by J. J. Franck
Suddenly Raven turned to Don. She looked up at him with a look that he knew was not going to be good.
“That was rude of you—what you did back there with your mother,” Raven snapped.
Don honestly felt guilty for what he said. He took a deep breath and then frowned.
“I’m sorry, but there’s a whole lot of trouble coming down. And I get a little edgy when people start shooting at me and I haven’t a clue.”
“Well it’s not my fault,” Raven snapped.
She honestly didn’t know what Don’s problem was. There was no reason for him to be mad at his mother, or her, for that matter. She had no control over what happened to his partner or Willie. All she ever did was her job. She was angry now that Willie wasn’t more upfront with her about what he was checking into.
Don turned to her and pointed an accusing finger at her. “You and Maxfield stirred up a hornets’ nest, for sure!”
“All he was looking into was campaign finances. Who kills over that?”
Don seemed puzzled for a moment. “I thought that was a dead issue.”
“Everyone would like to think it was,” Raven said.
She knew Willie would not be happy with her for telling a cop what he was working on but, given he no longer was alive, it didn’t matter anymore.
“So what was his angle to keep it alive?”
“He’d been tracking various senators,” Raven said as she walked up to Don’s car, and then she looked over at him before he got in the squad and quickly said, “Policing the Senate, so to speak.”
“That must have been well received.”
Raven got into the squad and then slammed the door shut. “The president gave his blessing, that’s all I know.”
“So, basically, he was getting the dirt on the opposition.”
“No, not really,” Raven said. “Names were put in a hat, so the investigation was random. Willie had been working on it for almost two years. He was putting together his final report.”
“Someone didn’t want it to surface.”
Raven shrugged as she buckled her seatbelt and then turned to Don. “Looks that way.”
“Do you have a list of senators who were under investigation?”
Raven just shook her head. “Willie had the list. All I ever saw were numbers. I think the names are on the flash drive you have.”
“Is that what’s on it?” Don asked.
“You don’t understand the information on it, do you?” Raven asked as she looked curiously at Don.
“It is in a cryptic code, that’s all I know,” Don said as he pulled into traffic.
“Willie was into things like that,” Raven said as she stared out the window at the house of Don’s mother. She liked Maggie and, after listening to her talk about her son all morning, Raven knew that she could trust him to do what was best for her. She continued to stare out the window wondering where they were going now.
Don turned to Raven. “Were there any other copies?” he asked.
“I’m not really sure, but I think so. I think he might have left one at my father’s cottage. He made a few copies before his laptop was destroyed. I think for safe-keeping he hid one in my father’s desk.”
“Sure seemed like a lot of cloak and dagger for a few men dipping their hands in the kitty.”
Raven turned to Don and laughed, shaking her head.
“Those PAC funds run into the billions. It’s an industry that isn’t very well regulated when you consider the number of campaigns around the country,” Raven said but then stopped while she just shut her eyes.
“Yeah, but you’re also talking about a lot of mom and pop operations that are run on a shoestring.”
“Whenever you have money that flows free, you have corruption,” Raven said with a voice of authority.
“Aren’t laws in place to limit the contributions?” Don asked.
“Willie wasn’t investigating that aspect.”
“What other aspect is there?” Don asked as he stopped for a red light. He turned and stared at Raven.
He knew if he was going to get to the bottom of this he would have to have a long talk with Raven, and being distracted by traffic was annoying him. Once the light turned green, he pulled forward and then drove to a neighborhood park where he used to play as a youth.
Once he parked the car, he turned to Raven. “Now tell me about it.”
Raven looked nervous. She thought a moment and then turned to Don. “He came across a trend where money was being transferred out of campaign accounts. It had something to do with Super PACs. That’s as much as he’d tell me.”
It was hard to trust anyone after the last seventy-eight hours, but for some reason she felt Don could be trusted. He seemed to care. Not just about the case, but he seemed to genuinely care about what happened to her.
Raven glanced out the window at the people enjoying a beautiful Saturday morning in the park with no worries about world events. She wished desperately to be one of them but knew that was not to be. Raven then opened her purse and took out her checkbook. From the back slot she pulled out a sheet of paper and handed it to Don. It was time that a stop was put to all of this, and if turning over all the information she had helped bring it to a head, then so be it. Willie was not around to see this through. She only hoped that there was enough information on the flash drive for someone to decipher what he uncovered. It was her only way of making this right.
Don stared at the slip of paper and then looked over at her. “What’s this?”
“Willie told me to hang on to this for him,” she said and then took a deep breath before continuing, “In case the macro he created didn’t work.”
Don whistled. “He knew what he was doing.”
“Willie was great at coding things.”
“Let me get his straight,” Don said, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel. “He was investigating people from his own party along with others.”
“Yes, it was nonpartisan. These were high-level players in Washington who always seemed to fly under the radar. You don’t enter politics poor with a lot of debt hanging over your head and leave a millionaire without some eyebrows being raised.
“He must have been loved by his fellow senators.”
“Willie had a strong sense about right and wrong. He didn’t care what they thought, especially if they were doing something illegal.”
“My kind of guy,” Don said.
“From what he told me, there was a fine line in what’s legal and what’s not legal up on the Hill.”
“That still doesn’t explain why they were after you.” Don reached over and pulled out the tape from the glove box. He put it in the tape player. “This is from your answering machine. Tell me if you recognize any of these voices.”
They listened to the message from Raven’s mother. All Raven did after listening to it was laugh. “That one is obvious,” she said, rolling her eyes.
After listening to the second message left by her mother, Raven just turned to Don and raised her eyebrows while she shrugged. She then turned and glanced out the car window and listened to the next one. “The work was under warranty, love the car. See you soon.”
Raven turned to Don. “That’s my friend Cathy. We switched cars.” Before she could continue, Raven’s mother’s message started to play. “Leave it to parents,” she said as an excuse for her overprotective parents.
It was when the next message played that Raven suddenly put her hand over her month. “If you don’t leave him alone, you’re dead.” Raven’s eyes widened but she also seemed puzzled.
Don turned to Raven quickly and pressed the pause button on the tape player for a moment.
“Do you recognize the voice?” Don asked in a way he wasn’t sure he would like the answer.”
“I’m not sure. It almost sounds like David Sinclair’s wife,” Raven said with a strange look on her face. “But that doesn’t make sense.”
Don put his cop cap on now. A part of him wanted t
o believe Raven, but then there was that side that told him not to trust anyone. His partner was in the hospital and had almost been killed last night because of this case. He stared at Raven for a hint she was playing him.
“Why would she want you to leave her husband alone?” Don had to ask, and in the end feared what the answer would be because he had this idealistic picture of who Raven was—and someone messing around with another woman’s husband wasn’t what he had in mind.
“I don’t know,” Raven said, shaking her head. “Cathy was having an affair with him. But I thought she broke it off, or at least she was going to break it off.”
Don had no reason not to believe Raven and was relieved by her explanation. Her image in his mind was intact, but that didn’t explain why the message was on Raven’s answering machine. It might well have been that it was known Cathy was watching Raven’s house. He would have to get to the bottom of that, and soon.
Don reached over and pressed the play button. They listened to the next message. Don smirked and then said, “We thought it was the fly boy who did that to the woman in your car.”
“Tad?” was all Raven said.
“We know now he’s a priest.”
When Raven’s mother came on again, Raven just shook her head. “Mothers can be so protective.”
“Tell me about it,” Don remarked as he smiled.
“Ever since I moved out, if I don’t call my parents every day they go in panic mode. Cathy was watching my house. It was my impression she was going out of town this weekend, I think to finally break it off with David.”
Don looked puzzled. “So if your friend Cathy was going out of town with David...” Don started to say but then was interrupted by the next message. “I warned you.”
Raven appeared puzzled by that message.
Don quickly added, “Why would she think it was you having the affair with her husband?”
Raven stared at Don for the longest time before responding. “Cathy was using my car. Maybe Lydia saw Cathy driving my car and assumed David was having an affair with me,” she said, because she honestly didn’t know the reason behind the warning.
“Yeah, but that doesn’t explain the calls to your employer before last week.”
Raven thought a while and then it hit her. Three weeks ago, when she was supposed to go to that conference with Willie. She didn’t want to go, so Cathy went in her place. Willie wasn’t happy, but there wasn’t much for her to do there so he went along with it. Now it all made sense. Cathy was going to meet up with David Sinclair at the conference. She had used Raven’s name tag at the conference, and in all actuality people thought Cathy was her.
She looked at Don. “Cathy did go to a conference in my place a while back.”
“Did this Lydia know what you looked like?” Don asked.
Raven thought for a moment and then shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“So, if David’s wife got wind of what happened at the conference and saw Cathy in your car, she might feasibly think it was you?” Don said and then started the engine and sped off down the road.
Raven just shrugged and thought for a moment. “You put it that way, yeah. But David’s wife hardly seemed the type to get her hands dirty.”
“It was a shotgun that killed the woman,” Don said.
“Oh my God, what a horrible way to go.”
“So you don’t think David’s wife was capable?” Don asked.
“I don’t know about that. I do know David and Lydia shoot skeet, but that’s a far cry from killing a person.”
Don turned to her and snickered. “Can you be certain she isn’t the type of woman to do what it takes to keep her man?”
He didn’t want to disillusion Raven, but he’d seen the worst in people through the years. He had seen kindly grandmas poison their grandchildren, or mothers drown their infants in the bathtub, all in the name of love. There was a side to human nature that even he couldn’t understand. So he was hardened to the fact that a woman such as Lydia wouldn’t be capable of such a horrendous crime.
Raven just shrugged. “She’s high society.”
“So what makes them so special?”
“You’d have to see her to understand what I mean. Now, David would be another story.”
“You don’t like him?” Don asked.
“Willie hired him, he ran an accounting firm. He’s what you’d call a mover. He makes things happen.” She said that in a way that indicated she wasn’t impressed with the guy or his business.
“Sounds like a real jerk,” Don said and then looked at Raven for her reaction. Don was still a little unsure of Raven. But there was a side of him that wanted to trust what she said explicitly.
“He always gave me the creeps. I could never see what Cathy saw in him.”
Raven seemed to clam up after that. She was digesting the information on the tape, fearing it was a clue as to who killed her friend. Because, although it was not official, she knew there could only be one person who it could be, and that was Cathy. She did not want to say it out loud, but she feared that the cause of her death was her ill-fated affair with a married man.
Don didn’t actually come out and say it, but it made sense now because Cathy was using Raven’s car. Was it Raven the murderer was after, or did Cathy get caught up in some domestic dispute because of her affair with David Sinclair? He was unsure who the actual target could be. Cathy was staying at Raven’s house, so Lydia could have gotten the two mixed up and Raven was just caught up in the mess. It still didn’t explain the Senator’s involvement in all of this.
Don, on the other hand, just let Raven stew on what they just listened to. He was angry at her attitude toward her friend’s affair and how nonchalant she was about corruption in politics. He wished she was more passionate about what was right and what was wrong. He would then have a clearer picture of who she was.
They finally pulled up to the station house. Don was off duty that Saturday. Under normal circumstances he would not have made an appearance, but this case was different. People were being shot at all around him. He could not rest until this was solved.
Chapter 18
Don got out of the squad car, followed closely by Raven. Neither one talked while hurrying through the station house. Don occasionally glanced back at Raven to make sure she was keeping up with him. He was troubled by all the information he had to digest. It all seemed illogical that murder was the end result of infidelity when a divorce could be easily obtained. Why dirty your hands at the risk of a lifetime vacation furnished by the federal government?
Even pilfering campaign funds didn’t seem worth the risk. How much money was enough? Rich people didn’t seem happier just because they had more money, and who needs a six-thousand-dollar shower curtain when a thirty-eight-dollar one from a local retailer was just as good. What made the one for thousands worth so much more? Don never could figure that one out.
It angered Don that in the end most crimes came down to greed. People never seemed happy with what they had, always wanting more or what the next person had. He always tried to make it his goal not to envy what others had and be content with what he was able to afford. In the end it may not have been much, but he could look at himself in the mirror in the morning and not be ashamed. That was why he wasn’t pressing charges against Jackie for cleaning him out. He was just glad to be rid of her.
Don guided Raven through the rows of empty desks to the far end, where Charlie sat in front of the computer monitor studying the screen intently. Charlie was close to retirement. His wife passed away a few years back. His whole life was the work he did on the job, so even on Saturdays he would come in to work on old cold cases when there wasn’t an active investigation that his services were needed for. Charlie glanced up when Don stopped in front of his desk with Raven behind him.
“Whoever came up with this code was a genius.”
“You crack it yet?” Don asked with a look of excitement.
“Did I say that?”
> Don tossed the slip of paper Raven gave him across the desk.
Charlie picked it up with a puzzled look on his face as Don turned back to Raven. She hadn’t said much on their walk through the station house and seemed somewhat intimidated by everyone’s interest in what Willie was working on.
On turned to Raven. “Is there anything else Senator Maxfield gave you that we should know about?”
Raven just raised her hands while shaking her head. “That’s it,” she said.
Charlie stared at the sheet of numbers and letters. He set it down and pressed the insert key and typed in the letters that coincided with the numbers on the sheet. After a few entries, Charlie sat back while Raven and Don quickly leaned over the screen to see what it said.
Charlie appeared puzzled. “There is no reasoning behind the code,” he said and then continued shaking his head. “Nothing what-so-ever,” he snapped.
“There was no method to his madness either. Everything was random,” Raven added.
“What’s with this guy?” Don asked.
“That’s how Willie was. Nothing made sense and nothing added up, so to speak.”
Charlie punched in a few more characters and then looked up at Don and Raven. “It’s going to take me a few days to get through all these documents.”
Don glanced at the screen again, and in the first two lines the name Maxfield showed up twice. He appeared a little puzzled and then turned to Raven.
“He even investigated himself?” Don said pointing to the name on screen.
Raven just shrugged. “He didn’t tell me.”
Charlie watched the two closely. He’d known Don personally for ten years now. In all that time Don never looked at his girlfriends the way he kept glancing at this girl he was with that morning.
Don knew he was being observed by Charlie. He purposely studied the screen for the longest time, but then he ran his fingers along the back of his head where he got hit the day before. He turned to Raven and stared at her. When he sensed Charlie was still watching him, he quickly asked Raven.