Murder at the Washington Tribune - Margaret Truman [16]
She drew on the cigarette, snubbed it out in the ashtray, and said, “Go ahead, only you’re wasting your time. I don’t know anything more than I told you before.”
“Fair enough. How long did you and Jean Kaporis live here together?”
“You already asked me that question, Mr. Wilcox. Is this a truth test? Jean moved in here about a month after she came to Washington. That was a year ago, give or take.”
“How did she end up living with you? I mean, was this your apartment, or did the two of you find it together?”
“It was mine. Another roommate moved out. A friend of mine met Jean and told her I was looking for someone. That simple.”
Wilcox nodded and made notes. He looked up and asked, “Did the two of you get along?”
Pruit laughed and lit another cigarette. “Sure we did.”
“I mean,” he said, “sometimes roommates have conflicts about—well, about things like noise or friends spending time here or—”
“We got along.”
He noted it and said, “The last time we spoke, Ms. Pruit, I asked about Jean’s boyfriends. Remember?”
“Yes, I remember.”
“You said you didn’t know anything about the men in her life.”
“I still don’t.”
“That strikes me as strange,” Wilcox said.
“Why?”
“Well, I have a daughter who’s had roommates. From what she’s told me, the most popular topic of conversation among young female roommates is the men in their lives. Or out of them.” He cocked his head, pen poised over the notepad.
“We didn’t talk about things like that, Mr. Wilcox.”
“What did you talk about?”
“Not much. We were on different schedules. I work nights, she worked days at the paper.”
“Ships passing in the night.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Where do you work, Ms. Pruit?”
“I’m a freelancer.”
“Oh? Writer? Artist?”
“I’m a freelancer,” she repeated. “Let’s leave it at that.”
Wilcox wrote “freelancer” on his pad, but he was thinking beyond those simple words. What was she, a prostitute, perhaps working for one of the city’s many so-called escort services? A freelance what?
“Could you be more specific?” he asked.
“Look, I have to be someplace. Could we wrap this up?” Another cigarette.
“Jean’s mother said that her daughter was seeing someone who works at the Trib. She never mentioned that to you?”
She shook her head, sending her hair into motion.
“Never?” Wilcox said.
“Yeah. Well, she said something about it.”
“What did she say?”
A shrug and a stream of exhaled air. “Just that she had a fling with somebody there, some reporter, I guess. That’s all I know. We didn’t talk much.”
She snuffed out her cigarette, stood, and said, “Sorry, but I have to go.”
Wilcox replaced the pad and pen in his jacket and followed her to the door, which she opened, standing back to allow him to exit. He was glad to be leaving. He’d begun to sweat despite the apartment’s coolness, and felt lightheaded.
“Thanks,” he said, stepping into the hallway. The door closed behind him.
He hadn’t been there long; it was only three-thirty. He considered calling it a day and going home. Reporters determined how they spent their days, their time pretty much their own when working a story. But Morehouse had asked him to check in, and he’d also scheduled that meeting of his reportorial team at six.
He stopped in a luncheonette where he had a cup of coffee, and checked his voice mail back at the paper. One call piqued his immediate interest. He caught Vargas-Swayze on her cell phone while she and her partner drove to a second interview with