To Kill a Man - Maggie Costello Series 05 (2020)

by Bourne, Sam

  ‘Get it? I know. I can see how it looks. Successful lawyer, huge career in front of her. It must seem lunatic to you, Maggie.’

  An image of one of her sister’s text shorthands flashed in front of her: NGL. Not gonna lie.

  ‘But I had been fixated on all this for so long.’

  ‘On Todd, you mean?’

  ‘No, even before that. On this problem. The files in the office. Case after case of rape, reported but no charges, no trial, no conviction. The statistics, Maggie: I’d see them in state after state. Fifteen thousand rapes, one hundred convictions. You can’t ignore it. The rape of women has, in effect, been decriminalized. If a crime goes unpunished, to what extent is it still a crime?’

  ‘I’m not sure you can—’

  ‘No, I mean it. If society essentially shrugs its shoulders at a certain act, then it is signalling that it has made a decision. And the decision in our society is that, most of the time, a man is permitted to force a woman to have sex with him. It is tolerated. Like smoking weed at home. Or hitting eighty on the interstate. Technically a crime, but not really. Once conviction rates reach less than one per cent, that tells you we’ve made up our mind. This is no longer a crime. Do this, and ninety-nine times out of a hundred, nothing will happen to you. You’ll be fine. You’ll get away with it. What man wouldn’t play those odds?’

  ‘So you decided to take the law into your own hands?’

  ‘No. The opposite.’

  Maggie must have made a quizzical face, because Natasha’s response was fierce.

  ‘The opposite. I wasn’t trying to be some kind of vigilante, Maggie. I didn’t set out to kill this dreadful man. That’s the last thing I wanted. I wanted to catch him, in the commission of a crime, and then bring him to justice. It’s very important you understand that, Maggie. Very important to me.’ Her clear green eyes, alert and sharp, drilled hard into Maggie’s. ‘The security men who I had planned to have in attendance would have been there partly to protect me, but mainly to serve as witnesses. I wanted to build a case against this man, who would then face trial and, if convicted, go to jail. That was always the intention.’

  Maggie nodded, chastened.

  ‘I messed it up terribly, Maggie, that much is obvious. What I did was very stupid. Maybe it was wrong too. But what I’ve told you is the truth.’

  THURSDAY

  Chapter 22

  Now, remember, if you’re in the neighbourhood, why not stop by? It’s real simple, just come on up to Forty-Eighth and Sixth Avenue, around eight o’clock, and the first one hundred folks in line will qualify for the brand new merch that we’re giving away—

  Merch? You are just so down with the kids, Steve.

  What? Oh I get it. Merchandise. Is that better? Katie wants me to say ‘merchandise’. But seriously, come on by, and you can have your pick of the merchandise – is that OK? Prefer it that way?

  I liked merch too. It sounded cool.

  Your pick of the merch just released by the president’s re-election campaign. T-shirts, bumper stickers, key rings and of course—

  Your red baseball caps.

  That’s right.

  They are looking good.

  They really are. Lots of top-quality stuff for you, as the campaign to re-elect the president hits its stride. We had our exclusive first look at the new logo on the show on Tuesday, and now, if you’re in New York City, why not come by—

  Love the new logo.

  It’s great. So come say hello to us here at Fox & Friends, Forty-Eighth and Sixth, any time after eight o’clock.

  Brian, what have you got for us?

  Lots of breaking news overnight, Katie. The big story coming out of London, England. Or at least from the website that we still think is based there. From that renegade website that leaked so many classified, top-secret documents from the basement of a London embassy, comes a new trove of leaked information about potential presidential candidate Natasha Winthrop—

  Sheesh. That one just keeps on giving—

  This is just an incredible story. These latest leaks: an exchange of encrypted messages between Winthrop and, get this, Jeffrey Todd. You heard that right: the so-called victim in contact with her alleged attacker, the man she killed in her home just four nights ago. Joining us now in Washington, senior political correspondent, Griff Marsh. Griff?

  You better believe it, Steve, Katie, Brian. Bombshell leaks overnight, suggesting dialogue between the dead man and his killer, would-be presidential candidate Natasha Winthrop. You’ll remember we talked on the show earlier this week about Winthrop, lead counsel in those crucial hearings in Congress – lot of liberal buzz about her as a potential nominee to challenge the president in the fall.

  She claimed to have fended off an intruder, killing him in self-defence. Two days ago, it emerged that she was a habitual user of dating sites – I’m not going to say what kind at this hour of the morning. Lots of families watching. But let’s just say Winthrop was a user of extreme and controversial dating sites that cast doubt on her original account of what happened. Now, Steve, Katie, Brian – these leaked messages out of London show Winthrop and Todd were talking directly to each other. On one occasion, just six days before the incident, she wrote—

  Let’s get that up on screen—

  Here we go. Her words to him. ‘I’m not going to tell you which door will be unlocked. You’ll have to work that out for yourself.’

  His reply: ‘You don’t need to tell me anything. If I want to get in, I’ll get in.’

  These are her words again: ‘We have to agree on a time. I can’t rule out the risk of being observed or interrupted, unless we fix a time.’

  Gee, Griff, are we talking about some kind of collusion here?

  Lots of questions to be answered, Brian. Was this some kind of – and I apologize to families watching – but was this some kind of sex game that went wrong? Or was Natasha Winthrop luring Jeffrey Todd to her home on false pretences, if you will? Questions detectives are going to want answered as the day goes on. Whatever the answers, it appears Winthrop’s initial account was not the whole truth. Remember police sources telling Fox & Friends, Winthrop first claimed she had no knowledge of this man, that this man was a complete stranger, that this attack came out of the blue. That account is very hard to square with this latest dump of encrypted messages between Winthrop and her victim. Steve, Katie, Brian?

  All right, Griff Marsh there for us in Washington, DC. Welcome to Thursday, hope you’re up, hope you’re dressed. Up next: vaping. Is it racist? That’s what students in Portland, Oregon would have you believe. That story, next.

  Maggie muted the TV and glanced instead at her phone. The story had broken less than an hour ago, and Twitter was already obsessed with little else. Natasha still had some defenders, most of them feminist writers and activists who insisted that Winthrop’s sexual interests were her own business – If edge play is her thing, I could care less – and that it made no difference whatsoever if she knew her victim. On the contrary, all this confirms is that this was a rape like most rapes. It’s a Hollywood myth, loaded with misogyny, that rape is only ‘real’ when it’s committed by a stranger. But, Maggie noticed, the retweet rate, once a wave, was now a trickle. Not so many wanted to #StandWithNatasha now.

  And what did Maggie herself think? She’d had hours to think about that, including during the long journey back from Cape Cod. Yet when her sister had called her a few minutes ago to ask about arrangements for Thanksgiving and the subject had come up, Maggie had been unable to give a straight answer.

  Liz never had any idea who her sister worked for. That was an iron rule for Maggie. Not to protect her clients’ confidentiality – fuck that, as Liz would say – but for Liz’s sake. And the sake of her children. Whatever danger might come Maggie’s way, Liz and the boys were bound to be safer if they knew nothing.

  Even so, Li
z had been following the Winthrop story, which, in her capacity as an unofficial one-woman public opinion sample, once again confirmed to Maggie that it had cut through: if Liz brought up a topic unprompted, chances were high that that topic was on Middle America’s mind. Most of what obsessed DC passed her by. But occasionally, her sister was gripped or outraged or moved by a news event, and that was as reliable as any poll as to what signal was breaking through amid all the noise. It wasn’t failsafe, but as a guide to what mattered to purple-state America – those suburban, pragmatic, comfortable-rather-than-affluent Americans who swung elections – Liz supplied high-quality intel.

  ‘So go on. Is she guilty or innocent?’

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘What do I think? Who gives a fuck what I think? I teach computer science in middle school. You’re the big-time Washington insider. Go on, Mags. What’s the goss?’

  ‘I’m not sure. How does she come across to you? Do you like her?’

  ‘I thought she was a right stuck-up cow at first. That weird accent. Like she was English or something.’

  ‘But?’

  ‘I don’t know. I heard her talking about all the people who’ve been shafted by this president – you know, that clip they keep showing – and she’s obviously a fucking brainbox—’

  ‘Definitely.’

  ‘But that’s not what I liked. She seemed properly angry about it, do you know what I mean? Not bullshit, politician angry, but like an actual person. That thing about kids who grow up knowing that no matter how hard they work, no matter how good they are, they’re never going to be able to get out, never escape – that life is never going to get better.’

  ‘Four walls and bars on the window.’

  ‘Right! That bit. Seriously, I have kids in my class and that’s exactly what it’s like for them. I mean, exactly. The whole American dream, social mobility crap – these kids would literally stare at you blank in the face if you talked about that to them. It just doesn’t compute.’

  ‘Because they don’t have—’

  ‘Because if they go to college, they’ll have crazy debt for years. And their parents don’t have any money. They’re spending what they have on doctors’ bills or medicine or looking after Grandma. Like she said, “They can’t get—”’

  ‘“Their head above water, let alone take a breath.”’

  They said the line together. Liz didn’t hesitate. She knew it word-for-word. Maggie imagined Stuart’s reaction to a politician who wasn’t the president being quoted by a schoolteacher in suburban Georgia: he’d be beside himself.

  ‘So go on. You must have heard something; you always know what’s going on. Did she or didn’t she?’

  ‘Did she or didn’t she what?’

  ‘Oh, for fuck’s sake, Mags. Did she kill him?’

  ‘Yes. No one denies that.’

  ‘You know what I mean! Did she, you know, deliberately kill the guy? Like, set out to—’

  ‘Liz, isn’t that Callum calling you? Isn’t that his voice?’

  ‘You are such a bitch. Just tell me. Was this whole thing—’

  ‘He sounds like he really needs you. Laters, Liz.’

  ‘Proper bitch.’

  Maggie looked at the phone again now. Her sister thought she was holding back – whether out of discretion or to wind her sister up – but actually it was much simpler than that. That conversation had confirmed it. In fact it had confirmed two things. Natasha Winthrop had the potential to be the real deal, a once-in-a-generation candidate, and that Maggie Costello did not, in her heart of hearts, know whether or not she was a cold-blooded murderer.

  She had gone over their conversation a dozen times in her head, reconstructing the crackling fire, the freshly caught fish, the expensive wine, the warm tiredness in her legs after the run along the shore. She bought the argument Natasha had marshalled: she had been as persuasive about the failings of the criminal justice system when it came to sexual violence as she had been about child poverty. But there was one question that tugged at Maggie and wouldn’t let go.

  Why him?

  OK, so Natasha had become incensed at the way women were repeatedly abused not just by men but by the law. (The less-than-one-per-cent figure was now drilled into Maggie’s brain.) She could see how Natasha might have been driven, in despair, to take direct action; not so much taking the law into her own hands as dragging it by its lapels so that it would be forced to see who Todd was and what he had done.

  But there were hundreds of men she could have picked. Why this one?

  Natasha had said she’d been looking through those files of her colleague, that this case had leapt out. It’s true that, if the news reports were right, Todd had been a prolific, vicious rapist. Of course Natasha would have been appalled to read the details of his crimes, and outraged to see that he’d paid no price for committing them.

  And yet such outrage would, ultimately, have been abstract, wouldn’t it? Of course, Natasha would have been disgusted by the idea that this man could get away with such wickedness. Maggie would have felt the same way. Any woman would. (She thought of Uri and corrected herself: plenty of men too.) But to be so determined that he face justice that Natasha was ready to lure him into her own home, to have security guards on hand: no one would take a risk like that for a purely abstract principle, would they?

  No one normal, no. But Natasha Winthrop was not normal, was she? She was exceptional. That much was obvious. The intellect, the charisma, the drive. Maybe a one-in-a-million person like her would do something crazy, inviting a random rapist into her home to bring him to justice. Maggie had come to Washington to work for a truly extraordinary person, the man who had become president what felt like a lifetime ago. She had learned that such men and such women do things that no one else would even—

  Her phone vibrated. A news alert from the Washington Post.

  Breaking: DC lawyer and political rising star Natasha Winthrop arrested for the murder of Jeffrey Todd.

  Chapter 23

  The killer left a trail. It ended in his own death

  By Gabrielle Sanchez, Washington Post Staff Writer

  He was new in town, a young man working as an apprentice mechanic who made fast friends. He hung out with kids his own age who, unlike him, had stayed on in school. He was invited to their parties. And it was at one of those that a high school student three years his junior lodged a complaint against him, alleging that at a weekend party he had cornered her in a bedroom, pinning her on a bed, and that he had “pressed himself against her”. She said that another boy had witnessed the incident, that he had been cheering the young man on, laughing as he did so.

  The young man in question was Jeffrey Todd, who would be found dead twenty years later in the home of Washington rising star and putative presidential hopeful, Natasha Winthrop, allegedly killed in the act of attempted rape.

  The then principal of the high school in Glasgow, Kentucky, Norma Curley, told the Post that that second student had denied the girl’s account and that Todd’s parents had stood steadfastly behind their son, insisting on his innocence. The girl, who could not be reached by the Washington Post, eventually withdrew her complaint when it emerged that she had “had a beer” at the party.

  But that episode is only one of several dark memories of Todd offered by friends, family members, employers, lawyers and law enforcement officials in interviews conducted by the Washington Post. Together they form a picture of a violent, troubled man first charged with rape two decades ago and accused but never convicted of crimes of sexual violence on multiple occasions since. It’s a story which has shaken the DC establishment, but also sheds light on the vagaries of the criminal justice system and on a corner of American life blighted by poverty, opioid addiction and neglect.

  The storefronts have been shuttered in Glasgow, Kentucky for so long, the locals have forgotten what they us
ed to be. “I want to say, that was a liquor store,” says former warehouse manager, Tanya Frye, pointing at a shop now sealed behind a rusting sheet of perforated metal, itself covered in graffiti tags. “And I’m pretty sure that was the hardware store. Or maybe the video store?” She walks through an area that, she says, has “been like this forever,” agreeing with a reporter’s suggestion that it could be the set of a post-apocalypse zombie movie. There’s a sound of crunching plastic beneath her feet. She looks down to see a discarded syringe. Nearby is a used condom.

  It was here, in this town of trailer parks, food stamps and broken windows—that statistics record as one of the poorest in America—that Todd got his first job after his apprenticeship sputtered into failure. He became a packer at the warehouse. “He was shifting stock, simple as that,” says Frye. “Straight out of high school, strong, willing to work. He was OK.”

  Todd had only been doing the job six weeks, when a female employee approached Frye. “She asked to speak to me privately in the office. She closed the door and said, ‘Jeffrey raped me.’” The employee, who did not respond to the Post’s requests for comment, said that Todd had forced her into a sexual act in his car, parked in a deserted lot nearby. “She went to the police. She had DNA evidence, if you know what I mean.”

  Todd insisted that any sexual intimacy between them had been consensual. The pair had been seen earlier that evening at Rumors, the local bar, playing pool, and that had been enough to cast doubt on her story. The District Attorney for the area decided not to prosecute. In a written statement to the Post, the DA’s office said: “While it is not our policy to speak about individual cases, especially when many years have passed, we would stress that resources are finite. Our duty to the people of Kentucky is to ensure their tax dollars are not wasted pursuing action that, in our professional judgment, would be extremely unlikely to end in conviction.”

  So began a pattern for Todd, who drifted from job to job—bartender, taxi driver, hospital orderly, school janitor—across Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri and Oklahoma. The Washington Post has discovered that on at least half a dozen occasions, Todd was the subject of rape allegations that never reached a courtroom, usually on grounds of insufficient evidence. Law enforcement sources have told the Post that they believe that there may be many more.