Brixton shrugged. “Pretty young gal away from home for the first time,” he said. “Probably fell for some guy and is shacked up with him. It’s not something you tell your daddy about.”
Smith ignored his investigator’s cynical take before saying, “Her father gave me his daughter’s address here in Washington. I’ll call him again to make sure she still hasn’t checked in. If she hasn’t, maybe you could run by that address and see if she’s there.”
“Sure. Happy to.”
Mac’s call to Lucas Bennett resulted in the same message: Laura had not checked in with her mother or father, and both parents were now seriously concerned.
“A private investigator who works for me is going to swing by her apartment,” Smith told Bennett. “I’ll get back to you if he comes up with anything. By the way, Annabel and I ran into Congressman Gannon last night at a party. I mentioned that I’d tried to get in touch with Laura.”
“What did Hal have to say?”
“I mentioned that his chief of staff told me that Laura had taken a few days off. The congressman didn’t seem to be aware of that. He said that he had trouble keeping track of his interns.”
“He didn’t seem concerned?”
“No. Let me see what Robert Brixton comes up with. He’s the investigator I mentioned. He’s top-notch and discreet.”
“Thanks, Mac. I need to calm Grace down.”
Brixton was glad to have something to do. Business had been slow, although a couple of potential clients had called and scheduled meetings. One was a matrimonial attorney, which meant Brixton would be asked to prove infidelity of a spouse, or maybe find out where a husband was hiding money to keep it out of the divorce proceedings. The other prospective client was a restaurant owner who was convinced that his bartenders were ripping him off. Brixton had been good at those sorts of assignments in Savannah, posing as a customer in some instances, or signing on as a new employee and using that vantage point to build a case against the barroom thief.
He’d always hated getting involved in matrimonial disputes, but a job was a job. Annabel Smith had abandoned her lucrative law practice because she’d become fed up with being in the middle of warring spouses, whose self-serving demands did nothing to help their kids through a difficult period. Brixton admired Annabel for having taken that stance and vowed one day to emulate her—turn down divorce cases. But for the moment, the pile of bills on Flo’s desk rendered that a fanciful dream.
He headed for the apartment building on Capitol Hill where Laura Bennett was living during her internship. It occurred to him that if she was there, all he could say to her was, “Call your mother!” His career as a private investigator had come down to this, telling bratty young women to keep in touch with their parents.
He pushed the buzzer in the lobby and waited for a response. When there wasn’t one, he buzzed again. No better luck. He’d left the foyer and was on the sidewalk when a short, slender young woman with oversized round glasses and a head framed by red curls approached carrying a grocery bag.
“Hi,” Brixton said.
She tossed him a wary glance and continued up the steps.
“Excuse me,” Brixton said. “Hate to bother you, but I wonder if you know a woman who lives in this building, Laura Bennett.”
“Why do you ask? Who are you?”
“Robert Brixton. I work for an attorney who’s a friend of Ms. Bennett’s father. They haven’t been able to reach her and wondered whether—”
“She’s not here.”
“Oh? You know her?”
She fixed him in a hard stare, as though sizing up a potential serial rapist.
“Does she have a roommate?” Brixton asked.
“I’m her roommate.”
“Oh. Well, I’m a private detective. Ms. Bennett isn’t in any sort of trouble. Her parents are worried, that’s all.”
“Laura isn’t here,” Reis Ethridge said. “She hasn’t been here for days.”
“She moved?”
Reis let out a frustrated sigh and looked for a spot to put down the bag.
“Here, I’ll take it,” Brixton said, extending his hands and offering a smile meant to be reassuring.
She clasped the bag closer to her chest.
“Any chance that I can come up and see where Laura lives?” he asked, certain what the answer would be.
“No!”
“I figured that,” Brixton said. “Okay, I know that you’re busy and I don’t want to take more of your time, but maybe you can give me a clue as to where Ms. Bennett might be.”
“Try Congressman Gannon,” Reis said.
“My friend already called there.”
“I mean try where he lives.”
Brixton cocked his head.
“Laura and the congressman are close.”
“What do you mean by ‘close’?”
“He’s her boyfriend. Look, I have to get in before things in this bag melt.”
“Sure, of course. Thanks for your time.” He handed her his card. “When you see Laura, please tell her to call her folks.”
Her smile was sarcastic. “Sure, I’ll tell her.”
Brixton watched Reis Ethridge enter the building and disappear into the elevator.
Congressman Gannon is her boyfriend?
Brixton had to wait an hour to see Mac Smith because the attorney had a client in with him.
“Where have you been?” Flo asked as Brixton sat in the outer office waiting for Smith’s meeting to end.
Brixton recounted his visit to Laura Bennett’s building and his conversation with her roommate.
“She said that Congressman Gannon is her boyfriend?” Flo said, stressing the last word.
“Quote, end quote.”
“Whew,” Flo said. “He’s married, has kids.”
“That doesn’t keep lots of men from having affairs.”
“But an intern? How old can she be?”
“Old enough to know better. Mac says she’s a college grad. Maybe they didn’t teach smarts at her school.”
“I wonder what Mac will have to say,” Flo said.
The door opened and Smith poked his head in. “Any luck?” he asked Brixton.
“Yes and no,” Brixton replied as he followed Smith into his office.
Mac wasn’t as shocked at what Brixton had been told by Laura’s roommate as Flo had been. A look of sadness came over him and he slowly shook his head. “I hope it isn’t true,” was all he said.
“I’m just telling you what this gal said,” Brixton commented. “She’s the snippy type. Maybe she doesn’t know what she’s talking about.”
“I’d like to think that’s the case,” said Mac.
“You have to call her father back?”
“Yes. Of course I won’t mention this to him. Could be just another D.C. rumor. But there is cause for concern, Robert. His daughter may have a perfectly good reason to have fallen out of touch with home, but up until now she’s been good about calling her folks.”
“Anything else I can do?”
“Not at the moment,” Smith said, sighing deeply. “I’ll make the call and see if there’s anything else I can do on this end. What’s your day like?”
“Two possible clients coming in.”
“Good. Thanks for checking on her.”
Mac called Lucas Bennett at his law office in Tampa and reported Brixton’s experience.
“I’ve been telling Grace that Laura is probably off on some adventure,” Bennett said. “It’s not the first time that she’s failed to stay in touch, but never for this long, only a day or two. This has gone far enough, Mac. You say that Hal Gannon’s chief of staff said that Laura had taken a few days off. That’s not like her. I think the police should be notified.”
Smith hated to see it progress to that point but had to agree with Bennett’s decision.
“I can ask the police to go to her apartment and look around,” Mac said. “Brixton, my investigator, is a former D.C. cop and has conn
ections there. I do, too. I suggest that it be done quietly, Luke.”
“Maybe Grace and I should come to D.C.”
“Hold off on that until the police have had a chance to check it out. I’ll call you the minute I have something to report.”
While Brixton met in his office with the bar owner, Smith called a friend at the Metropolitan Police Department, Zeke Borgeldt, who’d recently been promoted to superintendent of detectives. Borgeldt had always accepted Smith’s invitation to come to one of his law classes at George Washington University to help educate the fledgling lawyers in the way the department functions, how it really functions, and Smith had weighed in on a thorny legal matter that Borgeldt had become involved in. Over the course of the past few years, they’d also developed a social friendship, enjoying dinners out with their spouses.
“What’s up?” Borgeldt asked when he came on the line.
Smith explained the situation and asked whether a detective could be sent to Laura’s apartment to check on her well-being. “Best that it be kept unofficial,” Mac added. “Chances are everything is fine. No sense in raising unnecessary speculation.”
“Not a problem,” Borgeldt said while jotting down information Mac provided.
“I was also wondering, Zeke, whether my investigator, Robert Brixton, could accompany the detective. He’s former MPD and—”
“I know who he is. Sure. I’ll have someone go to that address and call you when I’ve arranged it.”
A half hour later, after the restaurant owner had left, Brixton headed back to Laura Bennett’s apartment building and waited in front until the detective assigned by Borgeldt, Jay Gibbs, pulled up in an unmarked car. Brixton led them into the foyer and buzzed the apartment.
“Who is it?” Reis Ethridge asked through the intercom.
“It’s Robert Brixton again, ma’am,” he said. “I’m with Detective Gibbs of the Washington MPD.”
“A detective?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Brixton motioned for Gibbs to speak.
“This is Detective Gibbs, ma’am. I need to come up with Mr. Brixton and ask you a few questions about your roommate, Ms. Bennett.”
“What’s wrong? What’s happened?”
“Nothing, ma’am, just a few questions. Please buzz us in.”
She did, and they went to the apartment, where she stood in the open doorway. “Do you have some form of ID?” she asked.
“Sure,” Gibbs said, flashing his badge.
She looked suspiciously at Brixton before stepping back inside and inviting them to follow.
Brixton and Gibbs stood in the living room and took it in.
“Just the two of you live here?” Gibbs asked.
“Yes.”
“You’re an intern, too?” Brixton asked.
“That’s right. At the Department of Justice.”
“And Ms. Bennett interns for Congressman Gannon,” Brixton supplied.
Reis turned to Gibbs. “What questions do you have?”
Gibbs took out a notepad and pen and asked a series of questions: when Laura had last been at the apartment; what, if anything, she told Reis the last time she was there about where she intended to go; whether anyone had come to the apartment with her with whom she might have gone off. Reis’s answers were monosyllabic.
“You each have your own bedroom?” Brixton asked.
Reis nodded.
“Can we see your roommate’s?” Gibbs asked.
She led them down a short hallway and pointed to one of two rooms.
In it was everything you would expect of a young woman’s bedroom. A laptop computer was open on a plank of wood supported by two cheap fiberboard filing cabinets. One of two chairs in the room, a rocker, was more of a repository for discarded clothing than for sitting. Next to the laptop were various brochures from sightseeing sites in the D.C. area. Two suitcases stood in a corner. Brixton picked them up. “Empty,” he muttered.
Gibbs sat in the second chair, a small office model on wheels. He touched a key on the laptop, and the screen came to life with a photo of Laura with her mother and father.
“I don’t think you should be looking at her computer,” said Reis. “That’s private.”
Gibbs said, “I could get a warrant, but I’m sure you wouldn’t want to make me do that.” He smiled broadly at her, his teeth white against his African-American skin, and didn’t wait for permission to start clicking keys.
Reis left the room.
“There’s nothing obvious here,” Gibbs told Brixton. “We’ll have to get a tech to look at it.”
Certain that Reis wasn’t within hearing distance, Brixton told Gibbs in a low voice, “When I was here earlier, the roommate said something about this gal, Laura, being a girlfriend of Congressman Gannon, the one she interns with.”
Gibbs’s eyebrows went up.
“I don’t know if it’s true,” said Brixton, “but that’s what she said.”
Gibbs quickly leafed through the brochures. There was also a pile of credit card receipts that he perused.
Reis reappeared.
“Thank you for your courtesy,” Gibbs said.
“Did you find anything?” she asked.
“No, but we appreciate you letting us look around.”
“When’s the last time you heard from her?” Brixton asked.
“Days ago.”
“She hasn’t been back for a change of clothes?”
“Not while I’ve been here, and I’m here a lot.”
“She’s never called?”
“No,” Reis replied, her tone bordering on nasty. “I’ve already told you that.”
“If you do hear from her, give me a call,” Gibbs said, handing her his card.
Outside, Brixton asked Gibbs for his analysis of the situation.
“Nothing to indicate anything bad has happened,” the detective said. “There’s really nothing we can do unless her parents want to report her as missing. That’d get the ball rolling. This idea that she and the congressman might have been getting it on. Be interesting to talk to him about that.”
“Yeah, it would,” Brixton agreed. “Thanks for letting me tag along.”
“My pleasure. I’ll file a report about the visit and see if the brass wants to follow up.”
The visit hadn’t turned up anything tangible to report back to Mac Smith. But as Brixton drove away, he had the strong sense that something was wrong—very wrong—in the life of Laura Bennett.
CHAPTER
13
Paul Wooster spent the day trying to nail down a tangible romantic link between Hal Gannon and Laura Bennett. He was unsuccessful. As the day wore on, he turned to his original source, a legislative aide to a Republican congressman from Florida’s Second Congressional District in Miami, who agreed to meet him for dinner that night at the Willard’s iconic Occidental Grill & Seafood restaurant.
Wooster prodded his guest during dinner to provide more than just D.C. gossip about Gannon and Laura Bennett. He wanted to return to Tampa with hard evidence of the affair, the name of someone who knew rather than speculated, have something in hand that Solon’s campaign people could use directly against Gannon. Over multiple sidecars, Caesar salads, ten-ounce filet mignons, and crème brûlées, washed down with snifters of the restaurant’s most expensive Armagnac, Wooster became more frustrated, which was apparent to his guest.
“Look, Paul,” the guest said, “I’d love to come up with what you need, a photo of them playing kissy-face, coming out of a hotel together, an audio- or a videotape of them panting and sweating. But all I have is the scuttlebutt that floats around Congress. My guy has been on committees with Gannon and trusts him only as far as he can throw him.”
“But he’s sided with Republicans on a lot of issues, hasn’t he?” Wooster said.
“Not as many as you think, Paul. He picks the high-visibility ones. It upsets his fellow Democrats, of course, but it plays big back home in his district. Hal Gannon, Mr. Compromiser,
the hope and salvation of broken Washington. Tell you what I’ll do. I’ll spread the rumor and see who confirms it. If somebody does and comes up with the sort of proof you’re looking for, I’ll pass it along.”
“I can’t ask for more than that,” said Wooster.
Their snifters refilled, Wooster’s guest said, “But what’s in it for me?”
“What do you mean?”
“I understand that Pete Solon’s campaign chest is pretty big.”
“I wouldn’t know about that.”
“I’m sure you don’t come cheap, Paul.”
“They pay me okay.”
“In return for digging up some dirt on Gannon, I’d appreciate having some of Solon’s war chest spread around a little between other Florida Republican candidates.”
“Like the congressman you work for?”
“Yeah. I spend all my days and most of my nights trying to raise money for him. Times are tough, the economy sucks. Solon’s got big bucks. If I come up with something on Gannon that helps Solon, he should share the wealth.”
Whore, Wooster thought.
“Sounds fair to me,” he said. “I’ll pass it along.”
He was on the first plane back to Tampa the following morning.
* * *
Brixton reported to Mac Smith after returning from Laura Bennett’s apartment.
“Like I told you, Mac, her roommate’s a sourpuss. I’d hate to have to live with her.”
“Did she mention again about Ms. Bennett having an affair with the congressman?”
“No, but I told Gibbs, the detective I was with.”
“What did he say?”
“He said it would be interesting to question the congressman about it. I’d love to be there if it ever happens. He also said that unless the parents file a missing person report, there isn’t much anybody can do.”
“Was there anything in the apartment to indicate where she might have gone?”
“No. There were two suitcases, but they were empty. Her clothes were in the closet. Gibbs went through some credit card receipts on her desk, but he evidently didn’t see anything of interest. He also took a quick look at her laptop. According to the roommate, Ms. Bennett hasn’t been there for a while. Everything was in order except for a couple of pieces of clothing on a chair.”
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