Read Murder in Foggy Bottom for Free Online Page A

had just come to life when Mullin was called on a radio channel linking the aircraft to NTSB headquarters.
    “Peter, there’s been a second accident.”
    “Where? Commercial? A jumbo?”
    “Boise. Another commuter flight.”
    Mullin set his jaw, turned, and told the others of the news, then got back on the radio: “What’s the status in Boise?”
    “Vague. Denver’s got a team ready to go.”
    “Good. Keep me posted.” To the pilot he said, “Let’s move!”
    They were given priority takeoff clearance ahead of a string of commercial jets and were airborne within minutes. They’d reached their cruise altitude when Mullin was again contacted on the NTSB reserved radio channel. “Peter, you’re not going to believe this but there’s been a third accident involving a commuter plane.”
    “You’re right, I don’t believe it. Where?”
    “San Jose. A Saab 34.”
    “Status?”
    “Unknown. The Gardena office is on it.”
    “Three,” Mullin grumbled.
    “What?”
    “I said
three,
goddamn it!”
    “Peter, there’s an eyewitness to the San Jose incident who’s come forward.”
    “Oh?”
    Mullin listened silently to what his assistant at headquarters said.
    “Tell Gardena to stash him away. We don’t need unsubstantiated stories like that getting out.”
    “It’s a woman.”
    “What the hell difference does that make? Stash
her
away.”
    “Okay, Peter.”
    “What’s up?” a team member seated behind Mullin asked after he’d ended the radio transmission.
    “Another commuter plane down, a Saab, San Jose.”
    There was silence in the aircraft. Someone broke it by saying, “Three? Can’t be a coincidence.”
    “No, it can’t be, especially if an eyewitness in California has twenty-twenty eyesight and isn’t too whacked out.”
    He used the same cleared frequency to reconnect with headquarters. “This is Mullin. I’m on my way to New York to investigate the downed plane there. Give me Poe.”
    Poe took the call and listened intently to what Mullin had to say. “Thank you, Peter,” he said, ending the conversation with his thumb on the cradle’s plunger, then dialed another number.
    “Federal Bureau of Investigation. How may I help you?”
    “This is NTSB Vice Chairman Poe. Put me through to the director’s office. It’s an emergency.”

5
    That Same Day
Washington, DC
     
    Potamos was in that indeterminate stage between sleep and wakefulness. He wondered what he was doing in a powdered wig, dancing in Austria. Roseann had taken Jumper for her morning walk and now sat at the piano in the living room struggling through Viennese waltzes to play at a cocktail party that evening at the Austrian embassy. Ordinarily, Potamos enjoyed hearing her play, but not when he was trying to sleep, and not waltzes by Strauss. Billy Joel, maybe.
    He’d been up late the night before, which wasn’t unusual. Potamos was a night person, which was fortunate considering that Roseann was a musician who usually worked at night. If he wasn’t out on an assignment, he stayed up late anyway watching old movies on TV, or indulging his recent passion of surfing the Internet, the small screen beginning to win out over the tube.
    This was a scheduled day off. Late yesterday, he’d filed a longer story on the body found in the park after gathering information about the deceased, digging into sources more giving than the cops. The murdered man’s name was Jeremy Wilcox, age forty-seven, attached to the Canadian embassy in its trade and commerce office. A diplomat. No suspects. Wilcox’s father had come from Toronto to claim the body but had been told it would have to remain in Washington until further forensic tests had been conducted. Jeremy Wilcox was single—forty-seven years old and never married. Gay? Not a very enlightened reaction, Potamos knew, but one that came to mind.
    Potamos himself had been married twice. Ungay and unhappy.
    Wife number one was Patty Kelly, an Irish Catholic (“Don’t tell me,”