Margaret Truman's Internship in Murder

by Margaret Truman

  His partner laughed. “Power, my friend. Remember what Henry Kissinger said.”

  “Who? Oh, yeah, the guy with the funny accent who was big in government. What’d he say?”

  “He said that power was the best aphrodisiac.”

  “He was a powerful guy, must have had plenty of women.”

  “I wouldn’t know. Come on, buy you coffee before we go back and write up what the esteemed congressman said.”

  * * *

  With Mac Smith agreeing, the Bennetts offered a $25,000 reward for information leading to the discovery of Laura Bennett and made the offer during a press conference hastily arranged by Mac.

  “It is our sincere hope that our beloved daughter, Laura, is alive and well,” Lucas Bennett said into the cameras and microphones. “Not knowing her fate has been too much to bear for Laura’s mother and me.” He pulled Grace Bennett closer and announced, “We are offering twenty-five thousand dollars for information leading to our daughter.” He held up two photos of Laura for the cameras to zoom in on. “We know that she’s out there somewhere, and we are asking for your help—praying for your help. Thank you.”

  An announcer replaced the Bennetts at the dais and told viewers that anyone with information leading to Laura Bennett’s whereabouts should contact two different phone numbers that flashed on the screen, the MPD, and the office of the attorney to the Bennett family, Mackensie Smith.

  Brixton left the press conference and returned to his office, where he placed a call to Will Sayers, Washington editor of the Savannah Morning News. Sayers had worked for the paper in Savannah when Brixton was a cop there, and they’d become friends. Brixton was unhappy when the paper sent his friend to Washington to reopen its bureau there, but he found his relocation useful when he became embroiled in the nation’s capital in a case that almost took his life.

  Since again returning to D.C., Brixton and Sayers had drifted somewhat apart, their individual lives keeping them too busy to reconnect aside from phone conversations during which they promised to get together. Brixton was calling to arrange that.

  “My old friend,” Sayers said when he picked up. “I see that you’re famous again, working the mysterious case of the missing intern.”

  “I’m on my third fifteen minutes of fame,” Brixton said. “How the hell are you?”

  “I am fine, just fine, Robert. What can I do you for?”

  “Free for lunch?”

  “Of course. I make it a point of always being free for lunch, or dinner or breakfast, for that matter. In the mood for good barbeque?”

  “Sure.”

  “See you in an hour at Acre 121, on Irving Street, in Columbia Heights. It’s a favorite of mine.”

  Brixton hung up and smiled. His corpulent friend, Will Sayers, always had a dozen “favorite places” at which to indulge his love of good food and well-made drinks. Before leaving to meet Sayers, Brixton placed a call to a number in Florida for an association whose members were private investigators. The woman who answered didn’t seem especially eager to answer Brixton’s query about an investigator named Paul Wooster, but he turned on the charm and she agreed to peruse the group’s database.

  “Sorry,” she said, “but there’s no Paul Wooster listed.”

  Brixton was at the bar at Acre 121 when Sayers waddled in. He was dressed in what seemed to be his uniform, baggy chino pants, a striped button-down shirt, wide red suspenders, and a red-and-white railroad handkerchief dangling from his rear pocket. He slapped Brixton on the back and took an adjacent stool.

  “You’re looking well, Robert,” the editor said. “Your lady Flo obviously takes good care of you.”

  “Despite me being a pain in the butt.”

  “I was about to add that,” Sayers said. “Anything new on your missing intern?”

  “No. What do you hear?”

  “Me? Not much. Unless a case here in D.C. has some connection to Savannah, I don’t pursue it.”

  “She’s still missing,” Brixton said, “probably dead.”

  “Of foul play?”

  Brixton shrugged. “Maybe, maybe not. Do you have any connections with private investigators in Tampa?”

  “As a matter of fact, I do. Why?”

  “I’m trying to run down a guy named Paul Wooster, a private investigator.”

  “Want me to make a call?”

  “Who are you calling?”

  “Someone you should remember from your days in Savannah, Joel Callander.”

  “Callander? He’s in Tampa?”

  “Right. As I recall, you and Joel had a run-in of sorts when you were competing for clients back in your favorite southern city.”

  “He cheated me out of one, if that’s what you mean. When did he go to Tampa?”

  “A few years ago. I’ve kept in touch. He’s not my favorite guy, but he might know of this Wooster character.”

  Sayers pulled a cell phone from his pants pocket, scrolled through stored numbers, and called one.

  “Joel? Will Sayers … I’ve been fine … You?… Glad to hear that … Joel, I’m calling on behalf of a friend of mine. Do you happen to know a PI in Tampa named Wooster, Paul Wooster?… You do?… Tell me about him.”

  Brixton listened as Sayers went through a series of grunts to indicate he understood what Callander was saying. “No,” Sayers said, “you wouldn’t know my friend.”

  Brixton gave Sayers a thumbs-up.

  “Anything else about Mr. Wooster?” Sayers asked.

  There evidently wasn’t because Sayers thanked Callander and ended the call.

  “So what’s the scoop on Mr. Wooster?” Brixton asked.

  “Seems like he used to be a private eye, Robert, but his Florida license was revoked, something to do with bilking clients. But he’s still working, only without the benefit of a license.”

  “How can he do that?”

  “According to your old friend Callander, Wooster doesn’t bill himself as a PI. He’s working for a Republican fund-raising organization in Tampa, does investigative work without having to be licensed.”

  “Republican?” Brixton said. “When Mac Smith and his wife met Wooster at a party, he claimed to be a big fan of Congressman Gannon—who happens to be a Democrat.”

  “With right-wing leanings as I understand it,” said Sayers.

  “Wooster also mentioned to Mac and Annabel that he was concerned about rumors concerning the congressman’s healthy libido, hoped it wouldn’t impact his reelection chances.”

  “Who can figure politicians, Robert? Let’s order. The big barbeque platter is terrific, sausages, chicken ribs, pork, the works.”

  “To share?”

  “Hell, no. I’m a growing boy. Order what you want. The po’boy sandwiches are top-notch, same with the grits.”

  “You know I don’t eat grits,” Brixton said, making a face to reinforce what he’d said. “Hate ’em.”

  “You rebel against anything southern,” Sayers said through a laugh.

  And so Brixton and Sayers ordered their meals, accompanied by mugs of beer, and said little—until Brixton’s cell phone rang.

  “Hello?”

  “Robert, it’s Mac Smith. Where are you?”

  “At a restaurant having lunch with Will Sayers. What’s up?”

  “A lot. They’ve found Laura Bennett.”

  Brixton sat back in his chair, his eyes wide. “Where? When?”

  “An hour ago. The Congressional Cemetery. How soon can you get back to the office?”

  “Fifteen minutes.”

  “What’s up?” Sayers asked.

  “The missing intern, Laura Bennett. She’s not missing anymore.”

  THE DISCOVERY

  CHAPTER

  22

  Cheryl Randolph had lived in Washington, D.C., her entire life. She loved the city, even the silly circus that its major industry, politics, had become. She proudly proclaimed herself an equal-opportunity political junkie; her TV set was seldom turned off, the remote getting a
workout as she switched from MSNBC to Fox News, to CNN, and to any other channel on which politics was covered. She basked in the power of the city’s leading political lights and developed a crush on a variety of elected officials as they came and went, hanging on every word of their speeches and reveling in any gossip surrounding them.

  She was divorced. She’d met her now ex-husband when he came to town from Kansas to work for the Department of Agriculture, and it didn’t take long for the bloom on the rose to fade and wither. Three years after tying the proverbial knot, they divorced, and he hightailed it back to Topeka, where the last she heard he’d remarried, had three kids, and operated a dairy farm. Good riddance was the way Cheryl viewed it. Spending the day wallowing in cow manure was what he deserved.

  Fifty-eight years old, she lived in a two-bedroom apartment on a quiet street in the city’s Southeast Quadrant. Her father’s death shortly after her divorce, and the money he left his only daughter, enabled Cheryl to quit her job at a real estate firm and spend her days volunteering at favorite charities and landmarks, and enjoying the company of her dogs, the latest named Jessie, a shepherd-Lab she’d adopted from a shelter, the joy of her life.

  Her favorite volunteer experience was the Congressional Cemetery, located on the west bank of the Anacostia River, two blocks from her home. She was one of five hundred volunteers who worked to maintain the almost two-hundred-year-old cemetery for those visiting the more than sixty-five thousand individuals buried or memorialized there. Among the underground residents were one vice president; one Supreme Court justice; six former cabinet members; nineteen senators; seventy-one representatives, one of whom was a Speaker of the House; John Philip Sousa; and the first director of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover. There were days when Cheryl could almost hear them speaking from their graves.

  But while she loved the national historic landmark’s rich history, the main attraction was being able to walk Jessie off-leash in its fenced-in thirty acres. Volunteering for the Association for the Preservation of Historic Congressional Cemetery (APHCC) enabled Cheryl to join the cemetery’s K-9 Corps, made up of volunteers who also owned dogs and had special dog-walking privileges, for a fee, of course. In the early days, the cemetery had fallen into serious disrepair, and the area became overrun with drug dealers and prostitutes. But the introduction of the K-9 Corps, dozens of dogs running off-leash around the cemetery, coupled with an infusion of federal money, drove the unsavory element away; the fees paid by members for the right to walk their dogs now provided twenty percent of the APHCC’s operating income. The dogs and their owners were welcomed with open arms, and coffers.

  On this day she left the apartment at noon and took Jessie to the cemetery for her daily romp. It was overcast, and the humidity had risen to an uncomfortable level. Rain was in the air, which prompted Cheryl to bring along an umbrella for her and a yellow dog slicker for Jessie.

  The threat of inclement weather had kept most dog lovers away from the cemetery, which pleased Cheryl as she entered through the E Street entrance. She enjoyed the way Jessie and other dogs played, but there had been a few times when another dog recoiled at Jessie’s rambunctious nature and a fight almost ensued. On this muggy day, Cheryl and Jessie had the cemetery virtually to themselves.

  She unhooked Jessie’s leash and laughed as she scooted away, zigging and zagging, nose to the ground as she picked up on the myriad scents, disappearing behind monuments, burial vaults, and tombstones, then reappearing as she continued her quest for the source of the scents, basking in her freedom but frequently stopping to be sure that Cheryl was following. The grass had recently been trimmed, thanks to one hundred goats that had been trucked in from a Maryland farm to take the place of mechanical mowers; Eco-Goats they were called. This unusual approach to grounds maintenance had generated widespread media attention across the country. “They cost less than a grounds crew and don’t pollute the air the way gasoline mowers do,” the administrative head of APHCC had said when announcing the goat project. Then, with a smile he added, “And besides, they do a pretty good job of laying down fertilizer.”

  Cheryl carried a pocketful of dog treats, and Jessie occasionally returned to her side in anticipation of receiving one, sitting smartly, tail wagging, and with an expression on her tan-and-black muzzle that Cheryl was certain was a satisfied smile.

  As the sky continued to darken, Cheryl wondered whether they had better cut Jessie’s romp short. They’d passed through a cluster of cenotaphs, Aquia sandstones painted white as monuments to those buried elsewhere but who’d passed through the cemetery before being transported to their final resting places. Some had been stored in the Public Vault, a partially subterranean vault constructed in 1834—three U.S. presidents had resided in it: John Quincy Adams, William Henry Harrison, and Zachary Taylor. President Harrison had stayed there for three months, three times longer than he’d been president. And First Lady Dolley Madison was a guest in the vault for two years while funds were being raised for her reinterment at Montpelier. Cheryl had always been particularly fascinated by the vault and its history. Had Lewis Powell, pursued for his role in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, actually hid in it for a night? Cheryl liked to think so.

  She saw that Jessie had reached the vault and stood at attention, her attention focused on its wrought-iron doors, PUBLIC VAULT spelled out on them by a series of vent holes.

  “Jessie, come on, girl,” Cheryl called.

  The dog didn’t move. She slowly approached the doors, and Cheryl heard a low growl come from her.

  She closed the distance between them and was now fifteen feet from the entrance to the vault. It was then that she noticed that the doors were slightly ajar. Strange, she thought, as she took a few steps closer. She knew that the vault had fallen out of use many years earlier. Had a visitor decided to peek inside? As far as she knew, the doors were locked shut—or so she assumed. It had never occurred to her to think otherwise.

  She grabbed Jessie’s collar and attached the leash.

  “Time to go home, baby,” she said.

  But the dog resisted Cheryl’s pull. Her growl grew louder, and she yanked Cheryl closer to the doors.

  Jessie’s growl turned into a whine as Cheryl tentatively reached to open one of the doors. As she did, the rain began to fall. Cheryl peered into the vault’s dim, musty interior and blinked rapidly. At first she wasn’t sure what she was seeing. But as her vision penetrated the gloom, it became obvious that there was a person lying on the vault’s cold, hard floor.

  A woman.

  Cheryl turned, and with Jessie running at her side, raced toward the cemetery’s entrance yelling, “Help! Help!”

  CHAPTER

  23

  Cheryl, who didn’t believe in cell phones and didn’t own one, ran up to the first person she saw on the street, a man on his way to work.

  “There’s a dead woman in the vault,” she sputtered.

  “What vault. What dead woman?”

  “In the cemetery. My dog—her name is Jessie—found her. She’s dead.”

  Jessie tried to jump up on the man, but Cheryl held her back.

  “Please, call someone. Call nine-one-one.”

  The man did as requested and told the operator who answered that a body had been discovered. “What?” he said. He said to Cheryl, “Where’s this vault?”

  “In there,” she said, pointing.

  “In the Congressional Cemetery,” he said into his phone. “A vault.”

  “The Public Vault,” Cheryl said.

  “The Public Vault she said … What?… I’m with the woman who said she discovered the body. We’re on E Street Southeast, by the entrance to the cemetery.”

  The man grumbled about being late to work but stayed with Cheryl and Jessie until the first police units arrived in marked squad cars, four uniformed officers. One, a beefy young man with freckles, asked who had made the call.

  “I did,” the man said. “This is the woman who told me that she had discovered a
body.”

  “Will you please show us where you found this body,” Cheryl was told.

  “I have to get to work,” the man said.

  “Take his info,” an officer said.

  “Do I have to?” Cheryl asked. “It’s in the Public Vault.”

  “It’s a pretty big cemetery, ma’am.”

  Jessie barked at the officer.

  “Keep him on the leash,” he told Cheryl.

  “It’s a female,” Cheryl said. “She isn’t vicious.”

  “Ma’am, please take us to this vault.”

  “All right,” Cheryl said, “but can I bring Jessie home first? I only live two blocks from here and—”

  “After you show us, ma’am.”

  The rain had waned and was now a fine mist. Cheryl put the yellow rain slicker on Jessie, and with her umbrella popped open led three of the officers into the cemetery. The ground had become spongy; one of the officers muttered a four-letter word as a shoe sank into a particularly soft patch. When they reached the vault, Cheryl and Jessie hung back as the officers approached the partially opened door. One aimed a flashlight into the dark, dank space. “It’s a woman,” he announced. “Better call for the ME and backup.”

  Soon, the area surrounding the Public Vault, the temporary resting place of a who’s who of bygone days in the nation’s capital, was filled with a variety of officers and civilian employees. The D.C. medical examiner had arrived with an assistant, and they huddled inside the vault conducting a visual exam of the body. A police photographer was summoned and took pictures of the deceased from as many angles as the cramped space allowed. The activity outside the cemetery’s entrance had attracted dozens of passers-by who’d followed the crowd and stood en masse on a slight rise overlooking the vault. They spoke to each other in hushed tones as officers kept them from getting closer. Eventually, two EMTs replaced the ME and his assistant in the vault, and they emerged with the body on a stretcher, which they lowered to the ground beneath trees surrounding the area. A tech placed a clear plastic tarp over it and used a large golf umbrella to further protect it from the elements.