THE DETENTION CENTER down in Alexandria is a big old redbrick building at the dead end of Mill Road.
It was where they held Zacarias Moussaoui until he was sentenced to the supermax facility in Florence, Colorado—which, by coincidence, was the last known residence of Kyle Craig, a serial killer and major piece of unfinished business for me to get to one of these days. It’s amazing how small and incestuous the world of major crime can start to feel once you’ve spent enough time immersed in it, as I had. Just thinking about Kyle Craig got me riled up inside.
Nicholson and Ms. Kelly were being held on the first and second floors, respectively. We had put them in separate interview rooms and then had to shuttle between the two by elevator.
At first, neither of them was willing to say anything except that they’d been the victims of kidnap and assault. I let that go on for a while, several hours, and even subtly let Mara Kelly know that her boyfriend was holding firm. I wanted to build up her trust in Nicholson before I tried to tear it down to nothing.
Next time into the room, I laid a photocopied page on the table in front of her.
“What’s this?” she asked.
“See for yourself.”
She leaned in, tucking in a loose strand of hair with a white-tipped fingernail. Even here in an interrogation room, Kelly had the kind of gentility that struck me as more practiced than real. She spoke of herself as an accountant, but she’d only finished a year of junior college.
“Plane tickets?” she said. “I don’t understand. What are these for?”
Sampson hunkered low over the table. He’s six nine and more than a little intimidating when he wants to be, which is most of the time when he’s on the job.
“Montreal to Zurich, leaving last night. You read the ticket? You see the names?”
He tapped a finger on the page. “Anthony and Charlotte Nicholson. Your boyfriend was getting ready to run on you, Mara. He and his wife.”
She pushed the page away. “Yeah, I’ve got a computer and a color printer too.”
I took out my cell phone and offered it. “There’s a number for Swiss Air right there. You want to call and confirm the reservation, Mrs. Nicholson?”
When she didn’t answer, I decided to give her a few minutes alone to stew. Actually, she was right—we had faked the tickets. By the time we came back, she was ready. I could see she’d been crying, and also that she’d tried to wipe away any sign of tears.
“What do you want to know?” she asked. Then her eyes narrowed. “What do I get for it?”
Sampson made eye contact with her and held it. “We’ll do everything we can to help you.”
I nodded. “This is how it works, Mara. Whoever helps us first, we help them.”
I turned on the tape recorder and set it down. “Who were the men in the car? Let’s start there.”
“I have no idea,” she said. “I never saw them before in my life.” I believed her.
“What did they want? What did they say?”
Here she paused. I had the sense she might be ready to bury Nicholson, but it wasn’t a corner she would turn all at once. “You know, I warned him something like this could happen.”
“Something like what, Mara?” Sampson asked. “Be a little more specific.”
“He’s been blackmailing clients of the club. It was supposed to be our ‘new-life money.’ That’s what Tony always called it. Some new life, right?” She gestured around the room. “This is it?”
“What about names? Dead names, made-up ones, whatever you heard. What do you know about the people he was blackmailing?”
Mara Kelly was warming to this, and as she did, her tone got more bitter and sarcastic. “I know that he always covered his bases. Both sides of the aisle. That way, if anyone talks, everyone loses. And if anything happened to Tony, I was supposed to blow the whole thing wide open.” She sat back and crossed her slender arms. “That was the idea, anyway. That was the threat he made to the dumbasses he was blackmailing for getting a little nookie.”
“And everyone paid up?” Sampson asked her.
Her eyes traveled around the room again like she couldn’t believe she was here, that it had all come to this.
“Well, if that was true, we wouldn’t be having this conversation, now, would we?”