by Rose, Karen
‘And Fletcher?’
‘Serious PTSD. Just imploded one day and was hospitalized, but not before he was accused of sexually assaulting another soldier and dishonorably discharged. He couldn’t get a job after that, so when Robinette hired him as his head chemist, he was grateful. Brenda Lee said they all knew that Fletcher and Robinette had a relationship, but it wasn’t discussed. Fletcher was jealous of Lisa, but he knew Robinette would never take them public. Brenda Lee felt sorry for him.’
‘Even though he’s a terrorist?’
‘She saw him as a tortured soul. I think Robinette had an uncanny eye for picking people who weren’t completely plugged into reality. Westmoreland is an enigma. None of them knew what Robinette had done for him, but Brenda Lee thought it was something financial. Robinette used his position as an MP to accrue lots of favors, personal debts, and extortion victims.’
‘Like Silas did, just as a cop.’
‘Very much so. Of the four Westmoreland was the least emotionally connected. That he was the first to fly the coop when Robinette started to unravel wasn’t a surprise to Brenda Lee.’
‘She saw Robinette unraveling?’
‘They all did. They all thought he was starting to believe his own spin. Brenda Lee said that she nearly had a coronary when she heard Robinette was interested in public office. Some of that was Lisa’s doing. Robinette grew up dirt poor in the bayou of Louisiana and being accepted and respected was important to him. Lisa understood that and figured she could give him respect and put distance between him and his four friends she felt so threatened by.’
‘That makes a lot of sense. Have we found Westmoreland?’
‘No. It looks like he’s gone under. He has contacts in terrorist cells all over the world. He’ll have friends to hide him.’
Clay ground his teeth over that. ‘That sucks.’
‘Some loose ends can’t be snipped,’ she said with a shrug. ‘Interpol has him on a most wanted list. They found that both Henderson and Westmoreland had traveled extensively to war-torn areas on phony passports. Robinette had created identities for employees that never existed. They delivered his vaccines to third world nations, then took a side trip to deliver the real goods. Apparently Fletcher is a genius. He developed a way to manufacture and package the sarin that increased its shelf life by two to three times. That’s what he was carrying with him. He’s cooperating with the German authorities. That’s all Joseph would tell us.’
‘What was Robinette doing at his house last night? If he’d escaped with Brenda Lee, why did he come back?’
‘Ah. That would have been because Lisa moved all of his money from his bank accounts and canceled his credit cards. He had a phony passport in his home office safe and came back to get it so he could get away.’
‘Why did Lisa take his money and cancel his cards?’
‘Because of the affair with Fletcher. That cook that “tried not to listen” in on her employer’s personal business told us that she “accidentally” overheard Lisa telling her mother that she’d “fixed him”, that no man was going to get away with cheating on her.’
‘Did the cook actually do any cooking?’ Clay asked wryly. ‘Sounds like she spent all her time listening behind doors.’
‘She had her eye on a bigger prize – payment for a tell-all article. She’d overheard the after-dinner conversation between Robinette and the political guys who wanted him to run. Figured she’d scoop up tidbits she could sell to the tabloids.’
‘Good old-fashioned capitalism. Gotta love it.’ He squeezed her hand and changed the subject. ‘Did you go back to the farm last night?’
She shook her head. ‘The farm came here. Everyone but the horses. The whole gang is here. It’s SRO in the waiting room. Emma and Ethan and Maggie, Paige, Izzy, my parents. Grayson and Daphne came in early, but they had court this morning. They’ll be back later. Same with Joseph and his crew. They’ve got a mountain of reports to file. Hyatt’s here. He’s getting along famously with your father, by the way.’
‘Somehow that doesn’t surprise me. Did Dad bring Nell?’
‘He did. She and my mother,’ she rolled her eyes, ‘are picking out china patterns and Izzy’s been egging them on.’
‘Does that bother you?’ he asked carefully. Because he could already see them living as a family, in a big house with the puppy. And more children. Definitely more children.
She smiled and he relaxed. ‘Not at all. Although I am a little nervous about the growing menagerie. Maggie gave Cordelia a horse and your father gave us a puppy.’
Us. ‘I like the sound of that.’
‘A drooling, shoe-chewing puppy?’ she asked but he could see she knew what he meant.
‘No. “Us”.’
‘Me, too. On the “us”. The jury’s still out on the puppy.’
He traced her mouth with his fingertip. ‘You know you’re gonna say yes. You might as well do it now and get it over with.’
‘I know,’ she said glumly. ‘I’m a sap who’s going to clean drool and buy new shoes.’
‘No. You’re a mother who loves her child . . . A child who, by the way, has run the most effective campaign for getting a dog of any kid I’ve ever seen.’
‘I know. She’s earned it.’ But then she frowned, something clearly still on her mind.
‘If you’re that against the dog, I can try to talk her out of it.’
‘No, it’s not that. It’s about Sam Hudson. I called him to tell him what happened last night and to tell him that he shouldn’t feel responsible, but something bothered me about his story. He said he got a package in the mail with his father’s things.’
‘Along with the matchbook that led him back to the Rabbit Hole. You’re wondering who sent the package?’
‘I know who did it. I figured the only one who could have was Silas’s wife, Rose, or his attorney. I called Rose after I got done talking to Sam, and I asked her point-blank. She admitted it. She said that their personal attorney had given her letters from Silas, along with instructions to mail the package to arrive on Saturday – the eighth anniversary of John Hudson’s death.’
Clay frowned too. ‘Shouldn’t that attorney have turned them in as evidence?’
‘I asked Grayson and he said not if they were personal communication between husband and wife. Now that we know what was in it, they damn well should become evidence and in Sam’s case, they have.’
‘But?’
‘What if there are more letters? What if there’s a letter for me? When Rose admitted she’d sent it, I asked if there were more. She hung up on me without answering.’
‘So what do you want to do, Stevie?’
‘I want to go see her. In person. I want her to look into my face and tell me that Silas left nothing for me.’
‘What more are you looking to learn, honey?’ he asked gently. ‘I mean, as soon as they let me out, we’ll go. I promise. But what are you hoping to hear? An apology? Would you even listen to it? Would you want to?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe I do want an apology. But it wouldn’t be worth much, would it? He could have sent that package to Sam at any time if he really was sorry. He could have stopped working for Stuart Lippman if he’d really been sorry. He could have not hired someone to kill my family to begin with.’
‘Kind of what I’m thinking,’ he said.
‘Silas sending the package after he was dead was cowardly. No, you’re right. I don’t want to know. I don’t want to hear an empty apology. I do believe I’ll let this one go.’
‘We should mark the calendar,’ he said with a smile.
‘Smart ass,’ she said, but she smiled back. ‘Are you ready to entertain the masses?’
‘The sooner I do, the sooner we’ll be alone again, right?’
‘Kind of what I’m thinking,�
�� she said lightly.
‘Then I’m more than ready.’
Thursday, March 20, 1.00 P.M.
Everyone stopped talking when Stevie walked into the waiting room. ‘He’s awake,’ she said. The chatter restarted, everyone coming to their feet and hitting her with a barrage of questions. ‘He’s fine. He’s alert. He wants to see Cordelia and Alec, first. Alec, will you take Cordelia with you? I’ll be back in a few minutes. I have to get some food.’ Now that Clay was awake, she finally had an appetite again.
‘We’ll go with you,’ Emma said. She and Izzy and Maggie VanDorn started gathering papers from the table where they’d been sitting.
Stevie narrowed her eyes. ‘What are you guys planning?’
‘Not your wedding, if that’s what you’re thinking,’ Izzy said tartly. ‘That’s Mom’s arena.’
Maggie shook her head. ‘You poor dear.’
Emma snickered. ‘We’re writing my next book,’ she said, taking pity on Stevie, ‘on equine therapy. Maggie and I are co-authoring it and Izzy’s going to do the photos.’
‘It keeps me off the street,’ Izzy said wryly.
‘I think it’s a great idea,’ Stevie said. ‘Izzy, you’ll do the photos justice. You’ve got a good eye and a beautiful heart.’
Stevie had asked Izzy to show her the photos she’d downloaded from her old camera, needing something to occupy her mind while Clay had been in surgery. With Cordelia on her lap and Izzy by her side, she’d looked at hundreds of pictures of Paul and Paulie. Some she’d taken herself, but most had been Izzy’s. She had always been the photographer in the family. Her sister had taken all those shots and had created a beautiful memorial to the family they never discussed. They’d smiled and laughed and cried and when they were done Stevie felt . . . not healed, but healing. It was progress.
‘Thank you, Stevie.’ The startled gratitude in Izzy’s eyes told Stevie she’d been selfish with her sister, too. Izzy, like Clay, had always been there for her, never asking for anything back. Stevie had known that Izzy liked to play with cameras, but had never seen her sister’s gift. She did now. She slid her arm around Izzy’s waist, hugging her casually, and the minute hesitation before Izzy hugged her back was another revelation. ‘Does this mean we’ll see you here more often, Emma?’
‘Yes, but there are equine facilities in Florida, too. All over the country, actually.’
‘We’re thinking about a fact-finding trip,’ Maggie said.
‘Just be honest and call it a road trip,’ Stevie said, making them all grin. ‘I can see the three of you in a convertible with the top down, driving across America. I wish I could go.’
‘What’s stopping you?’ Emma asked. ‘We’ll do it in pieces and over the course of six months. You can come on some of the trips. Come summer, you can bring Cordelia and I’ll bring Christopher and the boys and we’ll have fun.’
‘Fun.’ She frowned, considering it. ‘I could do fun.’
Izzy squeezed her playfully. ‘I’ll give you a tutorial on fun first.’
Stevie met her sister’s eyes. ‘I’d like that.’ She shrugged off the emotion. ‘Besides, I’m not sure what kind of job I’m going to be fit for. I may never go back to active duty.’
‘Don’t say that,’ Izzy protested. ‘Of course you will.’
‘You know, I’m okay if I don’t go back.’
Emma blinked. ‘What planet are you from and what have you done with our friend?’
Stevie smiled. ‘A year ago, hell, a week ago, those words never would have occurred to me. Now I’m reassessing my priorities. Cordelia is number one. My career has put her through more in two years than anyone should suffer over a lifetime. I can change that. I will change that.’
‘What about all of Silas’s cases?’ Emma asked. ‘There may be more to uncover.’
‘There probably are more,’ Stevie agreed. ‘But I won’t be the one to uncover them. I told Hyatt to spread the word that I’m not digging anymore. I’m not the only cop who can spot a fixed case. Especially since the State Police are now running the Lippman investigations while IA sorts out their shit. I want people to stop shooting at me and my family. We’ve had enough.’
‘I couldn’t agree with you more,’ Emma said softly, pride in her eyes. ‘But what will you do? I can’t see you living the life of leisure.’
‘I can’t see my bills paying themselves yet, either,’ Stevie said dryly. ‘I’ll find something to do. Something amazing. I’m just not sure what it is yet.’
But that wasn’t true. She had the germ of an idea. But she had to think it through before telling anyone. Keeping the notion close to her vest, she pointed to the door. ‘Ladies, I’m starving. Let’s go eat.’
They’d made it to the elevator when she heard a man call her name.
‘Detective? Detective Mazzetti?’
Stevie turned to see a couple tentatively approaching. The woman was a stranger, but the man’s face was familiar. The last time she’d seen him, he’d been hustling Todd Robinette back into FPL’s factory so that she could retrieve Robinette’s used cigarette butt.
‘Frank Locke,’ she said, meeting them halfway. ‘It’s good to see you.’
‘And you as well,’ he said. ‘This is my wife, Amy.’
Amy’s expression was grave. ‘Detective.’
Stevie looked from Locke’s face to his wife’s. ‘What can I do for you?’
‘It’s what I can do for you,’ Locke said, sliding a backpack off his shoulder. He handed it to her. ‘These are Harvey’s lab notebooks, transferred to DVD.’
She took the backpack with a frown. ‘Harvey? You mean Harvey Ballantine, Julie’s head chemist, the one who was killed with her?’
Locke nodded. ‘Harvey’s wife gave these to me a few weeks after his funeral. It was some time before I looked at them. Losing Harvey was such a shock.’
‘I know it was,’ Stevie said gently. ‘I barely made B’s in chemistry, so I won’t understand these notebooks if I try to read them. Why are you giving them to me?’
Locke drew a breath. ‘They tell why Harvey and Julie were murdered.’
Stevie stared at the backpack, then back up at Locke’s face. ‘Then tell me why.’
‘Robinette came to work for Rene and Julie when he got out of the Army,’ Locke said. ‘He started out in the warehouse, an entry level job that everybody did at some point in their career, even the PhDs. Rene made sure of it. He wanted people to understand how the company worked and to appreciate every worker’s task. But Robinette had a bad attitude. He hated the warehouse, hated that he had to work with people he considered beneath him.’
‘Why didn’t Rene fire him?’ Stevie asked.
‘He wanted to, but Robinette was his friend. And every time Rene tried to give Robinette feedback, Robinette would threaten to leave and take Levi with him.’
‘Which would have broken Julie’s heart,’ Stevie murmured.
‘Rene’s too,’ Amy said. ‘They both loved Levi like he was their own.’
Locke sighed. ‘They did. Robinette didn’t care about the boy, except to use him as a pawn. Then as a weapon. Then later a scapegoat. Robinette did the shipping in the warehouse. Harvey found out he was stealing.’
‘How?’ Stevie asked.
‘Right before he died Harvey noticed an increase in the number of batches that didn’t meet quality standards. He was trying to figure out why, you know, what was going wrong with the equipment. He found out there was nothing wrong. Good batches had been marked as bad so that they’d be rejected. Those batches went to the same area that the expired vaccines went. Harvey got suspicious – partly because he’d never liked Robinette. None of us did. Rene had died and Robinette had forced Julie to marry him so that she could keep Levi. Robinette was strutting like a peacock.’
‘Fran
k,’ Amy said softly. ‘Stick to the story.’
‘Sorry, Detective. Anyway, Harvey hid a camera in the warehouse.’
‘And found Robinette shipping to his own customers?’
‘Exactly. But not just the good stuff Robinette had diverted. Harvey saw that he was shipping the expired stuff, too. The expired vaccines should have been destroyed. They wouldn’t have hurt anyone, but they wouldn’t work either. Diverting the good stuff was stealing. Shipping expired vaccines as good ones? That’s . . . criminal. More criminal anyway.’
‘Did Harvey confront Robinette?’
‘Not that he wrote about. One of his last entries was that he was taking his findings to Julie. If she confronted him . . .’ He shrugged. ‘Julie was like Rene. She wouldn’t have stood for stealing, but putting the health of children at risk? Because these were vaccines that kids got, to keep them from getting sick. Julie wouldn’t have tolerated that. But she probably wouldn’t have reported him right away, either. She was one to try to settle things with the individual. And she walked on eggshells with Robinette anyway, because of Levi.’
‘So if she told Robinette what she knew, he’d have to get rid of her. If he figured out that Harvey knew, too, he’d have to get rid of them both.’ Stevie sighed. ‘Hell.’
‘There’s one more thing,’ Locke said. ‘Harvey noticed that the good vaccines being diverted to the reject area began to accelerate after Rene died. I don’t know if that has anything to do with anything, but before that, Harvey believed that Rene also knew.’
Stevie thought of the bullet in the Rubik’s cube. ‘It means something,’ she said quietly. ‘What happened to you? I always worried that helping me get that cigarette butt would get you into trouble.’
‘I think I would have been in trouble anyway. After Julie was gone, Robinette cleaned house. Fired everyone who’d been vocally opposed to him. I was one of the first to go. Amy and I moved away, near our grandchildren. I didn’t look at the books for a long time. Then one day, I was cleaning out my desk and found them. I started reading and found the truth.’ He looked away. ‘I should have come forward.’