“Children always pick up on things that adults don’t want them to know.”
“So why did you think Sheldon and your father weren’t friends?”
Richard’s breathing had slowed. Mitch, who was in the room, reassured him that he didn’t have to answer. That seemed to bring Richard back to the room. “Because my father was afraid of him.”
Interesting. “Why was he afraid of Sheldon?”
“Because my father knew that Alex knew the truth.” He closed his eyes. “Because he was only pretending to be nice to me when he was with my parents; he was gloating at my mother, and he didn’t care if my father saw it. My father wasn’t stupid, but he didn’t let himself see what he didn’t want to see. He didn’t want to admit the truth about my mother. And he knew that Alex could make him if he wanted to. And then he did.”
And then, Robert thought, your father killed himself.
Maybe Richard wasn’t so bad for this after all.
—
Michael Abbot would have been another good suspect if it hadn’t been for the alibi. He had more reason than anyone to hate Sheldon: he’d enabled his alcoholic father Stephen, and for that his mother Annabelle had hated him. And Sheldon’s affair with Miranda’s mother Tatiana Hamilton had led to the deaths of Stephen, Tatiana, and Annabelle. Then Michael not only had to live as Sheldon’s ward, but watch Miranda moon over him. She’d married Michael, but when they’d divorced, she began an affair with Sheldon. Would Miranda have left Sheldon if she hadn’t found out about his role in Jim Hendrickson’s death? Or if Michael hadn’t gotten himself shot trying to protect her from Tom Bartolome?
Why hadn’t Michael Abbot killed Sheldon?
“You’ve gotten into three scrapes with Sheldon, didn’t you?”
“I don’t know; I wasn’t counting.”
Robert shrugged. “Don’t worry, I was.” He opened a folder. “Right before you married your wife for the first time, you ended up in the ER with a concussion after he came to your home and assaulted you.”
“He took a cheap shot and I didn’t see it coming.”
Robert eyed Michael. “You’re at least three inches taller than he was, aren’t you? Most people try to avoid fights with people who can take them.”
“Teague,” Mitch interjected, “do you have a question?”
“Sorry,” he said politely. “And then a few years after that, he confronted you at your gym right before you were shot. Apparently, your trainer felt he had to intervene.” Michael’s face darkened at the memory. “You’d been working out a lot by that point, and you were pretty strong. And I’m guessing you were wearing shorts, probably a t-shirt or one of those clingy workout shirts.”
“Teague,” Mitch repeated tersely.
“I’m just pointing out that it should have been obvious to Sheldon that you not only had a height advantage but also a strength advantage.” Robert leaned forward. “What was he thinking getting in your face like that?”
“Once a bully, always a bully.”
Robert liked that theory. “Maybe, because when you finally attacked him at the MFA, he didn’t do anything to you, did he?”
“I grabbed him,” Michael corrected, “because he had cornered Miranda.”
“Right,” Robert agreed. “And then Richard got you off of him before you could do anything else.”
Michael was willing to get hurt or get rough if he perceived a threat to his wife. But if Alex came at him, it was almost as if he froze. Because Sheldon reduced a muscular man of about 6’2” to a seven-year-old child who was forced to live with the person he held responsible for his parents’ deaths.
Because Sheldon was a bully.
—
Miranda Abbot didn’t spend long recounting the story of how she came into Sheldon’s orbit; Robert already knew that her mother Tatiana had been Alex’s lover and that he thought she was also sleeping with Stephen Abbot. Sheldon didn’t find out until after she’d died that she was really Stephen’s half-sister—and that Miranda existed. (Why did Massachusetts still have that law that made it okay to marry your cousin?) Sheldon had raised Miranda along with Michael but hadn’t told either of them the truth until they were first married. He’d also neglected to mention that he’d been planning to marry her mother.
From such screwed-up circumstances, it was easy for Robert to excuse the crush she’d had on Sheldon as a kid, and even the fact that she wasn’t happy he was dead. Everything was as expected.
Almost.
“I know what Alex did, and I knew he was ruthless even when I was growing up, but he wasn’t a monster. At least not back then. That was Tom Bartolome.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Other than the fact that he killed his wife, whom I adored? Or that he terrorized his own daughter, tried to kidnap me, and then shot my husband?” She shrugged. “There was also the time he almost molested me.”
Mitch whipped his head to look at Miranda but didn’t say anything. “Oh.” Robert finally responded. “I’m, um, sorry. What happened?”
“I hurt my knee playing with Michael and Richard. I went looking for a Band-Aid in the bathroom. Tom cornered me there. If Richard hadn’t shown up when he did...” She shook her head, disgusted. “I don’t want to think about what he might have done.”
“What did Sheldon do when you told him?”
“I didn’t get a chance. Tom...Josie.” She looked down at the table and raised her eyebrows. “You know what happened.”
What would Sheldon have done? Miranda may have held a special place in his heart, but Tom Bartolome had made it possible for Alex to blackmail Lucy into marrying Jim Hendrickson and get a huge payday from Gerald Hendrickson as a result. And no matter what Sheldon had claimed a few years ago, Robert knew he knew that Tom was beating his wife.
Robert was lost in thought when Miranda left. What does Tom Bartolome have to say about Sheldon’s death?
The door opened, and Robert swallowed. He’d much rather be sitting with a scumbag like Bartolome than have to go through this next interview.
“Hello, Jessie.” He cleared his throat. “Thanks for coming in.”
Jessie rolled her eyes and reluctantly sat down at the conference table. “I don’t want to be here, so make this quick. I didn’t kill Alex and you know it. I was at a group study session until eight, and yes, I have witnesses. Then I went to the library to pick up some books, and then I went to convenience store to pick up some ice cream on my way home. You want to see the receipt?”
“Jessie,” Robert said when she took a breath. “We’re not looking at you for this. I’m trying to get a feel about Sheldon from the people who knew him best, that’s all.”
Jessie crossed her arms and glared at him. “Go to hell, Bob. You know exactly how everyone felt about him, and you know exactly what we think of you.”
Robert felt his face burn. He hadn’t been proud of using Jessie’s trust to find out more about her parents when he’d been working undercover, and he really wasn’t proud of himself for having slept with her. It was just once, and she’d initiated it, but he never bothered using that as an excuse. She’d had a crush on Joanna Hazlett’s teaching assistant Bob Lester, not police detective Robert Teague.
If he hadn’t arrested her father for what he’d done to her mother, he’d have lost his job. He knew it, and he knew she knew it.
Mitch lost the smirk he usually had around Robert. “Jessie, let’s not—”
Robert shook his head. “It’s alright,” he said to Mitch. “I deserve that.” He looked Jessie square on and did his best not to squirm. “I know how you feel about me, and you’re entitled. But I need your help,” he said truthfully. “I need to get a picture of this guy, and I need to know what you saw when you were around him. Please.”
Jessie was unmoved. “Whatever,” she snapped, then rolled her eyes in resignation. “What did I think of him? I thought he was an asshole. Because he was. It made me sick that he let Michael get away with all of his bullshit
when we were kids, and I had no idea why Miranda thought he was so dreamy. And he was the only reason I thought Richard wasn’t the smartest person I knew because Richard didn’t hate him like I did.”
“Why didn’t you like him?”
“Before or after he kept Michael from being arrested for almost raping me?” she asked dryly.
Robert saw Mitch cringe. Michael had changed, but Mitch obviously didn’t like to be reminded that one of his colleagues had such a checkered past. “Let’s start with before,” Robert said.
Jessie pursed her lips and wiggled her mouth as she thought. “I just didn’t,” she said simply. “He was there but he wasn’t there. He had Michael and Miranda, but he didn’t seem to care about them. It was like he was in the room, but he wasn’t. And I knew my aunt hated him, and since she was such a jerk, I knew he had to be really horrible. The only time he was ever, I don’t know, there was when she was around, and it made my skin crawl.”
“He had a mean streak?”
She wrinkled her brow as she thought some more. “No. I think he was a sociopath. He didn’t really care. He was going through the motions.” She shrugged. “Or maybe he was just permanently damaged after what happened with Miranda’s mother, I don’t know. And it sort of doesn’t matter.”
“You slapped him when you found out that he blackmailed your aunt and that this was the reason she hadn’t come to the police about Michael.”
She looked bored. “And?”
“And...that’s unusual. Sheldon gave Michael plenty of reasons to attack him, but he didn’t touch him until, well, last week. And Richard had a lot of reasons to take a swing at him, but the only person he hit was me.”
Jessie sneered. “Because you’re an even bigger jerk than Alex was. And Richard’s not like that. He doesn’t want to get into a fight with anyone; he just wants to not deal with them if he can’t stand them.”
“So why were you willing to get in Sheldon’s face?”
She smiled. “Because he was a piece of garbage, and he had nothing on me. He was a lot like you, Bob, but extra special. You both liked to have things you could use against people to control them. Sucked for him that he didn’t have anything on me, and if he had, I wouldn’t have cared.” She smirked. “And then no one cared at all.”
You’re welcome, Robert thought. “You think that’s why he stayed away?”
Jessie made a face. “Yeah, I guess.” She looked like she was about to roll her eyes again, but instead she frowned. She looked from side to side. She shook her head as if annoyed. “But how am I supposed to know why that asshole stayed away?”
Robert would have sworn that Jessie had just come up with a theory, whether she wanted to or not.
—
Jessie hated the sound of the word “Bartolome” and she couldn’t wait to take Martin’s name when they married. But, she grudgingly admitted to herself, that wasn’t the only thing that linked her to her father’s family. She could color her Bartolome blonde hair whatever she wanted, but she couldn’t change who she was. Like Richard, like Lucy, she always saw things clearly. That was why Richard had been so morose growing up and why Lucy did what she did without regard to emotion. Her own judgment was almost always correct, and she never experienced the gut-punch of realization lesser mortals suffered when the facts came together for them.
So it was especially painful for her when it finally happened, and even worse because it was something Teague had said.
She called Martin as soon as she left Robert’s office.
“Hey, babe—”
“You were looking at Alex’s financials when you were in grad school.”
“Yeah, but I didn’t find anything that would—”
She looked up from her phone to make sure she wasn’t going to crash into something on the street. “Where are your notes?”
Jessie walked into Richard’s office the next afternoon as soon as she was sure Emily and Miranda had already left. Richard was in the middle of a meeting with Michael and Mitch when she walked in, but that was going to have to wait.
“Yeah, sorry,” she said, though she wasn’t sorry at all. “We need to talk.”
“And that’s more important than figuring out what we need from an overseas contract because…?”
Richard still looked like he wanted to pat Jessie on the head whenever she did things like this. Today, that made Jessie want to scream. She pulled the thumb drive out of her pocket. “Because it’s about Alex. Michael, stay. Mitch, are you still that crazy girl’s attorney?”
“You know I am, and she’s not—”
“Then go.”
Mitch looked at Richard, who shrugged. “Go home,” he said. “Give Hellie a kiss for me.”
Mitch shrugged. “Fine. But I’m not hiding this from Emily,” Mitch said as he passed Jessie.
“Thanks for the warning,” Jessie said as she closed the door behind him.
Richard folded his arms. “Why bother closing the door? Whatever it is, Carlos, Jordan and Vijay couldn’t care less.”
“Isn’t Vijay’s cousin still dating the mayor?”
“Yes,” Richard said slowly. “What does this have to do with Hwang?”
She tossed the drive to Richard, who caught it with one hand. “Fire her up,” she said. “And you,” she said to Michael. “How long was Alex into human trafficking or any other kind of organized crime?”
Michael looked at the floor, snickered, and shook his head. “Let’s think about that for a moment. If that had been one of his ‘investments,’ do you think I would have sat on that for this long?”
“Of course not,” Richard said without looking up from his keyboard. ‘You would have used it to discredit him as soon as possible, and preferably in front of Miranda.”
Michael pointed at his cousin and clicked his tongue. “You know me so well.”
“You’re positive?” Jessie asked coolly.
“Yes,” Michael said firmly. “Don’t worry; he broke plenty of laws and had a number of off-shore accounts. But trafficking was too dangerous for him; his connections could have gotten him out of a lot, but not that.”
“So it wasn’t something he did until he had to.”
Richard looked at Michael, then Jessie. “What are you talking about?”
“His contributions to city councilors and state politicians—they all decreased after he left. And we assumed that he stayed away because he was afraid of you.” She gestured to Michael. “But let’s think about that. You know what I told myself as soon as he left? That he was afraid of you because he’d figured out you really were crazy.”
Michael grimaced. “If he thought I was crazy, he would have made sure I was institutionalized.”
“Not that kind of crazy,” Jessie said irritably. “Crazy as in you were willing to get shot by my father to protect Miranda, so you’d finally be willing to break his spine for everything he did to you. Or more. But that’s bullshit and I just realized it yesterday. You wouldn’t have done that and he knew it.” Michael was silent. “Because anything that would jeopardize you living happily ever after with Miranda was out of the question.”
Richard looked from Jessie to Michael, and Jessie could tell that he had made the same assumption. “So why did he stay away?”
“Because there was nothing to come back to.” She leaned against the door. “Look at the files. Martin didn’t want to ask me when he was doing all this work a few years ago. He thought he was...protecting me. I would have seen it then.”
Richard held his breath. “What do you mean there was nothing?”
“He was pushed out of everything,” Jessie said. “His board seats, his holdings, the companies he’d broken up—he was whittled down to almost nothing except whatever wasn’t already on the books.” She gestured toward his computer. “I’m sure you can go over those files quicker than I can, but even I could figure out what was happening to that schmuck.”
“Thank goodness for the Cayman Islands,” Michael said sarcasti
cally.
“By whom?” Richard asked, but Jessie knew he already knew the answer.
“Yeah, why don’t we pretend that there was anyone else aside from Lucy who could have done it, and that she hadn’t been waiting years for the chance.”
Richard drummed his fingers again. “Is there any point in asking her?”
“Depends on whether you expect an answer,” Jessie answered dryly.
Richard tensed his jaw. “How?”
Michael looked at the ceiling. “I think I’ve got this. She increased her holdings in all of the companies that he had an interest in, and when she had enough shares or allies, she made sure he got kicked off of his board seats.”
Richard frowned. “But what about his investments? If she’s invested in the same companies, she can’t lower the value of his investments without lowering her own.”
“God bless your logical heart,” Michael said. Jessie smirked while he patted Richard on the shoulder. “That’s exactly what she would do; she’d dump her shares on the market for a loss—but only after she had a lot of them so she could make sure she’d lower the value. Yep, she’d lose money, and those other investors would be left holding garbage.” Michael swung his head side-to-side. “If the company didn’t have any intrinsic value, well, maybe that’s not worth her losing too much sleep over. And she can afford not to. But if it did, she could just buy the stocks back, but this time at what she knows is a bargain price.”
Richard leaned back. “And she could also make it clear that she wasn’t doing business with anyone who did business with him.”
Michael smiled appreciatively. “Trust me, there would be plenty of people who wouldn’t have needed much of an excuse to shut their doors to him.”
“This is what I want to know.” Jessie made a fist, then let it go. “What took her so long?”
Richard looked away. “Because once everyone knew about her and Joanna, there was nothing he could have done to stop her.”
“‘The truth shall set us free’,” Jessie said, but she didn’t feel particularly free at that moment.
Justice, Mercy and Other Myths (The New Pioneers Book 7) Page 10
