Murder Inside the Beltway (17 page)

“Let’s let him marinate a little,” Hatcher said.

“He’s a suspect in that hooker’s murder?” the officer asked.

“Yeah, and he’s a live one. Used to be her boyfriend.”

“How can a guy have a hooker for a girlfriend,” the young, pink-cheeked officer said.

“Beats me,” Hatcher said. “Here’s what I want you to do. After I’m with him for fifteen, twenty minutes, I’ll give you some sort of sign. You come in and say I’ve got a phone call or something. Then, when I leave, you stay in the room with him. Stand over him. No conversation.”

“Okay, Hatch.”

Hatcher hitched up his pants over his belly and entered the room. His arrival startled Thompson, who jerked in his chair.

“Mr. Thompson, Detective Hatcher,” Hatch said, using his most soothing voice.

“Right,” Thompson said, standing and offering his hand. Hatcher shook it and took the chair across from him.

“Thanks for coming in,” Hatcher said, recalling Chief Carter’s similar words. “I’m taping your statement, Mr. Thompson. Just want you to be aware of it.”

“All right.”

“Before we get to it, please spell your name for our records.”

Thompson did.

“And what is it you do for a living?”

“I’m a consultant on national security issues.”

“Oh. That’s a pretty important job, national security.”

“Yes, it is.”

“Where do you consult? I mean, I don’t get a chance to talk to too many consultants.”

“Homeland Security, the Pentagon.”

“Impressive. Keeping the country safe. Can’t imagine a more worthwhile thing to do.”

“It is important.”

“Damned important. So, Mr. Thompson, let’s go over your relationship with Ms. Rosalie Curzon. I understand that you and she were sort of a couple.”

Thompson thought before answering. “I suppose you think it’s strange that I’d be involved with a prostitute.”

“Hey,” Hatcher said with a shrug, “different strokes for different folks. Live and let live. So, how did you meet her?”

Thompson looked down at the table. “I was a customer.”

“Oh.”

He looked up at Hatcher. “I knew right away that she was much more than a prostitute, Detective. She had a very sweet side to her that I knew I could bring out.”

Hatcher smiled despite the pain in his temples. “That’s nice,” he said. “So, what happened? You couldn’t convince her to go straight, get out of the life?”

“That’s right. We split up because she wouldn’t give up what she did. I pleaded with her, even went to her father to ask him to talk to her. He refused. Some father.”

“Doesn’t sound like much of a father to me,” Hatcher said as if agreeing. “When’s the last time you and Rosalie got together, Mr. Thompson.”

Here comes the lie
. Hatcher could see it in Thompson’s eyes, mouth, and body language.

“I’ll try to be as accurate as possible,” Thompson said, looking to earn points for effort. “It will be two years this coming November. I believe I told your colleagues that it was two years since I’d last seen her. I’d like to correct that. It’s just shy of two years.”

“I appreciate your honesty, Mr. Thompson.” Hatcher now slowly stood and leaned over the table. Gone was his pleasant, I’m-just-a-regular-guy-in-your-corner smile. Replacing it were angry eyes, compressed lips, and a voice that was more a raspy growl. “You’re a liar, Thompson,” he said.

Thompson recoiled back against the chair as though struck physically. His eyes opened wide, and his lips quavered.

“You hear me, Mr. Consultant? You’re a liar.”

“What are you saying. I haven’t lied. I—”

Hatcher turned to the two-way glass and signaled to the uniformed cop, who’d been watching the scene in the room. The cop entered and said, “Phone call for you, Detective Hatcher.”

“Please,” Thompson said, “there’s a misunderstanding here. The last time I saw Rosalie was—”

Hatcher slammed the door behind him. He stood where the officer had been standing and watched, and listened, as Thompson tried to get the officer to listen to him. His words were wasted. The young cop, as he’d been instructed, stood behind Thompson with his arms folded across his chest, a stern look on his face.

Hatcher was about to reenter the room when Thompson suddenly got to his feet, came to the door, and opened it. He and Hatcher were face-to-face.

“Going someplace?” Hatcher said.

“I want a lawyer,” Thompson said weakly.

“Yeah, I think you’re going to need one,” Hatcher said. “But I’ll tell you this, Mr. Thompson, you already lied to the other detectives, and now you’re lying to me. We have witnesses who saw you with her as recently as two weeks ago.”

Thompson’s lips were doing a jig now; he was on the verge of tears.

“Let’s go back inside and continue our little talk,” Hatcher said, back to his pleasant, reassuring voice, a solo performance of good cop–bad cop. “When we’re done, you can call a lawyer. How’s that sound?”

Hatcher had him pegged right. Thompson melted, fighting back tears, and followed Hatcher back into the room.

“Now,” Hatcher said, “let’s go back over things, Mr. Thompson, starting from the beginning and right up until last Tuesday.”

The video- and audiotapes ran silently as Craig Thompson began to tell the truth.

A
woman with a molasses accent answered Matt Jackson’s call.

“May I speak with Micki Simmons,” Jackson said.

“Who might ah say is callin’?”

“Ah, Mr. Jackson. Matt Jackson. I’m calling from Washington.”

“May I tell her what this is in reference to?”

“Oh, she’ll know. We’re friends.”

The woman called to Micki. The sounds of loud children played in the background, and a dog barked, evidently a large one. Its bark was deep. Did it bark with a southern accent? Jackson couldn’t be sure.

“Hello,” Micki said.

“Hi. It’s Matt Jackson, Washington MPD.”

She spoke in a harsh whisper. “Why did you have to call me here?”

“It’s the number you gave me.”

“I didn’t think you’d be actually
callin
’ me here.”

“We need to talk to you again,” he said.

“I don’t know,” she said after a long pause.

“You promised you’d make yourself available if we needed to speak with you, Micki.”

“But not here. That was my mother who answered the phone.” She placed her hand over the mouthpiece, but Jackson heard her yell, “It’s nothing, Momma. Just a friend.”

“Micki?” Jackson said.

“What do you want to talk about?”

“We want to ask some more questions about Rosalie Curzon, and your relationship with her.”

“I told you everything I know.”

“That may be true,” Jackson said, “but I’m afraid you’re going to have to come back to Washington for a day or two.” She started to protest, but he added, “There’s no argument, Micki. I was nice enough to let you leave town, but now you have to return. Sorry.”

“I was planning on stayin’ here, calling the apartment manager and telling him to get rid of my stuff.”

“You can do that while you’re here.”

Mary Hall smiled at the exasperation on Jackson’s face.

“Look, Micki,” Jackson said, adding steel to his voice, “either you come back within the next few days or I send a couple of South Carolina cops to slap cuffs on you and drag you up here. Your choice.” He wasn’t sure he could do that with someone who hadn’t been labeled a suspect—or as the prosecutors preferred, person-of-interest—but it sounded like a reasonable threat.

“I’ll try,” she said.

“Try hard, Micki. When can I expect to see you?”

“There’s things I have to do here and—”

“Take a train tomorrow,” Jackson said. “You have my cell number. I’ll expect to hear from you by five o’clock.”

He clicked off his phone in the midst of her protest.

“She’s coming?” Mary asked.

“She’d better,” he said, the steel not quite gone.

Their conversation was interrupted by Hatcher, who appeared with Craig Thompson. The two men said nothing to each other as Thompson, who looked like someone who’d just been given a death sentence by a doctor, left the room, his head low, his eyes averting others.

“How’d it go?” Mary asked Hatcher.

“He’s scum. He admits seeing her a few weeks ago, claims he wanted to try again to convince her to stop turning tricks.” A crooked smile formed on Hatcher’s lips. “He’ll have to get that suit cleaned. He sweated buckets.”

“But he denies seeing her the night she was killed?” Jackson asked.

Hatcher shook his head and frowned. “No, he gave me a play-by-play of how he did it, drew me a picture. Get real, Jackson.”

They went to an unoccupied office, where Jackson and Hall filled in their boss on their trip to Beltway Entertainment, and their conversation with Billy McMahon. Jackson decided to include Micki Simmons in the discussion, and did.

“How come you let her skip town without getting a formal statement?” Hatcher asked, overtly displeased.

“She was on her way home to South Carolina. I didn’t see any need to—”

“Did you tape it?” Hatcher asked.

“No, I—”

“Where’d you interview her?”

Jackson drew a breath before answering, “In my apartment.”

“Oh, that’s cozy,” said Hatcher. “What’d you do, get a freebie?”

“Hatch!” Mary said.

“No written statement, no tapes,” Hatcher said, sneering. “Jesus! You bleeding-heart types make me laugh.”

“I did what I thought was right at the time,” Jackson said. “Anyway, she’s coming back to D.C.”

“When?”

“Tomorrow, I think.”

Hatcher turned to Mary. “He thinks! What about Patmos, over at the Senate?”

“I was about to call when you and Thompson arrived.”

“Do it. Don’t take any excuses from him. I want him interviewed this afternoon. Understood?”

They nodded, and he walked away.

Mary saw the anger on Jackson’s face. She touched his arm and said, “Don’t let him get to you, Matt.”

“I notice he doesn’t talk to you that way.”

“Sure he does.”

“Well, I haven’t seen it much. You calling Patmos?”

“Yes.”

“I need a walk. Be back in a half hour.”

He left the building, crossed the street, and ordered an iced tea from a fast-food place on the other side of Indiana Avenue. He took his drink outside and sat in a wobbly plastic chair at a wobbly plastic table. From there he could see the imposing building that housed the Washington MPD, his home away from home since joining the force five years ago.

His initial assignments, while arduous, had been fulfilling. As a uniformed cop he’d soon encountered the breadth of the human condition, drug dealers and users, irate tenants in public housing, domestic situations in which murder was on the mind of a husband who’d been cuckolded, or a wife whose addiction had drained every cent out of the family budget. The most wrenching were cases in which a child was involved, beaten or starved, neglected like a discarded teddy bear. Of course, there were more uplifting experiences, too, mediating a dispute between two otherwise friends, greetings from shop owners who appreciated his uniformed presence on their block, helping find a youngster who’d strayed from his mother’s side in a park, even directing traffic at a busy intersection after a power failure had knocked out the lights.

He thought about these things as he sat and sipped his drink, and realized he’d grown misty.

Hatcher!

Jackson had been paired up with a variety of cops before joining Hatcher’s squad, men and women of seemingly every color, religion, and political persuasion. They’d all gotten along, knew they’d better if they were to survive on D.C.’s mean streets. He’d met plenty of detectives, including white men and women who, while quick to point out his mistakes, had treated him with respect. They didn’t see him as a black cop. They simply saw a young
cop
learning the ropes and aspiring to join their ranks.

Hatcher!

Jackson had stayed up late the night before pondering whether to ask for reassignment to another squad, or quitting the force altogether. He’d spoken with his father earlier that evening. He loved his parents, and he knew they loved him. His father was a large, gentle man with a low, rolling laugh and eyes that opened wide when listening to people, his patients as well as his many friends. Matt knew that his parents wanted more children but his mother had almost died following his birth; a complete hysterectomy had to be performed to save her life. Matt sometimes wished he’d had brothers and sisters, but also benefited from being the only child. He had his parents’ undivided attention, although it stopped short of outright spoiling him.

“How goes it, son?” his father asked during their phone call.

“Pretty good, Dad.”

His father laughed. “You don’t sound convinced.”

“No, I’m fine. But I’ve just about had it with my boss.”

“Detective Hatcher.”

“Yes, Detective Hatcher.”

“You said the last time we talked that he’s a bigot.”

“He sure is.”

“You’ve met and dealt with bigots before, Matt.”

“I know, but I never had to spend every day working with them, being that close.”

There was a pause on his father’s end. “Sure you’re not mistaking his take-no-prisoners personality with bigotry?”

“Dad,” Matt said, “Hatcher is a bull-headed, close-minded, nasty bastard. On top of it, he’s a bigot. Other than that, he’s a prince of a guy.”

“I don’t doubt you for a moment, son. I get the impression that you’re thinking of resigning.”

Matt hesitated. “That’s right,” he said. “Maybe you and Mom were right, being a cop was a dumb idea.”

“We never said it was dumb, Matt. We respected your desire to get out and do something tangible for people. That’s admirable.”

“But I don’t think I can take much more of Hatcher’s browbeating. He treats everything I say or do as though I was a—” Matt grinned. “As though I was a dumb kid, and a black one, at that.”

“Know what I think, Matt?” his father said. “I think you’d never forgive yourself if you gave up because of this man, tucked your tail in and ran. That’s not what you’re made of. Remember when we’d come home from parents’ night at your school? You’d complain about one teacher or another, that she ‘rots,’ as you liked to say, wasn’t fair, that sort of thing. And what would we tell you? We’d say that you’ll have to learn to get along with a lot of difficult people in your life, authority figures you don’t like, people who don’t think or act the way you want them to.”