Stand (11 page)

Chapter 22

When Jack arrived the noise level doubled. The local police weren’t very happy that the FBI was getting involved. This wasn’t a Federal case. Jack and Detective Carter spoke for a while and Jack must have convinced her. She remained less happy with Skeet and I for calling him. Things started moving anyway.

Jack got a private conference room for the three of us to talk. He started people tracking Elizabeth and looking into her finances. He got someone else working on the law firm.

It was nine thirty.

______

On the way into the small room set aside for us, Jack grabbed my arm. He looked at me, really looked at me. His voice when he asked me how I was, was soft. I almost broke. I could feel it. The fear of the last few hours welled up and burned my eyes and throat. I had been fine until he asked me if I was okay, then I was suddenly on the brink of tears.

“I’m glad you’re here,” was all I could say.

He hugged me tight and just held onto me. With the feeling of his suit coat under my cheek and his familiar scent surrounding me, I felt control return. In the worst moment of my life, Jack had been there. He would always represent safety to me.

______

Half an hour later I was sitting at the table with Jack and Skeet. We had gone over and over the facts. We had discussed our thoughts. The whole time, I had this theory in the back of my mind. I was hesitant to share my thoughts. Besides, it went against everything I thought I knew about investigation work. Notice how I say, I thought I knew? Yeah, I can acknowledge my shortcomings. Since most of my knowledge on being a detective comes from television, it’s no shock that I held false perceptions.

My perception was this – facts make cases, not deductions. I am very logical. Logic, not facts were taking my thoughts someplace I wasn’t sure I should go. I guess I had a perception – all law firms are evil – this probably comes from reading too much John Grisham. Subconsciously, I had believed the law firm was the guilty party. After meeting Jimmy, logic took me down another path. One I had not expected.

I might not have mentioned my theory, but Skeet said something about Jimmy. He and Jack were looking over pictures of the crime scene.

“I have an idea.”

It just popped out. I really have to work on my mouth brain communication. Skeet and Jack were both looking at me.

“Jimmy wasn’t homeless. He had a manicure and his hair was clean. He wanted to look homeless.”

They were still just looking at me.
Okay Charlotte get to the point.

“I think that Jimmy was blackmailing Elizabeth and I think that he had a partner at the law firm.” Deep breath. “I think Jimmy pretended to go missing because he was threatened by someone. He and his partner were looking for a final payout, and I think I know who his partner is.”

I had their attention. “Why do you think that?”

Okay, Charlotte lay it all out.

“We suspect that Elizabeth killed, or by inaction and negligent care, she allowed Muriel to die. Elizabeth hired Jimmy’s law firm to discredit her mother’s last will and Jimmy conducted background work for the case. Jimmy claimed that he was homeless, but he wasn’t. Jimmy said he saw me asking people questions, but I was only there one day. Someone told him I was there and what questions I was asking. There are only three possible people who could have known. We need to look at Elizabeth’s finances, because I think she was being blackmailed, and then we need to talk to Jimmy’s partner.”

After my little speech I sat back. I didn’t have the resources to do either of those things. At this point it was out of my hands. Jack would either listen to me and get that information, or he wouldn’t. Nothing I could do about it.

Jack studied me for a minute. “So, who is his partner?”

“Lori Claret, she is the only one who makes sense. It has to be someone from the law firm. Someone who knew I was asking questions and could warn Jimmy about it. I spoke with Lori that first day. She couldn’t get me out of her office fast enough. It has to be either Lori Claret, Cindy Carter, or the Administrative Assistant Norma. My vote is for Lori.”

Jack went to the conference room door, opened it, and called for someone. I looked down at my hands and let out the breath I hadn’t realized I was holding. I let my surroundings fade to the background. It was something I rarely did anymore.

When I was a child I was always dreaming, always lost in my head. Even as an adult I believed in dreams and lived in reality only as necessary.

Pheares changed all of that. My world went from being light and fluffy to cold and real. In the last nine months I rarely allowed myself to be anything other than fully aware of everything and everyone around me. I was vigilant. I lived in a constant state of awareness, a classic case of PTSD.

Now sitting in a police station after being shot at, I relaxed. I marvel at my own mind. I should be falling apart, but I had reached a point of no return, a point where the extreme became the new normal. Adapt or die, and I adapted. In the last nine months I learned to handle life with my new awareness of danger. In the current crisis, I was handling it. I was proud of myself; I’m not going to lie.

When Jack came back he asked if I wanted to ride along to question Lori Claret. I gave him a look like he was crazy. “Of course. Did you honestly think I might say no?”

Jack just grinned at me. I don’t think he was surprised by my answer.

It took forty five minutes to get the proper paperwork together and people moving. Jack had someone working on warrants, someone working on Lori’s financials, someone else working on Elizabeth’s financials. He wasn’t expecting any trouble, but I had strict orders to wait in the car. No exceptions. Which meant Jack understood my terminal curiosity and decided that the car was the least dangerous place to confine me.

We were still in D.C. so we would talk to Lori Claret first. She had an old fashioned brownstone in an upscale section of Washington.

It was eleven at night when we stopped in front of the brownstone. The lights were still on. Jack and a uniformed police officer went up to the front door. They rang the bell twice before a woman in a bathrobe answered. I couldn’t hear the exchange from the car. They talked for a few minutes before Jack and the uniform returned to the car. I was practically vibrating out of my seat. Sometimes I think Jack purposefully tortures me. He got in the car, buckled up, turned the key, all while I kept up a litany of what happened, what did she say, where are we going?

“She is coming to the station to answer questions there.”

He didn’t actually say calm down, but I got the message.

______

Jack didn’t let me question Lori. I was a little annoyed, but then I didn’t honestly think he would. Plus he did let Skeet and I observe.

While Jack and I were out, Skeet had been working with the officers on gathering financial and background information on Elizabeth and Lori. It didn’t take him long to catch us up.

For the last five years Elizabeth had made regular payments to a bank account in the Cayman Islands a few times a year in the amount of a hundred thousand. For the last five years Lori’s financials were perfectly normal, nothing out of the ordinary.

Lori Claret arrived at the station wearing a black power suit with a sleek, young lawyer trotting behind her. She wasn’t under arrest but I guess a lawyer wasn’t taking any chances. He didn’t stay with her very long.

Jack and Detective Carter sat across from her and the lawyer. They started the interview by showing a picture of Jimmy, and asking if Lori knew him.

Lori and her lawyer declined to answer. They moved on to generic questions. Where she worked, how long she worked there, what she did, if she was in a relationship. Her answers were brief and to the point. I was perched on the edge of my seat, glued to the monitor, watching the proceedings like a hawk.

Jack pushed Jimmy’s picture forward, and asked again if she knew the man in the picture. The lawyer asked why.

“He’s dead. He was shot earlier this evening.”

Lori’s face went white and her hands clenched together.

Her lawyer started to demand an explanation. He didn’t really get a chance. Lori said she would answer the question. Her voice barely raised above a whisper. He turned to her and discreetly attempted to persuade her to see things his way. It didn’t work.

Jack restated the question. My eyes were focused on the monitor in front of Skeet and I. I had my cell phone out and ready to text any questions I had. Not that I expected Jack would respond to me, but I wanted the chance to get my questions in.

“Do you know this man?”

Lori gazed down at the table for a few moments before taking a deep breath and looking up at the picture and the two investigators sittings across from her. Her face was resolved, but her hands twisted together in front of her.

“Yes, I worked with him at Johnson, Lewes, and Ferguson.”

“Is that the only way you knew him?”

“Yes, of course.” She moved her hands down to her lap, but even here in the observation room I could tell that she was lying.

“When was the last time you saw this man?”

“He disappeared a few years ago.”

“So the last time you saw him was a few years ago?”

“Yes.”

Jack paused for a second and shifted the papers in front of him. Detective Carter took over. She placed a picture of Elizabeth on the table.

“Do you know this woman?”

Lori looked down at the picture in front of her.

“No.”

“She’s lying!” I turned to Skeet. He was sitting back in an office chair relaxed, watching the interview. He didn’t seem concerned about the lying.

I turned back. “I’m going to text Jack.”

“Jack’s got it under control.” Yeah, whatever. I was texting him, anyway.
She’s lying. Ask her again
. I hit send and watched Jack like a hawk. He reached down and checked his phone. Then he ignored it. Ignored it. I couldn’t believe it. I sent him another text.
Ask her again
. I hit send. This time he didn’t even look at his phone.

“He’s ignoring me.”

Skeet didn’t seem shocked. “Char, calm down, Jack has this covered.”

I really don’t like it when people tell me to calm down. It’s even worse when I know the calm down is fair. Truth was I did need to calm down. Jack did have this under control. I just didn’t like being out of control. Hard truth and one I didn’t want to own up to. I gave Skeet a dirty look and tuned back into the interview.

The detective was still questioning Lori.

“Did you work at all on Muriel Fitzgerald’s case?”

This question seemed to throw her a little. That surprised me. Surely she saw this coming. She didn’t answer the question right away. She looked down at the table for a minute, collecting her thoughts. Then she turned to her lawyer and quietly asked him to leave. He was shocked, I could tell. He argued with her in fierce whispers before leaving the interview room. When she looked up again there was something a little different in her eyes. I found myself leaning closer.

“Everyone worked on that case, at least in part. It was worth millions. I wasn’t involved as much as James was, but I did some legwork.” She had just mentioned James. I felt my body tense up. She knew him more than she had let on. This was it. I could feel it. We were getting somewhere, or Jack and the detective were getting somewhere, but I was giving myself a little credit.

What happened next proved that sometimes silence is the greatest interrogation tool that exists. Jack and the detective said little. Lori’s story came pouring out. She and James had been having an affair. According to her, James was about to leave his wife when Muriel’s case was picked up by the firm. James started to suspect that Muriel’s death was not so innocent. James and Lori began to investigate on the side. They came up with a plan to blackmail Elizabeth. James approached Elizabeth while Lori sat at a distance and recorded the encounter.

In the observation room I was so tense I could feel myself shaking. I had been right. I knew what had happened. I could see the whole thing laid out in front of me. There were just a few pieces that need to be filled in, and right now Lori Claret was filling in some big ones.

James and Lori thought they had a plan all in place when James started feeling like someone was following him. He and Lori grew increasingly paranoid. Jimmy’s story about being attacked was maybe the one true thing in the story he had told us. After the attack, James called Lori and he ran. They were panicked. Lori had a house in Maryland that had belonged to her grandmother. It was secluded and still in her grandmother’s name. James had been living there ever since. He and Lori met there regularly. He continued to blackmail Elizabeth, but publically he stayed off the radar. Things were going fine until I started looking into Jimmy’s disappearance. The first time I called with questions Lori called James and he started following me.

Jack took Lori back to the beginning of her story and started questioning her, for the last half an hour or so she had talked pretty much non-stop. Now they were getting more details. I felt myself relax for the first time in several hours.