Murder Inside the Beltway - Margaret Truman [3]
The door to the apartment directly beneath Rosalie Curzon’s was open when they arrived. Hatcher told the super to wait in the hall and joined Hall in the couple’s living room.
“You about finished?” Hatcher asked.
“I think so, Hatch.”
Hatcher returned to the open door and ran his fingers over its peephole. “You must see a lot of what goes on here, huh?” he said to the wife.
“I mind my own business,” she said, looking nervously at her husband, a thin, tense man wearing glasses with thick, clouded lenses.
“I tell her all the time to mind her own business,” the husband said, “but she won’t listen. She never listens.”
Hatcher ignored him and asked the wife if she’d seen anyone coming or going that evening.
“I don’t pay attention to who comes and goes,” she said.
“That’s all she does,” countered the husband. “She’s always standing at that damn peephole to see who’s coming in and going out.”
“And who’d you see tonight?” Hatcher repeated.
“No one,” she said, vigorously shaking her head.
“Let’s go,” Hatcher said. Mary Hall snapped her notebook shut, thanked the couple for their time, and left the apartment with Hatcher. On his way out of the building he locked eyes with the super, who looked as though he might cry at any minute. “I’m going to give you overnight to decide to be straight with me, José. I’ll be back tomorrow. You got twenty-four hours to take some memory pills. Got it?”
“Sí, yes, gracias. Thank you.”
Hatcher pressed his index finger against the super’s fleshy lips. “Twenty-four hours, my friend. Don’t disappoint me.”
The detectives walked to where Hatcher’s car was parked crookedly at the curb. Hall and Jackson had arrived together in Jackson’s car, which he’d taken back to headquarters.
“Damn, I’m hungry,” Hatcher complained as he and Hall headed for MPD on Indiana Avenue.
“Stop and get something,” she suggested. “We going back to headquarters?”
“Yeah. You ever watch porn movies, Mary?”
“I’ve seen a few.”
“Feel like watching some tonight?”
“Oh, Jesus, Hatch, what the hell are you doing, entering your dirty old man phase?”
He laughed. “Jackson’s back in the office with a batch of amateur porn for us to watch.”
“Great. You and Matt get your jollies. I’m off-duty.”
“No you’re not, Mary. We’ve got a long night ahead of us. I think I will grab something to bring back. Chinese?”
“Whatever turns you on, Hatch.”
TWO
Matt Jackson anticipated what Hatcher would want when he arrived at MPD headquarters. He secured a seldom-used interrogation room that contained a TV set and video/DVD player. Once inside with the doors closed, he drew drapes across the one-way mirror, and turned off the harsh overhead fluorescents, leaving on only a small lamp. The evidence bag containing the tapes and camera from Rosalie Curzon’s apartment sat between his feet underneath the scarred table. He hoped no one would come in and ask what he was doing there. Hatcher had made it clear that the tapes were to remain within his possession, at least until Hatcher had a chance to view them.
Could it possibly be that the prostitute’s killer was caught on tape? Obviously, the tapes cataloged and stored in the slipcase couldn’t contain such material. But there was that half-used tape in the camera. Had the camera been running during the attack? If so, Rosalie Curzon’s case might possibly avoid joining the ranks of MPD’s burgeoning file of unsolved murders.
His mind wandered as he sat alone in the room. He was tempted, of course, to pop a tape into the player, but knew that Hatcher would be angry if he did. Barely a year ago, when he’d been promoted to the rank of detective after four years as a uniformed patrolman and assigned to Walter Hatcher’s squad after a brief stint with another team, it seemed a golden opportunity to learn from one of the force’s most decorated cops. He didn’t harbor any illusions that working with Hatcher would be easy. The man defined hardnosed, impatient, and unforgiving. There were rumors that he had taken the law into his own