Murder at the Washington Tribune - Margaret Truman [129]
“Why did he never come forward?” she asked.
“Why else? He was afraid he’d get in trouble. He’s got a rap sheet, mostly nuisance stuff, public urination, panhandling.”
“We worked him pretty good this afternoon,” Millius said. “The guy’s a vet, like Grau was. We told him it was his patriotic duty to help solve the murder of a fellow vet, strike a blow against terrorism. He puffed up his chest and agreed.”
“And you don’t have any doubts about his story?” Vargas-Swayze asked, glancing at Evans, who’d listened quietly, chair tilted back, hands behind his head.
“It plays,” Evans said, coming forward. “You have no idea, Edith, where Mr. LaRue is at the moment?”
She shook her head.
“Put out an APB,” he instructed the other detectives, “and get over and stake out his apartment. Ask around. Maybe somebody knows where he went.”
After they’d left the office, Evans said to Vargas-Swayze, “I’m disappointed in you, Edith.”
“For good reason. I wanted to do Joe Wilcox a favor. I guess I’m not as good a cop as you thought.”
“No, Edith, you’re still a good cop. I figure the hassle you’ve been having with your hubby has occupied your mind. Just don’t let it happen again.” He noticed that the office door was open. “Close that, huh?”
He slid papers across the desk. “Take a look at these.”
“They’re copies of e-mails with everything deleted except the messages,” she said. “How did you get them?”
“Dropped off in an envelope at our front door. You know Morehouse at the Trib, right?”
“Not well, but—according to these, he’d been having an affair with Jean Kaporis at the paper.”
“That’s what it looks like. I’d say this gal was pretty mad at him, judging from what she wrote, making demands of him, threatening to tell his wife. Nasty stuff. That might have made him pretty mad, too.”
“I don’t know,” she said.
“You don’t know what?”
“After finding out that the letters that supposedly came from the serial killer were phonies, I’m questioning the authenticity of everything.”
“These ring true to me. You know his wife?”
“Mimi Morehouse. I’ve met her a few times at Joe Wilcox’s house.”
“They get along, Mr. and Mrs. Morehouse?”
“Beats me.”
“My guess is that the proverbial woman scorned dropped these off, which most likely means his wife. You agree?”
“Makes the most sense.”
“All right,” he said, standing, “we’ve got plenty to do. Time for a talk with your buddy Wilcox. Maybe he can give us a lead on where his brother might have gone. And then let’s find Mr. Morehouse and ask a few pointed questions. This could turn out to be our lucky day, not his.”
• • •
Georgia Wilcox had tried unsuccessfully for the second time to reach their daughter on her cell phone. “It’s not like her to turn it off,” she said, snapping closed her phone’s cover as Vargas-Swayze and Bernard Evans entered the room. After Evans had been introduced to Georgia and reestablished that he and Joe had met numerous times before, the head detective said, “So, Joe, why not lay it all out for us and get it over with.”
“One second, detective,” attorney Moss said. “Is Mr. Wilcox being charged with a crime?”
“Not yet,” Evans answered.
Moss turned to Wilcox. “My best advice, Joe, is to say nothing. You’re not obligated to answer his questions.”
“I’m sure that’s true, Frank, and I appreciate the advice. But there’s no reason for me to not tell what happened. I’d feel better doing it.”
“As you wish.”
Wilcox didn’t attempt to mitigate what he’d done, offered no excuses except that he’d lost his ego boundaries and had tried to be something he wasn’t, someone important in his profession. With his hand firmly in Georgia’s grasp, he laid it all out for Evans, point by point, misguided action by misguided action. “That’s about it,” he said after the sad tale had been told.
“Okay,” Evans said. “Next. Where’s your brother, Michael?”
“I don’t know,” Wilcox replied, and told of Michael’s failure to show up at his apartment.
“We’ve put out an all-points for him,” Evans said. “No way you can contact him, let him know that