Margaret Truman - Murder Inside the Beltway: A Capital Crimes Novel

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Trum_9780345498885_4p_all_r1.qxp 8/29/08 10:54 AM Page i Trum_9780345498885_4p_all_r1.qxp 8/29/08 10:54 AM Page ii By Margaret Truman

First Ladies

Bess W. Truman

Souvenir

Women of Courage

Harry S Truman

Letters from Father: The Truman Familys Personal Correspondences

Where the Buck Stops

White House Pets

The Presidents House

In the Capital Crimes Series

Murder in Foggy Bottom

Murder at the Library of Congress

Murder at the Watergate

Murder in the House

Murder at the National Gallery

Murder on the Potomac

Murder at the Pentagon

Murder in the Smithsonian

Murder at the National Cathedral

Murder at the Kennedy Center

Murder in the CIA

Murder in Georgetown

Murder at the FBI

Murder on Embassy Row

Murder in the Supreme Court

Murder on Capitol Hill

Murder in the White House

Murder in Havana

Murder at Fords Theater

Murder at Union Station

Murder at The Washington Tribune

Murder at the Opera

Murder on K Street

Murder Inside the Beltway

Trum_9780345498885_4p_all_r1.qxp 8/29/08 10:54 AM Page iii MURDER

INSIDE

THE

BELTWAY

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Trum_9780345498885_4p_all_r1.qxp 8/29/08 10:54 AM Page v MURDER

INSIDE

THE

BELTWAY

A C a p i ta l C r i m e s N o v e l Margaret Truman

T Ballantine Books New York

Trum_9780345498885_4p_all_r1.qxp 8/29/08 10:54 AM Page vi Murder Inside the Beltway is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright 2008 by Margaret Truman All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

Ballantine and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Truman, Margaret.

Murder inside the Beltway : a Capital crimes novel / Margaret Truman.

p. cm.

eISBN: 978-0-345-50966-6

1. ProstitutesCrimes againstFiction. 2. KidnappingFiction.

3. Presidential candidatesFiction. 4. Washington (D.C.)Fiction.

I. Title.

PS3570.R82M83 2008

813'.54dc22

www.ballantinebooks.com

Trum_9780345498885_4p_all_r1.qxp 8/29/08 10:54 AM Page vii Dedicated, with love, to our mother, Margaret Truman Daniel. For more than thirty years, she liked nothing better than to sit at home in New York, murdering people in Washington, D.C., one at a time.

Clifton Truman Daniel, Harrison Gates Daniel, Thomas Washington Daniel

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MURDER

INSIDE

THE

BELTWAY

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ONE

What a waste.

Matthew Jackson went to where Walter Hatcher stood holding a framed eight-by-ten color photograph hed pulled from a bookshelf. Shes a knockout, Hatcher said. I wouldnt have minded getting some of that myself.

Jackson ignored Hatchs commentit wasnt unexpected from the senior detectiveand simply agreed that she was, indeed, beautiful.

The woman in the picture was posed the way photographers liked to shoot glamour girls of yesteryear, provocatively positioned on a white divan. She wore a bloodred kimono, left open enough to display plenty of leg and cleavage. Jackson tried to discern her lineage; probably Mediterranean a few generations back judging from her inky black hair and large, almond eyes. Her expression was inviting, slightly parted full crimson lips hinting at a mischievous smile, teasing whoever viewed the photograph.

Hatcher put the picture back on the shelf facedown and turned to Trum_9780345498885_4p_all_r1.qxp 8/29/08 10:54 AM Page 4

M a rg a re t Tr u m a n

look at the body sprawled in the center of the bedroom floor. Looks like some john figured he didnt get his moneys worth.

Shes a hooker? Jackson said.

Hatcher looked at the young detective as though hed mispro-nounced a simple word. What do you figure she was, Jackson? he asked. Your mother decorate her bedroom like this?

Jackson drew a breath. Yeah, youre right, he said. Hed almost gotten used to his partners put-downs. Almost.

The room to which Hatch referred was a large bedroom on the second floor of an apartment in the Adams Morgan section of Washington. If a set designer had been charged with creating the quintes-sential bordello, he might have used the same approach. There was the requisite mirror on the ceiling over the king-sized bed, which was suspended by four gold chains. A few feet from it was a mirrored ball that, when rotated, caught the light from tiny red and blue pin-spots.

The bedding was golden and silk-like. Animal-print rugs (leopards and zebras) and upholstery created a cross between Animal Planet and Vegas. Dimmers controlled the lights. A fully stocked minibar occupied one corner. Soft rock music that had been playing when the detectives arrived continued to sound from small speakers high up in the rooms four corners.

Whoever killed her hadnt attempted to maintain the rooms dcor. It was a mess. Bottles and glasses from the bar were strewn on the floor. The bedding was bunched up; one corner of the duvet was smeared with her blood. A red barrel chair had been overturned, as had a wrought-iron stand, its furry-leafed plant resting in the middle of a dark water stain on the carpeting.

Shed obviously put up the good fight.

The cops knew her name. The buildings super, who sat in the apartments living room with two other residents of the building, had provided it: Rosalie Curzon. Shed been a tenant for two years: Always paid her rent on time, the super had told the cops. Nice lady.

Hatcher called headquarters to run the name. Her history was brief. Ms. Curzon had twice been arrested for prostitution four years Trum_9780345498885_4p_all_r1.qxp 8/29/08 10:54 AM Page 5

M u rd e r I n s i d e t h e B e l t way 5

ago when she worked for one of D.C.s myriad escort services. Shed paid a fineor someone didand she walked.

Matt Jackson turned his attention to the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves from which Hatch had lifted the photograph. The deceaseds reading selection was eclecticleather-bound editions of classics, potboiler fiction, and a dozen erotic novels lined up next to six vol-umes on sexual practices. Jackson smiled as he read the spine of one in the latter grouping, Kosher Sex. He pulled it down, saw that it had been written by a rabbi, and returned it to its place on the shelf.

Sections were reserved for home decorating books, murder mysteries by big name authors, and for biographies of a variety of famous names in business, politics, the military, and religion.

The well-read hooker, huh, Matt? Hatcher said, joining his young colleague in perusing the books. His eyes eventually went to the top shelf, twelve inches below the crown molding that separated the wall from the ceiling, where ten videotape boxes stood nestled in slots provided by a blue, faux-leather slipcase designed for that purpose. They were too high up to reach. Grab that desk chair,