Chapter Twenty-Four
“What do I do?” Sam tried not to panic over the demise of her beloved flip phone.
“Get a new phone?”
“I don’t want a new phone. I want this phone. I bet they can fix it.”
“Um…”
She could tell he was trying not to laugh. If he laughed, she’d stab him. “When am I going to deal with this?”
“After we talk to Finley?”
“This isn’t funny.”
“I’m not laughing.”
“You are, too! I can hear it trying to come out of you.”
“You’re insane.”
“And this is news to you? Text Nick and tell him my phone broke and if he needs me, to text you.”
“Anything else I can do for you, madame?”
“Just that and hurry up about it.” Being without her phone only added to the edgy, anxious feeling she’d been contending with all day.
The kids’ schools had Nick’s number and Shelby’s, so there was no chance of them being left sick or stranded or anything else, but being out of touch made her feel a little crazier than usual.
And then it occurred to her—the number one reason why she’d needed to be reachable at all times was gone now that her dad had passed away.
They’d lived in restless uncertainty for four long years after his near-fatal injury, always waiting for the next disaster to strike.
It was, she realized, a relief to no longer have to fear the endgame for him.
She no sooner had that thought than she felt guilty for being relieved that he was gone.
It wasn’t that so much as she was glad his dreadful injury was out of her life.
This grief business was complicated. The next time she saw Dr. Trulo, she’d ask him about the dueling emotions of relief and sorrow.
Two blocks from the offices of DailyPolitic, Sam found a parking space and parallel parked.
“You’re very good at that,” Freddie said.
“Skip wouldn’t let us drive away in a car of his until we could parallel park.” She hadn’t thought of that in a long time. “We thought he was so mean making us learn that until we figured out how much we would need it living here.”
“He was a smart man in more ways than one.”
“Yeah.” It would take a lifetime to fully catalog all the lessons he’d taught her and how almost all of them played into her daily life.
“Nick texted back and said he hopes you can get another flip phone, and if you can’t he’s moving out.” Freddie lost it laughing. “And I’m asking for a reassignment.”
“You two have your laughs. I will get another flip phone, and I will be slapping it shut with satisfaction before the end of the day.”
“God, I hope so.”
“What’d you find out about Finley?”
“He’s a graduate of the Columbia School of Journalism and worked for most of his career as a DC-based reporter for the New York Times.
He left the Times four years ago and started DailyPolitic three years ago.
The site made its mark during the last presidential campaign and has been growing in influence and revenue ever since.
I found an article that had it listed as one of the top five political news sites of the last year.
He’s married with two kids in college and lives in Potomac. ”
“Good work.” The info painted a picture of a man who’d had a successful career in journalism that he’d parlayed into a new business that had found its niche during the campaign.
They got out of the car and walked toward their destination, heads down against the bracing chill.
“I hate the cold.”
“Ugh, me, too. Sucks.”
The crappy weather made everything harder than it was the rest of the year, not to mention the DC area was paralyzed by the slightest bit of snow or ice. They approached the information desk, where a receptionist asked where they were heading.
“DailyPolitic,” Sam said after showing her badge.
The woman handed them visitor passes. “Third floor.”
“Thank you. And may I say how much I appreciate your quick cooperation.”
“No problem, Mrs. Cappuano.”
Normally, Sam would correct her and say she was Lieutenant Holland on the job, but due to the woman’s outstanding cooperation, she let it slide.
“Maybe we can hire her to do a training for all city receptionists on the proper way to greet and handle cops when they show up at your place of business.”
“That’s an excellent idea.”
“Get on that, will you?”
“No, I won’t, but it’s nice to dream.”
“I could make you.”
“But you won’t.”
Sam bit her lip so she wouldn’t laugh. The last thing she ever wanted to do was encourage his insubordination. They strolled through glass double doors into the DailyPolitic offices, where they were met by a receptionist.
Sam showed her badge. “Lieutenant Holland, Detective Cruz, MPD. We’d like to see Mr. Finley, please.”
“He’s in a meeting. Could you leave your number so he can give you a call?”
Sam glanced at Freddie, who made a visible effort not to laugh as she leaned an elbow on the reception counter.
“Let me tell you how this is going to work.” She leaned in closer to the woman’s workstation.
“Debbie. You’re going to go tell Mr. Finley there’re cops here to see him.
And then you’re going to come back, get us and take us to him.
Or, we can go back there, find him, take him into custody and have this conversation at our place. Are we clear on how this is gonna go?”
“Y-yes. I’ll…” She got up and her chair toppled over. “I’ll be right back.”
The falling chair gave Sam tremendous satisfaction. “Excellent. Thank you.”
Debbie took off toward the back part of the office.
“Mean and scary,” Freddie muttered.
“Sign her up for the receptionist cooperation workshop.”
“I’ll get right on that.”
They waited five full minutes, which stretched the outer limit of Sam’s patience.
She was about to go back there and find the guy herself when Debbie returned with a man in his fifties, who looked seriously irked.
He was tall and handsome, with silvery hair and sharp eyes that looked at her with disdain that immediately put her on alert.
“What’s this about?” he asked.
“Are we doing this here or in the privacy of your office?”
He didn’t like that.
Ask her if she cared.
“Come on back.”
Sam and Freddie followed him past the wide-eyed Debbie to his office in the far corner at the end of a long corridor of cubicles. The people they needed to see usually occupied the corner offices, the place of importance in any company.
Freddie shut the door.
“What do you want?”
“Why so hostile, Mr. Finley?”
“You come into my place of business, intimidate my employee and demand to see me when I’m in a very important meeting and then you ask me why I’m hostile?”
“In my experience, people who have nothing to hide are often cooperative when we ask for their assistance in a Homicide investigation.”
That took some of the starch out of his dress shirt. “What in the world would I have to do with a Homicide investigation?”
“Your site broke the story of Tara Weber’s affair with the president.”
“So?”
“We’d like to know where that story came from.”
“I can’t tell you that. If I reveal my sources, I won’t have any sources, and without them, I have no business.”
“I understand the position you are in, Mr. Finley—”
“Do you really? Do you understand that if I tell you where that story came from, it’ll put me out of business? That all the people I employ will be out of jobs?”
“Did you know Tara Weber?”
“I’ve met her.” As he said the words, he shifted his weight from his right leg to the left and crossed his arms.
The defensive pose, coupled with the shifting movement, put her on alert. She’d learned to pay attention to body language. “Where and how did you meet her?”
“I met her while I was covering the Nelson campaign.”
“What, specifically, was your interaction with her?”
“I interviewed her a number of times about the polling data and research she was overseeing for the campaign.”
“Were your interactions with her strictly professional?”
His posture went rigid. “What does that mean?”
“It means I want to know if you had a personal relationship with her in addition to the professional one.”
“We were friendly if that’s what you mean. The campaign is a grind. We might’ve had a drink together once or twice, usually in a group with others.”
“Mr. Finley, I’m sure you understand that our goal is to figure out who killed Tara Weber.
We aren’t here to bust your balls or ruin your business.
So if there’s anything more that you need to tell us about your relationship with her, now is the time.
If we find out later that you held out on us in any way, that could go bad for you. ”
For the longest time, he didn’t move or speak or even seem to breathe. “We had a one-night stand after the inauguration. It was the only time I’ve ever been unfaithful to my wife. I’m not proud of it, but it happened and it was only once.”
“And when did this occur?”
“You want like a date?”
“That’d help.”
He went to his desk and fired up his laptop, making a show out of figuring out when it happened.
Sam would bet everything she had that he knew exactly when it had happened, but she let him play it out his way.
“February 2.”
Sam glanced at Freddie, whose brows went up. “It’s possible that you’re the father of her child.”
He came back around the desk to face off with them. “What?”
“I understand that this might come as a shock to you, but—”
“That’s not possible. She was on birth control. She told me she couldn’t get pregnant.”
“I’m sorry to say she may have misled you. We have targeted the week of January 31 to February 6 as the dates during which she likely became pregnant. We’re going to need your DNA, sir.”
“No way. You’re not going to pin this on me. It was one night. A moment of madness that was over before it began. There’s no way that baby is mine.”
Sam held her tongue, letting him get it all out and waiting for him to realize that what she had told him was the truth.
He sat back against the edge of his desk, his shoulders slumping. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“I know this comes as a shock to you—”
His head shot up, his eyes flashing with rage. “This is going to ruin me. My wife… She’s the best. She doesn’t deserve this.”
There was so much Sam could say to that, but hopefully he’d figure out—eventually—that he was the one who’d ruined his marriage, not Tara and not Sam. Him. People were always looking for someone else to blame for their fuckups.
“Are we going to need a warrant for your DNA?”
He ran a trembling hand over his mouth. After a long, charged moment, he shook his head.
“I’ll have someone come by shortly to take the sample. Make sure your receptionist lets them right in and they receive your full cooperation. We don’t appreciate people who waste our time.”
“I understand.”
“I’m going to ask you one more time to tell me how you got the story of Tara’s affair with the president.”
She expected him to fight back, the way he had before. But it seemed the fight had gone out of him after he learned he could be the father of her child.
“She told me.”
Sam found it interesting that Tara had believed Nelson was the father, even though she knew it was possible the father could be someone else. “So you kept in touch with her after your one-night stand?”
He grimaced at the term. “Not regularly. I saw her a couple of times and about two weeks ago, she contacted me, asking if I wanted the scoop of the century. Of course I said I did. And when she told me about her affair with Nelson, I couldn’t believe what I was hearing at first. But she had details that gave her story credibility. ”
“Such as?”
“She told me his wife had been going through cancer treatment during the campaign, and he had turned to her for support, but that part was off the record. One thing had led to another… In speaking with some of the other campaign staffers, I ascertained that there had been concern about the president’s seemingly cozy relationship with Tara.
That was enough for me to verify that her story was accurate.
We went with it.” Once again he rubbed his face with a shaking hand.
“It never once occurred to me that the baby she tried to pass off as his could be mine.” His gaze connected with Sam’s. “How can you be sure it’s not his?”
“We have documentation to prove he had the vasectomy.”
Finley sagged into himself. “I can’t believe this is happening.
I swear to God, I’ve never done anything like this in the thirty years I’ve been married.
There was something about her…” He shook his head.
“If you’d met her, you’d know what I mean.
She was dynamic and beautiful and smart.
So fucking smart. Everyone wanted to be around her, and I was no different.
Once you met Tara, you never forgot her. ”
It was plainly obvious that he’d developed tender feelings for Tara, despite his claims that theirs was a one-night affair.
“Is there any chance the baby isn’t mine?”
“Yes.”
He brightened considerably at that news. “Really?”
“We’ll know more after we have a chance to run the DNA.”
“And you’ll let me know? As soon as you do?”
“I will.”
“Is this going to make the news? That I slept with her?”
“Not unless it turns out to be relevant to our investigation.”
“It won’t be relevant. I would’ve had no reason to kill her. The last thing in the world I’d ever want to do is draw attention to what was a onetime indiscretion.”
Sam handed him her notebook and a pen. “Please write down your contact info.”
He did as she directed and handed both items back to her.
“Stay available.”
“What does that mean?”
“Just what I said. If we need more information from you, we’ll expect you to take our calls.”
“Of course. I will.”
“And Mr. Finley? I can’t promise we’ll be able to keep a lid on this. It might be a good idea to tell your wife what happened.”