Murder in Georgetown

by Margaret Truman

  “Sit down, Joe.”

  Potamos took a leather chair facing Bowen and settled into it. He still had to squint. “That light is annoying,” he said.

  “The light? Oh, the sunlight. A night person.”

  His comment and tone rankled Potamos. He said, “I like the daylight as well as anybody, Mr. Bowen, but not when I’m blinded by it.”

  For a moment Potamos thought Bowen was going to get up and close the drapes. He didn’t. Instead, he slowly rose from his chair and came around the desk, looked down at Potamos, then went to a brass cart with a glass top on which a coffeepot, cups and saucers, cream and a sugar bowl rested. Now Potamos could clearly see him. He wore wide yellow suspenders attached to a pair of dark blue slacks. His bow tie was blue with white spots. He was wearing half-glasses, which, combined with his long, lanky frame, gave him a distinct professorial look. “Coffee?” he asked.

  “No, thanks. I had some.”

  Bowen carefully poured himself a cup, added cream, and tasted it. “It’s outstanding coffee, Joe. Mrs. Carlisle blends amaretto with Chock Full o’ Nuts. You should try it. What do you usually drink, instant?”

  “Yeah. It’s quicker. Besides, I don’t have a Mrs. Carlisle around my apartment.”

  Bowen managed a chuckle and sat down in a matching leather chair next to Potamos. He crossed his legs and tasted from his cup again, saying without taking his eyes from it, “I understand you’re hot on the Frolich case.”

  “Hot? I wouldn’t say that.”

  “I’ve been reading your pieces. You seem to be exclusively assigned to the case.”

  Potamos looked at him quizzically. “They put me on it,” he said. “I work the cop beat, remember?”

  Bowen sighed, placed the cup and saucer on a small satinwood Phyfe card table next to his chair, and slowly turned to face Potamos. He rested his elbow on the arm of the chair, placed his pointed chin on his hand, and said, “You know why you’re just a working reporter covering grizzle and grime.”

  Potamos wasn’t sure whether to acknowledge his awareness that Bowen had virtually black-listed him. He decided there was nothing to be gained by feigning ignorance and said, “Because you made sure I wouldn’t be anything else.”

  “Do you really believe that?” Bowen’s voice was tired and bored.

  “Yeah, I do, because of the Cables story.”

  “Preposterous, Joe. I may have achieved a certain preeminence in my profession—our profession—but I’m hardly in a position to thwart the career of a talented journalist.”

  “Maybe I could have fought it, but that wasn’t my style at the time.”

  “Interesting admission,” said Bowen. “You and I had a conflict over a story. When the conflict was over—and, I might add, you won by doing exactly what you wished to do with that story—you chose to turn your back on the spoils. You never did deliver that book, did you?”

  “No.”

  “You never did leave Washington to escape this dreadful man named George Bowen and build your career elsewhere. I wonder why, Joe.”

  Potamos shrugged and shifted in his chair. “Didn’t appeal to me.”

  “Yes, obviously. What does appeal to you these days?”

  Potamos smiled. “My dog, and a woman I met.”

  Bowen smiled, too. “Dogs and women, man’s best and worst friends. When in doubt, Joe, go with the dog.”

  “Sometimes I think that. But then…”

  A laugh this time. “I understand.” Bowen stood and stretched. “Let’s get back to Valerie Frolich’s murder, if you don’t mind dropping the previous subject.”

  “I don’t mind at all.”

  “You’ve been interviewing students who knew her.”

  “Yeah. Gil Gardello told me to dig up human interest and…”

  “And?”

  “I’m working on it.”

  “You’ve been talking to students in my seminar.” He said it flatly; Potamos took it as a flat statement. Then Bowen added, “I wish you wouldn’t.”

  “Wouldn’t what, talk to your students?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I am talking to them.”

  Potamos screwed up his face and sat forward. “I don’t understand,” he said.

  “It is quite enough for one member of the press to interrogate those students, Joe. That one person is me. I am close to them. They trust me, they open up to me. To put it simply, leave them alone.”

  “Give me a reason besides the one you just gave me.”

  “Is that necessary?”

  “For me. What are you saying, that you want an exclusive on them?”

  “It doesn’t necessarily involve that, but—”

  “Sounds to me like it does. Funny, but I never thought I’d be in competition with George Alfred Bowen.”

  Bowen’s voice was ice. “You’re not. Just stay away from them.”

  “I’m still waiting.”

  “For what?”

  “A better reason.”

  “And you’ll wait forever. If it’s really necessary to explain why I am in a better position to gather what information is available through them than you are, you belong in… a diner.”

  “You’re a nasty bastard.”

  “And you are a bumbling fool.”

  “That’s it?” Potamos asked, rising.

  “No, it is not.” Bowen came around to where Potamos stood and placed his hand on his shoulder. “Oh, Joseph Potamos, the hard-nosed reporter, trench coat and all, the curled lip, the sneer, principles on his forehead, J-school impracticalities branded on his brain. I didn’t want this sort of confrontation, Joe. I asked you here to make you an offer you can’t refuse.”

  Potamos had to hand it to him. He knew how to shift your balance so that you wondered whether you’d topple over. Bastard, then nice guy; threats, then offers.

  “Sit down,” Bowen said. “Hear me out.”

  Potamos sat, said, “A diner’s a nice place to work. It’s honest. My father was an honest man who owned a diner.”

  “I know that. Pardon my indiscretion. I apologize.”

  George Bowen apologizing to Joe Potamos. Potamos said, “What’s this offer?”

  “A job here with me, chief of staff, managing editor. I’m doing a new book. The column has never been more accepted, or more profitable. I’m starting a television series. The radio series is now on twelve hundred stations, with a dozen signing up every week. I need help and I think you’re the man.”

  It was all too bizarre, Bowen offering him a job. One of his first thoughts was that he wouldn’t work for George Alfred Bowen under any circumstances and for any amount of money, which is why he surprised himself when he asked, “How much?”

  “Double what you’re making now.”

  “Double?”

  “Double. Regular hours, your own office and staff. Interested, Joe?”

  “Only in why you’re doing it.”

  Bowen grinned and slapped him on the back. “Because I think you’d do a good job for me—and, Joe, I’d like to have you where I can see you.”

  It was Potamos’s turn to laugh. “That’s it, huh? What do you care what I do? Am I stepping on toes again in the Frolich case?”

  “Yes, very sensitive toes. Whether you accept my offer or not, stay away from the students in my seminar. The little they might have to contribute will come through me.”

  Potamos shook his head and puffed his cheeks. “Why the hell would you want to deal with petty stuff like that? I’m supposed to generate stories about the murder, and talking to the deceased’s friends is part of my job.”

  “Not anymore.”

  “Says who?”

  “‘Says who?’ Dime-novel dialogue. How distressing! As of this moment, Joe, you are forbidden to set foot on the campus of Georgetown University, or to contact any students of that institution. Check with Mr. Gardello if you need confirmation. Now, one last time, want to work for me?”

  Potamos stood a
nd walked to the door.

  “Well?” said Bowen.

  Potamos turned and said, “You’re a crazy man, and I’m dedicated these days to avoiding crazy men. Thanks for the offer. I’m not taking it.”

  “Goodbye, Joe.”

  “Goodbye, George.”

  ***

  “…and so one of her boyfriends has a fight with her the night she’s killed, arranges an alibi with a buddy, then skips town. Her father dislikes her enough to bash her head in, according to a friend. This Tony Fiamma, who’d sell his sister for a big break in journalism, disliked her, claims to have her diary. Another one, McCarty, the former law student, denies he ever dated her but lies about it. Now America’s most influential columnist and a buddy of her father’s warns me off. You were with her on the barge the night she got it. What’d you do, hit her with a weighted baton?”

  Roseann Blackburn placed her finger on Potamos’s lips. “Hush. You’re all worked up.”

  Potamos sat up in bed. “I shouldn’t be worked up? Do you realize what happened today in Bowen’s office? He as much as acknowledged that he has something to hide, either for himself or his buddy, the Honorable John Frolich, or maybe one of his students. I shouldn’t be worked up? I wish I still smoked.”

  “And I’m glad you don’t. Are you spending the night?”

  “Can’t. I have to walk Jumper.”

  “Go get her and bring her back.”

  “Come with me and we’ll stay at my place.”

  “I’m too sleepy.”

  “Then I’ll see you tomorrow. Right?”

  She said nothing.

  “Wrong.”

  “Call me. I have a busy day, and I have a gig at night.”

  “Where?”

  “Blues Alley. The name group canceled out, so they’re using locals. We don’t start until late, though, and go till two.”

  “Great. Come by my place early and I’ll make dinner, send you off with a full stomach.”

  “Okay, but don’t hate me for eating and running.”

  He dressed, and she accompanied him to the door. He looked down at her nude body and almost decided to let Jumper use her favorite spot in the kitchen. Roseann wrapped her arms around him and planted a long, deep kiss on his mouth.

  “I should’a got a cat,” he said. “Sleep tight.”

  | Chapter Fourteen |

  Julia Amster seldom rose before eleven, but this Tuesday morning found her entering the shower at eight. She was grumpy; she and George Bowen had attended an intimate dinner party the night before, hosted by the secretary of state, and Bowen hadn’t dropped her home until a little after midnight. They’d argued after the party. He’d been displeased with the tenor of her conversation with the secretary’s wife. “She’s a bore,” Julia told him.

  “An important bore,” he countered. “I expect appropriate behavior from you, Julia.”

  “Appropriate behavior indeed,” she muttered as she rubbed an imported French soap into her skin. “You’re a pompous, arrogant bastard, George,” she said aloud, adjusting the dial on her Shower Massage to “pulsate” and directing it over the length of her. “Why I put up with you I’ll never know.” She stepped from the shower and reached for a large, fluffy pink towel. The fact was she did know why she put up with George Bowen, knew why she said harsh things to him only in the shower or while driving alone. She needed to bask in the reflection of his power, to dine and dance and converse with the power brokers with whom he was on such intimate terms. She reveled in it and wasn’t ashamed to admit it—to herself.

  “Appropriate behavior indeed.” She chose a new lavender suit from a closet and held it in front of her nude body. She smiled at her reflection in the full-length mirror. The sight of herself often caused her to smile.

  Julia Amster was tall, stood eye to eye with Bowen. Her hair was remarkably thick, the color of copper, and her figure—although having gotten thicker through the hips—would have been a proud possession of a woman ten years younger. Amster was forty-two—a good age, she often told herself.

  She’d met Bowen almost ten years ago, right after the breakup of her marriage of four years to a concert impresario named Maurice, who precipitated the separation and divorce by leaving Washington for an artistic director’s job with a Houston opera company. Julia wasn’t sorry to see him go. She’d grown quickly to dislike him, although she did enjoy the circle of friends to which she was introduced through his professional activities, including George Alfred Bowen.

  At the time of the breakup, Amster had been teaching a course in pre-Columbian art at American University. She had a doctorate in the subject and knew there were few people, at least in Washington, who were as well grounded and informed about it. Shortly after accepting the position at American, she was invited to join the board of scholars at Dumbarton Oaks, whose pre-Columbian collection, along with its collections of early Christian and Byzantine art and its world-famous library devoted to the subject of formal gardens, had established the famed mansion as a major cultural and scholarly center in the nation’s capital. She was naturally pleased by the professional recognition, but found her colleagues dull and stodgy. She much preferred the company of those at the political center, especially that of George Bowen. It didn’t matter that their intimate moments together were few and far between, or that he openly slept with a succession of young women. Just as long as he turned to her when social grace, natural beauty, and brains were what counted. When he needed class on his arm.

  The reason she was up earlier than usual this morning was a meeting at nine at her gallery of pre-Columbian art on P Street, in the heart of Georgetown. She’d been financed by Bowen’s friend Marshall Jenkins, and the gallery had grown in worth and prestige since its opening three years ago. The meeting was with a dealer who had offered her a collection he’d garnered in London. It was a matter of price. She’d received a commitment from Jenkins for a certain amount and was determined to bring in the collection within budget.

  Dressed and made up, she spent a few minutes at her desk going over notes on the market value of the pieces of art under consideration. Confident of her judgment, she placed her notes in a thin leather Gucci briefcase and was about to leave when the phone rang. She debated answering; she was running late. She picked up the phone and heard the same raspy, slurred voice she’d heard before. The person—male or female, she couldn’t be sure—had been annoying her with calls for more than a week.

  “Who is this?”

  “He won’t get away with it. Neither will you.”

  “If you don’t stop this, I’ll—” The line went dead.

  She replaced the receiver and clenched her fists, said through tight lips, “Sick bastard.”

  ***

  The meeting at Amster’s gallery went nicely—she managed to buy the pieces below even what Jenkins had budgeted for. The seller, a cherubic little bald man named Waldrup in a rumpled gray suit, suggested they celebrate by having a drink at the nearest bar. Amster thanked him but said it was too early, realizing that it probably was never too early for him.

  He was about to leave when the phone rang. “Excuse me,” she said, wishing he would take it as a cue to leave. He didn’t. She answered, heard the same voice she’d heard at home. She quickly hung up.

  “Something wrong?” her visitor asked.

  She forced a smile, said, “No, of course not, just a wrong number. The phone service gets worse every day.”

  He suggested lunch, then dinner. Finally she managed to get him out the door with the promise of getting together sometime in the near future.

  Once he was gone, she locked the door, sat at her desk, and dialed the number for the police department.

  ***

  Sergeant Peter Languth had just entered his office after conducting the daily meeting of the Valerie Frolich task force. The meeting had been as disappointing as it had been each day since the murder. There had been no progress in the case. Every possible suspect had been interviewed and reintervie
wed, some as many as six times, but nothing concrete had resulted. Two detectives assigned exclusively to the Frolich family reported that the family seemed almost to have put the event behind them, especially Senator Frolich, who, according to one of the detectives, was unfailingly cordial to them, going out of his way to accommodate their every need. “But he’s not there much,” said the other detective. “He’s a busy guy.”

  Languth suggested to everyone on the task force that they rethink the case and have fresh directions to suggest the following day. He didn’t expect anything to come of that, but in his frustrated state it was the best he could do.

  There were phone messages for him in his office. One was from the deputy chief medical examiner acknowledging Languth’s request for a meeting to again go over the details of Valerie Frolich’s autopsy. He returned that call and they set the meeting for five o’clock at the city morgue at D.C. General.

  “Pete,” a desk sergeant said through Languth’s open door, “you wanted to catch all calls on the Frolich case, huh?”

  “Yeah.”

  “We got one a few minutes ago from Julia Amster. Owns an art gallery in Georgetown.”

  “So?”

  “She got perturbed that I handled it as routine and started throwing around George Bowen’s name.”

  “Yeah. Amster. One of his girlfriends. What’d she call about?”

  “She claims she’s been getting crank calls.”

  “Yeah? Dirty ones?” He laughed.

  “I guess so.”

  “Where is she now?”

  “At her gallery on P Street.”

  “I’ll take it. Thanks.”

  Amster answered on the first ring. “Ms. Amster, Sergeant Peter Languth, detective, MPD. You say you’re getting obscene calls?”

  “Not obscene. Crank calls, nasty calls.”

  He asked the usual questions: How many calls? Any pattern to their timing? How long were the calls? Did she recognize the voice? (“If I did, I wouldn’t need you.”)

  “Tell you what,” Languth said. “I’ll come over. You’ll be there for the next half-hour?”