And something told her that when she did that, she’d also find out who or what was keeping Leslie Morrison quiet. Talking to the woman wasn’t going to net her what she needed. If conversation could get Leslie to turn her husband in, Chantel wouldn’t be undercover.
But if she could find out the truth—through Julie—and help both women at once...
“Santa Raquel is our home. Julie loves it here. We’re living in an ancestral home that’s been in the Fairbanks family for more than a hundred years. She doesn’t want to leave. And neither could she bear the idea of being looked on with either scorn or pity from members of our social circle. Some of the kids knew she hooked up that night. The story that went around was the breakup soon afterward was mutual.”
“Surely people know...”
“No one knows. That was part of the deal we struck,” Colin said. “If anyone from either side speaks of the incident, the other side has means for pressing charges...”
“Which is why you aren’t telling me who it was.”
“That. And because the details aren’t mine to tell. I just needed you to understand how important this is.”
To know that his sister wasn’t on the verge of crazy.
“So, this other incident Julie mentioned today—the one where she thinks there’s a possible link—was there suspicion of another rape?” If it was Leslie Morrison they were talking about, that answer would be no.
And the abuser wouldn’t be the same, either, as Julie’s rapist would have been someone close to her own age. Which completely ruled out James Morrison.
“No. It really was nothing. Even Julie realizes that.” Colin, thank God, was keeping to his corner of the rounded booth they were sharing.
“Is she just being paranoid, then? Thinking she’s being looked at because of it? You didn’t seem to buy in to her theory that Patricia Reynolds is spying on her.” Purposely choosing Julie’s word—spying—because she didn’t know how Chantel Johnson would ask the question, she took a sip of her wine.
His frown made him look...studious. Dependable and trustworthy and...
He was a subject. Not a man for her to find likable. And more.
“With good reason, Julie doesn’t trust many people. She’s suspicious because she’s been taught she has to be.”
“But you know the truth. The facts. You were there, too. And you don’t think Patricia Reynolds is spying on her.”
“I don’t.”
Chantel Johnson nodded. Chantel Harris wasn’t so sure Colin was right.
Still, for now, until she had more than gut to go on, her report to the commissioner was going to be nice and clean. And her first piece of meat was done.
But her fact-finding had only just begun.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
AS FATE WOULD have it, Colin didn’t kiss Chantel Johnson Saturday night. He didn’t even finish the dessert they’d ordered. He’d had a call—one he couldn’t not take—and had to take his date home and go to work. At ten o’clock on a Saturday night.
A billion-dollar business deal that one of his clients had been trying to put together in Japan was on the brink of being waylaid, and Colin had had to pack a bag and hop on a chartered jet to Asia. Signed deal in hand, he returned to the United States, along with a very happy client, early Monday morning. Exhausted, disoriented and eager for a shower.
Before bed, though, he was going to call Chantel.
He’d texted her from Japan.
She hadn’t responded.
On the plane, on the way home, with a good internet connection and his mind not staying as focused as he wanted, he did some surfing. Because he was uncomfortable. Afraid he was getting in too deep. How did he know whether or not Chantel Johnson was really who she said she was?
So, right, her invitation to the auction Thursday night was a pretty good determiner. Due to the value of the property being auctioned, the guest list had been exclusive. She wouldn’t have been in the room if she hadn’t been carefully vetted.
Feeling a bit dirty, like someone Smyth might like, he searched public records for Johnsons in New York. And found seven Chantels. Two of which fit her age group. Making note of their latest known addresses, he went to a map website, one that he’d used before. It gave him bird’s-eye views of the neighborhoods. One of the two was upscale.
As was the case with a lot of people of substantial wealth, there was little else to find. At least for someone with his limited access.
And he was ashamed of himself. Hated the idea that Chantel could ever know he’d done such a thing. Turning off his tablet, he closed his eyes. Told himself to rest. And half an hour later he had it back on again.
Searching for a New York boutique publisher by the name of Johnson.
When it took all of two minutes to find it and find out that a Pamela Johnson was CEO, Colin wiped out his search history, turned off the tablet and put it away. He’d guess her mother’s name was Pamela.
But he was going to wait for her to tell him that before he’d know for sure. He’d verified enough.
For the first time in too long, he was going to accept someone on faith. At least, he was going to give it his best shot.
Because Chantel Johnson was different. Though he had no explanation for it, in a world of lies, she inspired truth.
* * *
FATE WAS ON her side. Chantel was meant to be doing this job. Not only had fate intervened in the form of the waitress when Chantel might have started making out in a restaurant with a subject. But she’d come to the rescue a second time, before Chantel had given in to more of a temptation than the chocolate fondue they’d ordered would have offered.
Chantel didn’t need to be hit over the head to know that fate, in the form of an important client, had whisked temptation away. All the way across the globe. Probably because the sweet knowing force had recognized the danger Colin Fairbanks had been presenting that night.
A danger that had been on the winning side of a seasoned, capable and loyal cop. By the time they’d finished feeding each other meat, devouring each other with their eyes the entire time, she’d been weak in more than the knees.
If he’d asked to come up to her hotel room that night, she might have invited him. If she’d actually had a room to go to.
But no more. She’d spent Sunday on the job. Arresting a perp for shoplifting. And answering a call that had her stumbling upon a portable meth lab in a big-box store bathroom. When a call had come in late for a missing older woman who was suffering from memory loss, she stayed late, joined the search and was outside the home, helping with crowd dispersement when the woman was brought safely back just before midnight.
By Monday she was rested and firmly committed to her assignments. Period. She’d continue to see Colin. He was the most expedient means—possibly the only means at the moment—of successfully preventing another domestic-violence death. Time was of the essence in the Morrison case. She couldn’t risk hurting Colin’s feelings, thereby necessitating that she start over in finding a means to infiltrate Leslie Morrison’s life without drawing attention to the fact that she was doing so.
He was also now a victim, and an invaluable source, in the unresolved, officially unreported rape of his sister. Chantel had been sleepless most of Saturday night, appalled at what she’d heard. A young woman had suffered a horrible crime and then suffered again when nothing was done about it. And more—if what Colin said was true, and she had no reason to believe it wasn’t—there was corruption someplace in the Santa Raquel Police Department.
And she couldn’t rid herself of the idea that the same corruption was putting a gag in Leslie Morrison’s mouth.
She had to find the source in order to help either woman.
Just to make certain that she didn’t tempt fate, she didn’t respond when he texted her on Chante
l Johnson’s police-issue cell phone. And when she didn’t keep checking to see if he’d texted a second time, she knew she was good.
Yes, she had it all under control. Which was what she told Wayne when he asked her about the case over lunch Monday at an innocuous diner not far from the station house.
They were facing each other in a red plastic-padded booth, and he needed to get beyond any worry about her and Colin. She had much bigger news to talk about.
“How many quarts of chocolate ice cream did you consume this weekend?” Grease dripped onto his chin as he took a bite of his patty melt.
“None.” Not since Friday.
His eyebrow raised.
Afraid someone they knew might walk in, interrupt the little bit of time they had together before she started her shift and he went home to his wife, she pushed aside the second half of her second burrito and leaned toward him. “I’ve stumbled onto something, Wayne,” she said, her voice low. Not soft, like Johnson’s, just hushed.
“You got something on Morrison already?” He looked impressed, which took a lot of doing.
Chantel shook her head. “I mean, yes, I think I do, but there’s more. I don’t have anything more than a conversation to go on, but I’m as certain as I can be that a cover-up from ten years ago has something to do with Leslie Morrison’s refusal to admit her husband has been abusing her.”
Otherwise, why would Julie think the questions recently raised by Ryder Morrison’s art project would have an impact on what had happened to her ten years before?
She told him about Julie Fairbanks’s rape. About Colin being in law school. About the charges that disappeared.
“Are you sure they made an official complaint?” Wayne asked, eating as they talked.
“Colin was already working in the family law firm, doing paralegal work, before he ever started college. He said Julie made a formal report that night, right after they left the hospital. He’s as certain that the report was filed as he is that a couple of days later it disappeared and charges were never filed.”
A French fry followed another bite of patty melt into Wayne’s mouth. “Probably wasn’t enough evidence to get a conviction and charges were dropped.”
She’d thought of that, too, of course. But Colin had given her enough information to know that that hadn’t been the case. “There was a medical report, Wayne. She went straight to the hospital. According to the doctor, there was evidence of rape.”
Wayne stopped chewing. “Colin saw this medical report?”
“Yes.”
“And he’s sure it was in the police file?”
“Yes.”
“So they know who did it.”
“Yes. Unequivocally.”
“You checked for the report.” He wasn’t actually asking now; he’d know that she had.
“Yes. There is no Julie Fairbanks, or Colin, either, in police record.”
Wiping his mouth, Wayne lowered his voice as he asked, “Who was the officer on record?”
Gary Bartlett. Chantel gave him the name Colin had given her when she’d asked as he was dropping her off Saturday night. He’d been apologizing for spending the first half of the evening on such a serious topic and then bailing out on the second half.
She’d assured him that it wouldn’t have a negative impact on his chances of seeing her again. She’d then jumped on the chance he’d given her to get back to the topic she most needed to discuss with him—Julie’s rape.
“I’ve never heard of him,” she said now. “But then I’ve only been up a year and a half. What do you know of him? Or what happened to him? Did he retire?”
“I never met him,” Wayne said, “but I know the name. He transferred out of state shortly after I started here.”
“Was he a detective? Or higher up?” How bad was the news going to be when she took it to the commissioner?
“He was higher up.”
Wayne did’t look any happier than she felt.
“We can hope that if indeed there was corruption, and I agree with you it certainly sounds that way, that it ended with Barlett’s departure.”
She wanted to believe that. In the worst way. Bad enough going to the commissioner with news of an injustice that was going to make the Santa Raquel Police Department look bad, but to have to tell him that it wasn’t an isolated incident...
“I’m not sure it did,” she said now, a theory that had been building all weekend coming to the forefront. She’d kind of been hoping that talking things over with Wayne might put things in a different perspective, give her reason not to be as concerned, send her down another path. Something.
“Why do you say that?” he asked, lowering his head as well as his voice.
“Because Julie Fairbanks was certain that what happened to her has some connection to the Morrisons. Since there’s been no history, evidence, claim or even mention of sexual assault at the Morrison home, she could only have been referring to the way wrongdoing disappears as though it never happened.”
“You’re saying that James Morrison is getting away with beating up his wife because someone in the department is allowing it to happen?”
“I don’t know what I’m saying.” She didn’t want it to be true. But... “We have to go to the commissioner, Wayne. This might be bigger than either of us can handle. We at least need another ear in on this. Other eyes watching...”
He was shaking his head before she was halfway through talking.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Wayne.” Her tone spoke warning. She wasn’t going to be brushed off. “Don’t you find it odd that Bartlett got the call from the hospital? That he was the policeman contacted?”
“A beat cop would have gotten the initial call. Or a detective.”
“Exactly. So who was that? And where is he or she now?”
“We have to find out who that was. Unless...do you think the doctor was in on it, too?”
“The thought crossed my mind, but if he had been, the simplest way to make the whole thing go away would be to just not make the report. Or to say that, in his opinion, there was no evidence of rape. Why tell the victim that he’ll corroborate her story, file a report and then put in a call to someone on the department who would make it go away?
“Unless he didn’t know who the alleged perpetrator was at that point...” She broke off, shaking her head. “No, Colin said that the doctor followed up with him. He would have gone to court for them if Julie had opted to file civil charges.”
“You need to see if Colin Fairbanks knows who took the initial call.”
Nodding, she sat there in her uniform and focused, playing all facts through her mind again. And again.
“Speaking of which, I’m still a little worried about him seeing you out and about like this. Or anyone else from that group seeing you, for that matter.”
She laughed. “You didn’t even recognize me at first when you saw Chantel Johnson.”
“True.”
“In the rare chance that anyone from that crowd would happen to be in the lowly places Chantel Harris inhabits, they’re going to see a beat cop in uniform and pass right on by. Or, if I’m off, a woman in jeans and hiking shoes who doesn’t know the first thing about hair, makeup or class. But you know as well as I do, in the time I’ve been here, the times I’m in public out of uniform are pretty rare.”
“I know. Maybe I can pay a visit to the doctor who saw Julie that night. And since we have no records, I’d need you to get his name for me, too.”
“I’m sure I can do that.” She felt better already. The world wasn’t sitting completely on her shoulders. It never was. She just had a bad habit of trying to hold it there, anyway.
“You’ve got to be careful, Chantel. You can’t do any police work on this Julie thing�
�other than having Chantel Johnson ferreting out any information she can. Let me do all of the legwork. We can’t have Fairbanks getting suspicious about you. It would blow your cover and then the whole Morrison assignment is blown.”
And her career right along with it. Not that her career mattered one whit in comparison to Leslie’s and Ryder Morrison’s lives.
“So...you want to go with me when I talk to the commissioner?”
A waitress came to ask if she could remove any dirty dishes or bring drink refills. Wayne waved her away, his expression dead serious. “I don’t think we should go to the commissioner just yet.”
Shocked, she felt sick all over again. Wayne? Above anyone else, she’d trust him with her life. Which was saying a lot.
And then she shivered and started to sweat. “You don’t trust the commissioner,” she whispered. Then she told him about Patricia Reynolds’s new appointment to the library committee.
She started to breathe freely again when Wayne said, “I trust the commissioner. And I’d bet my life’s savings that Mrs. Reynolds is on the committee in case you need help. She’s a financial supporter of The Lemonade Stand and was a proponent of the police being involved with the High Risk team from the very beginning.”
Okay. Good. Chantel’s world righted itself again. Facing down a gun she could do. Finding corruption in the man who was a god to her and all of the men and women who served with her wasn’t something she wanted to think about.
Not that she wanted to believe that any of the men and women who were part of the Santa Raquel police force could be bought.
“We don’t have enough to take him yet,” Wayne continued. “When we do this, we have to be careful. Very careful. We have no idea who might have been involved. Who might still be involved. No idea what careers we might jeopardize, and I sure as hell don’t want it to be my own. Or yours.”
“You’re thinking someone higher up might know about this already.”
“It’s a possibility we can’t ignore. Which is another reason we can’t get Fairbanks suspicious. You said you thought there might be some connection between Morrison and what happened before. And Fairbanks is friendly with Morrison. He might not know where the leak, if there is one, is coming from. If we’re going to pursue this, we have to keep it strictly between you and me.”
Love by Association Page 9