“First message. The call is from a blocked number,” the recording said.
There was a pause and a man’s voice came through. “This message is for Megan O’Reilly. I know Craig Tarkington.”
Megan’s heart started pounding.
“Craig Tarkington is guilty. He told me what he did to her. Lucy’s not the only woman he’s raped and he’ll probably do it again. I hope you can convince the jury of that.” The caller hesitated as if considering whether to say more. Then the line went dead.
Megan stabbed at the key to replay the voicemail. She listened to it again, her heart beating so loudly she could hear it in her ears. She grabbed the phone and pressed star 69 to try to get the number of the last caller.
“The call is from a blocked number,” the recording said. She grimaced and hung up. She pressed the save message button and then sat for a moment, her mind racing.
There was someone out there who knew Lucy had been raped by Craig Tarkington. But how could they find him? And why hadn’t he identified himself? She grabbed her cell phone and punched in a number.
“Eric, it’s Megan. Are you busy right now?”
“No. What’s up?”
“How do I trace a blocked number that called my landline?”
There was a pause. “Trace a blocked number?”
“Yes. I need to know how to do that.” She told Eric what had just happened and what the caller had said. She could feel his energy shift.
“You dialed star 69?”
“Yes. It didn’t work.”
“What time did he call?”
“A little over five minutes ago.”
“Write the time down.”
Megan grabbed a pen and paper.
“That’s all the guy said?”
“Yes. I saved the message. How do we find out who the caller is?”
Megan could almost hear Eric’s mind churning with thoughts.
“Pick up the phone right now and dial 1127.”
“Hold on.” Megan set down her cell phone down, grabbed the cordless landline phone, and punched in the number. She was so nervous she could barely breathe. The phone rang once and a recording came on. “This service is not available.”
“It doesn’t work.” Megan repeated what the recording had said.
Eric let out a sigh of frustration. “Did the guy who left the message sound familiar?”
“No.”
“Was there anything about him you picked up on? Did he sound young? Older?”
“Well. . .” Megan hesitated. “He sounded young. He didn’t sound like an older guy.”
“Who is your phone service with and what’s the account number?”
Megan found a statement lying under some papers on her desk and gave Eric the information.
“Okay, I’ll call the police and see if there’s anything they can do to help us trace the call. They’ll probably say they can’t do anything unless it’s a harassing or threatening phone call, but I’ll see if I can pull some strings. And I’ll start asking around about Tarkington’s friends. Maybe this is someone he went to law school with. You should call your phone company right now and see if they can put a trace on your phone. It won’t help for this call but if he calls again it will tell us the number and we can try and find him that way.”
Megan said she would do that as soon as they hung up.
“Good. Let me see what I can find out.”
CHAPTER FORTY FIVE
“I think it would have been easier to get into the Pentagon than to see Bob Udell,” Eric said, sliding down into the chair across from Megan’s desk. He rubbed his eyes and leaned back. “It took five voicemails before he got back to me.”
Megan cast a glance at the clock on the wall. It was only eleven a.m. She’d come into the prosecutor’s office at six that morning in an attempt to get something done on Lucy’s case. It seemed like she had been there for days, getting little accomplished.
Every time she reviewed the file she felt downhearted. It seemed like all roads led to dead ends no matter how promising they had originally looked. The most productive part of the morning was Eric stopping in to report back on what he found in his investigations. It had been a week since she’d met with Lucy and Eric and received the mysterious phone message. Eric had been looking into Bob Udell and the security system for The Lakeworth. He had also been trying to get leads on Tarkington’s friends.
“I finally called a friend who works at the TV station and told him I needed to talk to Udell,” Eric said. “After that Udell called me back. He told me a big story about how he had been tied up working on a project.” He told Megan he’d explained to Udell why he was calling him and Udell denied being at The Lakeworth and seeing Lucy on the night of the rape. “He completely brushed it off and said he was out of town doing an interview that day. I could tell he was dying to get off the phone. “
Megan leaned forward and rested her hands on the desk. “Why would he lie about being there? Do you think he knows more than he’s saying?”
Eric paused and shrugged. “I don’t know. I can’t decide if he knows more than he’s saying or he simply wanted to get rid of me. I had the feeling he has a pretty high opinion of himself and felt he had more important things to do. “
Megan let out a sigh.
Eric leaned back in the chair. “I talked to the security guy again. For once there’s good news. He said he looked into it and it appears that even though the inside security video system crashed, the outside system didn’t. I talked to him about an hour ago and he said he would email me the video he does have for the night of the rape after we hung up. It should be here by now.” Eric pulled a chair around behind Megan’s desk and moved her laptop closer to him.
“Let me get my email pulled up,” he said, pressing some keys while he studied the screen. He moved the cursor to where he wanted and then clicked. “Here it is.” He pressed a button and the video started to play.
Megan leaned forward. She already didn’t like what she was seeing. She was hoping for a clear, sharp, close-up picture, but all she could see was a grainy image. She tilted forward toward the screen. She could see a figure running out the front door of the building. The person had a coat on with what looked like the collar turned up. It could be Lucy.
“Look at the time.” Eric stopped the video and pointed to the digital clock in the lower right hand corner of the picture. “That has to be Lucy.”
Megan nodded. She pointed at the screen. There was a black limousine parked in front of the building. Megan reached out and pushed a button to restart the video. They watched again as the person emerging from the building—probably Lucy—rushed down the walk, looked up, apparently saw the limo, and stopped for a moment. Megan and Eric watched the chauffeur open the back door and let the passenger out. They both leaned in closer to the screen and then looked at each other. “It looks like it could be Bob Udell to me,” Eric said.
Megan nodded. “Not the best picture but I’d say it could be him.” The Bob Udell guy held out what looked like a briefcase and a coat and the chauffeur stepped in front of him, blocking Megan and Eric’s view. They watched the figure they thought was Lucy hurry away along the sidewalk and out of view of the security camera.
The chauffeur and the passenger who looked like Bob Udell walked to the building entrance, the chauffeur remaining in perfect position to block any view of Udell the whole time.
The computer screen turned to snow.
Eric pushed his chair back. “I think you can tell the person leaving the building is a woman. And the time matches when Lucy says she left.”
“I agree. Can I keep this? I want to study it.” Megan looked at Eric. The security video wasn’t what she was hoping for but it was better than nothing.
Eric pulled her laptop toward him and tapped a few keys. “I just emailed the file to you.”
Megan rested her elbows on the desk and steepled her fingers. “I find it really strange that such a high end security system has
a complete system failure at the exact times we need. What are the odds of that happening?”
“I agree.” Eric shook his head. “The cop in me doesn’t buy that it failed for no reason. If it had been down for the whole day—maybe—but not just a few hours and then back up again.”
Megan looked at Eric. “My gut says that someone sabotaged the system. We need to look into this some more. Something’s not right.”
“Consider it done. One more thing. I checked on how we could get the number for the blocked caller.”
“And?”
“I was right. According to the police department you’ll need to report the call to your phone company and then file a police report saying the call was threatening or harassing. Once you do that the phone company will give the police the number and identity of the blocked caller. The company won’t give it directly to you. After you make the report the police can give you the information”
Megan’s expression darkened as she felt frustration ball up inside her. “The call wasn’t threatening or harassing.”
“The police were pretty adamant that unless it was threatening or harassing they couldn’t do anything.”
“I thought you were going to pull some strings?”
“My buddy who worked at the phone company retired a few weeks ago. When I called him at home he said he doesn’t have any way to get the phone records. I’ll keep digging to see if there’s some other way to get the information, but I’m not optimistic.”
Megan sighed, got up from her chair, turned, and looked out the window. “Now what,” she said softly.
“I know. It appears to be another brick wall.”
Megan turned around and looked Eric in the eye. Trial was rapidly approaching and they still had only Lucy’s word against Tarkington’s. “That’s all we seem to have, Eric—one brick wall or dead end after another.”
“It may seem that way, Megan, but we still have things to do. For one thing, there’s a chance we might find the guy who left that message. I’m looking into it and tracking down who Tarkington runs with. Who are his friends? Where does he go to socialize? The person who left the message has to be someone who knows him pretty well.”
Megan was silent, lost in thought. “I wonder what all Lucy knows about Tarkington? She was in the study group with him.”
“I think it would be great to talk to her about that. We just need to keep digging to find that caller.”
Megan agreed. “I’ll give Lucy a call and set up a time for all of us to meet again.”
Eric got up and headed for the door. “I’ve just started looking into this. You know how these cases go. You and I have gotten around brick walls in the past and we’ll do it again. I’ll be in touch.”
CHAPTER FORTY SIX
The Ocean View was a high-end restaurant located on the south side of D.C. Megan had asked Lucy and Eric to meet her here for dinner because she knew it would be quiet on a Wednesday evening. The restaurant had great seafood and private dining rooms that could be reserved. Privacy was something Megan wanted.
It had been a couple of days since she and Eric had decided to meet with Lucy to find out what she knew about Tarkington and his friends. Now the three of them were seated in a private dining room toward the back of the restaurant. The room was elegant, with dark wood, soft lighting, and a crisp white tablecloth. A waiter took their drink orders as another waiter brought them a basket of warm bread.
Megan explained to Lucy that she and Eric wanted to talk to her about any background information she might have on Tarkington, as a starting point in their search for the caller who had left the message.
“I didn’t run with Tarkington,” Lucy said, taking a bite of the bread. “Plus, remember, we didn’t go to law school together. I only knew him in the study group I attended when I was getting ready to take the bar again. And then when I was tutoring him, of course.”
“Is there anybody he mentioned or anyone you noticed him being friendly with in the group?” Megan watched as the waiter set glasses of ice tea down in front of them.
Eric opened his notebook. “Can you tell us who some of his friends were? “
Lucy thought for a minute. “Bob Carlyle was someone he mentioned a few times during our tutoring sessions.”
Eric scribbled down the name. “A fellow law student?”
Lucy nodded. “Once he mentioned that he and Bob played tennis at the country club every Saturday. I knew Bob a bit myself when I was in law school so it got my attention when Craig mentioned his name.”
“Where’s Bob now?” Megan asked.
“The last I knew, after he graduated he went to work as a corporate attorney for some big manufacturing company—a Fortune 500 one—in New York.”
Eric made a note. “Do you have any more information on that company?”
“I think the company was named Mangas. That’s all I know.”
The waiter came over to the table, freshened their drinks, and took their orders.
“Who else?” Megan asked as she leaned back in her chair.
The waiter drifted into the room and placed a salad in front of each of them.
Lucy picked up her small silver cup of salad dressing and drizzled it over the greens. “Rick Montgomery. Rick was in our study group. He wasn’t the best student and was always scrambling to learn everything during the study group meetings. I wondered why he went to law school. I got the feeling his family was loaded and he didn’t have much get up and go. He seemed like a playboy. He and Tarkington were always talking about going to the Skyview Club.”
Megan took her fork and stabbed a piece of lettuce. “Isn’t that the private club in the Sentry building downtown?”
“That’s the place where you have to have a private card for the elevator to go to the floor where the club is,” Eric said.
Lucy nodded. “I think Tarkington played tennis with Bob Carlyle on Saturday morning and then partied with Rick on Saturday night. He mentioned stuff like that when we were making small talk during the tutoring.”
“Did you notice anything unusual about his friendship with either of these two guys?” Eric drained the last of his iced tea.
“I didn’t really know them. I just saw them as playboys who enjoyed spending the family money. “Lucy took her napkin and wiped her mouth. “ I never got the impression Tarkington had a lot of close friends. As far as I could tell, Bob and Rick were the main ones.”
Eric motioned toward the waiter to refill his glass. “I’ll see if I can track down Rick.”
“Do you know if Tarkington had any enemies?” Eric leaned forward and rested his arms on the table.
“It wouldn’t surprise me,” Lucy said laughing. “But I don’t know who they are.”
Megan noticed Lucy’s expression change as if she’d remembered something.
“His best friend was Jack Temple. He talked about him a few times during our tutoring sessions.”
“Jack was in law school with him?” Megan looked at Eric who was busy taking notes.
“No. He knew him from college. I think Craig mentioned Jack got an MBA and an accounting degree from Yale or somewhere. There were a few times when Tarkington mentioned during the study group that he had weekend party plans with Jack.”
“Does Jack live around here?” Megan asked.
“Craig said Jack’s family had a house in the Hamptons and that he and Jack went boating there.”
Eric looked at Megan and then flipped back the page on his notepad. “Do you have any contact information for Jack?”
“No. But you can Google Jack Temple Hamptons.”
Megan looked at Eric. “My gut tells me he’s the caller. This could turn things around.”
CHAPTER FORTY SEVEN
Megan watched as the luggage carousel laden with suitcases slowly snaked its way through the baggage pick-up area. People were perched and ready to grab their luggage as it came by. Like everyone else, she wanted to find her bag and get out of the airport. It was late on Sun
day evening and she wanted to get home and get ready for another week.
She spotted her roller bag slowly inching its way toward her and grabbed it when it arrived, placed it on the floor, pulled out the extendable handle, and headed off toward the exit for the garage area.
“Garage 7,” she said to the shuttle driver.
She leaned back in her seat and sighed. It had been a long weekend. At the last minute on Thursday she’d decided to fly to Pittsburgh and attend a seminar on prosecuting sexual assault cases. One of the prosecutors at the office had told her about this seminar and given her the brochure. She’d doubted whether she’d learn anything she didn’t already know but had thought the seminar might give her an idea she hadn’t already come up with about some fresh way to approach Lucy’s case. Besides, every year she had to get six hours of continuing legal education to keep her license and she knew she could use a weekend away. The closer the trial date got the more stress she felt.
In the end she hadn’t learned much from the seminar but the weekend away gave her renewed energy. One thing she did learn that weekend was that there was a lot of new case law coming down saying that juries wanted victims’ testimony corroborated by other witnesses.
As the shuttle headed towards the airport parking lot she wondered if Eric had found anything on Tarkington’s friend Jack Temple. Before she left for the weekend she had talked to Eric and had said he’d had no luck. He’d run an extensive background check on him and checked out all his addresses as well as his present, past, and most recent places of employment. He’d even flown to the Hamptons and talked to everyone who might have some information on him. Nothing.
The shuttle creaked to a stop at Garage 7. She grabbed her suitcase, tipped the driver, and headed to her car. She pulled out of the parking garage and eased onto the freeway. The night felt cold and the sky was black. Red taillights and white headlights dotted the horizon. Everyone was going somewhere.
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