Chapter 35
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The interview room was more spacious than the ones used by the local police, but still austere.
Annette took the chair Agent Schaffer indicated.
The one in the center of the room. No table, just a chair.
Agents Schaffer and Davis, along with Detective Lynch, sat behind a long table, nearer the observation window, their backs to those inside that booth.
Those observing only needed to see the body language of the suspect or, as in Annette’s case, the person of interest, and to hear the interview.
“Would you like water or coffee, Ms. Baxter?” Davis asked.
“No thank you.”
“Let’s get started then,” Schaffer suggested.
Annette relaxed more fully in her chair and cleared all thought from her mind. She was a master at the art of outwitting a polygraph. Preventing these cops from reading her face or her body language would be a snap.
“Where were you between ten and midnight last night?”
With Carson. But that was none of their business.
Annette pursed her lips as if giving the question due consideration. “I was home,” Annette lied. “Fucking my assistant. I believe you’ve met him.”
Davis scribbled a note on his pad. He looked up when he’d finished, taking a moment to drag his gaze from her legs to her eyes. “We’ll need to confirm that.”
“Be my guest.”
“Since your assistant is in your employ,” Schaffer countered, “and is therefore obligated to you on some level, is there anyone else who can confirm your whereabouts?”
“Your team generally keeps tabs on my movements. I’m sure you can follow up with them on that as well.
” But then, she’d given them the slip last night as she did on numerous occasions.
It was all too easy. Annette had several sources at her disposal.
For the exorbitant fees she paid, any one of them would gladly take her place and lead the feds on a wild goose chase. Funny thing was, it always worked.
An ache tugged at her chest. Except for Jazel . . . she was dead. Annette thought of the car that had tried running her off the road last night. Was that what had happened to Jazel? She shuddered inwardly but worked fast to check her emotions. She couldn’t let them see any weakness.
Schaffer moved on. “Did you have any personal or professional contact with the senator?”
Focus, Annette. “None.”
There wasn’t a single verifiable link between her and the senator. At any time.
“Did you have any reason to want the senator dead?”
Annette hesitated only a moment. “Not unless you count his lack of judgment in the way he cast his votes in recent Senate sessions.”
Davis smirked.
Lynch glared.
Schaffer rolled her eyes. “We have all day, Ms. Baxter. Take your time with your answers.”
Agent Schaffer was growing frustrated. Good.
She had nothing on Annette. She did, however, have a rather bland pair of boots on today.
Brown. Just plain brown. Maybe the fed was depressed.
Perhaps the death of a high-profile politician in her jurisdiction had something to do with her current disposition.
“I’m waiting, Ms. Baxter,” Schaffer prompted.
Annette would be out of here in no time. And they would still have nothing.
She couldn’t prove her suspicions about who killed Senator Drake, but the one person who could give Carson the truth and prove Annette was on the up-and-up was Dane Drake.
She and Carson had to find him.
Before anyone else did.
“While you consider your answer to that question,” Schaffer said, moving on, “let’s talk about Zac Holderfield. Where were you on Sunday, September fifth, between eight and eleven p.m.?”
Annette shifted her position; the men in the room followed the move with considerable interest. “I was home.” She looked directly at Schaffer then. “You had me under surveillance. You should have that answer on record.”
“Did you,” Schaffer asked, undeterred by her attitude, “have any personal or professional dealings with Zachary Holderfield?”
“You’ll recall,” Lynch added, “that your name was written on his father’s appointment calendar.”
Time to finish this. “I was not acquainted with Zachary Holderfield. My only contact with Dr. Holderfield and Senator Drake was in my capacity as a fundraising coordinator. We attended a few of the same social functions.” She shrugged.
“That’s where it begins and ends. There’s nothing else to tell. ”
The door to the interview room opened and another player, one Annette didn’t know, rushed in and handed a document to Lynch.
This could be trouble. In Annette’s experience, a last-minute addition to the agenda always meant trouble.
Lynch passed the document to Schaffer, who studied it a moment before leveling her gaze on Annette once more. “Ms. Baxter, do you own a thirty-eight-caliber revolver?”
An alarm sounded deep inside Annette. “No. I’m anti-gun.” There were far better and simpler ways to manipulate a result than violence.
Schaffer glanced at the document once more. “Have you ever used the alias Annette Anderson?”
Panic banded around Annette’s chest. “Excuse me?” How the hell had this happened? No one knew.
“The thirty-eight registered to that name has been confirmed as the murder weapon in Zachary Holderfield’s murder.”
Impossible. Annette had disposed of that weapon.
“Confirming this alias will be a simple matter, Ms. Baxter,” Schaffer pressed. “Your cooperation would make matters far better for you. Have you”—she looked directly, bluntly at Annette—“ever used the alias Annette Anderson?”
The panic mounted, pulsed inside Annette as her gaze swung to the mirrored glass shielding the observation booth . . . to where she knew Carson Tanner watched.
He was the only one who had known.
Had he changed sides since they arrived?
For that matter, had he ever been on her side?
“Since you appear disinclined to answer that question,” Schaffer pressed on, “perhaps you’ll answer this one.”
Annette fixed her attention back on the tenacious agent. Get this over with and get out of here. Stay calm.
“What time last night did you finish your business with your assistant, Daniel Ledger?”
Annette shrugged. “Around midnight. Daniel was—”
“Daniel was,” Schaffer contended, “your alibi.”
Dread bloomed in Annette’s chest. “Daniel is my alibi.”
“Daniel Ledger was killed in an automobile accident.”
Denial and then remorse flooded Annette. Daniel had been her faithful employee for six years. God. First Jazel . . . now Daniel. “When?” The one word was tainted with far more anguish than she would have liked Schaffer to hear.
“I can’t give you a specific time. The accident occurred in the Mountain Brook area.
According to the ME, probably in the last twelve hours.
” Schaffer considered Annette a moment before continuing.
“The strange thing is, he was driving a stolen Crown Vic, black in color, with a stolen dealer’s license plate.
Were you aware your assistant was a thief? ”
Thief? Daniel wasn’t a thief . . . he was . . .
Annette went cold as memories from last night’s close encounter on the road in the Mountain Brook area swarmed her head. Black sedan. She’d seen it before. The driver had been able to stay on her tail when the feds couldn’t.
But . . . Daniel wouldn’t have tried to run her off the road . . .
. . . would he?