Margaret Truman - Murder in Foggy Bottom (Capital Crimes Series)

Table of Contents

For Clifton, my husbandof forty-three years

Praise for Margaret Truman and her Capital Crimes mysteries

Truman has settled firmly into a career of writing murder mysteries, all evoking brilliantly the Washington she knows so well.

The Houston Post

Shes up-to-the-minute. And shes good.

Associated Press

Truman knows the forks in the nations capital and how to pitchfork her readers into a web of murder and detection.

The Christian Science Monitor

An author whose inside knowledge of Washington is matched by her ability to spin a compelling mystery plot.

Crime Times

Foggy Bottom

A Washington, DC, neighborhood that was built on a low-lying swamp, at one time home to a glass factory, a large brewery (now the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts), and some of the citys worst slums... it was named either for the miasmic fogs that once enveloped it, or the hazy foreign policy of one of its most visible current residents, the U.S. State Department.

Now a relatively quiet but trendy residential area with housing prices to match, it is also home to the Watergate hotel, apartments, and office and retail complex; George Washington University, the citys second-largest land-holder after the federal government; the Corcoran Gallery of Art; and the omnipotent Federal Reserve. The Organization of American States, at Seventeenth and Constitution, is located precisely at the geographical center of the District of Columbia.

Murder is uncommon in Foggy Bottom.

But a few occur now and then.

Part One

Monday Night
Washington, DC

The corpse was well dressed. Washington Post reporter Joe Potamos looked down at the body behind a bench in the pocket park in front of the hotel at E and K Streets, on the eastern edge of Foggy Bottom. The victim was a white male with neatly trimmed and combed salt-and-pepper hair. His suit was blue, shirt white, tie gray with small red-and-white flags.

Canadian, Potamos said to a tall, boxlike man writing in a small notebook.

Huh? Peter Languth muttered as he continued to write.

Canadian. Those little flags are Canadian, Potamos said. The red maple leaf in the middle and those red blocks on each side. You dont know that?

Homicide detective Languth stopped writing and turned to look down at Potamos. Languth was six feet four; Potamos topped out at five-eleven. You get off on flags, Joe?

Potamos shrugged and started writing in his own long, slender, spiral-bound notebook. Uniformed officers stretched yellow crime-scene tape around the scene. A late-arriving EMS team knelt next to the body. Pressing in for a closer look were a half-dozen homeless men for whom the park passed for home in summer. One of them had alerted a passing squad car to the dead mans intrusion.

Get back, Languth growled at them. In the humid atmosphere of the nations capital, the heavy air pressed down like a rubber blanket, capturing the mens pungent body odor. You guys ever hear of a shower? Languth asked, wrinkling his bulbous nose.

The hot water stopped working in my mansion, the youngest of the homeless men said.

Call a plumber, Languth said.

Potamos hoped he wasnt contributing to the bouquet of the moment. Hed been wearing the same blue chambray shirt two days in a row, and hadnt gotten around to getting last summers lighter-weight clothing back from the cleaners. He itched under the weight of his gray tweed jacket.

Sit over there till I want to talk to you, Languth told the odd assortment of men, pointing to a bench a few feet away. To a uniformed cop, he said, Make sure nobody leaves.

Potamos arched his back against stiffness and yawned. Eleven-twenty. Hed dozed off in front of the television set in his one-bedroom condo in Rosslyn, Virginia, just across the Potomac from the District, when the call came from his editor telling him to get to the park. Such a call wouldnt have been made a few years ago, when the State Department was his beat, and crime reporting was only a memory. But that was then.

Whadda you see? Languth asked one of the EMS technicians whod left the body to come to where the beefy, balding detective stood with Potamos.

Something in the ribs, right side.

No weapon? Potamos asked.

Languth scowled. You see any weapons, Joe? You see something nobody else does? Except flags?

Potamos nodded at the bench where the vagrants had gathered, smoking cigarettes and passing a brown paper bag among them. You check them out? he asked.

Joe, write your goddamn story and leave the investigation to me.

Just asking. I thought Id let a few facts slip into the story.

Well, dont. Hows it feel getting down and dirty, Joe, hanging around real people after being a media star? You used to cover this neighborhood, right?

Dont start with me, Potamos said, feeling the familiar anger bubble up inside. He visualized a tranquil, sun-drenched beach and drew slow, even breaths, the way hed been taught in the anger-management course hed been forced to take after the incident that had cost him his State Department assignment. And the inherent perks and prestige that went with it. State wasnt exactly the White House, where something big seemed to be popping every day, but some of the stuff was important. A real story broke now and thenBosnia, Israel, Rwanda...

Hey, you, get over here, Languth yelled at the homeless men.

Calmer now, Potamos listened as they gathered around the detective, who said, Okay, whatd you lovely ladies see here tonight?

Twenty minutes later, after it was clear that the men were hear-no-evil, see-no-evil, the well-dressed body was removed. Photos of the body had been taken from many angles; the homeless men had given their nonstatements, names, and addressesBench Number Three, the young wise-guy vagrant crackeda search of the immediate area had been conducted; and the crowd that had gathered had wandered away.

Buy you a drink? Potamos asked Languth.

No.

Suit yourself. What was in the deceaseds wallet?

Money, credit cards.

So, it wasnt a robbery gone wrong.

Brilliant deduction.

Who is he?

Ever hear of next of kin, Joe?

Ill hold it until you say its okay.

Yeah, right.

You know who you remind me of, Pete?

Who?

Willy Loman.

Whos he?

Death of a Salesman. Maybe just death. You ever see it?

No. Is it out on video?

Thanks for the usual wholehearted cooperation, Pete.

Always a pleasure, Joe. How come you never offer to buy me a drink when Im off duty? Say hello to your buddy Bowen.

The anger welled up again as Potamos watched Languth slowly walk away, big body moving side to side beneath his black raincoat, like an aging waiter with aching feet after a long shift. He went in the Lombardy, ordered a drink at the small bar, and made a few calls from his cell phone in search of additional information, including one to the Canadian embassy: This is Joe Potamos from the Post, he told the night-duty officer. Theres been a murder in the park across from the Lombardy Hotel; looks like the victim might be Canadian. What? No, I dont know who the victim was but I figured maybe somebody from your embassy was supposed to be there tonight but didnt show up and... Huh? A man, middle-aged, nicely dressed, wore a tie with little Canadian flags on it and... Huh? No? I just thought Id give it a try. No, I dont know his name. Yeah, thanks. He tried to reach a contact in the coroners office in the hope of getting an ID on the deceased but was told he was away on vacation. He silently cursed Languth for not at least giving him a name, then filed the story, what little there was of it, and went to his condo in Rosslyn, where Jumper greeted him as though he were a raging success. He called Roseann at her apartment on Capitol Hill. Most nights, Potamos and the dog stayed there. But Potamos had kept the condo in Rosslyn as a gesture of independence, and as a refuge, especially when anger and frustration got the better of him, and Roseann, knowing how volatile he could be, never urged him to give it up. Smart girl, Ms. Blackburn. When he got in these moods, which she called his vapors, he wasnt fit company for anyone, except the dog. It was the other times that had attracted Roseann to him, times when he could be tender and loving and funny and...