Murder at The Washington Tribune (30 page)

TWENTY-SEVEN

Edith Vargas-Swayze was in good spirits as she walked into the detectives' room at the First Precinct. She'd come from the meeting with her lawyer at which she learned that her estranged husband, Peter, had landed a new job at an even higher salary than he'd been paid at his previous one. As a result, he was dropping his insistence that he cease making alimony payments, and that she pay
him
since he was out of work.

“What a guy,” she'd said, to which her sober-sided attorney replied, “Your husband's lawyer is as big a jerk as he is. One request, though.”

“Yes?”

“Stop going around saying you want to shoot him. I know you're kidding, but it doesn't sound good coming from a cop.”

“Okay,” she said. “I promise I won't—unless—”

“Get out of here,” he said. “And next time pick a better guy to get involved with.”

“Is Wade in?” she asked Bernie Evans, her boss, as he passed through the room where detectives milled about, some just arriving after having conducted investigations, others about to launch theirs.

“He called in. His leg. You'll have to work solo today. We're shorthanded. Or short-legged.”

“Not a problem,” she said, going to her desk and picking up a file folder from the forensic lab that had been dropped there minutes earlier. The FBI central fingerprint registry had compared prints on the first letter with known prints in its massive file. Although the few prints on the page were smeared and smudged, two partials matched samples in the database. They belonged to
Washington Tribune
employees Joe Wilcox and Paul Morehouse. No surprise. Wilcox had opened the envelope and removed the letter, and he'd handed it to Morehouse. They'd acknowledged as much when she was there.

What did grab her interest was the note on the bottom of the report. The print belonging to Joseph Wilcox appeared to have been placed on the paper prior to any words having been typed.

She sat back and contemplated what she'd read. The forensic lab had told her that its preliminary analysis indicated that one of the prints could have preceded the typing. If true, they'd agreed, it could mean that the person making that print might be the letter writer.

Joe Wilcox?

Could it be? Was it possible that he'd written a phony letter to create grist for a sensational story, and to enhance his importance?

Would prints on the second letter establish the same possibility?

The officers assigned to provide surveillance on the Wilcox home had claimed that no one had approached the mailbox aside from the mailman and Wilcox. Surely, the mailman wasn't the serial killer.

“No, no,” she said aloud. “Not Joe.”

If so, to say she was shocked would be a gross understatement.

She went to Evans's office. “Got a minute?” she asked.

“Sure, Edith. Pull up a chair.”

She handed him the report.

He looked up over half-glasses and smiled. “Do you think your buddy Wilcox is about to join that distinguished company of journalists who get too inventive?”

“I don't know, Bernie,” she said. “If I were a betting person, I'd lay my money on Joe being the last person who'd do that. He's a stand-up guy. He's never lied to me.”

Evans leaned back in his chair and clasped his hands behind his head. “Maybe he's going through a midlife crisis,” he said. “I recently went through mine. So did my wife. I bought a red pickup truck, and she dyed her hair red. Happens to the best of us.”

Vargas-Swayze laughed.

“At least I didn't put a gun rack in the back. Have you checked on the phone taps?”

“I will when I leave here. We have one on his home now.”

“Good. In the meantime, he'll write another story that will run on the front page and sell a slew of papers.” He came forward in his chair. “If Wilcox has been writing these so-called letters to himself, where did he do it? Forensics says they weren't from a computer printer. Had to be a typewriter. Does he have one at home?”

“I've never seen one,” she replied, “but that doesn't prove anything.”

“If the second letter indicates the same result, maybe we should get a warrant.”

She winced. “I'd hate to do that, Bernie. He's a friend.”

“You've never had a friend break the law under your nose?” he asked.

“No.”

“Look, all I can say is that if Wilcox has been writing these letters to himself, he's not only dishonoring his profession, he's committing a crime. Keep that in mind.”

“I will,” she said, getting up to leave. “Red pickup truck?” she said. “You have a red pickup truck?”

“Yes. A nifty little vehicle. Great for bringing home plants from the nursery, or sheetrock from the lumber yard.”

“Interesting,” she said to herself as she left his office and went to the communications room to check on the taps.

Roberta Wilcox's mood was not as ebullient that morning as Vargas-Swayze's had been. She and Tom Curtis had argued on the phone to start the day. He wanted her to join him that evening to meet friends from out of town who were in D.C. on a visit. She declined, claiming she needed every hour she could muster to work on a developing big story. He became angry at her constant unavailability, causing her to accuse him of insensitivity to her career needs. That was bad enough. But he ended the conversation by saying that not only was she married to her job—and he didn't want to be married to someone wedded to something else—but that her chronic lateness was a sophomoric call for attention. The conversation ended abruptly when he hung up—forcefully.

She'd fumed about the call while showering and dressing, and over a breakfast of a limp bagel and brown water called coffee in a neighborhood luncheonette. But once she reached the TV station and was ensconced in her tiny office in the newsroom, angry thoughts about Tom Curtis were replaced by images of Michael Wilcox, aka Michael LaRue, and the page from his manuscript that now sat on the desk. Next to it was a clip of her father's first article announcing that he'd received a letter from the serial killer, and in which the letter had been reproduced. She was no document expert, but her untrained, albeit critical eye, left no doubt that the manuscript page and the letter had come from the same typewriter. It was a startling, shocking conclusion. The problem was that she didn't have the slightest idea what to do with her discovery.

The options were self-evident, but none seemed palatable. The sensible step would be to report her conclusions to the police, give them the manuscript page, and let their experts compare it to the alleged killer's letter. Would not doing that constitute some sort of crime on her part, the withholding of evidence? She decided it wouldn't. All she had at this point was a theory. The police received theories every day from crackpots all over the city. She was on safe ground here.

She considered, but only for a minute, calling her father. After all, it was his brother whom she now thought had written the letter. But that option didn't seem viable. Truth was, she was sitting on a potential major development. Sharing it at this stage with another, father or no father, would cause her to lose control of it.

What to do with this story she controlled? That was the real dilemma. Having seen the typed manuscript pages at Michael's apartment, and connecting them in her mind with what she remembered the letter to have looked like, had prompted her second visit to the apartment. She hadn't liked lying to Michael about why she wanted to interview him, but it seemed the most expedient way to get him to talk—and ultimately to get him on videotape.

There were two possibilities, she reasoned.

Her uncle Michael might be still be mentally unbalanced enough to have written to his brother pretending to be the serial killer, getting some sort of warped psychic payoff from the act.

Or—and she wasn't sure how she would handle this prospect at the moment—was her uncle Michael . . . ?

Okay, she told herself as she sipped on the fresh coffee she'd carried back from Starbuck's, either way—he'd written the letter as a sick joke, or had killed Jean Kaporis and Colleen McNamara—she had a hell of a scoop within her grasp, and now wanted him on tape more than ever to help illustrate it.

She was deep in these thoughts when her producer poked his head in. “Hey, another coup for your old man,” he said.

“What?”

“His story this morning in the
Trib.
The second letter he received from the nut.”

“Oh, right. Yes, it's a real coup.”

She hadn't even looked at the
Tribune
that morning, something she did religiously each day. She went into the main newsroom, picked up a copy from a pile on someone's desk, and carried it back to her office. The article was splashed over the front page of the Metro section. There were three photos accompanying the piece—Jean Kaporis, Colleen McNamara, and Joe Wilcox. In the center of the page was a reproduction of the letter that had been photographed from the Xerox copy Wilcox had retained at the house.

“Damn!” she said aloud. “Why didn't he tell me?”

She hadn't answered messages left on her machine by her mother the previous night. Maybe she should have.

The reproduction in the
Tribune
looked exactly like the first one, matching the page she'd taken from Michael's manuscript.

She started writing notes on a yellow legal pad:
Two women in media murdered . . . Dad proffers serial killer theory in article . . . Michael arrives in D.C.
(
arrived before murders
)
. . . 40 yrs in nut house for murdering neighbor girl . . . Dad gets first letter from “serial killer” . . . looks as if matches pages in Michael's manuscript
(
I discover
)
. . . Dad gets second letter . . . Both written by Michael
(
same typewriter
)
. . . Michael playing pranks with Dad?
(
Crazy thing to do
)
. . . OR Michael is the serial killer . . . God!!!

She called Michael.

“Ah, Roberta,” he said in what she now recognized was his expansive, somewhat theatrical style. “Am I ready for my close-up?” He laughed. “Good side only.”

“Hi, Michael. As a matter of fact, I am calling about the documentary. I was wondering if I could bring a camera crew to the apartment sometime today? I thought we could get some generic, establishing footage, you playing the guitar, fussing in the kitchen, that sort of thing.”

“Playing the guitar? I'm hardly ready to perform for the camera.”

“That's silly,” she said. “You play exquisitely, as good as—”

“Joe Pass?”

“Yes. Joe Pass. Can I?”

“Only for you, dear niece. What time?”

“Noon?”

“All right. What shall I wear?”

“Why not wear what I've seen you in before, the black slacks and T-shirt. You look terrific in it.”