The FBI Thrillers Collection

by Catherine Coulter

  “He’s a powerhouse in Chicago, a very rich and successful businessman, an investment banker with Kleiner, Smith and Benson. He and John have been rivals for years and years.

  “Cleo wrote that she didn’t know if he’d killed other women, but she knew he would have killed her if she hadn’t left and she knew he was going to kill me and I should run as far away as I could, and quickly.”

  Dane, frowning, said, “Why would a man who’s supposedly so smart keep a damned journal where he actually confesses to a murder? And leave that journal in a safe in his own home, for God’s sake, and then, to top it all off, he leaves the safe open? That’s really a long way from being smart, Nick. This whole thing’s a stretch. It just doesn’t feel right.”

  THIRTY-FOUR

  Nick said, “I thought the same thing at first. But listen, Dane. I knew Cleo Rothman, I knew her handwriting. The letter was from her, I’m positive about that. She told me she had the journal, that she took it with her, to keep John at bay in case he wanted to come after her. It was her only leverage.”

  “Why didn’t she just go to the police with the thing? It was a confession, after all.”

  “She wrote that John had many important, powerful friends, and that many of those powerful people owed him favors. She said she could just see him saying that as his wife—she knew his handwriting, of course—she had written it herself, that it was all an attempt on her part to ruin him. I could practically taste her fear in that letter, Dane, her sense that she was a coward, but that everything was against her, that she had no choice but to run. Do you think the cops would have believed her, launched an investigation?”

  “They would have looked into it, of course, but it wouldn’t have helped if they believed she was vindictive, that she wanted to ruin a good man, and there was no other proof but the journal. Anyway, John Rothman wrote that he killed this Melissa Gransby because she cheated on him with this Benson character?”

  “Evidently so. John couldn’t forgive her. The pages were full of rage, over-the-top, unreasoned rage, and Cleo wrote that she could see that Melissa’s unfaithfulness had changed him, twisted him, made him incapable of trusting a woman.

  “She wrote that it did make a bit of sense since his mother had cheated on his father, and it hurt him deeply. Evidently he told her this when they were first married.”

  “Did he tell you this? About his mother?”

  She shook her head. “No, he’s never told me anything.”

  “So Cleo Rothman found his journal, read his murder confession, and she just up and left him? With this aide? Jesus, Nick. Ain’t a whole lot of credibility here.”

  “No, no, she wrote that she didn’t leave with anyone. She said she didn’t even know where Tod Gambol was. She was never his lover, had never been unfaithful to John. She loved John, always loved him, but she was terrified, and so she just ran. She became convinced that he was going to kill her, too, because she’d heard rumors that she was sleeping with Elliott Benson. Knowing this, knowing that he’d already killed a girl because she’d supposedly cheated on him, she knew he would believe the rumors and try to kill her just like he did Melissa.

  “When she heard that I was going to marry him, then she heard the rumors that I was sleeping with Elliott Benson, she wrote that she didn’t want to see me end up dead, like Melissa, and God knows how many other women.”

  “Okay, Nick, something else must have happened to make you go to San Francisco and become homeless.”

  “Just before I got her letter, someone tried to run me down. A man with a ski mask over his head, driving a black car. It was dark and I was walking just one block from the neighborhood store back to my building.”

  Dane stiffened. “What,” he said, “were you doing out in the dark walking to the store? In Chicago? That’s really dumb, Nick.”

  She poked her finger in his chest. “All right, you want to know every little thing? Okay, it was my period, if it’s any of your business.”

  “Well, I can see that you wouldn’t want to wait. But, you should have had the store deliver.”

  It was so funny, really so unexpected, all this outrage over something so very insignificant, that she laughed. And laughed again. Here she was telling him about one of the most frightening experiences of her life—until a week ago—and he was all upset because she’d walked to her local store, by herself, in the dark.

  On the other hand, given what happened, maybe he had a point.

  She cleared her throat and said, “As I was saying, I was walking back when this car came out of a side street and very nearly got me. There was no way it was someone drunk or a stupid accident. No, I knew it was on purpose. Then there was his sister Albia’s birthday dinner. Supposedly it was food poisoning. It was really close. If I’d eaten more I would have died. The second I got that letter, I took off to his apartment to confront him about it.”

  “What happened?”

  “I waved the letter in his face, asked him how many women he’d killed. He denied everything, said the letter couldn’t be from Cleo, he just wouldn’t believe that, demanded that I give it to him. Then he came at me and I thought he was going to strangle me. He got the letter, shredded it, and threw it into the fire, then turned on me. I pulled my gun out and told him I was leaving. That night, I woke up because I heard someone in my condo. I saw this guy from the balcony, running away, and realized that he’d set my condo on fire. I got myself out in time, but it was too close. I got away with my purse and that was it. I ended up in a shelter. Since I’d lost everything, since I didn’t have a shred of proof, since I knew he’d try to kill me, just like he did Melissa, just like he’d wanted to kill Cleo, I decided being homeless wasn’t such a bad thing. Talk about disappearing—and it would give me time to figure out what to do. That’s how I ended up in San Francisco, how I just happened to be waiting in the church for Father Michael Joseph.”

  “So you went to San Francisco and just hid underground. You knew you couldn’t remain hidden there, Nick. What were you going to do?”

  “I hadn’t yet decided. Believe me, I was in no hurry. Despite where I was, I felt safe until this happened.”

  “Who is Albia?”

  “She’s John Rothman’s older sister. They’re very close, always have been.”

  “What is she like?”

  “Albia is some seven years older than John. After their mother died in an auto accident, Albia more or less became his mother. As I said, they’re very close. Once I asked her about the family, and she told me about their mother, that she’d died tragically, that their father had died about five years ago of a heart attack.”

  “Lots of automobile accidents in this man’s life.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “So Albia didn’t tell you about her mother being unfaithful to her father?”

  “No, would you?”

  “Maybe not.”

  “But there was something. At Albia’s birthday dinner, before I got really sick, I gave her a scarf. She started to talk about how their mother had had a scarf like that and then she looked like she’d swallowed something bad. She shut up like a clam. They explained it to me that it was a touchy subject.”

  “No explanation at all.”

  “Not really.”

  “Nothing much there. Is that it?”

  “No, there’s more, and this is something I know. I remember John told me he was in love with Cleo within minutes of meeting her. When she left him, he was devastated, just couldn’t believe it. He wondered and wondered why she hadn’t spoken to him, told him what was wrong, but she’d just up and left.”

  “Hmmm,” Dane said again.

  She said, “You know, Dane, it was really hard for me to believe that John began murdering women just because his mother cheated on his father. Do you think it’s remotely possible that he might have killed his own mother?”

  “I think it’s possible that someone did.”

  “But who else could it have been?”

&
nbsp; He just shook his head. “There’s lots here to process, Nick. Let’s get Savich and Sherlock involved. MAX found out that you’re Dr. Nicola Campion quickly enough. They’re primed to help.”

  “I think that’s a great idea.”

  The four of them met in the Holiday Inn coffee shop.

  Dane said, “Maybe you guys could consider stopping off in Chicago with us before going back to Washington.”

  “Actually,” Savich said, “Sherlock was just about ready to call you, Nick, get all the details out of your mouth and not from MAX.”

  “It’s a real mess,” Nick said. She talked and talked, slowly covered again all that had happened, answered many of the same questions, though many of them had a different slant, refreshing her memory for different things. She realized she was being questioned by experts. It was quite painless, actually. Finally, both Savich and Sherlock fell silent. Savich was holding his wife’s hand, stroking his thumb over her palm, slowly and gently.

  Nick watched Savich sip his tea, frown. He said as he gently sloshed the tea around in the cup, “It’s very flat, no taste at all.”

  Sherlock patted his hand. “I think we should start traveling with the tea you like.”

  Dane, impatient, said, “Well? What do you guys think?”

  Savich smiled at Nick and said, “I want to cogitate on all of this for a while. But first, I need to make a phone call.”

  He pulled out his cell phone, dialed, waited. “Hello, George? It’s Savich, and I need a bit of help.”

  “Who’s George?” Nick whispered to Dane.

  Sherlock said, “It’s Captain George Brady, Chicago Police Department.”

  Savich waited, listened, then said into the cell phone, “Here’s the deal, George. I need you to tell me about Cleo Rothman.”

  Two minutes later, Savich pressed the off button on the phone. He looked at each of them in turn, then said directly to Nick, “I’m sorry, Nick, but Cleo Rothman wasn’t killed a couple of weeks ago.”

  Nick said, “What do you mean? I don’t understand. I got the letter from her not more than a month ago.”

  Savich said, “Captain Brady said the medical examiner was just about ready to announce his findings. Fact is, Cleo Rothman was murdered at least three years ago.”

  THIRTY-FIVE

  They spent the entire late afternoon and evening in meetings with Jimmy Maitland, Savich’s boss and an assistant director of the FBI, Gil Rainy from the LA field office, and LAPD Chief William Morgan and his staff, including Detective Flynn. They had time for only a brief good-bye to Inspector Delion before he flew back to San Francisco late that evening.

  The DA wasn’t going to press charges against Weldon DeLoach, recognized that the man had lost his son and would probably be persona non grata in Hollywood. Besides, Weldon was going to show them where his father had buried all the discarded bloody clothes from so many years ago. That was, they decided, enough punishment for any man. As for Captain DeLoach, they’d tried to get details from him, but he’d acted utterly demented. Was it a game? No one knew. The fact was, though, he was dying. No one could see putting the old buzzard in jail, but the questions would continue to be asked. They would see if any were ever answered.

  With Jimmy Maitland’s blessing, the four of them flew to Chicago the following morning. They survived the usual hassles that accompanied traveling by air now that the world had changed. Their FBI shields were studied, their paperwork read three times, their fingerprints closely scrutinized until, at last, they were cleared through.

  They rented two cars and suffered through the snarled traffic—which still didn’t measure up to Los Angeles traffic—and it took them a good forty-five minutes to reach The Four Seasons. It was a treat, Savich told them, and one that Jimmy Maitland had approved. He’d told Savich they’d done such a good job with the script murderer that the sky was the limit, given, of course, that they realized the sky consisted of two regular rooms, which were still very nice in The Four Seasons. They managed to snag two adjoining rooms.

  They ordered up room service first thing. Over club sandwiches, Savich’s minus the turkey and bacon, he said, “Okay, I’ve given this lots of thought, talked it over with Sherlock and Dane on the airplane. Here’s what we think, Nick: It’s just possible that Senator John Rothman isn’t the murderer here.”

  It was like someone punched her in the gut. She lost her breath. She gaped at the three of them, all of them nodding at her, said, “No, that’s just not possible.”

  “Think a minute,” Savich said, very gently, because he knew that her entire world was based on her belief that this one man had tried to murder her. “John Rothman is a very powerful man, true, with lots of clout, lots of friends who owe him favors, but despite that, he’s got a lot on the line. Not just his political career, but his life. His life, Nick. For a man like him, with his skills, his place in the world, to really be that screwed up because his mom had an affair when he was a teenager, it just doesn’t make sense, for any of us.” He smiled at her. “Fact is, we’re thinking that it just might be Albia Rothman.”

  Dane smiled, didn’t say a word, just took another bite of his sandwich, which was quite good.

  “Albia,” Nick said, her voice blank, sandwich forgotten. “What on earth do you mean?”

  “Well,” Savich said, “to be honest here, it socked me in the face when you first mentioned her. That’s why I said I wanted to think about it, discuss it with Sherlock and Dane. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t immediately speak to John Rothman, because we have been known to be wrong before. Just maybe we’ll change our minds. But I want us to give serious consideration to his sister as well.”

  Nick could only stare at each of them in turn. She drew a deep breath, took a bite of her sandwich, chewed, then said finally, “I’m not following you guys at all here.”

  Dane said, “Here’s the deal: Older sister and younger brother are both hurt badly because of mother’s infidelity. Older sister believes to her soul that she’s her little brother’s protector. Maybe she kills her mother, or maybe not, maybe her death just makes it all that much worse. She becomes her younger brother’s biggest supporter, realizes she can’t bear to ever let him go to another woman, and so when he meets someone in college, she kills her, making it look like an accident.”

  Nick was shaking her head. “But how can you possibly know if any of that is even close to the truth? It was all this Elliott Benson, this friend of John’s who’s always gone after the women John loved or wanted.

  “Also, there’s the inescapable fact that John married Cleo. They were married for five years. Why wouldn’t Albia have killed her before John could marry her if she wanted to keep him to herself? To keep him safe from other women?”

  Sherlock said, “It’s likely that Albia simply didn’t have enough opportunity before they married. We’ll see about that. I’ll bet you the last quarter of my club sandwich, though, that it was probably a whirlwind romance, and Albia didn’t have a chance to stop him from marrying. So Albia had to bide her time, had to go underground with her feelings. After all, she couldn’t just knock off his new wife; there would be too many questions raised. And certainly the last thing she’d want is to have her brother a suspect in the death of his wife, supposed accident or not.”

  Dane said, “Here’s the clincher. You said that Cleo was the one who told you about Elliott Benson. Well, Cleo didn’t write that letter. It’s got to be Albia.”

  Nick looked thoughtful, her eyes on the crust of her club sandwich, all that was left. She said at last, “I know Albia, or at least I thought I did. She’s always been kind to me, not chummy, because she’s not like that with anyone. She’s very dignified, very together, restrained.”

  Dane said, “Would she go to the mat for her brother, do you think?”

  Nick pictured Albia Rothman in her mind, slowly shook her head. “I just don’t know. I remember once in a meeting, though, Albia didn’t agree with a political stand John wanted to take. Sh
e laid out her reasons, but he didn’t change his mind. I remember thinking that I agreed with her. I also remember the look she gave him was vicious, but she didn’t argue with him anymore.”

  “You said that Albia was married once, for just a short time?” Savich asked.

  “That’s right,” Nick said. “Oh, God, her husband died very suddenly, if I’m remembering right. You don’t think—no, oh no.” Nick dashed her fingers through her hair. “This is very difficult. I’ve believed it was John from the very beginning. When he came at me that last night, his fingers curved toward my neck—and I swear to you, I saw murder in his eyes—I knew he was guilty. Not a single doubt in my mind. I was terrified. The thing is—why would he come after me if it was Albia who killed the women?”

  “Maybe he didn’t mean to hurt you,” Sherlock said. “Maybe he just wanted that letter from his ex-wife. And he wanted it very badly, enough to attack you to get it. Nick, his career is on the line here. All he cares about can come tumbling down around his ears. He had to get ahold of that letter. Now that raises a good question, doesn’t it?”

  “Yes, it does,” Dane said. “Did he already know that Cleo was long dead?”

  “No,” Nick said. “He was saying that there was no way Cleo would ever hurt him like that, no way at all. Oh, I don’t know. This is too much. You guys really believe then that it was Albia Rothman who tried to kill me in Los Angeles?”

  “Probably,” Sherlock said. “I’d for sure bet she arranged setting fire to your condo. As for the man on the Harley, maybe she hired someone she trusted, someone from Chicago.”

  Nick was shaking her head. “Actually, I figured it all out in a dream a couple of nights ago. The guy in the car who tried to run me down, the guy who set fire to my condo, the guy on the Harley—I realized that they were all the same man. I’m really sure of that.”

  Dane said, “That makes sense. Maybe a lover, someone she felt she could really trust.”

  “Maybe,” Savich said. “And once Linus sent your photo to the media, and she saw you on TV, recognized you, she knew just where you were. It wouldn’t be hard to locate where you were staying, and to have you followed. And when the Harley attempt failed, she just didn’t have time to execute another plan.”