Neely Tucker - Murder, D.C.

“You’d grown up here, you’d know. The family is your local institution. Major Democratic boosters, but not hostile to the party of Lincoln. Fund-raisers, society things. This is Delores’s family we’re talking about. Dad, William, got killed in a car wreck on the Beltway ten, fifteen years back.”

“Well, wait. If Dad was Sanders, how come the kid has mom’s last name?”

“Talk to them. This town, Ellison is the family name you want. Delores is on the White House social list, regardless of the administration. Dad worked for Shellie Stevens. Delores still does.”

Sully paused, tilting his head slightly, thinking maybe he hadn’t heard correctly. “ The lobbyist dude, Shellie Stevens, what gets everybody out of trouble?”

“Himself.”

“Wow.”

“Which is what I was telling you-my phone is ringing.”

“Any connection?”

“How you mean?”

“Did the kid, what, Billy, work for Stevens, too?”

“No, no. You got it crooked. Dad was a partner in Shellie’s firm, back in the day. Now, Mom is some sort of ‘strategist’ at the firm. That’s what she said in the interview. Told the detective she works for Shellie-he says, ‘In what capacity,’ and she says, ‘I’m a strategist.’”

“Oh.”

“Like it’s a title.”

“You go down to the ME’s for the cut?”

“To make sure it didn’t get fucked up, that we’re covering our bases, showing concern, won’t rest till the killer or killers are caught, yeah, sure.”

“Who you assigning?”

“Jeff Weaver, the lead in 1-D, since it looks like it happened in the Bend. He was down there for the cut, too.”

“I don’t know him much,” Sully said.

“The ace in Southwest at the moment. Or what we have that passes for an ace. You wouldn’t believe this place.”

“How’s the overhaul coming?”

“You got jokes now? Slow. Remaking an entire department? Icebergs make better progress.”

“Obvious leads on Billy boy?”

“None. But you got to remember we didn’t make a positive ID until about six this evening. He was already dead something like twenty-four hours, coroner says. Mom didn’t tell us anything off the bat that sounded fishy. He was finishing his junior year at Georgetown, going to go into law like his old man. Like that.”

“So what is it she says happened to baby boy?”

“No clue. She tells us he was living in an apartment, not at home. Didn’t know anything was wrong till someone called her up and said they saw this body being pulled out of the water on television and it looked like Billy.”

“So Billy, no known enemies.”

“This is his momma.”

“She know he had a drug problem?”

“Said she was in shock when we asked her about him being at the Bend.”

“They always are,” Sully said. “And so, look, I was going through the files? That murder map I keep? And-”

“You know that thing’s not gospel, right? You know how bad the record keeping is here? The way the previous administration was trying-”

“Okay, so, okay, stipulated, but it looks like to me that the Bend? It’s got maybe the highest density of killings of anyplace in the city.”

“I haven’t run it like that, but it’d be close, yeah.”

“Just so we’re straight, I’m thinking about that idea for a story.”

He was still scribbling on the menu and sensed movement out of the corner of his eye. Alexis was finishing her wine and standing up-Jesus no, that couldn’t happen. He smiled and lightly grabbed her wrist, shaking his head, no no no. She looked down at him, a little peeved now, blouse still open, that body, god alive-Billy Ellison could wait.

“Your business,” Parker was saying. “There’ll be a little more evidence tomorrow. Turns out there was a report of a gunshot in or near the Bend last night. There’s gunshots down there most every night, hey? But do not-are you listening to me?-do not go fucking around in the Bend. That’s the Hall brothers. They don’t play.”

“So I’ve been told,” Sully said, clicking off the cell and tossing it on the table.

“Okay, so,” he said to Alexis, “that’s done. Where were we?”

Alexis took a stance over his legs, her hips at his eye level, a wonderful sight. “You were getting me another chardonnay and groveling,” she said, “for your appalling lack of class.”

“Lack?”

“Taking that call? When we’re involved? You got a priority problem.”

“Hey, when there’s a call, there’s a call. If that had been a shoot, you would have taken it.”

“Not now I wouldn’t have.” She smiled down at him, a little drunk. “I’m on home leave.”

“I’m not.”

“So this is what they’ve got you doing now? Cops and robbers?”

“I don’t mind it.” He thought about it. “Most days I don’t mind it.”

“When are you coming back?”

“Back where?”

“ Abroad , big boy. Domestic reporting? Metro? Going to the office ? You?”

“I sort of got blown up.”

“I sort of didn’t know it blew off your dick.”

“It most certainly did not.”

“Then stop acting like it.”

“I think I got it pretty fucking-”

“Not any worse than a lot of hacks,” she said. “I was there the day they choppered you out, remember? I helped them chopper you out.”

“Actually, I don’t remember that. Something about loss of consciousness.”

“Yeah, well, look, it happens. Hrvoje, you remember, he was at the AP in Bosnia? Shot through the chest in the Congo, back on the job now, in where, I think he’s in South Africa. Saw him in Addis. Santiago got airlifted out of Sarajevo, just like you. He’s back. Ann got her face half-blown up in that café bomb in Amman. I was three blocks down. She had to fly to London, L.A., I forget which, for the plastic surgery. They’re still picking little bits of glass out of her face. David got taken hostage. He’s in-”

“Yeah yeah yeah, old home week, I hear you. But you’re not seeing this right. One, I mean, I don’t get to go back to another posting just because I want to. I’d have to convince them.”

“Why would they need convincing?”

“Word is I got a drinking and attitude problem.”

“This is new?”

“They seem to be taking it hard.”

“The international press corps is a floating drunk tank, don’t they know that? It’s your crowd. Brits drink more than we do every day of the damn week. A hard-core drunk in New York is a social drinker in London. And the Italians! Don’t even start me on my dad and his Italian buddies. The Germans, the French, probably the Spaniards, definitely the Dutch… remember that Polish television crew in Tuzla? Those guys were funny . Did you know that ‘vodka’ literally means ‘a little water’?”

“Not everyone grows up the daughter of a globetrotting diplomat,” he said. “The paper’s perspective is a little more Puritanical Americana.”

“Eddie just knocked back four glasses of cabernet at dinner. He-”

“We’re getting off topic. I’d been bugging John to call me all day. He had some good intel.”

“Yeah, well, this John person doesn’t put on fishnets and heels and fuck you real good.”

“He better not.”

She bit her lower lip, looking down at him, a finger under his chin, eyes dilated. She softened, her back slumping, leaning over into him. “Good. Thought you might have started playing for the other team, coming back home, finding some cute guy, planting flowers in the back, interior decorating-”

“You talking about my place?”

“It looks nicer than mine,” she whispered, playful.

“Look here.” He reached for his glass of wine, still on the table, making her sit up. “You can have mine, you want some more.”