Full Disclosure (31 page)

Ann would thrive being in a good marriage. Marriage was ideal for someone who formed such deep relationships. She just didn't want to make a mistake, to the point she was simply standing still, waiting. She wouldn't pursue him. She wouldn't look at his family wealth, at who he was, and think, good catch, and try to win him over. She wasn't wired that way, but she also wouldn't even think of it. She wouldn't get married for money or position.

Why
would
she get married?

He knew what he wanted in a marriage. A partner. A lover. A friend. He wanted someone sharing his world and sharing
his life. He wanted the joy of being involved with the same someone for the next fifty years. He wanted husband as his role; he wanted to no longer be single. He didn't know what Ann wanted in a marriage. He knew a lot about her, but not that. He needed that answer.

Three days later, Paul entered the secure room. He pulled out a chair beside Sam. “Did Rita call?”

“She's leaving Chicago now. She said to tell you the office is quiet and that Zane has added a fish tank to her office. She stopped at your place and packed another few days of clothes for you. And she said she has what you asked her to research.”

“Any indication what she found?”

“She just said you should pick her up at the airport around six p.m.”

“So . . . she found something.”

“Sorry, boss.”

“It's why I sent her. Where are you at?”

“Victim nine. You have to admire the work they did.” Sam held up a receipt. “The official schedule has the chief of staff in Chicago. They found a receipt signed by the chief of staff for a restaurant in Ashville, Ohio, the day of the disappearance.”

“He wanted the proof to stick around, otherwise he wouldn't have kept his receipts.”

“Oh, the chief of staff wanted them to be able to prove he was the killer, that's clear. He kept paper on everything. There were six hundred forty-two disorganized boxes of it in his basement. They worked it down to this organized assortment of facts. They put it together as if they were going to have to take the case to trial. And they did the job without a dozen people to help them do it. I have to admire the fact they knew this was going to come public one day, and they were willing to make as organized a presentation as they could. Those six hundred forty-two boxes of paper—less what is in this room—are over
in what Reece called the long-term secure storage room. You want me to go over and start looking through what is there?”

“After you get through victim eighteen.”

“I'll be there by tomorrow.” Sam shifted in his chair. “I don't know about you, but I could use a run later. I've been sitting way too many hours.”

“I'll join you and be glad for it.”

“You're interviewing the VP today?”

“I'll sit down with him in an hour. Any other questions come to mind?”

“Your list seems complete.”

“Want to come along?”

Sam leaned over to pull open a file drawer and rifle a stack of folders. “My excuse for why I'm busy, and you should accept a no-thanks.”

Paul laughed. “I'll have a tape of the interview for you to listen to.”

“Thanks. It can't be easy, trying to figure out how to ask the questions when it's the VP on the other side of the conversation.”

“He's only going to tell me what he's decided to say, and he's had years to think about his answers. I'm not expecting much; I'm just curious to see what he's going to want to say.”

“I wonder sometimes if he misses the spotlight. He could have released this information after his death, rather than do it now, knowing he's going to have months of media interest. He's setting himself up to be the center of attention again.”

Paul nodded. “I believe part of it is clearing his conscience—he wants to take responsibility for what he did rather than leave it for others. And part of it is the media. He's going to be in the spotlight, and he thinks he can handle it. He's trying to unfold this according to a script he's written so he can control events. It won't last past first contact with the news media of today, but that appears to be his goal.”

Sam reached over to the file cabinet and got out a second recorder. “It's going to be a famous tape. You should sound
as professional as you can. And you should have a backup recorder.”

Paul smiled. “Thanks for the reminder.”

Paul had several pages of questions for the interview, and he worked down the list systematically, occasionally jotting down the time to remind himself when they had reached various topics. They were in the library where they had first met. The VP seemed relieved to be having the conversation, and he was trying to be helpful, answering the questions in an expansive way. Paul let Gannett talk, making a point not to interrupt him, guiding the conversation with his questions. He had changed the tapes at the two-hour mark.

“Did you ever suspect the chief of staff was lying to you?”

“It's hard to separate what I know of the man now from what I knew then. He was my chief of staff, he was a man who got things done, and in government and politics that often meant he played hardball and even played dirty at times. He would use whatever information he had to get the obstacle in front of him to move aside. So I knew even during the early years that he was often not telling me things for my sake—better that I didn't know. He would get done what had to be done. Back then I trusted him not to cross the line, even if I knew he would press that line hard. I knew him to be loyal, committed to the task we were focused on. He was a goal-driven man, and we shared common objectives. I rose through government because he was my chief of staff, and I trusted him.

“I never had a moment where I thought, He just lied to me. I never had that sense of outrage. I want to believe I would have seen what was going on, but he killed eighteen people while he was working for me. I look back and can't understand why I didn't sense at least something off about him. I'm ashamed of that. There had to be signs I missed, and I don't understand how I overlooked them over so many years.”

“Do you know of any incident where he got in trouble with the law or had personal legal troubles, where he used his position to get out of the trouble, or where someone decided to look the other way because of the fact he was your chief of staff?”

“It's a very good question. No, I know of no such situation that ever arose. But I don't know either that I would have caught wind of it if he was covering something up. I haven't looked, and I realize I should have.”

They had been talking for over three hours now, and the questions were prompting more color about the chief of staff, but not more facts. Paul was comfortable the VP had put into the chapter what he intended to say.

Paul turned a page in his notes and settled into the next area of questions he had. “Tell me about the other individuals on your staff who were with you for several years. Who else would you say knew the chief of staff well?”

Paul drove to the airport to meet Rita, exhausted after the four-hour conversation with the VP. On its surface this wasn't a hard case to review, but it was difficult to look back so far in time and catch the nuances, the emotions, the unspoken. Gannett was a smart man. Was it loyalty to a friend that had blinded him to what was going on? Had the VP ever suspected something else was there? Paul knew what the VP had said
,
and still he couldn't settle that core question in his mind.

He arrived at the airport, parked, and went to meet Rita's flight. She was fifth off the plane. She crossed to join him. “Hey, boss. How did the interview go?”

“Sam told you.”

“He said you looked nervous.” She laughed at the face he made.

“It was four hours of conversation that you're welcome to listen to. It's done, that's the best thing I can say for it, although there will probably be another conversation once we're further
along. I didn't hear anything new in what he said, but there were impressions of people that you might find useful.”

He carried the bag she had packed for him back to the car and stored it in the trunk. Paul held out the keys. “Drive while I read, Rita.” He opened the door and got in the passenger seat. She handed him a thick file from her briefcase.

“The articles are from Ann's local newspaper archives. I used my phone to take photos of the pages that applied to Ann, and I printed articles that matched what I was officially there to research. I signed in under a false name. No one is going to put together I was looking.”

“Bottom line?”

“Ann wrote the diary, boss.”

Paul felt a sudden chill. He had been hoping he was wrong. “You're sure.”

“Yes.”

“Talk me through it.”

“Ann disappeared on August five, 2003. Police were conducting an aggressive search to find her. A confidential informant who was seen with her the day she disappeared was their top suspect. He was a known schizophrenic who could get violent. He was found six states over on a rural road, dead in his car of a self-inflicted gunshot. The ME put his death at August twelve. There was evidence Ann had been in the passenger seat of the car, but she was nowhere to be found. She reappeared on August fourteen when she called her boss. She was on medical leave for sixteen weeks before returning to work. She spent that medical leave somewhere else, and didn't return to her home until just before she returned to work.

“The official story: the confidential informant had been suicidal, had a passenger with him, had a gun, and she had entered his car in order to convince him to let the passenger out. She eventually succeeded. The CI wanted to go home, meaning his parents' farm. He drove into the country but was lost in his mind, thinking they were in a foreign country. She
stopped him. They got out of the car. He panicked, it turned into a violent fight, and during the struggle she was struck in the face. She woke to find herself tied up and locked in an abandoned farmhouse cellar. She had to break out, and when she finally did so, she found she was in the middle of nowhere. She was fighting a concussion and stayed put for the first couple of days until her vision cleared. She hopped a train to the nearest town to make a call. Not a bad cover story. She used what the police already thought. She eliminated their ability to find the farmhouse and check her story. Sixteen weeks of medical leave suggests she was in pretty bad shape. Someone paid those medical bills. There will be records if you want to go deeper.”

“That she was the diary writer, rather than the one called to help after the fact, tells me enough for now. We're going to have to work out something regarding the cabin and the coffin photos. I don't want to walk her back through them.”

“If you cut her out of the investigation, she'll know something's up. She'll know we know.”

“I don't mind keeping her in the loop. The VP was part of it, along with Reece, and we're keeping them informed of our progress. I just don't want to be causing her more harm by refreshing the details of what happened—letting her see the photos or taking her to the cabin location. You read the diary. You can imagine as well as I can what those days between August five and twelve were like for her.”