Murder at the Washington Tribune - Margaret Truman [130]
“No. I really don’t know much about Michael’s life here in Washington, who he knows, where he goes.”
“You’ve put out an all-points on Mr. Wilcox’s brother?” the attorney said. “Is he charged with a crime?”
“We think he might be responsible for a knife murder in Franklin Park,” Evans replied.
Joe and Georgia Wilcox looked at each other.
“Will Joe be charged with a crime for writing those letters?” Georgia asked.
Evans ignored the question as his cell phone sounded. He listened without response, thanked the caller, and motioned for Vargas-Swayze to accompany him outside.
“What’s up?” she asked when they were alone.
“That was Millius,” Evans said. “He and Warrick are over at the brother’s apartment building. A resident there, an older woman—Warrick says she’s the apartment snoop—says she saw the brother leave in a fancy black sports car. He had somebody with him.”
She waited for more.
“The old lady says she recognized the woman who drove off with him from television.” He nodded toward the closed door to the interrogation room. “Your friend’s daughter, Roberta Wilcox.”
Vargas-Swayze exhaled noisily.
“You said she’d been there with a camera crew filming a documentary.”
“Right. Did the woman get a plate number?”
“No. Just said it was a shiny black convertible with the top down. Warrick says the woman was afraid Ms. Wilcox would catch a cold. I like older women. They worry about the right things. Go back in with the Wilcoxes. Take a formal statement, then let them go.”
“Bernie, will Joe be charged with a crime?” she asked.
“We’ll see. I’d like to think I worry about the right things, too. I’ll talk with someone at the DA’s office. Meantime, let’s take care of Mr. LaRue and Mr. Morehouse. Check in with me later.”
After taking a formal statement from Wilcox, to the attorney’s chagrin, Vargas-Swayze told them they were free to go. She escorted them to the lobby where Moss told Wilcox that he’d be in touch with the name of a criminal lawyer, and left.
“There’s something I have to tell you,” the detective told Joe and Georgia.
“What?” Georgia asked.
“According to detectives who went to Michael’s apartment building, he was seen leaving in a black convertible sports car.”
“I didn’t know he had a car,” Joe said.
“We’ll check rental agencies,” Vargas-Swayze said. “There’s more.”
The Wilcoxes waited.
“Roberta was with him.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Over the course of his career in The Washington Tribune’s newsroom, Paul Morehouse had heard every four-letter word known to man. But what he was hearing this evening on the phone from his wife rivaled it. The slight, ordinarily demure woman let loose with a string of invective that would make any contemporary comedian proud.
She paused to breathe.
“Look,” he said, “I know you’re upset, but we can work this out.”
“ ‘Work this out?’ ” she screamed, and started down the list of classic forbidden words again, adding a few of her own invention.
He had no choice but to continue listening or to hang up. He chose to listen, glancing nervously into the newsroom through his window and hoping her shrill, piercing voice wasn’t reaching others’ ears.
He’d expected the tirade; she’d thrown in his face that morning her discovery of the e-mails, sending him from the house in search of refuge at the newspaper with a sense of dread. It was the dread that trumped other emotions at that moment as she growled, “Did you kill that woman?”
“What?” His exaggerated shock sounded exactly that, exaggerated, and false.
“Jean Kaporis! Did you kill her?”
“Oh, Jesus, Mimi, come on. Look, I made a mistake, that’s all. I’m sorry. I—”
“Tell that to the police, you lying bastard!”
It sounded as though she’d destroyed the phone while hanging up.
He was pondering what steps to take next when Gene Hawthorne knocked on his door.
“Not now!” Morehouse shouted.
Hawthorne opened the door.
“I said—”
“You have to hear this, Paul,” the brash, young towheaded reporter said.
“What?”
Hawthorne closed the door behind him, leaned on the desk, and said,