“I was in New York all those times,” Moore said. “Also with Suzanne.”
I asked, “How do you know that off the top of your head? The dates, I mean.”
The researcher gave me a look. “Uh, I’m working on a book about the murders? I know all sorts of dates. It’s kind of the job.”
Sampson said, “You have access to the Family Man laptop in Tull’s office?”
“I know the password and I have e-mailed things to Thomas, but I haven’t been on it in at least a week.”
“Convenient,” Mahoney said. “Tull believes you’re trying to frame him.”
“Frame him?” she said. She threw back her head and laughed caustically. “I don’t need to frame him. He can do that himself. Play with the truth. You do know he makes stuff up, right?”
“He admitted that he gins things up in his books,” I said. “Well, he admits that he pays you to gin things up, make them more dramatic than they really are. Is that true?”
“If it is, it’s not a crime.”
Sampson said, “How about taking the lives of an innocent mother and daughter in the Middle East? Was that a crime?”
Moore swallowed hard. “That was investigated. I was totally exonerated.”
“You can prove that?”
“It would be a challenge, given certain national secrecy laws, but yes.”
“You do know Thomas Tull is in custody and has been arraigned,” Sampson said.
“I’d heard that.”
“But you didn’t think to reach out and contact us?”
“No,” she said. “I was in shock. I … I didn’t know what to think or believe at first.”
I said, “So what do you think now? Is Thomas Tull the Family Man killer?”
For a long time, she said nothing, just stared at the table.
“Ms. Moore?” Mahoney said.
“Little things in all the cases we worked together, you know?” she said, lifting her eyes to gaze at each of us in turn. “Little things Thomas would say or do. And the times he’d disappear for days. The facts he’d ignore or gloss over. In my heart I don’t want to believe it, but I guess it’s possible, Dr. Cross. Maybe more than possible.”
CHAPTER 87
AFTER SEVERAL MORE QUESTIONS, Mahoney, Sampson, and I left the interrogation room and walked down the hall.
“You believe her?” Sampson asked.
“I want to,” Mahoney said. “But Tull told us she’s polished, a gifted liar.”
“I think eventually she’ll be an excellent witness for us. Not that we need it, with all the evidence against him.”
I said, “I don’t buy that she hasn’t accessed Tull’s laptop in more than a week.”
“We won’t know if that’s true until Quantico gets a look at his hard drive and tells us what has been accessed on that laptop and when.”
Sampson said, “And what do we do with Moore in the meantime?”
Mahoney said, “Release her for now. We’ll follow up with a request for her cellular data. Just to make sure she was with Liu when she says she was.”
Even with that caveat, I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something off about the triangular relationship of Thomas Tull, Suzanne Liu, and Lisa Moore. “Let’s make double sure,” I said. “Bree’s in New York. I’ll ask her to go to Liu and get her side of the story, maybe get her apartment building’s security footage on the days Moore said she was there.”
“Do it,” Mahoney said, yawning. “I’m calling it a day.”
“Right behind you,” Sampson said, checking his watch. “Willow’s got the dress rehearsal for her ballet recital tonight and I don’t want to miss a second.”
I went to the interrogation room and told Moore she could go. She seemed relieved and followed me out. On the sidewalk, the researcher thanked me, turned to leave, and stopped. “Would you talk to me about all this someday?” she asked. “When Thomas is behind bars? I think it’s important for me to understand what’s been going on right under my nose.”
“I can do that,” I said and watched her walk away. I called Bree.
She answered breathlessly. “Alex?”
“Where are you?”
“Being fitted for a dress.” She groaned and then explained she was staying the night to attend a gala with Detective Salazar and Phillip Henry Luster.
“You’re going to end up in the society pages one of these days,” I said.
“Do those still exist?” she said. She breathed deep. “God, Phillip, that’s too much!”
“I’ll let you go,” I said.
“No, why did you call?”
“Tull’s researcher claims she’s the lover of Suzanne Liu.”
“The book editor?”
“Correct. If you have time between galas and cotillions, could you check it out with Liu in person?”
“As long as tomorrow works.”
“It does.”
“Then I’d be glad to. Call you later! Gotta go!”
She hung up. The air was pleasant for late April and I decided to walk home to get some exercise and take time to think.
I’d covered no more than a block when my phone buzzed again. I didn’t recognize the phone number, which had a 703 area code. Northern Virginia.
“This is Alex Cross,” I said.
“Deputy Lance Conrad, sir, with Fairfax County Sheriff’s Department. I was blocking the road near Lake Barcroft when you went to the Allison residence?”
“I remember, Deputy,” I said. “How can I help you?”
“I apologize because it slipped my mind that I was supposed to call you with the contact info on Tim Boulter, the jogger with the Jack Russell terrier?”
“Right. Can you text it over to me?”
After a pause, he said, “I can, but I don’t think it will do much good.”
“Why is that?”
“I looked up him and the bakery he said he owned. Tim Boulter is the owner of the Sunrise Bakery. But the real Tim Boulter is no two a.m. runner. They’ve got lots of pictures of the real Boulter on the bakery website. He’s big. Beefy. Bald. Looks nothing like our lean running guy with the dog.”
That came out of nowhere, and I paused at an intersection to collect my thoughts. “Send over the contact info he gave you anyway, Deputy Conrad. And I’ll take a look at that website. Thanks.”
“Anytime,” he said and hung up.
After looking at the Sunrise Bakery website and confirming the deputy’s observations, I spent the rest of the walk home trying to figure out who the runner was and why it was so important that he impersonate a baker and his dog out for a very early-morning jog.
CHAPTER 88
CIPRIANI ON FORTY-SECOND STREET was as opulent and grand a venue as Bree had ever seen. Were it not for the white evening dress Luster had literally sewn her into, she might have stayed longer to stare at the beauty of the Italian Renaissance architecture, the massive marble columns, the high ceilings, the inlaid floors, and the stunning chandeliers.
As it was, she grunted and said, “Even with the Spanx, I don’t think I fit into this, Phillip.”