Murder at the Washington Tribune - Margaret Truman [11]
When Wilcox returned to the newsroom, Rick Jillian was there along with Kathleen Lansden, one of two researchers recruited to join the Kaporis task force. Wilcox sat heavily in his chair and looked up at them. “Task force,” he said. “Why didn’t they come up with a task force a month ago?”
“I guess because—” Jillian started to say.
“Yeah?” Wilcox asked.
“I guess because they figured you were all they needed, Joe. You know, with your sources and—”
“And they were wrong. Is that what you’re saying?”
“No, I’m not saying that. Anyway, you want me to get the others together?”
Wilcox smiled to break the tension. “A meeting is a good idea,” he said. “How about the end of the day, say six? Nail down a conference room and we’ll lay out everything we have. You’d better get on what Morehouse said, check that list again of visitors the day Jean got it: guests up here in editorial, tradespeople, everybody.”
“Okay.”
Wilcox said to Kathleen, “Pull up that database again, Kathleen, the one listing interviews other media did with Jean’s friends and family. Compare it against the interviews I did—we did. Let’s see who we missed.”
“Shall do.”
Now alone, Wilcox pulled out notes he’d made. The list was long, more than forty names, many of them editorial coworkers known to have been in the building the night Kaporis was murdered. Interviewing them had brought out overt resentment in some: “What the hell are you saying, Joe, that I might have killed her?” Many of them had also been interviewed by a team of MPD detectives headed by Edith Vargas-Swayze, who’d asked tougher questions than Wilcox. He’d placed a red dot next to their names, and a green dot for those individuals claiming to have seen her in the newsroom that night. But even they had little to offer: “No, I didn’t see anything unusual.” “No, I didn’t see her talking with anyone in particular.” “No, I don’t know anybody who was getting it on with her.”
Wilcox knew that the list of men and women working that night couldn’t be conclusive. It was built upon those names scheduled for the night shift, which didn’t, of course, include anyone from the day side who’d decided to work late, or to come back after hours to follow up on a story. There wasn’t any record of employees coming and going in and out of the building. All you did was wave your badge at the private security officer on duty in the front lobby and you were in. Had Kaporis’s killer been an editorial staffer who’d come in late that night but denied having been there? Unless someone testified to having seen him (or her) there, they were home free, their word the last word. Which was the case with him, Joe Wilcox. After dinner at home with Georgia, he’d returned to the newsroom a little after nine to put the finishing touches on an article about a new MPD initiative to combat gang warfare in the District’s southeast quadrant. He’d told the police of his movements and activities on that night, and his own name headed the list on his desk, a tiny red dot next to it.
His questioning of colleagues hadn’t produced anything even resembling a lead, any more than MPD’s efforts had—unless, of course, their probing had been fruitful.
He studied the list carefully, made checkmarks next to those he wanted to see again, and started calling. Jean’s parents, who lived in Delaware, had returned home with their daughter’s remains after authorities had released her body. He didn’t relish a drive to Delaware and decided to not follow up with them that day. Instead, he called Roberta at the TV station.
“Hey, Dad, I just got in. What’s up?”
“Not much. Let me ask you something.”
“Hold on.”
He heard her shout to someone to arrange for a camera crew at two that afternoon. She came back on the line. “Sorry, Dad. Shoot. You said you had something to ask me.”
“Right. Did you say in one of your reports that Jean Kaporis’s mother said something that pointed to a suspect or motive?”
There was a telling