High Profile

39

Jesse talked with Conrad Lutz in the coffee shop of the Langham Hotel.

“You’re still around.”

“Yeah,” Lutz said. “The family wanted me to sort of stay around until there was some sort of closure on the case.”

“They paying the tab?” Jesse said.

“They are,” Lutz said.

“At the Langham.”

“Well, I’m already here,” Lutz said. “You know?”

“Nice duty,” Jesse said.

“Sure.”

Lutz stirred some sugar into his coffee.

“You didn’t mention a prior connection to Weeks,” Jesse said.

“How prior?” Lutz said.

“You busted him for public indecency in White Marsh, Maryland, in 1987.”

Lutz nodded slowly.

“Not bad,” he said.

“Why didn’t you mention it?” Jesse said.

“I was supposed to be his bodyguard. I wasn’t supposed to be going around telling tales on the poor bastard.”

Jesse nodded.

“Tell me about it,” he said.

“I was with the Baltimore County police, patrolling the White Marsh Mall. A couple of women came up to me and complained of what was happening in a car in the parking lot. I checked it out and it was Weeks and some kid doing the nasty in his car. I’d have chased them off and let it slide, but the two ladies raised hell and insisted I arrest them for defiling the mall parking lot or something. So I took them in.”

“How’d he handle it?” Jesse said.

“He was embarrassed,” Lutz said. “But I think he knew he could fix it. He pointed out that the girl was of age, and then he started asking me about being a cop and did I see much of this and that sort of thing.”

Jesse nodded. A waitress came by and freshened their coffee.

“Some of it was schmoozing,” Lutz said. “You know, be pals with you, how you see they’re not afraid, and no hard feelings. But in fact he actually seemed interested. Few weeks later he called and asked if we could talk.”

“What did he want to talk about?”

“Police work,” Lutz said. “Weeks was going to do a full-hour commentary on his TV show about police work, and wanted to research it. I said okay. By that time the lewd-behavior charge had sort of gone away. So I talked with him. He rode around in the cruiser with me. I liked him. He was a pretty nice guy. You know? He was interested in everything. He wasn’t full of himself. He seemed to get it. He never got in the way. And finally, when he did the commentary, I liked that, too. He was fair. He didn’t whitewash cops. But he didn’t blackball us, either. He knew the score.”

“He mention being arrested for public lewdness?”

Lutz grinned and shook his head.

“He was honest,” Lutz said. “But he wasn’t crazy.”

“How’d you end up as his bodyguard?” Jesse said.

“He got some death threats. Never clear who they were from. Weeks said that telling the truth in public was inherently risky.”

“So he called you?”

“Yeah. We’d become pretty friendly. We used to talk now and then. Have dinner once in a while. He offered a lot more than Baltimore County was paying. So I went with him.”

“Any follow-up on the death threats?”

“Not till now,” Lutz said.

“You think this murder is about that?”

“I don’t know what this murder is about,” Lutz said.

Jesse nodded.

“I talked with the doormen here,” Jesse said.

“Yeah?”

“No one remembers seeing Walton and Carey walking up Franklin Street,” Jesse said.

“Why would they?” Lutz said.

“Nobody remembers you asking about it, either.”

“For crissake, Jesse, they talk to a hundred people a day.”

“Do you remember specifically who you talked with?” Jesse said.

Lutz shook his head.

“Not really. White guy,” he said. “Looked Irish. You know, they all look the same in the monkey suit.”

“Not many Irish doormen around the city,” Jesse said. “If we got them all together, could you pick him out?”

“Probably not, it was a while ago. I just don’t remember.”

“But someone did see them that day,” Jesse said.

“That’s what he told me.”

“And you can’t remember which one it was you talked with.”

Lutz shook his head.

“I should, I know, me being a former cop and all. But...” He spread his hands. “You know how it is.”

“Actually, I don’t,” Jesse said.

Lutz shrugged. Jesse waited. Lutz didn’t say anything else.

After a time, Jesse broke the silence.

“You know anything about any real estate that Weeks might have been interested in around here?” he said.

“Real estate?” Lutz said. “Walton? No, I don’t know anything about that.”

Jesse nodded.

“Why do you ask?” Lutz said.

Jesse shook his head.

“You got something breaking in the case?” Lutz said.

“My ass, mostly,” Jesse said.