Sharp Force, page 28
“Liam was a nice guy but always had one harebrained scheme after another for how to make money,” the senator goes on disdainfully. “A lot of huge purchases combined with high-risk investments, and he dies leaving her in a hole she can’t get out of. We all know the story. We’ve heard it a million times.”
“Does the sister know what’s happened?” I ask. “Where does she live? And what about their parents.”
“The parents are gone,” he replies. “And Georgine and Claire have never gotten along, truth be told. The sister is in Chicago, and I gave her the news right away. She’s already lining up a funeral home and all the rest. And of course, I’ll help in any way needed.”
“It sounds like you must have kept up with Georgine ever since college?” Benton queries.
“We’ve always stayed friends. After her husband died, we got closer.”
“Maybe more than friends?” Benton suggests.
“Be careful starting rumors,” Calvin Willard threatens.
“Why was your nephew staying in her house on Mercy Island?” Benton is unrelenting in his calm, quiet way. “Why were you giving her money?”
“Because she was helping Zain,” the senator answers. “And had been for the past six or seven years.”
“Helping with what?”
“He’s never had a good relationship with his mother. My damn sister. I blame her for why he’s never had a girlfriend of any consequence. If you get my drift.”
“I’m not sure I do.” Benton plays obtuse.
“It’s not that I care if he’s gay, nonbinary or whatever the hell people call themselves these days,” Calvin Willard goes on to say. “But he’s had trouble with depression, with feeling like he’s never fit in. And I’m sure you’ll find out soon enough that Georgine’s been seeing him since he graduated from high school. That’s when his mother bailed, and Zain went into a serious decline.”
“Georgine began giving him therapy?” Benton assumes.
“Her job was to keep him alive,” Calvin says, and for an instant I see the love he feels for Zain. “His moods got much worse when he started William & Mary. He became increasingly uncomfortable in his own skin. He started exploring alternatives, if you know what I mean.”
“I’m not sure I do,” Benton says.
“Self-hatred, doing self-destructive stuff, wanting to die.”
“I noticed his scars,” I reply, and he nods gravely.
“A cutter. Someone who self-harms.” He tells me what I’d already decided.
“Has he ever made an attempt at taking his own life?” I ask.
“Nothing that anyone knows about.” Calvin Willard stares off.
“Meaning, he’s made attempts that weren’t reported to the police or anyone else,” Benton infers, and what the senator is saying won’t be helpful to his nephew.
I can anticipate a prosecutor making the case that it’s not surprising a cutter would slice his own throat. It will be suggested that Zain deliberately caught the knife blade on his necklace, minimizing the injury. Or maybe he tried to kill himself after murdering his psychiatrist. I can feel a net closing around him as we talk outside his hospital room.
“What’s important is his preoccupation with killing himself,” Calvin Willard says. “I’ve made sure Georgine looked after him since my sister can’t be fucking bothered with her own son. It was Georgine’s idea for him to have the robot. As weird as it sounds, Robbie is a therapy dog for Zain. His best friend. Zain fucking loves the thing.”
“Then you were paying Georgine to be his live-in psychiatrist,” I summarize.
“Not twenty-four-seven,” he says. “They didn’t live together in Yorktown. But he’d stay in her house there when needed, depending on what was going on with him.”
“You mean, if it wasn’t safe for him to be alone,” Benton says, and the senator nods.
“Zain has his own place in Williamsburg,” he goes on. “But he’d talk to Georgine daily, and you’ll find that out too soon enough from their phone records.”
“Why were you paying her in tax-free gifts?” Benton gets back to that.
“Because I didn’t want a paper trail showing Zain has problems.” It’s hard for the senator to say. “I didn’t want people finding out that he has significant enough ones requiring him to have a minder. If that got out it would wreck his future. All doors would slam shut.”
“Including his internship at the White House,” Benton says.
“Well, let’s be honest.” Calvin Willard’s ego shines through. “He wouldn’t have gotten that were it not for me.”
“And Zain’s feelings about Georgine?” Benton asks. “I can understand there being resentment. Sometimes when we’re dependent on someone, we can feel controlled and angry.”
“Don’t try your bullshit investigative tactics on me,” the senator warns him. “All you people want is to catch and convict someone. What could be better than to take down Calvin Willard’s nephew? That’s the truth of the matter, isn’t it? Don’t make this political.”
“We aren’t,” Benton says. “And you shouldn’t either.”
“Do you think I don’t know that Bose Flagler’s already got his eye on the prize?”
“I don’t know about that,” Benton replies. “Has he contacted you?”
“The asshole wouldn’t dare,” Calvin says as if he hates the commonwealth’s attorney. “But I have my sources. I’m aware of what’s rattling around in his scheming head. He knows I should be the next president, and he’d like nothing better than to derail me. And in case you’ve not figured it out yet, you two had better be careful what side you’re on.”
“We don’t have a side,” Benton tells him.
“Everybody has a side. They just don’t admit it. And I’ll give you a helpful tip.” His expression turns ugly. “In fact, never mind. You’ve already gotten my helpful tip. Be careful who you decide to mess with.”
He returns to his nephew’s room, closing the door. As Benton and I leave the ward, we don’t say a word to each other. I look for Reba O’Leary to tell her goodbye and good luck. But there’s no sign of her. A few minutes later, I push the elevator button, the door creeping open.
“I think we might know who put Trad Whalen up to planting that device on our car,” I say to Benton as we board, nobody around.
“Without being direct, the senator made sure we got the message that if something happens to his beloved nephew?” Benton replies. “And most of all if anyone interferes with the senator’s political future? The price will be a very high one.”
“Such as someone hacking into our car and causing us to crash. Would Zain’s psychological problems fit with him killing his psychiatrist? Would it fit with him being the Phantom Slasher?” I ask point-blank.
“Depending on how much resentment he has, and how powerless he feels,” Benton says. “The Slasher’s crimes may be lust murders, but most of all they’re about power and rage.”
“I would think having an overbearing omnipotent uncle and a babysitting neurotic psychiatrist would be enough to make anyone feel powerless. If not homicidal,” I reply.
I can’t stop thinking about Lucy’s first year at UVA when she sometimes spent the night at Georgine’s house.
“Thank God Lucy stopped seeing her,” I say to Benton. “Thank God she never moved into the Duvalls’ house.”
“Lucy wouldn’t,” Benton says as the elevator stops on the first floor. “But her boundaries were violated all the same.”
We’re quiet as we weave through patients, and visitors with flowers and balloons, and hospital staff. Benton’s face is unreadable as we hurry through the hospital lobby and out the front door while he looks at his phone. The sun is warm, the air fresh and cool as we reach the visitors’ parking lot.
“Are you convinced he’s not the killer?” I ask now that it’s safe to talk.
“I’m not convinced of anything. His pathological relationship with Georgine certainly primes him for feeling controlled by her. He’s bound to have a lot of rage. He might have secretly hated her,” Benton explains, and I think of my niece again.
While she was Georgine’s patient at UVA, Lucy was angry most of the time, usually taking it out on me. I didn’t understand why, and maybe now I do.
“No matter what, Zain is going to be pursued as if he’s the killer.” Benton has his keyless fob out, our SUV in the next row of cars. “He’ll be dragged through the media, and already is.”
“And that’s damaging to Calvin Willard’s bid for president.” I state the obvious.
“It’s already happening, and of course he knows it. That’s one of the reasons he was such an asshole. He’s freaking out.” Benton unlocks our car doors. “Some Democrats are suggesting that he may not be the best one for the nomination. More of them would feel the same way had they heard the way he talked to us.”
“Sounds like the rats are already jumping ship.” I climb into the passenger’s seat.
Benton opens the console, taking a moment to scan with the spectrum analyzer, the noise floor bristling this close to a hospital. But nothing is detected that might make him think our SUV has been tampered with again.
CHAPTER 35
As we drive to Dulles International Airport, Benton is checking his mirrors. I can tell by the hard look on his face that he’s alerted on something.
“What is it?” I ask.
“The state police. Three cars behind us,” he says, and I turn around.
I see what he’s talking about, the sun glaring on the gray SUV’s windshield. I can’t tell who’s behind the wheel until Trad Whalen is in the left lane next to us. He remains parallel to our Tesla beyond Arlington National Cemetery.
Glancing over at us repeatedly, his face menaces as he points two fingers at his mirrored sunglasses, then at us. A reminder that he’s watching, and we’d best not forget it. Speeding ahead, he turns off at the next exit.
“Calvin Willard must have given him instructions,” Benton says. “Making sure we’re reminded to behave or else.”
“Well, we aren’t behaving in the least.” I continue looking for the trooper, wondering if he’s been tipped off about where Benton and I are headed.
I have no doubt that Calvin Willard would be most unhappy knowing we’re on our way to Yorktown to review his nephew’s psychiatric records. If the FBI hadn’t secured Georgine Duvall’s house, it would have been raided by now. The senator would have made sure of it.
“Marino is texting that he’s left Mercy Island and wants me to call him,” I tell Benton as I read the message.
“What did you find out?” Marino says when he answers the phone.
I give him the upshot of what we learned from Zain. It appears he has the same residue in his hair that we found at the scene, and I mention the blood on the steps and the robot’s feet. I tell Marino about the razor blades in Zain’s bathroom, and that he was Georgine’s live-in patient much of the time. He had been since graduating from high school.
“Well, here’s the other thing that’s not looking good for poor ol’ Zain.” Marino’s sarcastic tone bodes more trouble. “Lucy’s already checking out the robot, and it sure as hell doesn’t clear him of any suspicion. I just texted you a video, Doc.”
I open the file, turning up the sound as the recording begins. Robbie’s I.R. camera shows the robot making his way down the stairs. I can see the oak flooring, the blood in the dark hallway. I catch a blurry glimpse of a bootie-covered foot that looks gray in infrared.
Then nothing. The robot has stopped on the bottom step, the railing showing. I hear someone moving.
“Robbie, go home!”
Zain Willard’s stressed whisper is unmistakable, followed by the sound of the robot clunking back up the stairs. The video clip ends.
“Pretty damn incriminating, right?” Marino’s big voice returns to the car’s speakers. “Why would he order his robot to leave? Well, we know why. Because Zain didn’t want to be caught on camera cutting his own throat. Or about to do it. Or maybe he was standing there in PPE holding a knife.”
“There’s another thing to consider,” Benton says. “Maybe he was being protective of Robbie the same way you would be of a pet.”
“I’m thinking the same thing,” I reply. “He was afraid that whoever broke in wanted to steal his robot.”
“He didn’t want to be on camera because he’s the killer.” Marino has his mind made up. “And here’s the other thing we know thanks to the robot.”
As we suspected, it was Graden Crowley who had champagne with Zain and Georgine. They also ate pizza, and that’s consistent with what Doug Schlaefer found in her small intestines.
“Pepperoni, mushrooms, peppers not fully digested,” Marino explains. “Her STAT blood alcohol is point-oh-two.”
“That sounds about right if she had a few glasses of champagne before going to bed at midnight,” I reply.
“Was Graden Crowley’s visit recorded? Was Robbie in the room?” Benton asks.
“Yep, you can see Crowley walking in the front door with Georgine, carrying the bottle of champagne. But even more important is what the robot caught on camera before that,” Marino explains. “While Georgine and Crowley were out at the Christmas party.”
Robbie recorded Calvin Willard showing up at seven p.m. to chat with Zain and drop off the $18,000 check for Georgine. Marino says that the senator asked how things were going. How was Zain feeling? His uncle hoped that Zain wasn’t still “miffed” at him.
“Miffed about what?” I ask.
“Lucy says it’s obvious from the recorded conversation that the White House internship was going to end after the New Year.” Triumph rings in Marino’s voice. “It sounds like Zain didn’t know he was about to be canned until last night.”
Apparently, Calvin Willard didn’t think it was good for him politically, didn’t want an appearance of nepotism. He was sorry but there was nothing he could do about it, and what this tells me most of all is he considered Zain a liability. Possibly, the presidential candidate’s advisors did.
“He seemed worried that Zain would blame him for being fired, basically,” Marino explains. “News like that would be enough to incense Zain, maybe cause him to do something impulsive. Lucy says there’s a good chance he’s about to be arrested.”
The FBI will make the case that Zain had a love-hate relationship with Georgine. His de facto psychiatrist, she was paid with piles of cash and exorbitant gifts, and this is going to look terrible for the senator.
“Maybe we know how she was able to afford keeping up her family home in Yorktown,” I point out. “And have a multimillion-dollar place on Mercy Island.”
“Tax-free checks were the tip of the iceberg. Lucy’s found out that Georgine was getting a lot of wires from some bogus account in the Cayman Islands.” Marino continues filling us in.
“Sounds a little bit like Rowdy O’Leary,” Benton replies as we pick up the Beltway.
“Exactly. He was mowed down in a hit-and-run.” Marino talks excitedly. “Then he starts getting payments from the Cayman Islands.”
“And Trad Whalen was involved in his case,” Benton adds. “And he’s obviously trying to intimidate us.”
He tells Marino that when the state trooper pulled us over early this morning, he attached a hacking device on our car. Benton adds that Whalen was just tailing us again.
“I think we know the reason,” Marino replies. “Calvin Willard doesn’t want you investigating his nephew. He’s telling you to back off or bad shit will happen.”
“What about Rapid DNA?” I ask. “Any luck yet?”
“We’ve verified Georgine Duvall’s identity, not that there was a shred of doubt. The only DNA profile recovered from the broken fake fang is her own,” Marino informs me.
“That’s too bad,” I reply. “But I’m not surprised since it was embedded in her body.”
“Lee Fishburne says it’s like you figured, Doc, and the three-D-printed tooth is made from acrylic,” Marino explains. “And he says something weird showed up on SEM with the residue that lit up.”
The trace evidence examiner used the scanning electron microscope to look at the fluorescing powder I swabbed at the scene. He’s verified that the information from the Raman spectrometer is correct. But included in the powdery mixture of chlorophyll and calcite are microscopic fragments of reddish-black animal hair that we can’t identify.
“Lee has no idea what the hell it is,” Marino explains. “He says, and I quote, that the structure of the medulla doesn’t match anything in the databases.”
“What about the swabs I took on the stairs and the bottom of Robbie’s feet?” I ask.
“Both Georgine’s and Zain’s DNA are on the robotic dog,” Marino says. “Clark says the smears are a mixture of their blood. He believes the robot walked in both.”
“Not good for Zain either,” Benton comments.
“His goose is cooked. He’ll go to trial for being the Slasher, and Bose Flagler’s already sharpening his knives.” Marino’s choice of words is unfortunate. “He can’t wait to take Zain Willard down.”
It’s almost one o’clock when we reach Dulles International Airport, and I think of the dismal irony. This is where we would have been headed in a few hours for a very different reason had the Slasher not struck again. Benton and I would be getting ready to fly to London instead of on our way to Georgine Duvall’s Yorktown home.
The news is nonstop about her murder. Dana Diletti is giving interviews on CNN, Fox and the major TV networks while the governor reminds the public that we don’t know for a fact who the Phantom Slasher is.
… We shouldn’t assume he’s been caught. We need to remain vigilant, she’s saying on social media. We don’t have evidence proving who this is. Only rumors. And biased opinions when this shouldn’t be about politics. I’m asking everyone not to rush to judgment…
