Robert Andrews - A Murder of Justice

“You guys know already?”

“Frank,” Charlie said in a reproachful tone, “this is a town full of spooks, investigators, and media monkeys like me. Secrets last only until the first phone call. Besides, you got something against freedom of the press?”

“Hell no, Charlie. Some of my best friends are reporters.”

Charlie threw his head back in mock distaste. “I am not a reporter,” he said with dignity. “I am a columnist. A sensitive, compassionate observer of life and living.”

“You work for a newspaper,” Frank said.

Charlie smiled big and slightly evil. “Newspapers! Thank God they exist, otherwise I couldn’t find work in mainstream society.”

“Gentry?” Kate made it a question.

“Oh,” said Charlie. “That. That came in over the wire. Also that a congressman… Rhinelander?… is calling for an investigation of D.C. Homicide.”

They turned the corner onto Olive Street.

“We’re headed home,” Frank said. “You and Murph want to come in for coffee or a drink?”

Charlie looked tempted, then held up an empty blue plastic bag, the kind newspapers came in. “You owe me. Murph hasn’t gotten all her walk in yet.”

Inside, Kate settled on the small sofa in the breakfast room. Frank stood at the kitchen counter and debated whether to take care of the coffeemaker or pay attention to the answering machine’s insistently blinking red eye. He compromised and checked the caller

“Jose,” he said, punching the answering machine’s Play button.

“Hey, Frank,” came Jose’s voice, “don’t forget to pick me up, tomorrow-Savoy’s. Oh… case you missed it, the Gentry thing’s on the damn tube. Worsham at eight. Had an interview with Congressman Rhinelander.” Jose’s sigh filled the room. “Bend over…”

Frank punched the Off button. “… and kiss your ass good-bye,” he finished. He stood staring at the machine, imagining how tomorrow would go.

“Come here, big boy,” he heard Kate say.

He got a warm, sensual feeling in his stomach. He turned in time to see Monty spring lightly into Kate’s lap.

She held Monty against her breast. The big cat purred, eyes closed, head resting on her shoulder.

Frank tried to freeze-frame the scene, knowing that he couldn’t.

Life goes on. Any second she’ll move and the picture’ll be gone. Nothing stays the same. Memory’s a blessing, he remembered his father saying once. Without it, there’d be no tomorrow, because there’d be no yesterday.

“What’re you thinking about?” Kate looked up at him and the picture went away.

“Us,” he said.

“What about us?”

“Just us,” he said.

Penny.” Kate’s whisper came through the dark, warm and close to his ear.

Frank turned toward her and lined his body up against hers. “Ever play jackstraws?”

“Pick-up sticks? Not recently.”

“Remember how you have to lift off one stick at a time without disturbing the others? If you lift off enough to get the black stick, you win?”

“Oh-kay?”

“Just thinking about the other players in the game.”

“Emerson?”

“He’s one. Him… the media… this congressman, Rhinelander.”

“All after the black stick?”

“No. Not exactly.”

“Not exactly?”

“They got different black sticks. Emerson’s is a good set of numbers.”

“So?”

“So he sets up a machine that gives him good numbers. You work for Emerson and you want an ‘Attaboy,’ you give him good numbers.”

“You and Jose don’t.”

“No. We got to where we are before Emerson came on the scene. And we aren’t going any further. Two old-timers who’ve vested retirement and who aren’t sucking for promotion are bulletproof.”

“But they’re expendable.”

“That too,” Frank said.

“And the congressman… his black stick?”

“Rhinelander and the media will play off each other. He wants the publicity he’s going to get if he investigates the department. The media knows law enforcement that works doesn’t sell papers. So Mr. Rhinelander puts on a circus, shows that law enforcement’s broken, and the media sells papers.”

Kate put her hand on his neck. At the blood-warm crossroads of neck and shoulder. “And you and Jose, your stick is getting the killer. Simple as that?”

“It’s good enough. The shooters have their way, they’re going to sink the ship.”

“And you and Jose stop enough of them, the ship doesn’t sink?”

“Something like that.”

“And the ship? Is it going to be a better ship?”

Frank felt his pulse beating against her hand and wanted her hand there forever.

“Not our job to make it better. Just to keep it floating.”

Frank pulled off Florida Avenue at Tenth Street. In the middle of the third block, he turned into a lot full of cars and pickups in various stages of tear-down or build-up. A cinder-block building squatted on the back half of the lot. An ancient coat of white paint had been beaten threadbare by the weather, and you could barely read “Savoy” in an orange Coca-Cola script above the entrance.

The garage had the rich, organic man-smell of automobiles: grease mixed with motor oil, laced with slivers of solvent and brake fluid. From a hidden boom box Eric Clapton competed with the pneumatic hammering of impact wrenches. Frank found Jose in the last bay, head under an open hood, body bent over the front fender, peering into the engine compartment of a dark green convertible and in deep discussion with a mechanic beside him.

Frank and Jose had found the ’65 Mustang in a Maryland barn after six months of weekend hunting. The top and upholstery had rotted, and generations of chickens had deposited layers of droppings on the paint. But the body hadn’t rusted, and the frame had lined up true. And there were the plusses: 83,000 honest miles, no power-anything, a heavy-duty sports suspension, and a 271-horse V-8 harnessed to a Borg-Warner four-speed transmission.

“Getting rid of spare change?” Frank asked.

Jose backed out from under the hood.

“The Josephus Phelps foreign aid plan,” he said, putting a hand on the mechanic’s shoulder. A stocky dark-haired man straightened and showed a mouth full of white, even teeth.

“Meet Gustavo Montoya. I’m putting his kids through college.”

Montoya winked at Frank. “Just my daughter at Harvard.” He turned to Jose. “I have ready for you this afternoon. Six-thirty maximo?”

Jose nodded. “Bueno.” He stood back and surveyed the car. “And they say houses are a money pit.”

Frank let his eyes run along the Mustang’s lines. “That’s a classic. Classics are supposed to do that.”

“You want a share of a classic?” Jose asked.

“I’ll pass.”

They left the garage and walked toward the car.

“I missed the late news last night… the interview?… the congressman?”

It took a moment to register.

“Oh…” Jose said, “the congressman… Richie Rich… hundred-dollar haircut, designer glasses with those little lenses.”

“He say anything?”

“How he was outraged. How his subcommittee’s going to get to the truth…” Jose sniffed. “The usual political shit.”

Frank unlocked the car and opened his door. “You ready for more?” He asked across the top of the car to Jose.

“More what?”

“The usual political shit.”

Chair cocked back, his feet on Frank’s desk, Leon Janowitz was drinking coffee and reading the Gentry case file.

“Make yourself at home, Leon,” Frank said.

Janowitz looked up and smiled. He swung his feet off the desk and levered forward in the chair. “I heard I’m working with you guys.”