He took the paper, stuffed it in his pocket, and without another word, rode off toward the barn.
Chapter 19
“Lying?”
We were halfway down the lane when I asked the question.
Sabrina didn’t answer right away. I had turned onto the main road when she finally responded.
“Honestly? I don’t know. He seemed genuinely surprised at the news, and yet…”
I waited while she thought some more.
“We know beyond a shadow of a doubt that Daisy and Lucinda are one and the same, so if he was as close to his sister as he and Karen both claim he was, he had to know and he’s covering it up.”
“Unless their fight was so bad that she just took off without telling him,” I said.
“It’s possible, and she could have written the serial killer note to the media herself.”
“Let me throw this one out there. Suppose Lucinda was the serial killer? Who says it has to be a male?”
“She wasn’t. I knew her as well as anyone in prison did—which, granted, was not very well at all—and I can tell you that she wasn’t a serial killer. I’m not so sure now that she even killed her husband. Besides, the killer had been at it for a couple of years. That means she would have been a teenager when she started.”
“Okay, another theory,” I said. “Suppose she had an accomplice in her disappearance?”
“Jackson?”
“It would make sense. Karen said Lucinda hated her father, and I don’t think Jackson has any great love for their father or their mother. If she and Jackson were so close, what would stop him from helping her run?”
“So,” Sabrina said. “What I think we are left with are two choices: either she took off on her own, faking her own death, and Jackson didn’t know; or Jackson helped her run and he’s covering for her. But if he had helped her run, he would have been involved in her life, which means he would have visited her in prison. But I don’t remember her ever getting visitors.”
“All stuff to mull over,” I said. “Meanwhile, since we’re down here, do you want to see if Wheeler is home? We’re only about an hour or so away. Since in his confusion, Lucas Holt admitted to knowing Wheeler, do you think it’s time to confront the senator once and for all?”
*****
“You again?”
Wheeler was dressed fairly normally this time. He wasn’t going running and he wasn’t playing tennis. He was wearing a Hawaiian flowered shirt and jeans and he was barefoot. Maybe when you are a retired senator, you are always on vacation.
He wasn’t happy to see us, though. He was probably hoping that his last charade of going out of town had finally dissuaded us from feeling the need to interview him.
He addressed Sabrina. “You may be some kind of famous writer, but it doesn’t give you the right to hound me.”
“No it doesn’t, but we are anyway, and we’re not going anywhere until you talk to us.”
“I can call the police. In this age of terrorism, they take threats on politicians seriously.”
“Probably not so much on ex-politicians though,” I said. He gave me a withering look. “I’m making a joke. We’re not your enemy, and if you call the police, we will have to explain to them why we’re here. I really don’t think you want that. Besides, who do you think they are going to want to listen to, an old worn-out politician or a beautiful young hot-shot bestselling author?”
Sabrina jumped in before we could spar any further.
“Senator, Del is right. We are not your enemy. We are trying to solve a murder and we think you have information that might help us.”
Wheeler stood there wordlessly. Beads of sweat had formed on his forehead. One of the beads dribbled down into his eye. That broke his catatonic state. He rubbed his eye and when he was done, it was bright red. But so was the other, the one he didn’t wipe. He was crying. He turned and motioned for us to follow him, wiping his eyes with his sleeve. He took us through the house and out to the pool and pointed to some chairs at a table with an umbrella.
He had recovered and was no longer teary.
“I’m going to get some iced tea. Would you like some?”
“Thank you,” said Sabrina.
I was just hoping it wasn’t a ruse so he could go in and blow his head off. After all, what could be so bad that it would make him cry?
I needn’t have worried. He came back a couple of minutes later with a pitcher of tea and three glasses.
“Would either of you like some sugar?”
I shook my head.
“No thank you,” said Sabrina.
He took his time filling the glasses. He was trying to avoid the inevitable. But we let him go at his own pace.
Finally, he said, “Okay, have at it.”
Sabrina started. “When we were here before, I mentioned the name Daisy Leduc. You didn’t seem to recognize it. But when I mentioned that she had been in prison, I saw a flicker of recognition. In our next visit, when I said that Daisy and Lucinda were the same person, you looked puzzled, as if something had just occurred to you.”
He studied his glass of iced tea, but didn’t say anything.
“We just visited Lucas Holt.”
Wheeler looked up in surprise. “You saw Lucas? Barbara actually let you?”
“She chased us out, but not before Lucas let it slip that he knew you. Soon after, he said he didn’t know you.”
“I heard that Lucas is ill. Dementia or Alzheimer’s, I think.”
He was stalling.
“Senator,” said Sabrina, laying a hand on his. “You seem like a good man. You know something and I’m guessing it’s eating you up alive. We’re not here to ruin your reputation or get you in trouble in any way, but a woman was murdered, a woman who had led a hard life, one she didn’t deserve. She had a daughter and grandchildren. All the daughter is ever going to know about her mother is that she spent twenty years in prison for murdering the girl’s father. We don’t think that’s the case. Lucinda Holt became Daisy Leduc. There is no doubt about that. We need to find out why she became Daisy, why she ended up in prison, and why she was murdered. Please help us.”
I noticed that Wheeler didn’t try to remove his hand from under hers. I wouldn’t have either.
“I don’t know if the information I have can help solve a woman’s murder. But I’ll give you what I have. And you’re right. I’ve been holding onto the information for half my life. If it gets out, everything I did in congress will be for naught. But maybe that’s okay. Despite my trying to be rid of you, I like you both. You seem honest. As a politician, I don’t meet very many honest people.”
“And our first impression of you was the same. So let’s go with that and see where it leads us.” Wheeler nodded, so Sabrina continued. “Did you really not know about Daisy?”
“I did not. I still find it hard to believe. And yet, something happened many years ago that I dismissed and forgot about. When you mentioned the name Daisy, it stirred a memory. You say Daisy was in prison for twenty years? It was probably about twenty years ago that this happened. One of my aides came into my office with an alarmed expression and said there was a woman on the phone who said her name was Daisy, and she supposedly had some information that would ruin my career. She insisted on talking to me or she’d release the information.”
“Did you talk to her?” I asked.
“God, no. Like most politicians, I would get the occasional whacko on the phone. I just assumed it had to do with the mine disaster. I told my aide to tell her I was out of town. When you brought up the name Daisy and prison, it jarred my brain and the memory of that phone call popped out. It still doesn’t mean that this Daisy person and Lucinda are the same person.”
“It’s true,” I said. “The question is: why didn’t Daisy follow up after that? Was that the only call you got from her?”
Wheeler nodded.
“I can guess why,” said Sabrina. “As I’m sure you can guess, prison drags you down, mentally a
nd emotionally. When she didn’t hear back from you, she probably just gave up trying. The Daisy I knew had repressed everything from before she arrived in prison, so my guess is that it wasn’t until she got out that she began to think about it all again. It may have actually started when she ran across that article from the Time Magazine in the prison library.”
“Which is probably why Daisy had articles about you,” I said. “Most of the articles mention your work getting restitution for the miners’ families after the Clover Mine disaster. Why would that have interested her?”
“Assuming for a minute that this Daisy person was Lucinda, all I can guess is that she was going to use the information against me.”
“What information?”
“Lucinda knew the real story.”
“Which was?” I asked.
He swallowed. I had a feeling that this was the first time he had ever told anyone what he was about to tell us.
“That I didn’t work to help the miners’ families. I was blackmailed into it. And I’ve been blackmailed ever since.”
There. He had said the words he'd probably dreaded for thirty years. I knew that the rest would come gushing out, and it did.
“The Clover Mine disaster was a horrible event. All of those miners killed. All of those families destroyed. The Clover Mine had an excellent safety record and the company that ran the mine was one of the better ones. I knew that they would do the right thing for the families of the dead miners. In the process, though, they wanted a full investigation. That’s how sure they were that they weren’t at fault. They insisted that they had been sabotaged. I was willing to let the whole thing run its course. There was no reason for me to get involved.”
He took a sip of iced tea. “And then Lucas Holt called me. He asked me to fast-track the investigation. He knew I had influence with the prosecutors and with some of the higher-ups with the agencies charged with the investigation. I say that he asked. That was wrong. He insisted, and I knew what that meant.”
He sighed. “Oh shit, I can’t believe I’m saying this. It’ll be the first time ever. When I was thirteen, I had a fascination with fire. I experimented with different materials to set fires—gasoline, gunpowder, household chemicals, you name it. For the most part it was all harmless curiosity. I was always alone and I never did it anywhere close to populated places … except once, as it turned out. I was in the basement of an abandoned building and had found a whole cache of paint thinner and some discarded wooden beams. I scratched a small trench in one of the beams and filled it with paint thinner. I lit it and watched the fire speed down the trench. It was really cool to a thirteen-year-old. And then the accident happened.”
He took another sip. Now that he had started the story, he wanted to get it out.
“It was a stupid mistake. I had the cans of paint thinner too close to the fire. I accidently bumped the beam and it shifted. The fire on the beam caught the cans on fire. In a matter of seconds the basement was engulfed in flames. I got out of there just in time. The next day I learned that a homeless person had been living in the building and had been burned to death. I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t go to my parents. They were strict disciplinarians and would have made me turn myself in. I was too scared to do that. So I went to my friend Lucas. Biggest mistake of my life. He wasn’t the friend I thought he was and he held it over my head from that day onward. So when he told me to expedite things, I had to do everything in my power to obey or my political career would be over.”
He gave a bitter laugh. “Lucas never asked for anything again, but he made sure I kept our relationship a secret and he took measures that would prevent me from ever admitting why I worked so hard for the miners’ families.”
“What measures?” asked Sabrina.
“A couple of years after the disaster, I was getting cold feet and told him that I was going to come clean. I was working late in my office one night when Barbara showed up. I knew of her, but I had never met her. Long story short, she seduced me. I don’t know how or why I let it happen. Stress? Loneliness of being away from my wife for long periods of time? Whatever the reason, it was all calculated and they now had a second thing to hold over my head, and that was even bigger than the first. I loved my wife and it would kill her to know. She died a couple of years ago never having learned that I had been unfaithful to her that one time. But they owned me then and there was no way I could get out from under their control.”
“Why did he want you to fast-track the mine investigation?” I asked.
“I don’t know. Honestly, I don’t. I have to assume he was in some way involved or even responsible. But to this day I have no idea.”
“Holt owned a rival mine, but nobody could connect you to him?” I asked.
“Nobody knew of our connection. After the fire incident, we never hung out again. His hold over me was a remote one.”
“So getting back to Lucinda,” said Sabrina. “You think she knew of the cover-up?”
“She definitely did. She called me one day out of the blue. Of course, I didn’t know who she was and I wasn’t even going to take the call until I heard her last name. She told me that she was Lucas’s daughter and that she knew I was involved in the cover-up of the mine disaster and that it wasn’t right. She told me that if I didn’t come clean, she would report me. I immediately got in contact with Lucas—the first contact we had had in years—and told him. He said he’d take care of it. I never heard from Lucinda again. Unless this Daisy person really was Lucinda, that is.”
“When was this?” asked Sabrina.
“Maybe about eight months before she died. In retrospect, it was a brave move by someone so young.”
“Is that it?” asked Sabrina.
“Pretty much. Lucas Holt is an evil man with an evil wife. I would guess that Lucinda probably hated them, so who knows what repercussions she would have had to endure by calling me. I kind of wish I had known her. She was a gutsy young lady.”
“Did you know her brother, Jackson?” I asked.
“No. Didn’t even know she had a brother. But then, I had no reason to.”
He took the last sip from his glass. “So now you know the story. Are you taking it to the police or writing about it?”
“Neither,” said Sabrina. “Our concern is to find out who killed Daisy. Hopefully your information will be useful to that end. But as far as I’m concerned,” she looked at me and I nodded, “and Del too, that’s where it ends. Whether you do something else with it is up to you. Maybe now that you’ve gotten it out once, the second time will come easier. But that’s totally up to you.”
“You’re good people. I’m sorry I made it so hard for you.”
“It’s been a hard cross for you to bear,” I said.
As we got up, Sabrina gave him a hug and I shook his hand. We let ourselves out. He had sat back down in his chair and was just staring at the pool. A burden had been lifted from him, but in some ways he looked smaller because of it.
Chapter 20
We were on the highway back to the airport, digesting everything Wheeler had told us and trying to decide where to go from there.
“It seems that every new bit of information we uncover leads us to another dead end,” I said.
“It is getting a little frustrating, isn’t it?”
“So I’ll repeat my usual question: where do we go from here?”
“We have to find a way to get to Lucas Holt,” she answered. “To make him talk.”
“First we have to get past his wife, which will be no easy task. Hey, don’t turn around, but look in your side mirror. Do you see the police car behind us?”
“I do.”
“He’s been right behind us for the last five minutes. I hate when they do that. It really freaks me out.”
“Well then, this isn’t going to help your mental state. A second car just entered the highway right behind the first. Nope, I was wrong. Two police cars just entered the highway, not one. We now have three police c
ars behind us.”
They were keeping pace with us. This was no coincidence.
“Do you think Wheeler complained to the police?”
“No,” Sabrina answered. “It wasn’t him. Barbara Holt, maybe?”
“For what? Certainly not something that would require three police cars.”
“Four police cars. They just added another one.”
Sabrina picked up her phone and pressed what must have been a recent number. I heard a man answer, saying, “Hey Sabrina.”
“We’re in Pittsburgh. I don’t know why, but we have four police cars about to pull us over. I don’t think it’s going to be pleasant.”
I heard him say, “I’m on it.” She hung up.
“Something you want to tell me?” I asked.
“My agent. When I signed with him I just thought I was getting a run-of-the-mill agent. Not so. He has a lot of interesting contacts. Thought it might be a good idea to give him a heads up.”
And then all hell broke loose.
The four police cars simultaneously turned on their lights and sirens. One of the cars screamed past us and when he was about fifty yards ahead of us, he slammed on his brakes and brought his cruiser across our lane, perpendicular to us. The lone occupant jumped out and knelt behind his car and pointed a rifle directly at us. I put on my brakes. Meanwhile, a second car came alongside us about thirty feet away and stopped when we did. The two cops in that car did the same thing the first cop had done. We now had three very dangerous-looking rifles pointing at us. The last two cars stopped behind us, blocking traffic from passing.
“What’s happening?” cried Sabrina.
I had no answer.
A loudspeaker gave us our answer.
“Get out of your car, hands where we can see them, and lie down in the road. Now!”
“I guess we do as they tell us,” I said.
I unlocked the door, lowered the window and held my hands out, opening the door from the outside. I opened it slowly, keeping my hands where the cops could see them, and slowly got out. Everything I did was slow. I didn’t want to give them even the slightest reason to shoot me. To say I was scared was the understatement of the year.
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