Murder in Foggy Bottom - Margaret Truman [69]
“Walker, Joe Potamos from the Post. How are you?”
“All right.”
“I need to talk to you.”
“About what?”
“About the hassle going on between the board and the superintendent.”
“I don’t know anything about that.”
“Sure you do, Walker. Dinner? My treat.”
“I, ah—”
“You owe me, Walker.”
“I suppose so.”
Potamos made a date for them to meet at six at Martin’s Tavern in Georgetown, where the prices were low, the food good, and where they usually shaved the bill for him. He walked Jumper, splashed water on his face, wrote a fast note for Roseann saying he was out on an assignment, and left. He was determined to do a good job on the school story if only to get Gil Gardello off the hook with his boss, a driven woman with ambition in her veins and a heart made of brass. But as he rode in a cab to Georgetown’s oldest tavern, his thoughts turned to Canada and the small Foggy Bottom park in which Jeremy Wilcox had been murdered. A harmless-seeming man is murdered, a knife in his side, in a park. His job is innocuous enough, probably important, but one like a thousand others. Not much is known about the man, and it appears few will mourn him. There is heat on to close the books. But a human being remains dead, a knife user walks, and no one cares. Or no one has turned up yet who does.
Why hadn’t Thomas returned his call? The Canadian was the one who initiated contact through Roseann, said he wanted to talk to Joe.
Had Thomas taken Roseann to dinner because he wanted a line to Joe?
Who was the woman who called? Why hadn’t she left a number? Did she have the story Thomas had mentioned to Roseann?
And why was someone putting the arm on the paper to unpursue the Wilcox murder?
Walker Appleyard drank vodka with orange juice. Buying drinks for a guy with a drinking problem caused Potamos only minor and fleeting guilt. He was there to get a story, not play Bill W. When Appleyard finally opened up, Potamos had enough leads on what was happening inside the school board and in the superintendent’s office to form the basis for the story.
He raced back to Roseann’s apartment to see whether anyone had called him. No one had. The only message was a note from Roseann on the kitchen table: At dinner with Bill and Jane Mead. Hope you had a pleasant evening. Why don’t you and Jumper stay in Rosslyn tonight. Witnessing her master’s murder might upset her. R.
Chapter 24
That Same Day
The J. Edgar Hoover Building
The director, Joe Harris, and Sydney Wingate listened intently, making only an occasional written note but saying nothing to interrupt Special Agent Skip Traxler as he presented his report on the months spent undercover with Jasper. He spoke for forty-five minutes, using a series of photographs, sketches, and an audiotape to illustrate the points he wished to make. Included in his evidence that the Jasper Project was behind the missile attacks were copies of maps and charts, including aeronautical charts of Boise, Idaho, San Jose, California, and Westchester County airport, New York, he’d managed to photocopy before being forced to flee the ranch.
He concluded, “I think that covers it. Happy to answer any questions.”
There was silence in Templeton’s office until the director said, “A most impressive job, Agent Traxler. You’re to be commended.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Templeton had watched Traxler make his presentation with a sense of pride. The forty-year-old special agent looked the way Templeton wanted FBI special agents to look—military bearing, physically fit, hair close-cropped, clear-eyed, dressed conservatively in a gray suit, white shirt, and muted tie. In the days when only accountants or lawyers were acceptable candidates to become special agents, there was that sense of a military unit. But as criteria for admission to the Bureau broadened, so did the style of its agents, resulting