Margaret Truman's Undiplomatic Murder

by Margaret Truman

  “Literally,” Donna added.

  Brixton realized that he had to leave to pick up Asal Banai.

  “Thanks for hearing me out,” he told Kogan and Donna Salvos.

  “I can’t promise anything, but I’ll run the McQuaid thing past someone in Homicide,” Kogan assured.

  “Thanks, Mike. You know I appreciate it.”

  Kogan grabbed his shoulder. “And Robert,” he said, “watch your back.”

  “You’re the second one to tell me that today.”

  Asal lived in a relatively new apartment building in Foggy Bottom. Brixton told the doorman that he was there to pick up Ms. Banai and was directed to the top floor, one of four corner penthouse apartments that were surprisingly small considering the “penthouse” designation, each with an equally small but pleasant balcony that could be accessed from two sides.

  “Beautiful place, Asal,” Brixton said as she led him into the living room with thick white carpeting, white furniture, and splashes of gold—lamps, chandelier, and tabletops.

  “Thank you. I was lucky to find this apartment.”

  “Must set you back some,” he said, immediately realizing that what she paid was none of his business.

  “I manage,” she replied. “Make you a drink?”

  “Thanks, no, I’ll wait until we get to Mac and Annabel’s. We should leave.”

  “Yes, of course. I’ll only be a minute.”

  She disappeared into another room, and Brixton stepped out onto the balcony. The view was nice; the District of Columbia’s strict ban on building heights assured distant views. He took note of the outdoor furniture, which was also white and expensive-looking. He briefly recalled her comments about how the Iraqi Partnership was always low on funds, but he forgot what he was thinking when she appeared at the door.

  “Ready?” she asked.

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  “Tell me about these mysterious papers you have,” Asal said as they settled in Brixton’s car and headed for the Watergate.

  “They were given to me by a man named Charles McQuaid,” Brixton said. “He was a retired Justice Department attorney who spent a lot of his time at Justice trying to build a case against Samuel Prisler, an arms dealer in Hawaii. I mentioned him to you when we had dinner.”

  “Yes, I seem to remember that name. Why are you interested in him, this fellow Prisler?”

  “It’s a long story, Asal. Don’t want to bore you with it.”

  “I don’t think you could ever bore me,” she said, lightly.

  “We’ll have to see about that,” he said as he pulled into the Watergate’s underground parking garage.

  Annabel greeted them and brought them to the kitchen, where Mac had set up a bar. “Help yourselves,” she said. “Mac will be out in a minute.”

  They’d taken their drinks to the balcony overlooking the Potomac River when Mac appeared. “Sorry,” he said. “A last-minute flap at the university.” To Brixton: “Why don’t we take care of business before dinner? That way we can relax over our meal.”

  The two men retreated to Mac’s study, leaving Annabel and Asal on the balcony with their glasses of wine.

  “You are Robert’s good friends,” Asal said absently

  “Yes, we are. We became involved with him when he was in Washington trying to get answers for a client back in Savannah, Georgia. He ended up being wounded, but he got what he was after. He’s tenacious, that’s for certain.”

  “Does he have a woman in his life?” Asal asked casually.

  Annabel picked up on the question. She had a feeling that Asal might be smitten with Brixton, which amused her. She’d met his former lover, Flo Combes, when she’d come to D.C. to pick him up and drive him back to New York, where they’d decided to return to live.

  “He had a very nice gal, Asal. Her name is Flo Combes. Frankly, I thought they might end up married one day, but they’ve broken up. She’s still in New York.”

  “Breaking up with her must add to the terrible ordeal he’s going through,” Asal said.

  “I’m sure it hasn’t helped.”

  “I’m afraid that we got off on the wrong foot.”

  “Oh? How so?”

  “He took me to dinner after we’d met here, and I took some of his comments as being anti-Muslim.”

  “Robert? I don’t think he has a biased bone in his body. At least, I’ve never seen it surface.”

  “No, Annabel, it was I who was wrong. I was too sensitive, looking for examples of people broad-brushing all Muslims because of what has happened around the world at the hands of a few fanatics, and the café bombing here that took his daughter.”

  “Why don’t you forget about that and start new? I mean, here he is bringing you for dinner. Let’s just enjoy the evening and let things develop naturally.”

  Asal smiled. “Good advice. But I would expect nothing else from you.”

  Mac and Brixton huddled for an hour. When they emerged, Mac made fresh drinks for them and they joined the women.

  “So, Robert, did you accomplish what you wanted to?” Annabel asked.

  “I think so,” Brixton said. “Your husband has one hell of a legal mind.”

  “His students think so,” Annabel said.

  “What is this about?” Asal asked, her brown eyes wide.

  Mac started to respond but stopped and said to Brixton, “You’re better equipped to explain what’s going on, Robert.”

  And Brixton did exactly that for the next half hour, outlining his suspicions and the still-missing pieces of the puzzle.

  After dinner of baby back ribs, homemade slaw, fresh baguettes from the Watergate bakery, and key lime pie, the two couples returned to the balcony and sipped from snifters of single-barrel bourbon that Mac had purchased at the liquor store, also part of the Watergate complex. It was a balmy night; fog had settled in over the river and created a mist through which the spires of Georgetown University came and went.

  “What you have said tonight gives me a chill,” Asal said to Brixton, wrapping her arms about herself to further make the point.

  “The problem,” Mac said, “is tying together all these loose ends, but what Robert has given me could prove to be explosive.”

  “I’ve asked Mac to think about how we can use what’s in the papers to bring charges against people like Prisler and the guy who loaned the Skaggs kid his car, Zafar Alvi.”

  “But how would that help you prove that Congressman Skaggs’s son was with the café bomber?” Annabel asked Brixton.

  “I don’t have an answer for that, Annabel, but maybe putting the pressure on will force someone into making a mistake.”

  “I am shocked to hear that Mr. Alvi might be involved in something illegal,” Asal said.

  “You know him?” Mac asked.

  “No, no, I don’t, but he is a well-known man in Arab-American circles, a very important man.”

  “I stopped in front of his house before I picked you up, Asal. He sent a couple of musclemen down to ask why I was there.”

  “Did you talk to him?”

  “No. That’s next on my agenda. Up until today I almost felt that there was no way to put the pieces together. But Mac has helped me think in—what do you call it?—in a more linear way.”

  The conversation drifted to other matters at times but kept coming back to Brixton’s dilemma. Asal had little to say aside from asking an occasional question about what Brixton had learned about Samuel Prisler and his possible connection with Zafar Alvi. Before leaving, Brixton mentioned that Mac had agreed to keep the papers McQuaid had given him.

  “I’d like more time to go over them,” Smith explained.

  “Better you have them than me,” Brixton said.

  It had started to rain by the time Brixton and Asal left the Smith’s apartment. They got in his car and headed in the direction of her apartment building.

  “I’m concerned about you,” she said.

  “Why?”

  “The people who di
d what you say they did to Mr. McQuaid are bad people.”

  “Lots of bad people in this world.”

  “But aren’t you concerned for your life?”

  “I think about it once in a while, but then I remember Janet, my daughter, how she died, her young life blown sky-high by some demented woman and the guy with her. No, I’m not worried about my life, Asal. My biggest worry is that I’ll never make the bastards who did it pay.”

  He pulled into a parking spot close to the building’s entrance.

  “Thanks for coming with me tonight,” he said.

  “I was pleased that you asked me. I meant what I said on the phone, that I’m sorry for the way I behaved the first time we had dinner.”

  “That’s old news,” Brixton said.

  “Would you like to come up for a drink?” she asked.

  “Yeah, that’d be nice.”

  She put on lamps in the living room and slipped a CD into a small stereo unit on a bookshelf.

  “Who’s playing?” Brixton asked.

  “Taylor Swift. Do you know her?”

  “She sings western songs,” Brixton said.

  “Do you like western songs?” Asal asked.

  “Not much. I mean, I don’t listen to that kind of music. I’m a jazz lover.”

  “Oh, American jazz. Yes, jazz is very American, isn’t it?”

  “Actually it’s pretty much all over the world,” he said as he went to where her CD collection took up one shelf, and he flipped through it until coming to a dozen recordings by familiar jazz musicians. He chose one by the pianist Oscar Peterson and his trio. “Where’d you get this?” he asked.

  She came to his side and took the CD. “A friend gave it to me. He wanted me to become familiar with American music.”

  “Mind if we play it?”

  “No, of course not.”

  The sound of Peterson and the trio playing the standard “These Foolish Things” came through the speakers.

  “I love Oscar Peterson,” Brixton said. “He’s one of the best.”

  “Do you dance?” she asked.

  He laughed. “Not so you’d recognize it. I’m pretty clumsy on the dance floor.”

  “My friend also taught me how to dance like an American,” she said, extending her arms.

  Brixton hesitated before allowing himself to slip into her embrace. The lush chords played by Peterson, the soft lighting, and the feel of her against him overcame his reluctance to dance, as they moved back and forth, the smell of her rich black hair, her low voice humming along with the recording seducing his every sense.

  The trio launched into something with a faster tempo, “The Lamp Is Low,” and they stopped dancing, but stayed coupled. He kissed her neck and she purred. She raised her lips to him and they kissed. Minutes later they were in her bedroom where they made sustained, satisfying love before falling asleep in each other’s arms.

  CHAPTER

  23

  Brixton left Asal’s apartment at six the next morning, drove home, showered and changed, had breakfast in a local luncheonette, and read that day’s Washington Post. The long feature article about the raft of embassy murders started on page one and jumped to two inside pages. It was a collaborative effort by three Post reporters, and the headline said it all: D.C.’S LGBT COMMUNITY UNDER FIRE.

  In the article, the reporters cited each of the embassy killings, starting with Peter Müller and ending with the most recent murder of the Danish embassy staffer. Brixton found it interesting that the connection the victims had with foreign embassies was downplayed, although it was mentioned as a possible theory behind the killings. A spokesman for the MPD was quoted as saying, “We have established a task force to look into these murders and are confident that whoever is behind them, whether a single individual or a group of people, will be brought to justice. We are working closely with members of the State Department’s security professionals in the event that the victims’ embassy connections have anything to do with the crimes. In the meantime, we urge members of the city’s LGBT community to exercise particular care. I’ll have further details as the task force develops possible solutions.”

  The overall message of the article was that a demented homophobe or homophobes were on the loose in Washington.

  Brixton reflected on his conversation with Mike Kogan and Donna Salvos. It was obvious that no one had come to a firm conclusion about the genesis of the murders—embassy personnel, or gays and lesbians. While The Post piece covered both possibilities, it leaned heavily toward the bias-crime scenario.

  Brixton’s own thought process mirrored this confusion. He’d started buying the bias theory, shifted to an embassy motive, and now had come back to the thrust of The Post article. He imagined the difficulty the MPD was having in deciding which scenario to pursue, which was in line with the debate going on in SITQUAL and the State Department’s DSS security apparatus.

  Yes, the victims were homosexual or lesbian.

  They also all worked for foreign embassies.

  His years as a cop and private investigator had taught him that motive was a crucial element in solving crimes, especially murder. Motive narrowed the field of suspects, as did access to the victims. As he pondered this he thought back to Lalo Reyes and his relationship with Peter Müller. Will Sayers had also said that Reyes was possibly involved with a closeted gay congressman. Had the slender Spaniard been romantically entwined with other embassy personnel who had been murdered? He made a mental note to check that out with Donna Salvos. If anyone would know, she would.

  As he sat in the luncheonette, he reflected back on the previous evening with Asal Banai. He had been surprised when she’d invited him to have a nightcap in her apartment, although the possibility of extending the evening had crossed his mind. He’d been tentative; it had been a while since he’d been romantically involved with a woman, going back to when Flo Combes had walked out. But Asal made it easy, nurturing, inviting, and skilled. There were moments when he felt guilty at being in bed with a woman other than Flo, even though he knew that was irrational. It was over with Flo, and he didn’t have any doubts that she’d found another man in New York and was spending intimate time with him.

  He also acknowledged to himself that he was taken aback at Asal’s sexual forwardness, at least initially. There you go again, he told himself as he finished his coffee, stereotyping people. He’d read of Arab women being stoned to death for straying outside their cloistered families and being sexually active. But Asal had been in the United States for ten years. She spoke excellent English and had been exposed to the more permissive sexual climate in America than was evident in her native Iraq.

  His reverie was interrupted by the ringing phone.

  “Robert, Mike Kogan here. You wanted me to set you up with someone in Homicide at MPD. Here’s the name. I told him you’d be calling.”

  “Thanks, Mike. I appreciate it.”

  “Just don’t do anything that’ll cause me or SITQUAL any grief.”

  “Would I do something like that, Mike?”

  “Yeah, you would. Stay in touch, let me know what comes out of your meeting at MPD.”

  The detective’s name was Quintin Halliday. Brixton called and was put through to him.

  “Mike Kogan said you’d be calling,” Halliday said. “It’s about the Charles McQuaid accidental death, right?”

  “The Charles McQuaid murder,” Brixton corrected.

  “Kogan said that was why you’d call. What makes you think it wasn’t an accident?”

  “Mind if we don’t go into this over the phone?” Brixton said. “Any chance of getting together this morning?”

  “I’ve gone over the paperwork that was filed by the officers who responded to the scene. I don’t see anything that pops out at me, but I’m willing to listen.”

  “That’s all I can ask,” Brixton said. “How about I buy you coffee at the place across the street from headquarters?”

  “I never turn down a free cup of coffee unl
ess somebody’s trying to buy me.”

  “I’m not trying to buy anything. Does a half hour work for you?”

  “Fine. I’m the tall black dude in a gray suit.”

  Halliday was already at an outdoor table when Brixton arrived, coffee and a cinnamon Danish on the table. Brixton went inside, got himself a coffee, and joined the detective.

  “So,” Halliday said, “give it to me straight and fast. Oh, before you do, just so all the cards are on the table, I’m aware of who you are; dragged up your old personnel file. You lasted here four years, and now you’re under the gun for killing the congressman’s kid.”

  “He blew up my daughter,” Brixton muttered.

  “So I hear. Sorry about that. Don’t know how I’d react if it happened to one of my kids.”

  “Probably no different than me. Look, I don’t want to waste your time. Here’s why I say that Charlie McQuaid was murdered.”

  Brixton gave a concise recapping of how Will Sayers had put him in touch with McQuaid, his initial meeting with him, plans for dinner the following night, and arriving at the house and learning of his death. He spoke of McQuaid’s sister, Jeannette, and how she’d given him her brother’s case file on Samuel Prisler. He finished his summation with, “McQuaid had given up fishing after his wife died. He was an experienced boater. His neighbor saw two guys in another boat in the cove next to Charlie’s boat earlier that afternoon. Later, Charlie is dragged out of the water with fishing line wrapped around his neck. Give me a break. Somebody who didn’t like that he was trying to build a case against Prisler got rid of him. I was in his office the day before he died. It was pristine. He was a meticulous guy, put Felix Unger to shame.”

  “Who?”

  “Felix Unger, the character on the TV show The Odd Couple. Tony Randall was the actor.”

  “Okay, I know who you mean.”

  “So after he was found, his sister takes me to his office and it was all messed up. Stuff thrown on the desk. Somebody went through his files after killing him.”