Margaret Truman's Deadly Medicine Read online

  Morrison read from the note he had. He’d practiced it a few times before making the call to have it sound as though Gravelly Point was a location with which he was intimately knowledgeable.

  “Never heard of it,” Brixton said.

  “It’s a favorite spot of mine,” Morrison said, “very secluded after dark. Can we meet there at eleven tomorrow night?”

  Brixton’s antenna went up as he processed the situation. He wasn’t concerned that Morrison would be a physical threat. He was a fat-cat lobbyist, probably balding and flabby. Was there something else to worry about? He couldn’t come up with one. He’d participated in a number of late night meets with a variety of lowlifes while a detective on the Savannah PD, usually informants looking to cut a deal to get them off the hook. Despite these questions, Brixton saw only an upside to meeting with Morrison. If the lobbyist was about to sell out Gillespie—and why he would do that was irrelevant—Will Sayers would be as happy as the proverbial pig in mud.

  “Okay,” he said, “eleven o’clock tomorrow night at this Gravelly Point.”

  “Good,” Morrison said. “I’ll be carrying a yellow umbrella and wearing a navy blue blazer.”

  Brixton almost laughed out loud. It was beginning to sound like a scene from a bad Cold War novel.

  “I’ll be looking for a guy in a blue blazer carrying a yellow umbrella. See ya.”

  Brixton lingered in front of Nikki Dorence’s apartment building for another fifteen minutes before heading home to have dinner with Flo, who announced that sales that day at Flo’s Fashions had been the most lucrative since the shop opened. They toasted the news and settled in for a night of domestic bliss—Welsh rarebit and bacon on English muffins, pecan pie à la mode, single-malt scotch, and Netflix.

  CHAPTER

  32

  Brixton and Flo started the next day enjoying breakfast on their small balcony. Flo was in good spirits based upon the previous day’s sales, and Brixton’s mood paralleled hers. He’d spoken with Mac Smith after arriving home last night and the attorney filled him in on the new client that would need Brixton’s investigative savvy. Brixton was pleased on two levels. One, he could use the money to pay bills. Two, it would lift his spirits after having Flo carry the financial load for the past few months. Life was good.

  “What’s on your agenda today?” she asked.

  “I see the shrink at ten.”

  “He’s made a difference,” she said.

  “Think so?”

  “I know so,” she said.

  “Today will be the final session with him,” Brixton said. “No sense continuing writing checks when there’s nothing more he can do.”

  “Robert!” she said sternly. “We can certainly afford it, and there’s more to be gained by continuing to see him.”

  “Why? You say he’s made a difference. There are people who see their shrinks for years, every week, maybe twice a week. A waste of money.”

  Flo knew better than to debate with him. She had faith that Dr. Fowler would convince Robert to continue seeing him, At least she hoped that would be the case.

  “I’ll be late tonight,” he said, changing the subject.

  “Oh? Why?”

  “I’ve got a meeting at eleven o’clock.”

  “Eleven o’clock? Who with, that movie actress?”

  “No.”

  “Then who are you seeing at such an hour?”

  Brixton hadn’t intended to share with Flo that he was meeting with the lobbyist Morrison but he decided it would head off any questions on her part. He told her of Morrison’s phone call and shared some of his interest in him.

  “You sure you want to meet this guy at what?—Gravel Point?”

  “Gravelly Point. I checked it on a map. It’ll be fine. Maybe he’ll give me what Will Sayers is looking for.”

  “And will Sayers pay you for that information?”

  “I don’t care. The truth about Senator Gillespie needs to come out. If I can I want to help bring that about.”

  Flo smiled, and finished her coffee, and went to her clothing shop. Brixton drove to his office and spent two hours with Mac Smith and Smith’s new client, who needed not only Smith’s keen legal mind, Brixton’s investigative prowess would also be brought into play. He engaged Mrs. Warden in conversation about her life, something he’d never done before, and learned that she was more interesting than she’d seemed.

  After lunch at his desk he drove to Nikki Dorence’s apartment building and read a newspaper and a magazine while waiting for Eugene Waksit to show his face. When he didn’t, Brixton drove home and took a nap in preparation for his eleven o’clock meeting with Eric Morrison. He’d have waited at the apartment to have dinner with Flo but it was a late night for her at the shop, which was just as well. Anticipation of meeting Morrison had begun to build, and he wondered how forthcoming the lobbyist would actually be. He also wanted to make Will Sayers fully aware of the meeting, and called the corpulent journalist to suggest dinner. Sayers, who never met a meal he didn’t like, said that he’d been thinking all day of the lobster rolls at Hank’s Oyster Bar on Pennsylvania Avenue—“Not the one in Dupont Circle,” he clarified—and that’s where they met. Sayers became positively excited that Morrison had called Brixton and was ready to pass along some dirt on Senator Gillespie.

  “Did he say anything specific?” Sayers asked over dessert.

  “No, just that he was willing to share information with me.”

  “Any idea what prompted him to do this, Robert?”

  “No, but I figure the senator did something to tee him off. I also let him know the first time we talked that I’m aware of his part in what happened to the doctor in Papua New Guinea.”

  “Don’t get sidetracked by that, Robert. I need evidence of the abortion that Morrison arranged for Senator Gillespie.”

  “Yeah, I know,” said Brixton, “but I’m also interested in getting to the truth about Jayla King’s father.”

  “Smitten with her, are you?”

  “No, Will. I just want to right a wrong.”

  The check had been placed in front of Brixton, but he slid it in Sayers’s direction.

  “Fair enough,” Sayers said.

  “That’s the way I see it,” Brixton said. “I’ll call you tomorrow with what I come up with.”

  “Call tonight at any time. I won’t be able to wait until tomorrow.”

  Brixton was early for the meeting with Morrison and decided to go to the appointed place and scope it out in advance. He had no difficulty finding a place to park close to Gravelly Point. He remained in his car for a half hour taking in his surroundings. There were few people strolling on the Mount Vernon Trail at that time of night even though the sky was clear, and a full moon cast flattering light over plantings, mostly tall bushes that formed barriers between the parking lot and the public spaces, and benches that had been occupied earlier. He kept a lookout for a man in a blue blazer carrying a yellow umbrella, smiling and shaking his head at the silliness of it all. But while the method of identifying Morrison seemed silly, the stakes weren’t. If things went the way he hoped they would he’d walk away with some sort of proof that Ronald Gillespie, senior senator from Georgia, had gotten a teenager pregnant and arranged for her to have an abortion.

  At a quarter to eleven he got out of the car and went to a bench that was nestled in bushes, secluded from others, but affording him a view of the surrounding area. At a few minutes before eleven he heard a car come to a stop in the parking lot behind him. Although he didn’t expect to have to use it, he used his elbow to assure that his Sig Sauer P226 was where it should be, secured in its holster in his armpit. A man emerged through a break in the bushes and looked nervously around. He wore a blue blazer, and carried both a yellow umbrella and a briefcase.

  “Morrison?” Brixton said.

  Eric Morrison turned in Brixton’s direction. “Yes,” he said, and approached the bench.

  Brixton didn’t bother to stand to greet the lo
bbyist. He patted the space next to him. “Sit down,” he said.

  Morrison looked as though he wasn’t sure whether to do what Brixton had suggested.

  “Have a seat,” Brixton repeated.

  Morrison sat, gingerly, and perched on the edge of the bench.

  “Let’s not string this out,” Brixton said. “You know that I know about Senator Gillespie, and the role you played in arranging and paying for an abortion for a teenage girl back in Georgia. I’m not looking to get you in trouble, Mr. Morrison, but the senator is another story. Voters back in Georgia have a right to know what he’s really all about.”

  Morrison stared into the dark perimeter of the mini-park and said nothing.

  Brixton said, “You give me evidence about the abortion and I’ll pass it along to the interested parties. I’ll keep you out of it best I can.”

  “This is very difficult for me, Mr. Brixton.”

  “Yeah, I’m sure it is. What’s your biggest problem, Morrison, that you might lose your senator buddy in congress? He pretty much does your bidding, doesn’t he, votes the way your Big Pharma clients want him to in return for hefty donations to his campaigns?”

  “But what you don’t understand is—”

  A man who’d been lurking in the parking lot approached, stopping at a spot directly behind the bench where the two men sat, the bushes shielding him from their sight. He silently took a step into the narrow opening created between two of the shrubs.

  “Get to it, Morrison,” Brixton said, losing patience.

  Morrison opened his briefcase and showed Brixton the $20,000 it contained. “It’s for you,” he said. “Twenty thousand dollars. I’m sure you can use it. I mean, I’m sure you can put it to good use. What’s to be gained by bringing down a United States senator? I mean, what’s in it for you?”

  Morrison closed the briefcase. As he did, the large man behind them reached through the gap in the bushes and brought a spring-loaded lead-weighted sac across the back of Brixton’s neck. He went forward, off the bench, facedown on the gravel.

  Morrison leaped to his feet.

  “Why did you do that?” he said as the man pulled open Brixton’s jacket, pulled the Sig Sauer from its holster, and pointed it at Brixton’s prone body.

  “Don’t shoot him!” Morrison yelled.

  The man turned to face the lobbyist. He raised the pistol and pulled the trigger twice. Both shots blew apart Morrison’s heart. He was dead before he hit the ground, the tip of the yellow umbrella piercing the moist soil and standing vertical like a colorful graveyard monument. The man grabbed the case from Morrison’s limp hand and was gone.

  CHAPTER

  33

  Flo Combes was in the midst of a deep sleep when the ringing phone jarred her awake. She glanced at the digital alarm clock next to the phone: 12:44.

  “Hello?”

  “Hey, babe, it’s me.”

  “Robert? Is something wrong? Why are you calling? Where are you?”

  “Yeah, I’d say something’s wrong.” He was thick-tongued.

  Now fully awake, she sat up. “What is it?”

  “It’s like this, Flo. I’m in the ER at GW University Hospital being coddled by a cute young nurse and a not so cute young doctor.”

  “What happened? Are you all right?”

  “Aside from a head that feels like a truck ran over it, I’m okay. I even have company, two uniformed members of the city’s finest making sure I don’t get up and—” He groaned. “It hurts whenever I move my head. Somebody cold-cocked me tonight.”

  “Are you well enough to be released?” Flo asked.

  “As far as I’m concerned I’m good to go now. The cops are another story.”

  “The cops? What are you talking about?”

  “It’s like this, Flo. They say that I shot that sleazy lobbyist Morrison tonight.”

  She gulped.

  “He’s dead. The guy who whacked me over the head took my gun and shot him, two bullets square in the chest. The guy took the money, too, the twenty thou Morrison wanted me to take in return for getting off his case about Senator Gillespie.”

  “He tried to bribe you?”

  “Yeah, He should have known better, huh?”

  Flo heard Brixton speaking with others but couldn’t make out what was being said. He came back on the line. “Look,” he said, “they insist that I spend the night here in the hospital, you know, test for concussion, cover their asses. I’ll have plenty of company with my friends in blue.”

  “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  “No need for—”

  The click in his ear said that she’d hung up.

  A few minutes after their conversation ended a familiar face arrived at the ER, Superintendent of Detectives Zeke Borgeldt.

  “Things must be slow at the PD,” Brixton said to Borgeldt from the gurney, “for the heavy artillery to show up.”

  “I had nothing else to do,” Borgeldt said. “How are you feeling?”

  “I feel wonderful aside from a pounding headache and these little pieces of gravel in my face. You know what happened, right? You’ve been filled in.”

  “Yes, but I’d like to hear it from you. What were you doing in Gravelly Point at eleven o’clock at night with one of our top lobbyists?”

  “Getting a payoff.”

  “A payoff? What the hell are you talking about?”

  “I know, I know,” Brixton said, “it sounds crazy but that’s what happened.” He explained how he’d been in touch with Eric Morrison regarding Senator Ronald Gillespie and the young girl he’d gotten pregnant back in Georgia, and how Morrison had called to arrange for them to meet. “Hey,” Brixton said, “I didn’t pick Gravelly Point, he did. I thought he’d be giving me evidence about the senator’s extracurricular activities. Instead he offers me twenty thousand bucks to get off his back.”

  “You took the money?” Borgeldt asked.

  “‘Took the money’? Hell no.”

  “There was no money at the scene.”

  “I’m sure there wasn’t. Whoever hit me on the back of the head must have taken it.”

  “You think that was his motive, robbery?”

  “No. He wasn’t some punk who just happened to be passing by at eleven o’clock in Gravelly Point. It had to be someone who knew we were meeting, and also knew that Morrison had twenty grand with him.”

  “You see who hit you?”

  “No. I didn’t completely black out when he hit me from behind, but he put me out for a minute or two. When I woke up there was one dead lobbyist. My weapon was lying on the ground minus two rounds.”

  Borgeldt let out an exasperated stream of air and pulled up a chair to the side of the gurney.

  “I know what you’re thinking, Zeke,” Brixton said. “Here we go again, another mess for you to deal with and I’m at the center of it.”

  “There was the senator’s son you killed after he and his female friend blew up the outdoor café a few years ago.”

  “And blew up my daughter in the bargain. I came out clean on that one, Zeke, and I’m clean on this one. Whoever did it grabbed my gun and used it to shoot Morrison, probably figuring that I’d take the rap. My gun. My bullets. Nice try, but it doesn’t wash.”

  “I believe you, Brixton,” said Borgeldt. “I just wish you lived and worked someplace else. You’re nothing but trouble.”

  “Tell that to the yahoos who make trouble for me, Zeke.”

  “The press is already gathering downstairs. A TV remote truck pulled up when I arrived. Morrison was hardly an anonymous shooting victim. He was a well-known lobbyist with powerful connections.”

  “He was a sleazebag, Zeke, but I didn’t want to see him dead. Somebody did, though, somebody who—”

  Flo Combes and Mackensie Smith walked in accompanied by a uniformed police officer who’d been screening visitors at the ER entrance. Flo immediately came to the gurney and kissed Brixton.

  “It’s okay, honey,” Brixton said. “
I’m fine.” He saw Mac and said, “Hey, what are you doing here?”

  “I called him,” Flo said.

  “Hell of a time at night to call somebody,” Brixton said.

  “Actually, I was awake,” Smith said. “I was engrossed in a novel when Flo called.” He shook hands with Borgeldt, with whom he’d been friends for years, and said, “Ms. Combes gave me a rundown of what happened tonight but I’m sure you have more details.”

  The superintendent gave Smith a fast recap of what had transpired. When he was finished, Smith said to Brixton,” Does that pretty much sum things up, Robert?”

  Brixton sat up and moaned. “Yeah,” he said. “That’s what happened.”

  Smith beckoned for Borgeldt to accompany him out of the patient bay.

  “What’s Robert’s legal status?” Smith asked as they stood alone in the hallway.

  “Right now he’s a material witness to the murder of Eric Morrison,” the detective replied. “I believe his story. Somebody knocked him out, took his gun, and shot Morrison. What I don’t get is the story about Morrison offering him twenty thousand dollars to end some sort of investigation he was undertaking involving Senator Gillespie.”

  “I know about that,” Smith said, “although the twenty-thousand-dollar bribe to Robert is news to me.”

  “Tell me what you know,” said Borgeldt.

  After receiving an assurance that their conversation would remain confidential, Smith recounted what he knew about the allegation that Gillespie had gotten an underage girl pregnant in Georgia, and that Morrison had financed her abortion. He also said that Morrison might also have been involved in an illegal act in Papua New Guinea in which a doctor who’d been researching a natural painkiller was murdered, and his research stolen. “And,” he ended with, “there seems to be an involvement of some sort by a group called Alard Associates.”

  Borgeldt didn’t respond except to say, “That’s a hell of a story.” But Smith sensed that his mention of Alard Associates had triggered an unstated response.

  “Robert’s been digging into that story for Will Sayers, the editor of the Savannah newspaper here in D.C.,” Smith said.