Murder on K Street - Margaret Truman [47]
“Back to headquarters. Detective Crimley is bringing up the vagrant we’ve been holding. We can’t keep him much longer without charging him. And the senator is coming in at five.”
“I hope they cleaned him up, and somebody gave him deodorant. Man, he smelled to high heaven when we brought him in.”
Chang said nothing as a light ten feet ahead turned yellow, and he hit the brakes hard.
“I meant the bum, Detective Chang, not the senator.”
“I know what you meant, Detective Widletz.”
• • •
Rotondi and Emma cleared dishes following lunch.
“What’s on your agenda?” he asked while placing glasses in the dishwasher.
“A couple of jobs coming up. I’m catering a C-SPAN event tonight, and there’s a going-away party tomorrow night for someone at the Marshalk Group.” She checked the clock on the wall. “I’d better get over to the kitchen and make sure everything’s going okay for tonight. One of my new chefs has a heavy hand with the salt. You?”
“I thought I might swing by Marlene’s condo this afternoon.”
“Just to say hello?”
“No.”
“To satisfy yourself that she didn’t kill her sister? Or that she did?”
“Let’s just say there are some questions I’d like answered.”
“No matter where the answers take you?”
“You might say that.” He kissed her. “Tell your chef to go easy on the salt, Emma. You don’t want to be responsible for some bigwig having a coronary from your latest concoction.” He laughed. “Death by Sodium. Not a bad title for a murder mystery.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The vagrant, whom the cops knew as Gerry but who asked that he be called Gerard, looked considerably better upon being escorted into the interrogation room than when he’d been picked up. He was freshly showered and fed. His jailhouse jumpsuit was without stains or tears. His slip-on slippers with rubber soles were fresh out of the box. And he was now sober. Gerard gave his age as thirty-three. He claimed to have been an inventor whose inventions were stolen from him by corporate thieves. He was short and sinewy; the muscles on his pale biceps were surprisingly defined. His last name, he claimed, was Lemón, with the accent on the last syllable. “Lemon’s a fruit,” he told the booking officer. “I’m no fruit.”
He was seated at the table by a uniformed cop, who waited until the detectives arrived.
“Want me to stay?” the uniform asked.
“It’s not necessary,” Chang replied.
Chang sat opposite Gerard. Widletz leaned against an air-conditioning unit that hadn’t worked in months.
“So, Mr. Lemón,” Chang said, “tell us about yourself.”
Lemón was pleased to be asked such an open question and launched into a lengthy, disjointed biography. Chang and Widletz didn’t interrupt. When Gerard paused for a breath, Widletz asked, “When did you first meet Mrs. Simmons?”
“Who?”
“Mrs. Simmons. She has a home near that bridge you were sleeping beneath every night.”
“Mrs. Simmons? Mrs. Simmons?” He shook his head. “I don’t know anybody like that.”
“What have you been doing with yourself the past few days, Mr. Lemón?” Chang asked.
Gerard shrugged. “Just hangin’ out, looking for a job.”
“We’re told you stand on the corner with a sign asking for money. True?”
“Yeah, sometimes I do that. But I don’t just ask for money. I say I want a job, any kind of job. I’m no bum. I can work if somebody lets me.”
“Let me show you something, Mr. Lemón,” Widletz said. She opened a file folder in front of him on the table. It contained color photographs of the front of the Simmons home taken by a police photographer. “Recognize this house?” she asked.
He leaned forward, brow furrowed, and picked up each picture. He dropped the last one on the pile and said, “Can’t say that I do.”
“But you’ve been there,” Widletz said.
“No I haven’t.”
“Oh, come on, Mr. Lemón, you’ve been seen walking around this neighborhood by many people.”
“Nothing wrong with taking a walk.”
“That depends on what you do during your walk,” Chang said. “It has been very hot lately. Didn’t a woman from this house come out and offer you a cold drink?”
“I don’t think so. I mean, maybe