Chapter Twenty-Five
Sam returned to the pit, where Gonzo watched as Patrol officers escorted Tiffany Thorn into interrogation.
“Can’t help but notice that a night in jail and the orange jumpsuit seem to have taken some of the starch out of her spine,” Gonzo said.
“Happens to the best of them,” Sam replied.
“And the worst. Charity Miller is in the observation room,” he said of the Assistant U.S. Attorney who’d prosecute the case against Tiffany. “I’m just waiting for Archie to bring me his report on text messages from her phone that he says I’m going to enjoy very much.”
“Here it is,” Archie said as he came into the pit with a printout he handed to Gonzo.
“I’ve highlighted the good parts where she talks to her Salvadoran gardener, Holman Aguilar, in very bad Spanish as she tries to convince him that her husband beat her and her son and needed to be dealt with.
You’ll also note she was banging the gardener on the side and promised to give him some rather salacious favors if he did this ‘one small thing’ for her. ”
Gonzo scanned the messages that added to the growing murder-for-hire case against Tiffany Thorn. “Wow, she promised him anal if he took care of her husband. ‘That’s something even he has never gotten,’ she told the gardener.”
“It gets better,” Archie said. “Wait until you get to the part where she promises to marry him and help him get his green card if he’ll only get her husband out of the way.”
“Wow, she sure did make it easy for us,” Gonzo said. “Thanks, Archie. This is awesome.”
“My pleasure. I took the liberty of providing a list of pings for his phone that put him at the Thorns’ at nine ten last night.
I figured you’d want his whereabouts today, and here’s that report.
The first ping is his home address in Northeast. The others are other homes in the Thorns’ neighborhood. ”
“Great work, Archie,” Sam said. “Thank you.”
“You got it. We’re still working on the expanded search for Pam Tappen’s route from her home last Friday,” he said as he headed for the stairs to his IT kingdom upstairs. “I’ll let you know if we find anything.”
“McBride.” Gonzo held up the page with the pings from Aguilar’s phone. “Can you and O’Brien pick up Holman Aguilar on suspicion of murder for hire?”
Jeannie took the page from him. “Sure thing. Let’s go, Matt.”
“Thanks.” Gonzo glanced at Sam. “You want to join me in there? After all, she accused you and Nick of murdering her husband when she knew all along who’d done it.”
“Nah, take Cam. I’ll watch from observation. You guys have got this locked and loaded.”
“She did all the heavy lifting for us.”
“Hey, Gonzo?” Sam said when he’d started to walk away.
“Yeah?”
“It’s so, so nice to have you back. We missed you more than you’ll ever know.”
“Thanks. It’s nice to feel more like my old self.” He rubbed at a spot on his chest. “Albeit with a great big hole right here that I’m learning to live with.”
A lump filled her throat whenever she thought of Detective Arnold and his violent death. “What do you want to do for the one-year anniversary?”
“I thought maybe we could all go out somewhere—not O’Leary’s,” Gonzo said, frowning. That place was dead to them after they’d learned the owner had been involved in the shooting of Sam’s dad. “We need a new place.”
“We could do it at my place so Nick can come,” she said with a sheepish grin. “The service is second to none.”
“That sounds perfect,” Gonzo said. “He would’ve been so stoked to see you guys living there.”
“Invite his parents, sisters and girlfriend, too, will you?”
“I’ll take care of it. Thanks, Sam.”
“You got it. Now go nail that bitch Tiffany Thorn to the wall.”
Gonzo walked into the interrogation room with Cam, ready to do battle with Tiffany and her scumbag lawyer.
Not all defense attorneys sank to the level of scumbags, but this one had that word stamped all over his cheap suit, greasy hair and sleazy smile.
He didn’t recognize the guy from the PD’s office.
“Who are you?”
He slid a business card across the table that Gonzo ignored. “Von Cressley.”
Cameron turned on the recorder and made note of everyone present in the room.
Gonzo forced her to look at him by staring her down. “Mrs. Thorn, you were brought in as a person of interest in your husband’s murder—”
“I didn’t do it! I told you! I was out with my friends when he was killed. Have you even asked them? They’ll tell you I was with them. There was no way I could’ve done it.”
Gonzo placed the financial records on the table that showed a twenty-five-thousand-dollar cash withdrawal from a joint account shared by Tiffany and Bryson Thorn the day before the man was killed.
“We have video footage putting Mrs. Thorn at the branch office and receiving the withdrawal in cash.”
Her expression registered shock for a moment before it switched back to outrage.
“Can you please tell us what you used that money for?” Gonzo asked.
Tiffany’s gaze darted toward the lawyer, who brought the document in for a closer look.
“You can answer that question,” the lawyer said.
Tiffany obviously didn’t want to, which gave Gonzo tremendous satisfaction.
“I, uh, used it on a down payment on a new car.”
“In cash?” he asked, hoping his expression conveyed skepticism.
“That’s what they requested.”
“At what dealership?”
“I don’t recall the name.”
“What brand?”
“Lexus.”
“What city or town?”
“Rockville.”
Without blinking as he stared at her, Gonzo said, “Detective Green, will you please check with the Lexus dealership in Rockville and find out if they accepted a twenty-five-thousand-dollar down payment from Mrs. Thorn the day before yesterday or yesterday? We’ll wait.
” He figured he’d let her hang herself even further before he showed his hand on the rest of what they knew.
Cameron stood and headed for the door. “Will do.”
Gonzo also stood. “We’ll be back when we confirm your story.”
“Wait!”
He turned, raising a brow in inquiry.
“You have to let me out of here. I have to take care of my son. He just lost his father. I need to be with him.”
“I’m afraid that’s not going to happen until we’re able to prove you had nothing to do with your husband’s murder.”
“I didn’t!”
“Great. Once we can prove that, you’ll be free to go. In the meantime, hang tight.”
Gonzo took great pleasure in leaving the room, certain they had their killer—or at least the person who’d arranged the killing.
“Do you want to bet there’s no Lexus?” Sam asked when she emerged from the observation room with Charity Miller.
“I’ll take that bet and raise you a Mercedes-Benz,” Charity said.
“Is it wrong for us to be so giddy about nailing a murdering scumbag?” Gonzo asked.
“We have to get our jollies where we can on this job,” Sam said, “although I feel a little bit responsible for Bryson Thorn’s death. If we hadn’t made a federal case out of him releasing those photos, he’d still be alive.”
“You’re not the one who killed him, Lieutenant,” Gonzo said. “This is on her—and her gardener.”
Green joined them two minutes later. “Shocker that the dealership has no record of anyone by the name of Thorn putting a cash down payment on a Lexus this week.”
“Somehow I knew you were going to say that.” Gonzo felt almost gleeful to have further proof that Tiffany Thorn was a lying sack of shit. “Let’s go back in and see what other bullshit she’s got for us.”
When they burst back into the room, Tiffany startled, which gave Gonzo additional pleasure. He was having way too much fun with this one.
“The Lexis dealership confirms they have no record of you or your twenty-five grand this week.”
“That’s outrageous! I’ll never do business with them again!”
“You can sit there and lie to us all day, and we’ll take the time to debunk every single lie before we get to the truth of how you hired your gardener to murder your husband because you were infuriated that he’d ruined your chance to ever be invited to the White House.”
Her expression went completely blank with shock.
Bull’s-eye.
“I… That… That’s not what happened.”
“Isn’t it? When did you find out that your husband was the one who leaked the photos of the president at the birthday party? Was it when cops came to see him, or was it when the president and first lady slapped a lawsuit on him?”
Tiffany crossed her arms and gave him a bullish look, but he noticed her entire body was trembling, as if she’d been plugged into a wall socket. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Sure, you don’t. It must’ve made you really mad that your husband was the one to violate the NDA. Were the other mommies pissed at you for maybe ruining their chances of being invited to the White House for the twins’ party next year?”
Her mouth flopped open, but nothing came out.
Sometimes this horrible job was awfully fun.
Gonzo shuffled through the pages of text messages that Archie had provided.
“Your gardener, Holman, must’ve been excited when you offered him anal if he killed your husband.
What was he more excited about? That, the money or the green-card marriage you promised him? ”
Tiffany’s eyes bugged. “That’s revolting. I’ve never done that.”
“I know. You said as much to Holman, promising him a prize that not even your husband had gotten. So which was he more excited about? The twenty-five large or the anal?”
“You’re vile.”
“At least I’m not a murderer.”
“I never laid a hand on my husband,” she said, her voice much less venomous than it had been before it became obvious to her that she was totally screwed, glued and tattooed, as the lieutenant would say.
“No, but you hired Holman to take care of him for you. He’s on his way in. I’m sure he’ll be happy to tell us how it all went down to keep from spending the rest of his life in prison.”
“My client would like a deal,” the useless lawyer said.
Gonzo leaned in, waited until he was certain he had their attention and said, “No deal.”