12

“I don’t appreciate the implications of your question, Detective Kaminski,” Towne spluttered. Drops of creamy coffee fell onto his Brioni tie, and he dabbed daintily at them with a paper napkin before turning back to Adam.

“I didn’t mean to offend you, Mr. Towne,” Adam said. A few phone calls had led Adam to this food court in the Old Post Office Pavilion, where Towne was known to take his morning coffee.

“Dr. Towne.” Towne’s voice was sharp. “I ignored your slights to my title last night because we were in a social setting, but if you’re here to question me…”

“Of course, sorry, Dr. Towne.” Adam nodded his head once in acquiescence. “I was wondering what brought you to the Kendall’s cocktail party last night.”

“I don’t see how that’s any of your business. What are you investigating? A stolen champagne goblet?” Towne sniggered, then played nervously with the cuff of his shirt, adjusting it to an even half an inch below the sleeve of his tailored jacket. His fidgeting revealed a slight fray in one cuff, but he seemed not to have noticed it.

“Murder, Dr. Towne. The murder of Jay Kapoor.”

Towne frowned and looked down, chastised, his fingers tapping against his coffee cup. “Yes, of course. I heard about that.”

“Through your connection with the senator?”

“No, I was.... that is, I mean I read about it. Online, Detective, like everybody else. It’s on the news, on the blogs. You know, politics.com, Senate Central, Political Dish…”

Adam blinked and shook his head. “I think you follow different news outlets than I do, Dr. Towne.”

“Hmm. No doubt.” Towne pursed his lips and narrowed his eyes as he answered.

“Did you know about their planned trip to Philly?”

Towne shook his head roughly but didn’t speak. Was he as nervous, as uncomfortable in his own skin as Adam thought? Or was Ramona right, his attitude the result of keeping a deeper secret?

“Where were you yesterday morning, Dr. Towne?”

“Oh, that’s rich. Very rich.” One side of Towne’s lips drew up. “I was at a staff meeting, Detective. You can ask any one of my colleagues.”

“So then, tell me. Why were you at the party last night? Really.”

Towne frowned into his coffee before looking back at Adam. “Look around you, Detective.”

Adam looked up.

Arched beams high above them bound hundreds of panes of weathered glass, forming an elegantly angled roof high above the public arcade. Cheap restaurants and tourist shops lined the ground level, with tables set out in the middle under the glass. Each level up from where they sat held office space, each level another step up toward the exposed sky. The grandeur of the nineteenth century architecture showcased carved columns and tiled frescoes. Arched windows on the higher levels opened up to the indoor courtyard below.

He imagined this was what it would feel like to be on a Parisian boulevard, as if the table where they sat stood not in the middle of an enclosed courtyard, but instead along a bustling street, the smells of coffee, gyros, and pizza mingling with the sounds of children’s calls and office workers’ hushed conversations.

“It’s a beautiful space,” Adam acknowledged. “I understand you come here a lot. I’m surprised, seems a little touristy, having to wait in line to get in, going through security.”

“Me?” Towne laughed mirthlessly. “I don’t ‘go through security,’ Detective.” Towne’s voice mimicked Adam’s. “Not with my HPRB identification. Hah, security.” He shook his head as he took a sip of coffee. “I won’t be coming here for much longer. It’s been sold, you see. To convert to a hotel.” Towne’s mouth turned down as he almost spat out the last word.

“I take it you’re not in support of the change in use?”

Towne simply raised an eyebrow in response, his disdain for the proposed project clear on his face.

“Sounds to me like you’re in a position to stop something like this, with your place on the HPRB,” Adam said. “Why didn’t you?”

Towne inhaled deeply before responding. “I tried. It’s not only this space, Detective Kaminski, though it is impressive in its own right.” He nodded slowly, then took another sip of his coffee.

Turning his face skyward once again, Adam looked up toward the Old Post Office Tower, which soared more than three hundred feet above where they sat. He had been up the tower in the past, stopping at the observation deck to take in the grand view of the city around it.

“Tell me about it,” he prompted Towne.

At first Towne was confused, not understanding Adam’s question. Then his eyes lit up as he realized it was an opportunity to boast about the historic building. “Nancy Hanks was a great woman,” he said.

Adam frowned at the change in topic. “Who’s Nancy Hanks?”

Towne’s eyes widened and he pulled his head back as if to create space between himself and the offending question. “She saved this building,” he explained. “I thought you would have known that. She was the person responsible for recognizing the architectural and historical significance of this building and ensuring its preservation. Saving it for the next generation. For people like my daughter, you see, and other young people who don’t yet realize how important it is. And she was successful. Until now, that is.”

“And you’re trying to get Senator Marshall to change her mind, to renege on the sale of the building?”

Towne nodded, frowning. “Are you familiar with the Bells?”

Adam shook his head.

“The Bells of Congress,” Towne explained, unable to hide his enthusiasm. “They’re on display. If you go up, you can see them. Replicas, you see, of the bells at Westminster Abbey, in London. They were a gift for our nation’s bicentennial.”

“Doesn’t the sale include some provisions for preserving the historical elements of the building?”

“Yeah, sure,” Towne dismissed the idea. “As if historical preservation will ever trump the almighty dollar.” He jiggled his coffee cup, his coffee long since cooled. “No one cares about DC because no one really lives here. They just pass through. They don’t care about the city, about its resources.”

Adam frowned. “The District has a large local population, Dr. Towne.”

“Well, no one important, anyway.” Towne waved the topic away with his coffee cup, and Adam heard the liquid sloshing about. “It’s a national park, you know. The tower. And the bells. Does anyone care about that?”

“It seems like you care,” Adam said slowly.

“Of course I do. I made it my mission to protect this building. To prevent the committee from approving the sale. I worked tirelessly, using every connection, every angle I could think of.” He shrugged. “I failed.”

“Did you blame Senator Marshall for approving the sale?”

Towne shook his head impatiently. “You don’t understand. This isn’t over. I will find a way to talk to her, to get her attention. It’s not too late. The building still stands. The tower still stands. I need her to see reason. Her and the others on the committee.”

“Why is this so important to you, Dr. Towne?” Adam asked with honest curiosity.

Towne looked at him thoughtfully. “Don’t you have something in your life that’s important to you, Detective? Something worth fighting for? Something that inspires you to do what you do?”

Adam thought of Sylvia, urging him to move forward with his career. He thought of Julia, struggling to make it as a photographer in Philadelphia, relying on his help. And he thought of the funeral. A funeral for three children cut down cruelly by a drive-by shooting. Children he was supposed to protect as their teacher, but couldn’t.

“There are things that are important to me, Dr. Towne, things that motivate me. But I know where to draw the line. Is this project important enough for you to kill to keep it?”

Towne considered the question, then shrugged. “I don’t know, Detective, I really don’t. Thank God I’ve never had to find out. It is important.” His eyes roved the seating area around them, then turned up toward the glass ceiling. “I’m not going to let this go, just walk away.”

“It’s already sold, Dr. Towne. It seems to me the opportunity to stop it has already passed.”

“Bah,” Towne said dismissively. “This is Washington, Detective Kaminski. Nothing is ever done. There is nothing that can’t be changed, rewritten, amended, or simply undone.”

“Except murder, Dr. Towne.”

Towne’s eyes narrowed, his lips pulled into a straight, taut line. “Yes, of course, Detective. Except murder.”

Sam tapped on the open door as he stuck his head into the room. Ramona waved him in without looking up from the computer monitor. “Come on in, Sam, grab a seat.”

He dragged a chair over, sitting across the desk from her.

“You just missed Detective Kaminski,” she said. “He’s on his way to track down Dr. Towne.”

“Makes sense. He seems like a man with something to hide. And a problem with Senator Marshall.”

He leaned forward to flip through a pile of papers lying on Ramona’s desk next to her computer. “Is this what you found on Marshall?”

“So far,” she answered, her eyes still on the screen. “Let me print this one up, too, and I’ll show you what I have.”

She clicked her mouse, and a printer across the room whirred to life.

The work space Ramona shared with her fellow officers was empty except for the two of them. Three other desks filled the room, piled with files, photographs, pens, and papers. From the open door, sounds of the busy precinct carried in, along with the scents common to all squad rooms — stale coffee, sweat, worn leather, and a faint hint of smoke embedded in someone’s clothing. Sam smiled. He felt right at home.

Ramona brought the printed sheets back to her desk, then moved her chair closer to Sam’s so they could look through the files together. “Remembering your glory days?”

Sam laughed. “Yeah, sorry, the squad room does bring back memories.”

She glanced over at him, then looked away, smiling. “You’ve moved on, Sam. You succeeded. I’m jealous. Why’re you wasting time thinking about the past?”

“Ah, the ambition of youth. I remember it well. Let’s focus on what you found, shall we?”

“Everything I’ve found so far backs up what he told you yesterday,” she said. “Construction. Built up his company, then sold it. Been working since then in support of his wife’s position.”

“So why did something seem off with him yesterday?” Sam wondered aloud. “Don’t know what it was, but he was definitely not telling me everything.”

Ramona looked up at Sam and shrugged. “Everyone has secrets, Sam. There’s probably a lot he wasn’t telling you.”

“I know, I know.” Sam furrowed his brow as he shuffled through the papers in front of him, looking for something. He didn’t know what.

“The general impression seems to be he’s the one in charge of that relationship. And of her,” she said, tapping the file in front of her and looking up at Sam.

“You got that from his file?” he asked.

“You’re not the only one with contacts, you know. I made a few calls before you got here.”

“Working on building your connections, huh?”

Ramona shrugged. “I’m not planning on being stuck in this squad room forever, you know that. It’s why you helped me get on this case, isn’t it?”

She was right, of course. Sam only worried that if she moved too fast, pushed too hard, she’d regret where she ended up. That was a conversation for another day. “All right, he bought her Senate seat with his millions, so now he thinks he can call the shots.”

Ramona shrugged and raised her eyebrows, acknowledging the inevitable truth to the assumption. “Why shouldn’t he? They’re a team, after all. The voters knew about him when they elected her. Politicians’ private lives aren’t private anymore, are they? You vote for a candidate and you’re voting for her whole family, warts and all. In their case, I’m sure he was trying to help her forget about their daughter.”

“Daughter? I thought they didn’t have kids.”

“They don’t. Anymore.” Ramona lowered her eyes and frowned as she explained. “The child died, at quite a young age. Six years old.”

“Oh, God.” Sam shook his head. “I can’t imagine going through that.”

“Looks like she’s been focused on her career ever since. And he’s been helping her keep that focus. She got elected mayor of their town not long after the death, and she’s never stopped to look back.”

“Or never let herself stop long enough that she has to look back. She must’ve put all her energy into her work after that. She really moved up fast.”

Sam turned back to the sheets in front of him. Printouts showing everything from Marshall’s driving record to his credit score. Old bank accounts, business deals, newspaper clippings about his successes. And occasional failures.

“That explains her drive—”

“And his, too,” Ramona interrupted him.

“Sure.” Sam kept reading as he spoke. “I’d really like to know more about him, his background. Maybe before they got married. He came from somewhere, and he built up a small empire for himself. He’s gotta have baggage. People who have a grudge against him.”

Ramona nodded as she continued to focus on the papers in front of her. “There are a lot of sources. This could take awhile. Websites and blogs from Pennsylvania, others from here in DC. Or at least, about what goes on in DC… who knows where these are really being written, you know?”

“I know, don’t believe everything you read online. Some of these anonymous blogs are probably bored teenagers in Kansas making stuff up.”

Ramona laughed. “Or worse, politicos in China intentionally misleading Americans, riling them up.” She frowned, pulling out a piece of paper and waving it at Sam. “Who writes this nonsense? SenateSecrets. Political Dish. The names are funny, but the information shared through these blogs is potentially really damaging.”

“Yeah? Anything about the Marshalls?” Sam looked over her shoulder.

“A little. This one in particular.” She tapped the paper. “Like you said, I need to dig into this some more. Figure out the truth from the BS.” Ramona smiled and looked up. “What about Adam, Sam?”

“Adam?” Sam looked sideways at her and smiled. “Detective Kaminski?”

“Stop it, you know what I mean.” She punched his arm. “What’s his story?”

Sam shrugged. “I don’t know a whole lot about him. I only started working with him on this trip for the senator. We haven’t had a lot of time for girl talk.” He grinned and she hit him again, this time harder.

“Ow… okay.” Sam frowned and rubbed his arm. “He hasn’t always been a cop. He mentioned that he used to teach history, then switched careers. I know he lives with his girlfriend, he’s mentioned that. And there’s another woman in his life — Julia. I’m not sure who she is, but I overheard his partner mention her, that he supports her somehow.”

“Huh. Multiple women. Quite a guy.”

“Hey, I’m telling you what I’ve heard. Don’t jump to any conclusions. I have no idea who Julia is or why he’s supporting her. She could be his old, infirm aunt or something.”

“So he’s a gallant kind of guy, is that what you’re saying?”

“Maybe.” Sam frowned. “It’s not all peaches and cream with him. There’s a reason he left teaching.”

“That is an odd career choice, teacher to cop. What happened?” Ramona asked, unable to hide her curiosity.

Sam shrugged. “I dunno, like I said, he hasn’t shared a lot. That’s his business, nothing to do with me.”

“Hmm…” Ramona had turned back to her monitor, clicking through more screens of information about John Marshall.

Sam couldn’t help but wonder if her mind was on the information in front of her, or somewhere else entirely.