“Can we get the CTRs for the last two days?”
“Probably. By law, the bank has to file a CTR within thirty days of the transaction. But these days banks usually file electronically as soon as the transaction is made.”
“Let’s try it.”
Sam pulled up a database run by the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. “FinCEN received more than fourteen million CTRs last year. That’s about forty thousand a day. But if we limit it to the D.C. region, we’re talking about—” Samantha typed a couple of keystrokes. “Ugh. About five thousand CTRs for the past two days.”
“Too many.”
“It’s a lot. But doable. I’ve had a team of analysts going through the calls to Madeleine’s burner phone, identifying the callers. I’ll have them turn to this instead. But what are we looking for, exactly?”
“I don’t know. Deposits of fifty thousand or so, I guess. By people with a motive to kill Madeleine. Peal, Belinda, whatever johns your analysts have identified. Is there a computer program that can cross-reference Madeleine’s phone records against the CTR database?”
“Ha. Design that program, and you can retire a millionaire. No, the analysts have to do it one by one. But that’s what they do. When you see my SAC, thank him profusely for all the resources he’s put into this case.”
Anna nodded. She knew that the “vast resources of the federal government” often meant a couple of underpaid analysts toiling for long hours in a cubicle. This was the part of a criminal investigation that was quietly heroic and not amenable to TV depictions like on Law & Order. It was slow, unglamorous, meticulous work. But agents like Samantha and her team, toiling painstakingly over pages of fine print, were the ones who made the big breaks in cases like this.
At nine-fifteen that morning, Anna sat in the front row of a magistrate’s courtroom in U.S. District Court. At the prosecution’s table was Harold Schwarzendruber, the veteran homicide prosecutor who’d been assigned to take Jack’s place on the team. Anna was no longer a prosecutor on Vale’s case, since he had attacked her. But she wasn’t going to miss his arraignment.
Vale stood with his public defender but craned his neck to stare balefully at Anna. His hands were cuffed in front of him, and he wore an orange prison uniform. He had a newly black eye, and his pale hands clawed at the cuffs. Prison didn’t agree with him. But he would be there for the foreseeable future. The fact that he was arrested after leading the police on a high-speed chase branded him a risk of flight. The courtroom clerk read the charges against him: The lead charge was the murder of Caroline McBride.
The former LD opened his mouth to say something to Anna, but his lawyer was on top of things. The lawyer clamped a hand on Vale’s arm and whispered forcefully in his ear. Vale shook his head, seeming to disagree, but he stayed quiet, just glaring back at Anna periodically.
The public defender announced that his client pleaded not guilty to all charges. He might change his plea later, but it was unlikely. He had too much to lose.
You were right, Anna thought as she met Vale’s eyes. This isn’t done between us. Not by a long shot. She would testify against him at trial.
Harold suggested that Vale be given a psychological evaluation at the jail, and the judge ordered it. The judge also wanted to know whether the prosecution would bring further charges against Vale, for killing Madeleine Connor. Harold turned back to Anna. She whispered to him that they were still working on the question of who had killed Madeleine Connor. Harold stood back up and said, “It’s an ongoing investigation.”
The judge set a trial date, and the arraignment was over. Vale’s lawyer followed him through a side door to the cell behind the courtroom, and Anna headed out the traditional doors into the wide hallways of U.S. District Court. Harold stayed behind—he had another appearance in the courtroom this morning.
As Anna walked to the curving stairs, a bunch of reporters surrounded her. They asked questions in low, subdued voices. Federal court had that effect on people.
“Can you tell us how the investigation led to Brett Vale?” one reporter asked.
She wasn’t supposed to say anything to the press about a pending case. But Anna stopped when she got to the edge of the marble atrium. She decided to give one quote.
“We had a great team from the FBI and MPD, including Special Agent Samantha Randazzo and Detective Tavon McGee,” Anna said. “They’re tireless and talented investigators. And the credit for the legal work should go to Jack Bailey. He’s a fair and honest prosecutor.”
She walked on.
By the time she got back to her office, there was a voice mail waiting for her from acting U.S. Attorney Marty Zinn. “Anna, please come to my office as soon as possible.”
She’d known she would get into trouble when she made the statement to the press; she’d just wondered how much. She headed down to the fifth floor like a woman heading to her execution. But Marty greeted her with a big smile as he pointed for her to sit in one of his guest chairs.
“Congratulations on the arrest,” he said. “You must be delighted.”
“Thanks,” she said cautiously. “I am.”
“We’ve all been impressed with how you handled the case.”
Anna nodded, waiting for the “but.”
“And I’d like to offer you a promotion,” Marty said. “There’s an opening in the Homicide section doing cold cases. As you know, it’s a specialty position, usually reserved for a senior prosecutor. But I think you’d be a great fit.”
“Wow, I’m flattered.” Anna paused, considering how to handle the offer.
Marty took it as a cue to keep persuading her. “I spoke to Jack yesterday. He’s looking to get more female prosecutors in the section. Offering more flexible hours, part-time options, that sort of thing.”
Anna raised her eyebrows with surprise. Jack hadn’t told her about the changes. But he had taken her suggestion after all.
“That’s wonderful,” she said. “I’m happy to hear that Jack’s going to be more flexible.”
“So will you take the cold-case position?”
It was one of the most prestigious positions in the Superior Court section of her office. The woman who’d held it before was a highly respected older attorney who’d left to become a judge. Marty’s offer was a major vote of confidence. Everyone would take her seriously if she were the cold-case prosecutor.
“Who would be my supervisor?” Anna asked.
“Jack.”
“Then I’m sorry, but I can’t do it.”
“Why? I thought you two got along well.”
“We do. Problem is . . .” She considered the implications of what she was about to say. “I’m in love with him.”
Marty squirmed and looked away. Although discussions about romance had to come up periodically in an office of five hundred employees, he clearly had not anticipated one now.
“Er, I see. Does Jack—um—reciprocate your feelings?”
A nervous bubble of laughter rose in her throat. She swallowed it back down. “I really don’t know at this point. But I know I can’t be supervised by him.”
“Okay. Well. Thanks for letting me know. I’m sure Carla will be happy to keep you in the Sex Crimes unit.”
The meeting came to a quick close after that. Her statement to the press never came up.
It was almost the end of the day when Samantha walked into Anna’s office with some papers and a grin. “We got a hit!” she announced. “The analysts are still working, but there’s one CTR by someone whose phone called the madam. You’ll never guess who it is.”
“Belinda?”
Sam shook her head and handed Anna a printout from the database. The transaction was a withdrawal of fifty thousand dollars on Tuesday from a Bank of America on Wisconsin Avenue. Anna had been expecting a deposit, not a withdrawal. But she was more surprised by the bank account from which the withdrawal had been made. It was Dylan Youngblood’s family checking account.
“How m
any times did Youngblood call the madam?” Anna asked.
“Dozens. From his home and his personal cell phone. He was a regular customer of Discretion.”
Anna rubbed her temples. The Youngbloods seemed to have such a perfect marriage. She wanted to believe that was real, although she’d seen signs that it was under strain. Poor Eva.
“We need more female politicians,” Anna said.
“Amen.”
Anna gazed out the window at the abstract globe rotating on the roof of the National Academy of Sciences building. She imagined herself in Dylan Youngblood’s shoes—a rising-star politician in a hotly contested election with a madam about to disclose records showing all the illegal extramarital sex he’d had. Dylan could have tried to bribe the madam to keep her quiet. Or killed her. Or both.
“Can we find out more about the transaction?” Anna asked. “Maybe he talked to somebody at the bank?”
One subpoena and ninety minutes of wrangling later, Bank of America gave them one more piece of information. The day after the cash was withdrawn, Eva went to the bank and accessed her safe-deposit box.
Anna mulled that over. Why was Eva going to the safe-deposit box? Anna wanted to see what was in there. She weighed whether they had enough evidence to get a search warrant for the box.
“I don’t think we have enough for probable cause yet,” she concluded with disappointment.
“No,” Samantha agreed. “But we definitely have enough to have a little talk with the Youngbloods.”
Sam reached for the phone. Anna put her hand over Sam’s, keeping the phone in its cradle.
“Wait,” she said.
She had an idea.
50
Eva looked around the house, her hostess radar on high alert for anything out of place. This was the biggest fund-raiser they’d throw all season, and everything had to be perfect. But it wasn’t. Everywhere she looked, something was out of place, or smudged, or just wrong.
Their house was an airy contemporary with walls of glass on the perimeter of every room. It wasn’t huge, but everyone in D.C. knew how much a home on Military Road—walking distance to the Friendship Heights Metro—was worth. The white-on-white decor was accented with stark contemporary art; the modern furniture was from Room & Board; the overall look was clean, dramatic, and bold. But the maid had left the accent pillows on the couches, despite Eva’s specific instructions. Did she have to do everything herself? She stuffed the offending pillows into the hall closet.
A steel table in the foyer held a large clear vase of white calla lilies that were starting to wilt. That’s what she got for ordering the cheapest thing in stock. Eva tried to arrange them so the browner ones were in back. Small Japanese ceramic plates held the smoked almonds that Eva put out at every party. Salt made people drink, which loosened their wallets. The caterer would pass equally salty hors d’oeuvres during the cocktail hour. Nothing too fancy—the goal of the affair was to raise money, not spend it.
Eva walked to the wall of sliding-glass windows at the back of the house and scowled at the white tent that covered the yard. The laborers hadn’t finished putting together the dance floor. She wished they’d hurry. She’d arranged for three rented chandeliers to hang from the three peaks inside the tent, which lent the tent an extravagant air at a slight cost. Dozens of dinner tables were covered with white tablecloths, votive candles, more calla lilies, and four hundred settings with Styrofoam plates and plastic cutlery. At five hundred dollars a head, they would raise a mint.
They needed it. Dylan had exhausted the funds in his campaign account a month ago. For the past month, the Youngbloods had been lending their own money to his campaign. And Dylan had to spend twice as much as Lionel just to be competitive with the veteran politician.
After the fortune spent on television ads, radio spots, polling, lawn signs, bus placards, flyers, and other chum, Dylan had begun to poll within striking distance. But it was not until Lionel’s scandal that Dylan had pulled ahead. Now that Lionel had dropped out of the race, donors were practically lining up to give money to the presumptive next congressman from the District of Columbia. People wanted to give to the winner. Dylan had raised more in the past eight hours than during the last month. After tonight, Eva hoped, the campaign would be back in the black. She felt an electric bolt of pride at her contribution to her husband’s success.
Eva glanced at her watch: five-fifteen P.M. The caterers were late. The valet parking service and the band were supposed to arrive in thirty minutes, the guests in an hour and fifteen. Time to get dressed.
As she climbed the steps, she could hear her husband talking on the phone in the second bedroom, his home office. A political campaign required 100 percent of the politician’s effort, much of it devoted to raising money. Dylan spent hours in that little room, calling friends, family, acquaintances, anyone he’d ever met, and asking for checks up to twenty-five hundred, the maximum allowable by law.
“Of course,” he said. His voice sounded puzzled and uncertain, not the tone he usually used to make his political pitch. “Yes. I mean no, I can’t do it tonight. We’re having a fund-raiser at our house.”
Eva stopped in his doorway. Dylan sat at the steel and glass desk in his usual position, phone to ear. With his sandy hair going gray at the temples and the light tan acquired from picnic fund-raisers, he was better-looking than when they’d met eleven years ago. He was staring down at a legal pad. She knocked on the doorframe to get his attention. He looked up, and she impatiently pointed to her watch: Time to get dressed. The party was black-tie-optional; Dylan would trade his suit for a tux. He nodded and looked back down at his pad.
In the master bedroom, she took off her Diesel jeans and button-down shirt and threw them on a chair. She’d specifically worn this shirt to the hairdresser so that she wouldn’t ruin her sleek updo when she undressed. She’d also had her makeup professionally done at the salon. She didn’t like the smoky eyes and full red lips they’d painted on her, but it was too late to change it now.
She admired her semi-nude figure as she walked past the full-length mirror. Daily workouts and teaching self-defense classes made her petite body more buff than most political wives’. She had well-defined muscles on her arms and legs, a flat stomach, and a toned butt. She walked into the large walk-in closet attached to the master bedroom. When they’d bought the house, they’d thought this room would be a nursery. Now she had no baby, just a walk-in closet, her figure, and the time to focus on her career—Dylan’s career, really.
Eva tried to appreciate the silver linings, although they felt thinner these days. As she’d tried to find the elusive problem behind their inability to have a baby, several doctors mentioned her “advanced maternal age”—as if being thirty-seven were some kind of disease. And Dylan was working later and later more nights a week.
Six months ago, Eva had suspected an affair with someone at the office. She’d hired a private detective. When he told her the truth, it was worse. She was wounded but not surprised.
After all, she’d met Dylan while working as an escort at Discretion herself. She had been twenty-six years old, working for Madeleine to pay for grad school. Dylan was a young corporate lawyer and a big client of Discretion. He soon became one of her regulars.
He was engaged to someone else at the time—some rich girl from a rich family. His own rich family approved. Although his family loved the fiancée, he didn’t. He was bored. He broke off his engagement and asked Eva to marry him. She was the girl in a fairy tale. It was what all the escorts hoped for. A perfect life awaited.
After they got married, she’d assumed he stopped seeing other women. But six months ago, her investigator had found that he was back using Discretion—a regular customer again. She confronted him, furious, and he swore to put an end to it.
Eva took down the hanger holding tonight’s outfit and peeled off the Nordstrom garment bag. Underneath was a scarlet cocktail dress. She stepped into it, zipping up the back herself. She looked in t
he mirror approvingly. The one-shouldered red sheath showed off her muscular arms and set off the dark upsweep of her hair. The hem, just above the knee, highlighted her tanned legs while covering enough thigh to be sufficiently demure for a political function. She’d calibrated the precise balance between sexy and appropriate. She put on diamond earrings and a pair of crystal-encrusted silver heels in which she would still be six inches shorter than her husband.
Dylan came into the bedroom, pulling off his tie. She waited for him to appreciate her in all her styled, lipsticked, red silken glory. But he looked at her with a troubled expression.
“That was the police on the phone. They wanted to know where I was Tuesday night.”
Eva froze. “What did you tell them?”
“I was at that meeting you set up with the church group. Then they asked if I’d taken out any money from our bank account recently, and if we had a safe-deposit box, could they look in it.”
“No!”
Dylan pulled off his shirt, tossed it into the laundry hamper, and shook his head. “I can’t say no. I raked Lionel over the coals for not cooperating with the police. And why shouldn’t I let them? I said they could look in the box tomorrow morning.”
“Dylan! Call them back right away. Tell them you can’t see them until Monday.”
“Why?” He frowned at her, then slowly turned to face her full-on. “Dammit, Eva! Is there something in the safe-deposit box I should know about? The fucking police are calling.”
“Don’t speak to me in that tone! If you need to know something, I’ll tell you.”
“It’s my bank account, too.”
“I’m the one who handles everything around here. Look at the house downstairs. Who do you think did that? The tent, the crystal, the flowers? Practically for free! I do everything for you.”
“You get a pretty good deal out of it.” He gestured around their large master suite.
“I deserve it. I could have had anyone. I gave up my life for you. I gave up having a baby for you! While you were running around, fucking those whores!”
Discretion Page 30
