"Unless McMann lied about seeing Smith on River Road. He could have been protecting one of his own, the inmate Elaine went to meet. Hell, maybe she went to meet McMann himself. The celebrity stud. The famous jock. Given his reputation, the odds are he humped more than a few of these so-called club members."
Stone faced, Carly nodded. "I've considered that possibility."
"We ruled him out as a suspect based on the results of the polygraph, the tight time line from his arrival on base to the time he signed in at the prison, and lack of any motive or apparent connection to the victim. We'll have to revisit all of the above."
"Yes, sir."
"All right." The colonel pushed off the desk. "Make me a copy of this witness's statement."
"I already have."
She dropped several Xeroxed pages into his hand.
"It's unsworn," she advised as he flipped through the handwritten pages. "I took her statement at her home and got her to review it before I left, but she was in no condition to swear to it."
Actually, Joy Matusinak could barely hold her head up by the time Carly finished scribbling down the facts as she'd related them. Carly couldn't ask the woman to swear to a statement given under the influence of those powerful tranquilizers, of course, nor would she try to introduce such a statement in a court of law. Under the looser rules of evidence that governed the pretrial investigations, however, she could and would consider any such unsworn statements that had bearing on the case.
"You'll have to provide copies of this to the accused," Dominguez reminded her, scowling over the closely written pages.
"Yes, sir."
"We need to read in the Office of Special Investigations," he continued, half to himself. "And the Bureau of Prisons."
"I've already talked to the assistant warden once regarding the case. I planned to go back out there this afternoon and—"
"Brief the OSI first. Get them to review their case notes in light of this information, put another spin on the interviews they conducted with the inmates. In the meantime, I'll take this to the wing commander, He'll probably want to give the warden a heads-up personally, so they'll be expecting you when you get there."
Carly could imagine her reception when she arrived. The colonel skimmed the handwritten notes again, his mouth curling in disgust.
"The Afternoon Club. Christ!"
The same refrain echoed in Carly's mind as she headed back to the conference room assigned to her for the period of the investigation.
The Afternoon Club.
The acid irony of the name ate at her. It conjured up images of dainty porcelain teapots and white lace gloves, of genteel ladies tittering over the latest gossip. This particular group of women had tittered, all right... over the physical endowments of the studs they paid to service them.
Carly had prosecuted people accused of far worse offenses against society, but it disgusted her to think that a woman who wore the same uniform she did had participated in this so-called club. Lieutenant Colonel Dawson-Smith had dishonored not only herself but, by the inevitable association that would follow, all other women officers. Her acts would raise all the old, hackneyed doubts about females in the military. The pundits would shake their heads. The hard-liners would moan about lowered standards and fraternization and inappropriate conduct in the ranks. The Phyllis Schlaflys of the world would take to the podium with a vengeance to sing their never-ending women-belong-at-home chorus.
It wouldn't matter that Joy Matusinak was a stay-at-home wife, that most of the others who allegedly participated in the afternoon sessions were townies, not associated with the base. They counted among their numbers a doctor's wife, a real estate agent, a stewardess, a boutique owner, all well-to-do, all bored, all seeking that added edge, that thrill of forbidden sex.
From what Joy had told Carly, the members of the club experienced no difficulty gaining access to Maxwell or to the inmates. They came to visit friends, to apply for a job at civilian personnel, to deliver a gift or flowers or a birthday cake, or so they told the gate guards.
The whole scenario disgusted and angered her, but Carly didn't kid herself. A good portion of her fury was directed squarely at herself.
She'd sat with McMann for almost two hours last night, listening to his voice with its distinctive Yankee cadence, seeing the pictures he painted in spare phrases. In the process, she'd allowed him to skirt the real issue, the only issue, that lay between them.
Elaine Dawson-Smith had paid to mount a young, muscled Adonis who knew what he did was wrong. Joy said so. Ry said so.
Now Elaine Dawson-Smith was dead. And so was Billy Hopewell.
At this point, Carly couldn't decide who she held in more contempt. McMann for keeping to the code of silence surrounding the events in the woods, or herself for feeling somehow betrayed.
Chapter Eleven
Her blood still at a simmer over the Afternoon Club, Carly put herself on autopilot and set up an appointment to meet with Special Agent Derrick Greene, chief of Detachment 405 of the Office of Special Investigations later that day. The OSI chief, Carly suspected, wouldn't like what she had to tell him.
Her next call was to Michael Smith. When his answering machine clicked on, Carly requested a meeting with him and his attorney as soon as possible.
She grabbed a late lunch at the Officers' Club, then logged onto the computer to detail the sequence of events that had led her to Joy Matusinak. Just before leaving for her meeting with the OSI chief, she put in another call, this one to the prison. Warden Bolt was out of town, his secretary advised her, but Assistant Warden Preston was expecting her call.
Fayrene Preston wasted no time on polite preliminaries. "The wing commander called. I understand we've got a problem."
"It appears so."
"When do I get the details?"
"I'm just heading over to brief the OSI now. It's going to be a long session. I can come see you first thing in the morning."
"That won't work. The warden's out of town and I have to be downtown at eight. FEMA has called an emergency session of the Federal agencies' disaster response force. The Coosa's broken through its banks and flooded half of Chilton County."
"I heard about it on the radio."
"Let's say two o'clock, just to be safe."
"Fine."
The assistant warden hung up with a noticeable absence of the polite friendliness she'd displayed during their previous meeting. Carly wasn't surprised by the chilliness. She was, after all, the bearer of bad tidings. In former centuries, such messengers had been stoned to death.
She still hadn't heard from Smith or his lawyer by the time she left the wing headquarters and drove against the late afternoon exodus of traffic to the Office of Special Investigations. The OSI detachment was housed in a two-story stucco building just south of the aircraft hangars. Like most of the other buildings on the historic base that was once home to the Wright Flying School, the long, low, cream-colored hangars carried touches of art deco in their metal window frames and corner pillars.
In no mood to appreciate either art or architecture, Carly pulled the MG into the parking lot. Special Agent Greene met her at the door and escorted her to his office. After a brief preamble that detailed the sequence of events from the encounter with Billy in the woods to her visit to the woman who sent flowers to his funeral, she handed over Joy Matusinak's unsworn statement.
Greene read through the statement twice. His boyish face wore a grim cast when he laid the handwritten pages aside.
"Beats the hell out of me how we missed this."
"I only stumbled onto it by chance."
He grunted, obviously less than happy with his detachment's field work. "We'll follow up on the list of names Mrs. Matusinak provided. Maybe some of these other women can give us a better idea of the scope of this little operation." His eyes hardened. "We'll also go out and have another chat with the inmates."
Carly skimmed the computer-generated list of inmates he'd pulled off for her. She'd
read the official case files, but this list included all contacts, even those whose statements didn't make it into the case file for lack of any pertinent information.
"I don't see Billy Hopewell listed here."
"We didn't interview him." Greene tabbed through several dog-eared pages of information on Bureau of Prisons letterhead stationery. "The work roster for the day of the murder shows Hopewell pulled road and grounds detail that morning, but he remained at the prison compound that afternoon. Looks like he was scheduled for some kind of class."
Carly knew exactly what kind of class. A tutoring session with his friend, his buddy, Ry. As McMann had explained in his original statement, the standing commitment brought him back to the prison twice a week.
Or did it?
Unbidden, her mind flashed an image of McMann's powerful body pinning Elaine Dawson-Smith to a tree trunk, his hips driving into hers, her head thrown back as she gasped and clawed at his shoulders for support, for leverage, for the sheer, carnal joy of scoring his flesh with those long-tipped crimson nails.
Her teeth clenching, Carly banished the searing image. She'd uncovered no evidence that McMann participated in the orgies in the woods. Yet. But he'd known about them, and before she finished with him, he'd damn well tell her everything he knew.
"The tutoring sessions Hopewell attended didn't begin until three," she pointed out to Greene. "We need to account for his whereabouts between the time he returned from his morning detail and the start of that session."
"We'll check it out." He scribbled a note beside Billy's name. "Damn, I wish we'd gotten to him before he took the long way down that short slope."
"So do I."
Greene sat back, his pen tapping on the stack of files. "What does this do to your Article 32 investigation? Are we putting the case against Michael Smith on hold?"
"No, I'm pressing ahead. At this point, we have no proof that his wife met with any of the inmates the afternoon she was shot. Unless and until we do, the evidence still points to her husband as her killer."
"Even more so, if Smith knew about her little trysts in the woods," Greene murmured.
"Exactly."
Carly left the OSI detachment to a flurry of wind and unusual activity on the flight line across the street. Aviators in green flight suits had lined up to dump gear bags in the back of a truck before heading for the blue crew bus waiting patiently. One of the aviators waved and broke out of the line.
"Hey, Major. I thought I recognized your MG."
Captain Jo West crossed the unused apron. Her neck-to-ankle Nomex flight suit clung to her trim figure like a second skin. Honey-colored tendrils had escaped the clip that held back her hair and whipped around her face.
"What's going on?" Carly asked.
"The front moving our way took a swing to the south. Fort Rucker is expecting golf-ball sized hail and possible tornadoes later tonight."
"Oh, great! That's all they need."
The sprawling helicopter training base in southeastern Alabama had already lost a hangar and two aircraft to the vicious spring storms.
"Rucker's commander isn't taking any chances this time. He's put out a call for instructor-qualified pilots to help the students ferry the birds up here to sit out the storm."
"And of course you volunteered. Anything to get out of class, right?"
Grinning, Jo flipped out her hands. "Can I help it if they asked for the best?"
Carly's laughter joined hers, easing the tight knot of anger she'd carried in her chest since morning.
It was only after she'd wished the helo pilot a swift flight ahead of the storms and watched her stride off that a belated realization struck. The hand Jo had held up a moment ago was bare. Only a pale band of flesh marked her ring finger. Unless flight regulations required removal of all jewelry, Jo West had shed her diamond engagement ring sometime between pizza at Tony's last week and this afternoon.
Sympathy tugged at Carly as she walked to her car. She'd ended an engagement once herself. It had hurt, even with the passion dulled and the dreams faded.
Nor did the ending get easier, even without an engagement ring. Carly hadn't forgotten her decision to call things off with Parker. With a sense of shock, she realized she'd made that decision only last night. It seemed longer, probably because so much had happened after he stalked out of her house... not the least of which were those stolen hours with McMann.
Her anger jolted back. Damn him!
The force of her fury brought her to a halt beside the MG. She needed to get a grip here. She'd gotten too involved, she decided grimly, with McMann, with this investigation. The unanswered questions, the half-cloaked truths, had eaten into her thoughts and robbed her of too many hours of sleep. She needed to relax, to regain her balance and perspective. Which wouldn't be easy considering the Pandora's box she'd just pried the lid off.
Sighing, she wished she hadn't agreed to attend the hundred-dollar-a-plate fundraiser tonight, but she was too much her mother's daughter to miss this key campaign appearance. Besides, Parker would be there. He never missed the opportunity to mingle with the movers and the shakers. She'd talk to him afterward, Carly decided. That part of her life at least she could put in order.
As it turned out, Parker made the putting far easier than she'd anticipated.
She arrived late at the hotel where the function was being held, only to find Adele Samuels had canceled. The congresswoman had choppered up to view the flooding in Chilton County, which included a portion of her district, and had sent her chief of staff to urge her daughter to the podium in her place. Luckily, Carly was dressed for the spotlight. She'd swung by the carriage house to change out of her uniform. Always careful to avoid even the appearance of military support for a political candidate, she'd opted for a sheath in a red silk layered with flame-patterned chiffon.
With a wave across the crowd to Parker and a smile for the friendly faces thronging the banquet hall, she allowed Mozell Denton, her mother's senior legislative aide, to usher her to the head table. The short speech that followed dinner presented no real challenge. Carly had campaigned for her mother often enough to speak glowingly of Adele's past accomplishments and honestly of her current platform.
The problems began at the end of the speech, when pro-lifers crashed into the hall, waving placards and shouting strident protests against Adele Samuels's stand on abortion. One of her mother's more ardent supporters grew incensed at the taunts and launched a dinner roll. Before Carly or any of the function's organizers could stop it, a full-fledged food war erupted.
Adele had trained her daughter and son for just such contingencies. Instead of giving the demonstrators a target and the TV cameras a vivid visual of a food-draped Samuels for the ten o'clock news, Carly made a dignified exit.
Her dignity quickly raveled around the edges when Parker pushed through the swinging doors to join her in the corridor a few moments later. Anger darkened his handsome features, reminding her all too vividly of his expression when he'd stalked out of her house last night.
"What happened to security?" he snapped at the harried chief of staff. "How did those people get in? "
Mozell raked a hand through his short, curly hair. "I don't know."
"Well check it out, for God's sake! We came close to a riot in there."
The Harvard-educated, native-born Alabamian who'd advised Adele Samuels on issues affecting
Afro-Americans for almost a decade didn't take kindly to Parker's curt order. Neither did Carly.
"Back off," she advised shortly. "Mozell knows how to handle a hostile crowd."
The assistant DA swung toward her, his flush deepening. "Then he'd better handle it."
The appearance of her mother's PR director preempted Carly's scathing retort. Seething, she folded her arms and held her fire until the chief of staff had hurried away with the PR rep to handle media.
"If you're thinking of walking in my mother's shoes someday," she said icily, "I suggest you watch yourself around Moz
ell. He can make you... or break you... with the party."
"Is that right?" The flush on Parker's face deepened. "Maybe you'd better watch yourself, Carly, or I might have to run for your mother's seat sooner than either of us expect."
"What are you talking about?"
"Your private little tete-a-tete with Ryan McMann last night, that's what I'm talking about. What do you think it would do to Adele's anticrime platform if word got around about your association with a convicted felon?"
Shocked, she dropped her arms. "How...? How did you...?"
"How did I find out?" He shoved his hands into his pockets, his whole body rigid with disapproval. "I didn't want to leave things like they were between us last night. I came back to try to patch things up and saw a Bronco parked in front of your house."
"So you ran the tag," she bit out, incensed.
"Yes, I ran the tag." He didn't even blink at the admission that he'd used his police connections for personal reasons. "Smart, Carly, real smart, inviting an ex-con into your home at night like that."
"Who I invite into my home and when is none of your business."
Her acid retort added fuel to a fire that had obviously been simmering all day.
"Yeah, well, I figured that out. What I can't figure is the connection between you and McMann. You let him put his hands on you, then he shows up at your door. Given the guy's reputation, some people might think you invited him in for more than a chat."
"Are you...?" She struggled for breath. "Are you one of those people?"
A waiter rumbled a cart laden with dishes down the corridor, giving them a curious glance as he passed. Carly ignored him, ignored the hubbub just beginning to die away inside the ballroom.
"Are you, Parker?"
River Rising Page 13