William Bernhardt - Capitol Murder

“I know the truth!” he bellowed, more than loud enough to attract the attention of the guests at the three other tables in the room, not to mention their waiter and the maître d’. Both were hovering on the fringe of the George II room, unsure how to handle the disturbance. “I know that goddamn rapist killed my little girl!”

“Look,” Ben said. He was starting to lose some patience himself. He’d come here to plot strategy, not to deal with importunate relatives of the deceased. “I’m sure you didn’t like what you saw in the video, but there is no evidence that their relationship was not consensual. To the contrary, it was obvious from her attire and manner and language that she was welcoming sex. She just didn’t-”

“You filthy pervert!” He lunged. Ben dove out of his chair. Cooper narrowly missed him, smashing the wicker chair, then crashing to the floor.

That was more than enough opening for the maître d’ to intervene, assisted by two large men who were either bouncers or the burliest guys this classy joint could find on the premises. They laid their hands firmly on Cooper’s shoulders, raised him to his feet, and dragged him away. He was dazed, but not so much that he couldn’t speak. “My little girl would never do that for anyone. He must’ve forced her to dress like that. Must’ve had some kind of hold on her. She would never act that way. Never!”

He continued ranting, all the way through the George III and the George Washington rooms, until happily Ben could hear him no more.

“Think he represents the viewpoint of the general populace,” Ben asked, “or just those immediately related to the victim?”

“Let’s hope the latter,” Christina said. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. Just glad he didn’t meet us in a dark alley somewhere. Which would’ve been the logical thing to do,” he added, pausing thoughtfully, “if his goal really had been to hurt me.”

The inside of the escort service was disappointingly bland-sparse and functional. Where was the red wallpaper, the overstuffed sofa, the piano player with a garter around his upper arm? Bordellos just weren’t what they used to be. Or weren’t what they used to be in John Wayne movies, at any rate. Lucille’s room was equally inadequate-no lace, no vibrating or rotating bed, no mirrors on the ceiling. Resembled nothing on earth so much as a thirty-dollar room at a Ramada Inn. All very disappointing…

Except for Lucille herself. Lucille did not disappoint.

She was, as advertised, a large-bosomed woman, but then she was large all around. Not fat, but no petite supermodel, which was okay by Loving. He preferred women who still remembered how to use a knife and fork. She had huge curly red hair, like Christina’s times three, done up in a sort of B-52 style all on the top of her head. She had wrapped a bathrobe around herself before he came in. Judging from the lines under the terry-cloth robe-or relative lack thereof-he adjudged that there was not much in the way of clothing on her. She was young, maybe thirty, but there was a profound weariness about her eyes. Loving guessed that she’d been plying this trade for half her short life.

For someone who’d “had a bad experience that night,” she was uncommonly friendly. But then, Loving had noticed, girls with freckles were always friendly.

As soon as the dragon lady closed the door behind them, he opened his mouth to frame a question-but Lucille stopped him flat.

“Money up front. Two hundred big ones.”

Loving blinked. “Did she explain that I just wanted to talk?”

“So what else is new? Lot of guys just want to talk. Some of them even come in here and sleep. Doesn’t matter. I get paid by the hour, not the act.”

“And you get two hundred bucks an hour?”

“Is that so much? The lawyers in this town charge more. And don’t provide nearly so much service.”

Well, he couldn’t argue with that one. With some regret, he pulled out his wallet and laid the money on the table. He couldn’t wait till he had to explain this expense to Jones.

“Good,” Lucille said, tucking the money into her robe pocket. “Now where’s my girl Amber?”

“That’s what I’d like to know. I’m tryin’ to find her.”

“You a cop?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Then what?”

“Do I hafta say?”

“No. And I don’t have to talk, either.”

Loving frowned. “You heard about the Veronica Cooper murder?” He saw a light in her eyes that told him the answer was in the affirmative. “I’m workin’ for an attorney investigatin’ the case.” He opted not to identify which one.

“So what do you want from me?”

“I… I think Amber and Veronica were friends, right?”

Lucille didn’t answer.

“I was hopin’ Amber might be able to tell me somethin’ about Veronica, somethin’ we don’t already know, maybe even about who did it or why she was killed.”

“Why she was killed? Isn’t it obvious?” Lucille looked at him strangely. “You must be working for Glancy.”

“My boss is, yeah. And he doesn’t believe Glancy did the deed.”

“I’m sure he’s being paid good money to believe that.”

Loving shook his head firmly. “If my boss says he thinks someone is innocent, then he thinks someone is innocent. And he’s usually right.”

“So that’s it? You’re just looking to get your guy off?”

Loving hesitated. Obviously, something more was needed to loosen her tongue. “Well, I’m a little concerned. More than a little.”

“About what?”

“About Amber.” He took a shot. “Are you worried, too?”

Lucille slowly crossed the room, sat on the edge of her high-stacked bed, and crossed her legs, revealing a hint of hosiery. “Yeah. I’m real worried. I told the cops I was worried. But since no one’s found a body, no one seems to care.”

“I care,” Loving said, seizing his opportunity. “And if you’ll tell me what you know, I’ll do my best to find Amber. That’s a promise.”

Lucille nodded. “Fair enough. Where do we start?”

“How do you know Amber?”

“Amber works here. Used to, anyway.”

Loving felt his heart skip a beat. No wonder the dragon lady downstairs let him in. “Amber-worked for the escort service?”

“Is that so surprising?”

“Well-if she was runnin’ with a congressional intern…”

“They were kids. Very nonjudgmental. Too stupid to be judgmental, really. I don’t know how they all hooked up, that whole gang, but they had fun together, and that was what mattered to them. They didn’t care what anyone did to earn their bread. In fact, I suspect some of Amber’s friends had the misguided notion that this was a glamorous and exotic line of work.”

“And it ain’t?” Loving said, unable to resist scrutinizing the line of her figure beneath the robe.

“No, it ain’t. What, were you expecting to see Julia Roberts when you walked through the door? You can forget all that Pretty Woman BS. I’ll grant you, this is not the worst way to make a living. We’re in the service industry, that’s how I see it. We provide a service that is apparently much needed. Facilitating a valuable social exchange between two consenting adults.” She paused. “But it isn’t glamorous. And you’re not going to end up with Richard Gere.”

Loving drew her back to the main subject. “So you knew Amber well?”

“We had adjoining rooms. I was like her mother. I’m-a little older than she is.”

“You don’t look older.”

“You flatterer.” She slapped his knee with well-lacquered fingernails. “I knew we’d get along. I can make people, you know? And I liked you from the moment you walked into the room. Trusted you. I can’t say I get that feeling very often. But in my line of work, you get to know what people are like. Develop an instinct for it. You have to, if you’re going to survive long.”