“Hendrickson isn’t a relative, and he hated him. He was willing to bankrupt his company rather than keep Sheldon’s money.”
“Newsflash, Bobby: you’re not the only one who can’t stand your relations, and no one’s going to make you spite your face by cutting off your nose like family. And even if he isn’t, so what? You didn’t learn when you were a rookie not to start an investigation by getting into it with the persons of interest? You think this is the only morning you’re going to be dragged away from your girlfriend so you can work a lead on this?”
Robert wished he could be swallowed up by the floor. “Give me a chance to fix it.”
“I am trying to help you keep your job. Your piss them off again and that crap will fly up to Hwang.”
“Then he is going to wait until after I’ve cracked this case to fire me because he is going to want it solved more than anyone else,” Robert pressed, closing the door. “And we both know that I am the best person you have for this job.”
Baptiste raised an eyebrow. “Maybe you’re not the worst detective I’ve ever had working for me. I might want to keep you around for other things.”
“Then let me prove to the mayor,” Robert pleaded, “that I’m not the screw-up he thinks I am and you’re not the idiot he’s worried you are for keeping me on. I know these people.”
Baptiste rubbed his temples. “And they all hate you.”
“Not all of them.”
“The ones you screwed—” Baptiste said, raising one finger. “—their respective boyfriends or husbands—” Two fingers. “—their very good friends—” Three fingers. “Who does that leave?”
“They don’t all hate me,” Robert repeated earnestly. “I can work with them.”
Baptiste held out his hands. “What if they don’t want this solved, Bob? What if one of them did it?”
Robert stepped up to his desk. “Then you want me on this because I’m the last person in this station that’s going to back down from them.” He rapped his knuckles on the desk. “All of which you knew when you called me this morning.”
“Jesus Christ,” Baptiste said as he finally opened the bottle. He munched on two pills, then swallowed. “Fine,” he said. “But there is only so much I can do to protect you, so keep your nose clean.”
Robert leaned against the door. “Thank you.”
“And if I get fired too, you’re paying out my pension, because otherwise my wife is going to kill us both. And you’re sending my youngest to college.”
“Whatever you want.” He’d have promised his firstborn if that was what it took.
“Shut up, Bob. And bring some coffee and don’t tell me not to drink it or you really are fired.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And don’t think for a minute that I’ve forgotten how screwed over your new girlfriend was by the same human trafficking operation Sheldon was connected to, or that she made a point of seeing him a few nights before he died.” He pointed. “If she knows anything—anything—you make sure you chase it like a cop and that she doesn’t reach for her superhero cape.”
“Do you really think I’m that bad at this job?”
“What I think is that a few weeks ago you were so determined to keep her from getting charged that you almost managed to do a good job on your own. And that’s the only God damned reason I’m not telling you to drop her.”
The phone rang. Baptiste held up his finger as he answered it. “Really? God damn. Yeah, thanks for letting me know.” He turned to Robert after he hung up. “Guess what Hong Kong just confirmed?”
Chapter Sixteen
Hilary and her attorney came to Captain Baptiste’s office that afternoon, and they were not happy. “Would you like to explain why my client has been called here on such short notice?”
As agreed, Robert stood silently. “We wanted to tell you in person before you heard it somewhere else,” Baptiste said coolly. “Alex Sheldon’s body was discovered this morning.”
Robert watched as Hilary grasped the revelation. “He’s dead?” she asked in a quavering voice.
“Yes. Murdered, I’m afraid,” Baptiste answered.
Her attorney looked at Hilary, whose eyes had started to fill with tears, then looked at Baptiste. “Are you accusing my client of another crime? Did you call us down here for an alibi?”
“Eventually,” Baptiste said slowly. “But I was giving your client the benefit of the doubt for now. We thought the news might be important to her.”
She wiped a tear. “Yes, thank you for letting me know.” She paused. “Did he suffer terribly?”
Robert raised an eyebrow but said nothing. “We won’t know for a little while,” Baptiste replied, “but as of now, my guess is that it was over quickly.”
Hilary sniffled. “Good.”
Robert pushed himself off the wall. “There’s something else we’d like to ask, and it is related to the investigation.”
Robert read the lift of Baptiste’s chin as a sign that he could proceed with caution. “And what is that?” her attorney asked sharply.
“When was the last time you spoke to your husband?”
Hilary swallowed. “That’s none of your business. I told you, he isn’t involved—”
“Hilary, please,” her attorney said. “Fishing, are we? If you’re still looking at him for the terrorism— Well, you wouldn’t be, because that’s the FBI’s job.”
“Actually, we’re just looking at murder,” Robert said. “I repeat, when was the last time you spoke to your husband?”
Hilary’s breathing became more rapid. “I don’t know why you would—”
“Fine, I’ll make it easier on you. Have you spoken to your husband since before your arrest?”
“It’s been...very stressful,” Hilary began. “I wanted to talk to him, obviously, but...I...was sure I was being watched.” Her lip trembled. “He’s a very good man, and I don’t want whatever’s going on here to change his opinion of me.”
Robert was beginning to pity her. “Were you advised not to contact him?”
“Yes,” she said after a moment.
“By him?” Robert said, pointing to the attorney.
Hilary shook her head. “Alex thought it might be best.”
“That’s what I thought. Tell me, Missus Abassadi, when was the last time you spoke to your husband?”
The attorney nodded his assent. “A week before my arrest,” Hilary said finally. “We were making plans to meet.”
With Mariana, Robert thought, and his pity left him. “And when it was clear you needed to change your plans, you what? Left him waiting for you?”
“No,” Hilary answered peevishly. “Alex got the message to him.”
“And how do you know that the message was in fact delivered?”
She parted her lips and looked around the room. “Because why would he lie about that?”
“Good question,” Robert said. With a nod from Baptiste, he took the folder off the desk. “But we know he did lie. Your husband was killed in Hong Kong a few days before your arrest.”
“How dare you!” Hilary screamed as she jumped out of her seat. “It’s not enough that you are persecuting me, now you’re trying to trick me into believing the love of my life is gone?”
Robert held out the folder. “We got this a few hours ago from Hong Kong. It’s the police report that details finding his body in the aftermath of one of the demonstrations. It also outlines their case that it’s unlikely he was killed by anyone at the scene. Frankly, if the police there could pin this on the protesters, they would, but his injuries are inconsistent with getting trampled, and whoever stabbed him in the heart did so with a precision that would be difficult to pull off in the middle of a crowd.” Hilary stared at Robert, unable to move. “Okay, maybe you’d like to look at this,” he said to the attorney.
The attorney snatched the file while Hilary shook her head. “Liars!” she exclaimed. “Why would he be in Hong Kong at all?”
“We’re not
sure,” Baptiste said. “We suspect he might have gone there on his way to meet you.”
“But I didn’t tell him to meet me there,” she said tearfully.
“So who might have?” Baptiste asked.
“Hilary,” her attorney said softly. “This is legitimate. I’m sorry, but Amir is dead.”
She clutched her stomach. “I don’t believe you.”
“His autopsy photo is in here.”
“No!” she said, but grabbed the file. She stared at it silently for a minute, then read the report. “Oh my God,” she said, crumpling into a heap on the floor. “The tattoo! He wasn’t supposed to get it, but he wanted me to know how much he loved me.” She heaved. “Muna. It was the nickname he had for me in Arabic. Amir! Amir!”
“Hilary,” her lawyer said, half-pleadingly. “Let’s get you home.”
“Let me see the picture again!” She scrambled up and grabbed the file, letting the pages spill to the floor until she saw the autopsy photo. She sobbed. “He was so handsome, wasn’t he? At least they didn’t hurt his face.” She traced the photo and cried again. “Oh love, I’m so sorry. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she repeated as she sank back to her knees and sobbed.
—
Baptiste ended up having to call paramedics after Hilary was unresponsive for three minutes. “Was that really necessary?” her attorney asked before he followed the paramedics out.
Baptiste lingered by the door after he closed it. “How did you know about this? And give me a straight answer because I’m not in the mood for bullshit.”
Robert blew out a breath. “Hannah. She got a tip from some associates in Hong Kong.”
Baptiste tapped his foot. “What were these ‘associates’ doing in Hong Kong?”
“She didn’t get specific, but I think they were liberating some indentured servants.” He paused. “And that is just a guess. She doesn’t talk too much about that with me.”
Baptiste walked over to his desk. “What else did she tell you?” he asked.
“She thought Alex Sheldon was behind it.”
“How... Never mind.” Baptiste drummed his fingers on his desk. “Why would Sheldon want him dead?”
“To have more control over Hilary,” he answered.
“Yeah, that’s a given, but for what? How long did he think he’d be able to hide his death? And what would be worth risking the wrath of this guy’s family?”
“I don’t know, but I’ll find out.”
“Uh huh. And what else are you going to do?”
Robert was stung. “Captain, do you really think I don’t know how to do this job?”
“I think I wasn’t sure if I should call you this morning, and then you almost came to blows with Hendrickson. Yeah, you know how to do this, but I’m going to feel better if you reassure me.”
Fair enough. “I’m going to re-examine the scene, canvass the neighborhood, figure out what the security system company can tell us, figure out if anything really was stolen, go through Sheldon’s finances and schedule, and talk to every person of interest there is.”
“And?”
“And I’m going to be polite and professional.” Even if everyone lies to my face.
“Good. And here’s your first break.” Baptiste searched for something on his desk. “The first officers on the scene already canvassed the neighborhood, and they found nothing. Read the report and talk to them, but it’s nothing.”
“Great.” No news was lousy news.
“And here’s your second break.” He handed Robert a sheet of paper. “Hendrickson was more right than he knew. This is the list of everything the cleaning staff and the insurance company compiled that went missing.” Robert took the paper from him. “Who knows? Maybe you’ll even find the murder weapon.”
Robert laughed out loud. “I’m sure I will, but I bet it won’t have any fingerprints.”
“Why make our jobs easy? Now get out of my office and go solve this thing.”
—
What was at the scene was just as important as what wasn’t.
The young officer who delivered the folder to Robert’s desk that afternoon blushed. “Here you go, sir.”
That couldn’t be good. “Thanks.” The officer ran away, and Robert understood why immediately. The folder contained surveillance photos: Miranda Abbot with her young children, David Hwang and his staff, Hannah at the Hope and White firm party when she posed as a call girl, Mariela being wheeled into the hospital after she’d been rescued from captivity, and, best of all, Lucy Bartolome and Joanna Hazlett in various states of undress and intimacy.
Robert slapped the folder shut and felt sick. Sheldon had had a lot of time on his hands.
Time. Too much time.
Robert reopened the folder, quickly turning the photos of Lucy and Joanna face down. There was a photo of Miranda holding a blonde infant, and then another one of her with a blonde toddler and dark-haired baby. He flipped through. There were also pictures of her with blonde and dark-haired toddlers and a twin stroller with two younger children.
Sheldon had been stalking Miranda since shortly after he’d left Boston.
David Hwang at his campaign headquarters, huddling in conversation with two young men that he guessed were youth street workers; another looked to be of him and his girlfriend Kasi Panchal right before and after a driver threw a bottle at his head. Robert looked closer. He could make out the license plate of the car clear as day.
The police had never caught the person responsible for David Hwang’s injury, but that hadn’t been the most important part of the story. Hwang’s popularity, which was already on the rise during his second campaign, was unstoppable after that. It was almost painful to watch him easily demolish all of the other candidates when the primary election was finally held.
Why did Sheldon have this picture?
Robert put that question aside as he flipped through to another picture, back at the campaign headquarters, but Hwang was hugging Lucy Bartolome. Don’t see that too often, Robert thought. By the sparse furnishings and lack of staff, the picture looked to have been taken early in the campaign, and the hug looked like the kind you’d give someone you hadn’t seen in for a long time. Was this before he declared? So why was Sheldon so interested in him?
Robert went through the photos of Hannah. It was only at the party a few weeks back, but the photographer caught everything, including her giving other women’s room keys to almost a dozen attorneys.
Robert sat back. How long had Sheldon known about Hannah?
No, that wasn’t the question. How long had Hannah known about him before the bribe?
A chill was starting to spread over him, but he shook it off and turned to the list of items that had been found in Sheldon’s home. He gasped when he saw a Faberge egg. He quickly scanned the list of stolen items. Everything on that list combined wasn’t worth a tenth of what egg was. And that would have been much easier to carry out of the house.
This wasn’t a robbery gone wrong. This was a murder covered up by a robbery.
Something else caught his eye: a top of the line espresso machine and all of the accessories to go with it. What was Sheldon doing with a single canister of tea, even if it had an expensive sounding French name? But as soon as he saw the box of hot chocolate, Robert knew.
Joanna Hazlett drank that hot chocolate, and he would bet a week’s salary that Lucy Bartolome drank the tea.
Now he had to talk to them.
Chapter Seventeen
Robert was smart this time. He didn’t call Richard Hendrickson, Michael Abbot, Miranda Harel Abbot, or Jessie Bartolome directly. He called Mitch Graham instead and asked to meet them. Even so, he had to assure Mitch that he had alibis definitively clearing the Abbots—Miranda had ordered some terrible Kevin Hart film on pay-per-view, and Michael was paying for pizza during the time range they had for time of death. As for Jessie and Richard, both of theirs were their significant others. Admittedly, those weren’t the best alibis, but Rob
ert didn’t like Jessie for it. The M.E. wasn’t done with her report, but while Jessie was tall, she wasn’t tall enough to hit Sheldon on that spot on his head; if she’d stood on a chair or a stool, she would have been too tall. (And they hadn’t found a chair or stool with any sign that it had been stepped on.)
But what about Richard? Richard was tall enough. And while Robert knew he didn’t have a history of violence, he knew that when Richard lost his temper he was capable of lashing out. Robert rubbed his jaw as he remembered Richard punching him a few years ago.
But...that had been in the heat of the moment. Richard hadn’t approved of the way Robert had revealed what had really happened to Josie Bartolome minutes before (neither had Baptiste). And he had done that because Jessie was upset (and Robert tried not to think about that too often). But he hadn’t punched Robert when he’d revealed his affair to Zainab shortly after that.
Could Richard kill someone he was trying to protect? Robert was pretty sure the answer was yes—if he were enraged first. Who would he be protecting? His mother? Why would he see Sheldon at that hour? Had Sheldon threatened his mother? Or his cousin Michael? Had he gone there to try and reason with him and then things got out of control?
And then he was on the scene right after they’d found the body... Richard looked better and better on paper, but something didn’t feel right to Robert. Would Richard kill someone with a blow to the head?
For the most part, Richard confirmed during his interview what Robert already knew about Alex’s relationship with his grandfather Gerald and his parents Lucy and Jim Hendrickson, but he did say something interesting:
“One of the first things I remember thinking about him is that he should have been friends with my father.”
“Why?”
“Because they were both smart, and in the same way.”
“So why weren’t they?”
“When I was younger, I thought it was because my father knew that his wife and sister hated him.”
“You could pick that up even when you were a child?”
Justice, Mercy and Other Myths (The New Pioneers Book 7) Page 9