A Murder of Justice by Robert Andrews

Author:Robert Andrews [Andrews, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 2011-06-30T16:05:18+00:00

There he is,” Frank said.

Janowitz stood in the hallway opposite the door to the Subcommittee on D.C. Appropriations.

“You’re on time.”

“You’re surprised?” José asked.

“On time for what?” Frank asked.

With an index finger, Janowitz pushed his glasses back so they touched the bridge of his nose. “Nothing definite,” he said. “Al . . . Mr. Salvani . . . said Rhinelander wasn’t happy about me digging in the files.”

“You didn’t talk to Rhinelander yourself?”

Janowitz shook his head.

“You getting stonewalled?”

“No. Al’s been helpful. Had one of his staffers show me around. Got me a parking pass and a building badge, a cubicle and a computer. But”—Janowitz held up two empty hands—“no files until Rhinelander approves.”

“Almost four.” Frank gestured toward the subcommittee doorway.

Janowitz pushed through the door. Frank and José followed him in. At a desk in the middle of the room, a largish formidable woman looked up at them. She wore a worried frown, and held a pencil frozen in midair over an appointments register.

Janowitz walked up to the desk. “Marge, Detectives Kearney and Phelps have an appointment with Congressman Rhinelander at four.”

She eyed Frank and José, then brought her pencil down and moved it over the register. The pencil stopped. She bent closer, as though to make certain of the entry, then looked up.

“Have a seat.” She aimed the pencil at an L-shaped leather sofa. Janowitz settled down, pulled a Palm Pilot from a jacket pocket, and began tapping with a stylus. José picked out a Reader’s Digest from a nearby magazine rack, while Frank found an issue of People.

“These guys must get their reading material from my dentist,” José said. Marge rewarded him with an acid look.

By four-thirty, Janowitz had finished tapping the Palm Pilot, but he held it anyway, apparently unsure what to do with it. Frank dozed, his chin dropped to his chest, the People open in his lap to a spread on Madonna. José sat with his eyes fixed glassily on a seemingly paralyzed wall clock.

Suddenly Frank awoke, snapping his head up, momentarily confused about where he was. His head cleared. “Why don’t we come back tomorrow?” he asked Janowitz.

“Rhinelander won’t be here.”

“What?”

“He’ll be back in his district,” Janowitz explained. “Congress usually breaks for the weekend Thursday evenings.”

“Come back Monday, then.”

Janowitz shook his head. “They usually don’t start up again until Tuesday morning.”

“Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday,” José said in wonderment. “How’d I ever miss out on something like that?”

“You live in the District,” Janowitz said. “Foreigners, felons, and D.C. residents can’t be elected members of Congress.”

“I guess we wait,” José said unhappily.

Another half-hour passed. The hands on the clock had slowly, almost painfully, crawled toward five.

Marge’s phone chirped once. She answered, listened, and eyed Frank, José, and Janowitz.

“Yes,” she said, “they’re still here.”

The Rayburn Building’s architect had attempted to graft the ornate nineteenth-century decor of the Capitol onto Frederick Rhinelander’s mid-twentieth-century office. The expensive operation had failed. Heavy velvet drapes, patterned carpets, and faux plaster crown moldings clashed with modern windows, fluorescent lighting, and government-bland pseudo-Danish teak furniture.

Frederick Rhinelander

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