Margaret Truman's Undiplomatic Murder

by Margaret Truman

  Halliday took a final bite of his Danish and sat back. “What you say makes sense, Brixton. The problem is that McQuaid’s death has already been labeled a drowning accident.”

  “That doesn’t mean it can’t be reinvestigated.”

  “What do you suggest I do?”

  “Bring a forensics team to his boat, see if there’s anything on it that points to something other than an accidental drowning. Talk to the neighbor.”

  “My boss will never buy it,” Halliday said. “We’re up to our necks with murders.”

  “But you can give it a try, can’t you?”

  “Sure, I can give it a try. Mike Kogan’s a buddy, and he sure as hell is a fan of yours. But no promises.”

  “There never are. And yeah, Kogan is one of the white hats. Thanks.”

  “I’ll let you know what the captain says.”

  * * *

  Brixton’s cell rang at two that afternoon.

  “It’s Quintin Halliday. There’ll be a forensics team at McQuaid’s house at four.”

  Brixton spent part of the time waiting to go to McQuaid’s house on a phone call with Mac Smith.

  “The material in these files is compelling,” Smith said. “I’d like to run it past some friends at Justice.”

  “I can’t imagine them doing anything,” Brixton said. “McQuaid was stymied at every turn, at least according to him.”

  “And I may run into the same roadblocks. But I also have some friends in Congress.”

  “Like Walter Skaggs?”

  Smith laughed. “Hardly. Just give me the word and I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Go for it, Mac,” Brixton said.

  Brixton found the phone number McQuaid’s sister had given him and called to tell her about the forensics unit coming to her brother’s house. He asked her to be there. She agreed.

  He arrived at twenty minutes to four and was surprised that there was someone in the house. His knock was answered by a man, a younger version of McQuaid, who introduced himself as Alex, one of Charlie’s sons.

  “My name’s Robert Brixton. Your dad and I were supposed to have dinner the day he died. I’m, ah … I’m here because I’ve asked the police to reexamine your dad’s boat.”

  Alex looked puzzled.

  “It’s hard to explain,” Brixton said, “but it boils down to my not believing your father died in a boating accident.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What I mean is I think that he was murdered.”

  Alex did what so many young people do when at a loss for words. He laughed.

  “I know this might be a shock to you, Alex, but it’s important to know what really happened here.”

  “Who would want to murder my father?”

  “That’s what I want to find out.”

  “Are you a cop?”

  “No, I’m with … I’m an agent with SITQUAL. We’re part of the State Department’s security force.” He showed him his ID.

  “And you think my father was murdered?”

  “Unfortunately, I do. I’ve called your aunt Jeannette. She’s coming over.”

  “Does she also believe that Pop was murdered? She never said anything to me.”

  “She agrees with me that your father was an experienced guy around boats, and that he’d quit fishing when your mother died. Did he ever tell you that he was hanging up his fishing rod for good?”

  Alex thought for a moment. “Yeah, he did, more than once. I think he missed it, though. Maybe he decided to—”

  “To take it up again? Didn’t happen.”

  They were interrupted when Detective Halliday and his colleagues pulled into the driveway. Brixton introduced Halliday to Alex McQuaid, who asked what it was they wanted him to do.

  “Show us the boat your father was in when he died,” Halliday said. “Won’t take too long.”

  The son hesitated before asking, “Do you need a warrant to do this?”

  “We’re not looking for any wrongdoing by your father,” Brixton said. “We just want to rule out foul play in his death.”

  “I can get a warrant,” Halliday said.

  “No, that’s okay,” Alex said. “If my father was murdered—”

  “You’d want to know,” Brixton said, finishing the thought.

  Alex accompanied them down to the dock and watched as the photographer began taking photos and as the fingerprint tech went to work.

  “Hard to get prints off these surfaces,” the tech grumbled.

  “Do your best,” Halliday said.

  The woman in charge of the team slowly walked along the boat’s deck, her eyes taking in the small craft inch by inch, as Brixton and Halliday stayed out of her way. She stopped, bent over, then got down on one knee to examine something. Halliday and Brixton moved closer to see what had captured her attention. She pointed at shoe imprints on the shiny, recently painted floor. “More than one,” she said.

  “McQuaid went out alone,” Brixton said.

  “How can you be sure?”

  “He liked going out alone,” Brixton said. “He told me that. But his neighbor said he saw two guys pulled up next to his boat.”

  “Did he say whether they came on board?” Halliday asked.

  “Not that I recall. We can see if he’s around when we’re finished up here.”

  The lead investigator instructed the photographer to get close-ups of the shoe prints. While he carried out her instructions, she again leaned over. She motioned for Halliday and Brixton to join her.

  “Did anybody examine this boat when we got the call about the drowning?” she asked.

  “Nothing in the report filed by the officers who responded,” Halliday said.

  “Look,” she said, pointing to an area of the freeboard wale above the waterline. Brixton got close and took in what she was seeing. The otherwise immaculate surface was scratched and gouged. There was also what looked like dried blood. Further examination of the freeboard indicated that something yellow had scraped against it.

  “That sure wasn’t there the day before he died,” Brixton said. “I was out on this boat with him. It was clean and without any marks.”

  “You said that the neighbor saw two men in another boat in the cove talking with the deceased,” Halliday said. “Chances are their boat had a yellow finish and some of it rubbed off when they bumped.”

  “Maybe,” Brixton muttered. “Why the blood?”

  “If it is blood, he could have cut himself,” Halliday replied.

  “Or someone else cut himself,” Brixton retorted. He asked the chief forensics examiner if there was enough dried blood to run a DNA on it.

  She nodded. “I’ll have to scrape away the portion with the blood.”

  Brixton looked to where McQuaid’s son stood taking it in. “You have any objections to us slicing a small piece off your dad’s boat?”

  “I don’t know. I…”

  “I don’t,” McQuaid’s sister, Jeannette, said, joining the others on the dock. She put her arm around Alex and hugged him. “We want to know the truth about Charlie’s death, don’t we?” she said to him.

  Alex nodded. “Okay,” he announced. “Go ahead.” He turned to his aunt with tears in his eyes. “But I don’t want to watch, okay?”

  “Of course,” his aunt said. “Why don’t you wait for me in the house.”

  Ten minutes later, with evidence in hand, the forensics team had driven away. The commotion had been noticed by Charlie’s next-door neighbor, who stood with his wife on their patio. Brixton waved them over.

  “Wally Fenton,” the neighbor said, shaking Brixton’s hand. “My wife, Agnes. What’s going on?” he asked Brixton, Halliday, and Jeannette McQuaid.

  Brixton explained.

  “I gotta say I’m not surprised,” he said, “Charlie made some enemies when he was working. At least that’s what he told me.”

  “He say who?” Brixton asked.

  “Names? Nah. He just said that there were people who didn’t li
ke what he was doing. Besides, there’s lots of crime around here these days.”

  “Wally has a gun,” his wife said.

  “It’s legal,” Wally quickly added.

  “Did you happen to get a good look at the two men you say were with Charlie the day he died?” Brixton asked.

  The neighbor’s grin was self-satisfying. “I sure did. I took a look through my field glasses.”

  “Binoculars?” Halliday asked.

  “Uh-huh. I always have them with me when I go out on the water; carry my gun too. I’ve got a carry permit. Used to work security.”

  “You looked at them through your binoculars?” Brixton said.

  Wally nodded. “Well, I was really looking at the boat, but they were on it.”

  “Wally’s nosy,” said Agnes.

  “It’s not being nosy,” Wally said, annoyed at his wife’s comment. “But I like to keep an eye on what’s going on around here. Like I said, there’s too much damn crime.”

  “I think your neighbors are lucky to have somebody like you to keep tabs on things,” Brixton said. “So tell us, what did the two men with Charlie look like?”

  “Well, let’s see,” said Wally. “One was a little guy. The other was a lot bigger.”

  “You used your binoculars,” Brixton said. “You must have seen their faces.”

  “Sure I did. The little one, he had kind of a thin face, like one of those rodents that people keep as pets.”

  “Like a ferret?” Halliday offered.

  “Yeah, that’s it. Like a ferret. The big guy had a tan, that’s for sure, and a white mustache. He wore one of those jackets with pockets like they wear on a safari, you know, on National Geographic on TV. I thought it was kind of a funny thing to wear to go out on a boat.”

  It’s also a funny thing to wear to a funeral, Brixton thought, remembering the man he’d seen at Janet’s funeral standing apart from the mourners.

  “Anything else?” Halliday asked. “What was the smaller man wearing?”

  “Some sort of Windbreaker, blue if I recall. And he had a hat on, a Nationals cap, a white one. Had it on backwards. I never understand why people wear baseball hats backwards. Looks goofy, if you ask me.”

  “I know what you mean,” Brixton said through a smile. “Thanks for taking the time to talk to me.”

  Wally’s wife took Brixton aside and asked in almost a whisper, “You think that Charlie was murdered?”

  “Just checking into all the possibilities,” Brixton replied.

  “I wish Wally would mind his own business,” she said. “I hate that gun he carries with him.”

  “He seems like a responsible guy,” Brixton said. “It’s okay for a guy like him to have a gun. It’s the crazies we have to worry about.”

  “He won’t get in any trouble will he?”

  “Can’t imagine why. Thanks for your time, ma’am.”

  Jeannette McQuaid stood in the driveway waiting for Brixton to finish his conversation with the neighbor.

  “Thanks for coming,” Brixton said. He introduced Detective Halliday to her.

  “You said the police would be here,” she said to Brixton. “Is there a problem?”

  “There’s a possibility that your brother didn’t die in a fishing accident, Jeannette. He might have been murdered.”

  “So I gathered from what you were discussing with Wally Fenton. Do you really think that Charlie was murdered?”

  “Maybe,” Brixton said. “Detective Halliday will be following up on whatever was found on the boat today.”

  “Poor Charlie,” she said, more to herself than to them. “I wanted to believe that he died doing what he loved, being out in his boat and enjoying the fresh air. To think that he was killed by someone is terrible.”

  “We can’t always choose how we die,” Brixton said. “What I’d like you to do is tell Detective Halliday what Charlie told you, that he gave up fishing, the same thing he told me.”

  She obliged.

  “I’ll stay in touch,” Brixton told her. “Maybe we can have dinner again.”

  “I would like that, but now there’s a young man inside who needs me,” she said, heading for the door.

  CHAPTER

  24

  Brixton intended to phone Asal to see whether she was free for dinner, but a call from Will Sayers dashed that plan.

  “Hey buddy, how’re you doing?”

  “I’m doing okay.”

  “You up for an early dinner?”

  “What’s the occasion?”

  “You promised me an interview. Remember?”

  “I was afraid you were going to say that.”

  “Not only do you owe me an interview,” the corpulent newspaper editor said, “I have some information that might interest you.”

  “About what?”

  “Nothing special—dead embassy workers, murdered homosexuals, gun merchants, terrorists—insignificant stuff like that.”

  “I assume dinner’s on me,” Brixton said.

  “Absolutely.”

  “Then I pick the restaurant. Let’s make it Bobby Van’s Grill on New York Avenue. Best lamb chops in town.”

  “Sounds like your horse came in.”

  “Nothing like that. I just figure I’m due some good lamb chops. See you at seven.”

  Brixton took his cell phone to the balcony and punched in Donna Salvos’s cell number.

  “It was good seeing you, Robert,” she said.

  “Same here. Donna, I mentioned that our Lalo Reyes was leaving town, heading for his cult in Hawaii. Have you gotten any information that he might have been romantically involved with any of the other embassy workers who’ve been killed?”

  “No, I haven’t. Why? Have you heard something to that effect?”

  “Just a wild notion, that’s all.” He refrained from mentioning that, according to Will Sayers, Reyes might have been involved with a member of Congress. “Any chance of doing a little digging into that possibility?”

  “I’ll see what I can turn up, only don’t expect anything.”

  “It’s the effort that counts,” he said.

  Brixton preceded Sayers to the restaurant and waited for him at the long bar, sipping a shaken, cold, dry martini with a twist. It had been a trying day, and he felt that he owed himself some pleasant downtime with his favorite drink. Two men to his right also ordered martinis, but theirs were of the vodka variety. The vodka distillers and marketers had done a superb job of changing the habits of martini drinkers, Brixton thought. For him, the only real martini was made with gin. Order a martini these days, and it was automatically assumed by the bartender that you wanted vodka. Another precious tradition left in the dust, he mused as he savored another sip.

  Ten minutes later the editor walked in, came to Brixton, looked down at his half-consumed drink, and said, “Still thinking you’re James Bond, huh?”

  “Bond preferred vodka in his martinis,” Brixton said, “but he drank some with gin too.”

  Sayers slid onto the adjacent stool and laughed. “Had to be shaken, right?”

  “Of course. Did you know that shaking a martini releases more antioxidants than stirring does?”

  “That’s BS.”

  “I wouldn’t expect you to know such things,” Brixton said. “Go ahead, order your bourbon or Southern Comfort. You can take the man out of Savannah but…”

  Sayers caught the bartender’s attention and ordered a single-barrel bourbon on the rocks.

  “So,” Brixton said, “what’s this information I’m paying for in this expensive joint?”

  “You chose it.”

  “That’s not the point.” He motioned to the bartender for another. “I was at Charlie McQuaid’s today.”

  “Helping with funeral plans?”

  “I was with some MPD forensics types going over his boat. He was murdered, Will. I think they’ll come up with proof of that, or at least enough to open an investigation.”

  Sayers nodded and toasted Brixton. �
�Maybe I should be paying for information from you,” he said. “How’s your love life?”

  “I don’t have one.”

  “You and that beautiful woman at the Smiths seemed to hit it off.”

  “Asal? We’re friends, that’s all. Let’s take a table. I can smell those lamb chops from here.”

  Settled at their table and having placed their orders, Brixton asked what information the heavyset editor had for him.

  “You remember when I told you about the hypocritical Georgia congressman who preaches against the sins of homosexuality but maybe dabbles himself?” Sayers asked.

  “Sure.”

  “You said that Reyes was involved with that German embassy staffer, Müller, who was murdered.”

  “That’s why I interviewed Reyes,” Brixton acknowledged. “By the way, I sort of interviewed him again.”

  “Oh?”

  “Not an official interview. Long story short, I suspect that Mr. Reyes is involved with that cult on Maui run by Samuel Prisler, the same one where Paul Skaggs spent time and where his sister lives.”

  “Maybe the dots are getting closer,” Sayers offered.

  “Not close enough. Reyes has left D.C., headed back to Maui.”

  Sayers dug into his salad before saying, “Interested in more about Mr. Lalo Reyes?”

  “I’m listening.”

  “You do know, I assume, that a young Danish guy from the Danish embassy was murdered.”

  “Mike Kogan at SITQUAL told me.”

  “Would it interest you to know that your pal Mr. Reyes is rumored to have been an intimate friend of the victim?” Sayers asked.

  “Of the Dane?”

  “Yup.”

  “Müller, the Dane, and your congressman. I Googled the esteemed elected official after you told me about him. Nice-looking guy, young,” Brixton said.

  “Blond, like Müller and the Dane.”

  Brixton took the last bite of his lamb chops. “I wonder…,” he said.

  “Wonder what?”

  “Reyes suddenly quits his job at the Spanish embassy and skips town. He didn’t come off to me like the kind of guy who kills people, but looks can be deceiving. You come up with anything linking Reyes to the other embassy victims?”

  “No. You read the piece in The Post about the embassy murders?”

  “Sure. The writers alluded to the fact that all the victims worked for foreign embassies, but as far as they’re concerned, the murders are bias crimes.”