“Chief Stone, Ms. Reed,” Salazar said, gesturing to the chairs. “Please.”
Reed took a seat, saying, “Is this a formal interrogation?”
Salazar rubbed her belly. “If it were, I wouldn’t be here. We’re just talking, catching up, and we need a bit more information.”
“Such as?” Reed said.
“We need to know who Chief Stone’s clients are and how much they knew about the sex-trafficking allegations before Bluestone Group got involved.”
Bree said, “I still have no idea who they are beyond some attorney in Cleveland. But the attorney, or whoever his clients were, knew about the lawsuit in North Carolina and the various sealed complaints here in New York.”
Detective Simon Thompson, Salazar’s partner, spoke for the first time. “We need the name of the attorney in Cleveland.”
“I don’t know it.”
“I do,” Bree’s attorney said. She removed a business card from her briefcase and pushed it across the table. “Gerald Rainy with Grady and Rainy. His phone number is there. He is expecting a call, and in light of what’s happened, he has already given me his client’s name. In return, he would appreciate it remaining out of the press.”
Salazar shifted uncomfortably.
“We’ll see,” Thompson said. “Name?”
“Theresa May Alcott,” Reed said. “As in the billionaire Theresa May Alcott. Since her husband’s death, she is the majority shareholder in Alcott and Sayers, the big soap and household products company.”
That came out of left field, Bree thought, annoyed that Reed had not informed her before the meeting. What’s the connection between Duchaine and Alcott?
Thompson seemed impressed by Bree’s client. “My girlfriend uses Alcott and Sayers organic soap. You have an address and phone number for Mrs. Alcott?”
“She splits her time between Cleveland and Jackson Hole, Wyoming,” the attorney said. “She’s in Ohio at the moment. I will track down a phone number for her.”
Bree looked at the attorney. “Why exactly did she hire Bluestone?”
Salazar shifted in her chair. “I was wondering the same thing.”
Reed cleared her throat and glanced at Bree. “I don’t know all the sordid details, but evidently Mrs. Alcott’s favorite granddaughter got caught up in a sex-trafficking ring after being lured to New York to work as a model for Frances Duchaine. When the family found out, the young lady killed herself. Mrs. Alcott wanted the scheme exposed so it would never happen again.”
That’s odd, Bree thought. I don’t remember anything about a young girl from Ohio in the material I was given at the beginning. But maybe that was intentional?
Thompson had a sour look on his face. “How was Mrs. Alcott going to expose the scheme?”
“She’d planned on going to the media, where she has considerable influence,” Reed said.
“Not afraid she’d be sued by Duchaine?”
“From what I’ve been told, Mrs. Alcott has far deeper pockets than Frances Duchaine these days.”
Bree looked at Salazar and Thompson. “Did you find evidence that there was going to be a sex-slave auction at Watkins’s last night?”
Salazar said, “Nothing concrete yet, but the computers just got to our experts.”
“What about the other people attending the party?”
Thompson said, “We can’t talk about them at this point.”
Salazar stared at her partner. “I would not have been there if it hadn’t been for Chief Stone.”
“Former chief Stone,” Thompson said.
“Read up on her sometime—maybe you’ll learn something,” Salazar said. She looked at Bree. “Several of the younger members of the crowd copped to being there for a special party involving sex that was going to happen later in the evening, after most of the guests left. None of the older males in the crowd mentioned being there to buy sex slaves.”
“Of course they didn’t,” Bree said. “I’d talk to the number-two guys in the Ivanovic and Flynn mobs, see what they know. And talk to the sheikh’s embassy. And I’d be looking for money moving from any of the partygoers’ bank accounts to Paula Watkins or Frances Duchaine. She’s who I’d be leaning on right this minute, by the way. What did Frances know? And when did she know it?”
The pregnant detective squinted and put her hands on her stomach. “Well, Thompson and I are just about to ask her those same questions, Chief Stone. Would you care to observe and point out anything we might miss?”
“What?” Thompson said. “Why would we do that?”
Salazar suddenly looked exhausted. “Because she knows things we don’t.”
CHAPTER 53
Washington, DC
THURSDAY MORNING, JOHN SAMPSON and I entered an Au Bon Pain on Tenth Street, not far from Metro PD headquarters.
Thomas Tull shot to his feet and waved to us from beside a small booth near the rear of the establishment.
Tull had craggy good looks and a solidly muscled body. A sliver under six feet, he was dressed casually in denim, and he’d let his sandy-brown hair go a little grayer than it was in his recent publicity photos, giving him a middle-aged Robert Redford quality. The writer’s steel-blue eyes danced over me as he smiled and stuck out a big hand.
“It’s an honor to meet you, Dr. Cross,” Tull said, fully engaging my eyes before turning to John. “And you too, Detective Sampson. A real honor.”
I have an expert nose for someone blowing smoke at me. But I didn’t smell anything coming off Tull except goodwill and curiosity.
Sampson felt it as well and he smiled back. “You’re the big-time writer, Mr. Tull.”
“Thomas, please,” he said and gestured to the booth, where a carafe of coffee, clean cups, and a plate of breakfast rolls awaited. He slid in, still smiling, looking at each of us in turn as if trying to burn our images into his mind. Then he knocked his knuckles against the tabletop twice and put his right hand over his heart.
“Dr. Cross, your lectures at the FBI Academy were a revelation to me. I first heard them when I was working for NCIS in San Diego,” Tull said. “And Detective Sampson, several of your investigations should be taught in every police academy in the country.”
“Nice of you to say so,” I said.
Sampson nodded. “How can we help?”
Tull flashed a thousand-watt smile at us, then grew serious, putting the palms of both hands on the table.
“Let me explain how I work,” he said. “First off, I am not here to second-guess you and I will never, ever reveal anything you might tell me about the Family Man murders without your explicit approval. Ever. I know how delicate an investigation like this is, and you don’t need some clueless writer accidentally letting something critical slip.”
“Comforting,” I said. “You’re saying that you’ll say nothing about the case until your book is written?”
“And vetted by each of you before it’s published,” Tull said. “You may not like what I’ve written, but I will hide nothing from you.”
For the next ten minutes, the writer described how he’d worked with investigators in the research of his previous three books. In each one, he had signed an agreement stating that he would not disclose anything about the probe until it was complete. In return, he asked to be a fly on the wall as the case unfolded.