THURSDAY AFTERNOON
Lucy had left two messages for Detective Reed. The first in the morning and the second while she was driving back to San Antonio. She still hadn’t called her back, and it was already after twelve.
Lucy headed over to the crime lab to talk to Ash Dominguez about the Victoria Mills murder. It might get her in trouble, but Ash was a friend as well as a colleague and he’d understand her need for confidentiality. Still, she wanted to give Reed a chance, so tried her a third time. Again, she left a message.
She’d just pulled up to the lab when her phone rang, and she hoped it was Reed, as the number was unfamiliar. She answered, but before she could get out hello she was treated to a verbal assault.
“You executed a search warrant on Southwest Bank and Frank Pollero? Without even a courtesy phone call?”
“Who is this?” Lucy demanded.
“Detective Garrett Douglas. You read me the riot act the other day for not jumping through your hoops when you want to talk, then you come to my county tossing around search warrants, interviewing old women, issuing BOLOs, without so much as a text message. And you wonder why everyone hates the fucking FBI? It’s bullshit like this.”
“Detective Douglas,” she said, working hard not to yell back or hang up, “I was under no obligation to report the warrant to you. It’s a federal investigation as you told me several times during our conversation on Tuesday.”
“Do you know what it’s like to be a cop in a small town? When you can’t fucking tell people what’s going on, they think you’re an idiot or out of the loop. The sheriff is pissed off, and your boss will be hearing from him!”
“That is your prerogative. If that’s all, Detective, I have—”
“And I was willing to help you, I just didn’t like you and your tough-guy partner coming in here and demanding shit on a three-year-old case.”
“You have a complaint, file it.” Lucy was shaking, she was so angry. “We set a meeting on Monday that you couldn’t be bothered to show up at, then you give us ten minutes on Tuesday and say that you already turned everything over to the FBI. It didn’t sound like you wanted to be involved at all, so we’re moving forward.”
“Three years later. We had every reason to believe that the Albrights had left the country. I’m sorry they were killed, had I known I would have done everything in my power to find their killer. And you’re running all over my town interviewing my citizens without the common courtesy of letting me know.”
If she’d told him, would he have warned Frank? As it was, Frank must have been suspicious.
“We first went to the bank. Pollero called in sick. So we went to his home because we had more questions. He wasn’t there. He lied to me yesterday, and he lied to you three years ago.”
“I know Frank. He’s a good man. Knew his wife, too.” His voice lost some of its angry edge, so Lucy continued.
“He still lied. Denise Albright didn’t go to the bank that Friday. The photo he provided wasn’t her. It could have been, just like the border security photo could have been Glen Albright. But he wasn’t convincing, and today we identified the person as Kitty Fitzpatrick. We came back with a warrant for all of Albright’s records and now our financial experts are going through them and comparing signatures from the Kiefer authorization papers to her personal bank account, which was notarized.”
“I don’t see Frank lying to the police.”
“This morning he called in sick, went to visit his daughter, and is now in the wind. You tell me whether he was lying or just taking an unplanned vacation.”
She and Nate had intentionally not roped Detective Douglas into their investigation because they didn’t know if he was trustworthy. She didn’t want to believe he was party to murder, but she would do everything in her power to protect Ricky, and that meant keeping his location and status secret.
“I’ve been working this case, and if you would have kept me informed we could have helped each other. I could have sat on Frank’s house. I would have talked to him, encouraged him to come clean. I’ve known him for fifteen goddamn years. I don’t see why you’re shutting me out!”
Lucy didn’t want this conversation now. She said, “When we met, you made it clear that this was our case. I need to go into a meeting. I’ll contact you later.”
“I don’t fucking believe this,” he said, then disconnected the call.
Lucy didn’t like confrontation. She mentally reviewed the conversation with the detective the other day, and she didn’t think he cared about the case. He just had his nose out of joint because she hadn’t called him about the warrant. But truly, she had deferred to Nate because he was far more worried about local corruption. After everything they’d gone through locally over the last two years, they had reason to be cautious
And considering that Ricky Albright had witnessed a cop who could have been Douglas or Chavez entering his house and talking about his dead family—that was enough for her. She wanted to hear from Ricky directly, but she didn’t think that Ginny had remembered that conversation wrong. Not something that had such a huge impact on her life.
Still, the sheriff would likely call Rachel—or the ASAC—and complain about her and Nate. Fine. She would deal with the fallout later.
She checked her messages—nothing from Detective Reed—and Lucy grew irritated. The cop could be on a case, might not be able to call her, or could be avoiding her. Lucy wished she knew.
She tracked down Ash in the lab. He was talking to his assistant and motioned that he would just be a minute.
Lucy loved being in the crime lab. In some ways, she felt most comfortable here, working with tangibles, with facts, with evidence. She liked the morgue, too—learning how someone died, discovering trace evidence, caring for the dead as much as the living. She’d interned at the morgue in DC for eighteen months, thanks to her assistant pathologist certificate, and the current assistant ME helped her renew her certification by allowing her to assist with the occasional autopsy to give her the necessary hours.
Ash came over when he was done. “Sorry to keep you.”
“No worries, I came in without warning. I need a favor.”
“Anything. I was afraid you wanted something on the Albright case, and I don’t have anything new.”
“I have some news, but you can’t repeat it. We’re keeping it completely contained in the FBI right now.”
“Okay,” he said cautiously.
“We may have found Ricky Albright. We believe he’s alive and has been in hiding.”
Ash stared at her. “Are you sure?”
“Ninety percent. Nate’s checking it out. It can’t leave your lips. According to our witness who gave us the information, Ricky believes that a cop was involved in his parents’ murders. So until we know for certain we’re keeping everything in-house.”
Lucy had weighed telling Ash, but he was taking the case so personally and he had done the bulk of the forensics work on the bones—a painstaking and emotionally difficult chore—so she wanted to give him some hope.
“I won’t say a word. I hope to God you’re right.”
“I should know for certain by the end of the day.”
“Anything you want, you got. Name it.”
“Not if it’s going to get you in trouble, but I need information about the Victoria Mills homicide.”
“That’s not your case.”
“No. It’s not even an FBI investigation. But I have reason to believe the Albright murders and the Mills murder are connected. All I want is to look at the forensics.”
“Detective Reed is pretty good, have you talked to her?”
“I’ve been trying. She hasn’t responded to my calls.”
“Well, you can look, but without clearance you can’t take.”
“All I want is a look.”
Ash led her to his corner of the lab. He pulled over a second stool for her, and she sat. “It’s all on the computer. I could pull the physical files, but it would take longer.”
“This is fine.”
Ash logged in and pulled up the Mills files. “What are you looking for?”
“I don’t know. I read the autopsy report, but I don’t have details that weren’t made public. I want to visualize the scene. Based on the autopsy, she was killed at close range, stabbed twice, pushed into the pool.”
“Yep.” He enlarged the autopsy report, read it along with her. “Tox screen negative—no drugs or alcohol. She was a very healthy woman.”
“May I?” she asked, and motioned to the keyboard and mouse.
“It’s all yours. I need to check on an experiment, if you’re done before I get back just log out.”
“Thanks, Ash. I really appreciate this.”
Ash left, and she scrolled through the crime scene photos. The scene itself appeared almost serene. Nothing out of place. She had been stabbed only a few feet from the pool, either fell or was pushed in. Because the killer was so close and only removed the knife twice, there wasn’t a lot of blood spatter, only a few large bloodstains on the sandstone, which had absorbed the drops before the police arrived.
Lucy brought up the police report. Some of it she already knew, like that Victoria had been found the following morning at eight by the pool maintenance guy. She’d died between ten and eleven Friday night. The investigation showed that she had disarmed the alarm at nine twenty that evening and entered through the front door. It had never been reset, but the front door was locked. No sign of forced entry, but the rear sliding glass door was unlocked—and Victoria’s fingerprints had been found on it.
Further investigation showed that she had brought over a plate of finger sandwiches, orange juice, and champagne that she’d picked up earlier in the evening—they were for an open house that was supposed to run from eleven to two Saturday. According to the police investigation, they learned that Victoria didn’t list many houses and when she did they were high-end, million-dollar properties and usually for friends. This house was listed for $1.6 million in Alamo Heights, not far from Lucy and Sean in Olmos Park. The open house had been advertised, but everything else about the murder itself suggested that Victoria knew her killer.
Lucy scrolled through the rest of the report. Her purse and wallet had been recovered in the kitchen, nothing missing. Why had she gone outside? To check on something? Did she see something? Did she just want some fresh air? The yard was beautiful, with lots of flowers and trees and a black-bottom pool with a waterfall. Maybe she wanted to walk the grounds, think about what to tell prospective buyers, or maybe she was talking to someone. Maybe someone came with her.
Victoria’s car had been dusted for prints, and there were no new prints, though both Mitch Corta’s and Stanley Grant’s prints had been found in the vehicle. Not a surprise. No prints in the house other than the owners’, a long-time housekeeper’s, and Victoria’s—which lent credence to the idea that Victoria had let her killer into the house.
A supplemental report from the owners said nothing was missing—no jewelry, art, knives, et cetera. That meant the killer brought the knife with him. For the purpose of killing Victoria, or was it a knife that he always carried? Lucy didn’t assume it was for murder—she knew many people who routinely carried a knife, mostly cops or former military as well as her husband. But a knife was a far more intimate weapon than a gun.
And much quieter.
She looked for surveillance reports. In a neighborhood like the one where Victoria was murdered, many of the residents likely had security cameras. The owners had no cameras, just the alarm system. There was no such security report. Why? Wouldn’t they canvass the neighborhood? Check cameras?
She flipped through the other pages. Two officers talked to neighbors. No one heard or saw anything. One couple who were walking their dog at eleven fifteen that night said that they saw Victoria’s car in the driveway but no other vehicle. The killer either was gone or had parked in a different location and walked over.
That seemed unlikely. A stranger walking in that ritzy neighborhood might be noticed.
Unless they looked like they belonged there.
Jennifer Reed had interviewed Mitch Corta first. In her notes, he was upset and distracted. He confirmed that she was going to the house to set up for the open house the next day. He had an alibi—he was in Bandera appraising a massive ranch. The owner of the property verified that he arrived at four that Friday afternoon and stayed for dinner, leaving around ten thirty.
Impossible to get all the way to Alamo Heights by eleven unless he was practically flying. It was nearly sixty miles, and some roads you couldn’t go sixty, let alone a hundred.
She’d also interviewed Stanley Grant. He’d had dinner with his sister that night, left at nine, and gone home. No real alibi, but he had a security system on his house. It would have been easy enough to check—which no one did. Still, many systems could be bypassed or cheated. He could reprogram it to show he was in when he was out and vice versa. But in her initial notes, Reed didn’t think Grant was guilty.
She’d interviewed Victoria’s family, including her brother, Simon, and only one comment from him was interesting:
“Victoria believed someone was following her. She didn’t know who, and she was more angry than scared. Because that was her.”
Lucy thought about the two black SUVs that had followed her and Nate and the sedan that had followed Max and Sean when they left Harrison Monroe’s office.
The notes about the alleged stalker were vague, and it didn’t appear that Reed followed up on it, other than to ask Mitch and Stan about it—they both said that Victoria mentioned a “damn SUV” that she thought she saw more than once, but it was more than a month before she was killed and they didn’t think much of it because she didn’t mention it again.
No interview of Harrison Monroe, no mention of him at all in the report. Two men had been interviewed and let go—a known sex offender who lived in the neighborhood with his sister. She said they watched a movie and were asleep by eleven thirty and her brother didn’t leave the house. Didn’t mean he didn’t but based on forensics, it’s clear that Victoria wasn’t sexually assaulted and, again, Lucy believed she knew her killer. Reed thought so as well—she’d mentioned it at least three times in different areas of the report.
The other person who was interviewed—twice—was the rear neighbor. Robert Clemson, fifty. Divorced, lived alone on the half-acre property. He acted squirrelly, according to Reed’s notes, so she asked him to come in. The second interview was because he lied about a fact in his first interview—he initially said that he was home all night but didn’t hear anything, but later the other neighbors, the dog walkers, said that they saw him drive away from his house at ten thirty that night.
In the second interview he told Reed that he had been flustered. He knew Victoria and had literally forgotten that he’d left to meet a friend for drinks. The friend, Melissa Randolph, had confirmed his alibi. But there wasn’t a note anywhere about where they had met or why so late. All Reed wrote was: Melissa Randolph, San Antonio, met Clemson for drinks 10:45–midnight. Her contact information and driver’s license number were both listed.
Was that a real alibi? Who was Clemson? Who forgot that they left their house at night especially after their neighbor was murdered? He wasn’t interviewed until Monday … it was possible he forgot, thought it was a different night.
But Lucy wanted to talk to him herself.
Reed may have followed up again with him and Melissa Randolph if Stanley Grant hadn’t confessed.
There was one interesting piece of evidence suggesting that the killer drove to the house and parked behind Victoria’s white Mercedes coupe. Two drops of blood were found on the brick drive. Forensics concluded they belonged to Victoria. They were located where the passenger door of another vehicle may have been. No tire marks, no other indication of who had been driving the second vehicle. But someone had driven the killer.
Or picked him up.
From everything she heard about Victoria, Lucy didn’t think she would be irresponsible enough to show a house at night to a stranger. Not in this day and age when there were so many reports of real estate agents being attacked.
She looked through the reports again because something was missing … and then she realized what it was. There was absolutely no blood found in the house. The killer didn’t exit through the house. He left quickly—that was Lucy’s educated guess—rinsed his knife and hands in the pool and walked out through the side gate.
But there was nothing to indicate whether the gate had been swabbed or inspected.
She tracked Ash down. “Ash, did you process the Victoria Mills crime scene?”
“No. Not my case. Why?”
“It doesn’t say whether the side gate was inspected for evidence. But there was no blood in the house, I don’t think the killer left that way. Even if he rinsed off in the pool, there would be trace on the doors, water in the house, something to tell us he left that way. And the front door was locked, but the side gate didn’t have a lock, just a latch. That gate went out to the driveway, and there was a small amount of blood found on the driveway.”
“I can ask Kyle. He was in charge.”
“And?” It was his tone that had Lucy curious.
“He has seniority, but I was promoted over him because he’s lazy. Don’t repeat that. He’s not incompetent—he just doesn’t like being in the field. Give him a microscope and he’s great. But collecting evidence? We butt heads.”
“Would you mind reviewing the forensics and seeing if anything else was missed? That’s the only thing that jumped out at me, but there could be more.”
“Yeah, but you really owe me, because if I find anything wrong I’m going to write him up and then our working relationship is going to be worse than it already is.”
“You are the single most meticulous CSI I have ever worked with. We need more of you, and I would be happy to tell your boss that.”
“Actually, your boss already wrote up a commendation for my file on the last case we worked on. That must have come from you.”
“You did an amazing job. Your computer simulation alone was worthy of a commendation, but the fact that you worked so well with the FBI lab at Quantico is what helped us solve the case.”
“Well, I appreciate it. Really. I’ll take a look, but I don’t know that it will do any good. As far as we’re concerned, the case is closed.”
“Because Grant confessed?”
“And we haven’t heard about anything else. If it went to trial, we’d prepare for court, but…” He shrugged, then eyed her. “He is guilty, right?”
“I don’t know,” Lucy said. “He recanted.”
Ash snorted. “And every felon is innocent.”
“This time … there are some extenuating circumstances. I honestly can’t say whether he’s innocent or guilty, but because this case is connected to the Albright case, I need to look at every possibility.”
Lucy was driving back to FBI headquarters when she had a call from an unknown number.
“Kincaid,” she answered.
“It’s Nate. We have him.”
“Ricky?”
“He’s alive and well. We’re leaving in the morning. We don’t want to be on the road at night.”
“Thank God,” she said. “He’s okay? Really?”
“He doesn’t want to leave, but Javier—Jill Young’s cousin—talked to him. He’s scared and confused. He’s not a kid—he went from nine to adult—but is still a kid, if that makes sense.”
Lucy understood. “Did you show him the pictures?”
“Chavez.”
“How certain was he?”
“Absolutely certain. He didn’t hesitate.”
She’d had Nate create a series of photos that included Chavez, Douglas, the sheriff of Kerr County, and three FBI agents.
“And no one else?”
“No. Why?”
“Douglas is angry that we cut him out. We executed a warrant on the bank—Pollero is in the wind. Left the house early, didn’t go to work, visited his daughter for breakfast, and is just gone.”
“Damn.”
“And I didn’t tell Douglas what we were doing. He read me the riot act. Chavez wasn’t the lead detective.”
“But he was there at the Youngs’ house when they questioned the twins.”
“Maybe we should alert Douglas.” But it would not go over well.
“Just because Ricky didn’t identify him doesn’t mean that he isn’t also involved.”
Lucy knew Nate was right, but she didn’t like being put in this situation.
“I guess we’re lucky at this point that he wants nothing to do with me, but I’m going to tell Rachel. Let her make the call about who is looped in.”
“How did she take my spontaneous trip?”
“You’re using vacation, not sick time.”
“That’s it?”
“She’s hard to read. My gut tells me she’ll put a comment in our files, but she’s not going to go further. But my gut could be wrong.”
“Not usually.”
“She wasn’t happy, but she wasn’t angry.”
“Good enough. What’s been going on with the case?”
“I’ve been working with Sean and Max, which is interesting.”
Nate snorted. “I’ll bet.”
She filled him in on the case. “I can use you as soon as you return.”
Nate said, “We’re leaving at dawn. Hope to be in San Antonio between one and two in the afternoon—and we need a safe place for Ricky. He can’t go into the system—not until we know he’s safe. He’s on edge, Lucy—I don’t know how else to describe it. He doesn’t want to leave but is doing it anyway—his choice. But he’s not comfortable. He’s been living with this fear for a long time, I don’t know if he even knows what he’s afraid of anymore, but being here in the middle of these mountains with a man he trusts and considers a father figure has been his only constant for three years.”
Now they were getting into a sensitive area. Ricky Albright was a minor child, and he was also a witness to a crime. But Nate was right—if he was in the system Chavez might be able to get to him, if not Chavez he could call in someone else. There were more than a few people involved in this conspiracy. Ricky said that four men came to his house that day three years ago … were they in Chavez’s employ? Or did they work for Harrison Monroe? Was there a connection between Chavez and Monroe?
“Bring him to Saint Catherine’s,” she said. “I’ll talk to Father Mateo, I’m sure he’ll take him for a few days. No one will think to look for him there. Plus Father has experience with boys like Ricky.” Scared, defiant, with the ability to disappear if they had a chance.
“And who deals with CPS? We can’t hide him indefinitely.”
“No one. As far as society is concerned, Ricky is dead or still missing—protecting him is our number one goal.”
“And do you tell Rachel?”
“I don’t know. I think I have to … and pray she agrees with our plan.”