by Randy Singer
Kerri weighed her options. There had been three deaths, possibly all connected. This was no time for lies.
“We haven’t been getting along,” she confessed. “He’s been sleeping at the office the last few nights.”
Freeman waited for more, but Kerri knew that game. Hard as it was, she stayed quiet.
“What are you fighting about?” Freeman asked.
“I’d rather not say.”
“Look, Kerri, I’m not here out of idle curiosity. If somebody is killing the lawyers in your husband’s firm, secrets can be deadly. Frankly, I don’t like prying into people’s marriages. But until we can figure out what happened to Ms. Strach and Mr. Benedict, I need to know every detail about your life and Landon’s. Now, let’s try this again—why aren’t you guys getting along?”
Bullying had never worked with Kerri, and it wasn’t going to work now. “Am I some kind of suspect?”
“There are no suspects. There are no persons of interest. Right now, you’re a cooperating witness, and I hope you will stay that way.”
“I want to talk with Landon about this.”
“We’ll do that soon enough. But first, I need you to answer my question.”
“Like I said, I’d like to do this with Landon present.”
The two women stared at each other, and Kerri sensed the detective was sizing her up.
“Okay,” Freeman said, “have it your way. Let’s go see Landon.”
///
Simba was lying on Landon’s legs and went absolutely bananas when he heard the distant knock on the downstairs door. Landon bolted upright on the air mattress and tried to calm Simba down. “Take it easy, big guy.”
But Simba was working himself into a Yippee! We’ve got company! lather. He was barking and jumping in circles, anxious to get out the closed door of Landon’s office. A second knock while Landon was pulling on a T-shirt gave Simba another shot of adrenaline, catapulting him from bananas to totally out of control.
Landon opened the office door and Simba went flying down the hall and screeched down the steps like they were a NASCAR track, almost wiping out as he negotiated the landing.
Landon’s own heart was picking up speed. He assumed it was Kerri, and that could only be good news. She wanted to talk. It would be his chance to set things straight.
He checked his watch. Two fifteen in the morning. Maybe it wasn’t Kerri. If she wanted to talk in the middle of the night, she would have called. She wouldn’t have left Maddie at home alone.
When he reached the bottom of the steps and saw the two women standing outside, his stomach dropped. He knew from the look on Kerri’s face that something terrible had happened.
He opened the door and Simba ran circles around the legs of the women, nuzzling up for some love. Kerri instinctively reached down to pet him and to hold him away from Detective Freeman.
“What’s going on?” Landon asked.
“Maddie’s in the car, so we need to talk out here for a few minutes if that’s okay,” Kerri said softly. The night air had a nip to it, and there was rain in the forecast. She was struggling to keep Simba in check.
“Why don’t we put him inside?” Kerri said.
“Good idea.”
Landon dragged Simba back inside the door, and the puppy immediately started clawing at the glass. The three adults moved to another spot in the parking lot where Simba couldn’t see them.
Kerri stood next to Landon and slipped her arm around Landon’s back. He placed a hand around her shoulder.
“There’s no easy way to say this,” Detective Freeman began. “Brent Benedict and Rachel Strach are dead. Their plane crashed over the Chesapeake Bay earlier tonight.”
Landon felt his knees buckle and he leaned into Kerri. It felt like somebody had reached into his chest and squeezed the life out of his heart.
“Are you sure?”
“The plane went down just before 10 p.m. The NTSB is already at the scene. We’re sure.”
Landon couldn’t speak. His thoughts immediately turned to Rachel. Just two nights ago she had stopped by with something on her mind, something she needed to talk about. But Landon had blown her off. He felt the ache of losing a close friend compounded by regret at the way he had treated her the last time they spoke. Her beautiful smile flashed in front of him, playful and full of life. He felt a twinge of resentment at Kerri for the way she had reacted when she had seen the photos.
Rachel was gone.
He couldn’t deal with it, couldn’t process it. His mind was numb with pain.
“Detective Freeman said there was an explosion on the plane,” Kerri said.
Landon absorbed this second blow and looked at Freeman for confirmation.
“Everything’s preliminary,” the detective said. “But we’re not treating it as an accident. I’m going to need you to come down to the station for questioning. And we’re placing you and Parker Clausen on around-the-clock protection.”
“What about Kerri and Maddie?”
“Them, too. We’ll station someone outside your condo tonight.”
Landon requested a few minutes alone with Kerri before he headed to the station. Freeman walked to the other side of the parking lot as Landon and Kerri embraced.
“I’m sorry,” Kerri said. “I’m so very sorry.”
“There’s nothing you could have done,” Landon said. “There’s no reason for you to be sorry.”
“Can we just go back to the way it was before?” Kerri asked. “I don’t care about D.C. or anything else. I just want you to leave this firm so we can get our family back together.”
But Landon’s emotions were running the other way. His mentor was dead. Now his good friend was dead too. How could he just turn his back and run?
He knew that he and Kerri couldn’t have that conversation right now. The shock was quickly turning into the kind of heart-searing grief that weakens every bone in your body, the pain of a good friend struck down in her youth. The tragedy of unrealized potential. The sadness and mystery of why the good die young. “Let’s talk about that later,” Landon said.
Kerri didn’t argue. “Why would anybody want Rachel and Brent dead?” she asked.
Landon was asking himself the same question. It was impossible for him to imagine anyone having a vendetta against Rachel. Maybe Glaxon-Forrester and her small-minded client did. But for all their pettiness, those two weren’t killers.
“I don’t know,” Landon said. “But I intend to find out.”
56
LANDON MET PARKER CLAUSEN at the police station. The man looked stricken, the blood drained from his face, his hair matted from half a night sleeping. He hadn’t brushed his teeth, and his breath could have killed a moose. His body seemed to sag under the weight of the moment, a mountain of flesh folded into a chair, spilling over the edges.
His red eyes and body language bespoke the same kind of shock that Landon felt. When the two first saw each other, Parker stood and they exchanged an awkward hug. Landon realized how little he had in common with the firm’s remaining lawyer.
The two men took turns in the interview room with Detective Freeman. She was incredibly intense, her foot bouncing with nervous energy, her frustration palpable. But she tried to be as sensitive as possible under the circumstances. Her voice was softer, less accusatory, her iron-cutting stare less direct.
“I know this is hard,” she said numerous times, “but I need you to stay focused.”
They went through a pot of coffee as the lawyers fielded questions about the cases that both Harry McNaughten and Brent Benedict had worked on. Somebody had it out for the lawyers at McNaughten and Clay, or somebody believed the lawyers knew something they shouldn’t. As far as Freeman was concerned, the answer lay hidden in the files of the embattled firm.
This time around, the lawyers played no cat-and-mouse games with the attorney-client privilege. Freeman had already pledged confidentiality and a firewall at the police department that would protect anything they
told her about their clients from other investigators or prosecutors, and she renewed that commitment now. They had no choice but to trust her.
After the questioning, Landon and Parker had a chance to talk alone for a few minutes. Parker was downcast, his speech hesitant.
“If you want to leave the firm, I wouldn’t blame you,” he told Landon. “But I’m not sure that solves anything. If somebody is after us, leaving the firm won’t make any difference.”
Parker sighed and rubbed his face. If ever there was a man who didn’t seem quite up to the challenge, Parker was that man. But what choice did he have? He was now managing partner by default.
“If I wrote this in a novel,” he said, “nobody would believe it.”
His novels were the furthest thing from Landon’s mind.
Parker looked down and shuffled his feet. “If you choose to stay,” he said, “I’ll make you a full partner.” He paused, looking Landon in the eye. “I mean, we could work through the details later, but I just want you to know that I’m not going anywhere. If you’re up for it, I’d like to have you stick around as well.”
It wasn’t exactly a win-one-for-the-Gipper speech, but Landon had heard worse. He knew that there were no great choices here. It was foolish to think he could somehow outrun this danger. Somebody apparently believed the lawyers at McNaughten and Clay knew something they shouldn’t know. If Landon left the firm, that supposed knowledge would go with him, and the danger would follow.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Landon said.
By the time Landon got back to his condo at 7 a.m. on Saturday, he was numb with grief and bone-tired from Freeman’s questioning. Kerri asked if he wanted to talk, but Landon put her off.
He went back to the bedroom and lay down on top of the covers, still wearing the same shorts and T-shirt he had worn the prior night at the office. Kerri came back, kissed him on the cheek, and gently placed a blanket over him. She kept Maddie and Simba out of the room and turned off the lights.
Not surprisingly, Landon’s caffeine-laced body was not cooperating. He had gulped down at least two cups of coffee and one or two Diet Cokes during the long night. He slept fitfully, his body wired for action and his mind reeling with the pain of lost friends.
His life had become a nightmare, and he couldn’t even fall asleep.
///
When news of the explosion made it to Manassas, Sean Phoenix double-checked his sources and took immediate action. Sean was a man who hated surprises. He called his best agent into his office, briefed him on the situation, and gave Daken Antonov—aka the Wolfman—two explicit orders.
“Find out who planted that bomb,” he said. “And make sure nothing happens to Kerri Reed.”
The Wolfman reminded Sean that he had several other high-priority projects dominating his time.
“We’ve got other agents who can handle those,” Sean told Antonov. “I need you on this one.”
Sean made the arrangements through Parker Clausen. The police were providing 24-7 protection for the remaining McNaughten and Clay lawyers for the immediate future, but they couldn’t guarantee how long it would last. Sean told Parker that Antonov was available to look after the Reed family and offered another of his best agents to Parker. Sean’s men would be assigned indefinitely.
Parker thanked him and promised to convey the offer to Landon.
57
BRENT BENEDICT’S MEMORIAL SERVICE took place on Tuesday, but it had none of the folksy charm that had made Harry’s special. Stacy Benedict attended and nearly made Landon gag. She sat in the front row, dabbing at her eyes, and Landon didn’t doubt that the tears were real. Her exorbitant demands for spousal support and her consuming desire to make her ex-husband’s life miserable had been blown to pieces late Friday night. That, and thinking about Glaxon-Forrester’s reaction, was the only thing about the service that brought Landon even a modicum of comfort.
The service was held in a church, but the ceremony was cold and formal. The minister spoke in vague generalities about what a good man Brent had been. The homily reminded people that God “works in mysterious ways” and seemed to Landon like a patchwork of clichés that did nothing to lessen the grief of anyone attending. Or to lessen Landon’s desire for vengeance against the killers, for that matter. He found himself glancing around at those in attendance, wondering who might have secretly wanted Brent dead.
The biggest surprise of the day was the revelation that Brent had once been a member of SEAL Team Eight stationed at the Little Creek Amphibious Base in Virginia Beach. Like many former SEALs, he had never bragged about serving on a special-ops team. On the contrary, he had downplayed it, describing his military service in much less flamboyant terms and telling everyone he had been a Navy pilot.
But his former team members showed up in force at the memorial service, and they all followed the hearse to the graveside. As a former service member, Brent received a full twenty-one-gun salute and a flag-folding ceremony. When that was finished, at the prompting of the former SEAL Team Eight commander, the team members all shouted in unison, “Hooyah Brent Benedict!” followed by a moment of silence. It gave Landon chills even before the lone bugler started playing taps. He walked away with a greater sense of admiration for his former managing partner.
Rachel Strach’s memorial service took place on Wednesday, but it was held in her hometown in Mississippi and Landon knew he couldn’t attend. Kerri would never understand. Besides, he wasn’t sure a fellow lawyer from the firm that had apparently been the reason for Rachel’s death would be warmly welcomed by her family and friends.
Landon and Kerri were grateful for the 24-7 police protection and the backup protection provided by Daken Antonov. At first, Landon had been skeptical. “He’s the guy who blew away that Sudanese official,” Landon said.
But Kerri had a different take. She knew enough about Cipher Inc. to trust Sean Phoenix on this. “Isn’t this Antonov exactly the kind of man we need on our side right now?” She reminded Landon that the police were primarily charged with watching him. “What about me?” she asked. “What about Maddie?”
After a long phone conversation with Sean Phoenix, and after meeting the no-nonsense Antonov in person and learning a few things about his training, Landon agreed to add him to the mix. The police seemed less than enthusiastic about the additional hired help, but Landon had a right to protect his family however he wanted.
For the most part, the media reports were surprisingly subdued and responsible. Nobody could be sure that the deaths of Harry McNaughten, Rachel Strach, and Brent Benedict were related, but the police acknowledged they were working on the assumption that it was not a coincidence. Speculation about the reasons for the murders became a hot topic on the cable news. The striking glamour shot of Rachel peering over her shoulder, downloaded from the website, helped spark even greater interest in the case.
For the first few days after the Cessna exploded, a handful of reporters camped out in the McNaughten and Clay parking lot, politely asking questions of Landon and Parker Clausen whenever they emerged. But this wasn’t the O. J. Simpson case, and by Wednesday, the reporters had better things to do.
On Wednesday night, just as the publicity was starting to wane, Kerri went public with her story about the bribes-for-drugs scandal at Universal Labs. Based on credible confidential sources, she named names at Universal and even called out the number two man at the FDA, who allegedly knew what was going on and had turned a blind eye. The report was first carried on the 6 p.m. news. By eleven that night, it had gone viral.
In any other week, this would have been cause for a big celebration in the Reed household. But truthfully, Landon had no interest in the story. He watched it, of course, and told Kerri how proud he was of her work. But anything that didn’t help him find Rachel’s killer was not a top priority in his life.
One lawyer who was interested in Kerri’s story was the assistant U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. He issued a subpoena to Kerri w
ithin twenty-four hours, requesting the names of her sources. It would be the kind of case every prosecutor longed for—a high-profile affair against a government bureaucrat and the executives of an unpopular pharmaceutical company. But the case couldn’t go forward without the names of Kerri’s sources. Accordingly, Kerri was called into the station on Thursday for a crisis meeting with the station manager and the station’s lawyers to resolve the situation.
She didn’t get home until late in the evening, and she was fuming mad. The station manager and lawyers were not backing her up. Under Virginia law, a reporter had a qualified privilege to protect sources, but that privilege could be overcome if a prosecutor had no equivalent means of obtaining the same information. The lawyers had suggested that they didn’t stand much of a chance under that test.
“This is why you can’t break stories like this in a small market,” Kerri said, as she and Landon discussed the matter. “Nobody has the guts to protect their sources. You spend four years in journalism school talking about ethics and how important it is to fulfill your promises of confidentiality, and then in the real world, your employer caves as soon as the first e-mail arrives.”
Landon watched her pace back and forth in the kitchen. He was leaning against the counter and munching on fish crackers. He ate when he got nervous. Kerri didn’t. He had already seen, just in the past few weeks, that her face was looking more drawn and her eyes more hollow.
“What do you want to do?” he asked.
“I’m not going to burn my sources, that’s for sure.”
“Do your editors know who your sources are?”
“Of course not.”
“Are the lawyers willing to defend you in court if you refuse to divulge your sources?”
Kerri shook her head and snorted. “I don’t think these guys ever go to court. They just sit around and fret about what would happen if we did.”
Landon loved Kerri, but the woman was stubborn. “You can’t represent yourself, honey.” It was obvious, but somebody had to say it.
