Fatally Bound

by Roger Stelljes

  “What is the connection of Richardson and Randall?”

  “Richardson and Randall went to college together. Danica Brunner, who is the daughter of a DC lobbyist, was a childhood friend of Richardson, although from what we can tell those two haven’t been in significant contact for a number of years. However, guess what?”

  “They have been recently,” Mac suggested.

  “Quite a bit, in fact, and as recently as yesterday, in fact, in the early evening,” Keller replied, holding up a list of cell phone calls.

  “You don’t say,” Wire mused.

  Keller provided a knowing smile, “After what appears to have been at best sporadic contact the last seven years, there have been no less than ten calls in the last month.”

  “Ten?” Wire asked, surprised.

  “Ten.”

  “Where do we find Richardson?” Mac asked.

  “Big law firm, K Street,” the director answered.

  “Did Mychal Richardson or her family own a silver Dodge or Chrysler minivan at the time that Rena Johnson was killed?” Mac asked and cringed in anticipation of the response.

  Keller held up another record with a wicked smile, “Chrysler Town and Country minivan, Virginia plates. Oh, and did I mention this little body repair bill three days later for it?”

  “Oh boy,” Mac exhaled as he stood up and walked to the window. The heavy clouds of the hurricane were rolling in and the heavy rain and winds of the storm wouldn’t be far behind. It served as a good metaphor of what was to come.

  • • • •

  Baltimore, Maryland. 9:30 A.M.

  Drake Johnson wore an Afro-like wig and was dressed in cargo shorts, a navy blue golf shirt along with sandals and a Yankees baseball cap with wraparound sunglasses, perfect for the humid and sunny day now at hand.

  After dark, he took the plates off the black Camry he’d stolen and replaced them with a set he lifted from another vehicle parked in a lot behind a bar south of DC. That maneuver got him back to his camping area safely. He monitored the computer and television in his camper overnight as well as the police band and there was nothing, no reported sightings, simply a Be-On-The-Lookout (BOLO) for a black Toyota Camry with the plates he’d dumped. But even with the switched plates he couldn’t keep the Camry, too risky in the long run. At this point, the FBI and other law enforcement officers would be looking for any reason, or maybe no reason, to pull over a black Camry in the vicinity of Washington, DC. So at the crack of dawn, he drove into Baltimore and dumped the Camry in a tough part of West Baltimore. Now, he simply needed a cab ride to pick up the vehicle he would finish things off with.

  He still had his plan, but he had no choice, he had to finish it now.

  McRyan played him and now he could feel the noose tightening.

  Tonight was the final act.

  She would be the last act of his little play.

  When it was over, it would be talked about for a long time.

  He’d prepared for this last step long ago. She was actually the first he followed to get a feel for the hunt and she was making it easy for him, putting herself in such a vulnerable position. He was close to taking her when he realized she couldn’t be the first. If she went first the storm would have been massive from the start. He’d have never had the room to maneuver to do all that was to be done. So he decided she would be the last.

  From time to time over the last several months he’d checked back in on her to make sure that the pattern remained the same, that she was continuing to engage in her reckless behavior and that she was continuing it with the same prominent man, on the same night of the week and in the same place.

  She didn’t fail him.

  It would be just him and her.

  Her lover’s young, beautiful wife had no idea what he was up to.

  Soon the wife and everyone else would know.

  There may be a hurricane coming, but that would be nothing compared to the firestorm that was coming.

  Dust bin of history?

  Zero impact?

  Unbalanced?

  Nut bar?

  We’ll see, Mac McRyan, he thought.

  We’ll see.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  “Don’t piss on my leg and tell me it’s raining.”

  The legendary O’Bannon Gardiner law firm with its 1,500 attorneys strong in ten offices in the United States and twenty worldwide was located on K Street. Their building was the standard five-story law firm like building along that famous avenue of power legal and lobbying firms. However, when Mychal Richardson was called to meet with Special Agents McRyan and Wire, it was in a private windowless meeting room in the basement, away from any other human. If she was guilty of what Mac thought she was, he’d have loved nothing more than to go after her upstairs in a windowed conference room for everyone and their brother to see. Word of that encounter would quickly make its way outside of the walls of the firm and undoubtedly into the media where Drake Johnson would learn they were onto his next, and most likely last, target.

  Mychal Richardson, daughter of the great senator of Georgia, Jesse Richardson, was thirty years old, two to three years the senior of the other victims, was a fifth-year lawyer at the firm, a senior associate dedicating her legal talents to issues of particular importance to the Richardson Political Brand. She was a frequent guest and talking head on the cable networks discussing political issues important to her generation, particularly how people her age were not engaging in the greed and carelessness of older generations. She talked often of the importance of taking responsibility for your actions, being a good citizen and not engaging in reckless behavior.

  The irony was not lost on Mac.

  The door opened, and the statuesque blond southern belle strolled into the room in her perfect black power business suit and white V-neck button-up blouse leaving just a hint of cleavage. Richardson was followed by two other men in dark business suits and earbuds, high-priced security.

  Mac and Wire shared a quick look while the men did a very quick sweep of the room before departing, leaving Richardson alone with Mac, Wire and Grace Delmonico.

  Wire made the quick introductions and finished with: “Thanks for coming down.”

  “Thanks for letting me come down,” Richardson answered casually, unbothered. “It’s never a good thing when the FBI comes to visit you at work. No offense, but that’s especially the case if it’s you two right now.” She was unfazed by being in the room. Foreigner’s Cold as Ice flashed through Mac’s mind.

  “So I presume you know why we’re here?” Wire asked pleasantly, playing the role of good cop.

  “I have no idea,” Richardson answered.

  “Really?” Mac answered with an acerbic snort and bad cop tone. Her face betrayed no knowledge but Mac bored in on her eyes. He could read her eyes. She knew exactly why she was in the room. “That’s how you want to play this?”

  “Play what?”

  “Your role in the vehicular homicide of Rena Johnson nearly seven years ago,” Mac answered sternly, while leaning back in his chair, trying to convey the same level of confidence as Richardson. “You know, you might want to have your lawyer present to hear this.”

  “Am I under arrest?”

  “Not yet,” Delmonico answered flatly, taking notes, not looking up.

  Richardson laughed. “One, I’m a lawyer, and two, I haven’t seen anything yet that I need to be the least bit worried about.”

  “What?” Mac asked. “You haven’t heard the old bromide the lawyer who represents himself has an idiot for a client?”

  “Sure,” Richardson answered. “But I’m not an average lawyer. I was a prosecutor for two years before I moved to O’Bannon. This isn’t my first rodeo.”

  “Fine,” Wire said evenly and then slid the picture from Randall in front of Mychal Richardson, “You took this picture.”

  Richardson casually took the picture into her hands and scanned it for a moment and shrugged. “It doesn’t look familiar.”


  “As you can see from the date, it was taken nearly seven years ago, matter of fact, tomorrow it would be exactly seven years ago. And you took it,” Mac stated, taking the cell phone record from Delmonico and sliding it in front of Richardson. “You took the picture and then e-mailed it from your phone to Danica Brunner and Rebecca Randall on that same night.”

  Richardson took another look at the picture, acting calm, “Okay. It looks vaguely familiar. I think we were all at a party.”

  “So you remember taking the picture then?” Mac asked.

  “Possibly,” Richardson answered. “But look, rather than go through some long question and answer session here, why don’t you just get to it, Agent McRyan. You think I was responsible for something, show me.”

  Mac didn’t hesitate, reaching inside his backpack, “On the night of August 17th, seven years ago, you took this picture,” he stated. “Later that night, Rena Johnson,” Mac pointed to Johnson in the picture, “was killed. She wandered away from a rave party at an abandoned farm outside of Auburn, New York, and was walking along the shoulder of a nearby county road. She was hit by a vehicle traveling at a rapid speed, sent flying and landed at the bottom of a deep ditch. Rena was found the next morning, dead from massive internal injuries and bleeding. She’d taken the brunt of the impact from the vehicle in the area of her abdomen, although she had two badly broken legs among other assorted injuries. Sadly, despite the exceedingly violent impact from the vehicle, she didn’t die right away. In fact, it appears she lived for some time after the accident. She could have perhaps been saved with immediate medical attention. Yet sadly, nobody stopped, nobody checked on her and nobody called 911.”

  “The police investigating the case found paint from the vehicle on Rena Johnson’s body,” Wire noted, sliding a page of the forensic report in front of Richardson. “The paint was silver and was matched to paint used on Dodge and Chrysler minivans and SUVs.”

  Mac sipped from his coffee, “Interestingly enough, at the time of the accident, your family owned a silver Dodge Town and Country minivan. In fact, I believe it to be the van in this picture that all of these women are standing in front of.”

  Wire jumped back in, sliding a set of papers in front of Richardson like exhibits at a trial, “These are bills for the repair of your family’s silver minivan dated August 20th, three days later, at a body shop in McLean, Virginia.”

  “Drake Johnson, the killer people know as the Reaper? His sister … was Rena Johnson. He’s killed, or tried to kill, all of the other women in this picture. The only woman he hasn’t tried to kill yet—is you,” Mac stated, looking Richardson in the eye. Her face twitched slightly but remained otherwise placid. Too placid, he thought; a poker player placid. She was treating it like a game.

  Mac continued.

  “So here’s what I think happened. I think all of you girls went to that party that night. Rena wandered off, her body full of booze and drugs. The cops were coming and there was underage drinking and drugs at the party. The daughters of Jesse Richardson, William Donahue and Amherst Brunner couldn’t be caught at such a party, so you guys do the natural thing, you bail. You, or maybe Rebecca Randall, her friend from Auburn, might have even quick looked for Rena. But after all, she was from Auburn, she’d find her way home, so you guys get in the van and bolt. As you’re leaving, maybe you see the approaching lights of the police cars from Auburn. So you turn away from the approaching police and go south on Country 5 in the opposite direction of Auburn. Mychal, you’re driving the van, it’s your van. You came flying around that corner on the county road and there she was.”

  “No time to react,” Wire suggested quietly.

  “And bam, before you could veer away, you hit Rena, who was walking along the shoulder of the road. Now, at that point, you certainly were in some trouble, but a woman’s life was hanging in the balance. You all had cell phones, after all, you took this picture with it. You could have dialed 911, yet … nobody … called.”

  “You could have called. Rena Johnson was certainly at fault,” Delmonico suggested.

  “Contributory fault,” Mac added. “I mean, in a civil suit, she’d have never recovered a dime.”

  “But you didn’t stop, you kept right on going,” Wire added.

  “And in doing that, that makes it a vehicular homicide,” Mac finished.

  Richardson smiled, “That’s it?”

  In that moment, looking in her eyes, her cold calculating lifeless eyes, he realized he was dealing with another sociopath.

  “That’s all you have.”

  “For now,” Mac replied and in his heart knew where this was heading. She wasn’t going to back down. “It’s an interesting story, but as for the van, I hit a deer.”

  “A deer?” Wire asked.

  “Oh yes. I remember this now.”

  “Oh do you?” Mac asked derisively. “Shocking how it all comes back to you now.”

  “Mock me all you want, Special Agent McRyan. I was driving home from New York and hit a deer on the way home, somewhere in Pennsylvania. So I took it to Sorenson’s because they were good friends of our family and did the work on all of our cars. Bobby Sorenson worked on the van. I’m sure he’ll remember that I hit a deer.”

  “Did you ever report hitting the deer to the police?”

  “No. Wasn’t aware something like that had to be reported.”

  “How about reporting it to your insurance?” Wire asked. “Lots of people do that.”

  “I don’t know if we did,” Richardson answered. “I don’t know if I did, or my dad did or Wallace did.”

  “Wallace?” Delmonico asked.

  “Wallace Llewellyn,” Richardson replied. “He’s our family lawyer.”

  Mac snorted. He’d heard Llewellyn’s name before in passing from Sally. Wallace Llewellyn was a classic Washington fixer, a consigliere for the Richardson family.

  “Where did that happen? Hitting the deer,” Mac asked.

  “I don’t recall exactly, but I was somewhere in the middle of Pennsylvania. It was at night, it was dark. The deer jumped out of the woods and I hit it in the hind end. If I remember correctly, the deer hobbled into the woods. I jumped out, checked the front end of the van, assessed the damage and remember thinking it was good enough to drive home. So I did.”

  “Convenient story,” Wire suggested.

  “More plausible than yours,” Richardson answered easily, as if batting away a mosquito. “So here’s what you have,” she suggested coolly, going into defense lawyer mode. “You have no physical evidence of me at the scene. The van you allege me to have had? We got rid of it long ago. As for the repair, as I told my dad and our people who fixed it, I hit a deer. Any witness you might have had to this accident if what you say happened, happened? They’re all dead. You have as weak a circumstantial case as possible and my actual lawyers, the best defense lawyers money can buy, against some well-meaning county prosecutor in upstate New York? Give me a break.”

  “And you’re not the least bit concerned about Drake Johnson, the Reaper, coming after you?”

  “I’d suggest to you, Special Agent Wire, that if he’s coming after me, well, you better do your best to stop him. You wouldn’t want him to kill someone who’s innocent now, would you? You have enough blood on your hands already.”

  Mac knew coming in she’d either roll over and confess or tell them to fuck off. She’d selected door number two. Ice ran through Mychal Richardson’s veins. She’d driven the van, of this Mac was now completely certain, and she knew he knew. But she was unbothered because she felt untouchable. Mychal had thoroughly analyzed the case, understood the law and had a complete understanding of the facts and circumstances, including the fact that everyone who could have fingered her for the crime, for even being at the scene, was now dead.

  Mac knew he was beat, at least for now.

  But he was unbowed. He leaned forward and stared Richardson down.

  It was time to try to take her down a peg.

&
nbsp; “Whether I can prove it right now or not, Ms. Richardson, here’s what I know. You killed Rena Johnson. You know it and I know it. Those two security mopes standing outside the door watching you are proof enough of that.”

  “I’m the daughter of a senator who is regularly on television and has some controversial views. I’m always concerned about my safety.”

  “Don’t piss on my leg and tell me it’s raining,” Mac mocked. “You are the daughter of one of the nation’s most prominent senators, and seven years ago you used that. You used that status to bully these other girls into covering this up when most of them at age twenty or twenty-one didn’t know better. They were scared, vulnerable and suddenly found themselves in a situation where their life could be ruined. They probably all reached for their cell phones thinking we have to do the right thing, but not you. Just like you have about the current circumstances, you quickly and coldly evaluated that situation and decided you could escape without any damage to your name. Maybe Hannah Donahue and Danica Brunner helped you, given their political backgrounds, but you threatened to bury anyone if they came forward. You are a privileged, spoiled manipulator, a hypocrite to all your bromides about personal accountability. You are nothing more than a murderer, and whether I can prove it right now or not, you and I both know, that’s, what, you, are.”

  Richardson smiled and laughed, “Special Agent McRyan, I’m not under arrest am I.” It was a statement.

  “No,” Mac answered. “You are free to go.”

  Mychal Richardson pushed herself up from the table and strolled to the door.

  “I would be careful if I were you, though. Drake Johnson’s looking to kill you. I’d be happy to protect you, but I only protect people who play ball, who tell the truth.”

  Richardson smiled and shook her head, “You’re wasting your time. I have nothing to be afraid of.”

  “Is that what you said to Danica Brunner last night when you talked to her? What, you think your little rent-a-cops with nine millimeters on their belts can protect you from an extremely motivated killer? You think they can protect you from a man who has killed six other women? A man who killed six men, six law enforcement officers the other night?” It was Mac’s turn to laugh. “Good luck.”