Driving Reign

by TG Wolff

  “Yes, and she was fine when I left.”

  “What were the contents of the document?”

  “It was a simple statement that said Alpha Theta Nu, both the chapter and the national organization, were absolved of all responsibility associated with the events of the previous October. It was the truth. It should have been easy for her to sign it.”

  “But she didn’t. Did she give you a reason?”

  Hennessy hesitated, glanced at her lawyer. “She was crude, telling me to do something impossible with the document. In her opinion, our organization did not do enough to support her through her…her troubles.” She leaned into the table. “The truth was we did back her until the prosecutor said there was no basis for charges. Posey’s attorneys sent a letter, threatening to hold the sorority responsible for the damage she caused. I encouraged her to issue a formal apology, but she refused. She was determined to play the victim when it was very clear what happened.”

  “What happened?”

  “She seduced a married man. If you saw the costume she wore that night, you wouldn’t have any doubt. You could see everything through the sheet draped around her. When a woman puts herself on display like that, she does it because she wants attention. It’s basic psychology, Detective.”

  Cruz wasn’t getting into an argument on theory with Hennessy. “Your parting words to Sophie when you left the restaurant were,” he looked to his notes, “‘This isn’t over. I’ll find a way to stop you from ruining us.’ You meant Alpha Theta Nu, correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “You were angry.”

  “Frustrated. Sophie didn’t care who was hurt—”

  “You didn’t care Sophie was hurt.” Cruz laid it out as he saw it could happen. “Raped or not, she survived a traumatic event only to have you throw her out of her home. You were that angry. New Year’s Eve you turned a twenty-one-year-old woman out on the streets. You didn’t care where she went as long as it was away. But it didn’t go away, she didn’t go away, so you had to act.”

  “No. I would never hurt Sophie.”

  “You left that Friday night, but you came back later, found Sophie had gone to the basement apartment when she wasn’t feeling well; it was easy to see what you had to do. You found your way down to the apartment. I imagine Sophie was surprised to see you, but she let you in. You pretended to care, feigned helping when you really were killing her with the sleeping pills you brought.”

  “No!” Hennessy was on her feet again. “You’re a horrible man for conjuring the accusation. Is this what policing is? Bullying law-abiding citizens into corners to make them turn into animals? Spouting accusations that are impossible to defend?” The calm tone was filled with contempt, her body trembled with the effort of restraint.

  Cruz returned the contempt, not giving an inch. “Did you return to the building after you left?”

  “No.”

  “Where did you go when you left?” When Hennessy hesitated, Cruz pressed. “Who were you with?”

  “I…I can’t tell you.” Hennessy’s gaze slid to her attorney.

  “May we have a moment?” Hartford asked.

  Cruz suspended the interview and followed Magliotti out. They leaned against the wall outside the door.

  Magliotti grinned. “Betcha ten dollars she was with a married man. She looks like the ‘do as I say, not as I do’ kind.”

  “Naw. Not the type.” He thought through what a woman like Hennessy would want to hide. “I bet it’s something personal, but embarrassing, like she was getting her tummy tucked or lip waxed.”

  “Why would that be embarrassing?”

  “Because it means she has a mustache. That would be embarrassing for a woman as cultured as she is.”

  Hartford opened the door. Minutes later, Hennessy had an alibi and Magliotti was a tenner richer.

  By the time he finished up the details, Cruz had a choice between lunch and being on time. He compromised with a candy bar and walked into the County Prosecutor’s Office two minutes early. D’Arcy’s admin ushered him in where the woman herself worked behind a conspicuously clean desk.

  “Good, you’re here.” She wore a pantsuit that said she was a professional and a woman. “Let me take your coat.”

  She lingered a moment as he pulled his arm out, a subtle touch he thought he might have imagined. He became hyper aware of the woman standing close to him. Of her scent, something flowery with vanilla. Of her shape, slender and elegant. Of the way she moved, authoritative, with power and grace.

  He put a deliberate step between them. He swore she smiled as she hung his coat, but she appeared purely professional when she turned back to him. “Thank you for coming.”

  “I’m here, as requested. Why the mystery?”

  “Oh, sorry if it seemed cloak-and-dagger-ish. Didn’t mean it to be. Just didn’t feel like dictating a dissertation to my assistant. Had other things to get done.” She sat in her desk chair, waved him to one of the spares facing her. “I received a call this morning from an acquaintance. Her client claims he has valuable information relevant to one of your cases, and I thought you’d like to hear it from the horse’s mouth.”

  “D’Arcy.” The admin’s voice interrupted the fledgling conversation. “Ms. Applegate has arrived. She is in the conference room, as you directed.”

  “Thank you, Rita. We’ll be right in.” D’Arcy stood as she released the intercom button. “Sorry, she’s a little early. I’d hoped we would chat first. We’ll have to play it by ear. If you say something I don’t like, I’ll kick you.”

  Standing, he waited for her to laugh it off. When she didn’t, he said, “Same goes. What if I want to talk privately?”

  “Yes, we should have a signal. I know, wink at me.” She proceeded to demonstrate.

  When she started to push past him, he put a hand on her arm. “You didn’t tell me, who’s her client?”

  “Val Hannigan, the man you asked me about.”

  The three-second walk to the conference room did not provide the time needed to process. He’d lie low, feel out the parties until he could take control of the game.

  “Sarah, good to see you again.” D’Arcy extended her hand to the woman dressed for a courtroom or a funeral. Black and conservative worked for both.

  “Hello, D’Arcy. Thanks for squeezing us in. Val Hannigan, D’Arcy Whitsome.”

  “This is Detective Jesus De La Cruz. Detective, Sarah Applegate and Val Hannigan.”

  Cruz did the how-do-you-dos, his gaze on the man he knew as P.J. Mayfield. “We’ve met before.” Mayfield / Hannigan looked much the same as he had in the apartment playing Call of Duty, except in the eyes. The ones looking at him were tired, worried.

  “Yes,” he said.

  The lawyers began to talk. Somebody, somewhere made a rule, if there was a lawyer on one side of the table, there were lawyers on both sides, and if a lawyer sat at a table, no one else was allowed to speak. Even for themselves. Especially for themselves.

  “My client has information of interest to the prosecutor’s office and is willing to exchange the information for immunity from prosecution.” Applegate laid it out in a well-rehearsed elevator speech.

  “We’re listening but we aren’t making any promises until we understand the content of the information. I understand why you didn’t provide details on the phone, but here we are. I have the authority to negotiate. I have a representative of the Cleveland police department to validate the information. Ball is in your court. Impress me.” D’Arcy leaned back in the chair, a critic ready to judge a performance.

  Cruz leaned forward, a cat ready to pounce.

  “My client is here to talk about Andrew Posey and what he is doing in the corner office. He is Posey’s confident and trusted assistant. In the short time he has been there, Mr. Hannigan has witnessed and documented bribery, corruption, bid tampering. Val has recorded every meeting with Posey. I’ve heard some of the recordings. They’ll tell yo
u where to look for the evidence to arrest and convict. I’m bringing you a whistleblower.”

  Hannigan shifted in his chair. At that moment, his age and experience showed.

  “How did you meet Andrew Posey?” Cruz asked. The question was intentionally easy, meant to relax the witness and get him talking.

  “I had to meet the mayor. Mulgrew was going to take my mother’s house for this new development. They were going to raze the entire neighborhood and replace it with townhouses and villas. I couldn’t let it happen without trying something. I called to schedule an appointment, but his secretary wouldn’t let me see him. There was only one place I could think of where she couldn’t cock-block for him. I hid out in the men’s room of city hall. He came in with Drew, I mean Andrew Posey.”

  “How did a meeting in the men’s room turn into a job in the chief of staff’s office?”

  “Mayor Mulgrew ordered Posey to hear me out. He took me to his office, and I saw the development sketches. He had a stack of them on his table. I, uh, ‘borrowed’ one and brought it back a week later with improvements that increased the value and preserved the homes for my mother and the neighbors who want to stay.”

  “It was that simple? Posey offered you a job for your good ideas?”

  Hannigan’s gaze slid to his lawyer. When she patted his hand, the reassuring mother, he continued. “That day, in the men’s room, the mayor was upset about the scandal with Posey and Sophie DeMusa. The mayor, he wasn’t going to do anything about my mother’s house. He didn’t care what happened to her, where she went, if our family history was bulldozed over. He cared if Posey was in the news again. He said I had problems, Posey had problems, and he didn’t need any more problems. He needed solutions. When I was ready to talk about solutions, he’d listen. I understood what he meant.”

  D’Arcy scribbled a note in a script that would have baffled NASA. “What did you understand, Mr. Hannigan?”

  “If I took care of Posey’s problem, Mulgrew would take care of mine.”

  D’Arcy leaned forward at the incredulous statement. “The mayor of this city, Peter Mulgrew, told you that if you took care of Andrew Posey’s problem, namely Sophie DeMusa, they would preserve your mother’s home?”

  “It wasn’t the words as much as his eyes and his body. He told Posey to take me to his office and talk to me.”

  “What did Posey say?” Cruz wanted to ask more, but it would be leading. He, like D’Arcy, needed to know exactly what Posey did and didn’t do.

  “Mostly, we talked about the development, but then I told him I could help with Sophie. He asked me what I could do. I said I could get her to drop it all.” His gaze drifted to his clasped hands. “I was saying anything I could think of to get him to put the development plans on hold.”

  “Did you know Sophie DeMusa at the time you met with Mulgrew and Posey?”

  “Never heard of her. I didn’t have a plan, I was bluffing. I didn’t know what the deal was between them. I didn’t know she was twenty-one. She could have been eighty for all I knew at the time. I thought I would figure it out. After I left, I researched her. I found out where she worked and went to scope her out. Once I saw her,” he shrugged, “I knew I could handle her.”

  “How?” D’Arcy asked.

  He relaxed into a slow smile women likely thought sexy. “It just isn’t hard.” He looked at Cruz as though for corroboration.

  Cruz pressed, making it clear they were on opposite sides of the table. “Did you drug Sophie DeMusa?”

  Applegate held up her hand. “Don’t answer, Val. We’re here to talk about Posey.”

  “You’ve worked for Posey for two weeks. How is it you are privy to sensitive information?”

  Hannigan shrugged. “I think I impressed him. He’s always giving me advice. The other interns are jealous because of what I do for him.”

  Cruz stood. “D’Arcy, let’s talk outside.” He took her elbow and pulled her from the room, not giving her a chance to argue.

  “Do you mind?” She tugged her arm free then smoothed her jacket and squared her shoulders. “You were supposed to wink, not grab. I want those recordings. If there is anything on them about Posey raping Sophie, I’m filing charges and FedExing them to every media outlet.” Her eyes were hot with the thrill of the chase. The way she licked her lips, she tasted blood. Posey’s.

  “Don’t get your hopes up. Face it, D’Arcy, Sophie didn’t worry him, not since you wouldn’t file charges.”

  “I couldn’t—”

  “I’m not saying you could.” His hand cut off the argument. “I’m saying not to expect him to pour his secrets out to a twenty-something stalking the city hall john’s.”

  “Okay, okay. Maybe I got ahead of myself.” She took a deep breath and blew it out. “What do you want from this?”

  “I want to know the details of the night he drugged Sophie and the day he went back into the apartment. Applegate can’t keep it off the table if she wants immunity for Val. She does, and I’ll charge him with attempted murder, put him in a cell before happy hour. Then, I want to know what happened last night.”

  D’Arcy knocked on her own conference room door before entering. The counselor whispered the end of the pep talk and patted Hannigan’s arm again before resuming a no-nonsense posture.

  The lawyers put on their poker faces and anted-up. The cards were dealt, the opening bets made: his evidence for a felony-level assault plea. Then came the flop. Both players got a little something out of it but nothing to scare the other out of the hand. Applegate upped the pot with emails. D’Arcy raised her, misdemeanor-level assault. The turn card didn’t get either excited. Eyebrows were raised, cards were checked, both lawyers called. The river card put it all on the table. Everything he knew, saw, had, suspected for a deal that lost him his job and passport but kept him out of jail.

  The lawyers shook hands. D’Arcy stood, clasping Cruz on the shoulder. “Your witness, Detective.”

  “Let’s start with that Friday night at Three Witches.”

  Once Hannigan started talking, it was like a crack in a dam broke open. Information spewed at breakneck speed, blowing through everything in its path. “She was flying on the roofie I’d slipped her. She took the sleeping pills, thinking they were candy. She was starting to get drowsy and then went nuts and attacked me. I tried to hold her down, until the pills kicked in, but she headbutted me. I pushed her away and she fell off the bed. I went around to pick her up, and there was blood everywhere. I didn’t know what to do. That wasn’t part of my plan. That wasn’t supposed to happen. She was supposed to pass out and then I’d get one of her bosses to find her. I was supposed to be up in the bar, witnessing. But she was bleeding bad. I couldn’t just leave her like that. I beat it out of there and then texted 911.”

  Cruz had pieced most of it together. One detail had avoided him. “You texted 911?”

  “Yeah, from the burner phone I hand. I wasn’t trying to kill Sophie. I just wanted her to look suicidal, so people would write her off as crazy. Then Posey would be rid of the questions and my mother could keep her house.”

  “You do understand she nearly did die. She is in a coma because of what you did. It’s all nice and neat that these fine attorneys worked the deal but, end of the day, you’re responsible for a young woman being in a hospital bed. A woman you didn’t even know. She’s going to go to med school. Did you know that? Her chances of living her dream get worse each day. Which means she won’t be there for other people, some who may die because she’s not there, because of what you did. How many lives did you trade for a house?”

  At twenty-four, he didn’t think about how his decision could affect others outside his immediate circle. It took experience, hard lessons to begin to imagine how things you thought were only about you could hit others hard.

  “You went back to Sophie’s apartment this past Monday. Why?”

  “My grandmother called. She was very excited because the Cleveland polic
e had called about her pills, the ones I took. I didn’t hear anything she said after that. I had to go back, if there was any chance I could get them, I had to try. I still had Sophie’s keys, so I went. I couldn’t believe it when I found them. I made sure there was nothing left behind this time.”

  “Except you didn’t get away clean. Diana caught you.”

  “Diana?” Applegate repeated. “Who’s Diana?”

  “Sophie’s cat,” Cruz answered. “She didn’t take to a stranger in her house and attacked Val. Scratched him up enough to draw blood.”

  Val rubbed the healing scratch on his hand.

  Cruz studied the shamefaced young man. Luck had been on Hannigan’s side, or at least it hadn’t been on Cruz’s. A few minutes one way or the other, and the two would have met in the basement.

  But then, he wondered, would he have bought whatever story Hannigan would have been selling? The witches, the gamers on the second floor would have corroborated Hannigan pursuing Sophie. Just a boy, checking on a girl he liked.

  Maybe the timing was lucky. Without it, Cruz might have bought the suicide scene and stopped looking.

  “Tell me about last night.”

  Hannigan rubbed the back of his neck. “Yesterday, I panicked. I told my girlfriend everything and she called Sarah.” His lawyer laid a supportive hand on his shoulder. “She let me come over and I told her everything. We talked and, yeah, I’m here.”

  Cruz waited for more, but the tank appeared to be empty. “I’m talking about what happened at the hospital.”

  Hannigan stared back, deer in the headlights. “What hospital?”

  “In Sophie’s room,” he elaborated. “To Sophie and that nurse.”

  “Detective,” Applegate said. “Val has been with me since six o’clock last night.”

  It was dark as midnight, but the clock had just turned seven as the four men sat outside a Shaker Heights home. “Four bedroom, two-and-a-half bath,” Czerski said from the back seat. “Two-car garage. Looks like updated windows.”

  Cruz and Yablonski turned from their front-seat positions to sneer at the man who just shrugged.