A Murder of Justice

TWENTY-EIGHT

The faintest of sounds… a slap, a slide, a thump.

Frank opened his eyes. The alarm said just before six a.m. He looked over to Kate. Monty was curled on the pillow above her head. Kate was still asleep, but the way the tiny muscles tightened around her eyes told him she was floating up toward waking.

“Paper,” he whispered.

Kate breathed something in acknowledgment and her face relaxed as she drifted off again.

Frank shut his eyes. Somewhere down the street a dog barked; he wondered if it was Murph. He felt Monty get up and make his way toward the foot of the bed. He opened his eyes in time to see the big cat stretch, then jump to the floor, landing with a cushioned thump. Frank gave up the thought of going back to sleep and instead lazily gazed at the ceiling, listening to Monty at work at his water dish.

After a second or two, he sat up and swung his feet to the floor. He snagged a pair of running shorts out of the bureau, and went downstairs, Monty following.

The Post lay where it had skidded across the sidewalk and caromed off the front door. He picked up the paper, and stood, still half asleep, sorting out the sky.

Soft blue. Rain-washed blue. There was another word. A better word. What was it? Cerulean? Yes… cerulean. Cerulean blue. A good spring day in the making. With a cerulean-blue sky.

He shifted his gaze from the sky to the paper in his hand.

Papers come in plastic bags now. Even when it’s not raining. Condoms for newspapers? Come to think of it, not a bad idea.

In the kitchen, first things first. Monty to be fed. Then the coffee. Frank ground it extrafine and, while the maker gurgled and wheezed, stood absorbed in thinking about absolutely nothing but the coffee filling the carafe.

He’d finally sat at the table with a full mug and taken the Post out of its plastic sheath when Kate, wearing one of his shirts, entered and came over to the table and tousled his hair.

He slipped his hand under the hem of the shirt.

Kate swatted his hand. “Let’s not get started.”

That made him want even more to play around under the shirt.

“Why not?”

“Because,” Kate said, twisting away and walking to the cabinet for a mug, “I don’t like burnt coffee.”

With a sigh, he let his early-morning fantasy fade and opened the paper. Like a magnet, the headline drew his eye. His chest tightened.

“Holy… shit!”

Carafe in one hand, mug in the other, Kate turned.

Frank held the paper up, pointing to the headline.

“Subcommittee Chairman to Investigate District Drug Crimes.”

He read the subhead aloud: “ ‘Rhinelander says recent deaths connect to Gentry murder.’ ”

Before he read any further, the phone on the wall, his pager, and his cell phone interrupted with a medley of electronic beeps, chirps, and whistles.

Mayor Seth Tompkins wore a pale-yellow shirt with antique gold cuff links, charcoal-gray trousers held up with burgundy-and-dark-blue suspenders, and his trademark bow tie, today a carefully knotted silk accent that matched the blue in the suspenders.

“Not only do we learn that Congressman Frederick Rhinelander is going to open hearings on crime and punishment in the District,” Tompkins said in a deceptively quiet voice, “we find that the good editors of The Washington Post”-here his irritation cracked through the veneer of calm-“recommend that the congressman expand the hearings to investigate the overall performance of my administration.”

Frank’s first impression was of a spare, neat man, a man who shaved each morning, lathering with a brush, using his grandfather’s straight razor, and splashing his face with bay rum after.

The morning’s Post lay at Tompkins’s place at the head of the long conference table. On his right, Chief Noah Day; on his left, Randolph Emerson. Frank and Jose sat on Emerson’s side. Across from them was Tompkins’s press guy, John Norden, a stocky red-haired man with rimless glasses. Beside Norden, a young woman, presumably one of Tompkins’s aides, prepared to take notes on a yellow legal pad.

Tompkins lightly ironed out the Post, running the palms of both hands across it. The hands came back together, fingers interlocked over the Rhinelander article.

Composure recaptured, he asked, “So, what have we here?”

Chief Day hulked in his armchair, large head forward, looking disappointed and petulant, like a bullfrog whose fly had gotten away.

“What we have,” Day rumbled, “is a pile a shit.”

Tompkins shut his eyes briefly and moved his lips as if saying a prayer or counting to ten. He turned to Randolph Emerson.

“What we have,” Emerson glided in smoothly, “is an investigation that started as an everyday street shooting and is escalating into a political witch-hunt.”

Tompkins looked weary. “An… every… day… street shooting,” he recited, wringing out all the meaning from Emerson’s words. He thought about that for a moment, then cocked his head and regarded Emerson. “Tell me, Captain Emerson, where are the witches in this everyday street shooting?”

“I’m sorry?”

“What pitfalls do you see?

“Gentry,” Emerson said. “Congress didn’t care whether Skeeter Hodges or Pencil Crawfurd lived, died, or flew to the moon. But connect them with the killing of a… a…”

Emerson ground clumsily to a stop. Frank watched a touch of color rise in his cheeks.

“The killing of a white congressional staffer?” Tompkins supplied.

Emerson added, “Who’d been with the Agency in Colombia.”

“And,” Tompkins added, “whose killer wasn’t caught even though we said he’d been.”

Emerson winced slightly, but recovered with an ingratiating smile. “The District’s a punching bag for Congress, Mayor,” he said. “We don’t get a vote. So we’re a safe target for any politician who has an itch to scratch.”

Frank could tell from Tompkins’s stony expression that he wasn’t buying into the victimization line that had always worked for Emerson with Malcolm Burridge, the former mayor.

“Tell me something new and different,” Tompkins said dryly. “But while you’re at it, tell me how the Post learns these things before I do.”

“You know how the leaking game’s played, Mayor,” Emerson said, scrambling for firmer ground. “Anybody who’s got a beef with the establishment, anybody who comes out on the losing side of an argument… all they have to do is make a phone call.”

“A phone call,” Tompkins said softly to himself. Then he regarded Emerson. “So now we have a Colombian connection because the Post says we do? Is that it?”

“It is a possibility,” Emerson said.

“I read it in the Post and therefore it must be so,” Tompkins mused. His eyes shifted down the table to Frank and Jose.

“And you, gentlemen? You’re on the ground floor. What connections do you see?”

Frank looked at Jose. With a nod, Jose passed the lead to Frank.

“We see four dead people who are connected to each other. That’s the basics.”

Holding up both hands, Tompkins interrupted. “Four? There’s Hodges, Crawfurd, Gentry… who’s the fourth?”

“Chantara Wilkerson, the woman in Crawfurd’s house, Your Honor.”

Tompkins’s shoulders dropped-yet another weight added to the burden on his back.

“Four dead people,” he said in a hollow voice. “And you say there’s a Colombian connection?”

Jose cleared his throat. “We say we don’t know.”

Tompkins turned a questioning glance toward Emerson.

“But it’s a potential,” Emerson persisted.

“Life’s full of ‘potentials,’ Captain,” Tompkins said. “We can’t chase them all down.”

“I’m only saying,” Emerson came back, “all’s you need is a hint of a Colombian connection and Rhinelander will be adding that to his campaign against home rule.”

“I appreciate your political acuity, Captain,” Tompkins said, with exquisite precision. “What you’re telling me is that this case might be too big for you to handle.” Tompkins fixed Emerson with a prosecutor’s look. “Is that it?”

Frank had the feeling he was standing on the rim of a bottomless canyon.

“Is that it?” Tompkins repeated very softly.

Emerson jiggled on his tightrope. “I’m only saying, Your Honor, that our jurisdiction and assets are limited.”

Tompkins affected sudden enlightenment. “Ah… I see, your forte is taking care of local crime.”

Frank looked over to Jose and got a quarter-wink. If Emerson caught the irony, he didn’t show it.

“That’s right, Your Honor. We get into the international arena, it’s a different ball game.”

“And that’s a game in which we should not play?”

Emerson made a show of thinking about it, then clasped his hands together on the conference table. “I’d like to talk to our liaison at the Bureau and explore passing the investigation to them.”

Tompkins remained impassive. He turned to Noah Day.

“Chief Day, you have anything to say?”

A large, black Buddha, Day sat with his hands laced across his paunch. “Like I said, this’s a pile a shit. I’m backing Captain Emerson.”

Tompkins turned toward Frank and Jose. Frank knew what he’d have to say if Tompkins asked, and part of him wanted Tompkins to ask and another part didn’t.

Tompkins studied the two detectives for a long moment, then turned back to Emerson.

“For now, Captain, let’s keep this in house.”

“Liaison can just talk to the Bureau…” Emerson began.

Tompkins shook his head. “Once you put something on the table, you have to address it. And I’m not ready for that.” He looked sternly at Emerson. “Not yet, Captain.”

He pushed his chair back and stood. “Thank you all, gentlemen. At least I know some of what I don’t know.” A wry smile wrinkled across his face. “Problem is, I don’t know all that I don’t know.”

Well, what about that?” Frank asked, as soon as they were alone in the hallway outside Tompkins’s office.

Jose checked over his shoulder. “Emerson’s selling.”

“Tompkins isn’t buying.”

“Isn’t buying yet,” Jose amended. “And Emerson hasn’t finished selling.”

Hi, guys,” Leon Janowitz said. Cocked back in Frank’s chair, he held up the Post front page. “You seen this?” he asked brightly.

“Little man, all spick-and-span,” Jose chanted, “where were you when the shit hit the fan?”

Janowitz gave up Frank’s chair.

“Which fan was this?” he asked.

“The one in the mayor’s office,” Frank said.

“Brutal?”

“Emerson tried to give the case away to the Bureau,” Jose said. “Mayor held off.”

“Sounds like a full-court press.”

“Meaning?” Frank asked.

“Meaning that I just came from Al Salvani’s office. He says Rhinelander wants to talk with you and Jose. Off the record.”

“About?”

“Salvani wouldn’t say. Maybe he didn’t know.”

“When?”

“He’ll call.”

“I guess we hold our breath,” Jose said.

“But wait!” Janowitz said, imitating a TV pitchman. “There’s more!” He unzipped his canvas briefcase and held up a slender folder. “Army records center finally came through. Copies of Kevin Gentry’s Two-oh-one file, evaluation reports, discharge physical.”