But what about the girls? Why had they come home? Why had the older girl called the younger girl out of volleyball practice? Did the parents ask her to … or did they have another reason?
And then what about the boy? His body hadn’t been found with the others, or anywhere else. Garrett got a copy of the search and rescue report and the cadaver dogs hadn’t found anything near the burial site or the house or between the Albright house and the Young house. They searched the open fields where the kids were known to play, and nothing.
But what was really bugging Garrett was Frank Pollero. Garrett hadn’t interviewed him that day. He’d been dealing with his bitch of an ex-wife and Carl had gone there and reviewed the security footage. And Carl had come back and said that Denise Albright had changed the accounts, then embezzled the money electronically the same day.
“Frank said she was fine, acting normal, came in and flirted, and he didn’t even think to call Kiefer because Albright is a regular customer.”
Garrett stared at the still shot. He recognized Kitty Fitzpatrick. Hell, he’d known Kitty most of his life. Why hadn’t he seen this before?
The thing was, Carl knew Kitty as well. He should be able to look at the picture and tell that it was Kitty. It was a crappy picture and all, and yeah, her general appearance matched Denise Albright’s, so it was no surprise the feds thought it was Denise, but anyone who knew Kitty would know this was Kitty. Including Carl and Frank.
Garrett called the sheriff. “Hank, we need to meet. Not tomorrow, now. Can I come over?”
He was piling everything into his car when lights shined down his driveway. They went off, and Carl got out of his personal truck.
“Hey, thought you might be up for a drink.”
“Sorry, can’t.”
“Where are you going?”
“Food. I have nothing here.”
“At ten at night?”
“What’s with the third degree?”
“You took all the files from the station.”
“So?”
He didn’t see Carl’s gun until it was too late.
Chapter Thirty-one
FRIDAY MORNING
Because Rachel was working in the field on a complicated case with half the Violent Crimes Squad, Lucy cleared her SAPD meeting with ASAC Abigail Durant. Fortunately, she didn’t have to explain in detail, because Rachel had already filled Abigail in.
She got up to leave, but Abigail said, “Please sit, Lucy. There’s two other issues we need to discuss.”
She sat back down, dreading what was coming.
“First, I spoke with the sheriff in Kerr County. Detective Douglas is in the hospital in critical condition. He was shot outside his house last night. But he gave a statement to first responders that his partner, Detective Chavez, shot him. Right now he’s in a medical coma after surgery, so we can’t question him. He thinks he winged Chavez in the gunfight, and evidence at the scene supports that. Chavez is missing. The sheriff himself took charge of the crime scene and found all the Albright files there. Immediately prior to the shooting, Detective Douglas asked to meet with the sheriff.”
“He must have seen something or remembered something that had him suspicious of his partner,” Lucy said. She felt marginally guilty for icing him out of the investigation, but she honestly didn’t know which of the cops was involved.
“Rachel told me—verbally, she didn’t put it in her report—that Nate was able to interview Ricky Albright and he identified Detective Chavez.”
“Yes.”
“And Nate is in Mexico on ‘vacation.’”
Lucy didn’t say anything.
“Where is Ricky Albright now?”
“They are on their way to San Antonio. ETA two this afternoon.”
“I’ll contact CPS and have them take the boy into custody.”
“Ma’am, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“He’ll be safe, receive medical attention and a psychiatric evaluation. He’s been missing for three years. We don’t know what condition he’s in.”
“He knew his family was murdered and he’s terrified of anyone in authority because he knew that at least one cop was responsible. He didn’t want to come home.”
“He’s a minor child who needs to be protected.”
“I agree, which is why putting him immediately into the system is the worst thing we can do.”
“It’s the law, Agent Kincaid.”
Lucy hadn’t met Ricky yet, but Nate had been clear that he was extremely distrustful. “The law couldn’t foresee these specific circumstances. We always have to do what’s in the best interests of the child, right? He’s felt safe for three years because no one knew where he was.”
“And the man who took him?”
“The man didn’t knowingly take him out of the country. Ricky hid in his truck and didn’t expose himself until after they crossed the border.”
“And you don’t think it’s odd that an expatriate kept Ricky Albright in Mexico for the last three years.”
Abigail knew more about the case than Lucy thought.
“It may be, but in this situation I don’t think so—and neither does Nate.”
“I don’t like this, Lucy. If anything happens to that boy while he is in our care, there will be hell to pay—and jobs on the line. Are you willing to risk your entire career? Are you willing to risk Nate’s career?”
“I’m just asking for a day or two. Just until we can apprehend Chavez. If he learns that Ricky is alive and can identify him, then Ricky is in immediate danger.”
“Therefore he would be better off in protective custody.”
“If we can provide that safe house, with our people protecting him as if he were a witness, then yes, I agree, but you know as soon as we bring him in CPS will take him and we don’t know what would happen to him. If Chavez gets even an inkling that Ricky’s alive then we put him in more danger.”
Abigail was thinking.
“There’s a larger conspiracy here, ma’am,” Lucy said. “Multiple people are involved. They may not all have been involved with murdering Denise Albright’s family, but at least four men were there, and that means Chavez isn’t the only person worried about being caught. I know this is against protocol, but until we can get him to a safe house and put him into our protective custody I want to keep him completely out of the system, even if it means skirting the letter of the law for the spirit of the law.”
“I’ll work on the safe house,” Abigail said. “Where are you taking him?”
Lucy didn’t want to tell her, but she had to. “Saint Catherine’s Boys Home.”
Abigail stared at her, thinking.
Lucy mentally crossed her fingers and prayed. She couldn’t openly defy her boss. But she hoped Abigail came around to her way of thinking.
“Tonight, Saint Catherine’s. Tomorrow morning I will reach out to our liaison with CPS. I know her personally, she’s a sharp woman. We’ll decide together what is in Ricky’s best interests—and that may not be staying at Saint Catherine’s. I’ll also run a threat assessment and expedite a safe house. While Saint Catherine’s is prepared to handle a boy like Ricky and they are licensed, we can’t make this decision unilaterally.”
“Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me yet. Next time, I need to know before you make these decisions. There are a dozen other things I need to take into consideration, to protect my agents, this agency, and the people we are sworn to protect. Go, and copy me into every memo you send to Rachel for the duration of this case.”
Lucy left, the reprimand stinging.
She’d bought time, but not much. They needed to solve this case, but Lucy feared they were weeks—if not longer—away from the truth.
* * *
Lucy met Jennifer at the district attorney’s office. While they were waiting for Mike to call them in, she said, “Sean is concerned about Mitch Corta.”
“What for?” Jen sipped her coffee. Lucy wished she’d picke
d up another cup on her way over.
“He left his office yesterday at noon and hasn’t been seen since. Right before that, he called Stan’s sister and told her that Stan didn’t kill Victoria, then something cryptic, like he was a fall guy. I’m not quite sure, I heard this thirdhand this morning. But Mitch didn’t go home last night and he’s not at work this morning.”
“I don’t know what I can do about it. I’ll call Marie, get her take on the conversation, but we don’t have the resources to track every Tom, Dick, and Harry that your husband thinks is in the wind. And didn’t I see a BOLO for a guy that your people put out? Is that the banker you told me about?”
“Yeah, we know he took a flight from San Antonio to New York City before we could put a flag on him, but he hasn’t boarded another plane and he doesn’t have a reservation. Easy enough to disappear for a while in New York, and we’re working on getting an arrest warrant and a warrant to track his credit cards. We’ll have it today, and our New York agents will take it over.”
“Unless he took a train or boat or paid cash or has a place there he can hang.”
“He has no family in New York, but he could have a friend. Hopefully, he tries to get on a plane and we can grab him. But Mitch’s behavior is odd.” Lucy hadn’t talked to Max yet today. Sean said she was researching Simon Mills, but he didn’t seem to be interested in what she was doing. They’d made a bet, apparently, about who could get who to talk first—Simon Mills or Mitch Corta.
Mike Flores, the ADA Jennifer knew, called them in. “I don’t have a lot of time,” he said, “but you made this sound intriguing.”
Lucy let Jennifer take the lead. “This is FBI Agent Lucy Kincaid. She and I have been unofficially working together on the Victoria Mills homicide.”
“The one where your confessed suspect was shot and killed outside the courthouse.”
“There are oddities about this case, but I don’t think I have enough for a warrant. Yet—I think that while Grant was involved in covering up her murder, I’m beginning to think he didn’t actually stab her.”
“Oh, fuck. Not you, too. I had this damn reporter calling me every day for the last two months trying to get information.”
“Yeah, she’s been annoying the fuck out of me, too, I just ignored her. But this is serious. Let me lay it out for you. Robert Clemson is the rear neighbor to the house where Victoria was killed. When we first canvassed, he said he was in all night and didn’t hear or see anything. I didn’t think much of it, because the properties are large and there was no evidence of a struggle or fight. But another neighbor who was walking their dog said that they saw Clemson speed out of the neighborhood at ten thirty that evening. So I went back to Clemson—and he said he got his days confused and that must have been when he met a friend for drinks. Gave me a name, Melissa Randolph. She confirmed they met at Russo’s for drinks shortly after ten thirty and talked for an hour.”
“Witnesses get dates screwed up all the time.”
“I’m not done,” Jennifer snapped.
“Sorry, by all means, sell me.”
Jennifer rolled her eyes. “Lucy and I went back to talk to him because there’s no fence between his property and the murder scene. There are natural barriers—trees and bushes—but there is certainly the possibility that someone could have used his property to get to the backyard. And I just wasn’t sold on his forgetting he went out that night. Randolph is a very attractive thirty-year-old; Clemson is not. And he was squirrelly. So Lucy and I watched his house and ten minutes later he went to Russo’s, where he met with a woman for less than five minutes—Faith Parker Monroe, who he said was his lawyer.”
“He told you he had a lawyer?”
“No, we learned it after the fact from a witness in the bar. He was acting suspicious. Then we decided to talk to Randolph again. Because as I thought on it, it just was too … convenient that he had such a ready-made alibi after saying he was home all night. Randolph moved to Chicago.”
“Too fucking cold for me, but who the hell cares?”
“She’s a paralegal for the same law firm that Faith Parker Monroe is a partner in. She worked for Parker. She was transferred to their offices in Chicago only days after I interviewed her.”
“Hmm. Again. So what?”
“I need to talk to her.”
“Uh-huh. And your boss is good with that? Going after someone in a major law firm?”
“I think we need to go up there together and lay it out for her. If she tells the truth, we don’t charge her with obstruction of justice or perjury.”
“Perjury for lying to a cop? Not a crime. Obstruction, maybe. No way are we going to be cleared to spend a few hundred bucks to fly to Chicago and interview the woman. Look, I get it, I would love to fly around the country interviewing witnesses, but it just doesn’t happen like that. And you know it.”
“She’s an accessory after the fact in a felony, which means you can charge her with a felony.”
He was listening.
“This case is about more than murder,” Jennifer pushed. “Lucy believes that Victoria was involved in a money-laundering operation to clean illegal gambling profits for Harrison Monroe.”
Mike nearly jumped out of his seat and stared at Lucy. “You have evidence of this?”
“No,” Lucy said. “It’s a theory that developed when I connected the three-year-old Albright murders to Victoria Mills’s homicide. I can’t prove it, but I think we can prove that Clemson was lying about his alibi—both times. I think he picked up the killer at the crime scene. And if we can get Randolph to recant that she was with him, we can bring him in.”
“He’ll call for his lawyer.”
“Yes, he probably will.”
Jennifer said, “We’re going to give his entire life a goddamn rectal exam, Mike. He’s not going to know what hit him.”
“Shit,” he muttered. “Have you even cleared this with your boss?”
“If you’re on board, he’ll let me go.”
He was thinking. “I can’t go with you, but you get her to admit to lying, I’ll work on getting her a deal. If she didn’t know that there was going to be a murder committed. If she knew about the crime in advance, all bets are off, got it?”
“Got it.”
“Devil’s advocate here,” he continued. “What if she took a bribe? What if she really didn’t meet with Clemson but instead got a pay raise and a transfer into a better position? What’s in it for her to come clean? We can’t prove she didn’t meet with him.”
“And believe me, I’m kicking myself for not going to Russo’s and verifying the information with the bartender. But there was no reason to at the time.”
“Because Stanley Grant confessed,” Lucy interjected.
“That changed the trajectory of our entire investigation. His alibi was weak—he was at home. We couldn’t prove that he was or wasn’t. We found the embezzled money, clear trail to Grant. And it made sense, because he’s not a financial genius, so he didn’t cover his tracks well. It was common knowledge among his friends and family of his gambling addiction when he was younger, it made sense—on the surface. And he knew specifics about the crime scene that we didn’t release.”
“Someone coached him,” Lucy said.
“So the guy goes in for murder?” Mike said. “Why?”
“Because his sister and her boys were threatened and he believed their lives were in danger,” Lucy said.
“I don’t know that I buy it, but I can see the possibility.”
“So can I,” Jennifer said.
“Did you honestly think I would hop on a plane with you to Chicago?” He was grinning.
“Well, we could make a date of it and have fun,” she teased.
“Watch it, or I’ll write you up for sexual harassment.”
But he was smiling, and so was Jennifer, and Lucy wondered if they had something going on after hours.
Jennifer said, “Lucy’s going to gaslight Clemson.”
“Ex
cuse me?”
Lucy said, “As soon as I know that Jen has Randolph in an interview, I’m going to talk to Clemson. I’ll convince him that we know Randolph lied about the drinks and then suggest that there’s a witness who saw his car in the driveway. That I’m in the process of getting a warrant for his car to test for blood, convince him that no matter how much detailing he gets, blood stays.”
“Are you getting a warrant?”
“I’m going to try, but unless I have something like a witness or Randolph recanting, I don’t think I can get it.”
“You get me one thing,” Mike said, “like Randolph admitting that she didn’t have drinks with Clemson like she said she did or Clemson admitting that he lied, I’ll get you the warrant.”
Jennifer smiled. “Excellent. Clemson is already on edge, and he’s panicking—so Lucy might be able to get him to slip up.”
Lucy said, “I’ll suggest a deal—he talks, I get the AUSA to work out a plea arrangement.”
“This is my case,” Mike said. “Not federal.”
Lucy smiled.
“Oh,” Mike said. “I get it. You’ll work a deal for information about the alleged money laundering.”
“My case is the Albright family execution and now we know that at least one cop was involved—Detective Carl Chavez in Kerr County. He shot his partner last night and is on the run.”
“I read about that this morning on the wire.”
“Detective Douglas will likely make it, but he’s in a medically induced coma. He gave a statement to first responders that ID’d his partner as the shooter. So Albright is federal. Mills is local. And if we share information that connects, that helps both of us.”
“I can live with that,” Mike said.
“Clemson knows something about Harrison Monroe, maybe evidence of his illegal gambling operation, or maybe he knows that Harrison killed Victoria. It’s no coincidence that Faith Parker is his lawyer.”
“She’s not a criminal lawyer,” Mike said.
Cut and Run Page 31
