Murder Inside the Beltway - Margaret Truman [115]
“What’s going on here?” the patrolman asked.
“Mr. Rollins and I have been investigating a crime,” Jackson explained.
“That doesn’t give him the right to drive like a maniac.”
“You’re right,” Jackson said.
The cop squinted at Rollins’s license, then at the man. “You’re the Rollins whose daughter was kidnapped,” he said.
“Yes.”
He handed the license and registration back to Rollins. “Glad you got your kid back, Mr. Rollins,” he said. “But take it easy or you’ll end up a vehicular homicide.”
“Thank you, Officer.”
The cop cast a final, quizzical look at Jackson before returning to his vehicle.
“Thanks,” Rollins said.
The Porsche attracted attention from passersby when Rollins pulled to the curb in front of Matt’s apartment building.
“You’re a nice young man,” Rollins said, “and I sense that you’re still an idealist. Don’t lose that, Matt. Once you do, you can never get it back. Say hello to your lovely fellow detective, Detective Hall. I get the feeling there’s more between you than simply being cops.”
Jackson got out of the car. He leaned back in and said, “Slow down, Mr. Rollins.”
Rollins flipped a crisp salute and drove off, racing the engine as punctuation to the power he’d obviously craved, and had lost forever.
THIRTY-SEVEN
At eleven that night, Matt Jackson and Mary Hall sat in front of the television set in his apartment, watching the news. It was reported that the hostage situation had been peacefully resolved, and Detective Bob Kloss was interviewed.
“The estranged father was distraught over the way a court hearing had gone,” he said into the camera. “The child is okay, the father is in custody.”
A half hour later, the phone rang. It was Kloss.
“Congratulations on resolving the hostage crisis,” Jackson said.
“Thanks. It wasn’t hard. The guy was upset, that’s all, went off the deep end. Look, Matt, I said I’d call about Hatcher. Anything useful come out of your debriefing with Mr. Rollins?”
“I’d say so. Hatcher sold him the tapes taken from the murdered call girl.”
“Rollins confirmed that?”
“He won’t go on the record and he didn’t use those exact words, but yes, he confirmed it. Gave me a lecture on the reality of politics. I feel bad for the guy. He might be going off the deep end, too.”
“I called Chief Carter at home,” Kloss said.
“And?”
“He wants to meet with us tomorrow morning at ten.”
Jackson told Hall what Kloss had just said.
“You’ll both be there?” Kloss asked.
“We’ll be there,” Jackson said.
• • •
They walked into Metro at 8:30 and went directly to their lockers, where Wally Pulaski, a senior detective and longtime friend of Hatcher, was rearranging his locker.
“You guys are off the Rollins case now?” he asked.
“Looks like it,” Mary answered.
“You’re back with Hatch?”
“We haven’t been told,” Jackson said.
“He’s not coming in today,” Pulaski said. “Called in sick.”
“Sorry to hear that,” Mary said. “He hasn’t been feeling good lately.”
“Yeah, I know,” said Wally.
“I’m sure they’ll give us something to do until Hatch comes back,” Jackson mused aloud.
“Let me ask you something,” Pulaski said. “Are you two out to make some kind of trouble for Hatch?”
“Of course not,” Mary said. “Why would you think that?”
“Word gets around, you know. Scuttlebutt. He put in his papers, you know.”
“So I heard,” said Jackson.
“Be a shame to make trouble for a good cop who’s about to retire. Wouldn’t go down good with the others.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Jackson said, anxious to leave. “Have a good one, Wally.”
“Yeah, you, too.”
They secluded themselves in the records room until it was time to go to Chief Carter’s office. Jackson was sure it was his imagination, but he felt that other cops were looking at him and Mary in an accusatory way. Did people know that they and Kloss were scheduled to meet with the chief? More important, did they know why? One thing was certain. They were about to put into motion a course of action with serious ramifications, one that couldn’t be called back once initiated.
He’d had moments