Fatal Flaw (30 page)

“Let’s go,” Sam said.

The three of them ran from the pit and were in the lobby when McBride and Tyrone came through the main door.

“Lieutenant,” McBride said. “I really need to speak with you. It’s somewhat urgent.”

Wasn’t everything somewhat urgent today?

“I need an hour. Maybe two. Can we do it then?”

The two detectives exchanged glances.

Sam turned to Gonzo, who most likely would be promoted to detective sergeant when the list was posted any day now. “You take care of them.”

“It, um, it needs to be you, Lieutenant,” Tyrone said, shifting from one foot to the other.

Sam felt like she was made of clay and being pulled in every possible direction.

“Does it involve the current spate of homicides?”

“No,” Jeannie said. “It’s about the cold case.”

“I’ll be back in an hour. We’ll do it then.” To Gonzo and Cruz, she said, “Let’s go.”

On the way to GW, Sam ran the case through her mind every which way, but nothing clicked for her. Leave it to her paralyzed, pneumonia-weakened father to emerge from his illness as sharp as ever. Thank God, she thought, blinking back tears when she thought of how close they’d come to losing him.

In the rearview mirror, she noticed Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum following close behind her in a squad car. She’d totally forgotten they were tailing her.

“My father wants to see me,” Freddie blurted out, breaking the tense silence in the car.

“What?”
Gonzo said from the backseat. “When did this happen?”

Freddie brought him up to speed on what had happened recently and told them both about the two late-night conversations with his mother.

“Wow,” Sam said. “What’re you going to do?”

“I told my mother I’d see him. She seems to really want me to, and after everything she’s done for me…” He shrugged.

“God, man,” Gonzo said. “I can’t imagine how weird that must be for you. The guy disappears off the face of the earth twenty years ago and then reappears with a story about being mentally ill.”

“So you think it’s a story?” Cruz asked. “That’s what I thought too.”

“No,” Sam said. “I don’t believe that. Why would he make that up? Especially knowing what you do for a living. It’s not like you couldn’t do a little digging and verify his story. We’re all trained to be cynical, but don’t let that carry over into your personal lives. There’s no place for it there. The guy wants to see his son. He wants to make amends. Don’t make it about anything other than that until you have reason to.”

“See?” Cruz said to Gonzo. “This is what I get to work with every day. She never fails to amaze me with her wisdom and spot-on advice.”

“Bite me, Cruz, and quit sucking up.”

“And she talks dirty to me. Life is good.”

Gonzo howled with laughter.

Sam choked back her own need to laugh. She wouldn’t give her partner the satisfaction. It would only encourage him. They parked at the hospital and hustled to Skip’s room on the fourth floor.

Celia, Tracy and Angela were with him when they arrived.

“Oh thank goodness you’re here,” Celia said. “He’s been driving us crazy wondering what was taking you so long.”

Sam stepped up to her father’s bedside as he looked up at her with blue eyes that were the exact same shade as hers. “Nice to have you back, Skippy.” She dropped her head to rest it on his shoulder. “Scared me,” she whispered.

“Sorry about that, baby girl. It’s gonna take more than a coupla nasty germs to take out your old man. Now, enough of the maudlin stuff. Let’s talk shop.”

“That’s our cue,” Tracy said, signaling her sister and stepmother to step out with her.

“No,” Skip said. “Stay. You girls might be able to help.”

“How so?” Ang asked.

“Let me lay out my theory. Tell me what you think.”

Sam stood up straight and took a step back so she could better see his face, but she kept a firm hold on his right hand, the one place below his neck where he retained some sensation.

“Melissa Morgan,” Skip said.

“No way,” Sam said, snorting with disbelief. “Come on! She’s a total drama queen but not a
murderer.
”

“Really, Dad,” Tracy added. “There’s no way.”

“Let me finish,” Skip said, choking on a cough.

Celia ran her fingers through his hair. “Take it easy, Skip. You shouldn’t get too worked up after being so sick.”

“If they would listen to me,” he said with a pointed look for Sam and her sisters, “I wouldn’t need to get worked up.”

“Girls,” Celia said sternly, “listen to your father.”

“Okay, Dad,” Sam said, deciding to humor him. “We’re listening. Lay it on us.”

“She went to Roosevelt High School and worked for Carl Olivo. Do you remember why she left that job?”

“Not off the top of my head,” Sam said as an itch of discomfort began to niggle at her.

“He fired her when her drawer kept coming up short. Remember how furious she was about that because she needed the job to pay for her dance classes? She had some big idea about being a professional dancer.”

“Yeah,” Sam said as it all came back to her. To be honest, after she and Melissa had a falling out a few years ago, she’d been so relieved to be rid of the nonstop drama, she’d barely given the woman a thought. “Then she wanted to be a doctor for a while.”

“That was before she flunked chemistry in high school,” Skip reminded her.

Sam sucked in a sharp deep breath. “Most of all she wanted to be famous, remember that? Famous dancer, famous doctor, famous actress.”

Tracy nodded in agreement. “She thought she was going to grow up to be some sort of star. We used to make fun of that.”

“Yes!” Sam said.

“I bet if you do a little digging, you’ll find out that Raymond Jeffries was her teacher.”

“Oh, my God,” Angela said. “So she’s going around systematically getting rid of everyone who’s ever done her wrong?”

Sam’s mind raced as she tried to process the possibility that someone she’d once considered a close friend was capable of mass murder. “What’s the connection to Crystal Trainer?”

“Not sure about that one or James Lynch, but I bet it won’t take you long to find it.”

“I know I’ve met Crystal somewhere before,” Sam said. “It was probably through Melissa.” Adrenaline zipped through her body as all the pieces began to fall into place.

“But what’s she got against you, Sam?” Tracy asked. “You two were always such good friends.”

“No, we weren’t,” Sam said. “She kept pulling these weird disappearing acts on me. The first time was after high school. She didn’t speak to me for years and then popped up and asked me to be in her wedding. Oh! Oh my God! That’s it! I met Crystal and her husband at Melissa’s wedding. That’s why they looked so familiar to me!”

“Remember the dress thing at her wedding?” Tracy asked.

“Yes!” Sam said, adding for the others, “She picked out this frilly, lacy dress and then accused me of trying to steal her thunder at the wedding because the dress looked good on me.”

“I remember you being so pissed about that,” Tracy said. “And then there was the incident with the ATM card.”

“Right,” Sam said, thinking back.

“What?” Angela asked.

“She got ahold of Sam’s ATM card and tried to use it to withdraw money from her account,” Tracy said. “The bank called Sam, asked her to come in and view the video, and she saw it was Melissa.”

“But when I confronted her, she denied it. That’s when I stopped talking to her.”

“I remember now,” Angela said. “You had to talk Dad out of pressing charges against her.”

“I was ready to nail her ass,” Skip said.

Sam turned to Freddie. “Was her name on the list of Trainer’s bimbos?”

“No Melissa Morgan, but there was a Melissa Woodmansee.”

“That’s her married name! What was her alibi?”

“She claimed to be out of town that day. She had train tickets to prove it.”

“I bet she never stepped foot on a train that day.” To Gonzo, she said, “Put out an APB for Melissa Morgan Woodmansee.”

“She’s not married anymore,” Skip said. “Celia and I ran into her mother at the grocery store a couple of months ago. She said Melissa got divorced, and her ex-husband got custody of her children.”

“We need protection on the husband and children immediately,” Sam said. “Justin Woodmansee. They lived in Gaithersburg the last I knew.” To Cruz, she said, “Use both names on the APB, but keep it off the airwaves. I want our people looking for her, but I don’t want her to know we’re on to her yet.”

“I’ll take care of that,” Cruz said, reaching for his cell phone.

“I still don’t understand why she has a beef with you,” Ang said. “She tried to steal from you, not the other way around.”

“Remember Debbie Donahue?”

Her sisters nodded.

For the sake of Gonzo and Cruz, Sam said, “A mutual friend of mine and Melissa’s had a cookout a couple of years ago and she invited me. I found out afterward that Melissa had asked her to have a party and invite us both. Melissa was looking for a way to talk to me again after years of silence. Poor Debbie didn’t know anything about all the crap Melissa had pulled on me. When I got there and saw that Melissa was there, I told Debbie I couldn’t stay—and I told her why. Melissa chased after me, but I refused to speak to her. I’d just had enough, you know?”

“I can understand that,” Tracy said. “I had no idea she’d pulled all that crap with you.”

“It was a total cry for attention,” Sam said. “Typical Melissa.” Sam shook her head. “I can’t believe she’d do something like this. To kill innocent people all because they did her wrong in some way.”

“She had an awful time with her parents, remember?” Angela said. “How many times did she run away from home when she was in high school and end up at our house?”

“Too many to count.” Sam leaned over her father’s bed and kissed his forehead. “It’s a good thing you got better when you did, Skippy. You’ve probably saved some lives today. Good work, Deputy Chief.”

He beamed with pleasure, which made Sam as happy as she’d been since before he got sick.

“Good work, Deputy Chief Holland,” Gonzo said, squeezing Skip’s right hand on his way out of the room.

“Thank you, sir,” Freddie said, saluting Skip before he followed Gonzo.

“Go to work, Lieutenant,” Skip said.

“See you at home, Dad.”

“I’ll be there.”

Sam left the room and had to take a moment to absorb the implications. Her friend, her once close friend, had become a serial killer. What did that say about Sam’s ability to judge people? And what did it mean that she’d needed her dad to connect the dots for her? She liked to think she would’ve figured it out eventually, but it would’ve taken a lot longer without his help.

As she navigated the hallways on her way to the parking lot, she ran through the whole thing in her mind and wondered how she could’ve missed it. Everything from the murders themselves to the threatening cards to the demand for Sam to spell out the case to the media was a classic Melissa cry for attention.

Gonzo and Freddie were waiting for her in the car, both talking on their cell phones.

“I’ve updated Malone,” Gonzo said when he ended his call.

“Good, thanks.”

“What’s our first move?” Freddie asked when he completed his call.

“I want to see her parents.” Sean and Frieda Morgan had always reminded Sam of fire and ice. Sean had a larger-than-life personality that mortified his daughter while his uptight, rigid wife tried to control Melissa’s every thought and action. Melissa was a combination of both, warm one minute and frosty the next. The three of them had fought over everything—Melissa’s clothes, her taste in music, her grades, her choice of friends. Sam remembered how devastated Melissa had been the summer before their junior year when her parents had moved her from Wilson High to Roosevelt, supposedly to get their daughter away from the influence of the group of kids she’d become friendly with at Wilson, including Sam.

Interestingly, Sam thought as she drove to the Morgans’ home several blocks north of Capitol Hill, that particular group had gone on to have successful lives and careers whereas Melissa had never figured out what she wanted to be when she grew up.

While she had a minute, she called Nick to bring him up to date.

“Wow,” he said when she’d laid out the case for him. “So you never thought of this woman as a possible suspect.”

“Not for one second, although once my dad put it all together for me, it made perfect sense.”

“Don’t beat yourself up, babe. Why would you think someone you once considered a close friend would be capable of this?”

“It’s so freaking obvious—now. If only I’d talked to her that night at Debbie’s. Maybe none of this would’ve happened.”

“If she was this unglued, it wasn’t just because of you.”

Sam wanted to believe him, but she couldn’t help but take some of the blame. “Are you out at the farm?” she asked, meaning the Leesburg home of his adopted parents, Senator Graham O’Connor and his wife Laine.

“Yeah. You should see Scotty riding. He’s come a long way in the last few weeks.”

Hearing the pride in his voice made her smile. “Do me a favor and stay put there for the night, will you?”

“Dream on, babe. I’m coming home to sleep with my wife.”

“I might not make it home tonight.”

“Either way, I’ll be there whenever you get home.”

“Leave Scotty there. I don’t want him anywhere near what’s going on here. Will you do that?”

“That’s not a bad idea. I’m sure Graham and Laine would be happy to have him.”

“I’d feel much better if he was out of the city. You too, but I’m not going to argue with you.”

“There’s a change.”

“Don’t get used to it. I’ve got to go. I’ll see you when I see you.”

“Let me know if I can help in some way.”

“You’ll be the first to know.”

“Be careful with my wife, Samantha. I love her very much.”

His softly spoken words made her insides go all soft and gooey. “Will do.”

Nick ended the call and stashed the phone in his pocket. His every nerve felt raw and exposed after the story Sam had relayed about her former friend Melissa.

“Everything all right?” asked retired Senator Graham O’Connor, his close friend, mentor and surrogate father. They stood at the rail overlooking the practice ring where Scotty rode the gentle mare he’d befriended on his first visit to the farm weeks ago.

“Sam’s in the midst of a really weird case that apparently involves a former friend who’s got a grudge to settle against her.”

“So naturally you’re worried.”

“Seems like I’m always worried since she and I got together. I’m starting to accept it as a permanent fact of my life now.” Nick waved at Scotty as he trotted by. “He’s really gotten the hang of it.”

“He’s a natural. I’ve said that all along. All he needed was a bit of confidence.” Graham studied Nick. “You’re not yourself tonight. You weren’t even before the call from Sam. What’s on your mind, Senator?”

As Nick watched Scotty’s infectious joy on the horse, his heart ached a little when he thought of how badly he’d wanted to make the boy his son. “I talked to him about coming to live with Sam and me.”

“And?”

“He turned me down.”

“No.”

“I think it might be too late. He’s too old to start all over again with a new family. He’s happy with the one he’s created for himself at the home in Richmond.”

“That’s a load of horse pucky,” Graham said with a vehemence that surprised Nick.

“What’d you mean?”

“The poor kid is scared shitless—not of leaving his home or coming to live with the two of you. I’ve seen him with you guys. He loves you both with all his heart.”

“Then what is it?”

“He’s afraid if he allows you to see the full scope of his love for you and takes this huge risk to come live with you that you’ll change your mind about him at some point. Then where will he go?”

“But that’ll never happen!”

“You know that, and I know that, but does he? It has to be on his mind.”

Nick thought about the conversation they’d had in the restaurant. Had he come right out and told Scotty his offer was a forever proposition? Had he done a good enough job of letting Scotty know how much he and Sam had come to love him? If Graham was right, clearly he hadn’t.

“I’ll talk to him again.”

“Don’t give up on him. Maybe he needs to see that you mean it when you say you’re not going anywhere before he’ll feel comfortable to committing to a permanent arrangement.”

“That’s certainly a better scenario than the alternative.”

“It’ll all work out. He’d be damned lucky to have the two of you as parents. Don’t think he doesn’t know that.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

“Anytime.” Graham returned his attention to the ring. “Thatta boy, Scotty. Show her you’re in charge. That’s the way.”

The winning grin Scotty sent to Graham went straight to Nick’s overcommitted heart. “Could I ask a favor?”

“Anything.”

“Would it be okay if I left him here with you and Laine for the night? Sam’s concerned about him being in the city with this investigation coming to a head.”

“Of course he can stay. We’d love to have him.”

“I’ll have to clear it with Mrs. Littlefield.”

“Make sure you refer to me as
Senator
O’Connor.”

Laughing, Nick said, “Will do. Thanks, Graham.”

Graham squeezed Nick’s shoulder. “Our pleasure, son.”

“My name is Terry, and I’m an alcoholic.”

From the third row of chairs in the church hall on Capitol Hill, Lindsey watched him intently, rubbing her sweaty palms on her jeans as her heart beat so fast she wondered if she might be having a heart attack. Why had she asked to come? What had she been trying to prove? That she could handle this better as an adult than she had as a kid?

She’d been to her share of AA and Al-Anon meetings. Heard her share of stories. Shed her share of tears. What the hell was she doing here again? Just as the panic was about to get the better of her, she looked up at him, met his gaze, and the eye contact calmed her. That was why she was here. Because of him. For him. But for her too. She needed to hear his story.

“For years,” he said with a self-deprecating grin that didn’t quite reach his dark eyes, “I was the heir apparent, the one slated to run for my father’s Senate seat when he retired after forty years. While I waited for my turn, I was given the Ivy League education and the pampered life of a rich man’s son. After college, I went around this town with a sense of entitlement. That Senate seat was
mine.
I’d been groomed for it all my life. I’d
earned
it just by being born, and the powerful people in this city sucked up to me because they knew my day was coming. I was invited everywhere. I had all the women I could handle. My campaign war chest was fat with cash. I was the next senator from Virginia, and I had the world by the balls as my father’s final term wound down. Everything in my life had led me to this moment, and nothing was going to stop me. Until one night three weeks before I was due to declare my candidacy, I got loaded with a couple of college friends and thought it would be a good idea to drive home afterward.”

Lindsey’s heart ached at the hurt she heard in his voice. Gone was the arrogance he’d begun with. It had been replaced by raw pain.

“I got caught on the 14th Street Bridge of all places.” He uttered an ironic chuckle. “You gotta love the symbolism. I was halfway between Virginia and Washington when the life I’d planned for myself went up in smoke. I was charged with driving under the influence, and my blood alcohol level was twice the legal limit. All the political influence in the world couldn’t get me out of that. Overnight I went from the anointed one to persona non grata. I didn’t just stumble. I went into free fall. The same people who’d clogged my phone with messages the day before my arrest acted like I had leprosy the next day. My mug shot was all over the Washington papers. The same news programs that had once fought to book me now mocked me. The silence from my ‘friends’ was deafening.”

At some point, Lindsey became aware that he was speaking directly to her. Even though she was undone by his naked honesty, she couldn’t look away from his intense gaze.

“Worst of all, however, was my father’s disappointment. The only thing I’d ever really wanted was to make him proud of me. I’ll never forget, for the rest of my life, the look on his face when he came to bail me out of jail. Even my mother couldn’t seem to look me in the eye. When everyone else seemed to have abandoned me, my good friends whiskey and beer were there for me. The three of us became the very best of friends.” Terry paused, took a drink of water and still, he never took his eyes off her.

“My father turned away from me, and suddenly my younger brother was the heir apparent even though he had absolutely no interest in running for elected office. He was the co-owner of a successful business and wanted nothing to do with politics. However, our father is a persuasive man, and when he wants something, it’s damned difficult to say no to him. My brother finally buckled under enormous pressure and agreed to run. He had just turned thirty, so he barely qualified. On the night my brother declared his intent to seek the office our father had held for four decades, the office that was supposed to be
mine,
I drank myself into a blackout for the first time.”

Tears rolled unchecked down Lindsey’s face.

“Of course my brother won. With my father’s machine behind him, he was almost unbeatable. I don’t remember much of the next five years. All I cared about was getting drunk and staying drunk so I didn’t have to watch my brother do the job I should’ve been doing—the job he didn’t even want. The job I’d wanted with every fiber of my being. I was a constant source of disappointment and shame to my parents and family. My father got me a job at a lobby firm downtown. They gave me an office and a title but nothing of any substance to do. That gave me plenty of time—and money—to feed my addiction. And feed it I did. I lost entire days to blackouts. I often woke up in strange places with strange people and had absolutely no idea how I’d gotten there. I was completely and totally out of control. After a couple of years of this my parents and siblings stopped trying to get me to stop. They quit begging me to seek treatment. They left me to find rock bottom all on my own.”

Lindsey brushed frantically at the tears that cascaded down her face.

“And then my brother was murdered in his Washington apartment, and I was considered a prime suspect in part because he was killed on the eve of his first major legislative victory. I was outraged by the accusation that I could’ve had something to do with the murder of my own brother, but why not me? People have killed for a lot less than the kind of jealousy I’d harbored for years by then. I was questioned by the police and was unable to tell them who I’d spent the night with, because I couldn’t remember. I knew I’d been with a woman, partied with her, had sex with her, but I couldn’t remember a single thing about her or where we’d been. So here I was with plenty of motivation and no alibi.

“If I thought I’d disappointed my father before, that was nothing compared to this. On the day my brother was killed, when he realized I couldn’t produce my alibi witness because I’d been too drunk to remember her, he looked at me with such disdain and revulsion. I have no doubt he was thinking that if he’d had to lose one of his sons, why couldn’t it have been this loser rather than the golden boy who was such a source of pride to him. To be honest, I couldn’t blame him. I would’ve felt the same way in his shoes. I spent the next few days frantically trying to retrace my steps that night. I went to all my usual places, talked to the bartenders, the people I drank with all the time. No one could remember seeing me leave with a woman. I went days without a drink, and the withdrawals nearly killed me. My hands were shaking so hard I could barely drive, and I was awake for four days straight, gripped in utter panic.”

He took a deep breath, and Lindsey noticed his hands were trembling, but still, he never looked away from her. “The reason I was so panic-stricken is because I couldn’t say for sure that I
hadn’t
killed my brother. It wasn’t like I hadn’t wished him dead a couple thousand times since he ‘stole’ my life. It wasn’t like I hadn’t fantasized about what it would be like to choke the life out of him so that maybe my father would once again look at me the way he used to. By then I’d rewritten history so that it was my brother’s fault my life had fallen apart.
He
was the root of all evil. My first thought upon hearing my brother had been killed was oh God, did I actually do it? The lowest point, my rock bottom, was when the police hauled me out of my parents’ home at dawn and arrested me for suspicion of murder. As if my parents weren’t going through enough planning a funeral for their younger son. Now their older son was looking at murder charges for killing his brother. I spent ninety of the longest minutes of my life being interrogated by one of the best homicide detectives in the nation, and the whole time I was proclaiming my innocence I wasn’t entirely sure I
was
innocent. Other than vague recollections of a party and a woman, I couldn’t remember a single thing about that night.

“Luckily, the police didn’t have a shred of evidence tying me to the crime. Later I heard the woman I was with that night came forward after she saw on the news that I’d been arrested. I still don’t know her name or what she looks like or where we were that night. I was released from custody and sent home to join my family for my brother’s funeral. My brother’s best friend and chief of staff was tapped to complete the last year of his Senate term. I went to his swearing in because I knew my parents expected me to be there, and I was tired of disappointing them. Afterward, the new senator took me aside and asked me a question that, to this day, I still can’t believe. He asked me to be his deputy chief of staff. He said he wanted my political acumen on his team. After I picked myself up off the floor and started breathing again, I accepted his offer. It came with one condition—thirty days in-patient alcohol rehab or no deal. I took the deal and spent sixty days in rehab, just to make sure I was ready to face life without booze.

“I haven’t had a drink in the nearly one hundred days since my brother was murdered. I finished rehab and started my new job, which also includes running the senator’s campaign for reelection. I’m back in the game I love. I get up every day with a sense of purpose I’ve never had before. I have new people in my life.” He paused to collect himself. “I have new people who make me feel things I’ve never experienced before. My father calls me every day to find out what I’m working on and to talk about the issues. He values my opinion, and I value his wisdom. He no longer looks at me as if I’m the biggest disappointment in his life. I can’t imagine any scenario in which I’d start drinking again or return to the go-nowhere life I was leading before. I’ve learned that no one is entitled to anything, and that the best things in life are love and respect and hard work. This program saved my life, and I’m grateful every day for the life I have now. Thanks for listening.”

The gathered group applauded as Terry returned to his seat next to Lindsey. She didn’t trust herself to look at him just then, so she reached for his hand and held it between both of hers.

“You looked great out there today, buddy,” Nick said as he supervised Scotty washing up for dinner. He’d just spent an hour on the phone with Christina and Terry, rearranging his campaign appearances per the request of the Capitol Police. “Graham says you’re a natural on a horse.”

The boy’s face lit up with pleasure at the compliment. “Really?”

“Yep, and he knows what he’s talking about.”

“They told me I should call them Graham and Laine, but I don’t feel right doing that. Mrs. Littlefield says it’s disrespectful to call adults by their first names, especially older people.”