Robert Andrews - A Murder of Justice

He’d figured wrong. The only girl in a Pittsburgh steel family of five boys, a scholarship to Penn State. Ten years as an Associated Press stringer in Laos, Botswana, Nicaragua, and a dozen other pestilential-fever swamps whose major exports were malaria, dysentery, and plague. Jessica Talbot-never, ever Jess-had started at the bottom when the top management of the Post was known as the HBC-Harvard Boys’ Club-and had demolished several glass ceilings before the term had been coined. Along the way she picked up a Pulitzer and turned out several generations of reporters who wrote simple declarative sentences in plain English.

“I don’t do good news,” Talbot said, sitting down next to Frank. “Just the bad stuff. The kind that sells papers.”

Frank folded the newspaper and put it beside him on the bench.

Talbot pulled a pack of unfiltered Camels from her purse, along with a battered Zippo lighter. She stuck a cigarette in the corner of her mouth. “Tell me”-she fired up the Zippo-“tell me what was behind the Calkins firing.”

“I thought you were on the foreign desk. Aren’t you supposed to worry about France and Bangladesh?”

“I live here, Lieutenant. Not Bangladesh, which, I might add, is safer than the District.”

“That’s because judges in Bangladesh don’t let killers out of jail.”

Talbot sailed a plume of smoke skyward. “Touche, Lieutenant. And speaking of judges who don’t let killers out, how’s your dad?”

“In love.”

Talbot nodded approvingly. “That’ll either kill him right away or add another twenty years.”

“I think add another twenty.”

Another drag on the Camel, and Talbot turned to business. “Okay, now… Calkins?”

“He was suspended, not fired.”

Talbot shrugged. “Whatever… hung out to dry.”

“Emerson covering his ass.”

“Washington’s favorite pastime. Calkins screw up?”

“I don’t think so.”

“You want to know about Frederick Rhinelander. He a suspect?”

“He’s a congressman.”

“As Twain said, a member of America’s only criminal class.”

“He was Kevin Gentry’s boss.”

Talbot reached into her purse and brought out an envelope. “Clips,” she explained, handing it to Frank.

He weighed the thick envelope in his palm, then put it in a pocket inside his jacket. “You said you knew him personally.”

“Him and his wife. She’s on the board of directors.”

“Of the Post?”

“It is a publicly traded company. And she-her family-owns a big chunk of our stock.” Talbot paused like a diver at the edge of a high board. She gave Frank a severe look. “This is background,” she warned. “This gets out, you’re dog meat.”

“Go.”

“Tom and Daisy Buchanan,” Talbot said cryptically.

“I’m sorry?”

“The couple in The Great Gatsby.”

“That’s Rhinelander and…”

“His wife, Gloria… Gloria Principi Rhinelander,” Talbot said. She took a drag deep into her lungs and Frank remembered how good a cigarette could taste. “Fitzgerald described Tom and Daisy as ‘careless people.’ He must have known Frederick and Gloria Rhinelander.”

“Sloppy careless?”

“No. Careless in the sense that they didn’t care about the consequences of their behavior. They never had to as kids. They’ve never had to as adults.”

“Entitled.”

Talbot blew a near-perfect smoke ring and watched as it dissipated. “Old-money people are interesting. Especially the men. A frightened bunch.”

“What’s scary if you got more money than God?”

“Losing it. A market crash. Somebody taking it from you. You see, they know deep inside that the money is what makes everything possible for them. It buys them through life. It buys things, influence. Even buys them friends. They know they wouldn’t be who they are without it. And because they inherited the money… because they didn’t earn it… they don’t have the foggiest idea how to make more if they lose what they have.”

“And so?”

“And so they see danger around every corner. Everyone they meet is out to rip them off. They have a terrible sense of vulnerability.”

“Where’d the money come from… originally?”

“His from four generations of Boston banking and shipping. Hers from a father who set up a chain of pizza parlors, then sold out and got lucky in the market.”

An old man in a yarmulke came down the path. He took a seat at a table opposite Frank and Talbot. From a pocket of his frayed overcoat he pulled out chess pieces and arranged them on the board set into the tabletop.

“So his old money was older than her old money,” Frank said.

“Problem is, his ran out.”

“Oh?”

“The Rhinelander fortune hit the rocks with a succession of bad mergers. A bunch of Greeks stripped the family down to its monogrammed boxer shorts. Young Frederick snagged Gloria just in time.”

“She brought the money to the party, he brought the ancestors.”

Talbot stubbed out her cigarette and stood up. “You do good with a few words, Lieutenant. Want a job?”

Frank shook his head. “Your work’s too dangerous.”

Talbot walked a few steps, then turned around. “You owe me,” she said. “First dibs on this Calkins and Gentry thing.”

Frank watched her walk away. He knew there had once been a Mr. Talbot, and he wondered if the guy had ever won an argument. He patted his jacket pocket where he’d put the envelope of clippings, and got up.

The old man in the yarmulke and overcoat was working out chess moves by himself.

Frank walked over.

“You used to play here with a black kid,” Frank said.

The old man didn’t look up. “Karim,” he replied. “He’s dead.”

The old man moved white king’s bishop on f1 to b5. He stared at the empty seat opposite as though waiting for his invisible adversary to make his move. He was still waiting when Frank left the park.

Frank finished off the cheeseburger and the cole slaw. He considered the fries against two additional miles in the morning. He pushed the plate away and reran Jose’s meeting with Cookie.

“Cookie says he got it from Pencil. But Milt says Cookie told him he got it from Austin’s woman.”

Jose pulled Frank’s plate over and picked out a French fry.

“I think we got it as straight as Cookie could give it… that he got it from Pencil, and not Austin’s woman like he told Milt.”

“So Pencil was either ratting out Austin two years ago for actually killing Gentry, or he was trying to frame Austin to cover for somebody else killing Gentry.”

Jose dipped the fry in a puddle of ketchup.

“Whatever… Milt bought it.”

“And Milt made it more credible, claiming that Cookie got it directly from Austin’s woman rather than Pencil.”

“Worse than the used-car business,” Frank said.

They sat on the terrace of Potowmack Landing, a marina restaurant. The lunch-hour crowd filled the place. Lanyards and pocket clips carried ID badges from the Pentagon and Reagan National, a mile or two up the GW Parkway.

Jose dropped his chin to his chest and watched a 737 over the Potomac, wheels and flaps down for a landing at Reagan National.

“Rhinelander?” he asked Frank.

“We got an appointment with him at four. Janowitz’ll meet us there.”

“What’d the Dragon Lady have to say about him?”

“Nothing complimentary.”

Jose finished the French fry and studied the check.

“Even split?”

“But you ate my fries,” Frank protested.

Jose shot him his narrow-lidded Mike Tyson look.

“Even split,” Frank said.

Back in the office, Frank fired up the coffeemaker and Jose switched on the CD player. Frank spread out the clippings while Jose picked up Zelmer Austin’s case jacket. The coffee was ready just as Ahmad Jamal was wrapping up “Poinciana.” The two men settled into reading and making notes. Jamal moved on to “Ole Devil Moon.”