Margaret Truman's Internship in Murder

by Margaret Truman

  Superintendent of Detectives Zeke Borgeldt received a call at headquarters from one of the detectives at the cemetery.

  “Looks like the missing intern has been found,” the detective said.

  “It’s Laura Bennett?” Borgeldt said.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “No doubts?”

  “No, sir. She has ID on her.”

  “And she’s in some vault at the cemetery?”

  “Right. A woman walking her dog discovered the body.”

  “What’s your read on it?”

  “Homicide. The ME said something about blunt force trauma to the head.”

  Before leaving to go to the scene, Borgeldt called Mac Smith. “We’ve found Laura Bennett,” he said, and told the Bennett family attorney what he’d learned. “You’d better tell the family.”

  Brixton had left Sayers with the lunch bill and raced back to his office, where Mac was still on the phone with Borgeldt.

  “Brixton just arrived,” Mac told Borgeldt. “Hold on.”

  He filled Brixton in on what had transpired. “Why don’t you run over to the cemetery, Robert, and let me know what’s going on there.”

  Mac told Borgeldt, “Brixton’s on his way to the cemetery. I’ll wait to hear from him before making that call.”

  Brixton arrived just as the body was being brought from the vault.

  “It’s Laura Bennett?” Brixton asked Borgeldt.

  Borgeldt nodded.

  “Mac Smith said you’d called.”

  Another nod from Borgeldt.

  “How’d they make the ID?” Brixton asked.

  “She had it on her. There’s an iPad, too. She put a label on it with her name.”

  Borgeldt walked to the two detectives and the ME who stood near the body.

  “No doubt on the ID?” he said.

  “No,” was the answer. “The parents will have to confirm it, but it’s her, Chief. Laura Bennett.”

  Borgeldt moved closer to the stretcher and peered down into Laura’s face. The corneas of her once lively eyes were milky. He cocked his head to better see the side of her head where a blow of some sort had created a depression in her temple; dried blood covered it and had expanded into her copper-tinted hair. Her lips were twisted into what might have been considered a smile under other circumstances.

  She wore an orange blouse, black slacks, and sneakers, one of which had fallen off. Her face was bloated, its skin waxy.

  “Any guess when she died?” Borgeldt asked the ME.

  “Wasn’t yesterday, that’s for sure. Couple of days, maybe a week. I’ll know more after the autopsy.”

  “Looks like somebody got mad and whacked her in the side of the head.”

  “Not a bad first guess, Superintendent,” said the ME. “Are we cleared to remove her?”

  “If you’ve done what you need to do, sure, go ahead.”

  A clean white sheet was placed over the body and tucked beneath her. Two EMTs lifted the stretcher and began their trek back to the cemetery’s entrance where their ambulance awaited, uniformed cops leading the way.

  “What’s it look like to you?” Brixton asked Borgeldt when the superintendent rejoined him.

  “If you mean is it a homicide, you could get rich betting on that, Brixton. Tell Mac and the Bennetts that I’ll be available all afternoon.”

  Brixton called Mac on his cell. Before he could report on what he’d learned, Smith said, “Luke Bennett just called. It’s already on TV. He and his wife are on their way here.”

  “Hell of a way to hear about it,” Brixton said.

  “Have they removed the body?”

  “A few minutes ago. Looks like somebody hit her in the head pretty hard. Borgeldt was there.”

  “I know. Anything said about a press conference?”

  “Not that I heard. I’m heading back.”

  “I’ll be here.”

  Smith had no sooner hung up when Annabel called from her Georgetown gallery.

  “I just saw on TV that they’ve found Laura Bennett,” she said. “They said she’d been killed.”

  “That’s the way it looks, Annie. The Bennetts are on their way from the hotel.”

  “Want me to come?”

  “That’d be good, Annie. Grace will need all the support we can muster.”

  “I’ll close up and be there as soon as I can.”

  Mac told Doris to expect the Bennetts at any minute. He retreated into his office, poured himself a shot of bourbon, and leaned back in his chair. He dreaded facing the Bennetts. He knew what it was like to lose a child. As he thought about that fateful night when his first wife and son were killed on the Beltway, and the intense, intractable pain the grim phone call had caused, he also thought of Robert Brixton, who had lost one of his daughters in the café bombing a year ago. “Damn!” he muttered. Three young lives taken by others—a drunk driver, a crazed terrorist, and now someone for whom Laura Bennett’s life wasn’t as important as what had prompted her killer to take her life.

  “Damn!” he repeated as the door opened and Doris said, “The Bennetts are here.”

  CHAPTER

  24

  Hal Gannon learned about the discovery of Laura Bennett’s body the same way her mother and father had, from a TV news bulletin.

  He was at the apartment with his wife, Charlene, who’d arrived in D.C. the previous evening. It had been a frosty reunion.

  Laura’s disappearance had become national news, with newspapers in Tampa and Washington giving it front-page status. Adding to Charlene’s awareness that Laura was missing had been the call from Luke Bennett. Now, nursing a glass of orange juice in her husband’s Adams Morgan living room, she’d been absently watching TV news when the announcement came that Laura was no longer a missing person.

  “She’s been murdered,” Charlene blurted out as she leaped from the couch and turned up the volume.

  “What?” Gannon called from the kitchen, where he’d been filling the dishwasher.

  “Laura Bennett. They’ve found her in some cemetery. She was murdered.”

  “Oh, no,” he said as he came from the kitchen, wiping his hands on a towel.

  They watched as an update was broadcast, including an on-camera statement by Superintendent Zeke Borgeldt at the cemetery: “We are confident that the body discovered today in the Public Vault of the Congressional Cemetery is the intern who has been missing, Ms. Laura Bennett. Until official identification has been established, an autopsy has been performed, and we have had a chance to analyze existing evidence, we will have no further comment.” He ignored shouted reporters’ questions and walked away.

  “How dreadful,” Charlene said. “My God, who could do such a thing?”

  “There’s a lot of bad people out there, Charlene.”

  She followed him into the kitchen. “Hal, we have to talk.”

  “Sure,” he said, putting the final pieces of silverware in the dishwasher. “Jesus, Laura murdered. It’s inconceivable, it’s crazy. Why would anyone want to snuff out the life of an innocent young woman?”

  “We have to talk about what’s happened to Laura Bennett,” Charlene said sharply.

  “What’s to talk about?” he said, his back to her, “except to tell Luke and Grace how sorry we are, and to be there for them.”

  “The rumors,” Charlene said.

  Gannon turned. “Rumors? What rumors?”

  “The ones about you and other women.”

  He dropped the towel on the counter, leaned against it, and smiled. “Charlene, you know that this town is fueled by rumors. The damned media looks for every little scrap of dirt on anyone in the government and then blows it up to sell newspapers and drive ratings.”

  “Those rumors are circulating in Tampa, too, Hal.”

  “And why do you think that is?” he asked.

  “You tell me.”

  “Look, Charlene, I know that politics isn’t your cup of tea, and I don’t blame you. But you are aware that Pete Solon has
announced that he’s running against me for my congressional seat.”

  “Yes.”

  “And where do you think these kinds of rumors emanate? Politics is rough-and-tumble, a dirty business. The Solon people will stoop to anything to take me down. It shouldn’t be that way, but it is. That’s reality.”

  “I don’t need a lecture on politics, Hal.”

  “Maybe you do need a lecture about what I do,” he said, crossing the kitchen and placing his hands on her shoulders. “Look, I know that you were never pleased with my decision to run for Congress, and I also know that you find politics to be distasteful. So do I at times. You’re happy to be home with the kids and your studio, and I respect that, always have. Do I wish that you took a more active role in my career here in Washington? Sure I do, and I think about it a lot. But the fact that you don’t want to share in it is the primary reason these stupid, slanderous rumors get started in the first place. The media ghouls zero in on someone like me, a congressman whose wife stays home in Tampa. He’s got to be up to no good. Right? That’s the way they view it. They’re whores, Charlene. Nothing but liars and cheats and whores.”

  Charlene moved away from him and went into the living room. She stared out the window. The mist had turned to a harder rain again. People scurried along the sidewalks, umbrellas raised, or the day’s newspaper held over their heads. The weather matched Charlene’s mood. She wanted to believe her husband—desperately wanted to—but something inside told her that he wasn’t being truthful.

  Gannon’s campaign manager in Tampa, Joe Selesky, had come to the house one day—“Purely a social call,” he’d said—and during the course of the conversation he’d suggested that she make a point of spending more time with her husband in D.C., at least during the campaign. She hadn’t thought much of the request—a politician running for reelection with his wife standing proudly at his side, which she’d done at campaign events in Tampa—and told Selesky that she would consider increasing her time spent in Washington. But then she asked whether a problem had arisen.

  He responded, “Some people who would like to see Hal lose reelection are questioning whether your marriage is stable.” He laughed to soften his message. “You know, handsome congressman alone in big, bad D.C. with all those available females running around. Washington has the highest ratio of women to men in the country.”

  The possible meaning behind what he’d said sank in.

  “What are you suggesting, Joe?” she asked.

  “I’m not suggesting anything. I just want to nip any rumor in the bud, that’s all. The best way to do that is for you and Hal to be a couple in D.C.”

  When Charlene didn’t say anything, he added, “I know how much you enjoy being in your studio turning out Picassos, Charlene, but think about it. That’s all I ask.”

  “Sometimes you can be so damn patronizing,” she said, venom in her words.

  She did think about it, but not for very long … until one day when a talk-show host on the conservative radio station WWBA suggested that voters question Hal Gannon’s claim to be a family man with Christian values. “Based upon what we’re hearing, the congressman has more on his mind than passing legislation, with plenty of attractive female company to help him pass the time while away from his wife and kids back here in Tampa.”

  The offhand comment had angered Charlene and fueled the questions and doubts that had begun to fester. She decided to dismiss the comment by the radio host and chalk it up to just a political smear. Which it was, of course, a story planted with the talk show by an operative in Republican Pete Solon’s campaign.

  But now that she was in Washington, D.C., with her husband, the doubts that she’d managed to suppress emerged front and center.

  Was there any truth to those rumors?

  She continued to peer out at the street scene below the apartment. She didn’t want to cry, but it took every ounce of willpower to keep the tears from flowing.

  When Hal returned to the living room, Charlene asked whether he’d been questioned by the Washington police about Laura’s disappearance.

  “Twice,” he said, “but I wouldn’t use the term ‘questioned.’ There’s no need to question me. They just wanted to find out whether I knew anything about her life here in D.C. aside from the office. Naturally, I had nothing to offer in that regard. Laura’s folks have hired an attorney, Mackensie Smith, and a private investigator, a guy named Brixton, Robert Brixton. I did some checking into his credentials. He’s a real foul ball, got himself in a mess of trouble twice, a year or so ago and even back farther than that.”

  Another update on the discovery of Laura Bennett’s body filled the TV screen.

  “Credible sources tell us that the police now believe that the missing intern, Laura Bennett, is a homicide victim, and a special unit has been established within the MPD to investigate.”

  The ringing phone caused Gannon to turn down the volume.

  “Hello?”

  He held his hand over the phone and said to Charlene, “My press aide, Cody Watson. Have to take this.”

  He disappeared into the bedroom with the wireless phone and closed the door.

  “I have nothing to say to the police,” he said into the phone. “They’ve already questioned me twice … What?… No, Cody, no press conference, no media interviews … Yeah, all right, issue a statement from me but make damn sure you run it past me first … I’ll be here at the apartment for another hour … Charlene and I will be having dinner at Cafe Milano … Let a few of your contacts in the press know where we’ll be … I know, I know, some of them may want a statement, and I’ll give them one if I have to … I want to take advantage of having Charlene here … Yes, that’ll be fine. Get back to me.”

  “Sorry,” Gannon said when he returned to the living room. “Always something. Anything new on TV about Laura Bennett?”

  “No,” she replied. “You said that the police had interviewed you twice about Laura.”

  “Right, about her disappearance. Now that she’s no longer a missing person, it’ll be a homicide investigation, which will have nothing to do with me. I’ve made dinner reservations for us at Cafe Milano. You’ll like it. The murals on the walls are all hand painted, including a portrait of Placido Domingo. The food is great and—”

  “I’ve read about the restaurant, Hal. It sounds very nice, but I’m really not in the mood for some fancy place.”

  “Nonsense. I’m so damn happy that you’re here. I’ve missed you terribly.” He put his arms around her and tried to kiss her, but she moved her head. He stepped back and said, “I won’t take no for an answer. We’re going to Cafe Milano and that’s that. Put on something pretty. Use the bedroom. I have some calls to make and then I’ll be free. We’ll enjoy a night out.” He grinned. “Let’s call it a date night, just the two of us.”

  * * *

  Cody Watson, press aide to Congressman Hal Gannon, busied himself drafting a statement to come from Gannon regarding the discovery of Laura Bennett’s body. He filled it with what he knew his boss would want it to say: The congressman was as shocked as the rest of Washington with the tragic news … he couldn’t begin to imagine what the Bennett family was suffering, and his prayers, and those of his wife, were with them … his office would do anything it could to help the police identify and bring the killer to justice … anyone with any information should contact the Metropolitan Police Department immediately.

  He called Gannon at the apartment and read it to him.

  “Sounds good,” Gannon said. “What do you think about Charlene and me going to the Congressional Cemetery to visit where Laura’s body was found?”

  “It’ll come off as grandstanding,” Cody said.

  “Yeah, maybe you’re right.”

  He’d no sooner hung up than Superintendent Zeke Borgeldt called.

  “Sorry to bother you, Congressman, but I’m sure you’ve heard about Ms. Bennett.”

  “Yes, on TV of, all places. I would have expected a call fr
om you.”

  “The media trumped us,” Borgeldt said, keeping pique from his voice. “Congressman, I know this is an imposition, but we need to talk to you again.”

  “Again? Why? I’m suddenly feeling as though you view me as a suspect, or what you call ‘a person of interest.’”

  Borgeldt’s laugh was forced but sounded sincere. “Nothing could be farther from the truth, Congressman. But as you now know, we’ve got a homicide on our hands and need all the help we can get.”

  “My office is just now issuing a statement,” Gannon said, “including a pledge to be help. Sure, I’ll be happy to speak with your people again. I’m tied up for the next few days but maybe later we can—”

  “Whatever fits into your busy schedule, Congressman. I’ll get back to you in a day or two.”

  Borgeldt ended the call and looked across his desk at Detectives Gibbs and Morey.

  “He balked at another round of questioning?” Gibbs asked.

  “No,” Borgeldt said, “but he isn’t happy.” He tapped a sheet of paper on his desk on which he’d made notes during a previous conversation that day with Robert Brixton. Let’s go over this again,” he said.

  * * *

  Brixton had met with Borgeldt at Mac Smith’s urging. It came about because of a conversation Mac and Brixton had had concerning the visit from Millie Sparks and what she’d related to them regarding Laura and Gannon.

  “You believe her?” Smith had asked Brixton.

  “Yeah, I do. She has no reason to make it up.”

  “The question is whether we pass it along to the police,” Smith said.

  “I’d hate to drag her in like that,” Brixton said. “She was really concerned that the police and the media not be involved. I don’t blame her.”

  “I can understand that,” Smith said, “and if Laura were still missing I’d tend to agree with you. But it’s a homicide now. Not telling the police about a possible—and I stress possible—affair between the congressman and Laura could be construed as withholding evidence.”

  “Can you do it without naming Ms. Sparks?”