“Nana,” Bree said in a teasing voice. “With all due respect, you’re a legitimate freak for your age.”
Alex’s grandmother did not like that. “Freak?”
Bree said, “Someone who defies the norms. An outlier.”
Nana Mama relaxed. “I’ll take outlier.”
“How’s the hip?”
“It’s been better. When Jannie gets up, we’re going to stretch again.”
“I’m going for a run,” Bree said. “Clear the cobwebs.”
“Keep it up and you’ll be an ancient outlier like me someday.”
Smiling, Bree went upstairs, changed into her running gear, and went out onto the front porch. It was a warm morning for late April, but she liked running in the heat.
After doing her routine series of stretches and ballistic drills, she bounced down the stairs and headed toward Capitol Hill. Most days, she wore earbuds and listened to music or a podcast. But Bree wanted to tune everything out and just run for a while. Like Jannie, she found that running set her free in a way few kinds of exercises did, and normally she let go of thought, absorbed in the effort.
For the first fifteen minutes or so, she ran her usual route and quickly fell into that calm state the endorphins gave her. But about thirty minutes in, as she ran on Independence Avenue along the Mall west of the hill, questions about the Duchaine investigation began to creep back in.
Could Theresa May Alcott be behind the murders at Paula Watkins’s home? Was her nephew and his company involved? And what happened to his twin brother?
The idea of having to figure all this out seemed daunting, beyond her capacity and above her pay grade. A billionaire who likes to garden and grieves for a granddaughter. A tech wizard with a company that serves federal law enforcement agencies. Could they be involved in brazen assassinations?
Bree turned and ran toward Constitution Avenue and the far side of the Mall, readying herself for the steep climb up the hill. But when she reached Constitution, she had a thought that caused her to slow and then stop and wipe her brow. She dug out her phone from the hip holster that also held her water bottles.
She thumbed through her contacts, found who she was looking for, and hit Call.
After two rings, a familiar voice answered against the din of an active office. “Chief Stone,” Detective Rosella Salazar said. “I was about to call you.”
“Lucky me. What’s up?”
“The assistant DA on the Watkins case would like you to come in and make a longer, more detailed statement.”
“When?”
“ASAP.”
“I’m not working tomorrow. I could come up on the early train.”
“I’ll tell her. She wants us both there. But you called me.”
“I did. My rich client pulled the plug on my end. But I wanted you to know a few things before I let the entire thing slide and wait for your investigation to wrap up.”
“I’m listening.”
Bree told her about going to Ohio to talk with Theresa May Alcott and then seeing the name Paladin on the billionaire’s desk phone and learning about her relationship to Ryan Malcomb, one of the company’s founders.
“Okay …” Salazar said. “So what?”
“Paladin does work for the FBI, CIA, all the big law enforcement and national security agencies as well as big corporations. They can sort through tons of raw data looking for specific kinds of information.”
“Such as?”
“Like a terrorist’s cell phone. Or the links between members of an organized crime group. Or the type of person who is likely to buy one of Frances Duchaine’s one-of-a-kind gowns.”
“I’m still not—”
“Or the people behind a sex ring. Or the potential buyers in a sex-slave auction.”
There was a long silence before Salazar said, “I would have no idea how to figure something like that out.”
“Start with something simple,” Bree said.
“Like what?”
“Check to see if Frances Duchaine or her company ever hired Paladin. And come to think of it, check to see if Ari Bernstein, her financier, ever worked with Paladin.”
There was another long silence before Salazar came back and said in a tight voice, “Sorry. I’m getting kicked in the ribs constantly now.”
“How much longer?”
“I’m four weeks out and this kid is already a beast,” the detective said, her tone softening. “Okay, Chief, I’ll take a look, but I can’t promise you it’s at the top of my pile today. But I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“You will indeed.”
CHAPTER 77
THE WRITER LOOKED LIKE HELL.
Face swollen and red, his famous shock of hair a rat’s nest, Thomas Tull moaned when we entered the interrogation room at the federal holding facility in Alexandria, Virginia.
“Can I please have some pain meds?” Tull said in a thick, nasal voice. “My nose is busted, I lost two teeth, and my skull feels ready to split.”
His attorney, a high-dollar criminal defense lawyer named Lindy York, said, “You’re just adding to the police brutality by denying him proper medication.”
Ned Mahoney scowled. “The doctor denied it. His blood alcohol was three times the legal limit, and he had cocaine on board too. She said he shouldn’t have anything till he sobered up.”
“Which is now,” Tull said.
I took pity on him, reached into my pocket, and got out a small bottle of ibuprofen I carry in case my knee acts up. I shook out four and slid them across the desk.
“That’s eight hundred milligrams altogether,” I said. “Prescription dose.”
Tull snatched them up with his handcuffed hands, popped them in his mouth, shakily lifted the plastic cup of water in front of him, and swallowed them down. He drained the cup and said, “Tell ’em.”
Lindy York said, “Mr. Tull categorically denies having anything to do with the Family Man murders beyond his interest in writing a book about them and Agent Mahoney, Detective Sampson, and, of course, Dr. Cross.”
Sampson said, “We beg to differ, Counselor. We have a photograph of your client inside a house in Falls Church last night, armed and wearing the same outfit we’ve seen Family Man wear in other security footage.”
“Produce the picture,” York said.
Mahoney flipped open a file and slid a blowup of the video still across to Tull. “You shut off the main power to the house and found the auxiliary power to the safe room as well, but Mr. Allison had a third redundancy—battery packs—that got you.”
York stared without expression at the picture.
Tull blinked. “Jesus, that does look like me.”
“Thomas, not another word,” his attorney warned.
“It’s not me,” the writer said. “It can’t be. Where did you say this was taken?”
“In Falls Church, Virginia, not far from Lake Barcroft.”
“I was nowhere near—” Tull began but he stopped when Deputy Marshal Annette Cox knocked and stuck her head in.
“Sorry to interrupt, Agent Mahoney, but there’s something out here you should probably see ASAP.”
“We’re done here anyway,” York said.