Murder Inside the Beltway

by Margaret Truman

  “I didn’t think you’d be actually callin’ me here.”

  “We need to talk to you again,” he said.

  “I don’t know,” she said after a long pause.

  “You promised you’d make yourself available if we needed to speak with you, Micki.”

  “But not here. That was my mother who answered the phone.” She placed her hand over the mouthpiece, but Jackson heard her yell, “It’s nothing, Momma. Just a friend.”

  “Micki?” Jackson said.

  “What do you want to talk about?”

  “We want to ask some more questions about Rosalie Curzon, and your relationship with her.”

  “I told you everything I know.”

  “That may be true,” Jackson said, “but I’m afraid you’re going to have to come back to Washington for a day or two.” She started to protest, but he added, “There’s no argument, Micki. I was nice enough to let you leave town, but now you have to return. Sorry.”

  “I was planning on stayin’ here, calling the apartment manager and telling him to get rid of my stuff.”

  “You can do that while you’re here.”

  Mary Hall smiled at the exasperation on Jackson’s face.

  “Look, Micki,” Jackson said, adding steel to his voice, “either you come back within the next few days or I send a couple of South Carolina cops to slap cuffs on you and drag you up here. Your choice.” He wasn’t sure he could do that with someone who hadn’t been labeled a suspect—or as the prosecutors preferred, person-of-interest—but it sounded like a reasonable threat.

  “I’ll try,” she said.

  “Try hard, Micki. When can I expect to see you?”

  “There’s things I have to do here and—”

  “Take a train tomorrow,” Jackson said. “You have my cell number. I’ll expect to hear from you by five o’clock.”

  He clicked off his phone in the midst of her protest.

  “She’s coming?” Mary asked.

  “She’d better,” he said, the steel not quite gone.

  Their conversation was interrupted by Hatcher, who appeared with Craig Thompson. The two men said nothing to each other as Thompson, who looked like someone who’d just been given a death sentence by a doctor, left the room, his head low, his eyes averting others.

  “How’d it go?” Mary asked Hatcher.

  “He’s scum. He admits seeing her a few weeks ago, claims he wanted to try again to convince her to stop turning tricks.” A crooked smile formed on Hatcher’s lips. “He’ll have to get that suit cleaned. He sweated buckets.”

  “But he denies seeing her the night she was killed?” Jackson asked.

  Hatcher shook his head and frowned. “No, he gave me a play-by-play of how he did it, drew me a picture. Get real, Jackson.”

  They went to an unoccupied office, where Jackson and Hall filled in their boss on their trip to Beltway Entertainment, and their conversation with Billy McMahon. Jackson decided to include Micki Simmons in the discussion, and did.

  “How come you let her skip town without getting a formal statement?” Hatcher asked, overtly displeased.

  “She was on her way home to South Carolina. I didn’t see any need to—”

  “Did you tape it?” Hatcher asked.

  “No, I—”

  “Where’d you interview her?”

  Jackson drew a breath before answering, “In my apartment.”

  “Oh, that’s cozy,” said Hatcher. “What’d you do, get a freebie?”

  “Hatch!” Mary said.

  “No written statement, no tapes,” Hatcher said, sneering. “Jesus! You bleeding-heart types make me laugh.”

  “I did what I thought was right at the time,” Jackson said. “Anyway, she’s coming back to D.C.”

  “When?”

  “Tomorrow, I think.”

  Hatcher turned to Mary. “He thinks! What about Patmos, over at the Senate?”

  “I was about to call when you and Thompson arrived.”

  “Do it. Don’t take any excuses from him. I want him interviewed this afternoon. Understood?”

  They nodded, and he walked away.

  Mary saw the anger on Jackson’s face. She touched his arm and said, “Don’t let him get to you, Matt.”

  “I notice he doesn’t talk to you that way.”

  “Sure he does.”

  “Well, I haven’t seen it much. You calling Patmos?”

  “Yes.”

  “I need a walk. Be back in a half hour.”

  He left the building, crossed the street, and ordered an iced tea from a fast-food place on the other side of Indiana Avenue. He took his drink outside and sat in a wobbly plastic chair at a wobbly plastic table. From there he could see the imposing building that housed the Washington MPD, his home away from home since joining the force five years ago.

  His initial assignments, while arduous, had been fulfilling. As a uniformed cop he’d soon encountered the breadth of the human condition, drug dealers and users, irate tenants in public housing, domestic situations in which murder was on the mind of a husband who’d been cuckolded, or a wife whose addiction had drained every cent out of the family budget. The most wrenching were cases in which a child was involved, beaten or starved, neglected like a discarded teddy bear. Of course, there were more uplifting experiences, too, mediating a dispute between two otherwise friends, greetings from shop owners who appreciated his uniformed presence on their block, helping find a youngster who’d strayed from his mother’s side in a park, even directing traffic at a busy intersection after a power failure had knocked out the lights.

  He thought about these things as he sat and sipped his drink, and realized he’d grown misty.

  Hatcher!

  Jackson had been paired up with a variety of cops before joining Hatcher’s squad, men and women of seemingly every color, religion, and political persuasion. They’d all gotten along, knew they’d better if they were to survive on D.C.’s mean streets. He’d met plenty of detectives, including white men and women who, while quick to point out his mistakes, had treated him with respect. They didn’t see him as a black cop. They simply saw a young cop learning the ropes and aspiring to join their ranks.

  Hatcher!

  • • •

  Jackson had stayed up late the night before pondering whether to ask for reassignment to another squad, or quitting the force altogether. He’d spoken with his father earlier that evening. He loved his parents, and he knew they loved him. His father was a large, gentle man with a low, rolling laugh and eyes that opened wide when listening to people, his patients as well as his many friends. Matt knew that his parents wanted more children but his mother had almost died following his birth; a complete hysterectomy had to be performed to save her life. Matt sometimes wished he’d had brothers and sisters, but also benefited from being the only child. He had his parents’ undivided attention, although it stopped short of outright spoiling him.

  “How goes it, son?” his father asked during their phone call.

  “Pretty good, Dad.”

  His father laughed. “You don’t sound convinced.”

  “No, I’m fine. But I’ve just about had it with my boss.”

  “Detective Hatcher.”

  “Yes, Detective Hatcher.”

  “You said the last time we talked that he’s a bigot.”

  “He sure is.”

  “You’ve met and dealt with bigots before, Matt.”

  “I know, but I never had to spend every day working with them, being that close.”

  There was a pause on his father’s end. “Sure you’re not mistaking his take-no-prisoners personality with bigotry?”

  “Dad,” Matt said, “Hatcher is a bull-headed, close-minded, nasty bastard. On top of it, he’s a bigot. Other than that, he’s a prince of a guy.”

  “I don’t doubt you for a moment, son. I get the impression that you’re thinking of resigning.”

  Matt hesitated. “That’s right,” he said. “Maybe you and
Mom were right, being a cop was a dumb idea.”

  “We never said it was dumb, Matt. We respected your desire to get out and do something tangible for people. That’s admirable.”

  “But I don’t think I can take much more of Hatcher’s browbeating. He treats everything I say or do as though I was a—” Matt grinned. “As though I was a dumb kid, and a black one, at that.”

  “Know what I think, Matt?” his father said. “I think you’d never forgive yourself if you gave up because of this man, tucked your tail in and ran. That’s not what you’re made of. Remember when we’d come home from parents’ night at your school? You’d complain about one teacher or another, that she ‘rots,’ as you liked to say, wasn’t fair, that sort of thing. And what would we tell you? We’d say that you’ll have to learn to get along with a lot of difficult people in your life, authority figures you don’t like, people who don’t think or act the way you want them to.”

  “You don’t know Walter Hatcher.”

  “Oh, I think I do,” said his father with a chuckle. “You’ve told me he’s a good cop.”

  “That’s what they say.”

  “So, you’re learning to be a good cop from him. Ignore his bullying side and look for the good things about him.”

  Matt said nothing.

  “I’m not saying that you aren’t right, Matt, and if you decide to quit, you have our blessing. But be sure you’ll be able to live with yourself if you allow this fellow to force you out—which is exactly what he wants to do. Sure you want to give him that satisfaction?”

  “I’m not sure of anything anymore.”

  “A good night’s sleep and you’ll come to the right decision. When will you be coming home again? We miss you.”

  “Maybe sooner than you think. Thanks for the pep talk. You always make so much damn sense.”

  “That’s what fathers are for, son. Take care. Mom is at her book club but told me to send her love when I called.”

  • • •

  The conversation with his father had initially put a few things into focus for Jackson, but it didn’t last long. He’d found himself pacing the apartment and having conversations with himself, and with Hatcher, vacillating between trying to reason with the older detective and telling him off in no uncertain language. He tried calling Mary a few times, but only reached her answering machine. He finally went to bed, but tossed and turned for what seemed the entire night. When he awoke that morning, he was tired and more confused than when the evening had started. By the time he arrived at work his mood was almost as sour as his stomach.

  He looked across at the MPD building from outside the fast-food restaurant and thought of what his father had said, that Hatcher would love to see him fold and slink away, the half-black college nerd with a degree in sociology unable to take the heat.

  No! He wouldn’t allow that to happen.

  As he stared at the building, he saw Mary come through the doors and stand on the steps, shielding her eyes against the sun as she peered in his direction. She navigated the busy avenue and came to where he sat, his Styrofoam cup empty. She pulled up a plastic chair. “Taking the day off?” she said, playfully.

  “Not a bad idea. What’s up?”

  “I got hold of Patmos in Senator Barrett’s office. He’s meeting us in an hour at a coffee shop in Georgetown.”

  “These pols sure don’t want us coming to their offices, do they?”

  “Can’t blame them. Come on. I reserved a car.”

  “Yeah, okay.”

  As they prepared to retrace steps to Metro, Matt asked, “Has Hatch said anything about that other guy on the tape, Yankavich, who owns that joint in Adams Morgan?”

  “No, I don’t think so. He was following up on him.”

  “I never saw a report. Did you?”

  “No. We can ask.”

  “Yeah. Let’s do that.”

  • • •

  James Patmos, Senator Charles Barrett’s chief-of-staff, had told Mary that he’d be wearing a tan suit, blue shirt, and green tie. They spotted him the minute they walked into the coffee shop. He was seated at a table he’d obviously chosen because it was relatively distant from the others. He stood as they approached, smiled, and extended his hand. “Jim Patmos,” he said as though campaigning. “Pleased to meet you.”

  A waitress took their order, coffees all around.

  “Now,” said Patmos, “I understand you want to speak with me concerning the murder of a woman in Adams Morgan.”

  “Rosalie Curzon,” Mary said.

  “Yes. I knew her. We dated at one time. Not for long. Nothing serious.”

  “Dated?” Jackson said.

  An expansive smile came across Patmos’s tanned face. “Yes. Does that strike you as unusual?”

  “Well, I guess it does,” Jackson said. “Ms. Curzon was a prostitute.”

  Patmos’s expression went serious, as though he wore the twin masks of comedy and tragedy, each there to be called upon when needed. “Prostitute?” he said. “I’m sorry, but I can’t believe that.”

  “Believe it or not, sir,” Jackson said, “that’s what she was. You had no knowledge of it?”

  “None whatsoever. I will tell you what turned me off, though.”

  “Yes?”

  “Turns out she went both ways.”

  “Meaning?” Mary asked, knowing the answer.

  “Men, women. She was really turned on, but the lesbian thing turned me off once I heard about it.”

  Mary surveyed their surroundings. It was not the sort of conversation to be shared with others. Confident that their words stayed between them, she leaned closer to Patmos and said, “Sir, we have tapes from her apartment. Her customers are on them.”

  “Are you saying that I’m on a tape with her?”

  Jackson was tempted to lie, to say that Patmos had, indeed, been photographed by Rosalie’s video camera. But he didn’t. Hatcher probably would have, but he wasn’t Hatcher. “No, sir,” he said, “but a friend of yours was. He gave us your name as the person who’d introduced him to Ms. Curzon.”

  Patmos laughed. “Maybe I did,” he said. “Who told you that?”

  “I’m not at liberty to divulge that, sir,” Jackson replied. “But it’s our understanding that you sent this friend to her because she was a prostitute.”

  Patmos thought for a moment, then said, “Which would make me a pimp.”

  Jackson was glad Patmos had said it, not him.

  “Look, Mr. Patmos,” Mary said, “we’re not interested in everyone’s sex life. We’re investigating the murder of a woman. We’re following up every lead we have, every person we know to have had contact with the victim. I personally don’t care whether you engaged the services of a hooker or not, or whether you passed her number along to a friend. What we are interested in is when you last saw the victim, and what you were doing the night of her murder.”

  He said nothing. Mary’s thought at the moment was that he was a very handsome young man, well dressed and with a powerful job in a city of powerful jobs. He undoubtedly had attractive young women falling all over him. Then again, she reasoned, he might be one of those men who doesn’t have time to date women, preferring to get his sex by paying for it rather than having to wine and dine a woman into bed, which was time consuming, and probably more expensive.

  “When was she killed?”

  They gave him the date and approximate time of her death.

  He smiled. “I know exactly where I was and what I was doing,” he said. “I was with Senator Barrett at a fundraiser at the Mayflower Hotel.”

  “All night?”

  “A good portion of it.”

  “I’m sure there are people who were with you who can vouch for your presence there,” Jackson said.

  “Of course. But I wouldn’t want you approaching them. That would be embarrassing for me—and for Senator Barrett if it got back to him.”

  “We’ll be as discreet as possible,” Mary said. “Could you give us some
names?”

  “You know,” Patmos said, “I find this to be a form of harassment.”

  “It isn’t meant to be,” Jackson said. “Names?”

  “There were so many people there,” the chief-of-staff said. “Hundreds.”

  Easy to get lost in the crowd, slip out, and spend an hour with Rosalie Curzon, Jackson thought.

  “Just give us the names of a few who were with you all night,” Mary said.

  “I’ll have to think about that,” Patmos said.

  Mary took a sip of her now-cold coffee. “We’re in no rush,” she said sweetly.

  Jackson and Hall left the coffee shop with two male names, who Patmos said would vouch for his attendance at the fund-raiser. He’d turned on the charm at the end of their meeting, apologizing for anything he might have said that could be construed as arrogant or combative. “Anything I can do to help, please call,” he said.

  They stood on Wisconsin Avenue and watched him disappear into a crowd of window-shopping tourists.

  “What do you think?” Mary asked.

  “I’m thinking that all we have to go on are the few people caught on those tapes. She must have had dozens of other clients we’ll never know about. Shame she didn’t keep a little black book like they’re supposed to.”

  She laughed. “I didn’t know that was a rule with hookers, Matt.”

  “It should be,” he said.

  As they drove back to Metro, Mary said, “I was thinking in the coffee shop about something you said the morning after the murder.”

  “What’s that?”

  “That she wasn’t wearing that red kimono she wore on the tapes. Sweatpants and sweatshirt. Maybe whoever did her in wasn’t a john, wasn’t there for sex.”

  NINETEEN

  The Colgate campaign for president was picking up steam every day, which meant increased involvement for Jerry Rollins. He wasn’t happy about that. Colgate was calling upon him for advice at all hours of the day and night, asking that they get together to discuss strategy, or to mediate spats between members of his staff. While Rollins’s displeasure had much to do with the time it took from his law practice, to say nothing of eating into his fragmented domesticity with Sue and Samantha, he also had to admit to himself that he was trying to avoid Deborah.