by Karen Rose
Clay squeezed her hand. ‘Because it’s not.’
Her smile was small and sad. ‘But I tugged the tiger’s tail a little too hard, didn’t I? I think now that Robinette must have seen me there, because a week later, Paul was gone.’
‘Not your fault, Stevie,’ Clay said. ‘What happened at the funeral? What did you see?’
‘Not much. Robinette had friends standing around him at the graveside, but I didn’t see anyone there for Levi. I remember thinking that. No grandparents, teachers, relatives. Nobody. There was no fuss, no excitement. Nothing to see.’
‘How did you know the people there were Robinette’s friends?’ JD asked.
‘One of them was Brenda Lee in her wheelchair. The others stood around her and Robinette like they’d known each other for years. All straight and tall . . . like they were all military. Wait a minute.’ She drummed her fingers on the table, her eyes unfocused as she searched her memory. ‘One of them might have been Henderson. And a big guy who might have been Westmoreland. Joseph, do you have his photo?’
Joseph found it in his folder and gave it to her. ‘Is this him?’
‘I think so, yeah. I need to go home. To my house.’
‘Why?’ Clay asked, surprised.
‘Because I took pictures of the people with Robinette that day. They’re on the camera I was using before Paul was killed.’ She faltered for a moment but then her chin came up. ‘I assume it got packed away. I never saw it again, but Izzy might know where it is. I need to find it.’
‘Wait.’ Joseph pulled her back into her chair when she started to rise. ‘Why is the camera so important? We know about Brenda Lee Miller, Henderson and Westmoreland.’
‘But there were others there,’ she said. ‘Let’s assume that Robinette killed Julie to get control of the company. The employees said he was a figurehead who spent more time golfing than working. They said the real brains had been Julie and her first husband, Rene.’
‘That Robinette killed his wife for power I can buy,’ Joseph said. ‘What does that have to do with the funeral pictures you took with your camera?’
‘Brenda Lee became his PR person when Julie died,’ Stevie said. ‘You told me on the phone yesterday that Westmoreland is the head of security for Filbert Pharmaceutical Labs. Robinette got control of the company and brought in his cronies from the old days. If we can find some of those other people, maybe one of them can lead us to Westmoreland.’ She hesitated, then shrugged. ‘Or shed more light on Henderson’s assertion that we don’t know “jack shit” about Robinette. That’s been worrying at me.’
Joseph grew quiet. ‘Me, too. I don’t think she was bluffing. Okay, we’ll get the camera. Novak, that’s yours. Izzy’s at the farm. Ask her about Stevie’s old camera.’
‘And when I find the funeral photographs?’ Novak asked.
‘Check their faces against FPL’s website,’ Joseph said, ‘and send a copy of the photos to my Army contact, the one who found Westmoreland for us yesterday.’ He looked at Stevie. ‘I can see you thinking. What else do you have?’
‘I was thinking about the roles that Robinette would need to fill when he took over Julie’s company. Julie was the face of the company and Robinette took that role, supported by his PR person. But Robinette would also need a new chemist, for example. The old chemist was found dead with Julie. They both had the same blunt force wounds on the backs of their heads.’
‘Sloppy when you think about it,’ JD said with a frown. ‘Robinette seems too smart to stage an accident that was so obviously a murder.’
‘It wasn’t all that obvious,’ Hyatt said, giving Stevie a look that was equal parts regret and approval. ‘Stevie diagrammed the accident scene, showed how the crash couldn’t have caused the head injuries and got the ME to change his cause of death determination to homicide.’
‘Because a few of the employees had reached out to me, told me it smelled fishy to them,’ Stevie said. ‘I figured Julie’s murder was not premeditated. If Robinette had had time to plan, he wouldn’t have been so sloppy. Control of the company was the only motive that made sense, unless he really did discover them having an affair.’
‘Even if it was a crime of passion,’ Agent Coppola said, ‘he set up his son to take the blame.’
Stevie exhaled quietly. ‘And then hired Silas Dandridge to shut me up, one way or the other. It made me wonder how Robinette and Silas crossed paths. Silas worked for Stuart Lippman, the defense attorney. The cases we’ve seen so far have been connected at their source by court cases. The real guilty parties were contacted by Lippman or one of his underlings and sold the opportunity to make their crimes disappear after they were either arrested or charged.’
‘By framing innocent people,’ Grayson said. ‘But Robinette was never charged with Julie’s murder. Never even arrested. And he isn’t named on the list of cases Lippman left behind.’
‘Robinette must have had a few bad moments after Lippman died,’ JD added, ‘worrying that his name would be on the list. He must have thought he was home free when nobody came after him. Until you started digging, Stevie. You started turning up cases that weren’t on Lippman’s list. Robinette must have been worried you’d expose him. So he tried to kill you.’
‘That’s where I came out last night,’ Stevie agreed.
‘But how Robinette connected with Lippman and Silas is still the question,’ Hyatt said.
‘We might have the answer,’ Stevie said. ‘Clay’s assistant Alec has a program that takes persons of interest in an investigation and finds connections.’
‘It’s how we connected Tony Rossi to Danny Kersey, the retired cop in Arizona, who gave us Scott Culp in IA,’ Clay said. ‘We asked Alec to run Robinette against the participants in Lippman’s cases – the names had come from Stevie’s personal notes and all the police reports she’d been re-investigating. He worked all night and got one name – Virgil Barry.’
‘Virgil Barry’s son is on Lippman’s master list,’ Stevie said. ‘Virgil Junior was arrested for assault and battery, but the weapon used on the victim was found under the bed of another young man, who was later charged and convicted. Virgil Junior’s arrest was dropped.’
‘How does Virgil Senior connect to Robinette?’ Joseph asked.
‘They golfed together,’ Clay said. ‘The article Alec found was about an annual team scramble for charity. Robinette and Virgil Senior played on the same team for years.’
‘So we talk to Virgil Senior,’ Joseph said with a satisfied nod, but Stevie shook her head.
‘We can’t,’ she said. ‘He and his wife were shot to death in a home invasion and robbery a few days after Levi Robinette’s funeral.’
‘And a few days before Paul and Paulie were killed,’ Clay added quietly.
‘Of course they were,’ Joseph said, disgusted. ‘Were their killers caught?’
‘No,’ Stevie said. ‘Virgil Senior and his wife were killed next to the locked safe in his home office. The investigator concluded that they were killed because they wouldn’t open the safe. But if Robinette got Senior to tell him how Junior’s charges disappeared, Robinette wouldn’t have let him live. I can’t imagine Virgil Senior voluntarily gave him Lippman’s name. In the cases we’ve reopened to date, Lippman’s clients said that they were told if they shared Lippman’s identity, they’d die, and so would the children they’d paid to protect. My theory is that Robinette threatened Mrs Barry to make Virgil Senior cooperate. When Virgil gave Robinette Lippman’s name, Robinette killed them both. Of course, we can’t confirm any of this with Virgil Senior, but the timing is too perfect to be coincidental.’
‘I agree,’ Joseph said. ‘Since we can’t talk to the father, what about the son? If Virgil Junior’s case was on Lippman’s master list, he would have been re-investigated this past year.’
Stevie shook her head again. ‘He would have been, but Virgil Junior committed suicide shortly after his parents’ murder. OD’d on pills.’
Grayson frowned. �
��Then that’s a dead end. That Robinette and Virgil Senior golfed together is circumstantial. Unless we can show how Robinette hired Lippman, we can’t connect him to Paul’s murder. We can still get him on the murders and attempted murders over the past few days through the DNA he left behind at the beach and at the farm, but not on conspiring to kill Paul and Paulie. I’m sorry, Stevie.’
‘It’s okay. I figured as much.’ Stevie glanced at Hyatt. ‘But there is one other possibility. According to Lippman’s master list, the cop who covered up Virgil Junior’s crime was Elizabeth Morton. She was also the cop that investigated the murder of Virgil Senior and his wife.’
Hyatt sighed wearily. His expression was matched by the others in the room except for Kate Coppola, who looked confused.
‘Elizabeth Morton was Homicide, wasn’t she?’ Agent Coppola asked.
‘She was one of mine,’ Hyatt said, ‘but Lippman had coerced her into working for him by breaking her son’s leg. He still walks with crutches.’
‘Elizabeth was Phil Skinner’s partner,’ JD added, the tightness in his voice a clear indication that he hadn’t begun to get over witnessing the man’s suicide, just a few days before.
‘She also killed both Silas and Lippman,’ Stevie said. ‘She killed Silas in my living room to keep him from giving us Lippman’s name.’
‘And she killed Lippman because she’d finally planned to take her son and run and wanted to make sure he wouldn’t follow her,’ Grayson finished.
Stevie nodded. ‘Elizabeth may be able to confirm that Robinette connected with Lippman. She’s doing her time at Jessup. We could be there in less than an hour.’
‘The question,’ Joseph said, ‘is which one of us will she talk to. We know she hates Clay and me. We helped catch her last year when she was trying to escape after killing Lippman.’
‘And I testified against her,’ Grayson said. ‘As did Paige. She hates us, too.’
‘I’ll go,’ Hyatt said. ‘Stevie, you’ll be with me. You and she are part of the same club – both of you have had your children threatened. Lippman broke her son’s leg and Silas held your daughter at gunpoint.’
Stevie had paled. ‘And killed my son.’
Hyatt flinched as if she’d struck him. ‘I know. I’m so sorry.’
The fight seemed to drain out of her. ‘Me too. When do we leave for Jessup?’
‘As soon as we’re done here,’ Hyatt said. ‘We’ll need to inform the investigation team from the state. This isn’t related to Scott Culp and the IA scandal, but a conversation with any dirty cop skirts the boundaries we were given by the State’s Attorney’s office.’
‘Let’s just recap,’ Joseph said. ‘Novak’s working on getting Stevie’s photos from Levi Robinette’s funeral so that we can hopefully identify more of Robinette’s employees. Brodie is getting a sample of the boy’s DNA, either via autopsy samples or exhumation. JD?’
‘I’m going to prison, too, but not the same one as Stevie and Hyatt,’ JD said. ‘I want to get the statement from the bartender who drugged Sam Hudson. If he’ll confirm Kayla Richards’s ID of Silas, then that’ll be one more “I” dotted when Grayson brings this case to court. I’m hoping he knows more of the story, like how John Hudson met up with Silas in the first place.’
‘Good luck. Grayson?’
‘I have to go to court, but Daphne’s got the draft of my warrant. If you get anything physical linking Robinette and Silas, call her and she’ll revise the warrant and get it in front of the judge.’
‘I have a question,’ Stevie said. ‘If Elizabeth Morton isn’t willing to talk, do we have any leeway in making her an offer? Reduced sentence? Anything?’
Grayson looked skeptical. ‘Maybe. I’ll call my boss on my way to court and will let you know your parameters. Don’t count on any big concessions, though.’
‘I don’t want to offer her anything,’ Joseph said coldly. ‘But we may have no choice. Clay, I assume you’re going with Stevie.’
‘You assume correctly.’ There was no way in hell Clay was leaving her side.
‘Just . . . stay out of Morton’s view. I’d like to avoid making her contrary from the get-go. Kate, I have two things for you,’ Joseph said to Agent Coppola. ‘I want to know more about that lawyer who showed up to represent Henderson yesterday, Cecilia Wright. Henderson didn’t want her, seemed to think Wright was in cahoots with Robinette.’
‘Cahoots?’ Coppola teased. ‘You’ve been hanging around Daphne too much’
Joseph’s mouth curved briefly, but then the weariness moved right back in to claim him. ‘Find out who hired Wright or how she connects to Robinette’s organization. Does Wright work for him? Did he coerce her? Bribe her? Did she serve with Robinette? I want the connections.’
‘Got it,’ Coppola said. ‘And the second thing?’
‘This second thing is your higher priority. Get close to Lisa Robinette. I want her husband’s DNA today. Check with me before you execute anything. I’ll make sure you have backup. Let’s meet back here at one. We’re done here.’ He sighed. ‘Now I have to go to a meeting to plan two department funerals.’
‘I know,’ Hyatt said. ‘I just planned three.’
On that grim note, they dispersed.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Jessup Correctional Institution, Jessup, Maryland, Wednesday, March 19, 10.30 A.M.
Elizabeth Morton had changed, Stevie thought when the woman was brought into the interview room in handcuffs. Her eyes were like empty holes, lifeless. Soulless.
Stevie glanced up at Hyatt from the corner of her eye. His face was pained.
‘Elizabeth,’ he said, his deep voice rusty.
Stevie could find no sympathy for the woman who’d sold her soul many times over.
‘Why are you here?’ Morton asked, her voice as dead as her eyes.
‘We got new information yesterday,’ Stevie said. ‘About Silas.’
Elizabeth rolled her eyes to stare at the ceiling. ‘So?’
‘My husband and son were murdered, eight years ago, on March 15.’
A slight hitch in Elizabeth’s breathing was the only indication she’d heard.
‘For eight years I’ve believed it was a random crime. Yesterday I found out that Silas set it up, coerced a man I never met to murder my husband. And my five-year-old son.’
‘I’m sorry for your loss,’ Elizabeth said bitterly, not meeting her eyes.
‘I hope you’re willing to prove it. We know that Todd Robinette hired the murderer of my family.’ Stevie caught Elizabeth’s slight wince. ‘Robinette hooked up with Lippman, we believe through Virgil Barry. Covering up Barry’s son’s crime was one of your cases.’
‘Go talk to Barry, then,’ Elizabeth said coldly.
‘You know I can’t. You know he’s dead.’
‘Is there a question in there anywhere?’ Her tone dripped acid, but beneath was hesitation.
‘Yes,’ Stevie said, ‘there is. Several, in fact. Did Virgil Barry give Lippman’s name to Robinette? Did Robinette hire Lippman? Did Lippman assign Silas to kill my family?’
Elizabeth’s eyes filled with sly calculation. ‘Why should I help you? What’s in it for me?’
‘The opportunity to do the right thing,’ Stevie said. ‘The opportunity to make amends.’
‘The only right thing is anything that gets me out of here a day sooner.’ She stood. ‘Talk to your friend, Grayson Smith. Come back when he’s ready to make a deal. Guard! Take me back.’
‘No,’ Hyatt said, his deep voice cracking like a whip. ‘Sit down, Elizabeth.’
A twisted smile. ‘No offense, Lieutenant, but you’re no longer my boss.’
‘Maybe not,’ Hyatt said, his jaw clenched hard, ‘but if you don’t start talking right now, I will personally ensure you are moved as far away from your son as possible.’
Elizabeth’s step faltered, her cheeks growing pale. ‘You sonofabitch.’
‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘You got sympathy during your trial
, because Lippman hurt your child to ensure your compliance. But Stevie’s son is dead. Murdered. Because you were too weak to stand up and do the right thing. It’s time to do the right thing now, Elizabeth. So sit down.’
Elizabeth sat, visibly vibrating with fury. ‘I want a deal.’
For a moment, no one spoke. Then Stevie let out a quiet breath. ‘I’ll give you a deal.’
Elizabeth’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. ‘You’re not authorized to make me any deals.’
‘Stevie,’ Hyatt began, but Stevie lifted her hand.
‘Listen to me, Elizabeth. Robinette targeted my surviving child to ferret me out of hiding. Not once. Not twice. But three times. Do you think your son is safe because Lippman is dead? Do you think Robinette won’t find out that we were talking to you? Do you think your son’s life will have any value when Robinette finds out you can turn evidence against him?’
‘I have no evidence,’ Elizabeth said, her chin lifting slightly. But her lips trembled.
‘You were willing to make a deal a few minutes ago. I’d make sure he knew that.’
‘You’re bluffing,’ Elizabeth said, her face grown even more pale. ‘You wouldn’t tell him.’
‘Are you willing to risk your son’s life on that?’ Stevie asked, holding Elizabeth’s gaze.
Elizabeth laughed bitterly. ‘Didn’t think you had it in you, Stevie. What’s your deal?’
‘You do the right thing by my Paulie and I’ll keep your son safe from Robinette. Tell me the truth, with details that we can corroborate, so that Grayson can nail Robinette’s ass to the wall.’
Elizabeth closed her eyes. ‘Yes,’ she finally said. ‘Robinette tried to hire Lippman to get the cops off his back, said that he’d come recommended by Virgil Barry. Lippman was furious. Sent me to deal with Barry, since he’d been mine, but Barry and his wife were dead. I closed their murder investigation and thought I was home free, but then Lippman accepted Robinette’s job.’
