Murder at the Washington Tribune - Margaret Truman [79]
Wilcox turned, smiled, nodded, and left, wishing his boss hadn’t felt compelled to add that final disingenuous comment.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Wilcox went to his cubicle and placed a call to the detectives’ room at First District headquarters.
“Edith,” Wilcox said, “I just heard about the AP story on the Kaporis murder and that her roommate, Pruit, worked for an escort agency.”
“Right.”
“I talked to my daughter who used it on the noon news today. She says it came from MPD.”
“It might have, Joe. I don’t know.”
“But you knew about the possible link,” he said. “I was the one who told you.”
“I remember. Sure. My partner and I followed up on it. Ms. Pruit said she worked for the Starlight agency.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Wilcox asked, audibly exasperated.
“Because—because it didn’t occur to me to tell you, Joe.” She lowered her voice. “There’s nothing to it. It’s a red herring. Look, I can’t talk now. I’ll get back to you.”
He pulled up the AP story and added portions of it to his article: “MPD is investigating a possible link between the murder of Washington Tribune staffer Jean Kaporis and a Washington escort service for which the victim’s roommate is alleged to have worked.”
Next, he wove the mayor’s statement into the story, using it as the new lead. And he added Jean Kaporis’s father’s comment that his daughter had indicated she was dating a married man in Washington named Paul. No, he thought, I promised I wouldn’t use that, and struck the line.
Satisfied that the article read right, but not feeling especially good about having written it, he filed it electronically with Paul Morehouse. As he prepared to leave, Gene Hawthorne sent him a computer instant message, asking whether Wilcox had gotten the mayor’s statement.
“Yes,” Wilcox wrote back.
“I’ll see what else I can come up with,” Hawthorne wrote.
Wilcox didn’t bother responding.
He called Roberta at the TV station.
“Hi,” he said. “It’s Dad.”
“Hi,” she said. “Only have a second. What’s up?”
“You’re coming to dinner tomorrow night?”
“Yes.”
“What’s this thing you want to speak to your mother and me about?”
“I’ll tell you tomorrow, Dad.”
“Okay. Hey, I just learned that you went with an AP story about Jean Kaporis’s roommate working for an escort service.”
“Dad, I really have to run.”
“I had that information, Robbie, but decided to not use it.”
She said nothing.
“Where did you get it?”
“MPD.”
“Oh? Who?”
“I’ll see you tomorrow night,” she said.
“Using the escort service slant is real tabloid journalism, Roberta, and I—”
A click in his ear ended his speech.
Rick Jillian, who’d been told to develop a short chronological feature on the Son of Sam serial killer case in New York for possible inclusion as a sidebar to Wilcox’s article, tapped Wilcox on the shoulder, causing him to jerk to attention.
“I wake you?” Jillian asked.
“Wake me? Of course not. I’m just leaving.”
“Here’s the Son of Sam piece, Joe.”
“Great. File it with Paul. I’m out of here.”
The phone rang. It was the VP of human resources asking why Wilcox hadn’t kept his three o’clock appointment.
“Sorry,” Wilcox said, “but I got busy. The serial killer story, you know.”
“You’re doing a great job with that,” the VP said. “When can we meet?”
“Tomorrow.”
“Three?”
“Sure.”
Wilcox beat a hasty retreat to the elevators, not because he was running late, but because he wanted out of the newsroom and building, to be as far away from it as possible. He got in his car and headed for Michael’s apartment building on Connecticut Avenue NW, arriving a little after four-thirty. A parking space across the street and a few buildings up from Michael’s opened up and Wilcox maneuvered into it. He was about to get out of the car but reconsidered, remaining instead inside and watching the door to the apartment building. Minutes later, Michael appeared carrying an envelope, which he slid beneath a large flowerpot near the front entrance. Michael came to the sidewalk and looked around before heading on foot in a direction opposite from where Wilcox was parked.
Wilcox waited long enough to