Monday Morning
Lucy skipped the FBI staff meeting Monday morning to go to the sheriff’s office. She feared Jerry was still angry with her because she’d brought Justice, the dog, to visit Garrett in holding yesterday.
He wasn’t. In fact, he had Garrett arraigned first thing in the morning and released on bail for the drunk and disorderly.
“He didn’t do it,” Jerry said.
“I thought we agreed on that yesterday.”
“Yeah, well, that dog was so damn overjoyed to see him, and Garrett cried. Mitchell Duncan—if he was dead and Julio was alive, I’d think more that Garrett was guilty. But there’s also evidence.”
“What evidence?”
“The soil that Ash found in Garcia’s car doesn’t match any of the crime scenes. It doesn’t match Garcia’s property, King’s property, or Garrett’s apartment. There is a gas can at Garcia’s house, in the garage, but it’s clear it hasn’t been touched in months. Garrett has no alibi—he was home, alone, for each of the crimes—but a lot of people are home alone late Friday night. We’ve found no physical evidence at his apartment or in his truck—no duct tape, no gun, no mallet or sledgehammer. He could have tossed everything after he killed his dad, but where? In the lake? Possible. But get this—I had Ash give his truck a rectal exam, and it’s clear he hadn’t been up at the lake in weeks. He analyzed layers of dirt or some such thing and said he hadn’t been up recently … which makes me think that Garrett wasn’t lying when he said he and his dad had a blowout over Labor Day weekend and that was the last time he’d seen him. We really are back to square one.”
“No, we’re not. I’ve also been thinking a lot about this. Sean said something that made me wonder—who would know about Garrett King? Who would know that he was angry with his dad, that he had been fired, that he was jealous his dad had hired Standish and not him? It could be someone close to Garrett—or close to Victor. And it got me to thinking what William Peterson said the other day—that Steven James didn’t normally take small estates like Victor King’s. Why did he take this one?”
“I already sent an officer to pick up the files, since the warrant came through. But I still don’t see where you’re going.”
“Where are we on finding Teri James’s ex-husband?”
“I have his contact information, I didn’t think he could contribute anything. And you cannot be thinking that woman had anything to do with this.”
“I think we should find probable cause to test the soil in her yard. We’ve been going around and around, and it might be as simple as this: We couldn’t figure out how the killer knew where James would be since it’s such a short drive to his house from the airport. I’ve driven the route multiple times. He passed the golf course on his way home—why did he pull in? We know that he called his wife and they spoke—she knew when he would be coming home, when he would reach the golf course. He has no other calls to or from his phone. I also want to talk to Abby without Teri James around.”
“That’s problematic.”
“Not if I think she’s at risk.”
Jerry was thinking. “Okay, let’s say I buy into this insane theory. Why? What’s the motive? She doesn’t control Abby’s trust fund. She doesn’t get millions of dollars. She gets an allowance, right?”
“And a seat on the board. But maybe their marriage wasn’t as idyllic as we were led to believe. Abby might know that. And think of this: Every interview we’ve done, no one talks about Teri. It’s like she almost doesn’t exist, or has never connected with people on a personal level.”
“You’re going back to that shrink.”
“That shrink? My brother? Yes. I am. The killer is cold and impersonal. Someone who doesn’t make human connections. Someone with little empathy. And you saw it, that’s why you wrote those notes about Abby’s relationship with her stepmother. I’ve gone around and around and around and this is the only thing that makes sense. We know the killer doesn’t have to be physically strong.”
“Your brother leaned toward a male killer.”
“And Hans, who has at least ten more years’ experience than my brother, leaned toward a female killer. Not that I would discount my brother, but at a minimum, they couldn’t conclude male or female. I’ll bet she has researched serial killers and created this crime scene to make us think specific things. That’s why it looks like a stage, like she set a scene. The bread crumbs Dillon talked about.
“I also spoke with Abby’s great-aunt yesterday,” Lucy continued. “She is a character, I’ll say that. And she was absolutely forthcoming about Abby’s trust. It’s untouchable. Except … the guardian is paid to serve on the trust board. One hundred thousand dollars a year to advise and consult, plus ten thousand dollars a month for living expenses until Abby is eighteen.”
“Over two hundred thousand dollars.”
“Steven never took the money. The ten thousand a month he donated to a charity his first wife had founded to research rare diseases—Bridget’s best friend died from a rare disease in high school. The hundred thousand he reverted back to the trust, minus actual expenses, which he billed separately. They never totaled more than fifteen thousand a year. He made a good salary at Allied and lived on it. But I have another theory.”
“I can’t wait.”
She didn’t know if he was being sarcastic. “I don’t think Teri James has family here, or if she does they are estranged. I need to confirm that with Abby or her ex-husband. And I don’t think that money is the primary motivator, though I’m sure it has something to do with her actions.”
“Then why? If not for money, why kill her husband?”
“You’ve talked to her more than I have. She is cool, she is unusually neat and tidy, she works from home, alone, and doesn’t appear to have much of a social life. I think the strain of trying to live a normal life with a husband and stepdaughter took its toll. She couldn’t be herself—but she couldn’t keep up the act.”
“So she kills her husband? Why not just divorce him?”
“And maybe that’s where the money comes in. Maybe she doesn’t do all that well on her own, and wants the money to live on. Or maybe she couldn’t accept that she couldn’t keep up the charade. It could make her feel inferior, and that’s something that would grate on her.”
“Psychobabble again,” he said, but surprisingly, his expression didn’t match his words. He was rethinking the case. He would come around, Lucy was certain, except for one thing: evidence.
Jerry said, “We still have nothing tangible.”
“Track down the ex-husband. Let’s talk to him, see what he has to say. Then I want to talk to Abby, after school, before she goes home.”
Roger Abbott was an asshole, Lucy thought after only a ten-minute conversation. But the conversation was gold.
“Thank you for taking the time to talk to us,” Jerry said on the speakerphone. “We only have a few questions.”
“I hope so, because I have work to do, and I really don’t care what my ex-wife is doing.”
“I have in my notes that you were married for five years.”
“Yes. The divorce was amicable. We haven’t spoken since.”
“Have you remarried?”
“No. Not interested.”
“You know that Teri remarried.”
“I heard, I don’t care.”
Jerry made a face at Lucy that almost had her laughing.
“Teri said she moved back to San Antonio to be close to her family, but we haven’t been able to find her family.”
“Because they’re all dead or moved away. She was born in San Antonio, but they moved to Denver when she was in high school, after her parents divorced. She came here with her mother, a cold bitch of a woman. Two peas in a pod, though Teri wasn’t a bitch. She was just a cold fish. Still lives here, as far as I know—but I don’t keep track of Teri’s family. Her father moved to Florida or something. She never talked to him in the years we were together. Never even talked about him. She’s an only child, never talked about aunts or uncles or cousins so I don’t know what family would be left in San Antonio.”
That in and of itself didn’t mean anything—she could have returned to San Antonio because it’s where she lived as a child and she had fond memories.
“She’s a self-employed accountant,” Jerry said, “works out of her house.”
Roger laughed, one disturbing bark of a sound. “Because she doesn’t get along with anyone. She had a great job here in Denver for a CPA, but she blew it. She wasn’t promoted, so she installed a virus into their servers and destroyed the business from the inside out. By the time they figured it out, the backups were also corrupted.”
“And she wasn’t prosecuted?” Lucy asked.
“They couldn’t prove anything. She actually got a severance package from them. It took them years to rebuild.”
“But you knew about it.”
“Not because she told me, but when I heard about the accusation I thought, yeah, that’s Teri. She would quietly destroy someone and not think twice about it. She doesn’t need the credit. She just wants the job done. She probably hasn’t thought about it since.”
Lucy asked, “But you married her. Why? Doesn’t sound like you two had a whirlwind romantic courtship.”
Again, the barking laugh. “Romance? Who gives a shit about that? Teri and I were realists. We got married because it was convenient and helped us both out at the time; divorced for the same reasons. I was never home because I travel for work three weeks out of the month, mostly to Japan. She liked that. And she kept an amazing house. Spotless. When I had to entertain, it was always perfect. She liked to entertain, put on the big production. And she’s smart and can hold a conversation with anyone about anything, which helped me with my clients. But when I was promoted to vice president and traveled less, she didn’t much like having me home. And I didn’t much like spending more than a couple nights a week with her. We talked, agreed to divorce, split our assets, and went our separate ways.”
Lucy couldn’t imagine living that sort of life, and by Jerry’s expression, he was befuddled as well.
“And you haven’t talked to her since your divorce—ten years ago now?”
“Correct. Well, I wouldn’t say I haven’t talked to her at all. She came up six or seven years ago for business and we had dinner to address a few minor financial things that came up after our divorce. It was amicable. She may have said she was seeing someone, but I wasn’t really paying much attention. Now I really have to go. Anything else, call my secretary and she’ll set up an appointment.”
He hung up before Jerry could say goodbye.
“What a jerk,” Lucy said.
“We see all kinds in this job.” He shook his head, rubbed his eyes. “Nothing there we can use. He might not give her a good character reference, but that’s not going to convict her of murder.”
“Time for me to talk to Abby. Alone. She’ll feel more comfortable that way.”
“Tread carefully, she’s a minor.”
“And if she’s in danger, we need to get her out of that house.”
An officer came in with a thick file folder. “The documents you requested from Allied.” He dropped it on the table.
“Thanks.”
Jerry immediately opened the file, but glanced at the clock. “Want me to read?” Lucy asked.
“Would you mind? I’m going down the hall to talk to Jimenez. See if she thinks we have enough for a warrant. I don’t know—I don’t see it.”
“If we can get Abby to go on record, that might give us what we need.”
“She would need a court-appointed advocate, just to do everything aboveboard. We don’t want a conviction jeopardized because the defense thinks we pressured a minor.”
Jerry stepped out, and Lucy started reviewing Steven James’s files on Victor King. There were a lot of financial records—hardcopies of everything, with notes that the financial documents had been scanned into the system. Every meeting was detailed—time, date, what they discussed, what Victor needed to do, and what James would do regarding filings and transfers and the like.
And then she saw it. The two items that might give them the warrant they needed.
First, Steven James met with Victor one day at his house. It would be easy enough for Teri, who worked from home, to overhear any conversation—but this meeting took place two days after Garrett was fired. It was something that Victor might have discussed.
And second, everything on Allied’s server could be accessed with Steven James’s password.
That meant not only King’s records, but Joyce Witherspoon’s audits of Abby’s trust. While Teri might have access to joint financial statements, it was clear that Steven James also had his own accounts, separate from his wife.
She called William Peterson. “Mr. Peterson, I’m sorry to disturb you again.”
“Did you get the files? I gave them to an officer who produced the warrant.”
“Yes, I did, thank you. Another question—can your IT department run a log of every time Steven James logged into the Allied server from a remote location? And provide the IP address, date, and time of that login?”
“I imagine they can—but why?”
“I have a hunch, and this may help us bring a killer to justice.”
“I’ll get back to you.”
Jerry walked in with Maria Jimenez. He didn’t look happy. “We need more,” Maria said to Lucy.
“I have more. Victor King was at Steven James’s house end of June for a business meeting. Steven’s notes say that he was bringing over documents, it was a Saturday. That gives Teri James proximity—she could know about Garrett’s job situation, that he’d been fired, and make the logical deduction that Julio Garcia fired him. And she may have had access to Allied’s records, which would include King’s as well as her stepdaughter’s trust.”
“It still isn’t enough.”
“I’m going to talk to Abby. If she has any hint that Teri is dangerous, we’ll have her sit down with an advocate and give an official statement. Enough to get us a warrant. At a minimum for her car.”
“Why her car?” Maria asked. “GPS tracking?”
“No,” Jerry said, “grease. It’s hard physical evidence.”
“With that, we can get a full search warrant.”
“Make sure it’s solid because we don’t want this biting us in the ass,” Maria said. “I’ll talk to the ADA and give her a heads-up.”
“Thanks, Maria.”
“Just do it right, Jerry.” She left.
“I have an idea,” Lucy said, “and I need to enlist Sean’s help to do it.”
“I’m listening.”
“Each murder was committed on a Friday night. Teri lives in Olmos Park. The people in Olmos Park are security-conscious. Many of them have security systems, including cameras. Sean knows a lot of the neighbors—he’s friendly. He’s also a security expert who has high government clearance for his job, so if he extracts and documents data, it will be far easier to get it admissible in court.”
“I’m not arguing, I just don’t see what you’re getting at.”
“We need to prove that Teri had the opportunity to kill each of those men. I think from security feeds we can track her moving to and from the neighborhood on the nights of the murders.”
“She could easily say she was going to the store. Going to a friend’s house.”
“Yes, possibly, but we can also set her up. Ask her where she was on those nights. Get her to make a specific claim, something that we can then disprove.”
“If she’s as smart as you say she is, that’s not going to work.”
“But it’s one more piece of evidence. And remember what Ash said? Standish fought back. She was hurt that night. Steven James was at Abby’s summer camp that weekend. He drove up Friday afternoon, stayed until late Sunday night.”
“Two days for bruises to heal? I don’t see that.”
“She could conceal them. Lie—we don’t know, because Steven James is dead.”
“I can see the benefit. Okay, as long as he knows he might have to testify, so no cutting corners on this.”
“Of course not,” Lucy said, mentally crossing her fingers.
Abby James had volleyball practice after school, and Lucy was waiting for her at the locker room entrance.
“Agent Kincaid, right?” Abby said.
“Yes. Do you have a minute?”
“Is it about my dad?”
“Yes.”
“I need to tell my coach.”
“I already talked to her. But if you want to check with her—”
“No, I’m okay.”
“Do you want to sit or walk?”
“Um…” She looked around.
Lucy motioned to picnic tables outside the gym. They were in the shade, and the afternoon was warm and sticky. “Good?”
“Yeah.”
They sat down and Lucy said, “We’ve been working nonstop trying to solve your father’s murder.”
“Someone was arrested. He did it, right?”
“No.”
“No? But I saw the news.”
“He was the son of the latest victim … and he was arrested for drunk and disorderly conduct. We thought he might have done it, but so far there is no evidence that he did—and what little evidence we found exonerates him.”
“Oh.”
“Abby, I’m going to ask you some tough questions. If you would like an advocate, I would be happy to bring one in.”
“Am I in trouble?”
“No, absolutely not. I want to ask you questions about your stepmother.”
Her face drained of blood. “She killed him, didn’t she.” Her voice cracked. And it wasn’t a question.
“Why do you say that?”
“I—I don’t know. I just—living with Teri is like walking on hot coals. Or something.”
“Are you scared of her?”
“Yes. I mean no.”
“You can tell me the truth,” Lucy said. “I will do everything in my power to protect you.”
“It’s—I mean, she’s so unemotional. She’s like a robot. She doesn’t get happy or sad or angry or … or anything. When my dad met her, she was nice, you know? And I was little and didn’t really pay much attention. I mean, I guess I kind of acted up a little because I didn’t want to share my dad, but it was fine. I was eight when they got married, and my dad took me out to dinner a couple nights before that. Maybe a week. And he said that he and Teri had a lot in common, and he liked her, but he wouldn’t marry her if I didn’t want him to. And I said it was okay because I wanted him to be happy. And … and it’s my fault.”
“Honey, none of this is your fault.” Why did kids always put the blame on themselves for the decisions adults made? “Your dad loved you. He wants you to be happy. You have nothing to feel guilt about. I’ve gone over your father’s calendars. He traveled a lot, mostly to visit clients in California, Tennessee, and Florida. He often took you with him, even if you had to miss school. Why?”
“He said he liked to spend time with me, and we usually planned those trips around a weekend so we could do fun stuff.”
“Did Teri ever go?”
“No. She doesn’t like to travel. The only thing she really likes to do for fun is her ceramics.”
“Ceramics?”
“Yeah—one of her clients owns one of those places where you go in and design pottery and fire it and paint it and stuff. She took me there for one of my birthdays. Teri is actually really good—she has like infinite patience. I get bored too easily.”
Lucy made a note. She didn’t know if that would mean anything, but every detail was important.
“When your dad visited you at camp, did he have any specific reason?”
She bit her lip.
“Honey? It could be important.” That was the weekend Standish was killed.
“I was surprised to see him. He didn’t really say anything, but I thought he was sad. My dad didn’t talk a lot. He didn’t want to share his problems with me, but I never really thought he had problems. But I asked if he was sad. My mom—my real mom, who died—they were married in July. I thought he was thinking about that. He said he’d talked to Teri about a separation, and she agreed, but thought they should try counseling first. He agreed, but he said he’d never been to a counselor and he didn’t know what to expect. He actually seemed nervous.”
There were no counseling appointments in his calendar.
“Did he talk to anyone about it? We don’t have records of any appointments.”
“I don’t know. I didn’t ask. When he picked me up at camp a couple weeks later, he didn’t say anything about it, and I didn’t ask. I should have.”
“I see why you didn’t. I never asked my parents about their marriage. They’ve been married for over forty-five years. And I think if my dad started talking stuff about my mom it would kind of freak me out.”
“Yeah,” Abby said with a half smile. “I guess.”
“Where were you the last two Friday nights? Were you at home?”
“No. I was at my friend’s house. Becky. I go over there a lot. She’s on the volleyball team, too.”
“Both Fridays?”
“Actually, all weekend, almost every weekend.”
“And that’s because…?”
“I don’t have anything to talk about with Teri. She asks me questions, I answer, we eat dinner, she goes to her office, I do my homework. We don’t … communicate. I can’t really talk to her about anything important. The one time I really tried it was after I started my period. I was twelve and kind of freaked out because I knew it would come, but not really what to expect. She, like, recited a biology book. And I just lost it, started complaining that she doesn’t listen to anyone, that she’s so weird, I don’t remember exactly what I said.”
“She got mad?”
“No. She just listened, then repeated herself, adding that my emotions were because of hormone levels, and if it continued, she could take me to a doctor to put me on birth control to regulate my hormones so I wouldn’t get so emotional. I never talked to her about it again.”
“Did you tell your dad?”
“No. He wouldn’t know what to do about that stuff.”
“You’d be surprised what dads are capable of.”
“It would have embarrassed him. I talked to Becky’s mom and it helped.”
“Has Teri said anything to you, or have you heard anything, that would indicate interest in your trust fund?”
She shrugged. “She didn’t seem to care. My dad and I would talk about it over dinner a lot, though. He always explained why he invested money in certain ways, explained what rate-of-return and risk were. I’m not really into numbers—but I’m interested, because I need to know how it works so when I’m on the board, I know what I’m doing. But I always expected him to be here, you know? To take care of it for me so I wouldn’t have to.” She paused. “She can’t get my trust. Is that why she killed him? Because she thinks she can get my trust?”
“Your trust is well protected, I assume she would know that the allowance was just that—an allowance, not the entire trust. Still, we’re working on it. There may be a motive we’re not seeing—like if they were planning to divorce. One more thing. We believe that the last victim’s dog bit the attacker on Friday night. Did you see anything that might support that?”
She started to shake her head, then stopped. “Her running pants.”
“What?”
“She has these expensive running pants—you know, the skintight ones that cost a hundred bucks or something? She has a pair in like every color they make. They had a hole in them. I came home Saturday morning because I’d forgotten my history notebook and I had an essay due today. She was inspecting the hole. She was frustrated—and she doesn’t get frustrated, you know? I asked her what happened, because these are like indestructible pants. She said she fell running that morning and it snagged. But it didn’t look like a snag. It looked like a big hole. Right above the knee.”
“Can you stay with Becky tonight? Not go home?”
“Yeah, I guess. Why?”
“Just as a precaution.” She gave Abby her business card and wrote her cell phone number on the back. “Call me for any reason. I need to talk to the district attorney and have you make a formal statement. Would you be willing to do that? Make a formal statement as to what you know?”
“Do you really think she killed my dad?”
“Yes, I do.”
“I will tell you everything I know if it’ll help prove it.”
“Tell the truth. Just what you know. And yeah, it all helps.”