by Marie Force
His brows lifted. “Is that right?”
“Uh-huh. If we’re able to close this in the next couple of days, that means you’ll be down three people in Homicide next week, in case you want to make some contingency plans.”
“Good to know,” he said drolly.
“I need to check with Hill to find out the latest on Piedmont, the former business partner who’s been in the wind the last three years. They caught him at Dulles trying to leave the area and can put him in the District the night of the murders.”
“That sounds like a slam dunk close to the case,” Malone said.
“Maybe so, but the description Alden gave us doesn’t match Piedmont.”
“A guy that rich could hire it done.”
“No doubt, but we still need to grab the guys who actually did the crime.”
“Agreed.”
“I have to figure out how to handle the info Alden gave us. I had Carlucci and Dominguez pull photos of everyone involved in the case, so we have them if we have to involve Alden, but my goal is to do it without him if at all possible. I’m going to talk to Trulo about how best to handle this process with a traumatized five-year-old.”
“I was going to ask what the plan was there.”
“I’ve got to talk to Carlucci and Dominguez before they leave, and then I want to catch Trulo before his appointments begin. After that, I’m going to see Gonzo.”
“Keep me posted. On all of it.”
“Will do.”
Sam left his office and went to her own, where her first order of business was a call to Avery Hill.
“Morning,” he said.
“How’s it going with Piedmont?”
“You won’t believe it if I tell you.”
“You’ve got my attention.”
“He and Jameson Armstrong were back in touch.”
Sam dropped into her desk chair. “You wanna run that by me one more time?”
“I know. It made my head spin too, but Piedmont told us he’d reached out to Armstrong about three months ago to say that if he was willing to help Piedmont make some money, he would take back the threats he’d made against Armstrong’s family. Apparently, Piedmont was dead broke and out of options.”
“Can you confirm any of this?”
“Actually, we already have. He produced his financials that show every account down to less than a thousand dollars.”
“And we know those are all his accounts?”
“We’re still confirming that, but he turned over everything, including offshore accounts to our investigators, and they’re all tapped out. In addition, Armstrong’s assistant in his DC office has confirmed that he’d been in touch with Piedmont and met with him the day of the murders.”
“This is too coincidental. How could he not have been involved?”
“I thought the same thing until we told him Jameson and Cleo Armstrong had been murdered. He was inconsolable for hours after receiving that news.”
“Was he putting on a show?”
“It didn’t seem that way to us. His grief seemed genuine.”
“I’m extremely confused right now. This guy who threatened Armstrong’s family to the point that they felt the need to relocate and live under different names, comes out from under his rock years later, and Jameson takes the call and agrees to do business with him?”
“It wasn’t that simple. Jameson made him come to DC to get the money, so he could look him in the eye and tell him this was it, the only money he was ever going to get in exchange for Piedmont swearing to leave him and his family alone. Piedmont had a cashier’s check for twenty million dollars on him when he was apprehended. The check was drawn on the accounts of JAE in Delaware.”
“This happens on the same day Armstrong and his wife are tortured and brutally murdered? How can it be unrelated?”
“We’re asking ourselves the same thing, but Piedmont’s profound shock and grief over the news of their deaths was legitimate. Everyone who witnessed it had the same impression.”
Sam released a deep breath. “Are you willing to rule him out as complicit in the murders?”
“I believe so.”
“Let me ask you this. If he cared so much about them, why did he make their lives a living hell for years after the company imploded?”
“He says much of that was ‘heat-of-the-moment’ and shock when he found out his longtime friend and partner had basically handed the government their case against him. He admits to being enraged and saying things he came to regret, but he never had any intention of harming Jameson or his family. Or so he says.”
“The head spins.”
“I know. I feel the same way, but like you said at the outset, sometimes the obvious answer isn’t the correct one.”
Sam blew out a deep breath. “We had a break overnight.” She updated him on what Alden had told them.
“Ah, God. How do you go about using him as a witness?”
“We don’t, unless we absolutely have to.”
“Let me know what we can do to help. Whatever you need.”
“I will. Thanks for the update and let me know if you get anything else from Piedmont that might help.”
“You’ll be the first to know.”
Sam ended the call and sat for a long moment attempting to make sense of what she’d learned from Avery and trying to figure out their next move. She went through the folder of photos she’d requested from Carlucci and Dominguez. Attached to the folder was a note from Dominguez that they’d been called by Detective Lucas to assist with an SVU investigation.
The photos included Jameson Beauclair’s former partners, Piedmont and Dave Gorton, several of his current business associates that Green and McBride had interviewed and Victor Klein, the man who’d been in the traffic altercation with Cleo Beauclair last Friday.
According to DOB on his sheet, he was twenty-nine. She studied the mug shot of Klein, a big guy with dark hair and hard brown eyes, which dovetailed with Alden’s description of one of the men who’d attacked his parents. Klein’s face was devoid of expression, which made it impossible to get a read on him.
Sam picked up the phone and called one of her favorite government employees ever—Brendan Sullivan, who’d been such a huge help to Sam in the case involving her ex-husband. Brendan had been Peter’s parole officer. He answered her call on the second ring.
“Brendan Sullivan,” he said, sounding rushed.
“It’s Sam Holland.”
“Oh, hey. What’s up?”
“Got a question for you. Does the name Victor Klein mean anything to you?”
“He’s one of mine. Why? What’s he done?”
“Maybe something. Maybe nothing. What can you tell me?”
“He’s an arrogant punk who thinks the world owes him something, and when it doesn’t deliver, he has no problem taking it.”
“You think he’d be capable of rape, torture and homicide by fire?”
“Are we talking about that home invasion in Chevy Chase?”
“I can neither confirm nor deny.”
“Is this an official or unofficial inquiry?”
“Unofficial at this point.”
“I can tell you he’s someone who had every advantage—a nice family, good schools, college, etc. But he’s always working an angle, a get-rich-quick scheme. He ended up in the can for his role in a robbery ring that landed several victims in the hospital with serious injuries.”
“What kind of injuries?”
“Broken bones, lacerations, concussions. If he sees a chance to make easy money, he stops at nothing to get it.”
“If we were talking about the home invasion in Chevy Chase, you think he’d be capable, hypothetically speaking, of course, of raping a man’s wife while the husband is bound and helpless, and then binding them both before se
tting them on fire after knocking some teeth out so they can’t be easily identified?”
After a long silence, Brendan said, “I assume they were rich?”
“Filthy.”
“Then yeah, I can see him doing that or helping someone else to do it.”
Sam felt a tingle in the area of her backbone, which was almost always a good sign. “Do we know his associates?”
“I could make a few calls and see what I can find out if that would help.”
“It would.”
“What put him on your radar?”
“He was in a traffic altercation with the wife a couple of days before the home invasion.”
“I’ll get on it and call you when I have something.”
“Appreciate the help.”
“Not a problem.”
Sam called Carlucci. “Are you guys still with Lucas?”
“No, we’re on our way back to HQ.”
“Can you pick up Victor Klein on the way?” She passed along the address Sullivan had given her, which matched the address on the accident report.
“We’re on it,” Carlucci said.
“Call for backup before you go in.”
“Will do.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
SAM STASHED HER phone in her pocket as she headed for Trulo’s office upstairs. As she was leaving the pit, Freddie came in escorting a well-dressed, frightened-looking couple and another man who looked like a lawyer. Realizing he had the bitchy PTO president in for an interview, Sam gave him a thumbs-up that they couldn’t see. Their eyes bugged at the sight of her, which gave her a dose of satisfaction.
Freddie smiled and winked at her as he pointed the people toward the interrogation room where he’d dole out a much-needed dose of humility.
She continued on to Trulo’s office, and wasn’t it just her luck to come face-to-face with Sergeant Ramsey. Sam hoped he’d stay on his own side of the staircase, so she wouldn’t be tempted to push him down the stairs—again. Since she’d barely escaped an assault charge the first time, she kept moving and didn’t make eye contact.
“If it isn’t Mary Poppins, taking in the poor, helpless children and compromising her investigation? Such a do-gooder. Do the people who license foster parents know you’re guilty of assault?”
Sam never stopped moving. “Does your family know you’re guilty of being a dick? Oh wait, of course they do. Silly of me to ask.” She pressed on, resisting the urge to look back, and didn’t stop walking until she was outside Trulo’s office. Her heart beat fast, as if she’d been chased. She had no idea if Ramsey had followed her, and she wasn’t about to look to find out.
Trulo’s office door opened. “Lieutenant. What can I do for you?”
“You got a minute?”
He stepped back to admit her and closed the door behind her.
She breathed a sigh of relief.
“Everything all right?” Trulo asked.
“Yep.”
“You seem unusually rattled.”
“That’s what happens when you resist your baser urges to punch a fellow officer and send him flying down the stairs—again.”
Trulo’s lips quirked from the effort it took not to laugh. “Congratulations on the successful effort.”
“It wasn’t easy. I fear I may be growing up.”
He effected an expression of mock horror. “Say it isn’t so!”
“I know. Revolting development.”
“As amusing as this development is, something tells me that’s not what brought you to me this morning.”
Sam dropped into the chair where she’d been forced to spend many an hour after Stahl took her hostage. Though she’d resisted Trulo’s efforts at first, she credited him with putting her back together and making it possible for her to return to the job. “I need some advice about possibly guiding a five-year-old witness to murder through the process of identifying his parents’ killers.”
“Ah,” he said, taking the seat across from her and crossing his legs. “So, one of the kids saw something?”
Sam nodded. “The boy, Alden. He hadn’t said a word since he’d been with us, but when his older brother arrived, he let it all out.” Sam told him what Alden had conveyed to them in his middle-of-the-night outburst.
When she had finished, Trulo released a deep sigh. “Someday, many years from now, Alden will realize that the very last thing his father did in his own life was to save his son’s life.”
The profound statement stirred Sam’s already-raw emotions. “Very true.” She cleared her throat. “So, if it comes to it, how do we do this?”
“Carefully,” Trulo said, stroking his chin. “First of all, we go to him. He doesn’t come here.”
Sam nodded in agreement. “We’d have to show him the photos.”
“Yes.”
“And at some point, he’d have to testify.”
“Also true. If you’re forced to use him, I’d spend some time with him afterward to get a feel for what he’s going to need long-term. I can make some recommendations to his new guardians.”
“Will he always remember?” Sam asked.
“Possibly, but the memories may fade in time, or they may remain very vivid for the rest of his life. It’s hard to say for certain.”
“Thanks for the insight,” Sam said, gripping the arms of the chair for support as she stood. “On to my next thing—visiting Gonzo in the hospital.”
“He’s going to be all right, Sam. Eventually.”
“The thing that nags at me is that I didn’t notice he was in such a bad place, and I’m with him every day. How did I not see it?”
“Because he didn’t want you to. He didn’t want anyone to see it. Emotional devastation is a tough thing to manage in this macho environment in which we work. We’re often seen as weak if we allow people to see our inner turmoil. You know what that’s like. You’ve been there yourself.”
“Yes, I have.”
“He’s going to get through this. It’s just going to take some time.”
“I hope you’re right.”
“When have you ever known me not to be?”
Sam laughed as she moved to the door. “That sounds like something I would say.”
“Would you like me to check the hallway for you?”
“If you wouldn’t mind.”
She stood back so he could stick his head out the door. “Coast is clear, but just to be safe, put your hands in your pockets and keep them there until you’re back in friendly territory.”
“Will do, Doc,” she said, amused by his commentary. “I’ll let you know if we have to involve Alden.”
“I’m free all afternoon.”
“Appreciate the help.” While keeping her hands planted firmly in her pants pockets, Sam moved quickly down the stairs, releasing a deep breath when she arrived in the safety of her pit, her home away from home. Carlucci and Dominguez had returned, so Sam went to find out how it had gone with Klein.
“No sign of him at his place,” Dominguez said. While Carlucci was tall and blonde, Dominguez was petite with olive-toned skin and dark hair. “Neighbors said they haven’t seen him in a few days.”
“Let’s put out an APB for him,” Sam said.
“I’ll do it,” Dominguez said.
“You got the photos we left, LT?” Carlucci asked.
“Yes, thank you. What’s up with the SVU case?”
“Nothing to do with us. They just needed a couple of extra hands.”
“Good answer.” They had enough on their plate. “Let’s get everyone in the conference room for a quick meeting before you two take off. I’ll be there in a minute.” She went into her office, gathered the photos, her notes and summoned her legendary mojo. Today could make or break this case. She was determined to make it as quickly as possible for
the sake of Alden, Aubrey and Elijah. She’d also love to have it done before Freddie’s wedding overtook them this weekend.
Freddie came into her office, smiling widely. “Damn, that was fun.”
Sam laughed. “Now that you’ve had your fun for the day, let’s figure out what’s next.”
They went into the conference room, where the others waited for her along with Malone and Farnsworth, who stood against the back wall observing. “First things first, the FBI has ruled out Duke Piedmont as a suspect in the home invasion and murders.” She went over what had transpired since Piedmont was apprehended at Dulles the previous day.
“I find it really, really hard to believe that he was in the city but had nothing to do with this,” Freddie said.
“I did too, but Hill said he and the other agents involved found Piedmont’s shock and grief over the deaths of Armstrong and his wife to be sincere and legitimate. He’d also gotten what he’d come for—twenty million that would set him up for the rest of his life.”
“Where do we go from here?” Green asked.
“We’re looking for this guy,” she said, holding up the photo of Victor Klein, sharing what Brendan Sullivan had told her about him. She pinned the photo of Klein to the center of the murder board. “Here’s what I think happened. Klein sideswiped Cleo in traffic three days before the murders. She made a BFD out of how he could’ve killed her and her children. He took a look at her Audi SUV, possibly noticed the rock on her finger and smelled money. He was locked up on an outstanding warrant until his arraignment Monday morning. When he got out, he got her address off the accident report. Then he recruited another scumbag to help him with the promise of a windfall and paid the Beauclairs a visit.”
“Where were the kids while this was going on?”
“We know they were in the car when he took her to the bank to withdraw a hundred grand.”
“You really think it was Klein when Piedmont had made actual threats against their family and was in the city the day of the murders?” Farnsworth asked, incredulous.