Murder at the Washington Tribune - Margaret Truman [95]
“It will be my pleasure.” He gave her his address.
Roberta’s tendency to run late was a bone of contention with Tom, albeit a minor one. He believed that people who were chronically late were seeking attention, keeping everyone waiting for their arrival, but hadn’t expressed his harsh analysis to her.
“Sorry,” she said, sliding in next to him in a booth. “I was on a call.”
“You’re always on a call,” he said, not unpleasantly. “Your ear is starting to look like a phone.”
“I happen to think I have pretty ears,” she said with mock indignation.
“And I happen to agree.” He kissed her ear. “Let’s order. I’m on at two.”
Their order in, she said, “You’ll never believe what happened last night.”
“At work?”
“No, at the house. I had dinner with Mom and Dad. I told them that we’re considering getting engaged.”
“You what? That’s a little premature, isn’t it?”
She gave him her best pout. “You aren’t backing out, are you?”
“I mean telling your folks. What did they say?”
“Actually, I only told my mother and didn’t get to discuss it with dad. I’m sure she did after I left. Anyway, there was a surprise guest at dinner.”
“Who’s that?”
“My uncle Michael.”
He didn’t respond as the waiter brought their communal dishes and set them on the table.
“It was incredible,” she said.
“What was?”
“Meeting my uncle Michael.”
“Meeting him?” he said, spooning portions on to their plates. “You never met him before?”
“No. In fact, I never even knew he existed.”
Tom’s hand and spoon stopped in midair. “You didn’t know you had an uncle?”
“Right. I do now.”
He finished serving and took a bite of steamed dumpling before asking, “How could you not know you had an uncle? Where’s he been, in a foreign country? In jail?”
“Close.”
She filled him in on Michael’s background and he listened intently, eating as he did. When she was finished, he said, “That is some story, Robbie. He murdered somebody, a young woman?”
“Yes.”
“And they decided he was insane?”
“Uh-huh.”
“I’m not sure I’d want somebody like that in my family,” he said.
“You don’t,” she said. “It’s my family, not yours.”
“It’ll become mine if we get married.”
“He’s fascinating,” she said. “He used his time in the mental hospital to learn to play jazz guitar, and he’s writing a novel. He’s very well-read, Tom, and utterly charming.”
“Is he?”
“Are you angry with me?”
“Of course not. It’s just that—”
“Just that what?”
“Just that sometimes you can be unbelievably naÏve.”
“About Michael?”
“Yeah. I mean, people like that don’t just get better, Robbie, because they get some kind of treatment. People like that are—”
“Stop saying ‘people like that,’ ” she said.
“I’m talking about people who kill other people,” he said, motioning for a check. “It’s in their genes. They don’t just get over it like the flu or a broken bone.”
“I have to get back,” she said, not attempting to hide her pique.
He paid the check and they left the restaurant.
“I’m having dinner with Michael tonight,” she said as they stood on the sidewalk. “At his apartment. He’s cooking dinner, something else he mastered while hospitalized.”
“Good,” he said. “I’ll call.” A kiss on her check and he was quickly gone.
She spent the afternoon preparing her report for the six o’clock news, and debating whether to tell her parents of her plans for the evening. She decided not to, remembering how angry her father seemed at seeing Michael at the house. She’d tell them tomorrow.
• • •
For MPD detective Edith Vargas-Swayze, lunch didn’t include egg rolls or sweet-and-sour chicken. She ate at the station house, a pie with sausage and mushrooms delivered from a neighborhood pizzeria, and a Diet Coke from a machine in the lobby. Sharing the table was her partner, Wade Dungey, and their boss, Bernard Evans.
“There was no problem with putting a tap on Wilcox’s line at the paper?” Evans asked. He lunched on an egg salad sandwich brought from home.
“No,” Vargas-Swayze replied. “They were perfectly willing. His home phone is another matter.”
“We’ll get a court order,” Evans said.
“I’d rather Joe approve it voluntarily. His