Chapter 16
SIXTEEN
Sandra was still spinning from Officer Moore’s update. Timothy Hanson being Ryan Crawford’s biological father gave Sandra something to work with the next time she called Ryan. Something she planned to do as soon as Gibson wrapped up the call he was on. Before that happened, Neal’s phone rang.
“It’s Detective Birch,” Neal told everyone.
Sandra understood why Eric hadn’t called her directly. He couldn’t be sure if she was on with the hostage taker or not.
Neal answered, telling Eric, “You’ve got the team.”
“Good, because this is something all of you need to hear.” He told them about all the missing documentation and photos and ended with the fact Susan’s car went straight to an auto wreckers to be destroyed.
He summed up with, “As much as I hate to say this, I think there was a cover-up. Susan Crawford’s accident was orchestrated. ”
“And you realize just by saying that you’re throwing your fellow officers under the bus?” Kreiger tossed back.
Hence Eric’s precursor… The thought fired through Sandra’s head, but Eric didn’t need her fighting his battles.
“I do, and trust me, I wouldn’t say it if I felt there was another explanation,” Eric replied.
“We have news too,” she cut in, wanting to prevent Kreiger from unleashing a tirade and shared what they’d learned from Moore.
“Wow. I never saw that coming. So what are we thinking now? That Timothy ordered a hit on them to wipe out any chance of the affair coming to light?”
“That’s the working theory,” Sandra said. “It’s just the timing that has us stumped.”
“I’m sure you’ll figure it out. But if there’s not anything else for me, I need to get back to things.”
“Sounds good, Detective Birch. Keep us posted.” Neal ended the call and pocketed his phone.
Sandra noted how melancholy Eric had sounded. Also that he needed to get back to things. He was as true blue as they came. Thinking negative things about his fellow officers would be eating away at him.
Gibson spun around. “Okay, so I just finished talking with human resources over at Hanson Property. Susan Crawford quit, no reason given in the file. I can tell you that while she was with Hanson Property, she was Timothy’s personal secretary.”
“So they worked closely together. Plenty of opportunity for a romantic relationship to develop between them,” Monica said.
“Where did she go after Hanson? Did she get a better paying job?” Sandra considered checking for herself, but Gibson was finished before she got her fingers over the keyboard of her laptop.
“She started a job a few weeks later, but soon after held three jobs simultaneously. It looks like they were all at restaurants.”
Sandra glanced at Neal. The glint in his eyes seemed to reflect her thoughts. Who gives up a full-time secretarial job without having other employment lined up? Especially when the timing suggests that Susan may have known she was pregnant.
“Tell me you have the names of the other secretaries,” Neal said to Gibson.
“Susan was one of four working for top-floor management. The others were Heather Wainscott, Beatrice Sullivan, and Hilda Beal.”
“Dig up their details. With any luck a chat with them will shed some light on Susan’s last days with the company. It might even give us something useful to sort out this mess,” Neal said.
That is the primary hope… “I don’t think it would be a bad idea to speak to the woman who followed Susan either and the woman who was working with Timothy up until his death last week.”
“Well, I’ve got their names,” Gibson said, spinning back to face his computer, bringing up a window to the forefront.
“Susan’s immediate successor is dead, so unfortunately unavailable for comment.
Timothy’s last secretary is still with the company.
Now, she’s assigned as a secondary assistant to the general manager. ”
“All well and good, but we’re only assuming Susan’s death is connected to a possible affair and her pregnancy,” Kreiger began.
“If Timothy had her killed, we can’t ignore the possibility there are other potential motives.
Maybe Susan witnessed something after she quit, closer to the timing of her accident.
She could have threatened to expose it.”
Sandra’s mind was stuck on Kreiger’s use of the word accident. Knowing what they’d just learned from Eric, she couldn’t think of it that way anymore. She wasn’t sure how Kreiger could. To her, it was more accurately a crash. But Sandra’s mind was literal and worked on specifics.
“We touched on it before,” Donny began. “But if there was an affair between Timothy Hanson and Susan, it would have destroyed Hanson Property Development and the family name if it ever got out. This also came up before, but wasn’t Timothy’s wife some big to-do?”
“Martha Carmichael,” Gibson said, inserting himself back into the conversation. “Some of you might recognize the name?”
“She was a rich socialite,” Sandra said when no one else spoke up.
She wasn’t going to share the memory that Martha had been to Davenport Manor for a party when Sandra was a teenager.
Timothy hadn’t come that night unless he had failed to make an impression.
She just remembered the diamonds dripping off the woman.
“She died thirty years ago,” Gibson added.
“So, she was still alive when Susan died,” Donny said and added, “During the time of her husband’s affair with Susan.”
Sandra’s mind drifted some. People used what was within their reach.
For wealthy people, it was money. Some used it for more than acquiring things.
They bought people, silence… power. Had this force been applied to Susan Crawford?
“Just putting this out there. What if Susan left, the agreement between her and Timothy was that she quit, but there was a non-disclosure agreement in place? Possibly even a payout was involved?”
“Yet the money runs out six years later. Being a single mother, or father for that matter, isn’t an easy endeavor. Or cheap. That’s why she asked him for some more.” Monica walked over to the coffee alcove.
It was the way Monica spoke of being a single parent that made Sandra wonder if they had this in common.
Sandra recalled how Monica had looked at her during the negotiation at Founders Hospital.
She’d met Sandra’s eye when they found out the mother of a dying girl was a single parent.
While her daughter, Olivia, had been a surprise, Sandra had a support system and the financial means to provide for her.
She certainly wasn’t going to settle for marrying Olivia’s father just because.
He was a stand-up man, but Sandra didn’t see forever with him.
“Right. So Susan turns up at Timothy’s door. Meanwhile, he thought he got rid of her and the affair, only for it to turn up in his face,” Donny said.
“He could have had enough, seen it as blackmail as we floated earlier, figured he needed to shut her up for good,” Gibson put in. “Just make it look like an accident, and it would be swept under the rug.”
“More like drag good people down with him by paying them off to look the other way and destroy evidence.” Kreiger lifted his hands.
“I realize I got my back up earlier with Birch. It’s just that corrupt cops piss me off, and I hate to think of any of my fellow brothers that way.
But they exist, and there are rotten apples in every PD. ”
“That applies to people in general. You’ve got the good ones and the bad.” Monica returned to her desk with her coffee. She blew on it and took a sip.
“And let’s say we’re right about any of this, I doubt Timothy would have gotten his own hands dirty with murder. He’d want deniability,” Sandra said.
“Then you’re suggesting he hired someone to cause the accident?” Neal asked.
“Sure. It doesn’t even need to be in the sense of ordering a stranger to do a hit.
A powerful man like Timothy would have a righthand man he turned to, someone on the payroll who would do his bidding, no matter what that might be.
” A fixer… Sandra could make sense of all of this in her mind.
Proving this after thirty-three years was the sticky point.
It became even more difficult with missing documentation and photographs.
“Regardless, whoever did this has no scruples. A five-year-old kid was in the backseat.” Monica cradled her coffee mug with both hands as if seeking comfort from it.
“Money can make people cross moral lines.” Kreiger stood to stretch.
Sandra was assimilating everything that was being discussed in the back of her mind, weighing how she would use it in talking with Ryan Crawford. “Ryan tells us he wants the truth to come out. Let’s see if he’s willing to take part in that endeavor at all. I’m going to call him.”
Everyone got into position for the call. Gibson even abandoned pulling backgrounds on the other secretaries, slipped on his headset, and nodded he was ready.
Sandra called the Hanson residential line. It rang three times before Ryan picked it up.
“Have you found out the truth yet?”
“We’ve found some things out, Ryan. Your mother’s crash wasn’t an accident.” She didn’t want to lead with his father being Timothy Hanson.
There were a few seconds of silence, then, “You know that now? Did you find the evidence to back that up?”
“The detective is still compiling everything together. To be honest with you, he has found things that flag in the file. But, please, know there are no promises here.”
“Well, if he’s any good at his job, he’ll learn that the Hansons have built their lives on lies.”
Ryan’s voice was full of loathing. Was some of it directed at himself? Due to his aunt’s letter, he’d know Timothy was his father, a man he clearly detested. “What lies?” She had asked this to show she was listening and to draw him out.
“You tell me, Special Agent.”
“I can only tell you what we believe to be true. You’ll need to tell me if we’re right, Ryan.” She wanted to add this disclaimer before she said more.
“I will.”
“Your mother used to work for Timothy Hanson. She was his secretary?” She voiced it as a question, starting with a simple fact, neutral territory.
“That’s right, until she got pregnant with me.”
Sandra glanced at Donny, who caught her eye. “Do you know who your father is?”
“Yes, but only recently. My aunt left me a letter for after she died.”
“Was your father Timothy Hanson, Ryan?” She treaded carefully.
“Yes.”
“Did he ever help your mother out, Ryan? Try to be a part of her life? Yours?” Sandra surmised the answers but wanted to hear them directly from Ryan. It was best guess until he confirmed things.
“He was never around. Even after his death, I was left nothing!” Ryan roared. “He couldn’t spare my mother a fucking penny to help her.”
His words paved the way for where Sandra wanted to go next. “Not even a penny, eh?”
“No. She was working all the time. I remember that even at five years old. I had crappy babysitters who chatted on the phone with their boyfriends and couldn’t be bothered spending time with me.
He could have just handed her some money.
He wouldn’t have even missed it. He had so much of it!
” Ryan’s voice rose another octave. “You should see this place in here. It’s a castle.
But it’s all built on lies. Lies, lies,” he repeated as if falling into a chant.
“Was your mother looking for financial aid close to her death?” Sandra felt like she was tiptoeing through a minefield. Mary Ellison might have remembered wrong. Sandra was fishing for confirmation.
“My aunt told me everything that matters.”
“Will you tell me?”
“No.”
“If you told me, the truth would be out.”
“No, that’s not how this works. As I told you before, you need to find it out for yourselves. That way there will be no disputing the truth when it comes out. You must think I’m some crazy lunatic, and maybe I am, but…”
“No one is saying that.”
“Huh. I feel like one to be honest. But let’s get this straight, Special Agent Vos, I almost died in that crash. I should have been dead years ago, so trust me when I say I have nothing to lose.”
The call was cut off.
This isn’t good at all…