Watch Your Back

by Rose, Karen

  ‘I know,’ Hyatt said. ‘I just planned three.’

  On that grim note, they dispersed.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Jessup Correctional Institution, Jessup, Maryland, Wednesday, March 19, 10.30 A.M.

  Elizabeth Morton had changed, Stevie thought when the woman was brought into the interview room in handcuffs. Her eyes were like empty holes, lifeless. Soulless.

  Stevie glanced up at Hyatt from the corner of her eye. His face was pained.

  ‘Elizabeth,’ he said, his deep voice rusty.

  Stevie could find no sympathy for the woman who’d sold her soul many times over.

  ‘Why are you here?’ Morton asked, her voice as dead as her eyes.

  ‘We got new information yesterday,’ Stevie said. ‘About Silas.’

  Elizabeth rolled her eyes to stare at the ceiling. ‘So?’

  ‘My husband and son were murdered, eight years ago, on March 15.’

  A slight hitch in Elizabeth’s breathing was the only indication she’d heard.

  ‘For eight years I’ve believed it was a random crime. Yesterday I found out that Silas set it up, coerced a man I never met to murder my husband. And my five-year-old son.’

  ‘I’m sorry for your loss,’ Elizabeth said bitterly, not meeting her eyes.

  ‘I hope you’re willing to prove it. We know that Todd Robinette hired the murderer of my family.’ Stevie caught Elizabeth’s slight wince. ‘Robinette hooked up with Lippman, we believe through Virgil Barry. Covering up Barry’s son’s crime was one of your cases.’

  ‘Go talk to Barry, then,’ Elizabeth said coldly.

  ‘You know I can’t. You know he’s dead.’

  ‘Is there a question in there anywhere?’ Her tone dripped acid, but beneath was hesitation.

  ‘Yes,’ Stevie said, ‘there is. Several, in fact. Did Virgil Barry give Lippman’s name to Robinette? Did Robinette hire Lippman? Did Lippman assign Silas to kill my family?’

  Elizabeth’s eyes filled with sly calculation. ‘Why should I help you? What’s in it for me?’

  ‘The opportunity to do the right thing,’ Stevie said. ‘The opportunity to make amends.’

  ‘The only right thing is anything that gets me out of here a day sooner.’ She stood. ‘Talk to your friend, Grayson Smith. Come back when he’s ready to make a deal. Guard! Take me back.’

  ‘No,’ Hyatt said, his deep voice cracking like a whip. ‘Sit down, Elizabeth.’

  A twisted smile. ‘No offense, Lieutenant, but you’re no longer my boss.’

  ‘Maybe not,’ Hyatt said, his jaw clenched hard, ‘but if you don’t start talking right now, I will personally ensure you are moved as far away from your son as possible.’

  Elizabeth’s step faltered, her cheeks growing pale. ‘You sonofabitch.’

  ‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘You got sympathy during your trial, because Lippman hurt your child to ensure your compliance. But Stevie’s son is dead. Murdered. Because you were too weak to stand up and do the right thing. It’s time to do the right thing now, Elizabeth. So sit down.’

  Elizabeth sat, visibly vibrating with fury. ‘I want a deal.’

  For a moment, no one spoke. Then Stevie let out a quiet breath. ‘I’ll give you a deal.’

  Elizabeth’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. ‘You’re not authorized to make me any deals.’

  ‘Stevie,’ Hyatt began, but Stevie lifted her hand.

  ‘Listen to me, Elizabeth. Robinette targeted my surviving child to ferret me out of hiding. Not once. Not twice. But three times. Do you think your son is safe because Lippman is dead? Do you think Robinette won’t find out that we were talking to you? Do you think your son’s life will have any value when Robinette finds out you can turn evidence against him?’

  ‘I have no evidence,’ Elizabeth said, her chin lifting slightly. But her lips trembled.

  ‘You were willing to make a deal a few minutes ago. I’d make sure he knew that.’

  ‘You’re bluffing,’ Elizabeth said, her face grown even more pale. ‘You wouldn’t tell him.’

  ‘Are you willing to risk your son’s life on that?’ Stevie asked, holding Elizabeth’s gaze.

  Elizabeth laughed bitterly. ‘Didn’t think you had it in you, Stevie. What’s your deal?’

  ‘You do the right thing by my Paulie and I’ll keep your son safe from Robinette. Tell me the truth, with details that we can corroborate, so that Grayson can nail Robinette’s ass to the wall.’

  Elizabeth closed her eyes. ‘Yes,’ she finally said. ‘Robinette tried to hire Lippman to get the cops off his back, said that he’d come recommended by Virgil Barry. Lippman was furious. Sent me to deal with Barry, since he’d been mine, but Barry and his wife were dead. I closed their murder investigation and thought I was home free, but then Lippman accepted Robinette’s job.’

  ‘Why didn’t Lippman just kill Robinette?’ Hyatt asked.

  ‘Robinette had a recording of Barry telling him everything. Robinette gave it to his attorney to be mailed to the prosecutor if he died suddenly. Lippman had been beaten at his own game.’

  ‘But why Silas?’ Stevie asked, pained. ‘Why didn’t Lippman assign you?’

  ‘Because he had a sick sense of humor. And because Silas still fought him when he got a job he didn’t like. He figured he could break Silas and get Robinette off his back, all at once.’

  Stevie remembered then. Remembered how Silas had grieved with her, almost as if it had been his own family that had died. That hadn’t been grief, she understood now, but guilt.

  ‘Do you have any proof of this, Elizabeth?’ Hyatt asked.

  ‘No. But there’s always the recording Robinette made of Virgil Barry’s confession. He may have thrown it away after he heard Lippman was dead, but you might get lucky and find where his attorney hid it.’ Elizabeth’s eyes sharpened. ‘You will protect my son?’

  Hyatt nodded. ‘We will. You won’t have to worry about him.’

  Then he hesitated, as if unsure if he wanted the answer to his next question. ‘Elizabeth, did you know Stevie’s husband and son would be killed?’

  ‘No,’ Elizabeth said. ‘When I heard Robinette had approached Lippman, I figured she’d be the one killed. Not her husband and son. Lippman was very unhappy with Silas that day. But Robinette was happy. Stevie was off his case. If Lippman punished Silas, I never heard about it.’

  ‘How did you know Lippman was unhappy?’ Hyatt asked with a frown.

  ‘Pillow talk.’ Stevie must have shown her disgust because Elizabeth laughed again. ‘I’ll do anything to keep my son safe, Stevie. If I’d been assigned, you’d be dead. But Silas was weak.’

  Stevie wondered how she could have worked with this woman for years and never have really known her. Same way you worked with Silas all those years. ‘Why didn’t Silas kill me?’

  ‘He liked you. Respected you because you never took the easy way. That was his mistake. If he’d just killed you, it would have made it easier for all of us in the long run.’

  Stevie blinked. ‘O-kay. You realize I hold your son’s safety in my hands, right?’

  Elizabeth’s laugh was now hollow. ‘You talk big, Stevie, but at the end of the day you won’t abandon him. That’s not who you are.’

  Unexpected warmth uncurled in Stevie’s chest. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘It wasn’t a compliment,’ Elizabeth snapped. ‘If you’d left well enough alone, my son wouldn’t need your damn help. He’d be fine. So do not thank me.’

  ‘That’s okay. I don’t consider doing the right thing to be a failing.’

  Baltimore, Maryland, Wednesday, March 19, 1.00 P.M.

  After a phone call to assure Cordelia she was all right and a quick stop at a local deli, Stevie and Clay returned to the conference room to find th
e group already there and waiting. ‘We brought lunch,’ Stevie said, holding up the bag of sandwiches they’d bought.

  Eyes lit up, followed by murmured ‘thank yous’ as the sandwiches were passed around.

  ‘What did you find?’ Joseph asked her as he unwrapped his.

  Stevie filled them in as the group ate. ‘Apparently Silas couldn’t bring himself to kill me.’

  JD glowered. ‘So he had Paul and Paulie killed instead. Sonofabitch.’

  Joseph nodded, his expression dark. ‘And there isn’t anything we can do to him, but we can get Robinette. We have to. JD, any luck with the bartender?’

  JD shook his head. ‘Never made it to the prison. Turns out the bartender’s dead. Shiv in the gut in the shower by another inmate. Guess who’d arrested that inmate?’

  ‘Silas,’ Stevie said grimly.

  Hyatt shoulders sagged. ‘I wonder which of that man’s family members Silas used to threaten him into committing murder.’

  ‘I thought the same thing,’ JD said. ‘The guy was serving life without parole for three murders. He didn’t have anything else to lose on the inside. But he’s dead, too. Heart failure. I did make some headway though. I had another talk with Sam Hudson who’d been talking to some of his father’s old friends. One of them knew John Hudson’s dealer, who I actually knew, too. I arrested him when I was in Vice. He told me that John had started selling for this dealer, but came back empty handed after being fronted a significant supply. He’d been stopped by a cop, carrying enough to qualify for a felony, which would have been his third strike.’

  ‘Guaranteed prison time,’ Clay said.

  ‘Yep. But the cop “had a heart”. Confiscated his stash in his “greedy ham-sized hands” and let him go with a warning.’

  ‘Silas,’ Stevie said grimly. ‘Well, that explains some more about “how” Silas got to him.’

  ‘I’ve got something,’ Agent Coppola said. ‘The attorney Henderson fired yesterday, Cecilia Wright, went to school with Brenda Lee Miller. They were sorority sisters.’

  ‘I’m sure lots of people went to school with Brenda Lee,’ Joseph said with a disappointed frown. ‘Doesn’t imply a connection.’

  ‘Because you didn’t let me finish. Wright’s daughter attends one of Robinette’s rehab clinics. There was a long waiting list but Wright’s kid magically went to the head of the line. Miller couldn’t have represented Henderson, or we’d have a connection to Robinette.’

  Joseph nodded. ‘Good. What about Lisa?’

  Coppola’s eyes gleamed. ‘She was very pissed off at her husband after picking up his drunk ass at the factory the other day. Apparently she’s one of those vindictive sorts that tosses out her husband’s belongings when he’s been naughty.’

  Clay’s face broke into a grin. ‘She threw his stuff in the garbage?’

  Coppola grinned back. ‘She did. So I took out the trash.’

  Joseph wasn’t smiling. ‘I thought we agreed you’d have backup before approaching Lisa.’

  ‘I didn’t approach her. I approached her house. Specifically her trash cans.’

  Joseph closed his eyes. ‘Dammit, Kate. I don’t want to bury any more agents.’

  Coppola’s face fell. ‘I’m sorry, Joseph. You were in a meeting and I didn’t want the trash truck to come and take our evidence. I had the surveillance guys backing me up.’

  ‘Okay. Fine. But next time, I’d like my instructions followed. What did you find?’

  Coppola retrieved a box from the corner. ‘We got clothes, shoes, and toys.’

  Stevie grimaced. ‘Sex toys?’

  Coppola laughed. ‘You’ve got a dirty mind, Stevie. I like that. No, not sex toys. Golf clubs and tennis rackets. His Xbox. And this.’ From the box she pulled out an evidence bag that held an old Rubik’s cube that had been solved.

  Stevie went still. ‘That was on Robinette’s desk eight years ago. That one, or one just like it. I thought it was weird, because Robinette didn’t seem like the geeky type. I asked Levi about it, when I questioned him about Julie’s death. He said it had belonged to Julie’s husband, Rene, which made sense as Rene was a geek. He was the head chemist at the factory before he died.’

  ‘Why did Robinette have it on his desk?’ Dr Brodie asked.

  ‘Levi said that his father and Rene had gone to high school together and were best friends. That was why Rene and Julie had taken him in when his own mother died. The cube was the one thing of Rene’s that his father had wanted after Rene died, because Rene had played with it back when they were kids. Levi said his father kept it for sentimental reasons.’

  ‘Robinette, sentimental?’ Clay shook his head. ‘Doesn’t play for me.’

  ‘Me either,’ Stevie said. ‘Can I see it?’

  ‘It doesn’t work,’ Novak said. ‘Seems to be glued together.’

  Stevie frowned. ‘Someone ripped some of the stickers off. Did Lisa do this?’

  ‘I’d say it’s a good possibility.’ Lying behind the box was a bag of golf clubs. Coppola drew one of the clubs from the bag – it was severely bent. ‘I wouldn’t want to get on her bad side. The tennis rackets look worse. And it looks like she ran over his Xbox with her car.’

  ‘Yikes. Seems a little extreme for him just getting drunk. I wonder what really happened between them.’ Stevie turned the cube over, inspecting all sides. ‘Why would this be glued?’

  Clay held out his hand for the cube. ‘I had one when I was a kid. Took me weeks to solve it. My old partner, Ethan, can do it in less than a minute.’ Then he frowned. ‘This feels weird.’

  ‘’Cause it’s glued,’ Stevie said.

  ‘No, it’s not balanced.’ Clay held it to his ear, gave it a shake. ‘There’s something in here.’

  Dr Brodie tested the cube’s weight. ‘You’re right. Should we see what’s inside?’

  ‘Do you need to photograph it first?’ Joseph asked.

  ‘We did that,’ Coppola said. ‘I had the lab photograph everything right away. I left the clothes with CSU so they could check for hair or skin samples. I just brought the toys with me to show you the wrath of Lisa.’

  ‘Then open it,’ Joseph said.

  Brodie opened her tool kit and selected a thin blade, a white cloth, and a pair of gloves. ‘It’s harder to pry because the top layer doesn’t twist.’ She scraped at the glue that held the cubes immobile, then made a triumphant noise when the first cube popped off. ‘The center’s been cut away, along with one of the interior arms that holds the cube in place. It’s a deliberate cut that would have required the right tools to do.’ She pried away a few more tiles, shook something metallic into her hand. ‘And here we go.’

  Stevie leaned over the table, staring. ‘A bullet. Is that . . . blood?’

  ‘Appears to be,’ Brodie said.

  Hell, Stevie thought. ‘Rene Broussard was murdered during a mugging.’

  ‘He’d been with a prostitute,’ Joseph said. ‘How did they know that?’

  Stevie grimaced. ‘Because his pants were down around his ankles and he had a lipstick smudge, and not on his collar. The autopsy report said that the bullet had been removed. Cut right out of him. His killer was never found.’

  ‘Looks like we just found him,’ Hyatt said grimly.

  ‘Sonofabitch,’ Stevie said, incredulous. ‘Robinette kills Rene, marries his widow, then kills her too? And then keeps the bullet on his desk, hidden in his pal’s childhood toy as a trophy?’

  ‘All for control of the company,’ JD added with a shake of his head. ‘How much net worth are we talking about?’

  ‘Hard to say,’ Stevie said. ‘They’re privately held. That made it hard to get information on Robinette’s business dealings eight years ago. If the blood on this bullet matches Rene’s, that has to be enough for a warrant.’


  ‘I agree,’ Joseph said. ‘Given Elizabeth Morton’s testimony, we might already have enough.’ He called Daphne, gave her the information. ‘She’s revising Grayson’s warrant as we speak, but says we still need physical evidence. She’s going to ask the judge to be on standby and rush him the warrant once we have the physical evidence in hand. Novak, you look like you’re about to spew. Do you have something to share with the class?’

  ‘I do indeed,’ Novak said. ‘I have several things. First, Robinette’s posse. Stevie, your sister knew where your camera was, but we didn’t need it. She’d downloaded the photos to a CD years ago and put them in her safe deposit box for the day you were ready to look at them.’

  Oh. Stevie’s heart melted at her sister’s thoughtfulness. ‘That sounds like Izzy.’

  ‘She also kept copies on her hard drive so she emailed me the pictures you took at Levi’s funeral. There were four people around Robinette. Brenda Lee Miller, Jean Henderson, Michael Westmoreland, and this man.’ Novak turned his laptop around, showing them the photo.

  The man was very handsome, Stevie thought, his dark blond hair carefully combed, his black suit fitting him well. ‘Now that I see the picture, I have a vague recollection of him back then. But I’ve seen him more recently – on Filbert Labs’s website. He’s the head chemist. James something.’ The piece fell into place in her mind. ‘Fletcher. James Fletcher.’

  ‘We read his profile,’ Clay said. ‘There’s no mention of military service.’

  ‘You’re right,’ Novak said. ‘But he did serve in Iraq during the time Henderson and Robinette served together. He was a doctor, but he got a dishonorable discharge.’

  Clay’s brows went up. ‘Oh. Do we know why?’

  ‘Not yet. But . . .’

  Stevie narrowed her eyes. Novak clearly had something bigger to spill. ‘But what?’

  ‘He’s currently in custody, a guest of the German BKA. They grabbed him as he walked off the plane in Frankfurt, about ninety minutes ago.’