I said, “And going to work for you?”
“She came to visit me at Harvard and told me what had happened. I needed someone smart, someone …”
“Willing to bend and break the rules if it helped the story,” Sampson said.
“That almost describes Lisa,” Tull replied. “I’d actually describe her as someone who is eager to break the rules if it gets her to the end result that much faster.”
CHAPTER 85
SHORTLY BEFORE ELEVEN SUNDAY morning, Bree watched as Newark flickered by her window. She was on the Acela bound for Penn Station, where Detective Rosella Salazar would be waiting to take her to talk with members of the Manhattan district attorney’s office assigned to what the press were calling “the Paula Watkins murders.”
Setting aside the newspaper, Bree called Phillip Henry Luster. She had not heard from him since the night of the murders and wondered how he was.
On the fourth ring he answered in a flat voice, “This is Phillip.”
“This is Bree Stone.”
“I know.”
“How are you, Phillip?”
“Wanting bourbon and quaaludes,” he said. “Tell me, why has it taken so long for you to call and inquire as to my condition?”
“I could say the same thing.”
“Except you are a former cop and used to these sorts of unspeakable events. I can’t sleep because I keep seeing the lights go out at Paula’s, the flashes of the guns. I keep hearing the screams. I can’t get certain things about that night out of my mind.”
“I apologize for not calling sooner, Phillip,” Bree said. “It was callous of me and I’m sorry. You’ve been such a big help. And what you’re suffering from is PTSD.”
“Even I can diagnose that.” He sniffed. “I don’t know how you do it.”
“Do what?”
“Deal with all the violence,” he said.
“I deal with it as little as possible and so should you. Phillip, you were caught up in things beyond your control and you lived. Be thankful.”
“Oh, I am. But I fear I am more sensitive than others. I mean, look at Frances. Just plunging on as if nothing’s happened.”
“Plunging on in what? Business?”
“I have no idea about the business, but her social life has taken off. It’s a scandal. She’s actually going to attend a fundraiser I’m involved in tonight at Cipriani on Forty-Second.”
“You invited her?”
“Long before the tsunami, she and I were named cohosts. Look, no one involved is happy she’s coming, least of all me.”
“Well, I’m in town, and I’d be happy to be a fly on the wall for that encounter,” Bree said and laughed. “I’m sorry, Phillip.”
“No, no,” he said, then paused. “Are you free tonight?”
“I was going to head back after a meeting with the DA.”
“Nonsense. You’ll be my date. Your presence alone will irritate Frances no end. Do you have her gown with you?”
“No, I don’t have anything like that with me.”
“Well, I do,” Luster said. “Come straight to my studio after your powwow with the DA is over. I promise to make you look stunning.”
Bree thought about it for a moment. She really wanted to head home after the meeting, but she said, “I know you will, Phillip, and I accept. It will be fun.”
“A night to remember, I’m sure,” he said. “Until later.”
He hung up. She realized the train was pulling into Penn Station. Looking out the window as it rolled slowly to a stop, she spotted Rosella Salazar sitting on a bench and rubbing her belly, which looked enormous.
Bree walked up to her a few moments later and said, “You’re bigger every time I see you!”
Salazar grinned sourly and struggled to her feet. “He’s giving me heartburn and hemorrhoids now. C’mon. The DA’s expecting us at quarter to twelve.”
They walked through the new Penn Station welcome hall, a stunning structure, and out onto the street, where Salazar had a car waiting. After getting in and saying hello to the officer at the wheel, Bree told the detective about her conversation with Luster and the fundraiser that evening at Cipriani on Forty-Second.
Salazar said, “You’re going?”
“How could I refuse? He’s putting me in one of his dresses.”
The detective laughed and looked down at her belly bulging against the tent shirt she wore. “He should get me a dress. I think seeing us together would rattle Frances even more.”
“I’ll call Phillip back, see what he can do.”
“Really?”
“Why not?”
CHAPTER 86
Washington, DC
SAMPSON FOUND LISA MOORE right where Thomas Tull said he’d find her—in an Airbnb she’d rented in the Kalorama neighborhood. When John brought in the writer’s assistant later that afternoon, I recognized Moore as the woman we’d seen putting an envelope in Tull’s mail slot the same night he’d raced the Porsche up Rock Creek Parkway and the Kane family had been killed.
She almost smiled when she saw me. “Alex Cross. I know a lot about you.”
“Probably more than I know about you,” I said.
She smiled. “There’s not a lot to know, honestly.”
“That’s not how Thomas Tull tells it,” Mahoney said. He looked at Sampson. “Has she been read her Miranda rights?”
“At her front door,” Sampson said.
The smile on Moore’s face vanished. “I don’t know what Thomas has been saying about me, but—”
I cut her off. “What were you before you worked for Tull? CIA? DIA?”
Moore raised her eyebrows and canted her head to the right. “I cannot answer those questions for too many reasons to count.”
“You just did. Where did you go after you left Tull’s house the night of April twenty-second?”
“The twenty-second?” she said and thought for a few moments. “Home. To my Airbnb.”
“You were there all night?” Mahoney asked.
“All night.”
“Can anyone corroborate that?”
“As a matter of fact,” she said, “my lover was with me from around nine p.m. until ten the next morning. What’s this about?”
Sampson said, “Who’s your lover? Name, address, telephone number.”
Moore took a deep breath. “I don’t think she’s ready to be out of the closet.”
Mahoney said, “But you think you’re ready for an eight-byten cell?”
Her eyes widened. “A cell? No.”
I said, “Then give us her name.”
“Keep her out of this, okay?” she said. “She’s a good person and this coming out in the media would be—”
“The name,” Sampson growled.
“Suzanne,” Moore said finally. “Suzanne Liu. She lives in—”
“I know where she lives,” I said, my mind spinning a little. “And I have her phone number. She will say that she was with you that night?”
“She will,” the researcher said without hesitation.
“What about the nights the other families were murdered?” Sampson asked.