by Tami Hoag
“You think I'm not reacting in the typical way of a parent of a murdered child? Is there a typical reaction?”
“Typical is maybe not the word. Some reactions are more common than others.”
“I don't know anything that would be pertinent to the case. Therefore, I have nothing further to tell the police. A stranger abducted and murdered my daughter. How could they expect me to have any information relevant to such a senseless act?”
Bondurant led the way into a spacious office and closed the door. The room was dominated by a massive U-shaped mahogany desk, one wing of which was devoted to computer equipment, one to paperwork. The center section was meticulously neat, the blotter spotless, every pen and paper clip in its place.
“Take your coat off, Agent Quinn. Have a seat.” He gestured a thin hand toward a pair of oxblood leather chairs while he went around the desk to claim his own place in a high-backed executive's throne.
Putting distance and authority between them, Quinn thought, shrugging out of his topcoat. Putting me in my place. He settled into a chair, realizing immediately that it squatted just a little too low to the ground, just enough to make its occupant feel vaguely small.
“Some maniac murdered my daughter,” Bondurant said again calmly. “In the face of that, I can't really give a good goddamn what anyone thinks of my behavior. Besides, I am helping the investigation: I brought you here.”
Another reminder of the balance of power, softly spoken.
“And you're willing to talk to me?”
“Bob Brewster says you're the best.”
“Thank the director for me the next time you speak to him. Our paths don't cross that often,” Quinn returned, deliberately unimpressed by the man's implied cozy familiarity with the director of the FBI.
“He says this type of murder is your specialty.”
“Yes, but I'm not a hired gun, Mr. Bondurant. I want to be very clear on that. I'll do what I can in terms of building a profile and advising as to investigative techniques. If a suspect is brought in, I'll offer an interview strategy. In the event of a trial, I'll testify as an expert witness and offer my expertise to the prosecution regarding the questioning of witnesses. I'll do my job, and I'll do it well, but I don't work for you, Mr. Bondurant.”
Bondurant absorbed this information expressionless. His face was as bony and severe as his attorney's, but without the relief of the too-wide smile. A hard mask, impossible to see past.
“I want Jillian's killer caught. I'll deal with you because you're the best and because I've been told I can trust you not to sell out.”
“Sell out? In what way?”
“To the media. I'm a very private man in a very public position. I hate the idea that millions of strangers will know the intimate details of my daughter's death. It seems like it should be a very private, personal thing—the ending of a life.”
“It should be. It's the taking of a life that can't be kept quiet—for everyone's sake.”
“I suppose what I really dread isn't people knowing about Jillie's death so much as their ravenous desire to tear apart her life. And mine—I'll admit that.”
Quinn shifted in his chair, casually crossing his legs, and offered the barest hint of a sympathetic smile. Settling in. The I-could-be-your-friend guise. “That's understandable. Has the press been hounding you? It looks like they're camped out front.”
“I refuse to deal with them. I've pulled in my media relations coordinator from Paragon to handle it. The thing that angers me most is their sense of entitlement. Because I'm wealthy, because I'm prominent, they think they have some right to invade my grief. Do you think they parked their news vans in front of the homes of the parents of the two prostitutes this maniac killed? I can assure you they didn't.”
“We live in a society addicted to sensationalism,” Quinn said. “Some people are deemed newsworthy and some are considered disposable. I'm not sure which side of the coin is worse. I can just about guarantee you the parents of those first two victims are sitting at home wondering why news vans aren't parked in front of their houses.”
“You think they'd like people to know how they failed as parents?” Bondurant asked, a slim shadow of anger darkening his tone. “You think they'd like people to know why their daughters became whores and drug addicts?”
Guilt and blame. How much of that was he projecting from his own pain? Quinn wondered.
“About this witness,” Bondurant said again, seeming a little shaken by his last near-revelation. He moved a notepad on his desk a quarter of an inch. “Do you think she'll be able to identify the killer? She doesn't sound very reliable.”
“I don't know,” Quinn said, knowing exactly where Bondurant had gotten his information. Kovac was going to have to do his best to plug that leak, which would mean stepping on some very sensitive, influential toes. The victim's family was entitled to certain courtesies, but this investigation needed as tight an environment as possible. Peter Bondurant couldn't be allowed total access. He in fact had not been ruled out as a viable suspect.
“Well . . . we can only hope . . .” Bondurant murmured.
His gaze strayed to the wall that held an assortment of framed photographs, many of himself with men Quinn had to assume were business associates or rivals or dignitaries. He spotted Bob Brewster among the crowd, then found what Bondurant had turned to: a small cluster of photographs on the lower left-hand corner.
Quinn rose from his chair and went to the wall for a closer inspection. Jillian at various stages of her life. He recognized her from a snapshot in the case file. One photograph in particular drew his eye: a young woman out of place in a prim black dress with a white Peter Pan collar and cuffs. Her hair was cut boyishly short and bleached nearly white. A striking contrast to the dark roots and brows. Half a dozen earrings ornamented one ear. A tiny ruby studded one nostril. She resembled her father in no way at all. Her body, her face, were softer, rounder. Her eyes were huge and sad, the camera catching the vulnerability she felt at not being the politely feminine creature of someone else's expectations.
“Pretty girl,” Quinn murmured automatically. It didn't matter that it wasn't precisely true. The statement was made for a purpose other than flattery. “She must have felt very close to you, coming back here from Europe for college.”
“Our relationship was complicated.” Bondurant rose from his chair and hovered beside it, tense and uncertain, as if a part of him wanted to go to the photographs but a stronger part held him back. “We were close when she was young. Then her mother and I divorced when Jillie was at a vulnerable age. It was difficult for her—the antagonism between Sophie and me. Then came Serge, Sophie's last husband. And Sophie's illness—she was in and out of institutions for depression.”
He was silent for a stretch of time, and Quinn could feel the weight of everything Bondurant was omitting from the story. What had precipitated the divorce? What had driven Sophie's mental illness? Was the distaste in Bondurant's voice when he spoke of his successor bitterness over a rival or something more?
“What was she studying at the university?” he asked, knowing better than to go directly for the other answers he wanted. Peter Bondurant wouldn't give up his secrets that easily, if he gave them up at all.
“Psychology,” he said with the driest hint of irony as he stared at the photo of her in the black dress and bleached boy-cut, the earrings and pierced nose and unhappy eyes.
“Did you see her often?”
“Every Friday. She came for dinner.”
“How many people knew that?”
“I don't know. My housekeeper, my personal assistant, a few close friends. Some of Jillian's friends, I suppose.”
“Do you have additional staff here at the house or just the housekeeper?”
“Helen is full-time. A girl comes in to help her clean once a week. There's a grounds crew of three who come weekly. That's all. I prefer my privacy to a staff. My needs aren't that extravagant.”
“Friday's usually
a hot night on the town for college kids. Jillian wasn't into the club scene?”
“No. She'd grown past it.”
“Did she have many close friends?”
“Not that she spoke about with me. She was a very private person. The only one she mentioned with any regularity was a waitress at a coffee bar. Michele something. I never met her.”
“Did she have a boyfriend?”
“No,” he said, turning away. French doors behind his desk led out to a flagstone courtyard of vacant benches and empty planters. He stared through the glass as if he were looking through a portal into another time. “Boys didn't interest her. She didn't want temporary relationships. She'd been through so much. . . .”
His thin mouth quivered slightly, and a deep pain came into his eyes. The strongest sign of inner emotion he had shown. “She had so much life ahead of her,” he murmured. “I wish this hadn't happened.”
Quinn quietly moved in alongside him. His voice was low and soft, the voice of sad experience and understanding. “That's the hardest thing to cope with when a young person dies—especially when they've been murdered. The unfulfilled dreams, the unrealized potential. The people close to them—family, friends—thought they had so much time to make up for mistakes, plenty of time down the road to tell that person they loved them. Suddenly that time is gone.”
He could see the muscles of Bondurant's face tighten against the pain. He could see the suffering in the eyes, that hint of desperation at the knowledge the emotional tidal wave was coming, and the fear that there may not be enough strength to hold it back.
“At least you had that last evening together,” Quinn murmured. “That should be some comfort to you.”
Or it could be the bitter, lasting reminder of every unresolved issue left between father and daughter. The raw wound of opportunity lost. Quinn could almost taste the regret in the air.
“How was she that night?” he asked quietly. “Did she seem up or down?”
“She was”—Bondurant swallowed hard and searched for the appropriate word—“herself. Jillie was always up one minute and down the next. Volatile.”
The daughter of a woman in and out of institutions for psychiatric problems.
“She didn't give any sign something was bothering her, that she was worried about anything?”
“No.”
“Did you discuss anything in particular, or argue about—”
Bondurant's explosion was sudden, strong, surprising. “My God, if I'd thought there was anything wrong, if I'd thought something was going to happen, don't you think I would have stopped her from leaving? Don't you think I would have kept her here?”
“I'm sure you would have,” Quinn said softly, the voice of compassion and reassurance, emotions he had stopped giving out in full measure long ago because it took too much from him and there was no one around to help him refill the well. He tried to keep his focus on his underlying motive, which was to get information. Manipulate, coax, slip under the guard, draw out the truth a sliver at a time. Get the info to get the killer. Remember that the first person he owed his allegiance to was the victim.
“What did you talk about that night?” he asked gently as Bondurant worked visibly to gather his composure.
“The usual things,” he said, impatient, looking out the window again. “Her classes. My work. Nothing.”
“Her therapy?”
“No, she—” He stiffened, then turned to glare at Quinn.
“We need to know these things, Mr. Bondurant,” Quinn said without apology. “With every victim we have to consider the possibility that some part of their life may have a link to their death. It may be the thinnest thread that ties one thing to the other. It might be something you don't think could be important at all. But sometimes that's all it takes, and sometimes that's all we have.
“Do you understand what I'm telling you? We'll do everything in our power to keep details confidential, but if you want this killer apprehended, you have to cooperate with us.”
The explanation did nothing to soften Bondurant's anger. He turned abruptly back to the desk and pulled a card from the Rolodex. “Dr. Lucas Brandt. For all the good it will do you. I'm sure I don't have to tell you that anything Jillian related to Lucas as a patient is confidential.”
“And what about anything she related to you as her father?”
His temper came in another quick flash, boiling up and over the rigid control. “If I knew anything, anything that could lead you to my daughter's murderer, don't you think I would tell you?”
Quinn was silent, his unblinking gaze steady on Peter Bondurant's face, on the vein that slashed down across his high forehead like a bolt of lightning. He pulled the Rolodex card from Bondurant's fingers.
“I hope so, Mr. Bondurant,” he said at last. “Some other young woman's life may depend on it.”
“WHAT'D YOU GET?” Kovac asked as they walked away from the house. He lit a cigarette and went to work sucking in as much of it as he could before they reached the car.
Quinn stared down the driveway and past the gate where two cameramen stood with eyes pressed to view-finders. There was no long-range audio equipment in sight, but the lenses on the cameras were fat and long. His period of anonymity was going into countdown.
“Yeah,” he said. “A bad feeling.”
“Jeez, I've had that from the start of this deal. You know what a man like Bondurant could do to a career?”
“My question is: Why would he want to?”
“'Cause he's rich and he's hurting. He's like that guy with the gun in the government center yesterday. He wants someone else to hurt. He wants someone to pay. Maybe if he can make someone else miserable, he won't feel his own pain so much. You know,” he said in that offhand way he had, “people are nuts. So what'd he say? Why won't he talk to us locals?”
“He doesn't trust you.”
Kovac straightened with affront and tossed his cigarette on the driveway. “Well, fuck him!”
“He's paranoid about details leaking to the media.”
“Like what details? What's he got to hide?”
Quinn shrugged. “That's your job, Sherlock. But I got you a place to start.”
They climbed into the Caprice. Quinn pulled the cassette recorder from his coat pocket and laid it on the seat between them with the Rolodex card on top of it.
Kovac picked up the card and frowned at it. “A shrink. What'd I tell you? People are nuts. Especially rich people—they're the only ones who can afford to do anything about it. It's like a hobby with them.”
Quinn stared up at the house, half expecting to see a face at one of the windows, but there was no one. All the windows were blank and black on this dreary morning.
“Was there ever any mention in the press about either of the first two victims being drug users?” he asked.
“No,” Kovac said. “The one used to be, but we held it back. Lila White. ‘Lily' White. The first vic. She was a basehead for a while, but she got herself straightened out. Went through a country program, lived at one of the hooker halfway houses for a while—only that part didn't take, I guess. Anyway, the drug angle didn't develop. Why?”
“Bondurant made a reference. Might have just been an assumption on his part, but I don't think so. I think either he knew something about the other victims or he knew something about Jillian.”
“If she was using anything around the time of her death, it'll show up in the tox screen. I went through her town house. I didn't see anything stronger than Tylenol.”
“If she was using, you might have a connection to the other victims.” And thereby a possible connection to a dealer or another user they could develop into a suspect.
The feral smile of the hunter on a fresh scent lifted the corners of Kovac's mustache. “Networking. I love it. Corporate America thinks they're on to something new. Crooks have been networking since Judas sold Jesus Christ down the river. I'll call Liska, have her and Moss nose around. Then let's go see what Sigmun
d Fraud here has to say about the price of loose marbles.” He tapped the Rolodex card against the steering wheel. “His office is on the other side of this lake.”
10
CHAPTER
“SO WHAT DO you think of Quinn?” Liska asked.
Mary Moss rode shotgun, looking out the window at the Mississippi. Barge traffic had given up for the year. Along this stretch, the river was a deserted strip of brown between ratty, half-abandoned industrial and warehouse blocks. “They say he's hot stuff. A legend in the making.”
“You've never worked with him?”
“No. Roger Emerson usually works this territory out of Quantico. But then, the vic isn't usually the daughter of a billionaire captain of industry with contacts in Washington.
“I liked the way he handled Tippen,” Moss went on. “No bully-boy, I'm-the-fed-and-you're-a-hick nonsense. I think he's a quick study of people. Probably frighteningly intelligent. What'd you think?”
Liska sent her a lascivious grin. “Nice pants.”
“God! Here I was being serious and professional, and you were looking at his ass!”
“Well, not when he was talking. But, come on, Mar, the guy's a total babe. Wouldn't you like a piece of that if you could get it?”
Moss looked flustered. “Don't ask me things like that. I'm an old married woman! I'm an old married Catholic woman!”
“As long as the word dead doesn't figure into that description, you're allowed to look.”
“Nice pants,” Moss muttered, fighting chuckles.
“Those big brown eyes, that granite jaw, that sexy mouth. I think I could have an orgasm watching him talk about proactive strategies.”
“Nikki!”
“Oh, that's right, you're a married woman,” Liska teased. “You're not allowed to have orgasms.”
“Do you talk this way when you're riding around with Kovac?”
“Only if I want to get him crazy. He twitches like a gigged frog. Tells me he doesn't want to know anything about my orgasms, that a woman's G spot should just remain a mystery. I tell him that's why he's been divorced twice. You should see how red he gets. I love Kovac—he's such a guy.”