Murder at the Opera (15 page)

“Yeah, maybe so, but this guy’s been pretty good. He—”

Their banter was interrupted by a message received over a secured line. The analyst who’d expressed confidence in the British contact in Jordan read it, scowled, and angrily tossed it on the table. It landed in the almost empty pizza box, picking up a greasy red stain at its corner, like blood. The others read it, too.

“Damn,” the first reader of the message said. “Looks like Mr. Gallop didn’t cover his tracks good enough. Our British friend will have to get himself another source.” He got up from the table, took the message from the last person to have read it, and started from the room.

“I’d better run this upstairs.”

FIFTEEN

P
ortelain and Johnson stopped at a fast-food outlet, where the portly Portelain downed a chili dog with relish (in both senses of the word) while his comely female partner sipped a Diet Pepsi and watched him enjoy his snack.

“Best in the whole damn city,” he proclaimed.

“If you say so,” she said. “Come on. Let’s pick up the Warren kid before he decides to cool off back in Canada.”

“I’ll bet it is cooler up there,” Portelain said, wiping perspiration from his brow as they headed for their car.

“I didn’t mean the weather,” she said, slipping into the passenger seat while he wedged himself behind the wheel. They drove to N Street and parked at a hydrant in front of the four-story gray building.

“This is it?” Johnson asked, her eyes automatically sweeping the scene in search of potential trouble.

“This is where the man lives,” said Portelain. “Where the victim lived, too.
And
their manager when he’s in town.”

“The apartment’s that big?”

“No. Tiny little place, but it’s got two bedrooms—closets used as bedrooms is more like it—and a pullout couch in the living room.”

“Cozy,” she said.

“Crowded,” he corrected. “Let’s go. Hope the dude’s home.”

Portelain was about to open his door when Johnson’s hand on his arm stopped him. “There he is,” she said, pointing to Warren, who’d come around the corner.

“Doesn’t look like a piano player to me,” Portelain said.

“What’s a piano player supposed to look like?” she asked.

“I don’t know, little and nerdy, long hair, weird.”

She didn’t bother debating the stereotype as Warren reached the building’s entrance, paused, and noticed the unmarked, illegally parked vehicle. He squinted to see through the tinted glass.

“Let’s take him,” Portelain said.

“Looks like we won’t have to,” Johnson said as Warren approached the car.

Johnson lowered her window. “Hello, Mr. Warren.”

“What are you, following me?” Warren asked, his lip curled.

“Just need to ask you a few questions,” Johnson replied.

“I’ve already told you, I have nothing to say.”

“That may be,” she said, “but we’d like to hear you say it again—for the record. Come on, get in. We’ll spend a few pleasant hours at headquarters and that’ll be it. Our boss is anxious to meet you.”

Warren guffawed, without humor.

“This my partner, Detective Portelain,” Johnson said. “He wanted to meet you, too.”

Warren, who cradled a thick file folder to the Mozart on the chest of his T-shirt, looked at Portelain. The detective smiled. The young Canadian stepped back from the open window, his expression reflecting his ambivalence. Portelain opened his door and got out. Warren continued backing away.

“Hey, man, don’t do somethin’ silly,” Portelain said as he came around the front of the car. Johnson, too, slipped out of the vehicle.

“Grab him,” Johnson said as Warren turned and started walking up the street at a brisk clip.

Portelain took off after him, taking heavy steps, walking as fast as he could. Johnson ran by him. Seeing her, Warren, too, began to run. Portelain progressed from walking to a lope. He stopped to pull his gun from its shoulder holster, and to take in some air. As he did, he saw Warren disappear around the corner, with Johnson close on his heels. “Oh, man,” Portelain said as he started moving again, hoping his partner could corral Warren. “Get him, baby,” he muttered as he reached the corner and peered down the cross street. Johnson stood on the sidewalk a hundred feet away. “He’s down there,” she yelled at her partner, pointing to a narrow alley that ran between buildings.

Portelain reached her, his breathing labored.

“In the alley,” she said, pointing again. “No way out.”

Portelain peered down the alley. It ended thirty feet away, at the rear wall of an apartment or commercial building. Both sides were lined with walls high enough to make scaling them virtually impossible unless the Canadian was Spider-Man.

People on the street became aware of the commotion and surrounded the two detectives. Portelain still held his revolver.

“Put it away, Willie,” Johnson said.

He followed her suggestion.

“He’s not armed,” she said.

“Hope not. We call for backup?”

“No.”

She stepped into the alley, with Portelain close behind.

“I made a collar in here once,” she said. “There’s that Dumpster and some garbage cans.”

“I see ’em,” Portelain confirmed, still breathing heavily, and wincing at a stitch in his side and a dull ache in his left arm.

“You okay?” she asked.

“Me? Hell, yes. Let’s go. We got a crowd.”

They took slow, tentative steps into the alley, each staying close to a wall and twelve feet from each other, eyes and ears on alert.

“Hey, dude,” Portelain barked. “Let’s not have anybody get hurt here. Let’s wise up and play it cool.”

There was no response.

They reached a point only a few feet from the Dumpster, overflowing with fragrant garbage, and glanced at each other. The sound of something hitting the Dumpster’s metal side caused them to stiffen.

“Look out!” Portelain yelled as Warren burst from behind the trash container and attempted to run between them. His sudden move caught Johnson by surprise, but Portelain reacted quickly, extending his sizable arm and catching Warren in the face, on the nose, sending the young man tumbling backwards, his head making hard contact with the Dumpster. Johnson immediately pulled cuffs from her belt and jumped on him, her knees pinning his arms to the concrete alley floor. Portelain stood over the fallen man’s head and said, “See what you done now, you dumb bastard? See the trouble you put us to?”

Warren’s response was an anguished cry, a combination of sob and fury. Portelain helped Johnson turn Warren over and she secured his wrists with the cuffs.

“Don’t hurt my hands,” he blubbered as they yanked him to his feet. Blood ran from his nose down over his mouth and chin and bloodied Mozart. They propelled him out of the alley, to where dozens of people watched.

“What did he do?” someone yelled.

“Who is he?”

Johnson and Portelain ignored the onlookers and pushed Warren down the street in the direction of their car.

Warren balked, and shouted, “Police brutality!”

A tall, heavyset man with a white beard and ponytail yelled to someone else in the crowd, “They beat the crap out of the guy.”

The detectives urged Warren forward. They turned the corner and were almost to the car when Portelain suddenly stopped.

“What’s the matter, Willie?” Johnson asked, her right hand gripping Warren’s cuffed wrist.

Portelain released his grasp of the manacles and sat heavily on a low stone wall. “Don’t feel good,” he rasped.

He’s having a heart attack,
Johnson thought. “Wait here.” She pushed Warren to the car, where she opened a rear door and shoved him inside, facedown. She slammed the door shut and came around to the driver’s side, stopping only to glare at people who’d followed them. “Get away!” she commanded. With one eye on Warren, who struggled to right himself, she called Dispatch and asked for backup and an ambulance. Her request confirmed, she looked to where Portelain was still on the wall, head lowered, hands pressed against the top of the wall to support himself.

“I want a lawyer,” Warren said from the backseat. He now sat upright, his hands behind him. “I want somebody from the embassy. You can’t do this to me.”

“Shut up!” Johnson snapped. She was torn between staying with him and going to where Portelain sat.

She didn’t have to ponder that decision long because two squad cars and a city ambulance roared down the street, lights flashing, horns wailing, and came to a haphazard stop, blocking all traffic. Johnson grabbed the first uniformed officer she could and told him to watch Warren while she went to where two EMTs were talking with Portelain.

“You all right, Willie?” she asked.

“Yeah, I’m all right,” he said. “Just got a pain, that’s all. Damned arthritis.”

Johnson took one of the EMTs aside and said, “Don’t listen to him. I think he’s having a coronary.”

“Why do you say that?” the EMT asked.

“Because—damn, just get him to a hospital.”

A few minutes later, Portelain, despite a series of vocal protests, was being slid on a gurney into the recesses of the ambulance. By now, the crowd had grown considerably and included a reporter from the
Post
and a TV crew. Johnson heard the female TV reporter ask no one in particular, “What happened here? What did you see?”

The big man with the white beard pushed his way to the front of the crowd and said, “This white guy was just minding his business when these two cops jump him and beat the living crap out of him.”

Someone else confirmed it.

The reporter spotted Johnson and started toward her. The detective waved her away and said to the uniformed cop standing guard over Warren, “Take him in and book him for resisting arrest and assaulting an officer. I’m going to the hospital with Willie.” She stopped the ambulance driver who was about to leave and said, “I’m his partner. I’m going with him.” She ran around to the rear, opened the door, and joined Portelain and the second EMT inside. “You’ll be okay, Willie,” she said, touching his hand. “You’ll be just fine.”

The crowd dispersed. The big man with the white beard insisted that an officer take down his name as a witness to police brutality. As the cop dutifully recorded it in a notebook, thinking all the while that he’d like to practice some brutality on this guy, a homeless man with urine-stained chino pants and carrying a bulging knapsack entered the alley where Chris Warren had been apprehended. The sheaf of sheet music Warren had been carrying with him had ended up strewn over the alley floor. The homeless citizen picked up the loose sheets, examined each of them like a pawn-shop owner evaluating a ring someone was looking to hock, and tossed them one by one on top of the refuse already in the Dumpster.
Sometimes you get lucky,
he thought.
This isn’t one of those days.

SIXTEEN

T
here was a time in Mackensie Smith’s life that taking an afternoon off was anathema. Catching a movie matinee was out of the question, even when there was little to do in his law office on a given day. And to enjoy a sexual episode while the sun still shone was—well, the guilt associated with it wasn’t worth the pleasure. Not guilt for engaging in sex, but for doing it during working hours.

But he’d changed.

He and Annabel had returned to their Watergate apartment after the meeting at WNO’s administrative offices and thoroughly mangled the king-size bed they’d so carefully made up that morning. Sated, they made the bed again—both were committed neatniks—and enjoyed a postcoital glass of mango juice on the terrace.

“Do you know what I thought about while we were in bed?” she asked.

“Not me?”

“Of course you. But for a moment, I pictured myself as Delila in
Samson and Delila.
”

He grinned. “And I was Samson?”

“Yes.”

He placed his fingers on his receding hairline. “Is that what happened to my hair?” he asked. “You cut it off to rob me of my strength?”

“I had a little help from Mother Nature. By the way, Delila in the opera is pronounced
Dah-lee-la,
with the emphasis on the final ‘la.’ At least that’s how Saint-Saëns pronounced it.”

“I wouldn’t doubt it for a minute. So, what’s on our agenda for the rest of the day?”

“There’s the rehearsal at seven.”

“I almost succeeded in forgetting about that.”

“Which I would never let you do. I thought I might go up to Takoma Park and ask around about Charise Lee.”

“Why?”

“Oh, I don’t know, to get a feel for how and why her murder might have happened.”

“Now, hold on a second,” he said, sitting taller and facing her directly. “Solving the young lady’s murder isn’t your business.”

“How can you say that?” she countered. “I think it’s everyone’s business. After all, I am on WNO’s board. We all have an obligation to do whatever we can to help find her killer.”