Chapter Twenty-Three
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
S am’s phone rang with a local number she didn’t recognize. “Holland.”
“It’s Cori Sawyer.”
“Judge Sawyer. How nice to hear from you.”
“If I can call you Sam, you should call me Cori.”
Sam had liked the federal judge from the first time she met her. “Deal.”
“I wanted to thank you for catching Harlan Peckham and allowing me to breathe deeply again for the first time in days.”
She wanted to say that she did what she could for the people, but she wouldn’t be flippant with a federal judge, even if Cori had begun to feel like a friend. “I’m glad we got him, but I wish we could’ve done it before we lost Tom and nearly lost Avery.”
“Tom’s death is a terrible tragedy, but I’m deeply grateful to hear that Agent Hill is on the mend, especially after he just became a daddy again.”
“Yes, for sure. He and his wife are close friends of ours. We’re very relieved.”
“Of course I knew you were friendly with him and his wife. In addition to my relief at hearing Harlan is in jail where he belongs, I have a second reason for my call. I wanted to invite you and your husband to a dinner party next month. I’m known for my parties, and I think you’d enjoy it. I promise a friendly group who’ll be thrilled to meet you both.”
Sam wanted to say no. She had no desire to spend a Saturday night with people she didn’t know when she didn’t get enough time with the people she did want to see.
“I bet that sounds like hell to you,” Cori said with a laugh.
Sam laughed at the blunt statement. “Not at all.”
“Sure it does, but I think you’ll enjoy it, and if you don’t, you can feel free to leave whenever you’d like.”
“It’s nice of you to ask us. We’d love to come, if we’re free.”
“I’ll plan it for a night that works for your schedule.”
“There’ll be Secret Service nonsense.”
“That’s no problem at all. Who should I talk to about coordinating things?”
“Lilia Von Nostrand at the White House. I’ll send you her contact info.”
“Excellent, and I’ll look forward to seeing you soon. Thank you again for what you do, Sam. I’m sure the cases blur together after a while, but there’re real people who are safer because of you.”
“That’s nice of you to say. I don’t get to hear from the people we save very often.”
“Well, now you have, and I’m deeply grateful. I’ll see you soon.”
“Thanks for calling, Cori.”
“Of course.”
Sam closed the phone and glanced into the morgue, where Lindsey was at her desk, coffee cup in hand as she stared at her computer screen.
Sam experienced a rare feeling of anxiety as she stopped in to see her friend. “Morning.”
“Morning,” Lindsey said without looking away from the computer. “I was going to hit you up to let you know that the sailor’s body has been returned to his family.”
“Thank you for handling that.”
“What’s the plan for Juan now?”
“I need to check in with Agent Truver to see how the investigation is unfolding. I assume they need Juan to stay ‘dead’ for a while longer so they can use his ‘murder’ against Goldstein as they interrogate him.”
“What do you think their strategy is?”
“To make Goldstein believe that someone killed Juan on his behalf because he told the truth about their dirty little plan.”
“What do they get from doing that?” Lindsey asked.
“Maybe he points the finger at one of the others, claiming that’s who wanted Juan dead.”
“Ah, I see. Well, his mother must’ve been relieved to hear from him.”
“That poor woman. I feel so bad for what they put her through.”
“She probably doesn’t care as long as he’s okay.”
“True. Well, I’d better get to it. Hoping to make some progress in the Myerson case today.”
“How’s that going?”
“Slower than I’d like and more complicated than it appeared at first glance. Her sister was abducted and murdered twenty-six years ago. The case is still open.”
“Oh Lord, that poor family. Two sisters murdered.”
“There’s only a brother left, and he’s in shock that it could happen again.”
“I can’t even imagine, and I don’t want to.”
Sam’s phone rang with a call from Max Haggerty. “Gotta take this. Have a good day, Doc.”
“You, too.”
“Hey, Max. What’s up?”
“We found your murder weapon in an apartment complex dumpster about six blocks from the Myersons’ home. The killer didn’t bother to clean the blood and hair off the barrel of the bat, so we’re hoping they didn’t think about fingerprints either. We’ve got it in the lab now, and I should have more for you soon.”
“Great job to you and your team, Max. Thank you so much.”
“You got it.”
Sam walked into the pit, where her team was hard at work in their cubicles. “Good news, citizens. CSU found our murder weapon in a dumpster six blocks from the Myersons’, complete with blood and hair and hopefully prints. It’s at the lab now.”
“Wow,” Gonzo said. “That’s a lucky break.”
“Sure is. Today, I want to talk to the people who took Jada on the outing on Sunday.”
“Her friend Alison Gauthier’s parents, Cole and Trina.” Neveah handed Sam a printout with info about the family and their address.
“Thank you, Neveah. Anything jump out about them?”
“Not at first glance. Both are government employees. He’s with HHS, and she’s at the USDA. They have three kids. Alison is the oldest at sixteen. They also have eleven-year-old twin boys who were not on the outing on Sunday.”
“Where’d they go again?”
“The girls are studying the Civil War in school, so the parents took them to see two of the sites—Harpers Ferry and Antietam.”
“And Jada was with them all day without interruption?”
“That’s what Trina Gauthier told me.”
Despite the apparent dead end, Sam wasn’t satisfied for some reason. “I think I’ll still pay her a visit just to dot the I’s. Can you track down the mom’s location during the day?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
There was that word again. “What else do we have on the Myersons?”
“Not much,” Cameron said. “We went back a year on the socials, and nothing stood out. If there was dirty laundry, they kept it in the house. We’re going through texts now and finding a lot of animosity between Elaine and her daughters.”
Even though she knew about the animosity, she wanted details. “Like what?”
Cameron sifted through some pages. “Last Friday, for example, Zoe wanted to go to the movies with her friend, who drives. Elaine replied, ‘Not in her car. You can go on the Metro.’ To which Zoe said, ‘Fuck the Metro. I’m going with my friends.’ Elaine threatened to shut off her debit card. Zoe said, ‘Go ahead. My friends will pay for me because they love me.’”
“Jesus,” Sam said. “It was nonstop with them.”
“Seemed that way.”
“How is it possible the girls aren’t involved in this somehow?”
“They both have alibis,” Gonzo said, “and just because they’re assholes doesn’t make them murderers.”
“That’s true. I’m spoiled by my teen, who isn’t an asshole—not yet, anyway.” Sam was convinced he never would be. “Were there contentious texts with Jada, too?”
“Yeah, she was less aggressive with her mother than Zoe, but Zoe was older and sick of the restrictions.”
“What kind of stuff did she fight with Jada about?”
“Two weeks ago, Jada texted her that she was going to walk home from school, and Elaine freaked out.”
“Because of what happened to her sister,” Sam said. “That points right back to the greatest trauma of her life.”
“We got the files from Manassas about that,” Cam said. “I’ll dig in after this.”
“Thanks.”
“Elaine’s teenage daughter probably didn’t care about the aunt she never knew who was abducted, tortured and then murdered,” Cam said. “Jada said, ‘I’m already halfway home, so chill.’ Elaine told her to not use that word with her—or ‘ relax’—which was another word they used frequently that Elaine didn’t care for.”
“Were there texts between the dad and daughters?”
“Those were about rides to practice or pickups from various things. The mom supervised their comings and goings. He seemed almost like a bystander. Every so often, one of the girls would plead with him to talk to Elaine, but those texts went unanswered.”
“How could they stand the nonstop fighting and tension?” Sam asked.
“Gigi and I were talking about that last night,” Cam said. “It would drive us crazy to live in a war zone like that.”
“Me, too. I hope I never have those kinds of issues with my kids.”
“Oh, you’ll probably run up against a little tug-of-war from time to time, but I suspect you’ll be more reasonable than Elaine was.”
“Easy for me to be reasonable when my kids have Secret Service protection.”
“True.”
Neveah handed Sam a piece of paper. “Address for Trina Gauthier’s office at the USDA. She said she’s there all day.”
“All right everyone, let’s get to it. Neveah, could I have a minute, please?”
Neveah followed Sam into her office and closed the door. “What’s up?”
“Two things. One, I’m checking in to make sure this case isn’t triggering for you.”
Neveah’s apprehensive expression immediately softened. “It’s so nice of you to think of that, but I’m okay.”
“Let me know if that changes?”
“I will. Thank you for caring.”
“I do.”
“What’s the second thing?”
“I need a personal favor in between work on the case. ”
“Whatever I can do for you.”
“You should say, ‘No, ma’am, I don’t do side jobs while I’m on the clock.’”
“Except you don’t want me to call you ma’am, ma’am.”
Sam laughed. “You’re coming along very nicely, young Neveah.”
“Really? You think so?”
“If you cry, I’ll throat-punch you and then deny it.”
Neveah sputtered out a laugh. “What do you need?”
“You really are coming along very nicely, and I’m thrilled to have you on my team. Do not cry.”
“Not crying.”
“My husband’s dirtbag mother has resurfaced after her recent troubles, represented by a smooth-operator lawyer named Collins Worthy from Cleveland, Ohio. He told me he has three grown children and lost his wife to cancer some time ago. Otherwise, I don’t know anything about him, and I’d like to get the deets.”
“I’m on it.”
“Don’t tell anyone what you’re doing. I shouldn’t be asking this of you.”
“I’ll do it on my own time later, if you’d feel better about it.”
“Sneak in what you can today and finish up at home. I’ll spot you some comp time for whatever time you spend on it.”
“Please don’t worry about that. It’s my pleasure to help you with anything you need.”
“Don’t be like that around here. People will chew you up and spit you out if you’re too nice.”
Her left brow lifted ever so slightly. “Do I need to be worried about that with you?”
“Of course not. I’m just saying that, as a rule, being too nice isn’t the way to be in this place.”
“Got it, but I’m allowed to be nice to you?”
“Honest to God…”
Neveah laughed—a full-throated, whole-body laugh that took Sam by surprise because it was the first time she’d heard it.
Sam smiled. “I like you.”
“I like you, too.”
“Get back to work, and don’t get in any trouble because of me, or I won’t like you anymore.”
“Got it.”
“Thank you, Neveah.”
“You’re welcome, Sam.”
Sam laughed to herself after Neveah left the office.
Freddie came to the door. “Are we going to see Jada’s friend’s mom at the USDA?”
“Yes, let’s do it.”
Trina Gauthier worked for the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service in the office of the administrator, located in the Jamie L. Whitten Federal Building on Independence Avenue.
When they arrived, a security officer showed them to a first-floor conference room and said Trina would be right with them. Unlike the usual security rodeo performed at federal buildings, this one had been quite simple to access, with no scanners or requests to turn over their weapons.
“They must not get many visitors here,” Freddie said.
“You read my mind.”
“Ew.”
Sam laughed. “It’s not my fault that I’ve got you so well trained that you think the same thoughts I do.”
“I do not think the same thoughts you do, and if you tell anyone I do, I’ll quit you so fast.”
“Haha, you will not. You love me too much to quit me.”
“Ew.”
The sound of footsteps approaching had them straightening up and slipping back into professional mode .
“They told me the first lady was here to see me, but I didn’t believe it,” Trina said when she came into the room, wearing a gray suit with a pink blouse. She was pretty, with short, curly blonde hair and blue eyes framed by extravagant lashes.
Sam showed her badge while Freddie did the same. “Lieutenant Holland and Detective Cruz. We understand Jada Myerson spent Sunday with you and your husband.”
“She did. We left around eight in the morning and got home shortly after eight that evening. It was a long day, but the girls appreciated seeing the sites they’re writing about for their Civil War project. Jada was still with us when she got the call from Frank about Elaine.”
“Do you know Jada well?”
“We do. She and our Ali have been friends since third grade. She regularly sleeps at our house, and Ali sleeps at hers. We love Jada like one of our own.”
“Was she her usual self on Sunday?”
“Yes, the girls were laughing and talking the way they always do, in their own special language. My husband and I were saying afterward that they never took a breath all day, or so it seemed to us.”
“Has she said anything to you about the tension at home?”
“Yes,” Trina said, deflating ever so slightly. “And I’d talked to Elaine about it at one point. She struggled terribly with letting the girls out of her sight, which I totally understood after what happened to her sister.”
“How long ago did she tell you about her sister?”
“Long time. When the girls were very young. I think that it was the defining event of her life.”
Of course it was, Sam thought. “Did Jada ever express frustration about her mother to you?”
“Often,” Trina said. “While she tried to be understanding of why her mother was the way she was, in reality, Jada and Zoe never knew their aunt and didn’t have an emotional connection to what happened to her before they were born. In the way that kids can be, they were focused on their own lives and didn’t have clear perspective on what their mother had endured in losing her sister so traumatically.”
Sam, who was taking notes, thought that was an excellent summary of the way teenagers seemed to think.
“That’s not to say they weren’t empathetic to their mother’s terrible loss, because they were,” Trina added. “At least I know Jada was. We talked about it once. She said that even though she couldn’t stand Zoe most of the time, she couldn’t imagine something like that happening to her or what it must’ve done to her mother to go through that kind of ordeal.”
“The girls said Elaine had a lot of friends, but Frank said she didn’t spend much time with them. Was that your observation as well?”
“I didn’t know a lot about her other friends. She never talked about others.”
“Would you say you considered her a friend?”
“Yes, but it took a long time for me to feel like I knew her at all. She was very guarded for the first few years and seemed to keep our interactions focused on the girls, while I was trying to get to know her. She didn’t seem to want that, so I backed off. Over time, though, as we spent more time together, she started to open up a bit more. She told me once, years after we first met, that she’d debated having kids at all because she knew it would be so hard for her when they got older, but she loved Frank, and he wanted kids, so she’d gone along with it for his sake.”
That was an interesting piece of information they hadn’t had before, which made the interview worth the bother.
“Is there anything else you can tell us about Jada, Elaine or their family that might shed some light on our investigation?”
After thinking on that for a minute, Trina said, “There is one more thing, and I debated whether I should mention it or not. ”
“I’d urge you to tell us anything you know. Every detail is critical in a homicide investigation.”
Trina crossed her hands on the table and then focused on them when she said, “About a year ago, Jada asked if she could come to live at our house for the rest of high school.”
Holy bombshell!
“What did you say?”
“We told her we’d have to discuss it with her parents.”
“Did that conversation ever happen?”
“It did.”
“When?”
“Shortly after Jada asked us. Things with Elaine and Zoe were bad and getting worse all the time around then, and Jada wanted out of there.”
“Tell us about the meeting with Frank and Elaine.”
“We asked to meet them for dinner, figuring it would be better to have that conversation in public so it couldn’t get heated. That was a mistake.”
“How come?”
“Elaine totally flipped out and didn’t care who was listening. She said we had some nerve interfering in her family this way and that if we wanted Ali and Jada to remain friends, we needed to butt out of their business.”
“What did Frank say?”
“He tried to get Elaine to calm down. He said that we were just the messengers delivering Jada’s request, and it wasn’t our fault, but Elaine took the whole thing as us being disloyal to them as fellow parents. I tried to reason with her and make her see how difficult it was for Jada to be in the middle of Elaine’s war zone with Zoe. That was the wrong thing to say. She told me to fuck off with my judgment, got up and walked out.”
Judging by the tingling in her spine, this felt like a breakthrough of some sort to Sam.
“What did Frank say?”
“He told us he appreciated our concern and that he was sorry for the way Elaine had reacted. Then he went after his wife.”
“Did you eventually patch things up with her?”
Trina shook her head. “She never spoke to me again, not directly anyway. If we invited Jada to do something with us, that was all done through the girls.”
“I need to ask you something that may seem obscene to you, but I have to ask it anyway.”
“Okay…”
“Do you think there’s any chance that Jada killed her mother?”
Trina’s mouth fell open in shock. “God, no. Jada is the sweetest girl you’ll ever meet, and besides, wasn’t her mother killed while Jada was with us?”
“That doesn’t mean she couldn’t have arranged it.”
“She’s fifteen years old, Lieutenant! Where in the world would a fifteen-year-old girl find someone to commit murder for her?”
“I don’t know, but kids are savvier than we give them credit for being. Anything is possible.”
“ That is not possible. Jada would never be part of something like that.”
“How about Zoe?”
“I don’t know her very well, but I can’t see it with her either. Both girls were just trying to live their lives, which was the cause of the nonstop fighting with Elaine.”
“Had you heard of a particular escalation in recent days or weeks?”
“It was always bad, but from what Jada said, it was much, much worse since Zoe started dating her boyfriend.”
“This has been very helpful.” Sam pushed her card across the table. “If you think of anything else, even something that might seem like a minor detail to you, please call me.”
Trina picked up the card and examined it. “You give out your cell number to people you don’t even know? ”
“It’s part of my job.”
“It’s cool that you’re still doing this when you don’t have to.”
Sam never knew what to say to that. To her, she did have to. Police work was in her DNA. “Thank you again for your help.”
“I hope you find the person who killed Elaine. She was a complicated person, but she didn’t deserve to die that way. No one does.”
Trina walked them to the reception area, where they said their goodbyes.
“Impressions?” Sam asked Freddie as they walked out to meet Vernon and Jimmy.
“I got a buzz off the confrontation between the two couples in the restaurant and how Elaine never spoke to Trina again, as if it was her fault Jada had wanted to move out.”
“I got the same buzz.”
“Where to next?”
“I want to see Elaine’s therapist. See if she can see us between appointments.”