Triple cross, p.27
Triple Cross, page 27
100
Washington, DC
Mahoney dragged Liu and Moore in handcuffs into FBI headquarters and marched them through the halls to a processing unit.
“Separate rooms?” Ned asked as they were fingerprinted, had their mug shots taken, and were dressed in jailhouse jumpsuits.
“No,” I said. “Together. We want them to turn on each other in real time.”
“Moore has intelligence training, probably interrogation training. I say we focus on Liu. She’s more likely to break.”
“Agreed. She can be all over the map, and Moore’s a stoic.”
“You lead, then.”
“You’re sure?”
“This is your best game, Alex. Play it.”
Sampson walked up to us, shaking his phone. “You’re going to like what just came back on the Kane murder weapon.”
He showed us and I smiled.
“Even better,” Mahoney said.
“Game on,” I said and watched Liu and Moore in prison garb being led into an interrogation room.
We walked in and sat across from them but stayed quiet.
“I want a lawyer,” Moore said flatly.
Liu seemed more flustered. “We both do.”
“We’ve notified federal defenders, but maybe you don’t need them,” I said. “Just answer a few questions before they arrive, and maybe this all goes away. A big mistake. Lisa? Suzanne?”
Liu said, “I’ve never killed anyone in my life.”
Sampson said, “What about your lover? Has she?”
Moore shot John an ugly look.
“Lisa?” Liu said. “She wouldn’t hurt a fly.”
I said, “Did you know that during a raid in the Middle East, she killed two innocent civilians, a mother and her daughter?”
“That was investigated,” Liu protested. “It was an accident. Still haunts her.”
Moore said nothing.
“I bet it does. What about that book proposal you were shopping around?”
“What about it?” the former editor said, more wary than frightened now.
Moore said, “I told you to shut up, Suzanne.”
“Did you have a hand in writing the proposal, Suzanne?”
Liu glanced at Moore. “Of course I did. She’s a first-timer.”
Moore scowled.
“Doesn’t know how to put that kind of thing together?”
“Lisa’s a quick learner, but yes. I helped her structure it, showed her the format. Sample chapters. Outline. Market analysis.”
“And you knew whom to approach at various houses.”
“I was always aware of my competition, so yes,” she said, on firmer ground now.
“Did you gin it up?” Sampson said.
“What do you mean?”
“Embellish the story? Add details that might or might not be true?”
“This is nonfiction. Lisa stands by the facts in the proposal and so do I.”
“One hundred percent?” Mahoney said, studying Moore.
“To the best of my knowledge, everything is true, yes,” Liu said. “Why?”
I sat forward. “Because we went through the proposal and compared it to our timeline of events and then ran it all by Thomas Tull.”
“Thomas?” Moore said. “Why would you do that? He’s a stone-cold killer.”
“He claims an ironclad alibi for the night the Kanes were killed,” I said. “Says he was miles away, and yet his hair was somehow found at the scene.”
“Because he was there,” Moore said.
“Or someone else was. Someone involved in a frame job.”
Chapter
101
Moore continued to stay cool. But Liu shifted uncomfortably in her seat.
I knew we’d agreed to focus on the former book editor, but I felt like it was time to turn the pressure up on both of them.
I pulled a sheaf of papers from my jacket. “This is your book proposal. Tull disputes some of these facts.”
“Of course he does,” Liu said.
“And there are other facts here that you could not have known about because we have not released them.”
Moore’s gaze was steady, but her girlfriend’s eyes shifted low and to the right.
Liu said, “Like what?”
“Like the fact that the murder weapon was not found in the gun safe in Tull’s storage unit but in a filing cabinet against the back wall.”
“Lisa said she got that from one of the officers on the scene,” Liu said.
Sampson smiled. “Except we were the only officers on the scene and neither of us saw or spoke to her about that search or any other aspect of the investigation. Isn’t that right, Ms. Moore?”
“That’s correct,” Moore said. “I spoke with two patrolmen outside the gates of the storage facility who were there after you left and then a forensics team that was sent in to tear apart Tull’s unit.”
I didn’t expect that. “You remember the officers’ names?”
“I can get them from my notes,” Moore said. “What else?”
“How about James Kenilworth?”
Moore’s face went several shades lighter.
Liu’s brows knit. “James who?”
“Kenilworth,” Sampson said.
“Never heard of James Kenilworth.”
I said, “Funny. He’s heard a whole lot about you. From Ms. Moore.”
“What?”
Mahoney said, “Turns out, Kenilworth is a two-time felon with warrants out on breaking-and-entering charges in Fort Worth. He was more than willing to tell us he’d ginned things up for Tull in the past—hired by Ms. Moore, of course. For the past three months, he’s been working solely for Moore. And, in effect, for you, Ms. Liu.”
“No,” Liu said, then looked at Moore, who was expressionless.
“Oh, yes. Mr. Kenilworth has admitted to being the intruder at the Allison home. He’s confessed to using the toupee your girlfriend gave him so he would look like Tull.”
Mahoney slid a picture of Kenilworth’s driver’s license and the still from the Allisons’ security recordings across the table. “He’s bald in real life. He’s also a runner and owns a little Jack Russell terrier named Sparkle. He does look a heck of a lot like Thomas Tull with the toupee on, doesn’t he?”
Liu looked at the pictures and then at Moore. “Lisa?”
“Shut up, Suzanne,” Moore said. “For once, shut up.”
I nodded to Sampson, telling him I was setting him up for the kill.
Then I turned back to Moore. “You went on the laptop in Tull’s office and called up Google Earth and the Allisons’ house and the Kanes’, then left the app running.”
Tull’s researcher said nothing.
Sampson opened a large manila envelope he’d brought in with him. “While my colleagues were placing you both under arrest, I was executing a search warrant on your Airbnb apartment. And look what we found on a shelf in one of the closets.”
He drew out an evidence bag containing a baggie holding several locks of sandy-brown hair.
“We haven’t tested them yet, but they are the right color,” I said. “And they sure look about the same length as the hairs we found at the Kane crime scene and later identified as Tull’s.”
Liu stared at the hair, then at Moore, then at Sampson. “Which bedroom?”
Mahoney pointed at Moore and said, “It gets worse.”
Sampson picked up his phone and showed the screen to them. “That’s a report from the crime lab on the forty-caliber Glock we found in the storage unit. Not only has it been confirmed as the murder weapon in every one of the Family Man killings, but partial fingerprints were discovered, one on the clip and one on a cartridge that was still in the clip.”
I said, “We ran them through IAFIS, the fingerprint database, and got a hit.”
“Thomas?” Liu said.
“Your girlfriend,” he told her.
Moore’s mouth went slack, and her eyes widened with disbelief. “No. That’s not true.”
“But it is,” Mahoney said.
She turned angry, shaking her head, and glared at me. “Look, I ginned the excitement up a little, hired Kenilworth to invade the Allisons’ place. If it was necessary, he was going to go into another house in Northwest DC, the Pan family. I learned from Thomas how to ratchet up the tension in a case.”
“Why did you drop the hair at the Kanes’?” Mahoney asked.
“I didn’t,” Moore said. “I honestly had never been near that house until after the family was murdered.”
I said, “How do you explain Tull’s hair in your room and your prints on the gun that killed more than eighteen people?”
“I…” She looked lost. “I can’t. I—”
A knock came at the door. An FBI agent leaned his head in and informed Mahoney that the two federal defenders were on their way up.
“We’ll leave you now,” I said, standing. “But it’s over for the both of you. You’ll spend the rest of your lives behind bars, and rightfully so.”
Liu’s destruction was complete. She stared at the table and sobbed.
We headed for the door.
Moore shouted, “Wait!”
Chapter
102
Manhattan
On the screen, Bree watched the assistant district attorney and Detectives Thompson and Salazar return to the hospital room where Dusan Volkov and his boyish-looking lawyer Sergei Andreyev were waiting to hear the Russian mobster’s fate.
“They agree?” Volkov asked. “No life in prison?”
“We haven’t agreed yet,” ADA Ellis said.
Andreyev protested. “My client’s going to be straight with you about many things. You should take life in prison off the table.”
“He does minimum twenty-five or no deal whatsoever,” Ellis said. “And this information has to be solid as concrete.”
Andreyev started to counter, but Volkov waved him off. “I start,” he said. “When you think you hear enough, you take these things off the table, yes? And fifteen years minimum, because I know many, many things about many, many people.”
The ADA folded her arms, said, “I’m listening.”
The Russian said, “One day—I have the date somewhere, but I don’t remember now, maybe six months ago?—I get text on private cell phone and e-mail in private, secure e-mail. Same message saying Duchaine and Watkins are taking over high-end prostitution in Manhattan.”
“Who sent the message?” Ellis pressed.
“He calls himself Maestro and M.”
Bree’s heart started to pound. She sat forward, riveted, and started filming the screen with her phone to show Alex later.
“Who is he?”
“I told you,” Volkov replied. “Maestro and M. That’s it. He uses burn phone and messages through Tor. You know this Tor?”
Ellis sounded irritated when she said, “An anonymous messaging system.”
“Yes, but you are government, you can look at pictures I took of every message he sends me. FBI traces him.”
Arms crossed, Salazar asked, “How do you know this Maestro is behind the killings at Paula Watkins’s house?”
“Because he tries to hire me to do the killings at Watkins’s and I refuse. You will see from pictures.”
“Why did you refuse?”
“Too risky. I mean, eleven people at one time?”
“Who did M hire for that?”
“I have no idea.”
Thompson said, “But you agreed to kill Duchaine for M?”
“After he said money was no object, that he had someone with deep, deep pockets who wanted to make sure Duchaine never corrupted anyone ever again, and then proved it, yes.”
“How much?”
“Twenty million in Bitcoin. Half up front. Half on finish.”
Sergei Andreyev said, “This is enough?”
Ellis shook her head. “Not until I know if Maestro even exists.”
“He doesn’t,” Salazar’s partner said. “It’s bull.”
“I agree,” Salazar said. “And I’m out of here.”
“No deal,” the assistant district attorney said.
“I’m telling you the truth!” Volkov cried.
“I don’t care what you call it, life in prison is what we’re seeking,” Ellis said and she left the room while the two Russians shouted at each other.
Thompson shut off the feed. Bree turned off the camera on her phone, ran into the hallway, and intercepted Ellis, Salazar, and Thompson, who shut Volkov’s door to muffle the shouting.
“Can you believe that nonsense?” Salazar asked Bree.
“Actually, I can,” Bree said.
“What?” Ellis said.
“Maestro exists,” Bree said quietly. “It’s a vigilante group run by someone who calls himself M.”
“C’mon,” Thompson said.
“It’s real,” Bree insisted. “M sent men in helicopters to kill my husband and his partner last year deep in the Montana wilderness. They’d gotten too close to Maestro operators who were assassinating corrupt federal and local law enforcement agents and destroying the Alejandro drug cartel.”
Ellis said, “I remember reading about those killings and the cartel, but I don’t recall any reference to an M or Maestro.”
“The government wanted to keep it quiet,” Bree said. “They didn’t want to glorify a vigilante group, figuring it would bring out the crazies.”
“Especially when they’re killing law enforcement,” Salazar said. “Corrupt or not.”
“Exactly.”
“Well,” Ellis said. “Even if M and Maestro exist, I certainly don’t have enough to give Mr. Volkov the slightest leniency. And I do have other things to do. We’ll let him stew, see if he remembers more in a few days.”
“C’mon,” Salazar said to Bree. “We’ll go find you a ride to Penn Station and me a ride home to my baby.”
Bree was about to agree when she remembered something Alex had asked her to do while she was in New York.
“Can I go ask Volkov a question for my husband first? It’s about the Family Man murders in DC.”
Ellis shrugged. “Fine by me. If he’ll talk.”
Chapter
103
Alexandria, Virginia
On the sidewalk outside the federal detention facility, I kneaded the knotted muscles in my neck with one hand and held my phone tight to my ear with the other. “You’re sure that’s what Volkov said?”
“Hundred percent,” Bree replied. “I recorded it.”
“Volkov know you were recording?”
“He did.”
“Send me a copy?”
“Of course. Guess who Volkov said hired him to kill Duchaine.”
“No clue.”
“M.”
“What?”
“I’m serious. M offered him twenty million in Bitcoin to do it.”
“Does Volkov know who M is?”
“No. He was always contacted through Tor encrypted messages, just like you. And he said M tried to hire him to kill the people at Paula Watkins’s place, but he refused.”
M was behind the Duchaine killings. How had that happened?
I was about to ask that when Bree said something, but her voice faded in and out like it was coming in over a shortwave. “Say that again, Bree.”
But the reception was even worse.
“One of us is having phone issues. I’ll see you at Union Station at seven thirty.”
“Love you” was all I understood before she broke the connection.
I pocketed my phone and looked up to see Mahoney and Sampson waiting. “Anything yet?” I asked.
Ned said, “Agents went into Haps Premium ten—”
His phone buzzed with a text; he looked at it, then nodded at us. “Cold/cold.”
We were soon in one of the rooms the detention facility set aside for law enforcement and attorneys to meet with prisoners.
Tull came strolling in wearing irons and a smirk on his face, which was less swollen but still black-and-blue.
“I saw on the news they were arrested,” he said, his words sounding clearer than the last time we’d spoken. “I told you they were framing me, and you’re finally coming to your senses, Dr. Cross. Finally seeing the light.”
He said it all with such satisfaction that I let him revel in it for several moments.
“I’ve always been a little slow on the uptake,” I said eventually. “I’m curious. Is that how you’ll write it? That Moore and Liu framed you to hide their roles in the murders?”
“Their roles?” he said with condescension. “Lisa’s a stone-cold killer. And Suzanne would stab her own mother in the back if it suited her purposes.”
“Moore admits she called up Google Earth on your computer and pinned the position of the Allisons’ house and the Kanes’.”
“Did she? What about the murder weapon?”
“What about it?”
“I read that they found Lisa’s fingerprints on it.”
“Partials.”
Tull laughed scornfully. “Some serial killer. Doesn’t even know to wipe her weapon down before she plants it in my storage unit.”
We said nothing.
His smug smile returned. “When am I getting out? I’ve got a book to write.”
I leaned forward, said, “I’m thinking you’ll have plenty of time to write that book.”
The writer blinked and retreated slightly. Good. I wanted him off balance.
Then the smile returned. He tilted his head. “When can I get out?”
“Just a couple of loose ends to take care of and you’re free as a bird, Thomas.”
“Let’s knot them up, then.”
I sat back. “There’s another explanation for why your hair was at the Kanes’ crime scene. Something other than that Lisa Moore planted the hair before she went on a killing spree in order to frame you and send you to prison.”
He raised his eyebrows.
“You planted it,” Sampson said. “You planted your own hair.”
Chapter
104
There was a long pause as the writer looked at us with increasing incredulity. After a moment, he threw back his head and howled with laughter, tears streaming down his cheeks. We watched him until he composed himself.
