to Georgia about a tap on your home phone?” Vargas-Swayze asked.

“No, but go ahead and do it. Do you think you can arrange for some sort of security here at the house?” he asked.

“At least for a few days.”

“A suggestion?”

“What?”

“Keep the fact that my phones are tapped and that there'll be security here under wraps. I don't want to scare him away. Keeping a channel open between him and me might lull him into making a dumb move.”

“Makes for a good story, huh?” Dungey said as he opened the driver's door.

Wilcox frowned at him. “Meaning?” he said.

“Nothing.”

Wilcox turned to Vargas-Swayze. “Thanks for coming personally. Georgia's really upset over this. Knowing some of your people are around will make all the difference.”

“Mind a suggestion from
me
?” she asked.

“Of course not.”

“Don't take this guy lightly, Joe. His tone in the letter is angry.”

“Don't worry, I won't. Thanks again.”

He watched them pull away and thought of Dungey's comment about it making for a good story. Had the detective sensed something? Did he know something? Impossible. Edith had said a few times before that her partner was a downbeat, cynical sort of person. Typical cop, Wilcox thought as he returned to the house, wondering whether he should tell Georgia about the murder of Michael's neighbor. He decided not to. He'd follow up on that tomorrow and see how things fell.

“I'd better call Paul and tell him there's something new to report,” Wilcox told his wife.

His editor wasn't at home, but he reached him on his cell phone. Blaring rock and roll music in the background made it difficult for Wilcox to hear, and he wasn't sure Morehouse would hear, either, but he spoke loudly and filled him in.

“Can you put something together for tomorrow?” Morehouse shouted.

“I'd rather wait a day,” Wilcox responded. “Georgia is upset over the letter. I'd just like to spend the rest of the evening with her.”

“Come on, Joe, give me something. She'll go to sleep at some point, right?”

Wilcox hesitated, then: “I'll come up with something.”

“Good man.”

“What's that music? Where are you, Paul?”

“See you in the
A.M.
,” Morehouse said, and signed off.

Joe and Georgia ordered Chinese food that evening. The deliveryman's ringing of the doorbell caused Georgia to shudder; she uttered an involuntary moan. After dinner, they settled in the den and aimlessly watched television, including one of that season's stupid reality shows.

“I feel like
we're
in a reality show,” she commented when he changed the channel to public television. It was broadcasting a chapter of a British crime series. “Please, Joe, no murder mysteries tonight.”

He forced a laugh and found a silly sitcom where the laughs were also forced—on a recorded track. Georgia's patience ran out after a few minutes and she again tried to reach Roberta, first her apartment, then her mobile phone.

“She must have turned off her cell,” she said. “No answer on either phone. I left messages.”

“She's probably doing some recording. She'll call back. We'll catch her on the news at eleven. Sit and relax. I'll turn off the TV and we'll put on some music.”

Georgia fell asleep in her chair. After a while, Joe gently woke her and urged her to go to bed.

“Are you coming?” she asked sleepily.

“I'll be up in a bit.” He kissed her. “Sleep tight. This will all be over soon.”

He went to bed three hours later after writing a story about the second killer letter, and e-mailing it to the paper.

“I can't tell you how upset I am.”

Michael and Roberta Wilcox sat side by side in his apartment.

“It wasn't as though I really liked the man. He was abrasive, especially when he drank, which was most of the time. You experienced his drunkenness yourself. But there was something I respected about him. I believe I might have been his only friend.”

“It must have been a shock,” Roberta said, “to hear that someone you knew well had been stabbed. How did you find out?”

“When I came home from job interviews I had today, there was a card on my door from the police. I called them immediately, of course, not having a clue as to why they wanted to speak with me. I'd already been interviewed twice about the murder of the young woman at the
Tribune.
”

“They interviewed
you
?” she said. She held a glass of wine that she hadn't touched. “Why?”

“I'd made a delivery to the newspaper the night she was killed. I was working for an office supply company at the time. Someone in the newsroom needed what I had right away, so I was sent directly to the paper. The police, I'm sure, interviewed everyone who'd been there that night. At least I hope they did. They wouldn't be doing their job if they didn't. I expected the same detectives I'd spoken with earlier to show up this evening, but a different team arrived, very nice, very polite. I told them what I knew about Rudy, that I hadn't seen him all night, and was here practicing my guitar. They took my statement and left.” He rolled his eyes and drank. “I'm evidently the poster boy for being at the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“I didn't know you'd been at the
Tribune
the night Jean Kaporis was killed,” she said.

He sighed deeply. “I believe I'll have a second glass of wine. It's been that sort of day, one surprise after another, including your call and being here. You haven't touched yours, my dear. The vintage not to your liking?”

“Oh, no, it's fine,” she said, sipping as he went to the kitchen.

When he returned to the couch, he offered his glass in a toast, and said, “Here's to better days ahead.”

She followed the ritual of touching rims but didn't drink. “Michael,” she said, “I feel terrible for what you've gone through, not only here in Washington, but early in your life. Frankly, that's why I called and asked to see you tonight.”

“Oh?”

She started to continue but he cut her off. “I sense a modicum of pity in your voice, Robbie. I don't deserve pity, nor do I want it.”

“It's not pity I'm feeling, Michael, it's admiration.”

“For me? There's nothing to admire in me, Robbie. I'm a murderer who spent forty years in a hospital for the criminally insane. Admiration? That should be reserved for astronauts and missionaries.”

“I disagree,” she said. She tasted her wine, placed the glass on the coffee table, turned, and spoke with animation. “I've always felt that anyone who overcomes great adversity is to be admired. I have tremendous respect for alcoholics who get sober and drug addicts who get straight. There are people born into poverty who rise above it through sheer will and determination to become successful citizens. People conquer illness, including mental illness, to live healthy, productive lives. That sounds like you, Michael, doesn't it?”

A melancholic expression crossed his handsome face; she wondered whether he might shed tears.

“I'll get right to the point,” she said. “I'd like to do a documentary about you.”

His plaintive expression broke, and he smiled. “I don't know what to say,” he said. “Am I flattered that you would view me in that light? Of course. Am I somewhat shocked that you would even consider such a thing? Very much so. But my initial reaction aside, I want to hear more. I
need
to hear more.”

She spent the next fifteen minutes outlining her proposal for him—that she would write, produce, and direct a multipart documentary about how he rose above his childhood and subsequent incarceration to become a productive, law-abiding citizen. It would focus on the positive use to which he had put his forty years in the institution—becoming a skilled musician, a first-rate cook, a man whose intellectual curiosity led him to become a voracious reader, and who was working on a novel of his own.

He said nothing. He leaned back, flipping his ponytail over the back of the couch, and closed his eyes, the wineglass cupped in both hands. She took the moment to take note of his lean, conditioned body beneath his tight black T-shirt, the tan face, the serene expression on his chiseled face. Her eyes strayed across the room to where the initial pages of his novel sat on the desk.

The sudden feel of his hand on hers was startling, but she didn't remove it. He squeezed harder, opened his eyes, turned to her and said, “I am extremely touched, Robbie, that you perceive me in such a positive way. I would be honored to be the subject of your documentary.”

She stood, went to the center of the room, and said, “Then let's get started. I have an hour before I have to be back at the station. We can begin the interviewing process now. Game?”

He leaped from the couch, put his right hand on her waist, took her right hand in his left, and waltzed her around the room, humming “All The Things You Are” in her ear in three-quarter time. Their dance lasted a minute. He released her and said, “I hope my favorite and only niece isn't offended at my impetuousness.”

She shook her head and smiled. “Not at all,” she said. “Now, can we begin?”

“By all means. Consider me yours.”

She left the apartment an hour later, a yellow legal pad filled with notes. And in the black vinyl folder containing the pad was a page from his novel, which she'd taken during his bathroom break.

Vargas-Swayze and Dungey returned to the precinct after their visit to the Wilcox home, and handed the letter they'd been given by Wilcox to an evidence technician on duty.

“The report came back on the first letter,” the tech told them. “It's on your desk, Edith.”

There were no surprises. The letter had been filled with fingerprints, many of them smudged. But the final item piqued her curiosity, and she called the lab. “What does this note on the bottom of the report mean?” she asked a senior lab manager, who was working late that night. He was one of the least favorite people with whom she had to deal on a regular basis, a genetically nasty little man with a wicked eye twitch and a perpetual curl to his mouth.

“Well, what does it say?” he asked in a nasal, condescending voice.

“It says,” she said, successfully stifling her annoyance, “that one print, which matches others on the letter, seems to have been placed on the paper before the letter was typed.
Before
is underlined.”

“Yessss?”

“I don't have time to play games,” she said. “I'm just a cop, you're the expert. Just tell me what it means.”

His sigh was long and loud. “It means, detective, that somebody touched the paper when it was blank. The print is beneath the typed letters.”

“I see,” she said. “Which further means that this particular print could belong to the person who actually wrote the letter.”

“Very good, detective. Anything else I can do for you?”

Drop dead,
she thought. “No, but thanks for the explanation. Have you matched that set of prints through the Bureau with other known prints?”

“Yes. They'll fax you the results in the morning.”

“Well, great,” she said. “Have a nice night.”