Name Withheld : A J.p. Beaumont Mystery (9780061760907) by Judith A. Jance Page B

None of this secondhand crap.”
    â€œSure thing,” I said. “I’ll get on it right away.”
    I pushed the down button. When the elevator came, Jack Braman was inside and running the controls with a key. “That way, I can keep track of who comes and goes,” he told me apologetically. “There’s a whole bunch of reporters downstairs. I was afraid some of them would sneakinto the garage and then go on upstairs without anyone knowing.”
    â€œGood thinking,” I told him.
    He stood there looking at me. The elevator key was in the lock, but since he hadn’t pushed any buttons as yet, we still weren’t moving.
    â€œIs something wrong?” I asked.
    He shrugged. “I was just wondering if…well, you know…”
    â€œKnow what?”
    â€œWho it is? The person who’s dead, I mean?”
    â€œWe don’t know for sure. It may be his wife. We’re checking.”
    â€œThat would sure be better for me,” he said.
    His comment mystified me. “Better for you? What would?”
    â€œIf it turned out to be his wife,” Braman replied. The elevator stopped, but he switched off the key, and the door didn’t open. “Husbands and wives knock each other off all the time,” he said. “That kind of thing happens. But if a hooker or even just a girlfriend were to turn up dead in the building, people might think I wasn’t doing such a good job of managing the building. You understand that, don’t you?”
    â€œYou’re telling me that from a PR standpoint, it’s more respectable for the building and better for your job performance if the victim turns out to be a resident’s wife instead of a girlfriend or a prostitute?”
    Braman nodded. “Don’t you think so?” he asked, turning the key and opening the door.
    â€œActually,” I told him, “I’ve never given the matter a whole lot of thought.”
    Just as Braman had warned me, a miniconvocation of local representatives of the Fourth Estate was taking place in the entry courtyard of the Lake View Condominiums. Phil Grimes, the guy who’d been tapped to replace Ron Peters in Media Relations, was standing in the middle of the crowd and being bombarded by the roving pack of reporters. It seemed obvious to me that since he’d just arrived on the scene, he probably wouldn’t have much of anything to report. That didn’t keep the newsies from peppering him with questions.
    Using Grimes as a diversion, I headed for my car. I was almost there and thinking I had made a clean getaway when I heard someone calling me. “Detective Beaumont.”
    I stopped and looked back. Behind me, missing her cameraman, was the same television reporter I’d encountered twice the previous day, both at Pier 70 and out in front of Belltown Terrace during the soapsuds debacle. High heels clicking on the cement, she came hurrying after me. She was surprisingly old for a female television reporter—forty at least—but her makeup and clothing certainly made the most of what was there.
    â€œMaribeth George,” she said, holding out her hand. “Could I talk to you for a minute?”
    Knowing who she was and what she did, I didn’t exactly fall all over myself in my eagerness for a private chat. Years of being a cop have bredin me an instinctive distrust for the media—any kind of media. Even good-looking women in nice clothing. Maybe especially good-looking women.
    â€œMiss George,” I said coolly. “No doubt you’ve been in the news game long enough to know that detectives aren’t supposed to talk to reporters.”
    My rebuff didn’t seem to faze her. “Not even off the record?” she asked. “I left Stan and his camera over there,” she added, jerking her head back toward the noisy group of reporters still eddying around Phil Grimes. “It’s just the two of us. No recording