by Lauren Carr
“I don’t hack,” Tristan said. “I access secure websites without proper authorization.”
“Then I need for you to access the DMV database to check out a Virginia license plate for me.”
“You work at the Pentagon,” Tristan said. “Don’t you know people who can do that legally for you? Who are you wanting to check out?”
“A woman who has been tailing me.” Murphy stepped back to allow Tristan to look out the window at the green Volkswagen still parked across the street.
“She’s not very good at it,” Tristan said. “Green car and purple hair. Obviously not a professional.”
“No, she’s not,” Murphy said. “But she’s been following me since yesterday afternoon. Before I bring my team in on it, I want to know if she has any connection to our case or is just a nut who has a thing for men in uniforms. That’s why I want you to run a check on her license plate.”
“I’ll do it on one condition.”
Murphy turned from the window to Tristan. “Seriously?”
“She’ll stay in the tank.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.” Tristan took his smart phone from his pocket. “What’s the license plate number?”
“Virginia plate. A-N-T-I-W-A-R.”
“Anti-war?” Tristan asked.
Murphy nodded his head.
“And you’re a military officer.” Tristan shook his head. “I already have a bad feeling about this.”
“Honey, you need to eat breakfast before you hit the road!” Joshua called up the back staircase to where Cameron was packing her suitcase.
“Do I smell pancakes?” Donny raced down the stairs so fast that if Joshua had not stepped out of the way, the tall muscular teenager would have body slammed him.
Resigned that Cameron was not coming straight down, Joshua offered the plate he had made up for his wife to Donny. Snatching the plate, the teenager grabbed his cell phone from his pocket and went downstairs to the family room.
“Where are you going?” Joshua demanded.
Whatever Donny answered, it was fast and mumbled. Joshua failed to catch it. When he heard the television turn on downstairs, he concluded that Donny was in search of some sports scores. With another batch of pancakes finished on the griddle, he made up his plate and went around the counter to set it at the head of the kitchen table.
When he turned around to return to the griddle, he felt a pair of emerald green eyes glaring up at him. Without turning around, Joshua knew who had him in his sights. Irving sat at attention in the kitchen doorway, his green eyes narrowed to slits.
The latest on the list of offenses that Joshua had perpetrated on the twenty-five pound skunk cat—the night before, Joshua had locked Irving out of the master bedroom while spending one last evening making love to his wife before she left town. Afterward, they had both fallen asleep—forgetting to open the door to allow Irving inside to curl up next to “his girl.”
When Joshua had gotten up that morning, and opened the door, Irving was waiting in the doorway—his green eyes boring straight up at him.
Joshua didn’t speak cat, but he still got Irving’s message.
This means war.
“Hey, Josh,” Cameron called from the floor above, “is my cell phone down there?”
“It’s charging in the study.”
Opting to cook her pancakes after Cameron had finished packing, Joshua turned off the griddle and went into the study to check on her phone’s battery. Seeing that it was fully charged, he unplugged it. He was halfway down the hallway to the kitchen when he heard an unpleasant and familiar noise—deep and guttural—from the kitchen. Even before he hit the doorway, he knew who had made the noise and what it meant. The only question was where Irving had deposited the hairball.
In the kitchen, Joshua rounded the corner to see Irving on the table. He swore he saw a smirk on the great cat’s face before he hopped down off the table, scurried across the floor, and scurried out the doggie door to the back porch and back yard.
His jaw clenched, Joshua stepped up to the table to find that Irving hadn’t jumped up onto the table in order to steal his rival’s breakfast but, rather, to fire his first shot in the latest round of skirmishes in the ongoing war between husband and cat.
Irving’s shot hit its target dead on—the giant slimy hairball hit Joshua’s pancakes dead center.
Trotting down the stairs, Cameron announced, “Well, I think I finally have everything packed.”
Shooting a glare in the direction of the back door through which Irving had escaped, Joshua said, “Not quite, my dear. You have one more thing to pack.”
Chapter Eleven
“This is nothing like what I expected the Pentagon to look like inside.” Her light brown eyes looked even bigger while Izzy turned completely around to take in the intimidating atmosphere of the Pentagon corridors. Taking her by the hand, Murphy escorted her up the stairs and down one corridor after another. Everywhere she looked, there were military personnel and other government employees, all rushing here and there. Like Murphy, many were dressed in military uniforms ornamented with rows upon rows of ribbons and medals on their chests. A few seemed to stretch from their shoulder down beneath their breasts. Others were in civilian clothes.
After Murphy had signed Izzy in, the security guard handed her a red visitor’s badge sporting a big red V, which she clipped to the collar of her button down shirt.
In the midst of rush hour, a crowd quickly gathered around them to wait for the elevator. When the doors opened, they were swept onto the car to ascend to the upper floors.
Deputy Chief Boris Hamilton was filling his coffee cup while contemplating a plate of brownies when Murphy escorted Izzy through the double doors into the staff office. Spying the visitor, the staff took note to cover up items in their inboxes with sheets of blue cardboard and turn over reports in the middle of their desks.
After Murphy introduced him to Izzy, Boris stuck out his hand to shake hers. “I heard a lot about you.” While clasping her hand, he patted it with the other. “We are so sorry for your loss. I assure you that we’re going to do everything we can to find who took your mother from you.”
“Thank you,” she replied in a quiet voice.
Spotting her eying the plate of brownies, Boris offered her one. “And we have sodas in the fridge if you want some.”
“Did you eat any fruit or vegetables today, Izzy?” Murphy turned around from where he was going to his office to ask her.
“Sure,” she said. “This morning for breakfast I had two servings of vegetables.”
Folding his arms across his chest, Murphy directed his steely gaze at her. “Jessie told me you ate her chocolate pop tarts for breakfast.”
“Which was two servings of vegetables,” she replied with a straight face. “Chocolate is derived from cacao beans. Beans are a vegetable. Sugar is derived from either sugar cane or sugar beets. Both are plants, which places them in the vegetable category. Thus, chocolate is a vegetable and I had two—” she held up two fingers for him to count, “chocolate pop tarts that are made up of chocolate and sugar.”
“I like this kid!” With a hearty laugh, Boris held out the plate of brownies for her. “According to the health department, you should have four servings of vegetables a day. So I suggest you take two more, my lady, and then you will have made your daily quota.”
“It’s my father’s curse,” Murphy muttered on the way into his office.
“Are you talking to me?” Susan startled him while he was still trying to figure out how to combat Izzy’s argument about the chocolate.
“Chocolate is not a vegetable,” he said forcibly.
“She’s thirteen years old,” Susan said. “Were you as disciplined as you are now when you were thirteen?”
“I was a hellion when I was thirteen,” Murphy said with
a chuckle. “Would you believe I really was the evil twin? My twin, J.J., was perfect—still is.”
“What happened?” she asked.
Murphy grew silent. “My mother died of a massive heart attack.”
“I’m so sorry … I didn’t know,” she replied in a quiet voice.
“She wasn’t even forty,” Murphy said. “She had an undetected heart defect. She worked out four times a week and ate right, but …” His voice trailed off.
“So you totally identify with what Izzy’s going through,” Susan said.
“Overnight, everything changed. My dad was left alone with five kids. He couldn’t do it all by himself. My brothers and sisters needed me to put away my childhood toys and grow up.” He looked out through his office door. “Just like she’ll end up having to do.”
“That’s rough on any kid,” she said. “At least you had your father and brothers and sisters. She has no one.”
“Yeah,” Murphy said in a soft voice. “She deserves to know who killed her mother and why.”
“Is that Crenshaw’s daughter attacking the brownies out there?” Special Agent Perry Latimore stepped into Murphy’s office to ask.
Murphy stepped into the doorway to call over in the direction of the coffeemaker. “No more brownies.”
“But I’ve been really good on my diet.” Wendy whirled around from where she was helping herself.
“I wasn’t talking to you,” Murphy looked around for Izzy.
“Does that mean—”
“Yes, you can have a brownie, Wendy. Where’s Izzy?”
“Who?”
“Curly-topped teenager with an oversized sweet tooth.”
“She’s over here,” Boris called to him from the break room. Behind him, Izzy clutched a brownie in one hand and her iPad in the other. “I’m uploading a game on her iPad for her to play while we have our meeting.”
“I’m going to be on leave tomorrow,” Murphy announced after Boris joined Susan and Perry in his office and he closed the door. The group took seats around his small round conference table. “My stepmother is coming into town today and we’ll have some personal family business to take care of. But I will have my cell phone with me. Feel free to call me if you uncover anything significant.”
“What about Izzy?” Boris asked.
“Jessica will take care of her.” Murphy turned to Perry. “Was there anything on Baxter’s laptop?”
“Wiped clean.” Perry shook his head before he allowed the corners of his lips to curl. “But we won’t be needing her laptop. Baxter used an off sight remote backup service that not only backed up everything on her laptop, but had an up-to-date mirror image of it. We’re getting a warrant now for all of the files.”
“Excellent,” Murphy said.
“Not only that, but we may have found a possible link between all of the women at the Baxter place,” Boris said. “We’re still digging but …”
“What did you find out?” Murphy asked.
“Francine Baxter, the homeowner,” Boris said, “was a professor teaching human resource management at George Mason University. According to her background, she got an honorable discharge from the United States Army after more than fifteen years as an adjunct human resources officer. She had made it all the way to major.”
“Five more years and she could have retired with a pension,” Murphy said.
“Exactly,” Boris said.
“Donna Crenshaw used to be army,” Murphy said. “Enlisted. She switched services from the army to navy. According to something Izzy said, I picked up less than pleasant circumstances behind the switch.”
“She wasn’t the only one with a connection to the army,” Susan said. “Hannah Price is an engineer. She and her husband worked for the Army Corp of Engineers. About sixteen years ago, they left to start their own engineering firm which does a lot of work on contract with the army.”
“Three out of five …” Murphy said. “Maureen Clark was married to Colonel Lincoln Clark—”
“Serves on the National Security Council Staff as director for Strategic Capabilities Policy,” Boris said with a nod of his head.
“That makes it four out of five.”
Perry was scouring his laptop. “Not directly.”
“My mother was a navy officer’s wife,” Murphy said. “If they want to, they can be as involved in the military as their spouses—especially if they join the officers’ wives club. How about the Cozy Cook dealer?”
“Colleen Davis’ day job is teaching elementary school,” Boris said. “At first glance, we didn’t see a connection. Once we dug deeper. . .”
“What is it?”
“Colleen Davis was an army brat,” Boris said. “She was never in the military, but her father was. He was Lieutenant General George Davis.”
“My father knew him,” Murphy muttered before he could stop himself. “Died in a helicopter crash—when was that?”
“Almost ten years ago,” Perry read from his tablet. “He and five other officers plus the pilot were killed when the helicopter blew up and went down into the Everglades about five minutes after takeoff at Camp Blanding in Florida.”
Boris sadly shook his head. “Everyone agreed that he was on the fast track to joint chiefs. Helluva guy.”
“Colleen Davis was his daughter,” Murphy confirmed in a soft tone, “and now she’s been murdered. What about her mother?”
“She died when Colleen was just a young girl,” Boris said. “She was very close to her father.”
Standing up, Murphy went to the smart board where he had posted pictures of each of the women along with a listing of their names, ages, and how they had died. “Five women murdered. Each of them directly or indirectly connected to the United States Army.”
Susan slowly shook her head. “It could be a coincidence. I mean, this is Washington. We have military and government people all over the place. You walk down the street and throw a pebble and what are the odds that you aren’t going to hit someone connected to the army in some way?”
His phone buzzed to indicate a text from the medical examiner. He had completed his autopsies of the victims. After reading the message, he saw Boris checking his phone. With a nod of his head, the deputy chief acknowledged that he had received the word.
All eyes in the office fell on Murphy.
Susan has a point. Here in Washington, what are the odds? We could be reading too much into the connection—
Murphy whirled around so fast that he startled them. “There’s something else they all have in common. They’re women.”
Boris, Susan, and Perry exchanged glances.
Seeing their puzzlement, Murphy rushed over to the table. “Baxter sent a text to Donna Crenshaw telling her that they needed her in order to stop him.” He slammed his hand down on the table. “Him! A man!” He turned back around to review the board. “And five out of five of these victims are women.” He turned back to the team. “What if they were all raped by the same man? They’re his victims—coming together to formulate a plan to stop a sexual predator.”
Susan and Perry turned to Boris, who cleared his throat before asking, “Where did you—”
“Donna Crenshaw was a rape victim,” Murphy said. “Izzy told me this morning. That’s why she has no father in the picture. Her mother told her that she had been raped and her attacker got away with it. Suppose—”
“Did you find that in your background check on Crenshaw?” Boris interrupted to ask Perry who was already tapping the keyboard to his tablet in search of the information.
The agent was shaking his head. “I saw nothing in her background about filing a sexual—”
“Hannah Price filed a police report with the Washington, D.C., police back sixteen years ago claiming that she was raped,” Susan interrupted Perry. With a grin, she looked up at Murphy. “I knew I rea
d it somewhere that one of these women was raped.”
“What happened in that rape case?” Murphy asked. “Was anyone charged?”
Susan took her time reading the incident report on her screen before relaying the information. “She had gone to a party at the Executive Office Building. Her husband was working on a project in Central America. The party was hosted by some military big wigs and contractors connected to a project she had managed. The last thing she remembered was talking to a group of army officers. The next thing she knew, she was waking up naked in a hotel room in Arlington near the airport.”
“Was anyone charged?” Murphy asked her. “Did she name her attacker?”
“According to the tox screen, she had been slipped a roofie,” Susan said. “No viable DNA was collected. They found spermicide and latex, consistent with a condom. The police started an investigation, but then she withdrew the charges and the investigation was dropped.”
“She was raped,” Murphy said. “I can’t believe the investigation was dropped just because—”
“I can,” Boris said. “It was a party at the Executive Office Building. Major movers and shakers not just here in Washington, but in the world. These people know just the right pressure points to make the police and victim back off.”
“According to the time line,” Susan said, “Hannah Price and her husband left the Army Corps of Engineers the next year to start their own engineering firm, which has been receiving some major military contracts.”
“She and her husband were bought off,” Murphy said. “She either knew or found out who raped her and he had enough juice to reward her silence with government contracts.”
“Most likely,” Boris said.
Perry was shaking his head. “I’m finding no record of Donna Crenshaw filing any incident report about being raped … or any of our other victims. I think that’s a dead end, Murphy.”
“Not necessarily,” Susan said. “I think Murphy may be on to something.”
“If Hannah Price was being paid off, then why would she be at a meeting to expose the guy?” Perry asked.