Chapter Thirty-One
With Chief Farnsworth, Avery Hill and AUSA Hope Dodson observing from the next room, Sam and Malone stepped into the interrogation room where Courtney Hamilton sat at the table with an older man with gray hair.
He was the picture of a distinguished esquire, right down to the aura of self-importance he projected—and that was before he opened his mouth and confirmed that he was a pompous ass.
“Mrs. Hamilton has agreed to speak willingly, and we fully expect that her cooperation will be taken into consideration.”
“That, of course, depends on what she wants to talk about,” Sam said with a big, friendly smile that resulted in a nasty scowl from his royal highness. “And I didn’t catch your name.”
“It’s John Tillinghast Esquire.” He put a business card in front of her and another in front of Malone. They ignored the cards.
“Any relation to Brad Tillinghast? Lobbyist who got into a little scrape with the law last year.”
“He’s my nephew,” John said tightly, as if he’d tasted something rancid. “And as you well know, he was never charged with anything.”
“Cavorting with prostitutes and ‘appetites’ his wife found offensive,” Sam said with a cluck of disapproval that made John’s face turn bright red. “That was some nasty business. Is he still married?”
“How is that relevant to the business before us?”
“Oh,” Sam said, full of innocence, “I thought we were still in the get-to-know you stage of the interview. My apologies. Please proceed.”
“I see your reputation is well earned,” he said in a low growl.
“That’s so nice of you to say.”
Malone coughed to cover a laugh, and Sam decided this was going to be a very good day.
“My client would like to cooperate in your investigation.”
Sam leaned in, elbows on the table, rapt attention. “In what way?”
“She has information about Dustin Jacoby that she believes will be relevant and helpful.”
“We’re listening.”
“First, we’d like to know what accommodations will be made to protect her.”
“From what?” Sam asked, genuinely baffled.
“Prosecution, for one thing.”
“Has she committed any crimes?”
“Her actions would probably put her firmly in the area of accessory.”
“To murder? To kidnapping? Or the always popular option C, all of the above?”
“Both,” he said, scowling again. “But without her, you’ll never get Jacoby on either of those things.”
“Like I said, we’re listening.”
“Like I said, what’re you offering?”
“Depends on what she has to say.”
“I don’t operate that way. I want guarantees.”
“You said my reputation precedes me, but apparently you haven’t heard that I don’t give guarantees.
Now, either your client has something useful to tell us for which we may or may not recommend leniency when it comes to charges, or you’re wasting our time.
And if you’re wasting our time, that’s not going to help anything because we’ve got a lot to do today. ”
The lawyer seemed frozen with indecision.
Sam stood, prepared to walk away if he couldn’t move his fat ass and get this show on the road.
“Wait,” Courtney said. The single word sounded torn from her soul. “I’ll tell you what you want to know. I’ll tell you everything.”
“Courtney—”
“Shut up, John. I’m all done keeping secrets. It’s gone on long enough.”
Here we go, Sam thought as she returned to her seat. She pressed the record button on the device on the table. “This interview is being recorded as part of the Hamilton investigation.” She listed the time and date and who was present in the room. “Mrs. Hamilton?”
“Troy met Dustin in law school at Northwestern in Chicago,” she began in a soft tone, her gaze fixed on the observation window behind Sam.
“They were closer than brothers. The night I met Troy, I also met Dustin. We were at a summer home on Long Island that belonged to the parents of one of their law school friends. I’d been invited by friends of mine from home who were renting a house in the Hamptons for the summer.
Troy and I hit it off immediately that night.
We had a lot in common. We both came from high-profile families and were often burdened by the weight of their expectations.
Dustin, he was a different story. He’d been raised by a single mother in the projects in Chicago and had gone to Northwestern, undergrad and law school, on scholarships.
” She took a sip from her glass of water.
“I’m not sure how long Troy and I dated before I realized if I got one, I also got the other. ”
“How do you mean?”
“I rarely had dinner alone with him, for example. Dustin was always there.”
“Did they live together?”
She nodded. “But it was more than that.”
“Were they lovers?”
She hesitated before she nodded again. “But I didn’t know that until after Troy and I were married.”
“I’m afraid I don’t understand,” Sam said, legitimately baffled.
“I didn’t either,” Courtney said.
John handed her his monogrammed handkerchief, and Courtney accepted it with a grateful grimace that might’ve been a smile under other circumstances. She dabbed at her eyes. “I caught them. In our bed.”
Sam tried to imagine… No. Just no. “How long had you been married?”
“About two months.”
“Troy was mortified, but Dustin… He said better to get the truth out in the open now rather than dragging it out indefinitely.”
“And what was the truth?”
She swallowed and gripped the handkerchief in her closed fist. “They were in love and they wanted to spend their lives together.”
“So why did he marry you?”
“Because they couldn’t spend their lives together and have the careers they wanted, too. Not back then. No, they decided because Troy was the better connected of the two that he needed a wife and a family. The deal was that Troy would bring Dustin along with him.”
“You were duped.”
“Yes, but the kicker was, Troy said he loved me, too. He said everything he’d ever said to me was true.”
“He loved you both.”
“Yes, but that wasn’t all.”
Sam was literally on the edge of her seat waiting to hear the rest.
“They… they wanted our relationship to include all of us.”
“You wanna run that by me one more time?”
“Our marriage was, for many years, a ménage.”
Sam had heard a lot of crazy shit on this job, but this was by far the craziest thing she’d ever heard.
The FBI director—and his deputy—had been part of a ménage à trois marriage?
Judging by John’s expression, this was shocking news to him as well.
“Did that mean you were… intimate… with both of them?”
“Yes,” she said, her face flushing with what might’ve been embarrassment or maybe it was shame. Sam couldn’t tell. “And they were with each other, too.”
“Your children?”
“Were Troy’s. They look like him. There was never any doubt about who their father was.”
“But it was possible it could’ve been either of them?”
“Yes,” she said softly.
“How did you get away with this among your family and friends?” Sam asked, fascinated more than anything.
“Most of the time we were together, we lived away from our closest friends and family.”
“What happened in Knoxville?”
Courtney continued to knead the poor handkerchief, making a mess of the fine linen. “Dustin and I… we became exceptionally close during those years. Troy was on the rise and was often called to Washington, sometimes for as long a month at a time. Dustin… He was there for me, you know?”
Sam didn’t get it. She didn’t get how any woman handled two men, when she more than had her hands full with one.
“We… Troy, he came home early from a trip, and he… He caught us together.”
“That wasn’t allowed?”
She shook her head. “The agreement we had was that I was only supposed to be with Dustin when Troy was there, too. He was so angry and so hurt. He felt like we’d both betrayed him. He ended it with both of us and sent me and the children home to Virginia.”
“Did he know you were pregnant?”
She shook her head. “Not at first. But a month or so after we left, he came to see the kids, and I couldn’t hide it anymore.”
“And the baby was Dustin’s?”
Courtney dabbed at her eyes with the handkerchief. “Things between Troy and I had been tense for a while. I had only been with Dustin. The baby was his.”
“Did Dustin know?”
“Yes,” she said with a small smile. “He was so excited to have a child of his own.”
“What happened?”
“I… I miscarried at six months, which was utterly devastating.”
Sam ached at the thought of going so far in a pregnancy only to end up empty-handed at the end. Except that’s not what happened to Courtney.
“Dustin was beside himself. He came unglued. I’d never seen him like that.”
“Like what?”
“Out of his mind with grief and rage at the hand he’d been dealt.
He was in love with me and with Troy, and Troy was trying to get him out of our lives, going so far as to try to have him fired from the bureau.
It was a nightmare.” She dropped her head into her hands.
“We were wrong to ever think an arrangement like what we had with him could work long-term, but we’d never had any reason to believe he was mentally unstable until he turned up at my mother’s house with a baby he said he’d adopted to replace the one we’d lost.”
“Holy…” Sam realized she’d said the word out loud.
“He told me the baby had been born to their receptionist in Knoxville, and when she couldn’t afford to keep it, he’d offered to take the baby.” She wiped her eyes and dabbed at her nose. “He said it would be like our baby had never died.”
“Did you tell Troy?”
“I did, and he realized right away that the baby had been taken from a family in Tennessee.”
“And he told you that?”