As they drove to FBI headquarters in Nate’s truck Monday morning, he came up with half a dozen ways Lucy could avoid telling Rachel about the potential kidnapping threat against her, including reading in Leo Proctor to what had been going on with Jesse this week, but in the end Lucy decided she needed to be completely honest with her boss. She didn’t want to return to the months of distrust that existed between her and Rachel after Lucy lied to her about a family emergency so she could pursue a cold-case investigation in San Diego.
First thing, before the weekly staff briefing, she went into Rachel’s office and closed the door.
Rachel looked up. “Lucy. Can this wait for the staff meeting? I’m still putting together my agenda.”
“I’m sorry, it can’t. It’ll just take a minute.”
She motioned for Lucy to sit.
Lucy had already worked out a cover story with Kane just in case Rachel wanted to verify the information. She certainly couldn’t admit that Kane broke into a man’s house, no matter how dirty Vasquez was.
“My brother-in-law has been investigating the hit-and-run because he was concerned that it might be related to RCK business, and in the process he uncovered a potential threat against me and Jesse, Sean’s son,” Lucy said before she changed her mind about coming clean with Rachel. “I don’t believe that I’m in any danger to do my job here. Jesse is safe at the house, and now that Nate has been officially cleared he agreed to drive me to and from home until RCK neutralizes the threat.”
“What kind of threat?”
“Kane uncovered a photo of Jesse and me that had been taken immediately prior to the hit-and-run, along with documentation that suggested the person who took the photo knew that RCK had ransom insurance.”
“He should turn all that into our office.”
“I told him the same thing.” Not really, but Lucy needed to at least pretend she had. “When he told me about it, he’d already sent the information to the assistant director. I’m sorry.”
“Of course he did.” Rachel frowned. “I don’t like this, Lucy.”
“I know.”
“I appreciate you being honest with me about it, however. What Nate does on his own time is his own business. How viable do you consider this threat?”
“I don’t think I’m the target, I think Jesse is. But I’m taking it seriously.”
“If you want permission to work at your desk until this is resolved, I can do that.”
“No, I want to clear the McMahon and Grey cases. Leo and I are really close—we have several leads to follow up.”
“I read Leo’s report over the weekend. He’s looking at Clarke-Harrison, correct?”
“Yes. We’re treading carefully, we recognize that they are a multimillion-dollar company with ties to the community, but something odd is going on over there, and Cortland Clarke was less than forthcoming. In addition, we’ve been given the run-around regarding Garrett Harrison. He’s been out of town, but either he’s avoiding our calls or he’s not getting our messages. We asked the New York office to visit him in person about McMahon, and they reported that he wasn’t registered at the hotel that we were given by his company.”
“I have no problem going after them or anyone for any criminal act, as long as we make sure that we have all our ducks in a row. We don’t need the PR headache. But Leo makes a compelling argument, and while right now everything is circumstantial and we do not have enough cause for a warrant, over and above the limited warrant you executed over the weekend, there’s enough to continue the investigation. As long as you feel safe enough to do your job without being torn between the case and your concern over your stepson.”
“Jesse is in good hands.”
“Very well.” She hesitated, then said, “I don’t have any immediate case for Nate, and I know you work well together. I’ll assign him to the task force. Jason wrapped up his end of it with Detective Mancini, who is focused on the lost evidence, so I’ll have him back. And perhaps—just for the next couple days—it would be better to have backup. Just in case you should be more concerned about the threat.”
“Well, I don’t think it’s necessary,” Lucy said while silently relieved, “but I appreciate the backup.”
She got up and opened the door. Rachel said, “And if Clarke-Harrison is guilty, make sure it’s a damn good case and pass it to White Collar. I already told Leo that when this becomes more a white-collar crime than a murder investigation where we’re assisting SAPD, then he needs to pass it along. I have the smallest squad in the office, and I need you back.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Lucy caught up with Leo and Nate in the staff conference room.
“Nate filled me in,” Leo said.
“Rachel approved Nate to work on the task force. In fact, it was her idea.”
Nate smiled. “You’re sneaky, Kincaid.”
“I used the old Jedi mind trick.”
Nate laughed.
* * *
Leo left in the middle of the staff meeting. As soon as Lucy and Nate walked out fifteen minutes later, Leo grabbed them. “I was right about the bartender at Hogtied. The musician who knows Vince Paine? She called. I explained why we wanted to talk to him, assured her that he wasn’t in trouble but we were concerned about his safety because he might have information that would put him in danger, and she gave me his address. Back to Bandera, but she said he’ll be there all morning. He works nights as a grocery clerk.”
“A far cry from research assistant at a prestigious lab.”
They climbed into an FBI pool car. Leo said, “He has a master’s degree from LSU in biology. The other thing Maya said was that he had a problem with Oxy for a while. He’s been clean for a few weeks, but he’d started because he was having debilitating headaches and couldn’t remember things.”
“Just like Charlie McMahon,” Lucy said.
“But he seems to be better.”
“He didn’t live up there when he was working at CHR. His address was in San Antonio.”
“True, but he and Maya have been friends since high school and he’d go up to watch her band every now and then. When he was fired, he moved into the apartment above her garage.”
Leo glanced down at his phone, which was charging in the dash. “It’s Tia.” He put the call on speaker.
“Tia, you’re on with Lucy, Nate Dunning, and me.”
“Full house. Where are you?”
“Heading to Bandera to talk to Paine.”
“We found Paul Grey’s car. It’s a damn mess.”
“Where?”
“Parked on the street two blocks over from McMahon’s apartment. Street cleaning is on Monday. It wasn’t there last Monday; it was there today. They were going to tow it, then ran the tags. I can’t believe no one called it in. There were flies everywhere, his brains were blown out right there. There was some cleanup, but mostly just a wipe-down. And evidence that Grey’s body was transported in the vehicle.”
“This makes no sense,” Leo said. “Grey committed suicide, then—”
Tia interrupted. “Julie Peters is good, but she can still make mistakes.”
“But he was killed in the driver’s seat.”
“Correct.”
“For a minute, let’s assume he did kill himself Monday night after he went to the bar.”
“Okay.” Tia sounded skeptical.
Lucy knew were Leo was going with this. She said, “He killed himself in an unknown location, but in his car. What if he was supposed to meet Charlie—like Charlie believed he was supposed to meet him on Wednesday—and he intended to tell Charlie everything. But got cold feet. Maybe he was involved in some way as to what was wrong with Charlie, and couldn’t live with the truth, so he killed himself.”
“And while dead, drives his car to Charlie’s apartment.”
Lucy tried not to take Tia’s sarcasm personally.
“What if he killed himself, but the evidence was in the car?”
“And? I don’t see where you’re going.”
“Where was Paul for the hours between when he paid Charlie’s debt and when he was killed? What if he went to the lab after hours to get the information or evidence that Charlie needed—and someone tried to stop him? Or found out about it?”
“A lot of what-ifs,” Tia said.
“I agree,” Leo said. “We don’t know what was going through his head.”
Lucy felt like she was grasping at straws. “What we know is that Paul intended to meet with Cassidy Roth.”
“We assume,” Leo said. “We don’t know for certain.”
She glanced at him and frowned. “Who else?”
“I’m okay with that assumption,” Tia said.
“And according to Mrs. Granger, Cassidy was trying to help Charlie with his memory loss. Maybe Cassidy found his body.”
“And moved it to Charlie’s house? Why?”
“You’re right,” Lucy said.
“I didn’t say anything,” Tia said.
“No—she wouldn’t. But someone who wanted to frame Charlie might.”
“Who?”
“Someone at Clarke-Harrison,” Lucy said.
“And we have not one shred of proof that anyone at Clarke-Harrison is involved,” Leo said.
“Just our gut, and you know like I do that there is something weird going on there.”
Leo rubbed his face. “Maybe Charlie himself did it,” Leo said. “Found his friend dead and snapped.”
“That’s a long shot. That means he drove him to his house, put his body in his den, then drove the car back to his apartment? Why?”
“Because he was mentally ill,” Tia said.
“But he wasn’t mentally ill,” Lucy said. “He had a hormonal or chemical imbalance that resulted in severe memory loss and debilitating headaches.”
“We’re back at square one,” Tia said.
“No—you have Paul’s car.”
“Like I said, it’s a mess. Everything has been compromised.”
“Ash Dominguez is good. Let him work his magic.”
Tia sighed. “Why do I feel like someone mixed three different thousand-piece puzzles together, then took out half the pieces?”
“Tia,” Lucy said, “what’s going on with the missing evidence?”
“It’s gone. The shipping company doesn’t know what happened. They think the packages were misrouted, even though there is no computer error. I think their driver was bribed, but he’s sticking to his story. I can’t prove anything—he hasn’t bought anything extravagant, and there’s no large deposit in his bank account.”
“He could have been bribed with cash and he’s holding on to it; he could have been blackmailed into turning the packages over,” Lucy said. “What makes no sense is they allowed the clothing to go through and not the other two packages. They were all shipped together; it’s more suspicious that the two most important packages went missing.”
“Remember,” Tia said, “your office took the Paul Grey case. As far as the lieutenant is concerned, we have the cause of McMahon’s attack at the coffee shop. He’s buying the theory that he had a brain anomaly, which contributed to his erratic behavior.”
“Jordan knows there’s more to it,” Leo said, frustrated.
“Yes, and he’s fine with you running with it. But we need to wrap it up on our end. Look—it’s still technically open. We don’t have an ID on the guy who slipped out early and hasn’t contacted the authorities. And we’re going through Grey’s car. Maybe the guy left a fucking suicide note. But they have to do preliminary work before we can really dig in there. Like I said, it’s a mess. Ash Dominguez is more than meticulous, and I talked to Julie Peters this morning. Dr. Moreno is deep in his analysis of McMahon’s brain. He hasn’t issued a report but he understands the situation.”
When Tia ended the call, Lucy turned to Leo and Nate. “Why would McMahon move his car? Put Grey’s body in his house? He wasn’t that far gone. I don’t think he had anything to do with it.”
“Then who? And why?”
“To frame McMahon?”
“Now you’re grasping,” Leo said.
“Maybe,” Lucy admitted, “but nothing else makes sense right now.”
Nate said, “Anytime you move a body or contaminate a scene, it creates doubt and confusion. Evidence is compromised. There’s no clear chain of evidence or events, and even if there is, any good lawyer is going to be able to show reasonable doubt.”
“But why?”
“Could be that the perception that McMahon killed his friend is enough.”
“And who would that benefit?” Leo asked.
“It would discredit McMahon,” Lucy said. “So if in the course of our investigation we uncovered something suspicious about CHR, it would be more difficult to prove they were up to something.”
“Except,” Leo said, “Grey died—and his body was moved—before McMahon took the hostages at Java Antonio.”
“So we’re back at square one,” Lucy said.
“No—we’re going to talk to Paine. Maybe he has answers, or can lead us to Cassidy Roth.”
* * *
Vince Paine didn’t give them the runaround. As soon as he saw Lucy and Leo, he knew they had come to talk about Charlie McMahon.
“I don’t know why he took those people hostage. I don’t know what he was doing or thinking—I haven’t talked to him since I let him into the building. And I was fired for it.”
“We’re actually here to ask you about Cassidy Roth,” Leo said.
“I told her to go to the police.”
“About?”
“Look, she’s a really smart woman, but not so smart. I mean, she’s intellectually smart, but she thinks that you guys would never understand the work that CHR is doing, and wouldn’t know how to investigate what happened to Charlie.”
Lucy said, “Tell us what she told you. We want the same thing—to find out what happened to Charlie.”
“Cassidy and I were never really friends, but I don’t want her to get into trouble.”
“She’s already in trouble,” Leo said. “We know she removed evidence from Charlie’s apartment after the SWAT standoff. She’s called in sick at work and she isn’t at home. Either she’s in trouble—or she’s in danger.”
Vince said, “She’s trying to prove a theory, but I don’t know how. She said she thinks that both Charlie and I were poisoned.”
“With what?”
“I don’t know and I don’t know how! I’ve been trying to think about what happened around the time I was fired, but like Charlie, I just can’t remember. Except I’m better now. Almost better. I’m not forgetting things, but I still have this block of time where everything is just … fuzzy. It’s like when you’re thinking, and you know something, but it’s on the edge of your mind and it never comes to you. If Charlie felt like I did, but worse, I can see why he went crazy. There were days I wanted to slam my head into a brick wall.”
“What else did Cassidy say? Did she tell you where she’s staying? Or what she took from Charlie’s apartment?”
He bit his lip. “She told me—well, she said that on Monday she talked to Paul Grey and he was supposed to bring her something from the lab that would help Charlie—I don’t know what. She didn’t know what, she was just positive that whatever Paul had would help Charlie get better, or at least tell them what was wrong with Charlie. She saw him in his car and—and she said he shot himself.”
Leo leaned forward. “Where was this?”
“I don’t know. She said in the middle of nowhere.”
“And then what?”
“She searched his car and didn’t find anything that could help Charlie. Cassidy thinks it has something to do with a research trial we were working on in March. Paul and Charlie had a huge fight about whether the trial was tainted. I didn’t hear anything about it—but I sort of remember this tension between them. But that whole month is fuzzy.” He closed his eyes, thinking. “I’m not quite sure that I followed her train of thought. I still get these bad headaches, I’m just not self-medicating anymore.”
“Have you seen a doctor?” Lucy asked.
He shook his head. “I was on Oxy for nearly two months. I didn’t want to go to drug rehab—I got off on my own. I’m clean.”
“We believe you,” Lucy said, “but a doctor might be able to run blood tests, find out what you were poisoned with.”
“After this long, it wouldn’t be in my system.”
“It could be detectible in your hair or some tissues. It could be important, Vince.”
“Yeah. Okay. Maybe.”
Why was he so hesitant?
Leo asked, “You said that Cassidy searched Paul Grey’s car but didn’t find what she was looking for.”
“She felt bad about leaving him there, as much as Cassidy can feel bad about anything.”
“Are you sure she left his car where he killed himself?”
Vince thought, rubbed his forehead. He might be better than before, Lucy thought, but he was far from a hundred percent.
“Yes—she said they were meeting in a parking lot of a business that was closed or something, far from CHR. No one around. He parked under a tree. She approached and then he killed himself. She searched, and thought someone would find him in the morning when the business opened.”
“Do you remember what business?”
“I don’t think she said. Just that it was in the middle of nowhere. Why is this important?”
“Because Paul Grey’s body was found in Charlie McMahon’s house,” Leo said.
“What? You think Cassidy is lying? She’s odd, but she’s not a liar. In fact, she can be too honest.”
“I don’t think she’s lying,” Lucy said. Leo glanced at her in surprise, but Lucy was pretty certain based on what she’d learned about this young scientist that Cassidy was somewhere on the autism spectrum or had Asperger’s syndrome. Brilliant, logical, meticulous, had a difficult time communicating with people. Some doctors felt Asperger’s was high-functioning autism, and this wasn’t an area that Lucy understood well. But either way, after walking through her house and listening to Emmaline Granger, Lisa McMahon, and Vince Paine talk about her, Lucy suspected she was correct in her assessment. And someone like Cassidy wouldn’t lie—but she would believe that the FBI or anyone who was her intellectual inferior couldn’t begin to understand what was going on—especially when she herself didn’t understand completely.
Leo didn’t say anything, and Lucy showed Vince the photo of the man who’d left Java Antonio right before Charlie took the hostages.
“Do you know this man?”
“Yes.” He frowned. “Dammit, I know him! But … I don’t know why. I’ve seen him. I don’t know where.”
“Maybe at CHR?”
He rubbed his temples. “I don’t know. I can’t remember. I know I know him, but it’s like the memory was cut out of my head.”
* * *
Driving back to San Antonio, Leo was mostly silent. Lucy checked in with Sean. Nothing had changed at the house. She then asked Leo, “Thoughts?”
“I don’t know what to think, to be honest.”
“I want to pass on that information to Dr. Moreno—maybe it will help him.”
“I don’t have an objection.”
Lucy called the doctor who was dissecting McMahon’s brain. It went to voice mail. She left him the exact description that Vince Paine had given them, how it felt to know he was missing a memory. Then she hung up.
“Has Garrett Harrison called back?”
“No, and I confirmed that he was returning this morning. He should have landed by now.”
“Maybe he didn’t get the message.”
“I didn’t leave it at CHR. I left it with his wife. After the runaround we’ve been getting, I decided to bypass them completely. I was hoping she’d pass it on to him before he landed.”
“Do you want to stop by his house?”
“No—I don’t want to put him on the defensive. If he’s not involved with whatever is going on at CHR, he’ll reach out if only to ask about McMahon. If he is involved, he might reach out to see what we know—or try to avoid us altogether. If we don’t hear from him today, we’ll go to CHR first thing in the morning. I wish we could get a warrant—I’ve been going around and around with our legal counsel trying to find a way to get CHR records, but we don’t have enough.”
“Maybe when Ash is done processing Paul’s car.”
“I think you’re grasping at straws with that theory, Lucy.”
After lunch they headed to the SAPD lab. Ash Dominguez didn’t seem happy to see them.
“I told Detective Mancini this was going to take time.”
“We were in the area,” Lucy said diplomatically. “We’re not trying to rush you.”
Ash frowned. “I can’t find the gun. Mancini was pretty certain that one of the guns McMahon had was the gun that killed Grey, but ballistics was negative.”
“If Grey committed suicide, someone else took the gun.”
“I got the autopsy and ballistics report—the bullet isn’t in our system. It came from a nine-millimeter and that’s the same type of firearm that Paul Grey owned, according to his wife and insurance records. But I can’t say definitively that he used his gun to kill himself. And guns can’t just walk away.”
“And cars don’t drive themselves,” Lucy said. She understood Ash’s frustration that they were pushing, but it had become urgent in light of Cassidy Roth’s parallel investigation and tampering with the crime scene. “We may have a witness to the suicide, but according to our sources the witness searched the car after Grey killed himself.”
“Did she take his phone?”
“We don’t know if she took anything,” Leo said.
“His gun is missing, his phone, and according to Mancini his laptop. But the car itself is a mess—the blood and biological matter in the vehicle needs to be processed, but it was sitting out in the heat and humidity for days. I confirmed that the body was transported in the trunk—whoever moved Grey’s body put it in the trunk, tried to wipe down the blood from the driver’s seat and window. They wore gloves and the steering wheel was wiped clean with Clorox wipes. There were some prints on the passenger door and glove box that don’t match anything in the system.”
“Could be Cassidy,” Lucy said.
Leo said to Ash, “Can you compare the prints with Cassidy Roth’s? Our ERT unit has some of her belongings from when we served the warrant.”
“I’ll call Jackson, see what I can get. Is this important? Because I’m not done with the car.”
“It is,” Leo said.
“Fine. Oh. There’s one thing I found that’s really odd. It was taped under the steering column.” Ash opened a box and showed them a tiny vial that contained a lone pill. It had been bagged. “The only prints on the vial are Paul Grey’s. I haven’t tested it yet, but it appears to match this.”
He opened another box of evidence and showed them a baggie with three white pills.
“Aspirin?” Lucy said.
“Maybe not. These three came from the pocket of McMahon’s slacks when he was shot. They were deep inside, stuck in the seam at the bottom of the pocket. Remember how there was a bottle of aspirin that disappeared with the other evidence? Well, sometimes I’ll put mints in my pocket when I don’t want to carry around a tin. I need to be careful with the lone sample because I don’t know what I’m testing for. I’m going to talk to Julie Peters, get some thoughts from her. But I’ll have something for you in a day or two. Tia said to be meticulous, because the buck stops here. She’s already been pulled onto another case.”
“We appreciate it, Ash,” Lucy said.
“Why don’t you think this is aspirin?” Leo asked.
“Because the external markings are not any approved brand. Every pill that is manufactured has a unique mark, to identify it for a variety of reasons. This mark on the surface looks almost identical to a major brand, but it’s not.”
“A forgery?”
“Possibly. Which could cause a huge stink all the way up to the FDA, but I still have work to do. Verifying that this isn’t a legitimate marking will take time, but I can do that while I’m running the tests.”
“And it was affixed under the steering column.”
“Yep. Definitely odd, and a good place to hide something. Now out, please, so I can do my job.”