The Undertaker's Widow (36 page)

“No one is accusing you of doing anything illegal, Senator,” Riker assured Gage.

“I appreciate that, because, after the fact, I wondered if I'd been out of bounds.”

“Mr. Clark, he's your assistant?” Anthony asked.

“Administrative assistant. A true patriot. He was a navy SEAL. Decorated extensively.”

“Do you happen to know his whereabouts on last Wednesday?”

“I'm afraid you'll have to ask him about that. I'm sure he'll answer all your questions.”

“Do you know where we can reach him?”

“Certainly.”

Gage told them a phone number.

“Senator, did you or Mr. Clark know Marie Ritter or Martin Jablonski?”

Gage smiled patiently. “I can only speak for myself. I recognize Mr. Jablonski's name, of course, and I can assure you that we never met. I'm unfamiliar with the other person you mentioned. I can't speak for Mr. Clark. You'll have to ask him.”

Riker stood up. “Thank you for taking the time to talk to us.”

“Anytime, Ced. I'm a strong supporter of the police.”

Gage walked the detectives and the district attorney to the front door. When they were on their way, the senator returned to his study and phoned Ryan Clark.

“How did it go?” Clark asked.

“Piece of cake.”

The message light on the answering machine was blinking furiously when Quinn and Laura returned home from the beach late Tuesday afternoon.

“Probably reporters,” Quinn said as he carried the last of the bags in from the car.

“Or my office,” Laura answered as she hit the Play button.

They were right about the first four messages, but the fifth was from Ellen Crease.

“Judge, I've tried calling you every place I could think of, but no one knows where you are. It's urgent that we speak as soon as possible. Please call me immediately.”

“I wonder what that's about,” Laura said.

“I'd better call. She sounded upset.”

Quinn dialed the number Crease had left. James Allen answered the phone. Quinn gave his name and Ellen Crease picked up a moment later.

“I just got your message. Laura and I have been hiding out at the coast since early Sunday. What's up?”

“We need to talk.”

Crease sounded very tense.

“About what?”

“It's not something that we should discuss over the phone. Can you come to my house?”

“Now?”

“Right away.”

“Can't this wait until tomorrow? We just walked in the door and I'm bushed.”

“It has to be now. Please. This concerns both of our futures. I wouldn't ask if it wasn't important.”

Quinn hesitated. Then he gave in.

“Use the back entrance to the estate. That way, no one will see you. I'll leave the gate open. It's a little tricky to get to. You have to take some back roads.”

“Give me the directions.”

Quinn grabbed a pencil and wrote down Crease's instructions on a pad, then read them back.

“What was that about?” Laura asked when Quinn hung up.

“I have no idea.”

“Can't it wait until tomorrow?”

“She sounded very uptight, so she must think that it's important we meet. She even wants me to come by a back way so I won't be seen.”

“Call her back and tell her you'll talk to her tomorrow.”

“She saved my life, Laura.”

Laura sighed. “You're right. Do you want me to come with you?”

Quinn squeezed Laura's hand. “There's no reason why both of us should run out. I won't be gone long.”

Quinn left and Laura carried their bags upstairs to the bedroom. She was unpacking them when something Crease had said on the answering machine flitted in and out of her consciousness. Laura paused and tried to recapture the thought. She frowned, then shook her head. It was gone. She was tempted to replay Crease's message but that would mean going downstairs. She felt sticky from the ride. She decided to shower first. It was probably nothing, anyway.

Quinn took the back roads to the Hoyt estate and ended at a small gated entrance surrounded by woods. The gate
was open, just as Crease said it would be. It was almost a mile to the house on a narrow unpaved road.

Ellen Crease was waiting for Quinn at the rear door.

“I've given James Allen the night off and I've dismissed the security guards so we can have privacy,” Crease said as she led Quinn into a sunroom in the rear of the mansion. The room was painted white and floored with terra-cotta tiles. Wide-leaf plants filled the corners of the room. Three of the walls were floor-to-ceiling windows divided into small panes through which the pale evening light entered.

Crease gestured Quinn onto one of four wicker chairs that surrounded a glass-top table. Outside the room was a garden. None of the flowers were in bloom and there were no buds on the limbs of the trees. The foliage looked cold and exposed. Just beyond the garden were heavy woods that stretched to the boundary of the estate. Crease got to the point immediately.

“I need your help, Dick. Believe me, I've thought long and hard before asking you for it, but I have no choice.”

“I'll help any way I can,” Quinn assured her.

“Don't say that so quickly. Wait until you hear what I want from you.”

Crease sighed. She seemed sad.

“I've only known you for a short time, but you've impressed me with your integrity and character. That's what makes my request so difficult. I am going to lose my bid to win the primary unless I go public about the conspiracy against me. I trust the voters. If they know that I was framed for Lamar's murder, I believe they will swing over to me.”

Crease's features hardened. She captured Quinn with her eyes. He could feel her power.

“Dick, the voters have to be told that you were
threatened with blackmail if you did not fix my case. Benjamin Gage is taking the position that I've been hiding behind a legal technicality to keep the public from finding out the truth about Lamar's murder. You can tell everyone that you ruled as you did to protect me from a plan to frame me. I know it's a lot to ask. I tried to reach you yesterday, so you would have time to think about what I'm asking you to do. When I couldn't find you I had to go forward. I've planned a news conference for Thursday night. I'm going public with everything.”

“You can't do that.”

Crease looked sad. She shook her head wearily. “You have no idea how difficult this decision was for me, Dick, but I'm convinced that I must go ahead with the news conference.”

“Do you appreciate what could happen to me if it gets out that I fixed your case?”

“Yes. I consulted Mary Garrett before I made this decision. She told me that you will probably have to resign from the bench and that you might face criminal charges.”

“There is no ‘might.' Cedric Riker is a political crony of Benjamin Gage. If my confession costs Gage the election he'll definitely come after me.”

“I've got money and influence, Dick. I won't desert you if things start to go bad.”

Quinn shook his head as if he could not believe what he was hearing.

“I know I'm asking a lot. If you go public at my press conference, I am prepared to back you with every penny I've got. You'll have the best lawyers, and I'll work behind the scenes for you. Gage isn't the only person with political influence.”

Quinn leaned back and closed his eyes. He had been prepared to resign from the bench on the evening that Brademas attacked him in the garage. Crease had
convinced him to reconsider that decision. Now she wanted him to make a public confession.

“I have to talk this over with Laura. If I'm disbarred or go to prison, it will affect her, too.”

“Of course. But I'm going to go ahead with the news conference whether you help me or not. If you confess publicly, it may help you later.”

Quinn was about to respond when the rear doorbell rang.

“Stay here,” Crease said. “I'll see who that is.”

A moment later, Quinn heard raised voices in the hall. One of them was Laura's. Quinn walked into the hall. Laura saw him and walked down the hall with Crease close behind her.

“What does she want from you?” Laura demanded.

“Your husband was just about to drive home and tell you,” Crease answered calmly. “Why don't we discuss this in the sunroom, instead of standing in the hall?”

Quinn and Laura followed the senator into the sunroom. When they were seated, Quinn said, “Ellen wants me to go public about the blackmail plot. She thinks it will help her win the election if the voters learn that someone tried to coerce me into fixing her case so that she would be convicted.”

Laura turned on Crease. “You want my husband to risk prison so you can win an election?”

“The decision to go public has already been made. The only question is whether Dick helps me. I'm sorry, Laura.”

“I don't think you are. There's something very wrong here, something that I don't understand. I listened to the message that you left on our answering machine. You said that you tried to find Dick, but no one knew where he was.”

“Yes?” Crease answered with obvious confusion.

“You couldn't find us because Dick and I didn't tell anyone that we were going to the coast.”

Now Quinn looked confused, too.

“What are you getting at?” Quinn asked.

“How did Jack Brademas know that my husband was working at the courthouse on Saturday?” Laura asked Crease. “It was a weekend afternoon. No one would expect him to be there. The only person besides me that he told was you, Senator, when he phoned to tell you about the police report.”

“Jack must have followed your husband,” Crease said.

“That's possible, but it wouldn't explain why he was so desperate to kill Dick. Only one thing could have caused that urgency. Knowing that Dick had discovered his link to Jablonski and was going to tell the police. And you are the only person who knew about Dick's discovery.”

“You think I sent Jack to kill your husband?” Crease asked incredulously.

“There were a few things that never added up. If Brademas was working with Junior so he could get a cut of the estate, it made no sense for him to tell your husband about the embezzlement scheme and run the risk that Lamar would go to the police or disinherit Junior. I think Jack Brademas was your accomplice all along, Senator.”

“You've got it all wrong, Laura,” Crease said without rancor.

“I don't think so. Jablonski was your sacrificial lamb. You hid in the bathroom while he murdered your husband. Then you ambushed him and became a grieving widow and a law-and-order avenger overnight. It was a terrific little coup that helped you to skyrocket in the polls and become a multimillionaire. Everything was going great until Gary Yoshida stumbled across the blood
spatter pattern on the armoire and Gage bribed Fargo to go to the police. When you were indicted for Lamar Hoyt's murder, you lost everything you had gained. Now your priority was to escape death row. That's when you dreamed up your blackmail scheme. You knew that Dick was going to St. Jerome because he announced it at your bail hearing. I bet Brademas found out about Marie Ritter while he was investigating Junior. You used her to ensnare Dick, then you killed her when she had served her purpose.”

“There's a problem with your theory, Laura,” Crease said calmly. “If Jack and I were working together, why would we tell your husband that he would be ruined unless he did everything he could to see that I was sent to prison?” Crease flashed Laura a condescending smile. “That doesn't sound like a very good plan to me.”

“That was the cleverest part of the plan, Senator, and it hinged on an excellent reading of the character of my husband. I could never understand why the blackmailers sent Marie Ritter to see Dick during the hearing. They were running an incredible risk that he would figure out that Claire Reston and Andrea Chapman were the same person. If that happened, the blackmail plan would be useless because Dick would know that Andrea Chapman was not murdered on St. Jerome. The blackmailers' leverage would be lost.

“On top of that, Reston let Dick know that she could go public with the fact that he was with Chapman in the cove. It was a ridiculous thing to do if the blackmailers wanted their plot to succeed, but it was a very clever thing to do if the blackmailers wanted their plan to fail.”

For the first time since Laura arrived, Crease looked uncertain.

“You sent Reston to see Dick because you wanted
him to do exactly the opposite of what Brademas ordered. You knew that my husband would never give in to blackmail if you told him to fix the case so that you would be acquitted. He would have gone to the police even if it meant his career. You used reverse psychology to get Dick to do what you wanted. You knew how decent Dick is. You gambled that he would sacrifice his career to save you.”

“This is absolute nonsense,” Crease said.

“Look at the evidence. Paul Baylor didn't say that Gary Yoshida's interpretation of the blood spatter evidence was wrong, he only gave a theoretical alternative to Yoshida's explanation. If Yoshida was right, you lied all along. You also profited the most when your husband died. You and Brademas go way back. Who does it make more sense for him to work with? And you were the only one who knew about the report that implicated Brademas, the only one who could tell him where to find Dick.”

“She saved my life, Laura,” Quinn said.

“No, Dick, she didn't save your life when she killed Brademas. She took care of a witness who could hang her. Brademas became a liability as soon as you found his name on that report.”

“But why didn't she wait until Brademas killed me? With both of us dead there would be no way to prove that her case was rigged and she would be free of the murder charges.”