The Triple Threat Collection

by Lis Wiehl

  She showed it to Rod. “Allison Pierce and I were scheduled to meet with Fate the day after he died. He wanted to talk about some kind of threats he’d been getting. Maybe he meant this.”

  “Or this?” Rod answered. He reached past her and slid out another newspaper clipping tucked in the back of the drawer.

  Nic had forgotten about this particular story, which had been hot for a few weeks last summer. Someone had scrawled an angry message across the clipping, the ink so thick that at times she had difficulty reading the article underneath.

  Mother Who Committed Suicide Knew Nothing of Baby’s Disappearance

  Two weeks after Brooke Gardner committed suicide after facing tough questioning by a talk show host about her missing 18-month-old son, the boy has been found alive. Authorities discovered the child, Brandon Gardner-Tippets, at the home of his paternal great-aunt, Tami Tippets. Authorities say the child is in good health and that he was taken from his mother’s home without her knowledge. Tami Tippets has been charged with custodial interference and could also face kidnapping charges.

  On the evening of June 30, Brooke Gardner called authorities to report that her baby boy was missing from his crib. Gardner was divorced from Brandon’s father, Jason Tippets, and had primary custody of their son. The divorce has been described as acrimonious.

  Although Jason Tippets was said to have initially passed a polygraph that cleared him of involvement, authorities now say they are investigating whether he knew about his aunt taking Brandon.

  Nancy Gardner, Brooke Gardner’s mother, said, “We told the police and the FBI and everyone who would listen, and so did Brooke, we told them that she had nothing to do with Brandon’s disappearance. But no one would listen. Brooke would have done anything to find her baby. But instead of helping her, they acted like she was the guilty one. She wasn’t eating, she wasn’t sleeping, and she was sick with worry. And finally she just couldn’t take it anymore.”

  Brooke Gardner committed suicide by taking a deliberate overdose of sleeping pills two hours after a live on-air grilling by radio talk show host Jim Fate. Her parents say they have filed a lawsuit against him, claiming their daughter was driven to her death by his badgering questions. They charge that Fate duped their daughter into an interview about her missing son, telling their daughter that it would help find the baby. That interview, which aired on Fate’s radio show The Hand of Fate, was more of a cross-examination, with Fate peppering the 21-year-old woman with questions about why she hadn’t taken a polygraph as her ex-husband had. The complainant seeks undisclosed damages.

  Across the clipping someone had scrawled in thick, dark felt pen: “You killed Brooke. Now you need to die too.”

  CHAPTER 19

  Mark O. Hatfield United States Courthouse

  It was imperative that Allison keep busy. That she keep her mind off Estella. That she stop thinking of the little girl’s dark eyes and her shy smile—and the feeling of prying loose her tiny fingers. Investigating Fate’s death offered the chance to drown herself in work.

  The first thing Allison did when she got to the office after handing back Estella was to go directly to her boss.

  “Dan, you need to know that last week, Jim Fate asked Special Agent Hedges and me to meet with him. He told us he was getting threats.”

  Dan’s eyes widened. “What kind of threats?” He was a slight, dapper man who always cautiously considered the political ramifications of any action. He could also occasionally be persuaded to take a chance.

  “Fate wasn’t more specific. He didn’t want to talk about it over the phone. He was nervous. He didn’t even want us to go to KNWS or to meet at either of our offices. We were going to meet tomorrow at a Starbucks.” Allison leaned forward. “I want to be the lead prosecutor assigned to his case.”

  As a federal prosecutor, Allison dealt with federal crimes, or crimes with an interstate connection. In the case of Jim Fate, that would cover any threats made via the Internet, the phone, or the U.S. mail. And if Fate’s killing was the result of terrorism, either foreign or domestic, it would also be considered a federal case.

  Dan steepled his fingers, then tapped the two index fingers together. “But Chuck worked the Portland Seven case.” The Portland Seven was a group of young American Muslim men who had tried to travel to Afghanistan shortly after 9/11 in order to aid the Taliban. “He’s got more experience prosecuting terrorism cases.”

  “But it could be there’s no overseas connection. Maybe there’s no link to terrorism at all. Fate ticked off a number of people over the years.”

  Terrorism or not, it was sure to be a high-profile case. Big cases made big names for prosecutors—which could lead to big bucks if they ever decided to switch sides and become defense attorneys. Even if they stayed put, big cases also led to promotions. And good publicity if they ever decided they wanted to run for district attorney.

  But that wasn’t why Allison wanted this case. She kept thinking of how Fate had reached out to her, and she hadn’t been able to find time on her calendar for him right away. If she had canceled another meeting or suggested they meet in the evening, would he still be alive? The least she could do was find his killer.

  “What about the Bratz Bandits trial? Weren’t you just beginning that when this whole thing started?”

  “This morning I had a voice mail saying the girl’s attorney has moved for a mistrial.”

  Dan raised an eyebrow. “On what grounds?”

  “Alleged jury tampering.” Allison shook her head. “Condorelli says he has one potential juror ready to swear that she heard two other potential jurors during the evacuation discussing how they should get together on a book deal when the trial was over. Of course, it’s all bogus, but that means the trial will be postponed at least until they get a new jury pool.” She leaned forward. “Looking for Jim Fate’s killer needs to be our top priority. This country was founded on the principle of free speech. And I have a feeling that whatever the reason behind this was, whoever did it wanted to shut Jim up.”

  Dan said nothing for another minute, just continued tapping his fingers together. Finally he looked up at Allison. “All right. It’s your case.”

  Allison spent the first part of the morning meeting with the task force at the FBI Portland field office. She was glad to see that Nicole had been assigned as case agent. She knew the two of them would be sure to get to the bottom of this case. While everyone around the table had the same goal, they also brought their egos. Personally and professionally, they wanted themselves and their particular branch of the alphabet soup associated with the winning outcome. But Nicole kept everyone in line. Allison enjoyed watching her take center stage as she directed the meeting—and delivered the news that it wasn’t sarin.

  After the task force met, Allison returned to the federal courthouse and opened a grand jury investigation for Jim Fate’s murder. Since the investigation was just at the beginning phase, this would only be a formal opening.

  The grand jury was Allison’s investigative arm. Even when it wasn’t in session, in its name she could issue a search warrant or a subpoena. The grand jurors never knew what she might ask them to investigate—everything from murder for hire to hate crimes against a local mosque to men who trolled the Internet for teenage girls.

  “Good afternoon,” Allison said to the twenty-three private citizens who made up the grand jury, and received smiles and nods in return. It was one of the two grand juries in Oregon that served at any given time. These grand jurors were in the fourteenth of the eighteen months they would ultimately serve together, so they had had time to become friends with each other—and with Allison. Over the past year she had celebrated birthdays with them and gushed over photos of babies and pets.

  “Today we’re going to open the case of Jim Fate, the radio talk show host who was murdered yesterday. Together with the FBI, we have started the investigation. I will report on the findings as soon as they are available.”

  At the sound of Jim Fate
’s name, there were nods of recognition. Grand jurors weren’t banned from watching all media, which meant they often had a passing familiarity with any headline case she brought them. Jim Fate, of course, was in a category by himself. Thanks to what had happened only the day before, even people who never listened to talk radio now knew his name. But now that the jurors knew they would be considering his death, they would try to stay away from any fresh news about it.

  While a grand jury might consider dozens of cases over the course of a year, they never saw a single one through until the end. Instead, they served only to investigate various criminal cases and formally indict any suspects. In some cases, they voted not to indict. Because they weren’t asked to determine guilt or innocence, only decide whether charges should be filed, the grand jury’s standards were looser than those of a trial jury. A trial jury couldn’t convict without believing beyond a reasonable doubt, but a grand jury could indict just on probable cause. And the grand jury didn’t even need to be unanimous: only eighteen of the twenty-three needed to agree. It was an old joke among defense lawyers that it wouldn’t take much effort to persuade a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich. But it was a little-known fact that prosecutors sometimes advocated for the grand jury not to indict.

  “While this wasn’t sarin gas,” Allison told them, “it could still be terrorism. Maybe someone who wanted to stop Jim Fate from broadcasting his opinion.”

  “You mean opinions,” said Gus, a retired hardware store owner. “That man had lots of them.”

  “Hmm, sounds like someone else we know,” said a juror in the back. The other jurors laughed. Including Gus. Even Allison managed to crack a smile.

  After opening the grand jury, Allison walked back to the FBI’s Portland field office, a dozen blocks away. Her feet still ached from the day before. She wasn’t hungry, but she made herself buy a gyro from a street cart. No matter how she felt, she had to think of the baby.

  Everywhere were signs of the panic that had gripped Portland the day before. She saw a half-dozen lost scarves looped around street trees, an abandoned stainless-steel coffee mug set on a windowsill, misplaced hats now settled on top of parking signs. Portlanders were, in general, an honest lot. She thought about Estella, who was more important than any scarf, mug, or hat. Surely by now Child Protective Services must have reunited her with her family. Surely Estella was now cuddling with her mami, all her fears quieted. Allison wanted to call the caseworker, but she told herself that the girl was being taken care of. Estella wasn’t her problem anymore. But Jim Fate was.

  When Nicole came out to escort her back, Allison found herself giving her friend a hug. Even more surprisingly, Nicole unhesitatingly hugged her back.

  Nicole said, “Cassidy just called. She wants the three of us to go to dinner tonight.”

  “Tonight?” Without even considering it, Allison shook her head. “I just want to go home. Go home and go to bed.”

  “Same here. But Cassidy was pretty insistent. She’s already made reservations at McCormick & Schmick’s Harborside. And you know— Jim Fate asked her to hook him up with us. We need to find out what she knows about the threats and who might have made them.”

  “Can’t it wait?” Allison asked. Even as she said the words, she realized that it couldn’t. They needed to know as much as possible as soon as possible about what had happened to Jim—and why. She sighed. “Well, at least we’ll get to eat something rich and chocolatey.”

  “I hear you on that,” Nicole said. As they walked back to her work space, she called Cassidy on her cell phone and agreed that they would meet at seven.

  Nicole’s cubicle was piled high with teetering stacks of paper, with more folders stacked on the floor. Allison picked up a heap of papers from the visitor’s chair, then didn’t know where to set them.

  “Oh, give them here,” Nicole said impatiently. She turned them at an angle and set them on an existing pile.

  As she sat down, Allison said, “I have thought of one bright side to this case.”

  “There is one?” Nicole rubbed her eyes. “I’d like to hear it.”

  “Usually when we work a murder case, it’s hard figuring out who would be mad enough to kill someone. We’re not going to have that problem with Jim Fate.”

  “Yeah, it would probably be easier figuring out who he didn’t tick off.” Nicole stifled a yawn. “We found two threats in his desk.” She handed Allison two printouts. “This one with the sketch of the noose is from a magazine article that mentioned a number of controversial things Jim did.”

  Allison looked at the second piece of paper, feeling a pang as she remembered reading about the sad case. “ ‘You killed Brooke. Now you need to die too,’” she read aloud. “Well, that’s pretty clear. Just like Cassidy said, we need to look at Brooke Gardner’s family and friends. And given that horrible commercial that’s been running nonstop, Quentin Glover too. And that’s probably only the beginning. I’ve ordered six months’ worth of transcripts of the show so that we can look for other people he might have ticked off.”

  “You can listen to them all online,” Nicole said. “I already checked.”

  “Yeah, but I’d have to do that in real time. It’s too hard to jump ahead with a recording. Whereas on paper, it’s a lot easier to skip over the parts that don’t have any bearing.”

  Nicole made a face. “Do you have any idea how many people we could end up having to investigate? The killer could be an individual or a business owner or a politician Fate slammed on air. That’s already a pretty big group. Then you add in people who might have had issues with his success, like rivals, stalkers, coworkers, anyone he climbed over on his way up.”

  Allison said, “And there’s all the usual suspects: family, friends, lovers, and enemies.” As a starting point with Jim, as well as every suspect in his murder, the FBI would check the basics: the phone book for numbers and addresses, public utilities records to find out who paid the bills and how often, Department of Motor Vehicles for driver’s license data and registration records, and National Crime Information Center indices for prior convictions. With such a wide circle of suspects, this alone would mean an incredible amount of work. Allison added, “Plus there’s Fate’s NOD award. I’ll bet that really torqued some people.”

  “Yeah, in retrospect maybe it wasn’t such a good idea that he taunted the people who were the most angry at him.” Nicole stifled another yawn. “For tomorrow, I’ve lined up the use of the radio station’s three conference rooms. I figure you and I will take the people who worked closest with Jim, and I’ve got two teams to take the rest.”

  “You look like you didn’t get any sleep,” Allison said sympathetically. “Maybe we should have dinner with Cassidy on another night.”

  “No. We need to talk to her. But yeah, I am pretty tired. It was everything that happened yesterday. You know what it was like. Everyone in that stairwell really started believing that we were all going to die, and it wasn’t pretty. I ended up trying to shelter in place with Mrs. Lofland—that older lady from the jury pool—on the seventh floor of the courthouse. It was Leif who tracked us down and told us things were okay. I was so glad to see him that I actually gave him a hug.”

  “Really?” She kept her tone neutral. Nicole rarely talked about her personal life, and Allison didn’t want to scare her off by seeming too interested.

  Allison, Nicole, and Cassidy had attended the same high school, but they hadn’t been close and they hadn’t kept in touch. By the time they got reacquainted at their tenth reunion, Nicole had a daughter, Makayla. No father was ever mentioned—and Nicole never, ever dated. Allison just figured that the father had been bad news.

  Nicole shook her head. “I shouldn’t encourage him. My life is too complicated. There’s no room in it for a man. I’ve tried to make that clear, but Leif says he’s happy to just be friends. But you know that when a guy says that, he doesn’t really mean it.”

  “Well, I guess there are two possibilities. If Leif really doe
s mean it, then you’re okay. But say you’re right,” Allison ventured. She hoped she wasn’t pushing Nic too far. “Say he doesn’t mean it. Leif ’s a good man and a good agent. And he just might be good for you too.”

  It was always a pleasure to work with Leif. There was a solidity to him that was calming. And it was clear that those blue eyes of his missed nothing.

  “But I don’t need a man,” Nicole answered. “I don’t need anyone.”

  CHAPTER 20

  Willamette Villas Condominiums

  While Nic was brainstorming suspects with Allison, her cell rang. At the sound of Leif ’s voice in her ear, telling her that they now had a search warrant for Fate’s apartment, her cheeks heated up. Her body was too eager to betray her.

  After promising to call Allison if anything important turned up in the search, Nic gathered with the rest of the ERT in the FBI’s parking garage.

  At Fate’s condominium building, they met the building manager and took the elevator to the twentieth floor.

  Leif let out a long, low whistle when the manager unlocked the door and swung it open. “I think I went into the wrong line of work.”

  Nic felt a smile rise to her lips, and then quickly let it drop. She didn’t want anyone on the team guessing anything about her feelings.

  Fate’s living room ran the width of the building. The wall facing the river was nothing but windows. Nic checked out the view. She could see a half dozen of Portland’s bridges, as well as the dark, gray waters of the Willamette itself.

  The team took a quick tour. It was beautiful, if not to Nic’s taste. It looked like an old, rich white guy’s place, all leather and gleaming dark wood and Oriental carpets. As a concession to the modern age, the living room also held an expensive-looking sound system and a huge flat-screen TV. The kitchen had a sharper edge to it. Everything was shiny stainless steel, down to the countertops, and so clean you could have performed surgery in it, using one of the ranks of Wüsthof knives.