Murder at the Washington Tribune - Margaret Truman [19]
“Disappointed?”
“Yeah, in you, Edith. I found out through a friend at lunch.”
“I wasn’t involved, Joe. I knew about it but—”
“I know, I know. It’s just that—”
“The LAPD interviewed the kid. Clean.”
“Still. You interviewed the roommate, Pruit?”
“Right. Icy lady.”
“What do you know about her?”
“The roommate? Nothing. Why?”
He hesitated for a moment. “You should run a background on her. She might be a call girl.”
Vargas-Swayze’s eyebrows went up. She sat back to allow their food to be placed before them. When the waiter left, she came forward and asked, “Do you know that? I mean, for a fact?”
“No, but it’s possible. Worth checking out.” It was awkward passing along such a salacious, unsubstantiated rumor, but it was all he had at the moment.
She started to eat, and Wilcox observed her from across the table. He’d always found her appealing, and sometimes lusted for her in a Jimmy Carter sort of way. Passive, carnal thoughts but nothing more than that—the remarkable exception being that one totally unexpected, unplanned, and unlikely night in bed together. He couldn’t take credit for having seduced her, which was just as well.
She exuded a fleshy solidness, nothing loose anywhere on her as far as he could see. Coppery skin stretched taut across wide cheekbones beneath large, oval dark brown eyes. Her mouth, of normal size at rest, blossomed into something larger and sensuous when she smiled, a set of very white teeth framed by bloodred lipstick, and rendered whiter against the duskiness of her skin. She was, he estimated, about five feet, four inches tall, with a compact body she probably didn’t have to work hard at keeping firm. One thing was certain: there were no rules at MPD against female detectives wearing jewelry. Vargas-Swayze wore lots of it, multiple gold strands dangling down over the front of her white turtleneck, large gold earrings in the shape of fish, and rings of various sizes and design on three fingers of each hand, fingernails nicely manicured and painted to match her lips.
“I interviewed the roommate again this afternoon,” Wilcox said, biting into a chop and wishing it had been pinker.
“She said something to indicate she might be in the life?”
“Calls herself a freelancer, but won’t elaborate. Who did you talk to today?”
“Aside from my partner and my boss? We interviewed some of the people from outside the Trib who’d signed in there that night.”
“And?”
“Some possibilities.”
“Enough to shift emphasis from somebody at the paper?”
“Could be. We’re running background checks on them, which we should have done the first time around.”
“Why now?”
“Pressure to solve this thing.”
Wilcox smiled. “I’m under pressure, too,” he said. “Tell me more about these outside people.”
“Off the record?” she said.
“Absolutely.”
“Okay. We talked to—”
Her cell phone rang. She fished in her purse, retrieved it, opened the cover and announced, “Vargas-Swayze.”
Wilcox watched as she muttered responses to the caller. A few seconds later, she closed the phone and said, “Got to go, Joe. A female down in Franklin Park.”
“Not my night,” he said, pulling out his wallet.
“Stay,” she said, standing. “Finish your chops. Sorry.”
“Might as well tag along,” he said, also standing and waving for the waiter. “Be there in a few minutes.”
CHAPTER FIVE
While waiting for the waiter to return his credit card, Wilcox called the Trib’s night Metro editor. “Joe Wilcox, Barry. I’ve got the Franklin Park call covered.”
“We just got it on the radio. What are you doing there?”
“Happened to be on the scene. I’ll be back to you.”
He signed the charge slip, got in his car, and headed for Franklin Park, or Franklin Square, depending upon which tourist map you trusted. He drove faster than he usually did, and felt his adrenaline flowing faster, too. He hadn’t raced to a crime scene in years, having learned over the years to pace himself. Five or ten minutes seldom made any difference; the bodies weren’t getting up and going anywhere.
But this was different. Tonight was different.