Robert Andrews - A Murder of Justice

Frank shook his head. “No, not really.”

“Okay.” Atkins got up and tucked the notebook in an inner suit jacket pocket. “You guys find Elvis and Pencil, we’ll rattle State Department’s cage.”

Well, your basic good news, bad news,” Jose said outside on Pennsylvania Avenue.

“Good news?”

“The Bureau gets to handle the pussies at State.”

“And…?”

“We had to get the Bureau to-”

“-handle the pussies at State,” Frank finished. Jose was right. It did rankle, Randolph Emerson passing the buck to Atkins and the Bureau. Emerson making Jose and him come down, hat in hand, asking the big boys for help. It was a bush-league play.

“At least Atkins didn’t rub it in,” Jose said. “Now we can concentrate on finding Elvis.”

I could ride to town on your lower lip,” Frank said.

Leon Janowitz threw his hands up. “Well, shit,” he said, “there goes my piece of the action.”

Jose fired the remote at the stereo. Dexter Gordon’s cut of “Don’t Explain” came on, all soft sax and cabaret piano.

“Atkins is just doing battle with the suits at State. You keep tracking Gentry on the Hill.” Frank tilted back in his chair and inspected Janowitz with a narrow-lidded look. “I thought a weekend at the Plaza’d mellow you out.”

“It did,” Janowitz said, pulling on his jacket and picking up his briefcase. “City’s gotten its act together.”

“Didn’t just happen,” Jose said.

Janowitz stood at the door, turning that over. “A message there, Hoser?”

“Just that it took work.”

“And some balls,” Janowitz snapped. He took the edge off with a smile. “I got a meeting with the subcommittee’s finance clerk,” he said, opening the door. “Thought about some leads over the weekend.”

Frank raised an eyebrow.

Janowitz caught the question, and his smile turned roguish. “You got to think sometime, even with Mrs. Janowitz in the Plaza.”

And like the Cheshire Cat, Janowitz left, leaving his smile hanging in the air.

Frank and Jose regarded the closed door.

Jose broke the silence. “Kid wants to kick some ass.”

“Most cops do, starting out. Then they lose it.”

Frank was still thinking about Janowitz’s goofy smile when he realized his phone was ringing.

“This is Detective Kearney.”

For a moment, silence, and Frank started to hang up. Then the woman’s voice came, unsteady, uncertain.

“I want to talk to Detective Kearney or Detective Phelps.”

Frank repeated softly, “Miss, this is Detective Kearney.”

Another silence followed. Frank heard vague office noise in the background, muted voices, canned music, doors opening and closing.

Then a sharp intake of breath and, “I heard you want to know about Tobias Crawfurd.”

“Yes.” Frank played the call gently. “Yes, we do.”

Yet more silence. The office sounds disappeared as though a hand had closed over the mouthpiece.

Oh, shit, she’s going to hang up!

He forced himself to speak slowly, softly. “Miss… if you want to talk, we can meet you anywhere. Anytime. You name it.”

Glass-and-stainless-steel buildings surrounded a pocket square that had been turned into a park. A handful of small trees broke up the concrete sameness, and repro nineteenth-century park benches offered islands where office workers ate lunches of deli sandwiches or salads brought from home in Tupperware and brown bags. It was midafternoon, the park empty except for a man on a cell phone, and farther off, two women sitting together, smoking and talking.

“Sure this the place?” Jose asked, eyeing the unfamiliar buildings.

“Beautiful downtown Rosslyn, Virginia,” Frank said, pointing to a corner bench from which they could cover the approaches into the park.

European settlers in the late seventeenth century built the first houses in Rosslyn, just across the Potomac from the tobacco port that was Georgetown. But Rosslyn’s notorious growth came later, when the District of Columbia outlawed usury and handguns. Pawnshop owners and gun dealers crossed the river and set up shop in Rosslyn where enterprising criminals could rearm and fence their loot on the same block.

In 1899, the District of Columbia again spurred growth in Rosslyn, this time by passing the Heights of Building Act, which prohibited private structures in the District higher than the Capitol “or other significant government edifices.”

Fortune 500 companies that wanted to do business with the government also wanted imposing offices, and in Rosslyn they could reach skyward with glass and stainless steel. The resulting skyline was a pimple compared with New York, but it towered over the low-lying District buildings across the river. And thus the banks and defense contractors drove out the pawnshops and gun dealers.

“Bet that’s her.” Jose watched a young black woman cross the street. She stopped at a curbside vendor’s.

Frank noticed her survey the park as she paid for a bottle of water. She wore a modest dark brown skirt and a flowered blouse.

“More women ought to dress that way,” Frank said.

The woman entered the park and walked straight to Frank and Jose. Both men stood.

“You’re Detective Phelps,” she said to Jose, then, turning to Frank, “and you’re Detective Kearney.”

Jose reached for his badge case.

“I know who you are.” The woman’s voice matched the voice on the phone, but was now confident, as though, decision made, she wasn’t going back.

“And you’re…?” Jose asked.

Water bottle in her left hand, she brushed her right hand over her bottom, smoothing her skirt, and sat down on the L-shaped bench.

“Does it matter?” she asked, looking up at the two detectives.

Frank and Jose sat.

Jose nodded. “It’s comforting to know who you’re talking to. You do. We don’t.”

The woman considered this while twisting the bottle cap.

“Alta Rae,” she said, unscrewing the cap.

“Alta Rae what?” Jose asked.

She frowned. “Walsh.”

Frank anted first. “Pencil Crawfurd.”

Walsh frowned again. “Tobias,” she corrected. “What do you want to know?”

“Where he is.”

“You been by his place.”

“He hadn’t been there since he left the hospital. You got any ideas?”

“Don’t know,” Walsh said. “Don’t care.”

“Well,” Frank said, “I guess what we want to know is what you want to tell us.”

“We were… we lived together for seven years.” The telephone uncertainty crept back into Walsh’s voice.

“Tell us about it,” Jose said gently. “We’re not in a hurry.”

Walsh glanced at her watch.

“Met him,” she began, “I’d just graduated… 1992. I knew he’d been in jail. Knew he and Skeeter were into dealing. But he treated me respectful. Mama warned me, but…” Walsh shrugged.

“Him and Skeeter,” Jose said, “how’d that work?”

“They were close. Almost like brothers. I asked Tobias once, how it was Skeeter, being younger, Tobias went along. Tobias said Skeeter did the thinking, he did the doing.”

“What kind of doing?” Jose asked.

Walsh sipped at her water. “He called it persuadin’.”

Jose exchanged a glance with Frank. Frank eyed a no, so Jose followed up.

“But it wasn’t persuading, was it?” Jose said.

“No.” Walsh’s voice came in low and slow.

“Tobias killed people.”

Walsh looked around the park with a trapped expression, and Frank was certain she was going to bug out.

“He did, didn’t he?” Jose asked, quietly but firmly. “Kill people?”

Walsh nodded. She didn’t say anything for a while. Then, “Skeeter did too,” she whispered defiantly.