SEVENTY-EIGHT
It did not take long for Callaway to spot Governor James Bartlett coming out of the basement elevator. He had a phone stuck to his ear and a briefcase in his other hand.
He walked briskly to his Escalade.
Callaway waited to see if anyone accompanied him, presumably his chief of staff. When Bartlett reached the Escalade and unlocked the doors, Callaway made his move.
“Governor Bartlett?” he asked, approaching him from behind.
Bartlett turned. He looked annoyed.
“May I have a word with you?”
Bartlett cupped his phone with his hand. “If this is about an interview…”
“No, it’s not.”
“Then I’m sorry, I don’t have time for this.” Bartlett threw his briefcase in the back seat. He ended his call and got behind the wheel.
“Are you heading home?” Callaway asked.
“As a matter of fact, I am.”
“To your wife and kids?”
Bartlett glared at him. “I don’t know who you are, and quite frankly, I don’t care. If you don’t leave me alone, I’ll call security.”
He started the engine.
“Does your family know about Lana Anderson?” Callaway asked.
The blood drained from Bartlett’s face. “I… I don’t know anyone by that name.”
Callaway pulled out his cell phone and held it up for Bartlett. “It’s not very clear. I took the photo from my laptop screen. But if you look carefully, that’s you and Lana Anderson outside her apartment building. If you still deny it, I can always email a high-resolution copy to your chief of staff. She did say I should go through her if I wanted to speak to you, but I figured it might be better if I spoke to you directly.”
Bartlett looked around the garage. “We can’t talk here. Get in my car.”
Callaway got in the passenger seat.
They drove out of the underground parking lot and went around the block to a quiet road.
Bartlett parked by the curb and turned to Callaway. “What do you want?”
“I want to know where Lana Anderson is,” Callaway replied.
Bartlett shook his head. “I have no idea.”
Callaway did not believe him.
“I swear, I don’t know. In fact, I’ve been trying to get in contact with her myself.”
“Why?”
Bartlett looked away. He was silent for a moment.
“You better start talking,” Callaway said, his voice hard as steel, “or else a copy of the footage will be on every major newspaper desk by the end of the day.”
Bartlett sighed. “I vowed I would never do anything stupid that would jeopardize my career. I had seen people in power fall hard and fast, and behind their fall was always a scandal. I admit I have made deals that have benefitted me immensely. I have shaken hands with the wrong people. But I made sure to keep my emotions under control.” He looked down at his hands. “This time, I’m afraid, I failed miserably.”
Callaway waited for him to explain.
Bartlett looked up wistfully. “I remember the exact day I met Lana. It was at a charity event. I was with my wife. I helped raise over three-hundred thousand dollars for an at-risk youth center. I knew my face would be on the morning news. I would even win over some urban votes. The event was an overwhelming success. Then I saw her. She was wearing a red dress. I thought she was beautiful. Throughout the night I kept making eye contact with her, and then, suddenly, she approached me. She said she was a fan of mine. She believed in my policies and would vote for me in the upcoming election. I thanked her like I thanked every voter who supported me. I took a photo with her. It was nothing special, one I had done a thousand times before.” He paused to collect his thoughts. “As I drove back home that night, I couldn’t stop thinking about her. Even with my wife next to me, Lana was on my mind.
“As days went by, I got busy with work, and I forgot about her. But one day, while I was emptying my coat pockets to take it to the dry cleaners, I found a card inside. When we were taking the photo, she had slipped it in my pocket without me knowing.” He almost laughed. “I stared at that card for almost an hour. I couldn’t believe my luck. Until then I knew nothing about her. I didn’t even know her name. Now, in hindsight, maybe I should have torn that card to pieces, but at that time, I wanted to see her again. So, I called her. She said she had been waiting for my call. We spoke briefly and agreed to meet the following week. I had to go to D.C. for several important meetings, but I couldn’t wait to speak to her again. I called her from the hotel the first night I was in Washington. We ended up speaking for hours. When I returned to Milton, I met her several times at a restaurant, a coffee shop, at a bar, wherever it was private. She would always be waiting for me before I got there. But then one day, I told her I would pick her up from her place. I’m old-fashioned. A guy is supposed to take a lady to dinner. Plus, I got the sense that she didn’t like the clandestine way we were always meeting. I thought things were progressing fine when one day…”
Bartlett fell silent.
“One day, what?” Callaway asked.
Bartlett let out a long sigh. “I found an envelope. It was on the driver’s seat of my car. I don’t know how, but someone had gotten into my car.”
Callaway knew that was not hard these days. Criminals could clone frequencies picked up from remote keys and use it to access a vehicle.
Bartlett said, “When I saw what was inside the envelope, I couldn’t believe it. There were photos of me with Lana. A lot of photos of us together. They were taken at every place we’d ever met. There was even a handwritten note on the envelope.”
“What did it say?” Callaway asked, curious.
“‘How much do you love your family?’ It was written in big, block letters.”
Callaway was silent. He knew the words were a veiled threat.
“Do you know who sent them to you?” he asked.
“At first, I didn’t know, but then I got a second envelope. It had no name on it, but I understood who had sent it,” Bartlett replied.
“Who?”
SEVENTY-NINE
“R.J. Parish.”
“How could you tell?” Callaway asked.
“I’m on the board that awards contracts for government projects. Our biggest project is the repair and maintenance of our freeways. The costs could run from hundreds of millions to even a billion. The freeways are old and deteriorating. Some are no longer even safe. Investment in infrastructure was a major platform promise in my last election. I knew if I could raise the money from Congress, I could create thousands of construction jobs. Which would mean I could meet my promises, and therefore, have a better chance of winning the next election. It was another reason of mine for going to Washington. Anyway, three companies were bidding for the project.”
“And let me guess, one of them was Parish Holdings Inc.,” Callaway said.
Bartlett nodded. “Theirs wasn’t even the lowest bid, but they had made it into the final rounds of bidding. The board consists of ten members, not including me. I only get involved if there is a stalemate. My vote then becomes the deciding factor. The board was split on awarding the contract to Parish Holdings”
“You still didn’t answer my question,” Callaway said. “How did you know it was R.J. Parish who had sent you those photos?”
“The night I met Lana at the charity event, R.J. Parish was also there,” Bartlett said. “He wrote a big check to the youth center.”
“Isn’t that meddling?” Callaway asked. “I mean, you were reviewing his bid after all.”
“It was a charity event, one I hosted but was not involved in personally. Now, if it was a fundraiser for my campaign, then absolutely, there would be lobbying concerns that may arise.”
“Okay,” Callaway said, understanding.
“R.J. Parish approached me at some point that night. I thanked him for his support. He smiled and told me philanthropy was one of his biggest priorities. This was t
rue. R.J. Parish has donated millions of dollars for various causes. He then leaned closer and whispered in my ear, ‘Parish Holdings thanks you for your support in letting them build the best freeways in the state.’ I remember I laughed. I told him nothing was decided, and that the process was still ongoing. But the smile on his face said that as far as he was concerned, the decision was already made.”
Callaway pondered what Bartlett had just told him.
“Do you know David Becker?” Callaway asked.
Bartlett looked puzzled. “Isn’t that the guy who jumped onto the freeway?”
“Yes.”
“No, I’ve never met him.”
A thought occurred to Callaway. “That freeway where Becker jumped, was that on the list of projects Parish Holdings was bidding on?”
Bartlett thought a moment. “Yes, as a matter of fact, it was.”
Callaway now understood why David had chosen that spot to kill himself. In death, he was giving R.J. Parish a middle finger. That freeway would always be remembered by the citizens of Milton for a shocking suicide.
“When do you have to make a decision regarding the freeway?” Callaway asked.
“We are meeting in the next couple of days to vote,” Bartlett replied.
“And are you leaning toward giving it to Parish?”
Bartlett gritted his teeth and looked away. “I don’t have much choice. If those photos reached the media, my marriage will be over...”’
“I thought you liked Lana?” Callaway asked. “Isn’t that why you were seeing her in private?”
“I do, but…”
His words trailed off.
“But you don’t want to marry her,” Callaway finished for him.
“I can’t marry her, even if I wanted to. She’s much younger than me, and the scandal would ruin my career. The divorce would be even worse. My wife would drag me through the courts. The tabloids would have a field day. I can’t imagine what my children would have to go through.”
Bartlett bit his bottom lip to control his emotions.
Callaway felt no pity for people like Bartlett. They thought they could have it all. They had money. They had power. They had respect. But they wanted more.
It was never enough for them.
They were arrogant to think their actions would never come back to haunt them. They could tell lies for only so long. Eventually, the truth would come out.
Callaway knew this for a fact. He made his career going after cheating husbands and wives. It was only after they had lost everything did they realize the error of their ways.
Callaway got out of the Escalade. “As far as your career and marriage, you should have thought of that before you decided to call Lana Anderson,” he said.
He walked away.
EIGHTY
The security company was able to provide Holt with the time Trevor Donley was scheduled to end his shift. It was an hour before his death was reported.
Holt was back in the collector booth. Brian Isley was working the keyboard.
“I can’t believe I missed it,” Isley said as a way of apology.
Holt did not blame him. The parking lot could hold close to a hundred vehicles. There was always a vehicle entering and exiting the lot. Watching the tiny monitor as vehicles moved in and out of view, it was easy to miss the Ford.
But now that they had a time frame to work with, their task was cut in half.
“There!” Isley said, pointing at the screen.
Holt leaned closer and squinted.
The Ford pulled up to the collector booth. The driver’s side window rolled down and an arm extended out, but the driver could not reach the button. The door opened slightly, and Trevor Donley came into view. He pressed the button and retrieved a ticket.
Isley said, “I think there is someone next to him.”
Holt saw he was right, but unless the man also stuck his head out, they would never know who he was.
The gate opened, and the Ford entered.
The camera switched from the collector booth to an aerial view of the lot. The Ford drove around the lot until it found a spot somewhere in the middle, away from the cameras, disappearing into a sea of parked cars. If Holt blinked, he would not know where the Ford was.
The shooter chose a perfect spot to execute Donley, Holt thought.
Several minutes went by before a man emerged from the Ford. He looked like a miniature figurine as he moved across the screen.
He was too far away for Holt to see any distinguishing features.
He thanked Isley for his assistance and left the collector booth.
He returned to the Ford. Donley’s body was being loaded into a white van, and several members of the CSU were going over the Ford.
One of them, a woman, came over and held up a clear plastic baggie with a shell casing inside. “It was underneath the passenger seat,” she said.
Holt was certain the bullet that killed Donley would match the shell casing found in the car. They would still run ballistics, however.
Holt walked over to his vehicle and pulled out a laptop the department had given him. He logged in and ran a search in all the databases for Trevor Donley.
When the results came back, he frowned.
Donley had no record. Not even a traffic violation.
How can this be? he wondered.
After smelling marijuana on Donley, Holt figured his death might have had something to do with drugs.
If Donley’s death was not drug related, Holt thought, why was he murdered in such a brutal way?
EIGHTY-ONE
After speaking to Warren, it did not take long for Fisher to find Vincent Lum.
He was tall, lanky, and he wore thick prescription glasses. He had on a sweatshirt, jeans, and white sneakers. He lived with his parents and two siblings in a three-bedroom town house. Vincent did not want his parents to find out he was somehow involved in what happened to Miranda, so Fisher drove him to a café not far from his house.
Vincent sipped on a soft drink while Fisher had a hot coffee.
“It was Miranda’s idea,” he said, looking down at his drink.
“What was?” she asked.
“To take Mr. Fisher to the motel.”
“Why?”
“She wanted to blackmail him.”
Fisher understood. “She wanted to use the photos you took of them at the motel to do it.”
He nodded.
“You still have the photos?” Fisher asked.
He nodded again. “I was going to meet Miranda later that night, but then…”
He fell silent.
Fisher knew what he was going to say. Miranda was found dead not long after that.
She asked, “Do you know how Miranda got Mr. Fisher to go to the motel with him?”
“Yes.”
She waited for him to speak. When he did not say anything, she said, “Vincent?”
“I helped her, you know,” he slowly said. His voice was just above a whisper.
“You took the photos at the motel, I know.”
“No, not just that. I helped her.”
“With what?”
He finally looked at her. “With finding out the truth about Mr. Fisher’s past.”
Fisher’s eyes narrowed. “You mean the car accident he was involved in as a teenager?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“I’m good with computers.”
“You’re a hacker?”
He was not offended. In fact, there was a gleam of pride in his eyes. “Sort of, yeah.”
“Okay.”
“Miranda came to me one day and asked for my help. She wanted me to find dirt on Mr. Fisher.”
“And you agreed?”
He shrugged. “Yeah. I mean, she’s one of the hottest girls in school. And she also…”
Fisher realized she would have to pull information out of Vincent.
“Also, what?”
“She said if I helped her, she’d give me som
e photos.”
“What photos?”
“Of her.”
“What kind of photos?”
Vincent looked away in embarrassment.
Fisher understood.
Risqué photos.
“Okay, after you agreed to help her,” Fisher said, “how did you find out about Mr. Fisher’s past?”
“Once I started looking into him, I found articles about an accident he was involved in when he was young. All the articles said pretty much the same thing: Mr. Fisher was in the passenger seat, but his friend was driving the car. I never thought too much about it. I really wanted to find out if Mr. Fisher had smoked pot as a kid or got too drunk at a party, stuff like that. And to get that information, I created a website. I made it look like it was a high school reunion page. I then contacted all the students I could find from Mr. Fisher’s class. It wasn’t hard. A lot of them have social media accounts. I contacted them and made it look like I was also a student from their class. Most didn’t remember me, and some caught my lie and ended our conversation. One said he knew the truth about the car accident. I asked him. At first, he didn’t respond, but then, I guess, he wanted to let it out. He said he knows the guy who was in the other car that was drag racing Mr. Fisher’s. That guy said he saw Mr. Fisher in the driver’s seat and Mr. Fisher’s friend in the passenger seat. The guy also said that Mr. Fisher’s car was ahead of theirs during the race and they saw him crash into another car. They slowed down to see what had happened. The guy wanted to get out and help them, but his buddies talked him out of it. They were drinking that night and they were also racing. They didn’t want their parents to find out. They were scared, and they left the scene. When they found out the next morning that Mr. Fisher was reported to be in the passenger seat, they knew it was a lie. But they never came forward. They wanted nothing to do with what happened that night.”
Fisher listened in silence.
“You spoke to a person who said he knew someone else who was at the scene,” she said, “but you didn’t have anything to corroborate his story.”
The Missing Mistress Page 18