Deadlock

by Catherine Coulter

  Miranda paused, shook her head. “Six months with Nate and then I was a widow, my husband probably murdered, and everything was—just over. It seems like a different life now, and I’m certainly not that young woman anymore.”

  Savich said, “Mrs. Stirling, you didn’t know how Nate died, didn’t understand what he’d told you the night before he drowned. You must have spoken to John about it, about the money Nate was expecting to get.”

  “Yes. John said he didn’t know anything about it, couldn’t imagine what Nate was talking about. Then he fell apart again and held me close and cried. We cried together. I didn’t ask him again about the money. I wouldn’t have had any right to it anyway.”

  Savich sat forward. “But it makes sense to you he was meeting someone about the money the next day and that’s who killed him?”

  “Ah, yes, if there was a partner, it had to be John, or at least he’d have known about it. Could the stolen money have come from the government somehow, have something to do with John being on those committees in Congress? I don’t know. I had to let it go, so I did.”

  Savich said, “Mrs. Stirling, did you know Rebekah, John and Gemma’s granddaughter?”

  “I remember her very well. I saw on the news Rebekah was attacked, last Thursday, wasn’t it? But Congressman Manvers said she was fine and the police were investigating. I hope she is. I don’t suppose you’d tell me if Rebekah is somehow involved in all this?”

  “We believe she is, Mrs. Stirling. But what her husband said is true. She’s fine. What do you remember of her?”

  “I remember she was with John whenever he could manage it. Her mother, Caitlin, never seemed to mind. In fact, I only met Caitlin a couple of times. But Rebekah, yes, such a pretty little girl, eager, bright, and she had a kind heart, unusual, I think, for a child that young. John was always talking about how smart she was, how she loved the children’s stories he made up about him and Nate and their adventures. I remember thinking more than once that John loved her more than he loved Gemma, more than he loved his own daughter, Caitlin. I remember there was no love lost between Gemma and her daughter, either. I don’t know why, but I thought it odd, since I’ve always been so close to my own mother.

  “Rebekah looked quite a bit like Caitlin and a lot like John. And now Rebekah’s all grown up. Imagine, she even married a congressman like her grandfather. I was surprised she married a man so many years her senior, just as I did. I wondered if she felt so comfortable with him because of her grandfather. I saw a wedding photo of her in the Post. She looked striking.”

  Sherlock said, “Is that a photo of your husband, Mrs. Stirling?” She nodded toward a framed photo.

  “Yes, that’s Frank. I met my prince at a New Year’s Eve party in 2010. Glad to say he keeps my teeth in perfect condition.” She gave them a big grin, showing straight white teeth. “He’s my junior by ten years,” she added, and grinned even bigger.

  43

  ST. LUMIS

  TUESDAY AFTERNOON

  Pippa and Chief Wilde ate hamburgers at the Wave, a popular tourist greasy spoon opposite the ancient pier in the red-box puzzle. Thankfully, there weren’t any dead birds or human bones scattered about, no Major Trumbo hanging out of a window of the Alworth Hotel.

  Pippa stared sadly at the final two bites of her cheeseburger. “Juicy and perfect. Alas, no more room. Ah, there’s one fry left.” She popped it into her mouth, chewed slowly, eyes closed. Wilde started laughing at her. She patted her mouth, wagged her finger at him. “You’re jealous because I nabbed it before you.”

  He ate the final bite of his own hamburger and sat back. “Too bad you and Mrs. Trout had no luck with that sketch of Black Hoodie, but she did say up front she’s better at drawing a cactus than a person.”

  “Mrs. Trout is really good. She tried, and I was hopeful. But you’re right, what we came up with isn’t anything useful. It was dark and I guess I was still woozy from the knock on the head. About all I could tell her was he had a slight build and was younger rather than older. And I only had an impression of his profile inside that hoodie. Good luck with that.”

  “You done scraping up fries? Good. I want us to go to that old abandoned grocery store where Black Hoodie attacked you.” He waggled a dark eyebrow. “If this was Philadelphia, we’d have had a team in there by now.”

  They stepped outside into a cold afternoon under a sullen sky that promised rain. There weren’t any tourists in sight, only locals hunkered down in coats, stoically going about their business. They walked the same route Pippa had taken. Twenty minutes later, they stood in front of the derelict grocery store. In the dull gray light, the building looked even more desolate than it had the day before.

  Wilde said over his shoulder as he pushed open the creaking door, “When I first arrived in St. Lumis, I spent a week exploring every inch of the town, even checked out this old store. When I happened to mention this particular eyesore to Mr. Sleeman, he told me he’d tried to buy the building from Hubert Duncan, a retired dentist whose grandfather had run the store way back when, but no go. Evidently the two men hadn’t gotten along for many years. Sleeman didn’t tell me what his plans were if he had gotten ahold of it. Maybe he’d have built a skating rink, cold enough for it today.”

  They stood in light dimmer than it had been on Monday, and breathed in cold, fetid air. Wilde looked around. “Hasn’t changed a bit since I was in here three years ago.” He pointed to Pippa’s footprints, clear in the dust. “Okay, Cinelli, lead me through what happened.”

  “I was standing here when I heard a low, muffled voice that sounded like a man in pain. ‘I’m here. Back here. Help me.’ Because I’m an idiot, I didn’t think, didn’t even pause. I jumped on my steed and went off to find him.”

  He tapped her on the shoulder. “I don’t want to hear that idiot crap. You’re a cop, of course you acted. Did he have an accent you could make out?”

  She shook her head. “I didn’t hear anything distinctive, so mid-Atlantic, I’d say.” She gave him a crooked grin. “As in right here. Easy to say, I know, since we’re here and not in Texas.” She stared around the dilapidated space, breathed in the mold. “Over there is where he struck me down.”

  Wilde pulled out his cell, punched on the light, went down on his haunches, and studied the area. “That was where he was hiding,” she said, “behind one of the storage racks.” Wilde saw Pippa’s footprints clearly, and others, larger prints more smeared.

  “When I got my brain back together, I heard him talking on his cell, and that’s when I got a glimpse of him. He hit me again. See this clear path through all the dust? That’s me. When I woke up the second time, I inched my way across the floor on my butt, since my hands were tied behind my back and my ankles were wrapped tight.”

  Wilde rose, followed her progress through the dust, and saw the long hook attached to a wooden pole with her blood on the sharp tip. He said, “Show me your hands.”

  Pippa arched a brow, then carefully eased off her gloves to show her hands, still partly covered with gauze bandages. He cupped one at a time in his palm but saw no sign of blood. He looked down at her. She was wearing no makeup and a red ski cap over her long French braid. He raised his hand, but then lowered it and shook his head. “I gotta say, Cinelli, scooting across the floor on your butt, your hands tied behind your back, sawing away on that hook, that took grit. You did good, really good. I’d still like to have the doctor check out your hands.”

  “My hands are fine. They don’t hurt, not after the three aspirin I took this morning. Let’s see if we can follow Black Hoodie’s footprints.”

  “He stayed on the outside perimeter,” Wilde said, pointing, “then he moved inward behind the racks, stopped where he could hide and wait for you to come in.”

  Pippa touched her fingertips to the back of her head. “Do you know, I nearly didn’t come in here. He couldn’t have known, either. But he took the chance, and it paid off for him. I suppose he would have tried to take me down somepl
ace else if he’d had to.”

  Wilde said, “Probably. With all the dirt and dust, it isn’t hard to see where he was hiding. Here, hold my cell and aim the light down here.” Wilde set his boot next to one of the prints behind a storage rack. “I wear a twelve. This print is no more than a size nine. Goes with your description of him being slight. He went down on his haunches when he heard you. I’ll bet he leaned forward, probably steadied himself with a hand on this rack. Let’s see what we can see.” He pulled a small black plastic carry case out of his pocket. “This, Agent Cinelli, is my own personal portable latent fingerprint kit, given to me by my dad when I made detective. I always carried it in Philadelphia.” He opened it to show a stack of two-by-three black cards, a jar of latent powder, a roll of lifting tape, and a fiberglass fingerprint brush.

  Pippa said, “A fingerprint kit? Wow, I’m impressed you thought to bring it with you today.” She stepped back, out of his way.

  “Keep the light right here.” Wilde dipped the brush into the latent powder. “No doubt a gazillion people have handled these storage racks over the decades, but it’s worth a shot.” She watched him carefully dust on the powder.

  She craned her neck to look over his shoulder. “Well, that’s not a surprise—nothing but smudges.”

  “Have faith, Cinelli.” Then Wilde whistled. “Look at that, a clear thumbprint, higher than I’d have thought, which means he stretched up to get a better view of you.” He lightly pressed down a thick strip of tape and lifted off the print. “I’m using white powder, so black cards, as you already know. Here we go. Digits crossed, Cinelli.”

  She watched him carefully press the tape onto the card. And there it was, a distinct thumbprint.

  “Amazing. But why only a thumbprint? I would have thought he’d use his whole hand to steady himself.”

  “I think he did. He asked you to come help him, then he had to push off fast to hit you, and that smeared his other fingerprints.”

  “This may be all we need,” Pippa said, and felt a punch of optimism.

  “If we’re lucky and his thumbprint’s in the system.”

  Pippa rose, rubbed her hands over her arms, and winced. She watched him repack his kit and slip it into his pocket. She looked back at where she’d been standing when Black Hoodie hit her. She stared at the bloody hook still lying in the corner, saw herself moving her wrists back and forth on it, gritting her teeth against the pain, her blood smearing the tip. “It’s humiliating how easily he brought me down. He must have dogged my every step yesterday, from the time I left Major Trumbo’s B&B. And I never saw him, never felt someone was watching me.”

  “You weren’t expecting anyone to be tracking you. You’d only been here a day and a half. Even the few people who recognized you couldn’t know you were FBI, here undercover. Hey, I’m a cop, and I had no idea who you were.”

  “Yeah, make me feel better. Fact is, he dealt with me easily. It’s humiliating, really humiliating.”

  “It’s a good thing he didn’t want to kill you, only put you out of commission. That makes me wonder what he was going to do with you if you hadn’t gotten yourself free. Would he have let you go? Maybe left you here until someone found you?” He slowly rose, dusted his hands on his jeans. “Either way, it seems there was a lot of luck on their side, or Black Hoodie and whoever he was getting his instructions from knew Savich well enough to know if he believed you were in trouble, he would rush right over to St. Lumis.”

  “It makes sense they’d know Agent Savich was my boss. But I wonder what they would have done if he hadn’t come.”

  “Probably something more obvious, more violent. Like I said, they got lucky, got exactly the result they wanted. But now that we have Black Hoodie’s thumbprint, their luck might be about to change. We have to find out how they knew you were FBI so quickly.”

  “Only one place to start. We need to talk to Mrs. Trumbo.”

  44

  CLAIREMONT, VIRGINIA

  CLARKSON UNITED INDUSTRIES

  TUESDAY AFTERNOON

  Rebekah pushed the up button in the elevator lobby. As they waited, she said to Griffin, “When Grandfather was elected to Congress back in the early eighties, he had to divest control of his holdings. He signed Clarkson United over to a blind trust, but arranged it so my grandmother could continue to run things. Grandfather was never much interested in the business, it was more pro forma for him, though the business thrived under him. He had a knack for it. He was charismatic, and people loved working for him. But politics was his true love. When he was elected mayor of Clairemont, he’d already handed the company over to my grandmother. This was three years before he was elected to Congress.” She laughed, shook her head. “Politics and me, both of us his true love.” She paused a moment, smiled. “It helped that the incumbent was caught in a love triangle.”

  “Do you find it a little unusual how much he loved you, now that you’re an adult?”

  She nodded. “Unusual, sure, but I was lucky. I was well loved and I knew it.” She paused a moment, then said, “You think he loved me too much? Why? Don’t you think I was lovable enough?”

  “I’m sure you were. What did your mother have to say about it?”

  “I think she saw him as stepping in to fill a gap, since I didn’t have a father. Do you know, because of him, I never missed having a father, I had Grandfather.”

  “What happened to your father?”

  The elevator pinged, the doors opened. There was no one inside. Rebekah punched the button for the eighth and top floor. “I was told he abandoned Mom—well, I started calling her Caitlin when I was a teenager, her choice—and me right after I was born. I don’t know why. That’s all she told me. It didn’t matter that much to me, though. Again, I had Grandfather.”

  “And how did your grandmother react to her husband adoring you?”

  “She was never a part of my life, only a presence in the background, nothing more. To be honest, I doubt that will ever change. When I grew up I realized she’d ignored me whenever she could. I remember when she’d look at me, there was nothing there, no expression at all. Looking back, I think she simply didn’t like me, or maybe she resented me because Grandfather loved me more than he loved her and he made it obvious. But I think she’ll be civil to me today, it’s the way she is, the ruler in control, the queen bee. How do you like that for a screwed-up family dynamic?”

  “Sorry, that doesn’t even make my top ten.”

  The elevator pinged again, and they stepped out into a reception area filled with plush, comfortable Americana—love seats and chairs in nubby browns and golds within easy reach of a big glass-topped coffee table stacked with magazines and coasters for coffee. The walls were lined with a procession of photos, from a black-and-white of the original Clarkson textile mill built in the 1920s to the new office building built in the early eighties. She said to Griffin, “I’ve given you fair warning, Agent Hammersmith. Even though I said my grandmother would be civil, I really have no idea how she’s going to react to me, much less you, an FBI agent.”

  An older woman, short, plump, and wearing a black suit and sensible black pumps, came out of an office down the hall, saw them, and smiled. “Goodness, it’s you, Rebekah. Look how you’re all grown up, and so pretty. Although you were such a cute little girl, it was easy to see you’d only become more so. I hear you’re becoming an art fraud expert. And you, sir? You’re not Rebekah’s husband, you’re far too young.”

  Rebekah was laughing. “Mrs. Frazier, it’s amazing you got all that out in a single breath. On one of my visits here, I remember you gave me gummy bears and a Beatrix Potter coloring book.”

  Mrs. Frazier gave her a pat on the shoulder, then hugged her. “What a memory you have. I’d forgotten those silly gummy bears. They were your grandfather’s favorites, you know. I always kept them in case he dropped by to visit with employees. He was so very popular. And look at you now, Rebekah, married to an important congressman, just like your grandfather. I see your
handsome husband on the TV now and then. I remember when he was an intern with your grandfather back in the day. I wish I could have come to your wedding, but I was visiting my sister. It’s so good to see you, but who is this young man with you? He’s too good-looking to be on the loose, so if you like I can keep him here with me, all to myself.” She gave a big belly laugh.

  Griffin said, “Thank you for the compliment, Mrs. Frazier. I’m Special Agent Griffin Hammersmith, FBI.”

  Mrs. Frazier glanced at his creds, then back to his face. “Goodness, Rebekah, you haven’t done anything wrong, have you?”

  “No, no, Agent Hammersmith is with me for another reason. Oh, hello, Grandmother.” Gemma Clarkson stood in the doorway of her office, not saying a word, simply observing them, unsmiling.

  Mrs. Frazier turned around. “Oh, Mrs. Clarkson, isn’t Rebekah lovely? She’s grown up very well. This handsome young man is an FBI agent. Can you imagine?”

  Gemma turned to Mrs. Frazier, nodded. “Olivia, I’m expecting Mr. Neilly from accounting in twenty minutes. I’m sure we’ll be done by then. Let me know when he arrives.” She looked at Griffin. “I don’t believe your presence is needed, Agent. Please remain here.” She stepped aside to let Rebekah walk into her office.

  Griffin said, “Sorry, Mrs. Clarkson, but I have questions, too.”

  Rebekah smiled at Olivia Frazier, shook her hand. “It’s so good to see you again.”

  She turned with Griffin to follow her grandmother into a large rectangular office with a row of wide windows behind her grandmother’s desk. It was all in shades of gray, from the walls to the sofas and chairs to a thick carpet, the color broken only by a dozen or so Dutch paintings on the walls. She wondered what the office had looked like when her grandfather had run Clarkson United. Rebekah’s mother had told her the day he’d won his first election, he’d been the happiest she’d ever seen him, nearly danced out of the building. He was glad to leave everything in Gemma’s capable hands.