Chapter Twenty-Nine
Sam stared at him. “You’re going to sit here, look me in the eye and tell me the president’s son hired you to torture information out of my ex-husband that could be used against my current husband?”
“Nah,” Fields said. “That ain’t what he hired me to do. Sorta ended up that way. Your boy Peter wouldn’t give it up without a fight.”
“What specifically did Nelson hire you to do?”
“He wanted me to become friends with him and find out anything he could about you and your husband. But Peter didn’t want to talk about you.
He said that was over and he’d moved on.
Christopher didn’t like that. After a coupla weeks of Peter stonewalling me, Christopher said I had to get the info anyway I could, or I wouldn’t get my money. So that’s when shit got real.”
Sam’s stomach lurched at the thought of what Peter had endured and how he’d tried to protect her at his own expense. She hid her emotional reaction from Fields, his lawyer and Gonzo by taking copious notes.
“How did you meet Christopher Nelson?”
“One of his people approached me at a bar I hang out in. Said he had a business opportunity for me. Seemed easy enough. Hang out with the guy and get info about his ex-wife and her husband the vice president.”
“You said one of his people approached you. Who was that?”
“A guy named Stan. I don’t know his last name.”
“Did he tell you who he represented?”
“Not at first. He only said his client was looking for information and asked if I might be willing to help out for ten grand to make friends with him and ten more if I got info they could use. I need the money, so I jumped on it. I mean there ain’t nothing criminal about taking money to be friends with someone. ”
There was so much Sam could say to that, but she held her silence so he’d keep talking.
“When did you find out who Stan worked for?”
“About three weeks later when the boss man was getting fed up with how long it was taking. They had me come to a hotel room at the W. Fancy-ass place, and when I walked in there, this other guy Christopher was there. He got in my face about me having to pay back the money they’d already given me if I didn’t get some results—and soon.
He wanted something—anything he could use against you and the vice president. ”
“Did he say why?”
“Not to me, and I didn’t care about the why of it. I wanted the full twenty K.”
“Did you know who he was?”
“Not at first.”
“When did you figure it out?”
“Stan clued me in, and that’s when I started to get scared of what was gonna happen to me if I didn’t get what he wanted.”
“Whose idea was it to torture the info out of Peter and have him do an interview with the media?” Sam asked.
“Stan suggested I might want to get physical with him, and one thing led to another.” A look of genuine remorse crossed his face.
“I never expected it to go as far as it did, though. I thought he’d give it up easy because he had nothing nice to say about you.
But he refused to give us anything we could use against you. ”
“Was anyone else there with you while you were with Peter?”
“No, but Stan was on the phone. A lot.”
“How long did you ‘get physical’ with Peter?”
“Two days.”
A surge of bile burned her throat, but she choked it back, determined to get through this and close the case. She couldn’t even begin to imagine the implications for Nick, the Nelson administration or the country. Not yet. Not until she’d gotten justice for Peter.
“That’s how long it took for him to tell me you ain’t got no humility.
You hated him and wouldn’t care if he talked about you.
I got him to tell me about miscarriages you had when you were married and how you banged your coworker Archelotta.
Then he passed out, and I figured I wasn’t gonna get anything else from him.
I told Stan what he’d said, and he said it was enough for what they needed.
I don’t know nothing about no interview. ”
Realizing Stan, not Peter, had fed the interview fodder to Buzz, Sam said, “When did you realize you were going to have to kill him?”
He looked at her as if she were crazy. “I couldn’t walk away and leave him to tell the cops who roughed him up.”
She looked over at Gonzo, who was leaning against the far wall. “Find Christopher Nelson.”
“I can tell you where he is,” Fields said. “He’s got a fancy office in Georgetown. Runs one of those political think tanks or something. Whatever that is.”
Sam nodded to Gonzo, and he left the room. “You’re going to have to testify to all of this.”
“There’s no way I can do that. I figured you’d get that after I told you what I know.”
She sighed with exasperation. “Then there isn’t a deal.”
“How’s that fair? I gave you what you wanted!”
“And I can’t do jack shit with it if you aren’t willing to testify.”
For the first time, Fields began to look truly frightened. The glare was gone and the reality had sunk in. “They’ll kill me before they’ll let me testify.”
“We’ll put you into protective custody until the trial.”
Fields closed his eyes and dropped his head into his hands. “I’m already in enough trouble. I wanted the money to take care of my family if I ended up in jail on the other charges. I didn’t want none of this.”
“Did you ever get any sense that the president himself was involved?”
“Nah.” Fields lifted his head. “They never said nothing about him.”
Sam knew that didn’t mean the president hadn’t been pulling the strings behind the scenes.
In the scope of ten seconds her mind wandered through all the various scenarios, up to and including Nelson having to resign in the wake of what was sure to be the biggest scandal to rock Washington since they’d uncovered a prostitution ring last year.
That had brought down the speaker of the House of Representatives and a senior senator, among others.
This would be even bigger, and if Nelson had to resign…
Oh dear God. She couldn’t even begin to go there.
“I’m going to write this up, and then you’re going to review it and sign it, asserting that everything you’ve told us here is true. If I find out you lied about any of it, there’re no deals, and the murder one rap and the life sentence that goes with it is back on the table. Are we clear?”
“Yeah. We clear.” His once-cocky tone was now resigned as he began to fully understand the bind he was in.
So now she knew who’d killed Peter and who’d hired him to do it. What she still didn’t know was exactly what they were hoping to accomplish. She left the interrogation room and found Gonzo returning from the pit.
“Does Nelson work for his father in any official capacity?”
“I did a search on him. He’s a special adviser.”
“Which means he probably has a security clearance, which means his prints are on file. I want to check those prints against the letter that was sent to Nick’s office.”
“You think he’d be that stupid?”
“He never thought for one second this was going to lead back to a member of the president’s family.”
“I’ve got the address of his office,” he said.
“Let’s go.”
“Wait a minute, Lieutenant,” Chief Farnsworth said as he approached the gathering with Avery Hill in tow. “I understand that your suspect has given up Christopher Nelson as the mastermind.”
“That’s correct.”
“And it’s true that Nelson’s motive, or what we know of it at this time, was gathering information from your ex-husband that could be used to discredit you and your current husband?”
“Also correct.”
“You’re off the case,” Farnsworth said. “We’re turning this over to the FBI to bring in Nelson and his henchman.”
“Wait—”
“No, I’ll not wait,” Farnsworth said. “I gave you the latitude to investigate your ex-husband’s murder. That latitude ends right here.”
Sam looked at Hill, who seemed to go out of his way to avoid making eye contact with her. “I’d like to observe when you talk to him.”
“That can be arranged,” Hill said. “We’ll bring him in right away and notify you when we’re going to talk to him.”
Sam knew that was the best she could hope for. “Okay. Don’t fuck it up.”
“I’ll do my best not to,” Hill said, his honeyed Southern accent tinged with sarcasm.
Sam filled him in on the need to check Nelson’s prints against the letter.
“I’ll have our lab get on that.” He headed out, and Sam watched him go, champing at the bit to go with him. But her chief had spoken. He so rarely pulled rank on her that when he did, she tried to do as she was told, but it wasn’t easy.
“I understand you need medical attention, Lieutenant,” Farnsworth said. “Detective Cruz will drive you to the ER and stay with you while you’re evaluated.” He gestured to Freddie.
Sam glared at her rat-fink partner, who seemed totally unaffected by her ire.
“Let’s go,” Freddie said.
“I quit as your best-man woman,” she hissed as they made their way—slowly and painfully—to the morgue entrance.
“I don’t accept your resignation.”
“I can’t believe you. With all I do for you, this is the thanks I get?”
“I’m soooo sorry for caring about you. I’m an awful, terrible person.”
“Well, at least you know you’re awful and terrible.”
His laughter only further irritated her. They met up with Gonzo in the hallway.
“Get me something that connects Nick’s mother to Nelson or his henchman.”
“I’m on it,” Gonzo said. “Good luck at the hospital.”
Sam gave Freddie the silent treatment on the ride to the GW emergency department, where she was a frequent flier.
“I was beginning to think you didn’t love us anymore, Lieutenant,” Dr. Anderson said when he came into the room where she’d been taken after they sent her for X-rays.
If there was one benefit to being second lady—and a regular—they didn’t make her sit for hours in the waiting room.
They brought her right back to a room, which saved her from being gawked at and even photographed by people who recognized her.
And yes, that’d happened a few times in doctors’ offices.
“So nice to see you, Doc.”
“What’d you do this time?”