Murder on K Street - Margaret Truman [26]
One section of the board contained the names of every possible suspect in the murder. In this early stage of the investigation, no one was excluded—for any reason. Senator Lyle Simmons led the list, followed by his son, Neil; daughter, Polly; Jeannette Simmons’s sister, Marlene; the housekeeper, Gina; the senator’s driver, Walter McTeague; some of the Simmonses’ neighbors; a handyman who often did work at the house; a slightly demented homeless man who’d found a space beneath a small bridge a few blocks from the house to his liking (he’d been picked up early that morning and was being held on a vagrancy charge to make sure he stayed around); and a dozen others, none of whom was a viable suspect but all of whom had had some connection, however tangential, with the deceased.
Another section of the blackboard contained a summation of forensic evidence that had been gathered at the house by crime scene investigators. It was a short list. A variety of fingerprints were being analyzed and compared with the FBI’s central database. Hairs had been collected and sent to the crime lab, along with two shoeprints found on the foyer floor, formed by someone who’d stepped in stone dust created by the handyman as he’d repaired a stone wall near the front entrance.
The third and final chart linked the names of the detectives and the suspects they’d been assigned to interview.
“All right,” Crimley said from the front of the room, “points for good list making. Let’s put this thing in gear. Simmons’s son, Neil, is in my office. Charlie, you’ve already talked with him at the scene, so follow up with the formal interview. Amanda, you work with Charlie on that.” He ignored the exaggerated rolling of her eyes. “Same with the senator. You’ll have to accommodate him, do the interview where he’s comfortable, his office, house, some dark and seedy bar, whatever.” He glanced back at the board. “Amanda, add that lobbying group the son works for to the list. Probably nothing there but let’s touch all the bases. Matt Bergl, the U.S. attorney himself, is heading up the prosecution. I’ll coordinate with him and his people, so I want whatever you come up with in real time, no surprises. I don’t want to be blindsided. Herb and Bruce, you get over to that Marshalk lobbying group and see what someone there might come up with. Who wanted her dead? That’s the piece we need right now. Motive! We can scratch the housekeeper from the list. She went home to Costa Rica three days before the murder. Still, it wouldn’t hurt to try to contact her through authorities there. Public Affairs says nobody—and that means nobody—talks to the press, on or off the record, unless cleared through them. Anyone want to be famous?” Silence. “Any questions?”
There were a few but none significant. The group dispersed. Crimley returned to his office, where Neil Simmons waited with a man who hadn’t been there earlier. Neil introduced him to Crimley as his attorney, a seasoned D.C. hand known for cutting deals for clients before their cases ever progressed beyond that stage.
“Your client doesn’t need an attorney,” Crimley said. “We just want to see if he can help us identify someone who might have had it in for his mother.”
The attorney smiled, displaying an abundance of white teeth. He’d heard that sort of disclaimer from detectives too many times before to buy in. As far as he was concerned, Neil Simmons was a suspect, and anything he said could, and would, be used against him if he was eventually charged. “I’m just along for the ride, Detective,” the lawyer said. “Neil is ready to answer any questions you might have.”
“I’m not doing the interview,” Crimley said. “Detectives Chang and Widletz are.”
“The Asian detective who spoke with me at the scene last night?” Simmons said.
“Right. Here they are.”
Charlie Chang and Amanda Widletz entered the office and were introduced to the attorney and to Neil. “Use Room Three,” Crimley instructed the detectives. “I’ve cleared it.”
They’d been gone for only a few minutes when U.S.