by Lauren Carr
Susan said, “He was still on the base when the helicopter exploded and crashed minutes after take-off.”
“CID did find bomb parts in the wreckage,” Murphy said. “The agent conducting the investigation believed he was on the right path to identifying the killer. He called the army’s chief of staff to tell him that he had something. That night, the investigator and his family died in an arson fire in their home. Days after that, two airmen who had worked on the base the morning of the helicopter accident were killed in a horrible vehicle accident.”
“Our killer is very good at covering his tracks,” Joshua said.
“Francine Baxter’s husband was killed in a car accident,” Murphy said, “one month after Cecilia disappeared. According to the copy of the police statement we found on her computer, the investigators found paint transfer on the car. Her husband’s car was in the shop. He was driving her car on the day of the crash.”
Narrowing his eyes, Joshua sat up in his seat.
“General Sebastian Graham is a sexual predator, Dad.”
Joshua cleared his throat.
Murphy corrected himself. “I mean, Captain.” He hit a button on his laptop. “He’s had women filing sexual assault charges against him going all the way back to West Point. While he was an army cadet, two different women filed charges against him for rape. Both charges were reduced down to misdemeanors. Graham paid a fine and didn’t spend a day in jail. He’s never spent a day in jail.”
In silence, Joshua rubbed his face with both hands.
“During the Gulf War, a female fellow officer charged him with rape,” Murphy said. “Then, Graham saved his team in that firefight and the rape charge got buried under all the hoopla of him being a hero.” He grumbled. “The list goes on and on but never once was General Graham ever been held accountable. He’s not a war hero, he’s a common run of the mill serial rapist.”
“He’s not run of the mill,” Joshua said, “He’s a distinguished war hero who has a lot of people protecting—and enabling—his behavior.”
“Which gave him a license to move up from serial rapist to serial killer.” Murphy advanced the screen on his laptop to display a long list, complete with pictures, on the smart board for them all to see.
“General Sebastian Graham is the same age you are, Captain,” Murphy announced. “Not counting deaths in combat, how many supervisors, colleagues, and acquaintances who are associated with you professionally suffered sudden or violent deaths due to accidents, suicide, or murder?”
Counting in his head, Joshua finally answered, “Maybe five at the most.”
“In General Sebastian Graham’s case,” Murphy said, “close to three dozen.”
Stunned, Boris and Susan stared up at the extensive list.
“Francine Baxter had put together a hit list,” Murphy said, “of everyone who has ever gotten in the way of Sebastian’s military career who suddenly died—eliminating the road block. Less than five years after his return from Kuwait, he was up for the position of commandant of the Army War College. The position was given to Major General Wilbur Frost who outranked him. Within weeks, less than a month after assuming the position, Frost went home for lunch and blew his brains out with his own service weapon. To this day, everyone swears he displayed no suicidal tendencies. After this very convenient suicide, Sebastian Graham got the position.”
“Argument could be made by Graham’s attorneys that this is just a coincidence,” Joshua said.
“I’ve heard you explain to juries that circumstantial evidence is just as important as direct evidence,” Murphy said. “Circumstances prove the reasoning behind the suspect’s actions and behavior. Sebastian Graham is a sociopath who believes that he can have any woman he wants, even if she says no. So he takes her. Then, when she threatens the continuance of his behavior or the advancement of his military career, he threatens her or buys her off or, if those tactics don’t work, he uses murder to clean up his mess.”
Standing up, he went to the smart board to point to the image of a young woman with dark hair. “Sixteen years ago, Hannah Price filed a police report saying that she had been raped. She had attended a cocktail reception on the top floor of the Executive Office Building. She woke up in a hotel room with no memory of how she ended up there. Blood tests revealed that she had been slipped a roofie. General Sebastian Graham was in attendance at that very party. Days later, his executive officer, First Lieutenant Julie Wagner requested a transfer from her position even though it was actually considered to be quite a prestigious assignment. She wouldn’t tell her personnel officer why. Two days after making that request, she died after falling off her bicycle and hitting her head. The medical examiner said she had two blows to the head.” He added, “She was at that party in the Executive Office Building. The last call she made before her accident was to Hannah Price.”
“Not long after that, Hannah Price and her husband set up an engineering company and have been getting lucrative military contracts ever since,” Susan said.
Murphy pointed to another picture on the list of another army officer. “Less than two years after Graham came back from Kuwait a hero, his CO was killed in a car accident. It was ruled a homicide because police found his brake lines cut. Colleagues told CID that the CO and Graham did not get along and he was recommending against promotion. The CO’s replacement was a longtime mentor of Graham who did recommend him for promotion.”
“But no charges were brought against Graham,” Joshua said.
“Because there—”
“Was no evidence to prove he was behind it,” Joshua finished.
“How about a second lieutenant who charged him with sexual harassment sixteen years ago?” Murphy said. “She ended up going AWOL. All credit card activity stopped. Her family and friends have never heard from her. Her body was never found and the military police presume she’s dead.”
“The sheer volume in this list proves that General Graham is a psychopath,” Boris said, “or at the very least has a psychopathic guardian angel.”
“My vote is on him being the psychopath,” Murphy said while scrolling down the list on the computer. “Dad—I mean Captain, how many personal assistants have you had?”
“You know the answer to that,” Joshua said. “None, unless you want to count biological offspring.”
Murphy stopped scrolling at a screen that showed four pictures of young beautiful women. A listing was next to each one. “Graham has had four personal assistants in a little over a dozen years. Dolly Scanlon is the fifth.” He stepped up to the board and pointed at the photograph of a pretty blonde at the top of the screen. “His first assistant was with him for twenty-six months—until she went missing. Her body was found over a year later in a heavily wooded area of a park.”
He pointed at the second picture of an attractive brunette. “Assistant number two worked for Graham for three and a half years. She committed suicide by jumping out the window of her fifth floor condo.”
Eying his father, Murphy pointed to a third picture of a young woman with big eyes. “Number three worked for Graham for three years. She drowned in her hot tub.” He pressed his fingertips on the fourth picture of a woman with long dark hair. “Assistant number four quit via overdose of booze mixed with sleeping pills. She lasted two years.”
“The office morale must be toxic when you work for General Sebastian Graham,” Boris said.
“Why hasn’t he ever been investigated?” Susan asked. “Why did the President nominate him for the army’s chief of staff?”
The team turned to Joshua Thornton. At the head of the table, he pressed his fingertips together while studying the hit list Murphy had displayed on the smart board.
“Because … ” After a long pause, Joshua turned to the staff’s deputy chief. “Boris, what was the first thing you learned when you started out in the military?”
“Two things,�
�� Boris answered. “Watch your back and cover your butt.”
“How about ‘don’t upset the apple cart?’” Joshua asked with a sigh. “I can see exactly how this happened. I’ve seen it before in the military, government, politics, and even in the private sector. If anything, in the last twenty years, the problem has only gotten worse.”
Joshua gestured up at the smart board on which was displayed an extensive list of General Sebastian Graham’s victims. “In the beginning, West Point didn’t want their reputation tarnished by having one of their cadets convicted of being a rapist. I have no doubt Graham’s father, a four-star general, played a big part in convincing them that it would be in their interest to bury the whole thing. Sebastian Graham was third generation West Point. With no thought to what the future held for the military—they caved into pressure from Graham’s father.”
With a shake of his head, Boris said, “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen that happen.”
Joshua said, “So West Point and Graham’s powerful family convinced, or maybe a better word is bullied, the local prosecutor to reduce the charges and the Grahams paid off the victims for their silence.”
“And those first rape charges turn into misdemeanors,” Susan said. “Because of Graham’s war record and charisma, he gets away with explaining the initial charges as a simple misunderstanding.” Disgusted, her eyes narrowed to slits. She shook her head.
“Sebastian Graham graduates and becomes the army’s problem,” Joshua said. “In Kuwait, he rapes a female colleague. The army probably would have acted on her charges, but fate intervened. Suddenly, Sebastian Graham was a hero and the media made him a celebrity. The Gulf War was one of the first military engagements in which women were sent into hot zones. If the rape had been made public, with a military hero being the perpetrator—”
“It would have negatively affected the feminist cause for equal opportunity in the military,” Susan said.
“Undoubtedly,” Murphy said, “since Graham was then getting headlines as a hero, the rape charge would have received a lot of negative publicity, which would have threatened women’s chances of going into combat.”
“The victim was probably told that dropping the charges and keeping quiet about what had to have been an isolated incident was for the greater good,” Joshua said.
“With no thought to Graham’s future victims,” Boris said.
“And since his earlier sexual assaults were buried,” Murphy said, “then Graham’s victim in Kuwait had no idea about the role she played in allowing this predator to continue using the United States Army for a hunting ground.”
“It’s a safe bet that in every step of the line,” Joshua explained, “the person who had the opportunity and power to stop him hoped that the next man or woman whose problem Graham would become could put a stop to him.”
Getting out of his chair, Joshua went up to the list on the smart board. “Unfortunately, every step of the way, Graham’s previous attacks and incidents would be buried, which concealed his pattern to his current COs and any investigators who would be brought in.”
Joshua shook his head. “The police investigating Specialist Cecelia Crenshaw’s rape charge against Graham were unaware of the rapes at West Point, in Kuwait, or the sexual harassment charge. So, I can clearly see why, after she cried rape, they dismissed it. At that point, Graham was in his thirties and as far as what they saw on the surface, he had a sparkling clear record and friends in all the right places.”
“They dismissed Specialist Crenshaw as a troublemaking fruit loop,” Susan said.
“Only Francine Baxter believed her and decided to dig beneath the cover-ups to reveal General Sebastian Graham’s pattern of behavior,” Joshua said.
“Those cover-ups by people too cowardly to go up against a war hero with powerful friends proved to be tragic for a lot of people,” Murphy said. “Based on the list Baxter put together, every time someone has tried to stop Graham, they’ve ended up dead.”
“No doubt, this has gone way too far,” Joshua said while studying the list displayed on the smart board. “At first, it was to protect the army’s reputation. Then, as Graham advanced in his career, with all the power he accumulated, looking the other way became of matter of self-preservation.” He glanced around the room. “Who here in this room besides me has the balls to go up against a four-star general and accuse him of being a serial rapist and killer?”
“I do,” Murphy said without hesitation.
“I know you do,” Joshua said. “Who else?” He looked directly at Susan. “Are you naive enough to believe you’ll have a career next week?”
“Based on that hit list,” Boris said, “I’d be more concerned about making sure my life insurance is paid up. It’s not just your career you have to worry about.”
“So we just let him get away with this?” Murphy asked. “We’re simply going to turn our backs and pretend this isn’t happening like every other wuss who did nothing?”
“Son, I agree with you,” Joshua said with a sigh, “but we need to be smart about how we proceed.” Seeing the fire in Murphy’s eyes, he cleared his throat. “Lieutenant, I agree with you, but we can’t go up against a general who is on the very short list for Chief of Staff of the Army with nothing more than what could be construed as a hit list made up by some women scorned, which is what the general’s attorneys are going to argue.”
“He’s going before the Senate tomorrow,” Murphy said. “We need to get the President to withdraw his nomination.”
“Like that’s going to happen.” Joshua was still studying the list on the smart board when his cell phone rang. His gaze focused on the extensive list, he brought the phone to his ear. “Captain Joshua Thornton here.”
“Joshua Thornton,” the voice said in an official tone. “Are you married to Detective Cameron Gates with the Pennsylvania State Police?”
His heart going up into his throat, Joshua turned away from the hit list. “Yes.”
“I’m sorry to say, sir, that there has been an accident.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
It pays to have friends in high places. One phone call to their CO got Joshua and Murphy a navy helicopter on the Pentagon’s helipad to fly them out to the Capital Beltway. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have been able to get within five miles of the accident.
The beltway was shut down in both directions due to the Pennsylvania State police cruiser hanging by its rear wheels and axel from the overpass, as well as the two lane road over which it was dangling. Within minutes of the assault on Cameron’s cruiser, Washington metropolitan traffic had come to a grinding halt. With the major freeway, used by the majority of commuters to get from one part of the Nation’s Capital to another, shut down, vehicles were scrambling to find alternate routes, most of which were smaller, two-lane roads—creating gridlock.
A fleet of emergency vehicles, including ambulances and fire trucks, were parked both on the overpass and the road down below. In the helicopter high above, Joshua and Murphy observed a path of wrecked vehicles, broken glass and auto parts, and emergency vehicles leading up to the trapped cruiser.
“What happened?” Unable to believe that his wife was in the midst of the chaos, Murphy lowered his sunglasses for a closer take on the scene.
“Looks like a bad day on the beltway,” the pilot said. “Glad I’m flying.”
Murphy felt the blood drain from his face and extremities with the realization that Jessica was in the vehicle hanging precariously from the overpass. “Jessie …”
The touch of Joshua’s hand squeezing his arm drew his attention from the wreck. Joshua removed his sunglasses so that he could read the message in his eyes. They’re going to be okay.
The helicopter had to land on the beltway heading north toward Baltimore. After disembarking, Murphy hurdled the road divider and ducked under the crime scene tape to get pushed back by two
Maryland state troopers.
“My wife is in that car!” Murphy tried to force his way through the human barricade until he spotted a firetruck spraying chemicals on gasoline leaking from underneath the cruiser.
The sight made him ill.
“The gas tank is leaking! You have to get them out of there!” Once again, he tried to break through the line of troopers trying to hold him back. “She’s my wife! You have to let me save her!” He threw back his fist ready to punch anyone who got in his way.
“Murphy! Stand down!”
The roar of Joshua’s voice blasted through Murphy’s fright to make him drop his fist.
Joshua wedged himself between the navy officer and the troopers. In spite of the calm in Joshua’s tone, Murphy could hear the familiar edge that dared him to cross the line. “This is no time to play Captain America. These are the good guys. They will do everything they can. Lord knows it’s not easy but this time, we need to stand down and let them do their jobs.”
Joshua turned around to tell the troopers. “Is there someone we can speak to regarding what happened?”
“FBI just got here,” one of the troopers pointed to a blue SUV parked inside the crime scene tape on the side of the beltway where the helicopter had landed.
Tearing his eyes from the sight of the cruiser where Jessica was trapped, Murphy spotted a slender, dark haired young woman, who didn’t appear to be much older than he was, speaking to the senior ranking state trooper. He also saw her FBI gold shield clipped to her utility belt next to her service weapon.
Grabbing Murphy by the elbow, Joshua led him toward the road divider.
Casting one more look at the cruiser, Murphy saw that two rescuers were attaching a cable and hook to the rear axle in order to pull it back off the embankment. “They have to get them out.” He tried to remember a time when he felt so helpless. He came up with none.
“They’re going to be okay,” Joshua said. “I don’t like it any more than you do, but this is one time when you and I are not calling the shots. Cameron and Jessica are in good hands.”
