Absolute Power

Chapter Thirteen

The White House receives millions of pieces of nonofficial mail each year. Each item is carefully screened and appropriately processed, the whole task handled by an in-house staff with assistance and supervision by the Secret Service.

The two envelopes were addressed to Gloria Russell, which was somewhat unusual since most of this type of correspondence was addressed to the President or members of the First Family, or frequently the First Pet, which currently happened to be a golden retriever named Barney.

The handwriting on each was in block letters, the envelopes white and cheap and thus widely available. Russell got to them about twelve o’clock on a day that had been going pretty well up until then. Inside one was a single sheet of paper and inside the other was an item she had stared at for some minutes. Written on the paper, again in block letters, were the words:

Even though she had expected it, in fact had desperately wanted to receive it, she still could feel her heartbeat increase to where it pounded against the wall of her chest; her saliva dwindled down to where she reached for and gulped down a glass of water and repeated the procedure until she could hold the letter without shaking. Then she looked at the second item. A photograph. The sight of the letter opener had brought the nightmare events rushing back to her. She gripped the sides of her chair. Finally the attack subsided.

“At least he wants to deal.” Collin put down the note and photo and returned to his chair. He noted the extreme pallor of the woman and wondered if she was tough enough to make it through this one.

“Maybe. It could also be a setup.”

Collin shook his head. “Don’t think so.”

Russell sat back in her chair, rubbed at her temples, downed another Tylenol. “Why not?”

“Why set us up this way? In fact, why set us up at all? He’s got the stuff to bury us. He wants money.”

“He probably got millions from the Sullivan heist.”

“Maybe. But we don’t know how much of it was liquid. Maybe he stashed it and can’t get back to it. Maybe he’s just an extremely greedy person. World is full of those.”

“I need a drink. Can you come over tonight?”

“The President is having dinner at the Canadian embassy.”

“Shit. Can’t you get someone to replace you?”

“Maybe, if you pulled some strings.”

“Consider them pulled. How soon do you think we’ll hear from him again?”

“He doesn’t seem too anxious, although he might just be acting cautious. I would in his situation.”

“Great. So I can smoke two packs of menthols a day until we hear from him. By then I’ll be dead of lung cancer.”

“If he wants money, what are you going to do?” he asked.

“Depending on how much he wants, it can be accomplished without too much difficulty.” She seemed calmer now.

Collin rose to go. “You’re the boss.”

“Tim?” Russell went over to him. “Hold me for a minute.”

He felt her rub against his pistol as he gripped her.

“Tim, if it comes down to more than money. If we can’t get it back.”

Collin looked down at her.

“Then I’ll take care of it, Gloria.” He touched his fingers to her lips, turned and left.

Collin found Burton waiting in the hallway.

Burton looked the younger man up and down. “So how’s she holding up?”

“All right.” Collin continued to walk down the hallway, until Burton grabbed his arm, spun him around.

“What the fuck’s going on, Tim?” Collin loosened his partner’s grip.

“This isn’t the time or the place, Bill.”

“Well, tell me the time and the place, and I’ll be there because we need to talk.”

“What about?”

“You gonna fucking play stupid with me?” He roughly pulled Collin to a corner.

“I want you to think real clearly about that woman in there. She doesn’t give a shit about you or me or anybody else. The only thing she cares about is saving her own little ass. I don’t know what kind of story she’s spinning on you, and I don’t know what you two are cooking up, but I’m telling you to be careful. I don’t want to see you throw everything away over her.”

“I appreciate the concern but I know what I’m doing, Bill.”

“Do you, Tim? Does fucking the Chief of Staff come within the purview of a Secret Service agent’s responsibilities? Why don’t you show me where that is in the manual? I’d like to read it for myself. And while we’re talking about it, why don’t you enlighten me about what the hell we went back into that house for. Because we ain’t got it, and I guess I know who does. My ass is on the line here too, Tim. If I’m going down I’d like to know why.”

An aide passed by in the hallway and stared strangely at the two men. Burton smiled and nodded and then returned his attention to Collin.

“Come on, Tim, what the hell would you do if you were me?”

The young man looked at his friend and his face slowly relaxed from the hard line he normally wore while on duty. If he were in Burton’s position what would he do? The answer was easy. He’d kick some ass until people started talking. Burton was his friend, had proven it time and again. What the man was saying about Russell was probably true. Collin’s reasoning hadn’t totally evaporated in the presence of silk lingerie.

“You got time for a cup of coffee, Bill?”

Frank walked down the two flights of stairs, turned right and opened the door to the crime lab. Small and in need of paint, the room was surprisingly well-organized due in large measure to the fact that Laura Simon was a very compulsive person. Frank imagined her home to be every bit as neat and well-kept despite the presence of two preschoolers that kept her sufficiently haggard. Around the room were stacked unused evidence kits with their unbroken orange seals creating a bit of color against the drab, chipping gray walls. Cardboard boxes, carefully labeled, were piled in another corner. In yet another corner was a small floor safe that held the few physical items requiring additional security measures. Next to it was a refrigerator that housed evidence requiring a temperature-controlled environment.

He watched her small back as it curved over a microscope at the far end of the room.

“You rang?” Frank leaned over. On the glass slide were small fragments of some substance. He couldn’t imagine spending his days looking at microscopic pieces of who knew what, but he was also fully aware that what Laura Simon did was an enormously important contribution to the conviction process.

“Look at this.” Simon motioned him over to the lens. Frank removed his eyeglasses, which he had forgotten were still on. He glanced down and then raised his head back up.

“Laura, you know I never know what I’m looking at. What is it?”

“It’s a sample of carpet taken from the Sullivans’ bedroom. We didn’t get it on the initial search, picked it up later.”

“So, what’s significant about it?” Frank had learned to listen very attentively to this tech.

“The carpet in the bedroom is one of those very high-priced models that cost about two hundred dollars a square foot. The carpet just for the bedroom must have run them almost a quarter mil.”

“Jesus Christ!” Frank popped another piece of gum in his mouth. Trying to quit smoking was rotting his teeth and adding to his waistline. “Two-fifty for something you walk on?”

“It’s incredibly durable; you could roll a tank across it and it would just spring back. It’s only been there about two years. They did a bunch of renovation back then.”

“Renovation? The house is only a few years old.”

“That’s when the deceased married Walter Sullivan.”

“Oh.”

“Women like to make their own statement about those things, Seth. Actually, she had good taste in carpets.”

“Okay, so where does her good taste get us?”

“Look at the fibers again.”

Frank sighed but obeyed the request.

“You see at the very tips? Look at the cross section. They’ve been cut. Presumably with not very sharp scissors. The cut is pretty ragged, although like I said these fibers are like iron.”

He looked at her. “Cut? Why would anyone do that? Where’d you find them?”

“These particular samples were found on the bed skirt. Whoever cut them probably wouldn’t have noticed a few fibers clinging to his hand. Then he brushed against the skirt and there you are.”

“You find a corresponding part on the carpet?”

“Yep. Right under the left side of the bed if you’re looking toward it about ten centimeters away at a perpendicular angle. The cut was slight but verifiable.”

Frank straightened back up and sat down on one of the stools next to Simon.

“That’s not all, Seth. On one of the fragments I also found traces of a solvent. Like a stain remover.”

“That might be from the recent carpet cleaning. Or maybe the maids spilled something.”

Simon shook her head. “Uh-uh. The cleaning company uses a steam system. For spot cleaning they use a special organic-based solvent. I checked. This one is a petroleum-based, off-the-shelf cleaner. And the maids use the same cleanser as recommended by the manufacturer. It’s an organic base too. They have a whole supply of it at the house. And the carpet is chemically treated to prevent stains from soaking in. Using a petroleum-based solvent probably made it worse. That’s probably why they ended up snipping out pieces.”

“So presumably the perp takes the fibers because they show something. Do they?”

“Not on the sample I got, but he might have cut around the area just to make sure he didn’t miss anything and we got one of the clean specimens.”

“What would be on the carpet that someone would go to the trouble of cutting one-centimeter fibers out? It must’ve been a pain in the ass.”

Both Simon and Frank had the same thought and indeed had it for several moments.

“Blood,” Simon said simply.

“And not the deceased’s either. If I remember correctly, hers wasn’t anywhere near that spot.” Frank added, “I think you got one more test to run, Laura.”

She hooked a kit off the wall. “I was just getting ready to go do it, thought I’d better buzz you first.”

“Smart girl.”

The drive out took thirty minutes. Frank rolled down his window and let the wind course over his face. It also helped dispel the cigarette smoke. Simon was constantly giving him a hard time about that.

The bedroom had remained sealed under Frank’s orders.

Frank watched from the corner of Walter Sullivan’s bedroom as Simon carefully mixed the bottles of chemicals and then poured the result into a plastic sprayer. Frank then helped her stuff towels under the door and tape brown packing paper to the windows. They closed the heavy drapes, cutting out virtually all traces of natural light.

Frank surveyed the room once again. He looked at the mirror, the bed, the window, the closets and then his eyes rested on the nightstand and at the gaping hole behind where the plaster had been removed. Then his eyes moved back to the picture. He picked it up. He was reminded again that Christine Sullivan had been a very beautiful woman, as far removed as one could get from the destroyed hulk he had viewed. In the photograph she was sitting in the chair beside the bed. The nightstand was clearly visible to her left. The corner of the bed made its way into the right side of the picture. Ironically so, considering all the use she had probably made of that particular vehicle. The springs were probably due for their sixty-thousand-mile checkup. After that, they probably wouldn’t have much to do. He remembered the look on Walter Sullivan’s face. Not much left there.

He put the photo down and continued to observe Simon’s fluid movements. He glanced back at the photo, something bothering him, but whatever it was popped out of his head as quickly as it had sprung into it.

“What’s that stuff called again, Laura?”

“Luminol. It’s sold under a variety of names, but it’s the same reagent stuff. I’m ready.”

She positioned the bottle over the section of carpet where the fibers had been cut from.

“Good thing you don’t have to pay for this carpet.” The detective smiled at her.

Simon turned to look at him. “Wouldn’t matter to me. I’d just declare bankruptcy. They could garnishee my wages from here until eternity. It’s the poor person’s great equalizer.”

Frank hit the light, plunging the room into pitch-black darkness. Swishes of air were heard as Simon squeezed the trigger on the spray bottle. Almost immediately, like a mass of lightning bugs, a very small portion of the carpet started to glow a pale blue and then disappeared. Frank turned on the overhead light and looked at Simon.

“So we got somebody else’s blood. Helluva pickup, Laura. Any way you can scrape up enough to analyze, get a blood type? DNA typing?”

Simon looked dubious. “We’ll pull the carpet to see if any leaked through, but I doubt it. Not much soaks into a treated carpet. And any residue has been mixed with a lot of stuff. So don’t count on it.”

Frank thought out loud. “Okay, one perp wounded. Not a lot of blood, but some.” He looked for confirmation from Simon on that point and received an affirmative nod of the head. “Wounded, but with what? She had nothing in her hand when we found her.”

Simon read his mind. “And as sudden as her death was, we’re probably talking cadaveric spasm. To get it out of her hand they would’ve almost had to break her fingers.”

Frank finished the thought. “And there was no sign of that on the autopsy.”

“Unless the impact of the slugs caused her hand to fly open.”

“How often does that happen?”

“Once is enough for this case.”

“Okay, let’s assume she had a weapon, and now that weapon is missing. What kind of weapon might it have been?”

Simon considered this as she repacked her kit.

“You probably could rule out a gun; she should’ve been able to get a round off, and there were no powder burns on her hands. They couldn’t have scraped those off without leaving a trail.”

“Good. Plus there’s no evidence she ever had a gun registered to her. And we’ve already confirmed that there are no guns in the house.”

“So no gun. Maybe a knife then. Can’t tell what kind of wound it made, but maybe a slash, probably superficial. The number of fibers that were snipped out was small, so we’re not talking life-threatening.”

“So she stabbed one of the perps, maybe in the arm or leg. Then they backed up and shot her? Or she stabbed as she was dying?” Frank corrected himself. “No. She died instantly. She stabs one of them in another room, runs in here and then gets shot. Standing over her, the wounded perp drips some blood.”

“Except the vault’s in here. The more likely scenario is that she surprised them in the act.”

“Right, except remember the shots came from the doorway into the room. And fired down. Who surprised who? That’s what keeps bugging the ever-loving shit out of me.”

“So why take the knife, if that’s what it was?”

“Cause it IDs somebody, somehow.”

“Prints?” Simon’s nostrils quivered as she thought of the physical evidence lurking out there.

Frank nodded. “That’s how I read it.”

“Was the last Mrs. Sullivan in the habit of keeping a knife with her?”

Frank responded by slapping his hand to his forehead so hard it made Simon wince. She watched as he rushed over to the nightstand and picked up the photo. He shook his head and handed it to her.

“There’s your goddamned knife.”

Simon looked at the photo. In it, resting on the nightstand was a long, leather-handled letter opener.

“The leather also explains the oily residue on the palms.”

Frank paused at the front door on the way out. He looked at the security control panel, which had been restored to its operating condition. Then he broke into a smile as an elusive thought finally trickled to the surface.

“Laura, you got the fluorescent lamp in the trunk?”

“Yeah, why?”

“You mind getting it?”

Puzzled, Simon did so. She returned to the foyer and plugged it in.

“Shine it right on the number keys.”

What was revealed under the fluorescent light made Frank smile again.

“Goddamn that’s good.”

“What does it mean?” Simon looked at him, her brow furrowed.

“It means two things. First, we definitely got us somebody on the inside and, second, our perps are real creative.”

Frank sat in the small interrogation room and decided against another cigarette and opted instead for a cherry Tums. He looked at the cinder block walls, cheap metal table and beat-up chairs and decided this was a very depressing place to be interrogated in. Which was good. Depressed people were vulnerable people, and vulnerable people, given the appropriate prodding, tended to want to talk. And Frank wanted to listen. He would listen all day.

The case was still extremely muddled, but certain elements were becoming clearer.

Buddy Budizinski still lived in Arlington and now worked at a car wash in Falls Church. He had admitted being in the Sullivan house, had read about the murder, but beyond that knew nothing. Frank tended to believe him. The man was not particularly bright, had no previous police record and had spent his adult life performing menial tasks for a living, no doubt compelled by his having finished only the fifth grade. His apartment was modest to the point of near poverty. Budizinski was a dead end.

Rogers, on the other hand, had produced a treasure trove. The Social Security number he had given on his employment application was real enough, only it belonged to a female State Department employee who had been assigned to Thailand for the last two years. He must have known the carpet cleaning company wouldn’t have checked. What did they care? The address on the application was a motel in Beltsville, Maryland. No one by that name had registered at the motel in the last year and no one fitting Rogers’s description had been seen there. The state of Kansas had no record of him. On top of that he had never cashed any of the payroll checks given to him by Metro. That in itself spoke volumes.

An artist’s sketch based on Pettis’s recollection was being made up down the hallway and would be distributed throughout the area.

Rogers was the guy, Frank could feel it. He had been in the house, and he had disappeared leaving behind a trail of false information. Simon was right this minute painstakingly examining Pettis’s van in the hopes that Rogers’s prints were still lurking somewhere within. They had no prints to match at the crime scene, but if they could ident Rogers, then dollars to donuts he had priors, and Frank’s case would finally be forming. It would take a great leap forward if the person he was waiting for would decide to cooperate.

And Walter Sullivan had confirmed that an antique letter opener from his bedroom was indeed missing. Frank feverishly hoped to be able to lay his hands on that potential evidentiary gold mine. Frank had imparted his theory to Sullivan about his wife stabbing her attacker with that instrument. The old man hadn’t seemed to register the information. Frank had briefly wondered if Sullivan was losing it.

The detective checked his list of employees at Sullivan’s residence once more, although by now he knew them all by heart. There was only one he was really interested in.

The security company rep’s statement kept coming back to him. The variations generated by fifteen digits to get a five-digit code in the correct sequence was impossible for a portable computer to crunch in the very brief time allowed, particularly if you factored in a less than blazing fast response from the security system’s computer. In order to do it, you had to eliminate some of the possibles. How did you do that?

An examination of the keypad showed that a chemical — Frank couldn’t remember the exact name although Simon had recognized it — which was revealed only under fluorescent light, had been applied to each of the number keys.

Frank leaned back and envisioned Walter Sullivan — or the butler, or whoever’s job it was to set the alarm — going down and entering the code. The finger would hit the proper keys, five of them, and the alarm would be set. The person would walk away, completely unaware that he or she now had a small tracing of chemical, invisible to the naked eye, and odorless, on their finger. And, more important, they would be totally ignorant of the fact that they had just revealed the numbers comprising the security code. Under fluorescent light, the perps would be able to tell which numbers had been entered because the chemical would be smeared on those keys. With that information, it was up to the computer to deliver the correct sequence, which the security rep was certain it could do in the allotted time, once given the elimination of 99.9 percent of the possible combos.

Now the question remained: who had applied the chemical? Frank at first had considered that Rogers, or whatever his real name was, might have done it while at the house, but the facts against that conclusion were overwhelming. First, the house was always filled with people and to even the most unobservant a stranger lurking around an alarm panel would arouse suspicion. Second, the entry foyer was large and open and the most unsecluded spot in the house, lastly, the application would take some time and care. And Rogers didn’t have that luxury. Even the slightest suspicion, the most fleeting glance and his whole plan could be mined. The person who had thought this one up was not the type to take that sort of risk. Rogers hadn’t done it. Frank was pretty sure he knew who did.

Upon first glance, the woman appeared so thin as to convey the impression of emaciation perhaps due to cancer. On second glance, the good color in the cheeks, the light bone structure and the graceful way she moved led to the conclusion that she was very lean but otherwise healthy.

“Please sit down, Ms. Broome. I appreciate your coming down.”

The woman nodded and slid into one of the seats. She wore a flowery skirt that ended midcalf. A single strand of large fake pearls encircled her neck. Her hair was tied in a neat bun; some of the strands at the top of her forehead were beginning to turn a silvery gray, like ink leaching onto paper. Going on the smooth skin and absence of wrinkles, Frank would have put her age at about thirty-nine. Actually she was some years older.

“I thought you were already done with me, Mr. Frank.”

“Please call me Seth. You smoke?”

She shook her head.

“I’ve just got a few follow-up questions, routine. You’re not the only one. I understand you’re leaving Mr. Sullivan’s employment?”

She noticeably swallowed, looked down and then back up. “I was close, so to speak, to Mrs. Sullivan. It’s hard now, you know...” Her voice trailed off.

“I know it is, I know it is. It was terrible, awful.” Frank paused for a moment. “You’ve been with the Sullivans how long now?”

“A little over a year.”

“You do the cleaning and...?”

“I help do the cleaning. There’s four of us, Sally, Rebecca and me. Karen Taylor, she does the cooking. I also looked after Mrs. Sullivan’s things for her too. Her clothes and what-not. I was sort of her assistant, I guess you could say. Mr. Sullivan had his own person, Richard.”

“Would you like some coffee?”

Frank didn’t wait for her to answer. He got up and opened the door to the interrogation room.

“Hey Molly, can you being me a couple of javas?” He turned to Ms. Broome. “Black? Cream?”

“Black.”

“Make it two pures, Molly, thanks.”

He shut the door and sat back down.

“Damn chill in the air, I can’t seem to stay warm.” He tapped the rough wall. “This cinder block doesn’t help much. So you were saying about Mrs. Sullivan?”

“She was really nice to me. I mean she would talk to me about things. She wasn’t — she wasn’t, you know, from that class of people, the upper class I guess you could say. She went to high school where I did right here in Middleton.”

“And not too far apart in years I’m thinking.”

His remark brought a smile to Wanda Broome’s lips and a hand unconsciously moved to cajole back into place an invisible strand of hair.

“Further than I’d like to admit.”

The door opened and their coffee was delivered. It was gratefully hot and fresh. Frank had not been lying about the chill.

“I won’t say she fit in real well with all those types of people, but she seemed to hold her own. She didn’t take anything from anybody if you know what I mean.”

Frank had reason to believe that was true. From all accounts the late Mrs. Sullivan had been a hellion in many respects.

“Would you say the relationship between the Sullivans was... good, bad, in between?”

She didn’t hesitate. “Very good. Oh I know what people say about the age difference and all, but she was good for him, and he was good for her. I truly believe that. He loved her, I can tell you that. Maybe more like a father loves his daughter, but it was still love.”

“And she him?”

Now there was perceptible hesitation. “You’ve got to understand that Christy Sullivan was a very young woman, maybe younger in a lot of ways than other women her age. Mr. Sullivan opened up a whole new world for her and—” She broke off, clearly unsure of how to continue.

Frank changed gears. “What about the vault in the bedroom? Who knew about it?”

“I don’t know. I certainly didn’t. I assume that Mr. and Mrs. Sullivan knew. Mr. Sullivan’s valet, Richard, he may have known. But I’m not sure about that.”

“So Christine Sullivan or her husband never indicated to you that there was a safe behind the mirror?”

“My goodness no. I was her friend of sorts, but I was still just an employee. And only with them a year. Mr. Sullivan never really spoke to me. I mean that’s not the sort of thing you would tell someone like me, is it?”

“No, I guess not.” Frank was certain she was lying, but he had been unable to unearth any evidence to the contrary. Christine Sullivan was the very type to show off her wealth to someone she could identify with, if only to show how far she had suddenly risen in the world.

“So you didn’t know the mirror was a one-way looking into the bedroom?”

This time the woman showed visible surprise. Frank noticed a blush under the light application of makeup.

“Wanda, can I call you Wanda? Wanda, you understand, don’t you, that the alarm system in the house was deactivated by the person who broke in? It was deactivated by the appropriate code being put in. Now, who set the alarm at night?”

“Richard did,” she replied promptly. “Or sometimes Mr. Sullivan did it himself.”

“So everyone in the house knew the code?”

“Oh no, of course not. Richard did. He’s been with Mr. Sullivan for almost forty years. He was the only one other than the Sullivans who knew the code that I know of.”

“Did you ever see him set the alarm?”

“I was usually already in bed when the system was set.”

Frank stared at her. I’ll bet you were, Wanda, I’ll bet you were.

Wanda Broome’s eyes widened. “You’re, you’re not suspecting that Richard had anything to do with it?”

“Well, Wanda, somehow, somebody who wasn’t supposed to be able to, disarmed that alarm system. And naturally suspicion falls on anyone who had access to that code.”

Wanda Broome looked like she might start to cry, then composed herself. “Richard is almost seventy years old.”

“Then he’s probably in need of a nice little nest egg. You understand what I’m telling you is to be held in the strictest confidence of course?”

She nodded and at the same time wiped her nose. The coffee, untouched, was now sipped in quick little bursts.

Frank continued. “And until someone can explain to me how that security system was accessed, then I’m going to have to explore the avenues that make the most sense to me.”

He continued to look at her. He had spent the past day finding out everything he could about Wanda Broome. It was a fairly average story except for one twist. She was forty-four years old, twice divorced with two grown children. She lived in the servants’ wing with the rest of the in-house staff. About four miles away her mother, aged eighty-one, lived in a modest, somewhat run-down home, existing comfortably on Social Security and her husband’s railroad pension. Broome had been employed by the Sullivans, as she said, for about a year, which was what initially had drawn Frank’s attention: she was by far the newest member of the house’s staff. That in itself didn’t mean much, but by all accounts Sullivan treated his help very well, and there was something to be said for the loyalty of long-standing, well-paid employees. Wanda Broome looked like she could be very loyal too. The question was to whom?

The twist was that Wanda Broome had spent some time in prison, more than twenty years ago, for embezzlement when she had worked as a bookkeeper for a doctor in Pittsburgh. The other servants were squeaky-clean. So she was capable of breaking the law, and she had spent time on the inside. Her name back then had been Wanda Jackson. She had divorced Jackson when she got out, or rather he had dropped her. There was no record of arrest since then. With the name change and the conviction far in the past, if the Sullivans had done a background check, they might not have turned up anything, or maybe they didn’t care. From all sources Wanda Broome had been an honest, hardworking citizen these last twenty years. Frank wondered what had changed that.

“Is there anything you can remember or think of that might help me, Wanda?” Frank tried to look as innocent as possible, opening his notebook and pretending to jot down some notes. If she were the inside person, the one thing he didn’t want was Wanda running back to Rogers, which would result in his going even further underground. On the other hand, if he could get her to crumble, then she just might jump sides.

He envisioned her dusting the entrance hall. It would have been so easy, so easy to apply that chemical to the cloth, then casually brush it against the security panel. It would all look so natural, no one, even staring directly at her while she did it, would have given it a thought. Just a conscientious servant doing her job. Then sneaking down when everyone was asleep, a quick sweep of the light and her part was done.

Technically, she would probably be an accomplice to murder, since homicide was a reasonably likely result when you burglarized someone’s home. But Frank was far less interested in sending Wanda Broome away for a large portion of the rest of her life than he was in bagging the trigger man. The woman sitting across from him had not concocted this plan, he believed. She had played a role, a small, albeit important role. Frank wanted the master of ceremonies. He would get the Commonwealth’s Attorney to cut a deal with Wanda to accomplish that goal.

“Wanda?” Frank leaned across the table and earnestly took one of her hands. “Can you think of anything else? Anything that will help me catch the person who murdered your friend?”

Frank finally received a small shake of the head in return and he leaned back. He hadn’t expected much on this go-round, but he had made his point. The wall was beginning to crumble. She wouldn’t warn the guy, Frank was certain of that. He was getting to Wanda Broome, little by little.

As he would discover, he had already gone too far.