Sharon Stover's fortunes were dependent on the success of her movie. Takrit had threatened those fortunes. When Takrit held back the thumb drive, Stover assaulted her and—
Finn had not quite figured out about the bridge and why Sharon Stover would take Takrit there to kill her, but he did know there was no better scapegoat than pointing a finger at Abu, a foreign villain standing in her own backyard. If Finn could convince Fowler that a U.S. citizen might be responsible for the murder, the political roadblock would be cleared and justice might still be served.
Still, acknowledging that Thomas had also been persuasive in his argument that this whole thing might be a fiction, Finn decided to reserve judgment until he heard from the woman herself. Either way, Sharon Stover was at the heart of whatever had happened to Takrit and Finn was determined to get answers.
He pushed the call button once more. Receiving no response from the house, seeing the glow of the lights through the trees led him to believe that someone was home, Finn's patience ran short. He pushed the button once again; trying to decide what he would do if his call wasn't answered. But it was answered. Just not in the way he expected.
"Madres Dios. Help us."
CHAPTER 38
Detective Morrow had notified the airports to detain Mr. Oliver Smythe should he attempt to board a commercial airliner. He had disseminated a picture of Mr. Smythe – though it was a few years old – to all the hospitals and emergency care units in the greater Los Angeles area. Having Cori's sworn statement, his own notes from the crime scene, two eyewitnesses who had seen a blond man in a black hoodie lingering near the entrance of The Mercato, plus an eyewitness from one of the other stores who had seen him by the trash bin, Detective Morrow had easily been granted a warrant to search Oliver Smythe's hotel room, the suite of Emanuel Dega Abu and the room of a man named Rada.
Before he bid Thomas Lapinski goodbye, he listened to the lawyer's frustration at the mixed signals he was receiving from his software. Thomas had a pinpoint match on hair color, skin tone on the jaw and chin area and the height of the person with Takrit. He also had a match on the shadows made by the letters on the jacket that person was wearing. It was a USC letterman's jacket, but not a new one. Lapinski, though, had little confidence in the recognition program that seemed to change every five minutes. Thomas asked if Morrow thought he should call Detective O'Brien and have him stand down until he had more to go on.
Detective Morrow said he saw no reason that Detective O'Brien should not talk to Sharon Stover, thanked Amber for the pizza and asked her to wish her mother well. Amber shook his hand and thanked him back. He was quite pleased by that since few people remembered to thank him for anything.
Detective Morrow's first stop was at the Ritz Carlton's front desk where he discreetly showed his badge and explained his chore. He was immediately escorted to the manager's office.
Once there, he explained what he was about to do once again, reassured the manager that this would be accomplished with minimal intrusion and requested that he be shown the best route by which to extract Mr. Smythe from the hotel. He allowed the manager a good long look at his warrant and then requested a security detail and the manager's presence to make sure everything was above board. This was acceptable to the manager who assembled his team. Soon they were on their way.
The first stop was Mr. Smythe's room. He was not in residence so Morrow looked through the room carefully. He found bloody clothes in a hotel laundry bag. He saw the medicine at the bedside and a passport issued to Oliver Smythe who was blond, six feet tall and weighed in at one hundred and ninety pounds. He noted that Thomas Lapinski's computer could just as easily have matched this man's square jaw and honey toned skin to the image taken off the security tapes as well as it matched Sharon Stover. Morrow saw a boarding pass for a commercial flight later that very evening. When Morrow was finished, he requested that the room be sealed and the current key card disabled.
They went on to the Presidential Suite: Detective Morrow, the manager and the two security officers. From the coded private elevator, to the cameras so tastefully mounted near the ceiling, and the heavy doors to the suite that he had no doubt were bulletproof, it was all a perfect environment for a man in Abu's position. Still, someone had been careless and the door to the suite stood ajar.
Detective Morrow called out and received only resounding silence in return. He asked the manager and his staff to remain alert in the hall, drew a gun from his well-worn plaid jacket, gave one nod of farewell, and went into the suite.
***
Finn made a call for back up but did not wait for it to arrive. Instead, he left the headlights on and ran for the trees and underbrush. He was relieved to find that the gates provided only the illusion of a great wall surrounding the property. In reality, they were mounted on a manageable six-foot tall cinderblock wall all but hidden by foliage.
Gun drawn, he went over that wall with ease and kept to the grounds, staying low as he made his way up the hill toward the house, keeping parallel to the drive. When Finn reached the top where the pavers fanned out onto the great roundabout he saw two cars: a black Range Rover with personalized plates that read STNTWMN and another that was so old the grey paint had oxidized. He moved into the drive, thinking that Rada's long black car must be around somewhere but all he saw was a Jeep parked close to the back unit.
Finn worked his way to Matt's apartment. The door was open, the lights were on but the apartment was empty. Finn opened the sliding glass door and went across the deck to the wall of glass. Quickly, he searched for a mechanism that would open it from the outside. Finding none, he went to the front of the house knowing he would have to break the glass on the front door to get in. That wasn't a prospect that excited him given the noise it would make. Still, it was the best he could come up with on short notice.
When he got to the entrance, Finn went down the path on hands and knees, cursing the person who thought to put so much glass in this house. He raised a hand and pushed on the armless mermaid. Surprised when the door swung open, he blessed the last person who had entered and not locked it.
Finn stopped first near the statue of the man sitting on the steel ball. He listened. When he heard nothing, Finn moved catty corner into the main room, put his back up against a solid wall and ran over the layout of the bottom floor in his head: long, wide bar, white couches facing the huge deck, beyond that the pool, beyond that the canyon, and beyond that the city. To his left he remembered that there was a staircase. To the right of the couches was the theater: sound proof, dark, filled with chairs big enough to hide a person with ill intent.
Tonight though, the door to the theater was open because Finn could hear the raised voices of a man and woman as they argued. Though he couldn't make out the words, he knew the sound of fury and hatred when he heard it. The two people were moving from one side of the theater to the other, their voices waxing and waning. Knowing the heat of their exchange would keep them occupied, Finn dashed for the bar in the great room only to detour, diving through an open closet door when he heard the voices get louder. In the dark, a woman yelped and he felt her scramble away toward the back of the little room. Finn pushed aside a coat and moved to her side, gun down, his free hand out to calm her.
"I'm the police," he whispered. "Do you understand me?"
"Si. Si."
"Who are you?" Finn asked.
"Cordelia. The maid," she whispered.
"Fine. Okay." Finn got on his haunches. He peered around the open door and then went back to her. "Are you hurt?"
"No, sir," she answered only to add, "a little maybe."
"We'll see to you," Finn promised. "Can you tell me how many are in the house?"
"Me only. Missus Sharon is in the movie room with—"
There was a crash and Cordelia jumped, pulling into a fetal position as she cowered. Finn put a hand on her back.
"Please, look at me now, missus. Look," Finn kept his voice low and his hand steady until the woman looked at
him. "Can you get to the place where you can talk through the gate intercom again like you did for me?"
"Si. Si."
"Alright then. That's good. Take this." Finn handed her his phone. "You call nine-one-one and you say that you are calling for Detective O'Brien who has called for backup. You tell the officers who are coming not to push the intercom button when they arrive but to have the dispatcher tell you when they are here. Tell them you'll open the gates and that you'll be outside. Good. Good. Then you tell them who the three of us are in here. After you open the gate, you go out that front door and run. You hide behind the black car."
"Yes, mister." Cordelia took the phone but jumped when there was another crash in the theater. Finn pushed the phone into her hand.
"You'll be fine. I'll have them looking at me. Go now."
Finn gave her hand a squeeze and inched out from the closet. The door of the theater stood wide open and Finn could see the shadows of two people moving about. He pulled his lips together and tightened his hand on his weapon praying he would not have to use it. But the time for praying was over. Sharon Stover sprinted across the living room as a man gave chase. Finn stepped fully into the room and raised his gun:
"Stop or you're a dead man."
Behind him, the maid said, 'no' but Finn could not be distracted. The man paused, confused by the sound of Finn's voice. Sharon Stover threw herself against the wall, arms out against it.
"Turn on the lights, missus," Finn directed. "Do it now!"
Sharon inched across the wall, her hands searching for and finding the dimmer. In the next second the lights came up just bright enough for Finn to see that he had his gun trained on Matthew Stover. He also saw that the boy didn't care. He was in the moment, consumed with rage. Unable to stop himself, he started for Sharon with a murderous cry. Finn aimed above his head and pulled the trigger. The bullet smashed into the wall of glass. Matthew swung toward Finn who adjusted his aim.
"Please do not make me shoot you, Matthew," he said. "Please, boy."
Before Matthew could make his decision, before Sharon Stover could get out of harm's way or Cordelia could run, while they were frozen waiting to see what Matthew would do, that cavernous, cold house was suddenly filled with the sweet sound of music. It was a foreign tune; it was an Ethiopian folk song.
Someone was calling a woman who was long dead.
***
While Detective Morrow was very sure that he would not need his gun, he did proceed through the Presidential suite with the utmost caution and by the book. When he found nothing untoward in the living area, he went to the bedroom. It was there he found two men. On the floor next to the window lay the man he knew to be Oliver Smythe. He had a bullet through his head. On the bed lay Emanuel Dega Abu, also deceased.
Detective Morrow checked Mr. Smythe first and confirmed that he was very completely dead. Being careful where he stepped, Morrow checked for a pulse on Mr. Abu and, as expected, found none. The detective lifted one of the man's eyelids and noted the petechial hemorrhaging that accompanies death by asphyxiation. Detective Morrow also noticed other things.
Abu was well turned out in black tie and his shirt collar had not been disturbed but there was a pillow out of place. This led Morrow to assume – pending corroboration – that Abu had not been garroted or strangled but rather done in by extreme force being exerted on the man's face with the pillow. Given the status of the victim and the fact that he was in fancy dress, Morrow would call Captain Fowler to suggest that he get in touch with the LAPD Communications Director so that he could prepare for press inquiries. It was a certainty that someone of importance would be missing Mr. Abu soon.
Detective Morrow saw a gun on the floor but it was not beside Mr. Smythe and that meant this could not be a murder suicide. If Smythe killed Abu and shot himself, the gun would be much closer to Smythe's body. Yet, if Abu shot Mr. Smythe, how did Abu die? One cannot, after all, strangle oneself.
As he thought about this, Detective Morrow saw that the thick, down comforter was caught up under Abu's hand exposing the bottom sheet and box spring, both of which appeared to be bloody.
Curious about the blood when the victim had been smothered, Detective Morrow secured his weapon and used the tips of his fingers to lift the comforter. Indeed, the linens were bloody – extremely so – and that truly piqued his curiosity. He continued to lift that comforter up and up until he saw that the man had another injury that obviously could not be self-inflicted. It appeared that someone had relieved Emanuel Dega Abu of his genitalia and placed those organs neatly beside the body.
Detective Morrow replaced the comforter, retraced his steps precisely and went to call for a crime scene team and notified the coroner's assistants. Before he did that, he informed the manager that it would be a while before the Presidential Suite was ready for another president.
***
Finn held the blue purse as he stood aside and let every one do their work. The paramedics tended to Sharon Stover while one police officer took a statement from the maid, Cordelia, and another sealed the guesthouse where Matthew lived in anticipation of the arrival of a forensic team. Matthew sat on the thick lawn with his hands cuffed behind him, his knees up and his head hanging. The only bright spot in this sad evening was that Matthew had crumbled before Finn had to take him down. Seeing that the paramedics were almost done patching up Sharon Stover, Finn started for her but stopped when his phone rang.
"O'Brien," he said.
"It's Thomas."
"Thomas, I'm a bit—"
"Just listen. Before you go into that house, I need to tell you I was wrong. The last tape I looked at that came from USC's garage? Takrit's red car went in. Guess who came out with her? The kid in the picture with Sharon Stover. He was dragging Takrit with him and he looked right at the camera. The kid. Can you believe it?"
Finn put his fingers to his eyes and rubbed. He sighed deeply and said:
"Yes, I can believe it. Thank you, Thomas. Thank you."
Finn closed his phone and went to talk to the woman with one leg. Her head was bandaged and her clothes torn. She was leaning against the back of the emergency van, looking at him defiantly.
"Don't expect me to say I'm sorry for anything."
"I'm expecting nothing, missus." Finn held up the blue purse. "Who does this belong to?"
"Takrit. I bought it for her. It was a gift."
"And the phone? That is hers?"
Sharon nodded. "Yes."
"How did it get in the house?" Finn asked.
"I don't know. I swear, I don't," she said but when Finn kept looking at her she flared. "Give me a break. You think because that was in my house it proves that I killed her?"
"I know you didn't kill her, but I'm wondering if you sent the boy out to do it. Was it you who hit Takrit when she wouldn't give you the drive? When she was hurt so badly, did you tell that boy to take her away?"
"That's rich," she snorted. "He wouldn't lift a finger for me. I don't know how the purse got in the house. Takrit had it the morning she left the house and I never saw her again. I don't care what you think. I don't care what it looks like. I'm done."
She pushed herself off the van and then looked over her shoulder at Matthew.
"You are going to arrest him for attacking me, right? You should charge him with attempted murder, the little shit."
Sharon looked back at Finn and he could hardly believe the hardness of this woman's heart for a boy she had been entrusted with.
"I'm going to book him for murdering Takrit," Finn said. Sharon looked back at him, those cat eyes of hers narrowing.
"Why would he? He never said more than two words to her."
"I don't know," he said. "But I intend to find out."
Finn started to walk away but Sharon Stover wasn't done with him yet.
"O'Brien."
He turned around. She nodded at the purse.
"I have to know. Is it in there? Did she come back here to give me that drive?"
Finn shook his head in disbelief. This woman's movie, her fortune, it all came before the boy sitting on the grass. Finn waited a second more and then opened the purse. Inside was Takrit's phone along with a wallet, a lipstick and a sealed envelope. Finn took it out. Both of them could see the outline of something small and hard. He shook it and the thumb drive bounced around inside.
"It's mine," Sharon said.
"It's evidence," Finn answered.
Before she could argue, one of the uniformed officers called him over to Cordelia. Finn passed the man the purse and asked him to bag it. He smiled at the maid who wrung her hands at his approach. Her cheek was swelling and her eyes had not lost the look of fear.
"How are you feeling?" Finn asked.
"Bueno," she said, but Finn knew it to be a lie. "I want to tell you. The purse. It was in Matthew's room. I thought he was stealing from Missus Sharon, so when I found it I put it in the house. I didn't know it was Miss Diane's. I didn't want him to get in trouble." She looked at Matthew. "He will go to jail now, si?"
"He will." Finn patted her shoulder when she began to cry. "You go on home. You go to your family. I'll be with him."
Cordelia nodded but she knew it didn't matter who was with Matthew. His troubles were his alone.
Finn walked over to the grass. It was darker there because the landscape lighting had not been wasted on the back of the house. He stood near the boy for a second before he said:
"You don't need to talk with me, but the more I know the more I can help." When Matthew remained silent, Finn asked, "Why would you do such a thing to that woman? Why would you want to hurt your stepmother?"
Foreign Relations: A Finn O'Brien Thriller (Finn O'Brien Thriller Series Book 2) Page 27