Mortal Sin (21 page)

Shuman scowled. “Roger
Morton
?” He leaned against the doorjamb. He didn’t invite them in, and Noah wasn’t sure he wanted to step into this pigsty. He’d spent a winter at Fort Dix in New Jersey, and this cold sunny day didn’t bother him, but Abigail was trying to stop herself from shivering, so Noah got down to business.

“When was the last time you had any contact with Morton? In person, email, phone?”

“That motherfucker’s dead?” Ace sounded skeptical.

Noah nodded curtly and waited for an answer. When Ace wasn’t forthcoming, he added, “You’re an ex-con. You have a history with Morton. Don’t make me come back with an arrest warrant.”

“Bullshit, you can’t arrest me for squat.”

“I can and will compel you to answer my questions. As I stand here, the FBI is reading every email sent to and from Morton in the last six months. We know you and Morton corresponded.”

“Then read them and get back to me,” Shuman said and started to close the door.

Noah put his foot forward to prevent the door from closing. “I’ve had a long week, and you’re making it longer. Deputy Chief of Police Richard Blakesly is a personal friend of mine. One call and he’ll make your life miserable. You won’t be able to step out without a patrol car on your ass. You won’t be able to go to a bar, the grocery store, or walk to the corner without a Baltimore P.D. officer asking you what time it is.

“Morton had child pornography on his computer. You emailed him something. And if there is any hint that you sent him illegal porn, we’ll raid this place top to bottom. One stray picture, and you’re back in prison. And everyone there will know you get off on naked kids.”

Ace stepped forward, his face dark and dangerous. “Fucking prick, I don’t go for kids.”

“Please hit me,” Noah said, not moving.

Ace wrestled with his anger.

Noah pushed. “I know you talked to Morton; I want to know what it was about. Why was he in D.C. last week?”

Ace spewed a chain of profanity that would have had
the most foul-mouthed Marine blush, but Noah kept a straight face.

At the end of the rant, Ace said, “I didn’t know Roger was dead, but I thought something was up because he never came by when he said he would.”

“When was that?”

“He said he had a business proposition. He was supposed to come over last Saturday.”

“What did he say about the business proposition?”

“Okay, this is the God’s honest truth. After he got out of the pen, he contacted me, said he had to watch his ass, but he had a plan and might need me to head up security. Asked if I was interested. I was. Didn’t hear squat from him for months. Then out of the blue he said he was coming to D.C. and would see me on Saturday. If things worked out, he’d have startup capital and would need my help.”

“Startup capital for what?”

“He didn’t say, but I heard around that someone was putting together a new online sex club. Live webcams, quality videos, chats. Sounded promising.”

“And that someone was Roger Morton?”

“Don’t know. That was just the grapevine, a friend of mine talking big. But when I heard from Roger, I thought about that.”

“Who is this friend?”

“Now that, I ain’t saying.”

Noah took a risk. “Robbie Ralston?”

Shuman shrugged.

“Ralston is dead, too.”

Shuman couldn’t hide his reaction. “Robbie’s dead?”

“Was he the big talker?”

“Might be. But he wasn’t smart enough to do it on his
own.” Shuman paused, then added, “I’d rather take my chances in prison than fuck with certain vodka-swilling shits, if you get my drift.”

Noah got it, all right.

“Thank you, Mr. Shuman.”

Ace laughed. “ ‘Thank you Mr. Shuman’? That’s a fucking hoot.” He winked at Abigail.

In the car, Abigail said, “You have friends in high places.”

Noah blinked. “Excuse me?”

“The deputy chief of police? What are the chances?”

Noah shrugged and turned the ignition. “I don’t know. Richard Blakesly was my first lieutenant when I joined the Air Force. He’s still there.”

“You bullshitted him?” Abigail grinned. “Pulling one over on a con like Shuman, I’m impressed.”

“I didn’t have time for his games, and I had no cause to haul his ass in. Nor did I want to spend an hour in the car with him.” Noah turned onto the main road and headed back toward D.C. “Morton and Ralston were playing a dangerous game.”

“Of course. They’re dead.”

“I was thinking of the vodka-swilling shits Ace Shuman alluded to.”

“You’ll have to clue me in.”

“Sergey Yuran is a Russian trafficker. If it’s in Russia—drugs, people, weapons—he can get it.”

“Yuran?”

Noah nodded. “He’s the only Russian who’s on Morton’s associate list. According to Kate Donovan’s notes, he supplied Trask Enterprises with a steady stream of prostitutes for their sex tapes. If Morton crossed him?”

He stopped. Something didn’t feel right about this.

“What?” Abigail pressed a moment later.

“I don’t know. I don’t know Yuran well, but Morton’s murder seems sloppy to me.”

“Sloppy? One bullet and he’s dead.”

“Yeah—but Yuran is better than that. Still,” Noah said, turning onto the freeway, “Morton was into something that got him killed, and that means someone even more dangerous is involved in whatever plan Morton had up his sleeve.”

“Where to now?”

“Yuran. I have to call it in, I’m sure one of our people is watching him closely. I don’t want to risk any existing undercover op, but he knows something or Shuman wouldn’t have seemed so nervous.”

Driving back to D.C., Noah called Hans Vigo to learn the status of any investigation involving Sergey Yuran. By the time Hans returned his call, he was pulling into FBI headquarters.

“You were right to call,” Hans said. “Immigration has had him under surveillance for months, and they don’t want us involved at this point. I did, however, get some information out of them. Good news, bad news. Or good news, neutral news, depending on your point of view.”

“Give it to me.”

“Yuran and his key men are all alibied for last weekend—they were in New York City.”

“Doing what? A human trafficking convention?” Noah added sarcastically.

“They didn’t say, I didn’t ask. Immigration is touchy these days.”

Noah said, “He could have put a hit out on Morton.”

“True, but there’s no whisper of that. According to my source, Morton and Ralston aren’t even on their radar. There are no signs that Yuran is even looking into the online sex trade; he prefers to deal with live people.”

Noah didn’t think that Shuman was blowing smoke up his ass. “My source says Yuran was a possible source of capital to launch the venture.”

“That may be possible, but only from a money perspective. Yuran has been known to loan money, at huge cost. You think that’s why Morton and Ralston were killed? They didn’t pay up?”

“No,” Noah admitted. “That doesn’t feel right—there’s no sign that either of them had any cash, even for a short time. Yuran isn’t an idiot; he wouldn’t kill them without a reason.”

“I agree. I think Yuran is a dead end, but I did ask my ICE contact to research the matter. How many emails were exchanged between Yuran and Morton?”

“One.”

“Doesn’t seem like a good bet. Does Kate have the content yet?”

“No. Anything else?”

“Yeah, the neutral-to-bad news.”

“I thought you gave me the bad news.”

“Because you didn’t close your case? That’d be too easy. But you should know that Sean Rogan paid a visit to Sergey Yuran yesterday.”

Noah tensed. “Rogan?”

“Stayed for twenty-seven minutes. Went to his bar before it opened. The timing suggests it was right before he found Ralston’s body.”

“Yuran sent him there?”

“Doubtful—Ralston was an associate of Morton’s, Sean was working the case like you were.”

“Obstructing justice.”

“I’m saying, you might want to use Sean and RCK where you can. They have a little more freedom than we do.”

Hans wasn’t explicitly giving him an order, but it felt like one. Noah didn’t want to cross that line. Bringing in a private consultant was one thing, but a gray-area firm like Rogan-Caruso-Kincaid? “I think I’ll just ask Rogan what he and Yuran talked about, and then tell him to stay the hell out of my case.”

“I understand; I’m just giving options,” Hans said.

It wasn’t an option Noah cared to exercise—except as a last resort.

Cody confronted Lucy outside the Medical Examiner’s Office on Monday morning. “You lied to me.”

Lucy blinked rapidly, at a complete loss. Her head ached from lack of sleep, the wind had picked up, making her colder than she already was, and that awful pinprick sensation of being watched had returned.

He shoved a piece of paper into her gloved hand. It was a printout of a message from Prenter’s social networking account—the deleted account—forwarded to Prenter’s personal email.

The original message was from Lucy’s “Tanya” account:

Lucy read it five times before Cody yanked it out of her hands. “I didn’t send it,” she said.

“I don’t believe you.”

She stared at him, heartbroken that he thought she was lying. A curdle of fear twisted in her stomach as she realized someone had used her account to send Prenter to Club 10. Where he’d been murdered. “You’ve known me for over three years. You don’t trust me?”

“Are you denying this is your account?” He waved the paper in her face.

“No, but—”

“Your secure WCF account?”

“Cody! Stop interrogating me like I’m a suspect.”

He didn’t say anything, but glared at her.

“I didn’t send that message,” she repeated.

“Then who?” He shot out the question as if she were a hostile witness.

“I don’t know!”

Lucy’s mind ran through every possible scenario she could think of. “It’s not impossible for someone to have hacked my account.”

“Someone would have to have known who you were.”

“No—not necessarily. If someone got hold of Prenter’s emails—hell, Cody, he had them forwarded to his personal email, anyone could see my log-in name! Maybe one of his ex-girlfriends was pissed off and didn’t want him seeing someone else. Maybe—”

“Listen to yourself!”

“I’m trying to figure out how someone used my account—or masked their account to look like mine—to send him to the bar where he died. Maybe it’s just a coincidence.” As she said it, she realized this was no coincidence. The decision to send Prenter to Club 10 was deliberate and calculating. Less than two hours later, he was murdered in the alley. Quietly, she asked, “What do you think, Cody?”

He ran a hand over his face. “I don’t know what to think, Lucy.”

“The murder was purposeful. Did you read the autopsy report? Four bullets, remember? Three in the
stomach, one in the back of the head. That sounds professional, right? Not a drug dispute gone bad.”

Lucy began to shake from more than the cold.

Cody grabbed her hand. “If you’re in trouble, tell me. I will do everything in my power to help you, but you have to tell me the truth.”

“Trouble? I’m not in any trouble!”

“Did someone ask you to send that message? Or maybe you gave someone access to your account? Who are you trying to protect? Tell me!”

“No! Cody, what are you thinking about me?”

“Then you told someone.”

“I told no one! I’m the one who told
you
that I thought something was odd about Prenter’s murder. I came to
you
, remember?”

“Maybe to see if you’d screwed up.”

Lucy stepped back, pulling her hand from Cody’s tight grasp. It became clear that Cody thought she had conspired to kill Brad Prenter.

“Please,” Cody pleaded. “Let me help you.”

“You don’t believe me.” She bit back the bile of betrayal that burned her throat and said in a shockingly calm voice, “If I were going to set Prenter up, I wouldn’t send you to another bar. I wouldn’t have let you know that I had him on the hook. I wouldn’t have him killed in your jurisdiction, since you knew I was working him online. And I certainly would never have come to you to look into the odd circumstance of his murder.”

Cody slumped, the truth of her words hitting him, but as far as Lucy was concerned she could never trust Cody again. “I—I’m sorry,” he stammered.

“How could you think I am capable of doing such a thing?”

He didn’t say anything, and Lucy knew exactly why he’d believed the worst of her. Her hands came up to her mouth and she swallowed a sob.

It was because she had killed before. Six years ago she’d shot Adam Scott at point-blank range. Few people knew the whole story, but Cody did. When she and Cody had been dating she had told him about her past.

She turned and walked away, as fast as she dared on the icy sidewalk. Cody called after her, but she ignored him. She called her boss on the way back to the Metro station, told him she was ill, and headed home. Tired, cold, and sick at the loss of a friend.

But under it all was a simmering anger that someone had used
her
to kill Brad Prenter. She had to get home and look through all her records and accounts and figure this out before whoever killed him realized she was suspicious.