I realized I was still holding my breath when I let it out. I’d caught one of the workers sneaking off to make a personal phone call, that was all.
Sometimes, I thought, it’s better to be lucky than smart.
I’d read Woythaler’s book, I’d seen her on Oprah, and I wanted like crazy to stay, but Dorothea Chandler had rapped my knuckles, hard, planted her size-eight Cole Haans firmly against my butt and pretty much booted me out. As I skulked out of the powder room, however, I caught sight of Doro at the podium, leaning into the microphone, calling the members to order, preparing to introduce the speaker. ‘Ladies, ladies. Take your seats, please.’
Sensing that the coast was clear, I slipped into a chair at the back of the ballroom and was just settling in when that damn reporter spotted me. As he homed in, I shot out of my chair, made a U-turn and headed for the cloakroom where I’d left my coat. Five minutes later, I was back on Newport Place, peeling a parking ticket off the windshield of my car. Sixty damn dollars fine.
Eight-five dollars down the tubes, and I never got to hear what Susan Woythaler had to say.
TWENTY-THREE
I waited patiently for a story about Aupry and Hoffner to break.
In-between meal prep and laundry and watching my grandkids, I logged so many hours watching Lynx News that Paul cheerfully concluded that I must have gone over to the dark side and joined the Tea Party Patriots. As if.
I checked the Washington Post daily, Style section, too. After a week went by with no story about Susan Woythaler’s appearance at the Women’s Democratic League, illustrated by a photograph featuring me masquerading as Lilith Chaloux, I began to relax.
Chandler was keeping a low profile. A full-page promo for his upcoming four-part series Stand by Your Man? appeared in prime real estate on the inside back cover of TV Guide and promos for the show were running 24/7 on all the major networks.
I couldn’t wait to tell Paul. ‘Seems our boy is going to be interviewing political wives who’ve been dumped by their husbands.’ I did an arm pump. ‘Or vice versa.’ Chandler was hitting all the biggies – Elizabeth Edwards, Jenny Sanford, Silda Spitzer, even Dina McGreevey who had stood on the dais wearing a sky-blue suit and a stoic perma-grin, while her husband, then governor of New Jersey, confessed to a long-time affair with another guy.
I telephoned Jud Wilson and left a message, but when he didn’t call me back, I took it as a sign that John Chandler was still covering his ass.
Until my brother-in-law gave me a call. ‘Hannah, this is Dennis. Just thought I’d give you a head’s up.’
‘On what?’ I’d been washing a wool sweater in the kitchen sink. I reached for a towel.
‘We’ve just arrested a suspect in the jogging trail attacks.’
‘We? Does that mean you?’
‘The guy attacked another woman on Bayside Trail near Pearson’s Corner early this morning. But he definitely picked the wrong victim this time. She’s a former army helicopter pilot. She saw him coming, ducked, turned the tables on the sonofabitch big time. Broke the guy’s collarbone in two places.’
‘Good! I hope it hurts. Who is the creep, anyway? Can you say?’
‘It’ll be all over the news shortly. As soon as he gets out of the ER, he’ll be our guest in the Chesapeake County lock-up. I’m not sure where he’ll be heading eventually. Everybody wants a piece of this guy. DC, Maryland, Virginia. The murders took place in the District and in Virginia, so I imagine they’ll have first crack at him.’
‘Go for Virginia,’ I urged. ‘They still have the death penalty in Virginia. DC doesn’t.’
‘Hard-hearted Hannah, the hanging judge.’
‘Damn right. Meredith Logan deserved to live a long, happy life, and this creep deprived her of it. Some criminals commit crimes so heinous that they forfeit their right to live, Dennis. I truly believe that.’ After a moment of silence, I added. ‘Has the guy confessed?’
‘It’s early days yet, Hannah.’
‘Do this right, Dennis. Please. Make sure your people don’t mess up.’
‘Since I know you and Emily are close to this, I’ll let the implied criticism slide.’
‘Sorry. I didn’t mean to sound snarky. So I guess Nicholas Aupry is off the hook?’
‘Maybe.’
‘How about Hoffner?’
‘We’ll see.’
But…’ I began. Something was niggling at me. The Jogging Trail Murders, the press was calling them. But, unlike the other girls, Meredith Logan hadn’t been attacked anywhere near a jogging trail.
‘Hannah, the only “but” I need from you is this – butt out. Let the police do their jobs.’
‘Dennis…’
‘Hannah, you have to trust me on this.’
Leaving the sweater to soak in the sink, I tuned the television to Lynx News where a reporter I didn’t recognize was conducting an Up Close and Personal with a baseball player who had blown the whistle on steroid use in the major leagues, a program timed to the release of his tell-all book on the subject. I switched to CNN in time to catch a ‘Breaking News’ bulletin.
‘Jogging Trail Killer Apprehended,’ a sidebar announced, superimposed over a shot of a reporter standing outside the Chesapeake County hospital emergency room, holding a microphone. ‘An unemployed computer programmer has been arrested in connection with the murders of two women on metropolitan area jogging trails and is implicated in attacks upon two others,’ she began. Her image was replaced by the police sketch of the suspect that had been widely distributed since the assault on the woman in Rock Creek Park. The reporter seemed primed to go on, but suddenly there was a flurry of activity. She turned and viewers got to watch while plainclothes police officers appeared in the background, escorting a man whose arm was in a blue sling, his head covered with a jacket. As cameramen from all the major networks scuttled to follow, a police officer mashed his hand down on the top of the prisoner’s head, stuffed him into the back seat of a black and white patrol car, and sped away.
The reporter had nothing new to add, so I telephoned Emily on her cell. She picked up on the first ring. ‘Hey, Mom. What’s up?’
‘Your uncle called, and I just saw a report on the television. They think they’ve got the guy who killed Meredith.’
On Emily’s end of the line there was a gasp, then silence as the news sunk in. ‘Thank God,’ she said at last.
‘It’s on CNN right now,’ I told my daughter. ‘All the channels will have it soon. Are you anywhere near a TV?’
‘I’m at the spa, and heading toward the conference room right now. I want to see this guy.’ I heard a door open, then close, then the sound of a television springing to life. ‘Actually, I want to murder him with my bare hands, dismember him bit by bit, drop the pieces in-’
I cut in. ‘Can I watch?’
‘Sorry, Mom. I got carried away. You must be relieved that it wasn’t that fellow you met on the Metro who did it.’
‘I’m sad that anybody did it. But yes, I’m relieved that it wasn’t Nick, and that they finally nailed the bastard.’
With the Jogging Trail Murders suspect locked away in my brother-in-law’s detention center, the nation’s capital was breathing a huge sigh of relief. So was I, until a DC homicide detective paid me a call.
‘I’m Detective Terry Hughes,’ he said from my doorstep, presenting his shield for my inspection, ‘and this is Corporal Sherry Miller.’
Holding the door open, I gawped, rendered temporarily speechless.
Hughes was big, black, broad-shouldered and beautiful, with eyelashes that curled over his amber eyes and shaded them like awnings.