Murder at The Washington Tribune (34 page)

THIRTY-THREE

The buzzer sounded in Michael's apartment.

“Robbie?” he said into the intercom.

“Yes.”

He was waiting in the hall as she came through the front door. He extended his arms and she readily accepted his hug.

“Come in, come in,” he said, stepping aside.

Music from his stereo filled the apartment, a solo jazz guitarist playing a song in three-quarter time.

“Joe Pass?” she asked pleasantly, pleased that she now had a jazz name to offer.

“No. Martin Taylor. He's Scottish. Brilliant.”

“He sounds just like you.”

“I can only wish. It is such a pleasure to have you visit, Robbie,” he said, turning down the volume of the CD, one of six in the multiple CD player. “You look as beautiful as ever.”

“Michael,” she said, ignoring the compliment, “I have something very important to tell you.”

He held up his hand. “I know you do, Robbie, and I am anxious to hear it. But not here.”

Her puzzled expression prompted him to continue.

“How much time do you have?” he asked.

“I have all evening. I'm off tonight. But—”

“Splendid. Come.” He grabbed her hand and pulled her to the door, opened it, and led her to the building's foyer.

“What are you doing, Michael?” she asked, laughing.

His answer was to propel her down the walkway to a shiny black convertible sports car, the top down. He opened the passenger door. “Get in,” he said.

“Is this yours?” she asked, sliding onto the red leather seat.

“For the moment,” he replied, coming around and getting behind the wheel. “I ran out and rented it for this occasion.”

“What occasion?”

A woman's voice called, “Michael?”

He turned to see Carla approaching.

“I'm just leaving,” he said to her, his tone not pleasant.

“I told you I was stopping by,” Carla said, looking at Robbie and the car. “Did you buy this?”

“No. Excuse me, Carla, but we must be going.”

Carla glared at Roberta. “A new friend?” she said to him.

“This is my niece,” he said.

“Yes, I'm sure,” Carla said.

He left her standing on the sidewalk as he turned the ignition key and the engine rumbled to life. He slipped the manual transmission into gear and drove away.

“A girlfriend?” Roberta asked, looking back at the bewildered woman.

“No.”

Was he angry at the question? He sounded it.

“Michael,” she insisted, “you must tell me why we're doing this.”

He glanced at her, smiled, and said loudly, “I have found the most charming bistro not far out of the city. It has divine food, a lovely outdoor terrace, and is surprisingly moderate in price.”

“I didn't come for dinner,” she said, her words slipping away in the wind and cacophony of traffic sounds, her auburn hair swirling about her face. “I wanted to tell you something—in person.”

“About the letters,” he shouted, his laugh loud.

“You—?”

He removed his right hand from the wheel and waved it in front of her. “Not now,” he said, his voice having lost its lightheartedness. “Not now!”

She fell silent as he wove through traffic, driving fast, downshifting, accelerating, changing lanes with sudden abandon, causing other drivers to honk at him, or worse.

“Michael, please slow down,” she said.

“Frightened?” he asked, sounding as though he enjoyed her discomfort.

“Slow down,” she said, more firmly this time.

He did, and she said nothing else until he'd crossed the Arlington Memorial Bridge, skirted the town of Arlington, and drove down a narrow road to a break between stone walls. He went through it and followed a gravel driveway to the front of a redbrick, one-story building with white shutters flanking the door and window boxes spilling over with red roses. Michael departed the car with great flourish, opened her door, bowed, and took her hand to help her out.

“This is it?” she asked.

“Yes. This is it! Ask me how I found it.”

“All right,” she said. “How did you find it?”

“I met the owner at a party where I happened to play a few tunes on my guitar. He offered me a job performing on the weekends.”

“You said you never play in public.”

“I succumbed in this case.”

“That's wonderful. Are you going to do it?”

“I'm considering it. The owner brought me here a few times and I fell in love with the place. You will, too.”

They entered the restaurant where a young man with multiple earrings in one earlobe, wearing black slacks and a loose fitting white overshirt, warmly greeted them. “Michael,” he said, “ready to begin your performing career?”

“No, Tony,” Michael said. “This night, I am strictly a guest. May I present my lovely niece, Roberta Wilcox, of television fame.”

The owner took Robbie's hand. “I see you all the time on TV,” he said. “And this talented fellow is your uncle?”

“He certainly is,” she said.

They were led to a terrace behind the building where six tables were set for dinner. It was a lovely late afternoon and early evening, a gentle breeze creating the perfect temperature for outdoor dining. Once seated, the host asked whether they wanted drinks before dinner, or the wine list.

“A light dry, white wine,” Michael said. “Your discretion.”

“Happy, my dear?” Michael asked after the host had placed menus before them.

“Michael,” Roberta said, “when I said I had something to tell you, you immediately referred to the letters. What do you know about them?”

“That your father, my esteemed brother, wrote them on my typewriter and sent them to himself, claiming they were from the monster stalking young women on the streets of Washington.”

“How do you know?”

“He called me earlier today. I'd say he's gotten himself in a deep pile of doo-doo, as a former president was fond of eloquently saying, or so I've read.”

Their wine arrived, and Michael went through the requisite ritual of judging its worth with a sniff and a sip. “Fine,” he told the waiter, who poured. Roberta raised her glass to his. “To life,” he said.

“Michael,” she said, “I have a confession to make.”

“Oh? It sounds very serious, and I rush to assure you that I am not your friendly neighborhood priest. My confessional has been closed for years.” He noted that she'd laid her cell phone on the table. “No cell phones allowed,” he said. “House policy.”

She turned it off and returned it to her purse.

“That's better,” he said. “People's public use of cell phones is infuriatingly uncivilized, don't you agree?”

“Force of habit for me,” she said.

“Of course,” he said, “but I doubt there will be a terrorist attack on the White House while we dine.”

She smiled, wine glass held in both hands, her focus on its shimmering contents. “I believed you wrote those letters, Michael,” she said, still avoiding his eyes. “I thought you were the serial killer.”

She looked at him. His face was hard, taut, small muscles working his cheeks.

“I'm sorry for having thought such a thing,” she said.

“The documentary?” he said. “Was it because you intended to have captured the killer on videotape?”

“Yes. I'm ashamed to admit it, but—”

“It would have been quite a feather in your pretty cap, yes?”

She nodded.

He picked up his menu. “I highly recommend the fried shrimp,” he said. “They serve it with honeyed walnuts and a delicious lemon mayonnaise. The rib-eye steak is quite good, too.”

“Michael, I—”

“I did not kill that young woman at the newspaper, Robbie. I'm afraid your journalistic scoop will have to be put on hold. More wine?”

“Damn it!” Joe Wilcox said after returning to the car where Georgia waited with the engine running.

He'd knocked on Michael's door. When there was no answer, he let himself in with his passkey, finding the apartment empty except for Maggie, the cat, who greeted him with a version of “meow” and a rub against his leg.

“He promised he'd be here,” Wilcox told his wife as he got behind the wheel. “And I promised Edith he'd show up.”

“Maybe he ran out for a few minutes,” she said, checking her watch. “We're a few minutes early. Let's wait. I'm sure he'll be back.”

Twenty minutes later, Wilcox muttered a string of curses as he drove away. They were almost to the First Precinct building when Georgia said, “Michael must be terrified.”

“Of what?”

“Of having his history made public, and people wondering whether he might have killed again.”

“Disappearing won't help him,” Joe said, pulling into a driveway that ran alongside the precinct, and parking in a marked spot.

“It's reserved,” Georgia said.

“What are they going to do, arrest me for illegal parking? Come on before I'm tempted to disappear, too.”

Vargas-Swayze was at the front desk when they entered, and motioned for them to follow her into the precinct's recesses. “Hi, Georgia,” she said, opening a door into an interrogation room. “I'm sorry for this.” She asked Joe, “Where's your brother?”

“I don't know,” Wilcox said, slumping in a straight-back wooden chair. “He said he'd come with me, but when we got to his apartment, he was gone.”

“That's foolish of him,” the detective said.

Their attorney, Frank Moss, arrived, escorted by a uniformed officer from the front desk. “Sorry I'm late,” Moss said, breathing heavily. “Damn traffic this time of day.”

“Anyone want some station house coffee?” Vargas-Swayze asked. There were no takers. “Excuse me,” she said, and left the room.

She went to Bernie Evans's office where he was meeting with detectives Jack Millius and Ron Warrick.

“Wilcox is here?” Evans asked after she'd pulled up a chair.

“Yes,” Vargas-Swayze replied. “His wife is with him, and his attorney. The brother never showed.”

She recounted what Wilcox had told her about Michael's failure to appear.

“Why was it left to Wilcox to bring his brother in?” Evans asked, his displeasure not lost on her.

“I thought it was the best way,” she replied defensively.

“Looks like it wasn't—the best way,” Evans said.

“Do you want to talk to Joe?” she asked.

“Yes, I do. But first, I think you should hear what Jack and Ron have come up with.”

“We've been talking to people at Franklin Park, Edith, about the Grau knifing,” Millius said. “We came up with a live one this afternoon.”

“Good,” she said.

“We have an eyewitness to the killing,” Warrick said.

“Even better,” she said.

“It was the neighbor, LaRue.”

Her heart sunk. She forced her thoughts into a semblance of order and asked, “This eyewitness knows LaRue?”

“Right on,” Millius said. “He's an old guy who hangs around the park, downs too much vino, I think, but pretty clear-headed most of the time. He was there when the McNamara girl got it, too. Saw nothing. He says he knows LaRue from when LaRue would come to the park, usually with a book to read, or wearing one of those Walkman kinds of things.”

“I-Pod,” Warrick corrected.

“Whatever. This witness says LaRue always had some jazz type music playing. He thinks it was a guitar, only it might have been a banjo, he says.”

“And he was there the night Grau was killed?” she asked, trying to maintain calm.

Warrick nodded and continued consulting a notepad. “He says—by the way, his name is Olson, Swedish I guess—he says that he was sitting against a tree—”

“Thinking great thoughts,” Millius said, laughing.

“. . . sitting against a tree when LaRue and Grau come into the park. He says they were arguing, and that Grau got pretty nasty, lots of four-letter words directed at LaRue, claims he called him a fag and a pervert, a sicko, stuff like that. It got pretty heated, according to Mr. Olson. Next thing he knows, LaRue is running from the park. Olson gets up from where he's sitting and goes to the bench where he finds Grau bleeding to death.”