Read Online Murder at The Washington Tribune by Margaret Truman - Free Book Online Page B

thinking?”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œI’m thinking that there might be a serial killer loose in D.C.”
    â€œA serial killer? Why?”
    â€œSame MO as Jean Kaporis. Young, attractive woman. Works in media. Is strangled to death.”
    â€œThat’s a real stretch, Joe. It takes more than two to add up to serial killings.”
    â€œBut you can’t rule out the possibility.”
    â€œNo, I guess anything’s possible. I’m beat. Sorry about dinner being ruined. The crab cakes were good, at least what I tasted of them.”
    â€œWe’ll do it again soon.”
    â€œThat’s a deal. Good night.”
    He’d brought with him the CD containing the story he’d written, and inserted it into the den computer. He worked the article over for an hour, adding new lines, cutting others, rearranging paragraphs and changing some key words many times. When he was finished, he went to the bedroom where Georgia slept. His undressing woke her.
    â€œIt’s real late,” she said, glancing at the lighted digital clock-radio. “After three.”
    â€œI know,” he said. “I was working on a breaking story.” He leaned over and kissed her brow. “Go back to sleep, hon.”
    â€œUh-huh. Was it a good night?”
    â€œYeah, it was. I’ll fill you in tomorrow. Have to be in early. No need to get up with me.”
    â€œOkay. I’m having lunch with Mimi tomorrow.”
    â€œToday. It’s today. That’s good.”

    Georgia and Mimi Morehouse, Paul’s wife, had become friends over the years, and got together a few times each month for, as Georgia termed it, “Girl-talk. Compare notes on the men in our lives.” Joe and Georgia had decided after spending a number of evenings with the Morehouses that only someone with Mimi’s glass-half-full personality and ready laugh could put up with someone like her dour, abrasive husband. When the tenor of their relationship came up one day over lunch, Mimi said to Georgia with a chuckle, “Oh, Paul’s all right. His bark is worse than his bite.” To which Georgia responded, “You take the bitter with the sweet.” And they laughed their way through the rest of lunch.
    One day, the two ladies at lunch got on the subject of their husbands’ fidelity.
    â€œI’d really be shocked if Joe had an affair,” Georgia said. “He’s—he’s just not the type, if you know what I mean.”
    â€œWhat type is that?” Mimi asked.
    â€œYou know, the sort who takes off his wedding ring when he goes out of town. A flirt. I’d really be shocked.”
    â€œI’d just as soon not know,” Mimi offered. “I take the military’s approach: Don’t ask, don’t tell.”
    â€œI’m afraid I could never be that worldly,” Georgia said.
    â€œWorldly, hell! If I ever found out he was sleeping with some bimbo, I’d take a pair of pinking shears to his manhood.”
    â€œOuch,” Georgia said, making a face against that painful vision.
    The subject never came up again.

    Wilcox set the alarm to go off in three hours and slid into bed next to her. Lying on his back, he waited for sleep to come. But it evaded him for a half hour, during which time he thought of many things, particularly what had happened that evening to shake him out of his lethargy. He felt more alive than he had in months. A vision of a naked Edith Vargas-Swayze filled his thoughts, and he considered reaching for his wife. He fought that urge, and forced Edith from his thoughts, too. As sleep finally did arrive, he smiled at the contemplation of getting up and going to work, something he hadn’t experienced in far too long. His final waking thought, displayed in vivid Technicolor, was Roberta’s face, her beatific smile filling his screen. Then, whether he wanted it to happen or not, everything went to black.

SIX
    No one ever accused Paul