Murder Inside the Beltway Read Free Page B

“See you back here at noon. We got some horny johns to talk to.”
     
     
     

THREE
     
     
    J ackson and Hall drove in his car from the Met to Adams Morgan. After finding and securing a rare parking spot on the street, they went to the Diner on 18th where they had bacon and eggs before walking in the opposite direction, to Jackson’s apartment building. It was eight o’clock. They were due back on duty in four hours.
    He’d lived in the apartment for the five years since leaving Chicago to join the Washington MPD, and had immediately felt comfortable in the ethnically mixed, lively Adams Morgan community, Washington’s only truly integrated neighborhood. Originally, it had attracted primarily a large influx of Hispanics, but they were soon joined by Ethiopians and Asians, as well as middle-class blacks looking for a community in which skin color meant little, and enlightened whites looking for the same thing.
    Jackson’s apartment was on the top floor of a six-floor building that had been built in the 1950s. It lacked certain modern updates, but was in overall well-kept shape. Directly across from his apartment was a door leading to a roof garden that he made good use of when off-duty.
    The first time Mary had been there, six months before, she’d commented on how neat he was.
    “Yeah, I’m a real Felix Unger,” he’d said with a laugh.
    “No, I mean it. You put me to shame. Remind me to never invite you to my place. It looks like Baghdad on a bad day.”
    It was on that first visit to his apartment that they’d made love. All the signs had been there that they would eventually end up in bed, the furtive flirtations, provocative comments, and their growing need to spend off-duty time together, coffee dates, the movies, and dinners at some of Adams Morgan’s ethnic restaurants. But as their relationship deepened, they both knew one thing: they had to keep it sub-rosa, secret, quiet, under the covers as it were. Bad enough they were both MPD detectives; department regulations discouraged romantic relationships within the MPD. But they also worked together on the same squad, with Walt Hatcher as their boss. If anyone was capable of screwing up a budding relationship, it was Hatcher.
    Entering into a personal relationship with Matt hadn’t been easy for Mary. She’d developed a hard shell as a defense against the cruelty of her father, who when not slapping her around, substituted verbal abuse: “You’re no beauty, that’s for sure,” he often said. “Better hope you meet some blind guy who won’t know how ugly you are.”
    The shell that she wrapped herself in had been off-putting for many men and had worked to shield her from further hurt. But there was something compelling about Matt Jackson’s calm and gentleness, and intelligence, that worked to lower the barrier little by little, that allowed her to believe him when he said he thought she was very attractive, and enabled her to drop her guard and let him into her life. He’d meant what he’d said about her looks. He liked her slender figure and full breasts, and the way her lip curled into a sly smile when she didn’t buy what someone said. He found her especially sexy when she removed her contact lenses and donned reading glasses, and told her so. Neither talked about anything long-term, which served them both well. One day at a time, one shoe before the other.
    They slept until eleven. She kept some clothing at the apartment, and changed into another outfit before they headed back to work on that overcast day.
     
•  •  •
     
    Walt Hatcher also slept until eleven when his wife of many years, Mae, woke him as she’d been instructed to do when he’d arrived home that morning.
    “Time to get up, sleepyhead,” she said softly, sitting next to him on the bed and touching his thinning hair.
    He groaned and turned away from her.
    “You said you had to get up,” she said.
    He struggled to prop himself against the headboard and squeezed