Murder at The Washington Tribune: A Capital Crimes Mystery

by Margaret Truman

  “Joe Wilcox, Tom, happy you could make it tonight.”

  “I’m glad I could, too, Mr. Wilcox,” he said, his handshake firm.

  “Please, it’s Joe. I understand you tend bar. Night off?”

  “Yeah. I don’t get many.”

  “Where do you work?” Wilcox asked.

  “McCormick and Schmick’s, on K Street.”

  “Nice place. Great fish. I go there often.”

  “Great happy hour, too. Tip time.”

  “Yes. Sorry Robbie is running late. You never can tell in the TV news business.”

  “So I’ve learned,” he said pleasantly. “Yours, too. I’ve been reading your articles.”

  “People talk about it at the bar?”

  “Sure. We get a lot of single women during happy hour and they’re uptight.” He laughed. “Later? Just tight.”

  “Tension affect tips?” Wilcox asked.

  “I’ll have to do an analysis.”

  Their conversation had just turned to the baseball season when Roberta bounded onto the patio.

  “I am so sorry I’m late,” she said, kissing her father, then Curtis, on their cheeks.

  Wilcox couldn’t suppress a wide smile. His daughter, that impish toddler who’d blessed their lives, had grown into a stunning, effervescent woman. He silently reminded himself to not be too judgmental about Tom Curtis. No man would be good enough for Roberta, an attitude, which if played out, would doom her to a lifetime of spinsterhood.

  “How’s things in the glamorous TV biz?” Wilcox asked.

  “Daddy, nobody says glamorous anymore. Crazy, crazy,” she said. “Insane! They keep wanting more but insist on cutting our news budget.”

  “The competition must be intense,” Curtis offered, “with all the cable news channels.”

  “Exactly,” Roberta said.

  “I don’t have to worry about competition,” Curtis said with a boyish grin. “As long as I make the martinis dry and the Cosmopolitans sweet, I’m golden.”

  Wilcox smiled and realized Georgia had emerged from the kitchen and stood at his side. “How’s the chicken coming, Chicken?” he asked.

  “Just fine.”

  “Mom makes the best fried chicken in North America.”

  “Oh, stop it,” Georgia said. “Maybe in Rockville.”

  Wilcox realized Roberta hadn’t been served a drink, and asked what she wanted.

  “I’ll make it for her,” Curtis offered.

  “He’s a pro,” Roberta said, slipping her arm in his and heading for the house.

  “How’d it go today?” Georgia asked her husband.

  “Okay. I finished the piece for tomorrow’s edition.”

  “I saw the police press conference this afternoon,” she said. “They say there is no serial killer.”

  “The official line, that’s all. To be expected.”

  “I saw Robbie’s coverage of it, too,” said Georgia. “It sounds as though you two think alike about it.”

  “I saw her,” Joe said. “The problem with the police approach is that it lulls everybody into complacency. Until it’s proved to me that there’s no serial killer out there, I’m all for prudence and commonsense security. Nice fellow, Mr. Curtis.”

  “Yes, he is.”

  He finished his drink and chuckled.

  “What’s funny?”

  “This thing has even got me a little uptight. You read my interview with the shrink. Serial killers are usually good-looking, intelligent, good talkers—” He leaned close to her. “Hell, maybe Curtis is one.”

  “That’s not funny, Joe,” she said, meaning it.

  “I know, I know. Sorry. I need a refill.”

  Curtis’s frequent verbal reviews of Georgia’s fried chicken and the gusto with which he ate affirmed her reputation. Conversation at the table was spirited, with a lot of kidding between Roberta and Tom. Joe contributed to the banter, but his mind eventually was elsewhere. The phone rang in the middle of dinner. Joe started to get up, but Georgia was quicker.

  “Wrong number?” Joe asked when she returned in seconds.

  “A hang up.”

  “Inconsiderate,” Joe said.

  Had it been Michael who’d called? Joe felt like a cheating husband, flinching whenever the phone rang at home. There were many reasons he’d been faithful to Georgia all these years—with one notable exception—among them not wanting to live with such fears. Fatal Attraction. Spare me that sort of tension.

  But here he was, suffering the very fear he’d determined to not experience. Had Tom Curtis not been there, he might have told Georgia and Roberta about Michael’s sudden and unwelcome intrusion into his life. No, that would take some thinking on his part. As upset as Georgia might be at the news, she’d handle it. But Roberta was a different story. She’d been deprived of the knowledge that she had an uncle all these years because her father had insisted she not be told. Georgia had fought him on that decision when Roberta was a small girl but eventually acquiesced, realizing how strongly he felt about it. The subject had seldom come up again during the ensuing years. Occasionally, Georgia would casually mention Michael during a conversation, tossing out a throwaway line intended to draw Joe into a discussion. “Will we never tell her about him?” she’d ask if he allowed the conversation to continue.

  “Maybe someday,” he’d reply. “Maybe someday.”

  Had that “someday” arrived? he wondered as the two women in his life cleared the table, with Curtis pitching in. Usually, Joe would be carrying things along with them into the kitchen. But this night he remained at the table, wondering what to do and dreading another ringing of the phone.

  They had dessert in the living room, gigantic homemade cookies and coffee, with everyone declining after-dinner drinks. To Roberta’s feigned horror, her mother dragged out photo albums and started showing family pictures to Curtis. Joe wandered outside to the patio, and Roberta soon followed.

  “Your guy’s okay,” he said, “pretending to be interested in those photos.”

  “You like him?”

  “Sure.”

  “Dad?”

  “Huh?”

  “They’re pressuring me at the station to do a series on the serial killer angle, a five- or six-parter.”

  “I heard you say that in your report this afternoon. Congratulations!”

  “I’m not sure I want to do it.”

  “Why?”

  “Oh, I don’t know, pride, I suppose. Your series of articles is what’s spurred them to come up with it.”

  He looked at her, brow furrowed. “You said it was a matter of pride, Robbie. How so?”

  She hesitated, her eyes on the garden, and kept them there as she said, “I don’t want to build my career based upon you, Dad.”

  “I never thought you were,” he said, a tinge of hurt in his voice.

  She turned to him. “No,” she said, “there’s more than that. Yes, I feel a little as though your series will end up being the basis for my reports.” He started to respond but she cut him off. “There’s also a gut feeling I have that maybe this serial killer obsession isn’t justified.”

  “Why do I have the feeling I’m being accused of being obsessed?”

  She placed her hand on his arm. “Well,” she said, “aren’t you?”

  “No.” He didn’t want his anger to show. “Paul Morehouse, my boss, is obsessed. Me? No. I’m just doing my job.”

  “And enjoying it,” she said flatly.

  “Not really.”

  “Please, Dad, no offense, but the pieces you’ve been writing seem—well, they seem so tabloidy. Is there such a word?”

  “I don’t think so. Or there should be. Is there tabloid TV?”

  “Yes, but some of the writing is so unlike you. It’s so unlike the Trib for that matter. Anyway, I just wanted to mention it and get it off my chest. I hope you’re not mad.”

  “Not at all.” But he was, mad and embarrassed, and was thankful when Georgia and Curtis joined them.
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  “I really have to be running,” Curtis said. “This was great, getting to meet you both, and enjoying an incredible meal. The fried chicken at Georgia Brown’s is great, but yours tops it, Mrs. Wilcox.”

  Roberta left a few minutes after him, and both Joe and Georgia were sure the young couple intended to meet up somewhere in town and enjoy being alone, out from under her parents’ microscope.

  The parents went to the kitchen where he helped scrape plates and load the dishwasher.

  They were close to finishing when the phone rang. Joe grabbed it off the kitchen wall. “Hello?”

  He heard someone cough, a male cough.

  “Hello!” he said, as though speaking to a deaf person.

  The phone went dead.

  “Another hang up?” she said.

  “Yeah. Annoying.”

  Georgia announced she was going to bed to read. She kissed him and said, “Don’t stay up too late.”

  “I won’t.”

  He went to the den, poured himself a short drink, neat, removed his shoes and sat in a recliner. His eyes scanned the photos on the wall and mantel, resting on a montage of Roberta at various ages. Seeing her display warmth and closeness to Tom Curtis—was it love?—depressed him, and he swallowed against a lump that was forming in his throat. He knew he would lose her one day. That’s the way it was supposed to be, nurturing and guiding your children into productive, responsible, happy lives until they were out of the nest and flying successfully on their own. He could accept that; one had to accept it or go mad.

  But her comments to him that night about the articles he’d been writing represented a different sort of loss. She was criticizing the very thing that defined him: his professional life. He knew many men who referred to their children when describing themselves and what they’d accomplished in life. Describing yourself by describing your offspring? Not for him. True, bringing up kids was tough, and succeeding at it was an achievement of which to be immensely proud. But for a man—and he readily acknowledged, at least to himself, that his feelings were sexist—there was more than parenting to define who you were and what you’d gotten done during your precious time on earth.

  Those thoughts, and soon so many others, swirled uncontrollably about him as he sipped his drink and tried to bring order to them.

  The phone calls that night. It had to have been Michael. How dare he inject himself that way? He was now glad that he would see Michael face to face the next day. He would confront him directly about whether he’d made those two nuisance calls. But his next thought was that the calls were irrelevant in the greater scheme of things, only serving to give credence to Michael’s very existence, which he’d been fighting since the first contact with his brother. He didn’t want him to exist, and had actually, inexplicably, tried to will him dead.

  Georgia interrupted his introspection. “Come to bed,” she said from the doorway.

  “Yeah,” he replied, getting up and carrying his empty glass to the kitchen. “You think they’re serious?” he asked absently.

  “Robbie and Tom? No, I don’t. Not yet. But if they are, we’ll hear about it soon enough. Come on, tomorrow’s another day.”

  FIFTEEN

  Washington, D.C., is not prime territory for single women seeking a mate. There are a lot more single females than eligible single males there than in most cities. Bright, healthy women gravitate to the nation’s capital in search of the sort of adventure that the intriguing world of government and politics can provide. Working in the city’s major industry may not rival mountain climbing or skydiving for sheer thrills, but the pervasive pull of power, and rubbing elbows with it, can be intoxicating, stimulating, as well as on more than one occasion, an aphrodisiac.

  The news business, too, exerts a grip on ambitious young people looking for challenge and public recognition. Like other so-called magnetic professions, journalism jobs generally pay less than other professional pursuits and the hours are long. But that’s a small price to pay for escaping the more mundane pursuits of, say, banking, accounting, or teaching. Are most single young women in Washington biding time until the elusive “Mr. Right” comes along? Hardly. That was then. Many of today’s well-educated, savvy, and sexually aware women, using their smarts, education, and ideas in every corner of the former swamp now known as the nation’s capital, have relegated Mr. Right to the era when flight attendants were called stewardesses, a steno pad was a primary career asset, and only men dared rent porn videos. It isn’t that should a real Mr. Right come along, they wouldn’t sign on to becoming Mrs. Right. But rather than waste time with the Mr. Wrongs—of which there are plenty in D.C.—they prefer their own company, thank you, marching to the beat of their own drummers and enjoying the rhythm.

  Roberta Wilcox was a good example.

  She and Tom Curtis had, as her parents suspected, met up again after dinner at the Eighteenth Street Lounge (known to regulars as ESL) above a mattress shop south of Dupont Circle. The restored mansion was once the home of Teddy Roosevelt, who robust as he was, might not have enjoyed the mix of acid rock, hip-hop, and reggae emanating from the elaborate deejay’s booth. After passing muster by a burly, dour bouncer, the couple entered the club, one of the hottest venues in the city. They skirted the dance floor and made their way to an outdoor deck at the rear of the club where they found the last two vacant chairs at a tiny table. They ordered drinks—a Cosmopolitan for her, Scotch and soda for him—and smiled at each other.

  “Your folks are nice,” he said over the din.

  “I know,” she said. “I’m lucky to have them, to have been brought up by them.”

  “Did you plan to follow in your dad’s footsteps, getting into journalism?”

  “I guess so. He likes to think I did.”

  “I was talking to him about the stories he’s been writing. He’s funny. He asked me whether tips have fallen off from single women at the bar because they’re uptight.”

  “He asked you that?”

  Was he going to quote what Tom had said in his next article? she wondered. She hoped not.

  They hadn’t been dating long and spent the next half hour getting to know each other a little better, telling tales about their lives, their growing up, school experiences, especially mortifying ones, and discussing what they currently did for a living.

  “You’re an only child, huh?” he said. “No brothers or sisters?”

  “None that I know of,” she replied with a chuckle. “We have a very small family, a couple of cousins somewhere in the country, but just the three of us here. Actually, I’m happy it’s this way. All attention is focused on me—ta da!”

  He laughed. “I come from a big family,” he said, “three brothers and two sisters. All attention definitely wasn’t focused on me. Dance?”

  “Sure.”

  After fifteen minutes of sweaty gyrating on the hardwood dance floor with less space in which to maneuver than a Tokyo subway car, they headed for the club’s exit, knowing that they would continue the evening in bed. The only decision left to be made was whether it would be her bed or his. They chose Roberta’s because she had to be up early, while he didn’t go on duty until four in the afternoon. It was the third time they’d slept together. As on the previous two occasions, their lovemaking was unsure but generally satisfying. As they sat up in bed leaning against the headboard, she realized she was conflicted. It would be nice to wake up next to him in the morning. On the other hand, she wanted him to leave. He solved her dilemma when he said, “I think I’d better be going, Robbie. I’d love to stay, but you’ve got an early start tomorrow. Frankly, if I stay, I’ll want to repeat this and spend the morning doing it. Or the week. Okay?”

  Her expression of disappointment was genuine, if not slightly exaggerated. She kissed him good-bye at the door, latched it behind him, and sat at her window overlooking the quiet street. She couldn’t put her finger on it and was unable to codify her feelings at that moment, but they weren’t about Tom Curtis. She was thinking
of her father.

  He’d changed, no doubt about that. Was it simply a matter of growing older, of facing mortality, of losing physical strength and mental acumen? That would be normal. She’d seen it in many senior citizens, their gait less steady than in their youth, their minds not quite as sharp. If so, she could readily accept it.

  But there was another dimension to the change in her father, one less predictable and easily explained. She knew he was disappointed in his career now that it was winding down. Her mother had spoken to her about it, mentioning more frequent bouts of depression over the past year, and outright expressions of failure. He was wrong to feel this way, of course. He’d had a good career. How many reporters got to work for such a newspaper as The Washington Tribune? He’d been there how many years, twenty-four, twenty-five? He’d covered many of the city’s most infamous criminal cases, murder, rape, arson, crimes involving elected officials, the whole spectrum of society’s underbelly. He’d done it with aplomb, his interviews skillfully conducted, his research meticulously mounted, the pieces written with style and concision, not a word wasted, everything tracking so that the reader was never left in the dark. He was the consummate pro. On top of that, he’d been a wonderful father and husband, always there for her and her mother, even-tempered, witty, a joking but caring man who truly honored the human condition.

  A failure? Hardly.

  But there was more, she knew, and it was that intangible something that eluded her. She shouldn’t have criticized his writing, calling it “tabloidy,” correct word or not. But it was. She’d read everything he’d written since she was deemed old enough to be exposed to the dark side of the city. He didn’t keep copies of his stories, a testament to his basic humility. But she remembered many of the articles, especially the more recent ones leading up to the serial killer series. His tone and approach was markedly different from everything else she recalled reading.

  He’d said his boss, Paul Morehouse, had pressured him into taking the tack he had. She’d met Morehouse on many occasions; he and his wife, Mimi, had been dinner guests at the house on a number of occasions. She liked him and his gruff, no-nonsense demeanor, and knew he ran a tight ship. If he had pressed her dad to take a more sensational approach, she understood. Her boss at the TV station was somewhat like Morehouse, under pressure from above to do whatever it took to boost ratings, and by extension increase advertising revenues. Sure, the basic rules of credible journalism were bandied about, and there were attempts to honor them. But things had changed dramatically in even the short time she’d been at the station. The 24/7 cable news channels were setting the pace and agenda, recycling the day’s most startling stories over and over, the most titillating murder trials, the bloodiest family slayings, the most salacious scandals, and the juciest sexual escapades, preferably involving a politician or movie star.