Murder at The Washington Tribune (5 page)

Wilcox replaced the pad and pen in his jacket and followed her to the door, which she opened, standing back to allow him to exit. He was glad to be leaving. He'd begun to sweat despite the apartment's coolness, and felt lightheaded.

“Thanks,” he said, stepping into the hallway. The door closed behind him.

He hadn't been there long; it was only three-thirty. He considered calling it a day and going home. Reporters determined how they spent their days, their time pretty much their own when working a story. But Morehouse had asked him to check in, and he'd also scheduled that meeting of his reportorial team at six.

He stopped in a luncheonette where he had a cup of coffee, and checked his voice mail back at the paper. One call piqued his immediate interest. He caught Vargas-Swayze on her cell phone while she and her partner drove to a second interview with a delivery man. He worked for an office supply outlet and had signed in at the
Trib
early on the evening Kaporis was murdered.

“Up for a drink after work?” Wilcox asked.

“After work?” She laughed. “When is that?”

“Whenever you say, Edith. And don't make it sound like you're the only one in town working twenty-four hours a day.”

“Oh, I forgot, Joe. You media types work long hours, too. Sure. I've been meaning to catch up with you anyway.”

“Something new in the Kaporis case?”

“Maybe. What do you have for me?”

“We have a task force, too, now. I'm in charge,” he said.

This time it was more of a giggle. “Where and when?”

“Let's make it dinner. Eight good for you?”

“Sure, as long as it's dark and out of the way. Can't risk my reputation being seen with a reporter.” She said it lightly, but he knew there was substance behind the remark.

“Martin's Tavern. As Yogi said, it's so popular nobody goes there any more.”

“Are you going to propose to me, Joe?”

“Huh?”

“Propose. Like in marriage proposal. That's where JFK proposed to Jackie.”

“I didn't know that. Besides, I'm a married man.” The minute he said it, he wished he hadn't.

“And I'm still a married woman, at least legally. Get a corner booth.”

Their thoughts were similar, and they didn't involve pink elephants.

“What was that all about?” Dungey asked as Vargas-Swayze pulled up in front of a commercial building.

“My source at the
Trib,
Joe Wilcox.”

“Sounded like you're in love.”

“Just goofing with him. He's a good guy, a straight-shooter.”

“Can't be if he's a media whore.”

She ignored him and led the way into the building.

“What did the roommate have to say?” Morehouse asked Wilcox.

“She confirmed to me that Kaporis had told her she'd been seeing someone from here.”

“A reporter?”

“She didn't elaborate. She's a tough cookie. I think she might be a hooker of some sort.”

Morehouse's thick eyebrows went up. “A hooker?”

“She calls herself a freelancer. When I pressed, she cut me off.”

“Do you think there's an angle in this?”

Wilcox shrugged and lifted his hands, palms up. “Like what?”

Morehouse massaged his nose. “Do you think—and I'm only playing what if, Joe—what if Jean was in some way moonlighting? What if she was turning tricks on the side and got one of her Johns mad enough to kill her?”

“Oh, come on, Paul, that's—”

“That's thinking outside the box, Joe.”

“Maybe it is, but it does nothing for me.”

“Follow up on it.”

“How, asking the roommate whether she's a whore?”

“That's not a bad start.”

Wilcox knew it was futile to argue the point at that moment and changed the subject. “I'm meeting tonight with a good contact at MPD. She sounded as though she might have something for me.”

“Who, the spic cop, Vargas-Swayze?”

Wilcox's frown was one of disapproval.

“All right, the Spanish cop.”

“She's the lead detective on the Kaporis case,” Wilcox said. “By the way, L.A. police interviewed a former boyfriend of Jean's. He's clean, was nowhere near D.C. the night she got it.”

“Where'd you pick that up?”

“A friend at lunch.”

“Get somebody out in L.A. to interview him, get a better handle on what she was like out of the office. Or out of her clothes.”

Wilcox nodded. “I'm meeting with Rick Jillian and the rest of our group at six. Want to join us?”

“No. I'm tied up tonight.”

As Wilcox started to leave the office, Morehouse said, “Why don't you pick Hawthorne's brain. He's really wired in around the District.”

“Sure.” Wilcox said. “I'll talk to Gene.”

He had no intention of asking his least favorite young reporter for anything.

He called Georgia at home to say he'd be late that night.

“You reporters,” she said lightly. “Roberta was going to stop by for dinner tonight, but she was given a last-minute assignment.”

“A couple more years and I'll be home for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.”

“I'd like that.”

“No you wouldn't, Georgia. I don't play golf or make pretty wooden furniture. No hobbies. I'll drive you mad.”

“Try me,” she said. “Take care. Don't be too late.”

The six o'clock meeting was no more productive than most meetings, although it did result in a semblance of organization, with Wilcox handing out specific tasks, including assigning someone from the L.A. bureau to track down and interview Kaporis's ex-boyfriend. It ended at 6:45. Wilcox left the building and drove to busy Georgetown where he found, of all things, a parking space only a few feet away from Martin's Tavern, the oldest such establishment in Washington. Management knew him and plopped a
RESERVED
sign on a corner booth in the most secluded portion of the restaurant. He considered having a drink but decided to wait. He window-shopped up and down Wisconsin Avenue for an hour, stopping in Britches to admire a sport jacket that was too expensive for his budget, and in Olsson's Books and Records where he browsed the classical music section without purchasing anything. Having killed sufficient time, he returned to the tavern, took the booth, and indulged in some serious introspection and reflection, a Scotch, neat, oiling the process.

He was dismayed that Morehouse saw a story potential in the possibility that Jean Kaporis's roommate might be a prostitute, and was sorry he'd even mentioned it. He worked for the prestigious
Washington Tribune,
not some supermarket tabloid. Was it so important for the paper, particularly its Metro section, to have a story every day about Jean Kaporis's murder that it would be content to manufacture “news?” It seemed that way, although he knew Morehouse would have a tough time getting his bosses to run an article based upon speculation and innuendo.

Morehouse's suggestion that he, Joe Wilcox, a twenty-three year veteran reporter, enlist the help of the self-righteous, smug Gene Hawthorne, was especially galling. Morehouse knew of his dislike for the young reporter. Had he made the suggestion in order to humiliate him? If that was his intention, he'd succeeded, at least momentarily.

He finished his drink, checked his watch, and ordered a second. While waiting for it and Edith Vargas-Swayze to arrive, he found himself smiling, and feeling, suddenly, strangely buoyant.

Morehouse had said that the Kaporis story might be the big one Wilcox had been seeking his entire career. Maybe Morehouse was right. Maybe it was time to suck it up and summon new energy to attack the story with the zest he'd demonstrated in the past. He'd recently been going through the motions, he knew, disheartened and dejected, wondering where his career had taken him. He was in the midst of that thought when Edith came through the door, spotted him, and slid on to the bench across from him.

“I was afraid you were standing me up,” Wilcox said.

“I'm not that late,” she said. “I see you've started without me.”

“Just killing time. Drink?”

She shook her head. “Afraid I'll be called back. The natives are restless tonight. Three shootings so far, more to come.”

He was glad he wasn't back at the paper. The night reporters assigned to the cops beat would have been dispatched to cover the shootings, and he would have been pressed into service, too. There was always the possibility that he'd receive a call at home or on his cell phone, but that was unlikely now that the Kaporis murder had taken center stage. He'd be left alone to produce something worthy of the Metro section's front page. Hopefully, the attractive woman seated across from him would help.

“So,” she said after they'd ordered their meals, Virginia crab cakes for her, lamb chops for him. “Level with me, Joe. Who's the smart money on at the
Trib
?”

“Meaning?”

“Who tops the rumor list in the Kaporis story?”

“Oh,” he said, pursing his lips and nodding. “Who done it, you mean?”

“Let me put it another way. Is the paper trying to cover anything up?”

“Protect who killed her? Come on, Edith, be reasonable. The brain trust wants to find the killer itself, clean up its own act, make a splash with it. We've been interviewing everyone who was there that night, or at least those who admit they were.”

“And?”

“Nothing, so far. I went over the list of people you interviewed. Obviously, you didn't come up with any more than I did. I was disappointed about the ex-boyfriend.”

“Disappointed?”

“Yeah, in you, Edith. I found out through a friend at lunch.”

“I wasn't involved, Joe. I knew about it but—”

“I know, I know. It's just that—”

“The LAPD interviewed the kid. Clean.”

“Still. You interviewed the roommate, Pruit?”

“Right. Icy lady.”

“What do you know about her?”

“The roommate? Nothing. Why?”

He hesitated for a moment. “You should run a background on her. She might be a call girl.”

Vargas-Swayze's eyebrows went up. She sat back to allow their food to be placed before them. When the waiter left, she came forward and asked, “Do you know that? I mean, for a fact?”

“No, but it's possible. Worth checking out.” It was awkward passing along such a salacious, unsubstantiated rumor, but it was all he had at the moment.

She started to eat, and Wilcox observed her from across the table. He'd always found her appealing, and sometimes lusted for her in a Jimmy Carter sort of way. Passive, carnal thoughts but nothing more than that—the remarkable exception being that one totally unexpected, unplanned, and unlikely night in bed together. He couldn't take credit for having seduced her, which was just as well.

She exuded a fleshy solidness, nothing loose anywhere on her as far as he could see. Coppery skin stretched taut across wide cheekbones beneath large, oval dark brown eyes. Her mouth, of normal size at rest, blossomed into something larger and sensuous when she smiled, a set of very white teeth framed by bloodred lipstick, and rendered whiter against the duskiness of her skin. She was, he estimated, about five feet, four inches tall, with a compact body she probably didn't have to work hard at keeping firm. One thing was certain: there were no rules at MPD against female detectives wearing jewelry. Vargas-Swayze wore lots of it, multiple gold strands dangling down over the front of her white turtleneck, large gold earrings in the shape of fish, and rings of various sizes and design on three fingers of each hand, fingernails nicely manicured and painted to match her lips.

“I interviewed the roommate again this afternoon,” Wilcox said, biting into a chop and wishing it had been pinker.

“She said something to indicate she might be in the life?”

“Calls herself a freelancer, but won't elaborate. Who did you talk to today?”