Homicide in the House Read online

  He grabbed his phone, and after studying it for a few minutes, he put it to his ear. “Hey, Trent, this is Trevor. How goes it, man?”

  My eyebrows arched. Did I just hear Trevor use the phrase, “How goes it, man?” He hadn’t been joking when he said he’d been working on his people skills.

  “Thanks for meeting with her yesterday. Hey, I have a quick question for you. I know this isn’t in the Sergeant at Arms office, but is there a woodworking shop in the Capitol?”

  Trevor listened to Trent’s response with a fixed expression of concentration. “Got it, man. Thanks again.”

  How many other people did Trevor call “man”? He was almost like a different person. Kevin Spacey’s infamous portrayal of Keyser Söze in The Usual Suspects came to mind. Which version of Trevor was real? After this performance, I wasn’t quite sure. Forever his nemesis, Meg would be interested in this tidbit.

  Trent must have added something before Trevor got off the phone. “Interesting. Good luck with that. See you around.” He punched a button on his phone to end the call.

  I placed my purse on my shoulder and edged toward the end of the booth. “Trent Roscoe, I presume?”

  “You are correct.”

  Back to “normal” Trevor, whoever that was these days. “Does he know where the gavels are made?”

  Trevor answered in a scolding tone. “You heard the conversation. I never asked him such a thing. Isn’t his boss Gareth Pressler still a suspect? You don’t want to reveal too much, Kit.” He shook his head. “I can’t watch over you like I did during the last investigation. You’ve got to be more careful in covering your tracks.”

  “You’re right. I’ll try to be more cautious. What did he say about a woodworking shop?”

  Trevor stood up and I followed. “My instincts were correct. There is a carpentry facility in the Capitol. I’m sure you can locate it using HouseNet.” Trevor was referring to the internal House of Representatives website that provided employees with directories and useful administrative information about the Capitol complex.

  “I’ll do that. Thanks for your help, Trevor.”

  I was just about to cross Second Street to head toward the Cannon Building when he caught my arm. “I almost forgot something important, Kit.”

  I turned around to face him. “What is it? It’s almost nine, and I need to report for work.”

  “Trent told me he’s going to ask you out for drinks tonight.”

  I gulped. Despite the cold, my face flushed. “As in a date?”

  Trevor shrugged and responded with a question. “Isn’t everything in life what you make of it?”

  Chapter Eighteen

  I didn’t linger to discuss the details of Trent’s romantic intentions. After muttering an awkward goodbye, I fled to my office and thought about Trevor’s revelation. Yes, Trent had sent signals during our meeting yesterday. For a variety of reasons, I’d chosen to play them down, but now they had confronted me directly, like a car’s glaring “check engine” light. Once the alert flashed on the dashboard, ignoring it was impossible. Trent’s advances presented a similar call to action.

  I couldn’t deal with this conundrum alone. Immediately after clearing my building’s security, I punched a text message to Meg.

  Need to chat 911.

  Our version of the Batman signal, the emergency designation was saved for crises requiring urgent consult.

  Meg replied in less than thirty seconds.

  Break in case?

  Given the distress call, that would have made sense. This was a different type of predicament, but Meg would undoubtedly agree as to the gravity of the situation.

  Not quite. Trent Roscoe.

  Although Meg’s office was located in another House building, I could practically hear her squeal of delight.

  Lunch at Longworth?

  I readily agreed to meet at the main House cafeteria. Meg would know exactly how to handle this problem. She received both wanted and unwanted male attention on a daily basis. It was foreign territory for me. Her help secured, I felt one hundred percent better about my dilemma. Although figuring out if Trent’s interest fell in the “wanted” or “unwanted” category might require some soul-searching.

  My high spirits plummeted the moment I rounded the corner of the main hallway leading to my office. I’d completely forgotten the journalists we’d dodged yesterday. They had returned today with a vengeance. Like a pack of hungry wolves, reporters had surrounded the area immediately outside the entrance to Maeve Dixon’s congressional suite. A quick pivot reversed my course and I darted inside the nearest women’s restroom to strategize and regroup.

  Maeve’s interview with the police was scheduled for later in the day. Given the press attention, she wouldn’t be likely to venture into the office this morning. Instead she’d go directly to the station from her apartment building, hopefully with her lawyer in tow. That left only Dan.

  Reluctantly, I texted him. He might not answer a phone call but hopefully he’d glance at an incoming message.

  Are you inside the office now?

  Standing inside a stall, I stared at my device, waiting for a response. Had it really come to this? When I first landed a job in Congress, I hadn’t imagined it might necessitate hiding inside a public bathroom.

  The three dots flashed. Dan had received my message and was composing a reply.

  Yes. Help me. I’m stuck inside.

  Before answering, I considered my options. It was almost nine thirty, and I had a legislative directors’ meeting at ten in the Capitol Visitor Center. Why should I force my way past the reporters when I would have to force my way out in fifteen minutes to leave again? I fished around in my purse. I had a notebook so I could jot down any important information at the meeting. The only downside was lugging around my winter coat. I’d gladly make that tradeoff if it meant I could successfully dodge the bevy of reporters for now.

  Dan needed to hunker down, and he wasn’t going to appreciate it. A short, sweet reply would suffice.

  Have meeting then lunch.

  After sending the message, I added one more detail.

  Important leads on case.

  That wasn’t a lie and maybe it would make him feel better about the abandonment.

  I shoved my phone back in my purse and hightailed it out of the restroom. With many competing priorities, the weekly Democratic meeting for all legislative directors often had spotty attendance. Due to the shutdown, today’s gathering would be an exception. Everyone wanted to know if the party’s leadership had decided on a proposal to end the standoff. If I arrived a few minutes early, maybe I could chat with Judy Talent. Yesterday’s pizza lunch seemed like an eternity ago. When we last spoke, she’d wanted Maeve Dixon’s support for the Majority Leader’s proposal. However, that was before Hill Rat’s revelation about Maeve’s involvement in the murder.

  The Cannon Tunnel was nearly empty this early in the morning. Congress didn’t espouse the “early to bed, early to rise” culture. The only fellow travelers in the tunnel were other legislative directors en route to the Capitol Visitor Center and caffeine-dependent staffers returning to their offices with steaming cups of coffee in hand. Before this morning, I’d never noticed the pipes delivering heat on the left flank of the corridor, slithering like two monstrous concrete snakes alongside the tunnel’s travelers. The huge volume of people routinely masked the bleakness of the passageway. This morning, lacking the usual hordes, its industrial décor was laid bare. Crowds made it difficult to navigate, but the disguise provided by the masses was preferable to the unvarnished, naked version.

  Instead of heading into the Capitol, I took a hard right at the end of the tunnel and entered the Capitol Visitor Center. The CVC, as it was popularly called, was built to accommodate the throngs of tourists who regularly descended upon Capitol Hill. Patriotic Americans and sightseers eager to visit the nation’s legislature streamed in throughout the calendar year, especially in the summer months. Before the CVC’s constr
uction, navigating within the Capitol complex during June and July was nearly impossible. Demonstrating that it can act reasonably, Congress decided to build a massive 580,000 square-foot visitor center underneath the east side of the Capitol. The new facility provided a comprehensive educational experience for those who wanted to learn about Congress and its history, complete with films and exhibits. At least that was the “official” justification for the $621 million spent on its construction. Privately, everyone who worked in the Capitol complex celebrated the intentional displacement of the summer tourist onslaught.

  Congress hadn’t forgotten its own needs when it shelled out the small fortune of taxpayer money to build the CVC. It had included a congressional auditorium and a sizable number of meeting rooms. Since we had such a large group of legislative directors in the party (after all, we were in the majority), today’s meeting had been scheduled for the auditorium. Normally, members of Congress organized important events in this space. Due to the shutdown, all official business other than solving the current crisis had been canceled. That freed up the auditorium for our staff meeting. Attendance ebbed and flowed, depending on the perceived importance of legislative business in any given week. Given that congressional inaction had caused the government to stop functioning, I predicted a heavy turnout.

  After zipping past the CVC gift shop, I rode the escalator to the lower level and strolled through Emancipation Hall, the centerpiece of the CVC. Congress named the 20,000 square-foot central gathering space after the slave laborers who built the Capitol.

  I’d walked through the CVC countless times, but normally I kept my eyes fixed on my iPhone rather than paying attention to the impressive feat of construction surrounding me.

  Those in charge of designing the CVC had mimicked the architecture of the original Capitol Building. The sandstone pillars resembled the massive Capitol columns built over 150 years ago by enslaved craftsmen, and the marble for the floors was obtained from the same quarries that had produced the marble for the Capitol in the 1800s.

  The twenty-foot plaster model used to cast the Capitol Dome’s famous bronze Statue of Freedom welcomed visitors to Emancipation Hall. Other famous sculptures formed a border around the massive open space. I gave a silent salute to Montana’s Jeannette Rankin, the first woman elected to Congress. Chief Washakie, a Shoshone Native American warrior from Wyoming, was unusual because portions of his statue were painted in color. And everyone loved King Kamehameha, who had unified the Hawaiian Islands. The gold and bronze of his regal attire drew a regular crowd of admirers who snapped photo after photo of the colossal figure.

  I headed toward the corridor that led directly to the auditorium, breezing past several House meeting rooms and the appointments desk. I took a hard left and pulled open the big double door. At three minutes to ten, plenty of seats were already filled. This was no regular legislative director meeting. People were showing up en masse to find out what in the hell was going on. It’s a myth that congressional staff know every detail about ongoing negotiations. In reality, Capitol Hill forms a hierarchy in which a select few understand exactly what is transpiring at any given time. The rest of us rely on our precious contacts to try to piece together the puzzle for our bosses. This meeting would provide direction for those staffers whose bosses hadn’t been approached earlier by leadership for their input on the critical legislative proposals.

  No aisle seats were available. Damn. Everyone always wanted an aisle seat at briefings like this. Boredom or a demanding boss often required a quick exit. Much like on an overseas flight in coach, aisle seats were a valuable commodity and therefore scarce. I squeezed past several colleagues who were too busy surfing their phones to make room for my passage. I finally wedged into an open seat and shoved my bulky coat under my chair.

  As I fished through my purse to find my notebook, I felt the not-so-casual stare of the woman sitting next to me. She looked vaguely familiar, but with 230 other legislative directors in the party, I didn’t know everyone by name. Her blonde hair had been straightened yet didn’t quite behave perfectly, sort of like my brown mane. She wore boxy black frames conveying the message that she preferred to be viewed as intelligent rather than fashionable.

  I’d finally located my notebook and a pen that worked when she cleared her throat. I turned to her and introduced myself, offering my hand. “I’m Kit Marshall and I work for Representative Maeve Dixon from North Carolina. I’ve seen you around but I don’t know your name.”

  Smart-Not-Sexy smiled, but not too broadly. “I thought you worked for Dixon. Have you seen Hill Rat’s latest posting?”

  If she didn’t realize I already knew what Hill Rat had posted yesterday, she wasn’t fooling anyone with those smart glasses. But it wasn’t good politics to alienate a friendly colleague. “Yes, we aren’t commenting to the press about Representative Dixon’s discovery of Jack’s body.”

  I turned my attention to the front of the room. Judy Talent was milling around, smiling at familiar faces and shaking hands with others. The meeting was about to begin so this meaningless conversation needed to be wrapped up.

  My next-door neighbor shook her head. “Not yesterday’s post. This morning’s.”

  I whipped my head around. Smart-Not-Sexy had captured my full attention. “This morning?”

  She swiped open her smartphone and skillfully used two fingers to scroll down the litany of emails. She selected one and waited for it to bring up a web page in the phone’s browser. Then she handed me her device. “I get notifications when Hill Rat posts a new blog,” she explained. She kept talking as I enlarged the writing on the screen. “This one went up about ten minutes ago.”

  The meeting had come to order. Judy began her spiel summarizing the Majority Leader’s proposal to fund the federal government. I’d focused on most of this information yesterday with her, although the bill might have changed since our lunch. Unfortunately, Hill Rat was the more pressing problem.

  The title of the post was in big capital letters: “HOMICIDE IN THE HOUSE.” Underneath the headline, Hill Rat had kept it brief:

  The murder weapon in the Jack Drysdale killing has been kept under wraps … until now. Drysdale was bludgeoned to death with nothing less than the symbol of the House of Representatives itself, the Speaker’s gavel. Who had access to the gavel prior to the crime?

  Underneath the three-sentence post, there was a video link. I didn’t want to interrupt the meeting but I needed to see what Hill Rat had posted. Flipping the phone to “mute” would have to suffice. No words were needed. The video was a five-second clip of Maeve Dixon, banging the gavel on the House floor the night before Jack’s murder. Damn those C-SPAN archives!

  Chapter Nineteen

  Feeling a sudden need to scream, I managed to remain silent as I handed the phone back to the staffer. She shot me a questioning glance. I mouthed the word “Thanks.”

  Maeve needed to know about this latest development, especially if she still planned to visit police headquarters today for questioning. Dan also needed to know, since the reporters camped outside the office were likely to increase both their numbers and volume. He’d have to handle that situation on his own. No way was I going back there. Images of rabid Capitol Hill reporters waving pitchforks and torches came to mind. It was better if we didn’t provide them with someone they could try to interrogate.

  Maeve replied quickly to my text informing her about Hill Rat’s latest revelation. She agreed that returning to the office didn’t make any sense and urged Dan to “stay put” as long as possible. Each of us was on our own.

  Half-listening to Judy’s information about the plan to end the shutdown, I scanned the auditorium. Most people were staring at their phones while ostensibly heeding the message from congressional leadership about the way forward. No doubt about it; Hill Rat’s posting would go viral. Maeve Dixon’s tenure as an influential legislator in Congress was about to be cut short. The only way to stop the inevitable progression leading to total career destruct
ion was to find the real killer. Hill Rat had given me a shove in the rear. I had to find the killer now.

  I was tempted to bust out of the meeting and resume my investigation. Under normal circumstances, listening to rapid-fire questions about the shutdown would have been enjoyable. More than anything, I loved figuring out the nitty-gritty policy details. Today’s summit offered a veritable smorgasbord of wonkiness. But none of this mattered if Maeve couldn’t prove her innocence. Despite the urge to split, I forced myself to remain seated; getting up in the middle of the meeting would draw even more attention. Besides, Judy Talent had a good motive to kill Jack Drysdale. She’d hated him, and her line about leaving the Hill didn’t mean anything. She could turn down the K Street job in a second if the Speaker asked her to serve as Jack’s replacement. Given how busy she was, I might not get another chance to talk with her. After the meeting concluded, I would have the perfect chance to pounce, especially if I waited patiently for the opportunity to present itself.

  The questions concerning the finer points of the proposal kept coming. It was a quarter past eleven before the attendees collectively decided they’d heard enough. Judy surveyed the crowd. With her fingers counting off the numbers, she bellowed, “Going once, going twice.” She paused. When no one interrupted her, she concluded, “Sold! Congratulations, team. We have an offer to end the government shutdown.” Judy flashed a radiant smile and turned to chat with one of her dutiful acolytes.

  Along with the masses, I filed out of the row of seats. Judy was yakking up a storm, and a receiving line had formed. Some people might have legitimate questions about the legislation, but the bulk of the posse surrounding her just wanted a moment of face time. Judy was the Capitol equivalent of a high school prom queen.