Murder at The Washington Tribune (35 page)

“He called it in?” Vargas-Swayze asked.

“No. He says he left the park, too, and told somebody on the street that a guy was dying there.”

“Why did he never come forward?” she asked.

“Why else? He was afraid he'd get in trouble. He's got a rap sheet, mostly nuisance stuff, public urination, panhandling.”

“We worked him pretty good this afternoon,” Millius said. “The guy's a vet, like Grau was. We told him it was his patriotic duty to help solve the murder of a fellow vet, strike a blow against terrorism. He puffed up his chest and agreed.”

“And you don't have any doubts about his story?” Vargas-Swayze asked, glancing at Evans, who'd listened quietly, chair tilted back, hands behind his head.

“It plays,” Evans said, coming forward. “You have no idea, Edith, where Mr. LaRue is at the moment?”

She shook her head.

“Put out an APB,” he instructed the other detectives, “and get over and stake out his apartment. Ask around. Maybe somebody knows where he went.”

After they'd left the office, Evans said to Vargas-Swayze, “I'm disappointed in you, Edith.”

“For good reason. I wanted to do Joe Wilcox a favor. I guess I'm not as good a cop as you thought.”

“No, Edith, you're still a good cop. I figure the hassle you've been having with your hubby has occupied your mind. Just don't let it happen again.” He noticed that the office door was open. “Close that, huh?”

He slid papers across the desk. “Take a look at these.”

“They're copies of e-mails with everything deleted except the messages,” she said. “How did you get them?”

“Dropped off in an envelope at our front door. You know Morehouse at the
Trib,
right?”

“Not well, but—according to these, he'd been having an affair with Jean Kaporis at the paper.”

“That's what it looks like. I'd say this gal was pretty mad at him, judging from what she wrote, making demands of him, threatening to tell his wife. Nasty stuff. That might have made him pretty mad, too.”

“I don't know,” she said.

“You don't know what?”

“After finding out that the letters that supposedly came from the serial killer were phonies, I'm questioning the authenticity of everything.”

“These ring true to me. You know his wife?”

“Mimi Morehouse. I've met her a few times at Joe Wilcox's house.”

“They get along, Mr. and Mrs. Morehouse?”

“Beats me.”

“My guess is that the proverbial woman scorned dropped these off, which most likely means his wife. You agree?”

“Makes the most sense.”

“All right,” he said, standing, “we've got plenty to do. Time for a talk with your buddy Wilcox. Maybe he can give us a lead on where his brother might have gone. And then let's find Mr. Morehouse and ask a few pointed questions. This could turn out to be our lucky day, not his.”

Georgia Wilcox had tried unsuccessfully for the second time to reach their daughter on her cell phone. “It's not like her to turn it off,” she said, snapping closed her phone's cover as Vargas-Swayze and Bernard Evans entered the room. After Evans had been introduced to Georgia and reestablished that he and Joe had met numerous times before, the head detective said, “So, Joe, why not lay it all out for us and get it over with.”

“One second, detective,” attorney Moss said. “Is Mr. Wilcox being charged with a crime?”

“Not yet,” Evans answered.

Moss turned to Wilcox. “My best advice, Joe, is to say nothing. You're not obligated to answer his questions.”

“I'm sure that's true, Frank, and I appreciate the advice. But there's no reason for me to not tell what happened. I'd feel better doing it.”

“As you wish.”

Wilcox didn't attempt to mitigate what he'd done, offered no excuses except that he'd lost his ego boundaries and had tried to be something he wasn't, someone important in his profession. With his hand firmly in Georgia's grasp, he laid it all out for Evans, point by point, misguided action by misguided action. “That's about it,” he said after the sad tale had been told.

“Okay,” Evans said. “Next. Where's your brother, Michael?”

“I don't know,” Wilcox replied, and told of Michael's failure to show up at his apartment.

“We've put out an all-points for him,” Evans said. “No way you can contact him, let him know that it's in his best interest to come in voluntarily?”

“No. I really don't know much about Michael's life here in Washington, who he knows, where he goes.”

“You've put out an all-points on Mr. Wilcox's brother?” the attorney said. “Is
he
charged with a crime?”

“We think he might be responsible for a knife murder in Franklin Park,” Evans replied.

Joe and Georgia Wilcox looked at each other.

“Will Joe be charged with a crime for writing those letters?” Georgia asked.

Evans ignored the question as his cell phone sounded. He listened without response, thanked the caller, and motioned for Vargas-Swayze to accompany him outside.

“What's up?” she asked when they were alone.

“That was Millius,” Evans said. “He and Warrick are over at the brother's apartment building. A resident there, an older woman—Warrick says she's the apartment snoop—says she saw the brother leave in a fancy black sports car. He had somebody with him.”

She waited for more.

“The old lady says she recognized the woman who drove off with him from television.” He nodded toward the closed door to the interrogation room. “Your friend's daughter, Roberta Wilcox.”

Vargas-Swayze exhaled noisily.

“You said she'd been there with a camera crew filming a documentary.”

“Right. Did the woman get a plate number?”

“No. Just said it was a shiny black convertible with the top down. Warrick says the woman was afraid Ms. Wilcox would catch a cold. I like older women. They worry about the right things. Go back in with the Wilcoxes. Take a formal statement, then let them go.”

“Bernie, will Joe be charged with a crime?” she asked.

“We'll see. I'd like to think I worry about the right things, too. I'll talk with someone at the DA's office. Meantime, let's take care of Mr. LaRue and Mr. Morehouse. Check in with me later.”

After taking a formal statement from Wilcox, to the attorney's chagrin, Vargas-Swayze told them they were free to go. She escorted them to the lobby where Moss told Wilcox that he'd be in touch with the name of a criminal lawyer, and left.

“There's something I have to tell you,” the detective told Joe and Georgia.

“What?” Georgia asked.

“According to detectives who went to Michael's apartment building, he was seen leaving in a black convertible sports car.”

“I didn't know he had a car,” Joe said.

“We'll check rental agencies,” Vargas-Swayze said. “There's more.”

The Wilcoxes waited.

“Roberta was with him.”

THIRTY-FOUR

Over the course of his career in
The Washington Tribune
's newsroom, Paul Morehouse had heard every four-letter word known to man. But what he was hearing this evening on the phone from his wife rivaled it. The slight, ordinarily demure woman let loose with a string of invective that would make any contemporary comedian proud.

She paused to breathe.

“Look,” he said, “I know you're upset, but we can work this out.”

“ ‘Work this out?' ”
she screamed, and started down the list of classic forbidden words again, adding a few of her own invention.

He had no choice but to continue listening or to hang up. He chose to listen, glancing nervously into the newsroom through his window and hoping her shrill, piercing voice wasn't reaching others' ears.

He'd expected the tirade; she'd thrown in his face that morning her discovery of the e-mails, sending him from the house in search of refuge at the newspaper with a sense of dread. It was the dread that trumped other emotions at that moment as she growled, “Did you kill that woman?”

“What?” His exaggerated shock sounded exactly that, exaggerated, and false.

“Jean Kaporis! Did you kill her?”

“Oh, Jesus, Mimi, come on. Look, I made a mistake, that's all. I'm sorry. I—”

“Tell that to the police, you lying bastard!”

It sounded as though she'd destroyed the phone while hanging up.

He was pondering what steps to take next when Gene Hawthorne knocked on his door.

“Not now!” Morehouse shouted.

Hawthorne opened the door.

“I said—”

“You have to hear this, Paul,” the brash, young towheaded reporter said.

“What?”

Hawthorne closed the door behind him, leaned on the desk, and said, “I just got off the phone with a source at MPD.”

“Yeah?” Morehouse said, his mind elsewhere.

“A
good
source,” Hawthorne said. He lowered his voice and leaned closer. “Joe Wilcox is there.”

“So?”

“He's there, Paul because—” It was almost a whisper now. “Because
he wrote those letters.
”

“What letters?”

Hawthorne stepped back, a smug smile on his face.

“Those letters?” Morehouse said. “The serial killer letters?”

“That's right. Joe wrote the letters. He's a phony.”

“Why the hell would he do that?” the gruff veteran editor asked aloud.

“The police are searching for his brother, too,” said Hawthorne.

“What brother? Joe doesn't have a brother.”

“He sure as hell does, Paul. They're looking for him in connection with the knifing in Franklin Park. Rudolph Grau, the brother's neighbor.”

“Are you sure?” Morehouse asked. “About the letters?”

“It's a good source, Paul. Want me to follow up on it?”

“Yeah. No. I'll have to run this by upstairs. Jesus. You're positive?”

“Like I said—”

“Keep it to yourself, huh?” Morehouse said, getting up and taking his suit jacket from an antique clothes tree that had been a gift from Mimi. Again to Hawthorne: “You tell nobody about this until I say so. Hear me?”

“Absolutely.”

Hawthorne left, and Morehouse placed a call to the executive suite where he told a secretary that it was urgent that he see the publisher immediately. She checked, came back on the line, and said, “He's in a meeting, but should be free in fifteen minutes.”

“Good. Thanks.”

Of the many things Morehouse admired about himself, it was his ability to remain calm and collected under fire that he treasured most. He silently reminded himself of this as he realized he was about to come unraveled. “Steady goes it,” he said aloud. “Easy, easy.”

A clock on the wall said it was nearly time to go upstairs. He rose from behind his desk and took steps toward the door, but the ringing of his private line stopped him. Was it Mimi again? If so, he wouldn't answer. Unsure of what to do, he again reminded himself to calm down and to think things through.

He picked up the receiver.

“Paul Morehouse?” the woman asked.

“Yeah. Who's this?”

“Detective Vargas-Swayze, MPD.”

His voice wasn't as convincing as he'd hoped. “What can I do for you, detective?”

“We'd like to speak with you.”

“About what?”

“If you'd rather not have us come to your office, we can agree to meet someplace else,” she said.

“What's it all about?” he repeated.

“We'll get into that when we meet. Your office? Ten minutes?”

“Ten minutes? I won't be here. I'm on my way to a meeting.” Vargas-Swayze, he thought. Joe Wilcox's friend. “Is this about Joe Wilcox?”

“No, sir, it's about you. We can bring you in for questioning, or we can do it at the newspaper. Your choice, but you'll have to make a choice—now.”

“Look,” he said, “I have this meeting. It's important. I don't have any reason to play your game, detective. If you want to speak with me, call my attorney.” He rattled off the name and number.

“Okay,” Vargas-Swayze said from where she stood on the sidewalk in front of the
Tribune
Building. With her were two other detectives and three uniformed officers. She cut the connection and instructed the uniformed men to cover any exits from the building other than the main one. To the detectives: “Let's go.”

They entered the building and flashed their IDs at the private security guard at the desk. “What floor is Paul Morehouse on?” she asked.

He told her, adding, “I'll call his extension and let him know you're here.”

“No you won't,” she said, and asked one of the officers to remain at the desk. “We like surprises.”