Murder on K Street - Margaret Truman [65]
“I think I’m being taken for granted again,” he said.
“And?”
“And—I love it. Come on, lady. I’m hungry. What’s on the menu tonight?”
“It’s not coconut shrimp,” she said.
• • •
Emma’s nonculinary appetizers and main course sated any hunger Rotondi had been suffering. He awoke the next morning rested and satisfied. He looked over to Emma’s empty side of the bed and heard the shower running. He got up, put on a robe, and went to the den, where he debated whether it was too early to call Mac Smith. The phone rang. He waited until the machine went into action, heard Morris Crimley’s voice through the tinny speaker, and picked up.
“Screening calls these days?” Crimley asked in his gravelly voice.
“You might say that,” Rotondi responded. “Then again, you might not. What’s up?”
“Hope I’m not disturbing something pleasant.”
“You’re late for that.”
“What do you have on tap today?”
“Thought I’d rob a bank, or assassinate somebody important.”
“You shouldn’t say things like that on the phone, Phil. Ever hear of the Patriot Act? The Secret Service will be there in fifteen minutes.”
“Slow, aren’t they?”
“Phil, I need to talk with you.”
“Go ahead.”
“In person. Come by the office later this morning?”
“Okay. Eleven?”
“I’ll be waiting.”
“Who called?” Emma asked as she emerged from the bathroom, body and head swathed in fluffy pink robe and towel.
“Morris Crimley at MPD. He wants to talk to me about something.”
“You’re out to solve Jeannette Simmons’s murder, aren’t you?”
“No,” he said. “I just think there are things I know that others may not.”
“Care to share them with this lowly caterer?”
“Not at the moment. What time’s the Marshalk party?”
“Seven.” She looked up at a wall clock. “I’d better get on my horse. I have two clients to meet with, and I need to do some shopping at Eastern Market.”
“Keep your eyes and ears open tonight, Emma. You never can tell what somebody is likely to say to a ravishing woman in kitchen whites.”
After she left, he took his time getting ready, reading cover-to-cover the newspaper that had been delivered. Showered and dressed, he called Mac Smith.
“Good morning, Phil,” Smith said.
“Good morning, Mac. I wanted to run something past you.”
“Okay.”
“Remember what your friend, Jonell Marbury, said at your dinner party about having been at the Simmons home the afternoon she was killed?”
“Yes, I do. Why?”
“I haven’t seen any mention of him in connection with the murder and was wondering whether the police know he was there.”
“I don’t have an answer for you,” Smith replied. “I urged him to step forward. Whether he did or not is another question. I hope so. If the police come up with that knowledge on their own, he’ll have some explaining to do.”
“I was surprised he casually mentioned it that night, Mac. It doesn’t sound as though he’s trying to keep it a secret.”
“I agree. I’ll call him and ask. Free for lunch?”
“I’ll be at MPD at eleven. Shouldn’t be there more than an hour.”
“How about twelve thirty at the Garden Café? It’s in the State Plaza Hotel on E Street, between Twenty-first and Twenty-second, sort of a hangout for us GW professors.”
“See you there.”
Crimley was in a meeting with Detective Chang when Rotondi arrived. He saw the two men through a glass insert in Crimley’s office door and recognized Chang from having seen him at the Willard. Chang left, and Crimley waved Rotondi in.
“How’s the leg?” Crimley asked after Phil had taken a chair and rested his cane against it.
“Feels a little better today,” he replied, wondering whether having spilled precious bodily fluids the night before had activated his body’s natural painkilling endorphins.
“Glad to hear that. I’ll get to the point, Phil. The detective who just left here, Chang, is lead on the Simmons case. We’ve run a check on the victim’s movements for the two months leading up to her death.”
“I’d be surprised if you hadn’t.”
“She didn’t go many places, stayed pretty close to home. We’ve pulled her bank records, credit card receipts, E-ZPass usage, the usual.”
Rotondi