The FBI Thrillers Collection (60 page)

He didn’t say it was just possible that everyone would want to watch the show now, that it would get its highest ratings ever. He didn’t say he was planning to use the profits the show generated to help cover the host of lawsuits the
studio was sure to face from their scripts being used as models for murder by their own chief executive.

Belinda Gates and Joe Kleypas stood behind the spokesperson. It was obvious they were very pleased. The spokesperson announced finally that Frank Pauley would be assuming Linus Wolfinger’s position as president of Premier Studios.

The four watching at Hoolihan’s Gym in Chicago high-fived one another when the press conference was over. “Belinda was the only one who ever helped us,” Sherlock said, “but even she let us down.”

Savich said to his wife, “That reminds me. I haven’t pulled those rollers out of your hair yet,” and kissed her.

“I’ll buy some tomorrow,” Sherlock said.

An
hour later the four of them were at Senator Rothman’s office on Briarly Avenue in downtown Chicago. Press were hovering about in herds. “I feel sorry for the poor soul who just happens to be walking near here today,” Nick said, and led them to the back of the building. “It looks like the reporters haven’t found out about this back entrance just yet.”

Savich said, “It won’t take them long. I saw security people in the lobby. At least they can keep the vultures out of the building.”

The secretary, Mrs. Mazer, jumped to her feet when she saw Nick and yelled, “Oh goodness me, you’re all right! Oh, Dr. Campion, the senator will be so pleased to see you. Even though he hasn’t said anything, I know he’s been dreadfully worried, particularly after we all saw you on television and realized you were involved in that horrible script murder case. We all thought you were visiting your
family. Oh, come in, come in. Who are these folks with you?”

“It’s good to see you, Mrs. Mazer. Is John free for a moment?”

“Oh, yes, certainly. He will be so pleased to see you.” She paused a moment, looking at Dane, Sherlock, and Savich, a gray eyebrow arched.

“It’s all right. They’re with me, Mrs. Mazer.”

Mrs. Mazer said nothing more, opened the senator’s door, then stepped aside.

Senator John Rothman was standing in the middle of his large office when Nick walked first into the room. She stopped, said, “Thank you for seeing me, John.”

He stood stiff as a lamppost. “Nicola,” he said politely. “Who are these people?”

Nick introduced each of them in turn. “Did you see the press conference?”

“Oh yes, I saw it all,” Senator Rothman said. “Mrs. Mazer, please close the door and see that I’m not disturbed.”

When the door was quietly and firmly closed, Senator John Rothman turned to Nick. He tried to smile at her, flanked by three FBI agents.

“It’s good to see you, Nicola. Like everyone else in the world, I saw your photo on television. It was a shock, as you can imagine.” He paused a moment, searching her face. “There was the fire in your condo. I was frantic but I couldn’t find you. You simply disappeared. I called the university. The dean told me you’d written a letter stating that you had a family emergency, but that was a lie, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, it was a lie,” Nick said.

“I had no idea where to find you. I didn’t think it was a good idea to call the FBI and demand information about your whereabouts. And now you’ve come back. Why?”

“First of all, to tell you I’m sorry about Cleo.”

“Yes, I am, too. The thing is, some people believe I killed her, but I didn’t. I’m sure my lawyers think they’ve
died and gone to heaven, they’re going to make so much money off this mess. Listen, I didn’t hurt anyone, Nicola.” His eyes never left her face. “I didn’t try to hurt you.”

Finally, he broke the moment, turning, when Savich said, “Senator, as Nick told you, I’m Agent Savich, this is Agent Sherlock, and Agent Carver. Since Nick helped us out on the murder cases in California, we’ve decided to help her out with her involvement in this particular mess.”

“It is a mess,” said John Rothman. He ran his fingers through his beautifully styled salt-and-pepper hair.

Dane, who’d said nothing, stood quietly behind Nick, eyeing this elegant aristocrat. He wanted to kick the man’s teeth down his throat.

“John,” Nick said, “do you remember that night I asked you how many women you killed?”

Dead silence.

“Yes, of course I would remember when the woman I love accuses me of being a serial killer. I assume all these Federal agents are familiar with what you think of me, Nicola?”

She nodded. She realized in that moment that she was now perfectly safe. No one could hurt her again. She drew herself up even taller.

“Did you know there was an attempt on my life in Los Angeles?”

“Of course not. How could I possibly know that?” He paused a moment, then said, “Should I have my lawyer present?”

“I don’t believe so,” Savich said. “Why don’t we all sit down and talk this over?”

The lovely pale brown brocade grouping was expensive and charming. The coffee served in the Georgian coffeepot was fresh and quite excellent. It was Nicola who served them. Dane saw that she was very comfortable in these surroundings, pouring the damned coffee from that exquisite silver coffeepot. He’d be willing to bet Paul Revere had made the thing. He didn’t know if he ever wanted to see
Nick in the senator’s penthouse, damn that man’s sincere and honest eyes.

Dane sat forward, clasping his hands between his legs. “Nick has told us that your mother died in a car accident some three months after she confessed infidelity to your father. You were sixteen at the time. Is this correct?”

Rothman said slowly, “Why are you asking about my mother? It is absolutely none of your business. It’s no one’s business. It has nothing to do with anything.”

“Senator, we’re here as friends of Nick,” Sherlock said. “Of course, our superiors also know that we’re here. We rather hoped we could clear everything up today, informally.” She gave him her patented smile, which no human being alive could resist. He found himself smiling back at her, taking in her brilliant curly red hair. He said, “I appreciate that, Agent. But of course I haven’t killed anyone. I don’t know what’s going on, any more than you do. Nicola, I told you that my mother was dead, that she died in a car accident. But what does that have to do with anything? Why the questions about my mother?”

“It was in Cleo’s letter,” Nick said. “The one you tore out of my hand and hurled into the fireplace.”

Senator Rothman looked utterly bewildered.

“You do remember shredding the letter and throwing it into the fireplace, John?”

“Yes, of course. I was very upset that night. A letter from Cleo—I simply couldn’t accept that. Throwing the letter into the fire, it was an impulse, and one that I now regret.”

Dane hated it, but he believed Senator Rothman. He’d really hoped, in a deep, black spot in his heart, that the senator was so guilty he’d stink of it, but he didn’t.

Dane said, “Senator Rothman, perhaps we can end this very simply. Could you please show us your journal?”

Senator Rothman looked blank.

“You do have a journal, don’t you, sir?” Sherlock said.

“Yes, of course, but it’s more like a recording of events
over the years, nothing personal, if you know what I mean. Actually, I haven’t written in it in a very long time.”

“May we please see it, sir,” Dane said.

Senator Rothman rose, walked to his exquisite bird’s-eye maple desk, opened the second drawer, and pulled it out. He handed the journal-sized notebook to Dane.

Sherlock said, “You don’t keep it at home in the safe in your study?”

“Oh no, I’ve always kept it here. I’m hardly home enough to leave it there. As I said, I haven’t written in it in a very long time, since before Cleo left—no, before someone murdered Cleo.” He winced.

Nick said, “Cleo wrote that you confessed to murdering Melissa.”

“Murdered Melissa? That is absurd. I wish I hadn’t destroyed that damned letter. Listen, Nick, whoever wrote you that letter, it wasn’t Cleo.”

“We know that now,” Savich said. “Cleo’s been dead since she supposedly left you.”

No one said anything. Dane opened the journal, a rich dark brown leather with a clasp that wasn’t locked. He skimmed through it.

Rothman said, “As you can see, Agent Carver, it’s more a recording of events and appointments, nothing at all sinister.” He paused, said, “No, Cleo didn’t write you that letter, Nicola. God, she was dead, dead all along, and no one knew.” He put his face in his hands, his shoulders heaving, struggling to keep control.

No one said a word until he got himself together again, drank some of his coffee. “I apologize.”

He said finally, “What the hell is going on here?”

“Haven’t you wondered who wrote me that letter since Cleo has been dead for three years?” Nick asked.

He splayed his hands in front of him, didn’t say anything.

“You kept insisting that last night, John, that Cleo hadn’t written the letter, that it was impossible. It occurred to me
that you must have known she was dead, that it was impossible for her to have written to me, that it had to be someone else.”

“No, I had no idea Cleo was dead. What I simply couldn’t believe was that Cleo would slander me like that, that she would make up that story about a journal and what I’d written. There was no way she could have believed that I killed Melissa, would have killed
her
as well, and now even you. All because of some rumor that you were sleeping with Elliott Benson?”

“That all three of us slept with Elliott Benson, beginning with Melissa back in college.”

He shook his head. “That’s absurd. Elliott is a friend, not an enemy. He’s a man I trust, a man I’ve always trusted.”

Nick looked away from the man she’d planned to marry just one month before. Now he and Elliott Benson were the best of friends? She didn’t know, just didn’t know.

She rose and walked to the huge window that gave onto Lake Michigan. The water was whipped up by a strong wind. She could tell it was cold and blustery from there, on the twenty-second floor of the Grayson Building. She said over her shoulder, not looking back, “I never heard any rumor about me and Elliott, did you, John?”

To her surprise, he slowly nodded, saw she still wasn’t looking at him, and said aloud, “Yes, I did hear some rumors. I actually spoke to Elliott about them, and he denied them, of course. I remember I was about to leave when I turned and saw that he was smirking behind his hand. Then it was gone, and I believed I must have imagined it. Elliott would never hurt me.” He rubbed his knuckles then, and Savich knew that the restrained aristocratic senator had been thinking about hitting Elliott Benson. Because he believed he was the enemy? Did he believe that Nick would do such a thing?

“Why do you think he would slander Dr. Campion?” Sherlock asked. “If, of course, he actually did.”

“I don’t know. He’s occupied a unique position in my
life, sometimes a friend, sometimes an enemy. It’s been that way since we were in high school. I do know he wanted to sleep with Cleo, I know that for a fact. But she didn’t want him. She told me about it.” He paused, looked down at his hands, at his fingers rubbing against his palms. “But of course there was Tod Gambol.”

“Who still hasn’t been located,” Dane said.

The senator said, “Maybe Tod’s the one who killed her. Or maybe it was Elliott and he’s the one who started the rumor about Nicola because he wanted her to leave me. Maybe I’ve been wrong about him all these years. But would he go that far? Jesus, I don’t know. Do you know why he would say such a thing, Nicola?”

“No, I have no idea. Did you believe him when he denied the rumor about me, John?”

“Good God, yes, naturally.”

“Are you quite sure?”

“Of course.” But he dropped his eyes. He said, “Those references to my journal, to what I’d supposedly written, listen to me. I didn’t write any of that, so that means she lied, but now we know it wasn’t Cleo who lied, it was someone else.”

“Yes,” Savich said. “Yes, we think that just might be the case, Senator.”

Senator Rothman looked pathetically eager. “Really? And just what exactly do you think, Agent?”

“We need to speak to you and your sister, Albia Rothman, sir,” Sherlock said. “Could you perhaps arrange a meeting?”

“I’m sure Albia would want very much to see you again, Nick. Why don’t all of you come to dinner tonight at my home?”

“That would be fine,” Nick said. “Thank you, John.”

“What’s this about Albia? You think she’s got something to do with this? You think she wrote the letter to Nicola, made up that journal?” His face was flushed. “That’s nonsense, absolute rubbish.”

“What time, John?” Nick asked.

They
were all seated at the magnificent dining room table, which was set for six. Senator Rothman sat at the head of the table and Albia at the other end.

Dane thought she was a beautiful woman, as charming as her brother, though perhaps a touch more calculated. It was obvious to him that her brother hadn’t mentioned the letter or the journal to her.

Albia Rothman had cried when she first saw Nick, hugged her, told her over and over how very worried they’d been about her, that she was utterly distraught that Nick had believed such horrible things about John.

“My dear, I cannot tell you how much both John and I worried about you. We talked and talked but nothing seemed to make any sense to us. Then you were on TV with this man here—this Federal agent—and you were some sort of eyewitness in that script murder. However did all that come about? We heard that the murderer killed himself. It must have been a horrible time for you, Nicola.”

“Yes, it was very bad, Albia,” Nick said.

Nick’s voice was soft, a slight musical lilt to it. Dane saw that she wasn’t wearing anything he’d bought her. She and Sherlock had gone shopping at Saks on Michigan Avenue, and both of them looked expensive, and, to Dane’s eye, utterly beautiful. Nick’s black dress was short, showing off very nice long legs, but conservative, very appropriate for these surroundings. Once again, he thought she fit perfectly in this environment. He could easily picture her as a powerful senator’s wife. It made him sick to his stomach. He realized, as he looked at her, that he never would have met her if Michael hadn’t died.