Edge of Black (20 page)

“Neither could she, believe me. She canceled several months of work to stay and try to find Loa. She was holed up in a hotel with basically no help, though. It was terrible for her. In the end, they simply didn’t want to be found, and she had no choice but to return to her life.”

“But Loa came back.”

“That she did. When I saw her, probably six months after she returned, she was thin and tired and silent as the grave as to what had happened. She was fifteen when she came back. She’d been gone for two years.”

“No chance you know the name of the man she’d been with, is there?”

“Not off the top of my head. I can go through some of Dr. Ledbetter’s things and see. Or you could just contact Loa yourself. Maybe she’d be willing to talk now, especially since her mother is gone.”

“I left her a note on Facebook asking her to get in touch, but she never returned the message. But it’s only been a day.”

“Here’s her direct number. You can try that instead of waiting.” He rattled off ten digits, and Sam scribbled them down on a napkin.

“Thank you. There’s one more thing. Remember I asked if Dr. Ledbetter knew Congressman Leighton?”

“Yes. As far as I know, she didn’t.”

“What was she doing in Africa in 1990?”

“Peace Corps. She dropped out, though. It wasn’t for her. She wanted to scale all the mountains, not be stuck in one place. That’s what she said about it.”

“Are you near her computer?”

“Yes, I am.”

“If you look in the Africa folder from 1990, at photo number 7679, you’ll see a group of people. Do you have it?”

She heard him clicking away, then he said, “Yes. That was taken about a month before she left Kenya. She’d only been there for about three weeks at the time.”

“The man facing away from the camera. We believe that’s Peter Leighton.”

George was silent.

“Are you still there?”

“Yes, sorry. I was just looking. It does seem to be him. That’s weird, though. She never said anything about knowing him to me.”

“Well, maybe it didn’t come up.”

“Actually, it did. She was invited to a fundraiser last month that he was speaking at. Normally she accepts all those invitations—they’re good for drumming up new business. But when she saw it on her calendar, she flipped out. Told me to cancel, which I did. I asked her why and she said she thought Leighton was a pompous ass and didn’t want to be associated with him or his policies. That was enough for me. I canceled it, and we never spoke of him again.”

“That’s interesting. Just one last question. Who was Dr. Ledbetter married to?”

“She’s never been married. She didn’t want a man tying her down, but she always wanted children. For lack of a better term, she used a turkey baster to get pregnant with Loa. The father was a friend of hers from college.”

“Do you know his name?”

“No. He wasn’t part of her life. He just did her a favor once, as she put it.”

“All right, George. Thank you so much. You’ve been a huge help, as always.”

“You’re welcome, Dr. Owens. Call me again if you need anything more.”

She ended the call, raised an eyebrow toward Xander.

“Well?”

“Very interesting.”

“I’ll say. I think it’s probably time to call Fletch, give him some information.”

“Probably. Hopefully Reed will be back with the details on Gerhardt soon, too. More coffee?”

“I don’t know how you can handle all that caffeine.”

“That’s a yes?”

She smiled. “Yes.”

He bussed her on the forehead and went in search of refills. Sam watched him go, just happy to be near him. Then she dialed Fletcher’s number, and gave him all the news.

Chapter 38

Washington, D.C.
Detective Darren Fletcher

Fletcher was back at the JTTF when his cell phone rang. He was surprised to find Mrs. Conlon on the other end of the line.

“Detective, I apologize for my tone this morning. I am not mentally prepared to think about anything other than the fact that my Marc is gone, and I’ll never see him again.”

“I understand, Mrs. Conlon. There’s no need to apologize.”

“Thank you. I thought about what you said, about Marc’s research, and people he might have come in contact with who upset him. There was a boy who Marc talked to a few times on his computer. I don’t remember what they call it.”

“Skype?”

“That’s it. Yes. He was on the computer with this young man and I was bringing some laundry up. They were having an argument.”

“Do you remember what it was about?”

“No, sir. The minute Marc realized I was in the room he shut the computer. I asked if everything was okay and he said it was, that he was just talking to a fellow student who needed some help with his thesis.”

“Why did this moment in particular stand out to you, Mrs. Conlon?”

“Because he was lying to me. He didn’t lie much, we had an understanding. You don’t need to lie, you can just say it’s none of my business and so long as it’s clear no one is getting hurt, I’ll leave it alone. But he was upset, angry, and when I left the room I heard him slamming around upstairs.”

“When was this, ma’am?”

“Oh, a couple of months ago. The thing is, looking back, I think I recognized the boy. He was hanging around our neighborhood a few days ago. I didn’t know who he belonged to, he was like a stray dog just hoping someone might take him in. He was sitting in his car like he was waiting for something. That’s all I have, Detective.”

“Mrs. Conlon, would you mind sitting down with an artist and letting us get a composite of this boy?”

“I don’t know what good that will do. I can barely remember what he looks like, I just recognize that he was the same person Marc fought with.”

“Anything might help us, ma’am. You’d be amazed at what you do remember, even though you don’t think you do. I can arrange for an artist to come to your house right now if it would be convenient.”

She sighed. “I guess that would be fine. Better than sitting here grieving. At least it will give me something to do.”

* * *

Fletcher told Inez to get an artist with an Identi-Kit to head over to the Conlon house, then sat back in his chair and tried to piece things together. Just as he decided he’d be better off chucking it all and starting from scratch, and maybe grabbing a sandwich and some coffee to go along with that, his cell trilled.

It was Sam.

“Hey there. How’re the mountains treating you?”

“Very well, thank you. Have you talked to Amado?”

“About the delivery methods of the abrin? Yes. Great catch. It’s all being tested now.”

“Good. Listen, I have something else that you’re going to need to check out. Something that now ties everyone together.”

“Hit me.”

“The congressman was with Loa Ledbetter in Africa in 1990. She was in the Peace Corps briefly, and apparently so was he.”

“That’s it?”

“Yes.”

“That’s interesting. But I’m not sure how to use it. That was a long time ago. He wasn’t on the public radar then. He was just a kid, really.”

“He’d be, what, twenty-two or twenty-three. About her same age, actually. I’m just here looking through Ledbetter’s photos, and up pops the congressman. They were definitely in the same place at the same time. They knew each other.”

“That helps, but, Sam, you’re giving me precious little to go on.”

“Precious little is an understatement. But there’s something here, I can feel it. Ledbetter uses the photos from her trip to Africa, specifically the day she was with the Maasi, on a lot of her stuff—it’s the focal point at her office, it’s her Facebook photo.”

“Maybe she just liked it of herself.”

“And maybe that photo held special meaning for her. Come on, Fletch. Think about it. Twenty-three years later, Ledbetter and Leighton are both murdered on the same day? There’s a connection here.”

Fletcher thought about his meeting with Gretchen Leighton, and her infinitesimal reaction when he asked if she was familiar with Loa Ledbetter or if her husband knew her. The tiny eyelid flutter. He’d wondered at the time whether she was hiding something. But if your husband is a congressman, he’s going to know a lot of people.

“There’s one more interesting thing. Ledbetter’s daughter, also named Loa, was with her during her year she was sequestered with the Mountain Blue and Gray, but she never mentions her daughter in her memoir of that time. This is the daughter she’s estranged from and who inherits everything.”

“Where’s the daughter?”

“In D.C., I think, or thereabouts. From what I’ve ascertained, Ledbetter had to leave the girl behind because she fell in love with one of the men in the camp, and ran away with him. She showed up back in D.C. two years later. I’ve got her phone number if you want to talk to her. She might be able to shed some light on things.”

“Where did you get this information?”

“Ledbetter’s assistant, George. He’s a treasure trove of information.”

“All right. Thanks for this. When are you coming back?”

“Soon. But we have a date with a large animal vet and some autopsy reports first. A man out here, name’s Sal Gerhardt, died a few months ago, along with several of his cattle. A lung ailment. I just want to check and see if there’s a chance our killer tested his abrin out before the attack. Has the Moroccan dude talked?”

Fletcher double-checked that he was out of earshot from anyone else at the JTTF before he spoke again. He kept his voice low.

“This is for your ears only. I’m pretty sure it’s not him. It’s a diversion. They’re trying to lure the real killer out. So you keep on your trail, and on your toes, and tell me everything you find out.”

“I figured as much. Will do, Fletch. Talk to you soon.”

She hung up, and Fletcher put his phone back in his pocket.

He felt better now that he’d told Sam the truth. He didn’t agree with the tactic of allowing the media to think they’d caught the man who did this. He thought it was a dangerous ploy, one that could easily backfire on them.

But that wasn’t his problem, that was Bianco’s. He had another focus.

Who the hell was behind the murders of the three Indiana girls? And how was that connected to Tuesday’s Metro attack?

Chapter 39

Loa Ledbetter the younger lived on Connecticut Avenue, near the Washington Zoo. Inez tracked her down, asked her to make herself available for an interview. She was actually coming downtown to meet a friend for lunch at Old Ebbitt, and said she would be happy to stop by the JTTF for a chat.

Fletcher realized he needed to start thinking about this case differently. Sam emailed him the photographs she had found, and he had Inez start going through them. Finding a connection between the congressman and Ledbetter was a good step. It at least proved they knew each other. He wished there was a direct and contemporary correlation between Leighton and Conlon, then they’d really be cooking with fire.

But he still couldn’t figure out why and how the subway attack figured in. If you want to murder three people, why run the risk of killing hundreds?

Sam’s theory was as good as any he’d come up with. The point was to attack hundreds and mask the true targets.

If he was a profiler, he’d start looking at this killer more like a workplace shooter, someone with an ax to grind, who felt he was being disenfranchised. Someone whose world was falling apart, and blamed the people around him for that downfall.

Congressman Leighton, Dr. Loa Ledbetter and Marc Conlon.

Each knew the other in some capacity. But where was their overlap? Who had come across all three of them in such a way that he, or she, was infuriated enough to kill them all?

“Inez, where’s that list of staffers from Leighton’s office? And I want to start talking to the people who were with him the morning of the attack. I don’t care what Temple said, one of them could have had some sort of access to him.”

“Right here.”

She handed him a file folder.

“What about the damn detective from Indianapolis? Has he ever surfaced?”

She glanced at her watch. “Yes, he did. He’s supposed to call at three. He’s at a conference in Berlin, and won’t be free until this evening.” She perched on the edge of his desk. “You look like a man with something on his mind.”

“You can say that again. Too much information coming at me from too many quarters. But that’s good. The artist off to Mrs. Conlon?”

“Yes. You probably have an hour before Ms. Ledbetter joins us. Can I get you anything?”

Answers.

“I need something else from you. You’ve been looking at those photos Sam got you access to, right?”

“Yes. Dr. Ledbetter was a wonderful photographer.”

“If nothing else is leaping out at you, set them aside for now. I want you to find everything you can on the congressman’s past, especially around 1990. I want to know what he ate for dinner, where he shopped, the works. And not just details, I want assumptions, too. Go through his life with a fine-tooth comb. Everything that you think could be relevant to his murder. I need a second set of eyes and hands on this, so consider yourself promoted. No more fetching me coffee. Unless you’re absolutely itching to continue being secretary of the year instead of doing the heavy lifting.”

Inez smiled. “Seriously?”

“Seriously.”

She brightened, and pushed her glasses back up her nose in excitement. “I was hoping you’d ask. I’ve actually already started looking into him.”

He smiled at her. “I figured. What do you have?”

“Well, Africa, for one. His military record is pretty straightforward. He was in Liberia in 1990, supposedly part of the reinforced rifle company that went in to protect the embassy in Monrovia. Now that’s on the other side of the continent from Kenya, where Ledbetter’s photo was supposedly taken, but I think Dr. Ledbetter was actually in Liberia when that picture was taken, not Kenya. The Maasi travel, of course. Plus they’re trotted out for national visits and things, they’re one of the most recognizable tribes in Africa. It’s plausible that the whole Peace Corps thing could be a front for her. It would help her life take on some perspective.”

“What are you saying? Ledbetter was a spy?”

“I think she might have been, yes. She was a world traveler, never stayed in one place more than two or three years. State Department doesn’t have a record of her working for them, but that means nothing. But they do have a record for Leighton. And it’s redacted. That’s why he would have been in plain clothes in Liberia instead of military—he was attached to the embassy, and so was she. The Maasi shot could even be cover for where she really was in Africa. And it would be very hush-hush, of course. Not something you talk to your friends about. But lots of people get recruited out of the Peace Corps. Or are placed there to start their careers.”

Fletcher had to give it to Inez, she was showing what Bianco liked to refer to as “real imagination.”

“So if Leighton’s job in the Army was to run interference for CIA operatives, wouldn’t that kind of information get out during a congressional run?”

“Not if they covered their tracks pretty well. He was a popular candidate, didn’t have a lot of opposition that stood a chance. His first election was relatively painless, and in his subsequent elections he ran unchallenged. So it’s very possible that no one dug deep enough to find this. It’s not the kind of thing your run-of-the mill journalist can get his hands on—I’m lucky State was willing to play ball. I think the only reason they were was because he was dead. And I agreed to have dinner with the watch officer who pulled the file for me.”

“He cute?”

“Very.” She shared a wicked grin with him.

“That is all very compelling. What else do you have?”

“A lot that doesn’t make sense. The murders, for example. He couldn’t have done them.”

“Yeah, I already suspected that.”

“You did?”

“Just a hunch. As soon as that DNA comes back, we’ll know for sure, but it just felt too convenient.”

“Convenient, for sure. His schedule matches up perfectly to the estimated dates of the crimes. But the last two girls went missing for a day or two before they turned up dead, so there’s some leeway on exactly when the crimes occurred. Twelve hours in either direction casts some pretty big doubt on his whereabouts. He leaves town before they’re found, but they’re all dead for almost one day
before
he comes to town. Now remember time of death is somewhat unreliable when you’re talking days, rather than hours. All they can really tell is what day they were killed based on insect activity on the bodies, not what time exactly. So it’s feasible that he was there and the first thing he does when he lands is go out and find a girl to kill.”

“Tell me more about him.”

“I started in 1994. He’d just left the military, and wed Gretchen Dasnai. She was his hometown honey from high school. They’d known each other for years, had been dating since they were in their late teens. They got busy having a baby—that’s Peter Junior, the one who died—and got Peter Senior settled in her father’s law practice. He went to night school while he paralegaled for the firm. When he graduated and passed the bar, they brought him on as an associate. By 2000 he was a partner, and he made his first Congressional run in 2002. The rest I think you know.”

“So he’s been time-sharing his life with Indiana and D.C. ever since. Thirteen years. Unlucky thirteen.”

“His son died in 2011, and that’s when he did the big turnaround on his stance toward military funding.”

“Did they have the vote today on the appropriations bill?”

“They did. It didn’t pass.”

“Just like Glenn Temple expected. Who is he in all of this? He was a bit autocratic when I met him, and crass to boot. Seemed more upset about the fact they’d lose the votes on the bill than his boss’s death.”

“Ah, see, now that’s where things get interesting. Temple is a hometown boy, as well. He’s known the congressman as long as his wife, maybe more. They went to elementary school together.”

Fletcher whistled. “There could be some animosity there. Always playing second fiddle, that kind of thing. And Mrs. Leighton mentioned that it was odd that Temple had helped the congressman with his inhaler. That was supposed to be the security detail’s job.”

Inez shrugged. “Who knows? That’s all I have right now.”

“That’s one hell of a good start, kiddo. Now go get me some more. Don’t forget the finances.”

She glowed with the praise, and said, “Yes, sir. I’ll be back to you with anything else I can dig up. The boys have been working the financials, I’ll get their report to you as soon as it’s finalized.”

She practically skipped off to her desk and settled behind her computer, her fingers a blur as she continued her research.

Okay. One step taken.

* * *

Morgan Thompsen waltzed into the JTTF at half-past ten with two seriously bleary-eyed women in tow. Thompsen looked great, like she’d been sleeping in cotton wool for the past ten hours, not up all night roaming the streets. Age, Fletcher decided. That, and good genes. It certainly wasn’t clean living.

Inez got them situated in the conference room and passed around steaming mugs of coffee. The working girls, introduced as Alexis and Rosie, slumped in their seats, not happy to be there.

Tough. This was more important than their comfort.

Thompsen set her mug on the table. “Okay, ladies. Tell us what you know about Congressman Leighton.”

Alexis glanced at Rosie. “You mean Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater, right?”

“Seriously?” Fletcher asked. “That’s what you call him?”

“That’s what he calls himself. He’s a nutter, but normally harmless. Likes shows, doubles, triples, club sandwich, but sometimes all-nut threesies, too. He’s generally up for anything, if you catch my drift.”

“Does he prefer men or women?”

Rosie shrugged. “Always thought he was caught between the pointers and the setters, if you catch my drift.”

“Oh, my God, he liked doing it with dogs?” Inez was almost apoplectic, and Thompsen leaned over to her and explained.

“He was bisexual, but didn’t seem to know which he preferred, men or women. And he liked multiple partners at once.”

“Oh. Okay. Well, that sounds...adventurous.” Inez was embarrassed by her outburst, but gamely trying to recover. Fletcher bit his lip to stop himself laughing; despite her nonchalant tone, the poor girl’s eyes were wide as saucers. She was trying to act blasé, but the more the hookers explained “Peter Peter’s” proclivities, the pinker her face became. Oh, to be young and innocent again.

And when the hookers realized they had a captive audience, they went all out, even offering to act out a few of the concepts for their inexperienced companion.

Thompsen was openly laughing now, and Fletcher cut them off with a smile. Inez hastily closed her mouth and composed herself, still bright pink.

“Okay, okay. No more playing,” Fletcher said. “I’m going to show you some photographs, and I want you to tell me which one is Peter Peter.”

He’d made up a six-pack of pictures, a small card with photos of six men on it. The congressman’s face was third from the left. He slid the composite to Alexis, and she stared at it a minute and shook her head. “Rose, you see him?”

Rosie looked and shook her head, as well. “No. He’s not any of them. But remember that one, on the bottom right, Lexie? He wanted us to rob the liquor store for him.”

Normally, that would be of interest to all involved, but Fletcher needed to stay focused.

“You’re sure you don’t recognize him.”

“No, sir,” the girls said in tandem.

Fletcher glanced at Thompsen, who was nodding. Fletch’s hunch was right on: someone was claiming to be the congressman, but it wasn’t him.

“Tell me what he looks like.”

Alexis scratched her left ear. “He’s slim build. Short hair, parted on the side. Puts that smelly cream in it so it will lay down. Handsome, but seems like he could pop his top anytime. He really seems like a congressman, you know? His attitude. Like he’s really important.”

“Important. That’s it, Lexie,” Rosie chimed in.

Something in Fletcher ticked. He’d met a man very much like that just the day before. A man who would know enough about the congressman and his day-to-day life to impersonate him with ease.

But if that were the case...

“Hold on, ladies. I’ll be right back.”

Fletcher left the conference room and quickly traversed the floor to his desk, toggled his mouse and typed in the website for the congressman. He clicked on the Staff button, and up popped a bevy of people. The man at the top was the one he wanted. He captured the image and sent it to print, anxiously tapping his forefinger on the mouse, making the pointer jump herky-jerky all over the screen.

Once the printer spit out the paper, he took it and went back to the conference room.

He had no idea what he’d interrupted, Inez was pink again and Thompsen was nearly doubled over laughing, but he ignored them and shoved the paper toward Alexis.

“Do you recognize this man?”

Alexis nodded right away, handed the paper to Rosie, who said, “Yeah, that’s him. That’s Peter.”

Thompsen took the paper from Rosie and glanced at it. “Who is he?”

“Glenn Temple. The congressman’s chief of staff.”