Corruption of Power

by Brenda English

  “You were right about Ed Lloyd—and about Hub Taylor,” he answered. “Both of them were Morris’s patients, and I confirmed their blood types.”

  “So, don’t keep me in suspense.”

  “Lloyd is AB-negative, just like Morris told you, and Taylor is O-positive.”

  “I can’t say I’m real surprised,” I responded. “Of course, there’s still a problem.”

  “How do I do anything with it?” he asked, finishing my thought.

  “Right. It doesn’t prove anything.”

  “Not a goddamned thing,” Lansing agreed angrily, but this time I knew it wasn’t me he was mad at. “I still can’t connect Lloyd or Taylor to Ann Kane. DNA testing could do it, but we’re a hell of a long way from having any grounds for ordering either one of them to submit to that. I can’t even nail Taylor for killing his wife. I think he did it. And he looks more strung out over it every day. But the fact that the guy has no alibi isn’t anywhere close to a motive or proof.”

  He took another swallow of his beer and stewed.

  “So now what?” I asked finally. I still hadn’t figured out why he was here telling me all this.

  He looked at me.

  “I want to offer you a deal.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “We share information. For real. No secrets. No competition. I’ll keep your information to myself. In return, none of the rest of the press will get anything out of me until you have it first.”

  “Why?” This was a major capitulation on his part. It must have been painful. I had to know what motive was big enough to drive him to it.

  “Because the sons of bitches are going to get away with all this, unless I find a way to hang it on them. Unless we find a way.”

  “Does it matter that much to you?” I asked.

  Lansing leaned forward, resting his forearms on his thighs, looking into his beer mug.

  “Yes,” he said quietly. “It does.” He paused, giving me a measuring look. “My wife…”

  “I know what happened,” I said. “Bill told me.”

  He looked up questioningly, then seemed to answer his question for himself.

  “No one was ever even charged,” he explained. “The bastards tortured her and killed her and got away with it. Oh, they were tried and convicted for drug trafficking. I had enough on them to help put them away for that. But nobody ever paid for what they did to Sarah. It all got real personal for me after that. It was the last time I had to let a case go unsolved… until now. And I’ll be damned if I’ll let this one go. One way or another, I want these assholes!”

  I pondered his proposal. I could see the advantages for me, of course: direct and immediate access to whatever the chief investigator knew about two major stories. But there were also disadvantages. I would have to be just as forthcoming with what I already knew—such as Maggie Padgett’s identity—and anything else Ken or I turned up. And Ken might not appreciate my committing him to such a pact with the devil without asking first. Still, both stories were going nowhere fast. My gut told me this might be the only way I would have anything else substantive to say in print about either one. And it probably was the only way to keep Sy Berkowitz off my ass.

  “So you’ve really decided to trust me?” I asked Lansing as he drained the last of the Guinness from the glass.

  “Let’s just say that the other thing Bill told me was about your sister. He says you were the one who found the scum who killed her when our guys were up against a blank wall.”

  “Oh really? And what else did Bill say?” I deliberately didn’t mention Cara’s murder to any of the cops I covered if they didn’t know about it already. I neither wanted them feeling sorry for me because my sister was murdered nor interpreting my involvement in solving the case as some sort of slap at the police.

  “That you have as many reasons as I do to want to see these guys exposed. And that I was wrong for calling you a voyeur that day in my office.”

  Clearly, I was going to either have to thank Bill or tell him to mind his own business—as soon as I figured out which.

  “Never mind all that,” I said, really wanting to get off this subject. “If you mean it, we’ve got a deal. But let me emphasize here that it had better go both ways. The first time I find out I’m the only one sharing, the deal is not only off, so is the cease-fire.”

  “Okay,” Lansing agreed. “The bottom line is that we’ll have to trust each other. So ask me what you want to know.”

  A possibility for a lead occurred to me.

  “What about phone calls to Ann Kane?” I asked. “Did you check the phone records?”

  “We did. There was nothing. Certainly nothing that would link Ed Lloyd to her. We tracked down every number she called and every number that she got calls from for six months before she died. Several from her own office. A couple from pay phones in the Russell Building. No way to know whether that could have been Lloyd.”

  I knew it was time to come clean about Maggie.

  “You should know that I’ve located Dr. Morris’s mystery woman,” I said. “The one Lloyd brought to Morris’s office.”

  “Who is she?” Lansing asked, his expression intensifying. “How did you find her?”

  “Her name is Maggie Padgett. She works for Senator Black, the other senator from Florida. Morris found Black’s business card in her coat pocket at his office that night, so I went to Black’s office thinking Black might have been the second guy with Ann Kane. Maggie is Black’s secretary. I ruled Black out after talking to his staff, but as soon as I saw Maggie, I knew she was the woman Morris had treated. His description of her was very specific, and she has these incredible violet-colored eyes that you can’t miss.”

  Lansing reached inside his jacket and pulled out his small notebook and pen and began taking notes.

  “So you talked to her?” he asked. “Did she confirm Morris’s story?”

  “No, she wouldn’t tell me anything, but it was clear she was frightened. There’s no question in my mind that she was the one.”

  “I’ll go down there first thing tomorrow, see if I can convince her to talk.”

  “No, wait,” I cautioned. “Let me have one more run at her. I think a cop will just scare her that much more. She knows how powerful Lloyd is. For all she knows, he has influence over the police. She can’t be sure you aren’t just making certain Lloyd will never be caught. But I think I may be able to get her to talk eventually.”

  I had another idea.

  “What about her phone records?” I asked. “Maybe Lloyd got cautious only after Maggie got sick on him.”

  “There’s nothing to base a subpoena for those on, unless she’s willing to file some kind of charges against Lloyd.”

  “Okay,” I said. “I’ll work on it. I may be able to get the information, even if it’s not official. It could at least tell us if there’s really a connection between Maggie and Lloyd.”

  “It’s worth looking at,” Lansing was saying when his pager began beeping. He undipped it from his belt and pressed a button to see who was trying to find him.

  “Can I use your phone?” he asked.

  “Sure. There’s one right there in the kitchen.”

  Lansing went around to the phone and held a brief conversation, then came back to the living room but didn’t sit back down.

  “That was the station,” he said, standing next to my chair. “They say they’ve got some college kid there asking for me who says he may have some information about the day Janet Taylor was killed. But that’s all he would tell them without me there.”

  “Did it sound like he’s for real?” I asked, unfolding my legs from underneath me and standing up.

  “Who knows?” he answered. “But I guess I’d better go back out there.”

  He turned and walked to the door. I followed to open it for him. In the doorway, he stopped again.

  “Will you be at the station in the morning?” he asked.

  “Early,” I told him. “You can
fill me in on whether there’s anything to the college kid’s story, and then Ken and I are going to see Maggie Padgett.”

  “All right, I’ll see you in the morning,” Lansing said. “Ah—thanks for the Guinness, and for…” He stopped, looking uncertain about what to call our bargain.

  “You, too,” I said, feeling somewhat awkward myself. “We’ll talk in the morning.”

  He nodded, took two steps down the hall toward the elevators, and then stopped and faced me again.

  “Interesting look, by the way,” he said, referring to my gym shorts and leotard. “Think it’ll catch on?”

  I gave him the finger, went inside, and closed the door, leaning against it for a moment in lust and frustration. Then I went to the phone.

  It was time for a chat with another source I had, this one an employee at Bell Atlantic whose nephew had been arrested last year in a murder case. The family had convinced me that it couldn’t have been Marcus, who was at a family party when the murder took place, an alibi the police had chosen to disbelieve because all the witnesses were relatives. Three months later Todd Fitzgerald, who covered the D.C. cops for the News, and I had pieced together enough in the way of eyewitnesses and other information to point the finger at a member of a D.C. street gang and to get Marcus released. At one point in our efforts, the uncle had gotten us copies of certain phone-company computer records that had been important in focusing the investigation on the guy who had done the killing. The result of it all was that I had friends for life in Marcus’s family and a direct line into the phone company when I needed it.

  Ralph White’s twelve-year-old daughter answered the phone, and I told her who it was and that I needed to talk to her dad.

  “Sutton,” Ralph answered a minute later in his warm baritone. “It’s good to hear from you!”

  “You, too, Ralph,” I responded. “Listen, I’m calling to impose on you for help with some information.”

  “Name it, Sutton,” he answered unhesitatingly. “If I can get it, it’s yours.”

  I gave him Maggie Padgett’s name and told him she lived in Arlington.

  “I need to know all the local calls she made and received in the last six months, and I need you to tell me whose numbers they are. Keep this to yourself, but I’m particularly interested in whether there were any calls to or from any office or home number for Senator Ed Lloyd, even if the home number is unlisted. I know this is a lot to ask, Ralph, but it’s really important.”

  “I’ll get it for you in the morning. You want me to call right away if I find anything especially interesting?”

  “Yes, the sooner the better,” I told him, hoping it would give me some ammunition to take to my next conversation with Maggie Padgett. “Call me as soon as you have anything. I need a printout, too, if you can swing it. But that’s not as urgent.”

  We went on to talk about the rest of his family and how they were. Marcus, who had been nineteen when he was arrested, was now a sophomore at the University of Maryland, with plans to go to law school. The whole thing had had a pretty profound effect on him.

  Eventually, our conversation wound down and we hung up. I went back to finish my exercise session and to ponder Lansing’s change of heart.

  Tuesday

  Twenty-five

  When I woke up Tuesday morning, the buzzing of my alarm clock gave me a dull, throbbing headache where Lloyd or someone he hired had whacked me over the head. I also realized I had been having a dream about Noah Lansing.

  Don’t kid yourself, my voice said as I struggled to the shower. Just because he changed his mind about your working arrangement doesn’t mean he’s changed his mind about you.

  I turned the shower on full force to drown the little bastard and stuck myself under the hot needle spray. Twenty minutes later, feeling a little closer to human, I got out, toweled off, and tried to decide whether today was a dress day or a slacks day. Slacks finally won out.

  At 7:30, I was at the Great Falls police station and was telling Jimmy Turner I needed to talk to Lansing when he walked in the front door behind me.

  “Morning, McPhee,” he said, walking over to open the inner door as Jimmy buzzed him in. “Come on back.”

  I followed him through, but not before glancing back to see Jimmy raising one eyebrow in a sardonic question. I grinned, shrugged my shoulders, and walked down the hall behind Lansing.

  In his office, he hung his jacket on the coat tree and asked if I would like coffee.

  “Love some,” I answered. “Just black, thanks.”

  “I’ll be right back,” Lansing said, and left me alone in his office, which I took as progress. Two days ago he wouldn’t have trusted me for ten seconds around his files or computer. I smiled to myself and warned my voice not to say a thing.

  In a couple of minutes he was back, setting two steaming cups of coffee on the desk. He sat down and leaned back in his chair.

  “Well, I spent an interesting night after I left your place,” he volunteered. Give the man an A for effort, I thought, allowing myself to hope that this trust thing might actually begin to work.

  “The college kid?”

  “Yeah. The bottom line is he can place Taylor’s car, or one exactly like it, at the house at one-thirty.”

  “Jesus! How?”

  “He was putting out flyers in the neighborhood for a pool service. You know, going door-to-door and sticking them in the door handles. The Taylor house was the next-to-last one he did before he had to stop and go off to his classes at George Mason University. That’s why he was watching the time. He says he’s a chemistry major.”

  “Maybe he killed Janet Taylor,” I suggested.

  “We said the same thing to him. Nearly scared the crap out of him. I don’t think it had occurred to him he could be a suspect. I asked why it had taken him so long to come in. He said he doesn’t read the papers every day and it wasn’t until yesterday he realized the Taylors lived in the neighborhood he had been working. Believe me, we grilled him pretty thoroughly, and he stuck to his guns. Even described Taylor’s car without any prompting from us. We also ran him on the computer.”

  “And?”

  “And he came back clean. No record. Not even a parking ticket.”

  “So you believe him?”

  “Yeah, I do. He agreed to take a lie-detector test and is coming back this afternoon to do it. We told him it would rule him out completely as a suspect in case we arrest anyone and he has to testify. But I don’t expect it to show anything. I think he’s for real.”

  “You think you can use this to get the truth out of Taylor?”

  “I don’t know, but it’s worth a shot. We’ve tried a couple more times to question him again, and he refuses to talk to us. Says his attorney has advised him not to answer any more questions. We’ve also got a tail on him as of last night. He looks pretty ragged from what we’ve seen, so maybe this will help push him over the edge.”

  “What do you have in mind?”

  “I’m not sure yet, but we swore the college kid to secrecy, and I told the guys working the case that if his existence gets out, I’ll have their nuts. When I do make a run at Taylor with this, I don’t want him to be ready for it. So what about you, anything new?”

  “Not yet, but I should have a handle on any phone calls to Maggie Padgett later this morning. If there’s anything there, I’ll know before Ken and I go talk to her.”

  Lansing looked thoughtful.

  “You know, don’t you,” he asked, “that if you’re not able to shake her loose this time, I’m going to have to step in?”

  “Just hold off for today, okay? Just until I know she’s a lost cause for me. She’s already scared. If you show up, I’m afraid she’ll bolt.”

  “Okay, you’ve got a day.”

  “Thanks. And, Detective?”

  He looked at me.

  “I mean that.”

  He nodded.

  You suck-up, my voice said.

  “I’ll get out of your way now
,” I said, drowning the voice out and standing up. “I need to get in to the office.”

  “You’ll let me know what happens with Maggie?”

  “As soon as I can, although I really would rather talk about it in person than over the phone. Will you still be around at five or six?”

  “Most likely.”

  “Okay, I’ll call to let you know whether there’s anything for me to come back and talk about.”

  We said our good-byes, the peace accord still maintaining its somewhat less tenuous hold. I did need to get to work. I needed to think about how to approach Maggie before Ken got there, and I realized I needed to neutralize Sy Berkowitz, who was counting down the minutes before taking over my story.

  * * * *

  At 9:30, I was in the library at the News. At 9:45, I was at my desk and dialing Sy’s extension. When he answered, I lapsed into my mostly-gone-but-not-forgotten south-Georgia accent.

  “You don’t know me,” I said, “but I know you from reading your stories in the paper. I decided you’re the only reporter there good enough for me to tell this to.”

  With his ego for bait, I threw out the hook. I proceeded to tell him a tale about the White House chief of staff having ties to an offshore company in the Cayman Islands that was a front for the Mafia in New Jersey. I named names, all of them garnered from my research in the library. I gave him dates of supposed meetings. I told him amounts of payoffs. I told him my name wasn’t important but that I worked in a position to see the evidence firsthand and that I couldn’t live with my conscience any longer if I let these people continue to get away with their corruption and influence peddling. There wasn’t a word of truth to any of it. But with his years in New Jersey and his time in Washington, I knew the fact that the people I mentioned and the company in the Caymans were real would keep him busy trying to nail it all down—and out of my hair—for the next few days anyway. And if I were real lucky, he would tell his editors about it too soon and end up looking like an idiot.

  Sy was still trying to get me to tell him who I was when I cut him off and hung up. Rob Perry wasn’t in the newsroom at the moment, and for a change, my voice mail light wasn’t on. I was in the middle of making notes to myself about how to convince Maggie Padgett to talk to us when my phone rang. It was Ralph.