Absolute Power

Chapter Seventeen

“You Shouldn’t have fucking done that, Bill. You said you were not going to interfere in the investigation. Hell, I ought to throw your keester right in jail. That’d go over real well with your boss.” Seth Frank slammed his desk drawer and stood up, eyes blazing at the big man.

Bill Burton stopped pacing and sat down. He had expected to take some lumps over this one.

“You’re right, Seth. But Jesus I was a cop for a long time. You were unavailable, I go over there just to reconnoiter the place, I see some skirt slipping in. What would you have done?”

Frank didn’t answer.

“Look, Seth, you can kick me in the ass, but I’m telling you, friend, this woman is our ace up the sleeve. With her we can nail this guy.”

Frank’s tensed face relaxed, his anger subsiding.

“What are you talking about?”

“The girl is his daughter. His friggin’ daughter. In fact his only child. Luther Whitney is a three-time loser, a career crim who’s apparently gotten better with age. His wife finally divorced him, right? Couldn’t take it anymore. Then when she starts to get her life in order, she dies from breast cancer.”

He paused.

Seth Frank was all attention now. “Go on.”

“Kate Whitney is devastated by her mother’s death. Her father’s betrayal as she sees it. So devastated that she totally breaks off from him. Not only that, she goes to law school and then goes to work as an Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney where she has the reputation of being one hard-assed prosecutor, especially for property-related crimes — burglary, theft, robbery. She goes for the max on all those guys. And usually gets it I might add.”

“Where the hell did you get all that info?”

“A few well-placed phone calls. People like to talk about other people’s misery, it makes them feel their own life is somehow better when it usually isn’t.”

“So where does all this family turmoil get us?”

“Seth, look at the possibilities here. This girl hates her old man. Hates with a capital H underscored.”

“So you want to use her to get to him. If they’re estranged that badly, how do we do it?”

“That’s the twist. By all accounts, all the hate and misery is on her side. Not his. He loves her. Loves her more than anything else. He’s got a goddamned shrine to her in his bedroom. I’m telling you the guy is ripe for this.”

“If, and it’s still a big if in my mind, if she’s willing to co-operate, how does she get in touch with him? He sure as hell isn’t going to be hanging around his phone at home.”

“No, but I bet he checks in for messages. You should see his house. This guy is very orderly, everything in its place, bills probably paid ahead of time. And he’s got no idea we’re on his ass. Not yet anyway. He probably checks his machine once or twice a day. Just in case.”

“So she leaves him a message, arranges a meeting and we nail him?”

Burton stood back up, flushed two cigarettes from his pack and flipped one over to Frank. They both took a moment to light up.

“Personally, that’s how I see it going down, Seth. Unless you got a better idea.”

“We still have to convince her to do it. From what you said, she didn’t seem too willing.”

“I think you need to talk to her. Without me there. Maybe I came down a little too hard on her. I have a tendency to do that.”

“I’ll hit it first thing in the morning.”

Frank put on his hat and coat and then paused.

“Look, I didn’t mean to jump all over your butt, Bill.”

Burton grinned. “Sure you did. I would’ve done the same thing if I were you.”

“I appreciate the assistance.”

“Anytime.”

Seth started to walk out.

“Hey, Seth, little favor to an old-fart ex-cop.”

“What’s that?”

“Let me in on the kill. I wouldn’t mind seeing his face when the hammer comes down.”

“You got it. I’ll call you after I talk to her. This cop’s going home to his family. You should do the same, Bill.”

“After I finish this smoke I’m outta here.”

Frank left. Burton sat down, slowly finished his cigarette, then drowned it out in a half cup of coffee.

He could’ve withheld Whitney’s name from Seth Frank. Told him there had been no match by the FBI. But that was too dangerous a game to play. If Frank ever found out, and the detective could through a myriad of independent channels, Burton would be stone-cold dead. Nothing could explain that deception other than the truth, which wasn’t an option. Besides, Burton needed Frank to know Whitney’s identity. The Secret Service agent’s plan all along was to have the detective hunt the ex-con down. Find him, yes; arrest him, no.

Burton stood up, put on his coat. Luther Whitney. Wrong place, wrong time, wrong people. Well, if it were any solace he wouldn’t see it coming. He’d never even hear the shot. He’d be dead before the synapses could fire the impulse to his brain. Those were the breaks. Sometimes they went for you and sometimes against you. Now if he could only think of a way to leave the President and his Chief of Staff high and dry, he would’ve done a good day’s work. But that one, he was afraid, was beyond even him.

Collin parked his car down the street. The few remaining multicolored leaves gently cascaded down on him, nudged along by the breeze that lazily made its way past. He was dressed casually: jeans, cotton pullover and leather jacket. There was no bulge under his jacket. His hair was still damp from a hasty shower. His bare ankles protruded from his loafers. He looked like he should be heading to the college library for a late-night study session or hitting the party circuit after playing in the Saturday afternoon football game.

As he made his way up to the house, he started getting nervous. It had surprised him, her phone call. She had sounded normal, there was no strain, no anger in her voice. Burton said she had taken it pretty well, considering. But he knew how abrasive Burton could be and that was why he was worried. Letting him keep Collin’s appointment with the lady probably was not the smartest thing Collin had ever done. But the stakes were high. Burton had made him see that.

The door opened to his knock and he walked in. As he turned, the door closed and she was standing there. Smiling. Dressed in a sheer white negligee that was too short and too tight everywhere that counted, she stood tiptoe in her bare feet to kiss him gently on the lips. Then she took his hand and led him into the bedroom.

She motioned for him to lie down on the bed. Standing in front of him she undid the straps holding up the flimsy garment and let it drop to the floor. Next her underwear slid down her legs. He started to rise up, but she gently pushed him back down.

She slowly climbed on top of him, running her fingers through his hair. She slid a hand down to his erection and nicked at it through his jeans with the tip of her fingernail. He almost screamed as the confines of his pants became too painful. Again he tried to touch her but she held him down. She slid his belt off and then undid his pants. They dropped to the floor. Next she freed his explosion of flesh. It sprung up at her and she cradled it between her legs, squeezing it tightly between her thighs.

She dipped her mouth down to his and then nestled her lips against his ear.

“Tim, you want me, don’t you? You want to fuck me so bad, don’t you?”

He groaned and clutched at her buttocks, but she quickly moved his hands away.

“Don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“I wanted you so bad too, the other night. And then he showed up.”

“I know, I’m sorry about that. We talked and—”

“I know, he told me. That you didn’t say anything about us. That you were a gentleman.”

“That part was none of his business.”

“That’s right, Tim. It was none of his business. And now you want to fuck me, don’t you?”

“Jesus Christ yes, Gloria. Of course I do.”

“So bad it hurts.”

“It’s killing me. It’s goddamn killing me.”

“You feel so good, Tim, God, you feel so good.”

“Just wait, baby, just wait. You don’t know what good is.”

“I know, Tim. All I seem to think about is making love to you. You know that, don’t you?”

“Yes.” Collin was in so much pain now his eyes watered.

She licked at the drops, amused.

“And you’re sure you want me? You’re absolutely sure?”

“Yes!”

Collin felt it before his mind actually registered the fact. Like a blast of cold air.

“Get out.” The words were spoken slowly, deliberately, as though practiced a number of times, to get just the right tone, the correct inflection; the speaker savoring each syllable. She climbed off him, taking care to apply enough force to his erection that he gasped for breath.

“Gloria—”

His jeans hit him in the face as he lay there. When he pulled them away and sat up, her body was covered in a thick, full-length robe.

“Get out of my house, Collin. Now.”

He dressed quickly, embarrassed, as she stood there watching him. She followed him to the front door and as it opened and he stepped across the portal, she abruptly pushed him through and then slammed it behind him.

He looked back for a moment, wondering if she were laughing or crying behind the door or maybe displaying any emotion at all. He hadn’t meant to hurt her. He had clearly embarrassed her. He shouldn’t have done it that way. She had certainly paid him back for that embarrassment, bringing him to the threshold like that, manipulating him like some laboratory experiment and then bringing the curtain crashing down on top of him.

But as he walked to his car the memory of that look on her face made him relieved their brief relationship had ended.

For the first time since joining the Commonwealth’s Attorney’s office, Kate called in sick. Bedcovers pulled up to her chin, she sat propped up on pillows staring out at a bleak morning. Every time she had tried to get out of bed, the image of Bill Burton loomed up in front of her like a mass of sharp-edged granite, threatening to crush or impale her.

She slid down lower in the bed, sinking into the soft mat tress like immersing herself in warm water, just below the surface where she could neither hear nor see anything that transpired around her.

They would be coming soon. Just like with her mother. All those years ago. People pushing their way in and firing off questions Kate’s mother couldn’t possibly answer. Looking for Luther.

She thought of Jack’s outburst from the other night and tightly closed her eyes, trying to hurl those words away.

Goddamn him.

She was tired, more tired than any trial had ever made her. And he had done it to her, just like he had to her mother. Drawn her into the web even though she wanted no part of it, detested it, would destroy it if she could.

She sat up again, unable to breathe. She held her throat with her fingers, tightly, trying to prevent another attack. When it subsided, she turned over on her side and stared at the photo of her mother.

He was all she had left. She almost laughed. Luther Whitney was all the family she had left. God help her.

She lay on her back and waited. Waited for the knock at the door. From mother to daughter. It was her turn now.

AT THAT MOMENT, BARELY TEN MINUTES AWAY, LUTHER stared again at the old newspaper article. A cup of coffee sat near his elbow, forgotten. The small refrigerator hummed in the background. In the corner CNN droned on. Otherwise the room was absolutely quiet.

Wanda Broome had been a friend. A good friend. Ever since their accidental meeting in a Philadelphia halfway house after Luther’s last prison term and Wanda’s first and only. And now she was dead too. Had taken her own life, the newspaper article said, slumped over in the front seat of her car with a bunch of pills stuffed down her throat.

Luther had never operated in the mainstream, and yet, even to him, this was all a little much to take. It could have been some continuing nightmare except that every time he awoke and stared in the mirror, cold water dripping from features that grew more and more grizzled, more and more sunken with each passing day, he knew he was not going to wake up from this one.

What was ironic, in the shadow of Wanda’s tragic death, was that the Sullivan job had been her idea. A miserable, terrible idea looking back, but one that had leapt from her surprisingly fertile mind. And an idea to which she had held doggedly, despite warnings from both Luther and her mother.

And they had planned it and he had done it. It was really that simple. And in the cold face of retrospection he had wanted to do it. It was a challenge, and a challenge combined with a huge payoff was too tough to resist.

How Wanda must have felt when Christine Sullivan hadn’t gotten on that plane. And no way for her to let Luther know that the coast was not nearly so clear as they thought it would be.

She had been Christine Sullivan’s friend. That part had been absolutely sincere. A last reminder of real people in the midst of the sybaritic life Walter Sullivan lived. Where everyone was not only beautiful, like Christine Sullivan was, but educated, well-connected and sophisticated, all things Christine Sullivan was not and never would be. And because of that burgeoning friendship Christine Sullivan had begun to tell Wanda things she shouldn’t have, including finally, the location and contents of the vault constructed behind a mirrored door.

Wanda was convinced that the Sullivans had so much, they couldn’t possibly miss so little. The world did not work that way, Luther knew, and Wanda probably did too, but that didn’t matter now.

After a lifetime of hardship, where money was always too scarce, Wanda had gone for her lottery win. Just like Christine Sullivan had, neither of them realizing just how high the price for such things really was.

Luther had flown to Barbados, would have gotten a mes sage to Wanda there if she hadn’t already left. He had sent the letter to her mother. Edwina would have shown it to her. But had she believed him? Even if she had, Christine Sullivan’s life had still been sacrificed. Sacrificed, as Wanda would have seen it, to Wanda’s greed and desire to have things she had no right to. Luther could almost see those thoughts running through his friend’s mind as she drove out, alone, to that deserted spot; as she unscrewed the cap to get at those pills, as she drifted into permanent unconsciousness.

And he had not even been able to attend the funeral. He could not tell Edwina Broome how sorry he was, without risking getting her pulled into this nightmare. He had been as close to Edwina as he had to Wanda, in some ways even closer. He and Edwina had spent many nights trying to dissuade Wanda from her plan, to no avail. And only when it dawned on them that she would do it with or without Luther did Edwina ask Luther to take care of her daughter. Not let her go to prison again.

His eyes finally turned to the personals in the newspaper and it took him only a few seconds to find the one he was looking for. He did not smile when he read it. Like Bill Burton, Luther did not believe Gloria Russell had any redeeming qualities.

He hoped they believed this was only about money. He pulled out a piece of paper and began to write.

“Trace the account.” Burton sat across from the Chief of Staff in her office. He sipped on a Diet Coke but wished for something stronger.

“I’m already doing that, Burton.” Russell put her earring back on as she replaced the phone in its cradle.

Collin sat quietly in a corner. The Chief of Staff had not yet acknowledged his presence although he had walked in with Burton twenty minutes ago.

“When does he want the money again?” Burton looked at her.

“If a wire transfer does not reach the designated account by close of business, there will be no tomorrow for any of us.” She swept her eyes across to Collin and then returned them to Burton.

“Shit.” Burton stood up.

Russell glowered at him. “I thought you were taking care of this, Burton.”

He ignored the stare. “How does he say he’s going to work the drop?”

“As soon as the money is received he’ll provide the location where the item will be.”

“So we gotta trust him?”

“So it would seem.”

“How does he know you’ve even gotten the letter yet?” Burton started to pace.

“It was in my mailbox this morning. My mail is delivered in the afternoon.”

Burton collapsed in a chair. “Your fucking mailbox! You mean he was right outside your house?”

“I doubt if he would have allowed someone else to deliver this particular message.”

“How’d you know to check the mailbox?”

“The flag was up.” Russell almost smiled.

“This guy has got balls, I’ll give him that, Chief.”

“Apparently bigger ones than either of you.” She concluded the statement by staring at Collin for a full minute. He cringed under the gaze, finally looking down at the floor.

Burton smiled to himself at the exchange. That was okay, the kid would thank him in a few weeks. For pulling him out of this black widow’s web.

“Nothing really surprises me, Chief. Not anymore. How about you?” He looked at her and then at Collin.

Russell ignored the remark. “If the money is not transferred out, then we can expect him to go public somehow soon thereafter. What exactly are we going to do about it?”

The Chief of Staff’s calm demeanor was no sham. She had decided that she was through crying, through vomiting every time she turned around, and that she had been hurt and embarrassed enough to last the rest of her life. Come what may, she felt almost numb to anything else. It felt surprisingly good.

“How much does he want?” Burton asked.

“Five million,” she replied simply.

Burton went wide-eyed. “And you got that kind of money? Where?”

“That doesn’t concern you.”

“Does the President know?” Burton asked the question knowing full well the answer.

“Again, that doesn’t concern you.”

Burton didn’t push it. What did he care anyway?

“Fair enough. Well, in answer to your question, we are doing something about it. If I were you I’d find a way to pull that money back somehow. Five million dollars isn’t going to do much to someone not among the living.”

“You can’t kill what you can’t find,” Russell shot back.

“That’s true, that’s so true, Chief.” Burton sat back and recounted his conversation with Seth Frank.

Kate was fully dressed when she answered the door, thinking, somehow, that if she were in her bathrobe the interview would endure longer, that she would appear more and more vulnerable as each question came her way. The last thing she wanted to appear was vulnerable, which was exactly how she felt.

“I’m not sure what you want from me.”

“Some information, that’s all, Ms. Whitney. I realize you’re an officer of the court, and believe me, I hate to put you through this, but right now your father is my number-one suspect in a very high-profile case.” Frank looked at her with a pair of earnest eyes.

They were sitting in the tiny living room. Frank had his notebook out. Kate sat erect on the edge of the couch trying to remain calm, although her fingers kept fluttering to her small chain necklace, twisting and turning it into small knots, tiny centers of bedlam.

“From what you’ve told me, Lieutenant, you don’t have much. If I were the ACA on that case I don’t think I’d even have enough to get an arrest warrant issued, much less a bill of indictment returned.”

“Maybe, maybe not.” Frank eyed the way she played with the chain. He wasn’t really there to gather information. He probably knew more about her father than she did. But he had to ease her into the trap. Because, as he thought about it, that’s what it was, a trap. For someone else. Besides, what did she care? It made his conscience feel better anyway, to think that she didn’t really care at all.

Frank continued. “But I’ll tell you some interesting coincidences. We have your father’s print on a cleaning van that we know was at the Sullivan place a short time before the murder. The fact that we know he was in the house, and in the very bedroom where the crime was committed, a short time before. We have two eyewitnesses to that. And the fact that he used an alias and a false address and Social Security number when applying for the job. And the fact that he seems to have disappeared.”

She looked at him. “He had priors. He probably didn’t use his real info because he didn’t think he’d get the job otherwise. You say he’s disappeared. Did you ever think he just may have taken a trip? Even ex-cons go on vacation.” Her instincts as a trial lawyer found her defending her father, an unbelievable thought. A sharp pain shot through her head. She rubbed at it distractedly.

“Another interesting discovery is that your father was good friends with Wanda Broome, Christine Sullivan’s personal maid and confidante. I checked. Your father and Wanda Broome had the same parole officer back in Philly. According to certain sources, they’ve apparently kept in touch all these years. My bet is Wanda knew about the safe in the bedroom.”

“So?”

“So I talked with Wanda Broome. It was obvious she knew more about the matter than she was letting on.”

“So why aren’t you talking to her instead of sitting here with me? Maybe she committed the crime herself.”

“She was out of the country at the time, a hundred witnesses to that effect.” Frank took a moment to clear his throat. “And I can’t talk to her anymore because she committed suicide. Left behind a note that said she was sorry.”

Kate stood up and looked blankly out the window. Bands of cold seemed to close around her.

Frank waited for some minutes, staring at her, wondering how she must feel, listening to the growing evidence against the man who had helped create her and then apparently abandoned her. Was there love left there? The detective hoped not. At least his professional side did. As a father of three, he wondered if that feeling could ever really be killed, despite the worst.

“Ms. Whitney, are you all right?”

Kate slowly turned away from the window. “Can we go out somewhere? I haven’t eaten for a while and there’s no food here.”

They ended up at the same place Jack and Luther had met. Frank started to devour his food, but Kate touched nothing.

He looked across at her plate. “You picked the place, I figured you must like the food. You know, nothing personal, but you could stand to put on some weight.”

Kate finally looked at him, a half-smile breaking through. “So you’re a health consultant on the side?”

“I’ve got three daughters. My oldest is sixteen going on forty and she swears she’s obese. I mean she probably goes one-ten and she’s almost as tall as me. If she didn’t have such rosy cheeks, I’d think she was anorexic. And my wife, Jesus, she’s always on some diet or another. I mean, I think she looks great, but there must be some perfect shape out there that every woman strives for.”

“Every woman except me.”

“Eat your food. That’s what I tell my daughters every day. Eat.”

Kate picked up her fork and managed to consume half her meal. As she sipped her tea and Frank fingered a big trough of coffee, they both settled themselves in as the discussion wound its way back to Luther Whitney.

“If you think you have enough to pick him up, why don’t you?”

Frank shook his head, put down his coffee. “You were at his house. He’s been gone for a while. Probably blew out right after it happened.”

“If he did it. Your party bag is all circumstantial. That doesn’t come close to being beyond a reasonable doubt, Lieutenant.”

“Can I play straight with you, Kate? Can I call you Kate, by the way?”

She nodded.

Frank put his elbows on the table, stared across at her. “All bullshit outside, why do you find it so hard to believe that your old man popped this woman? He’s been convicted of three prior felonies. The guy’s apparently lived on the edge his whole life. He’s been questioned in about a dozen other burglaries, but they couldn’t pin anything on him. He’s a career crim. You know the animal. Human life doesn’t mean shit to them.”

Kate finished sipping her tea before answering. A career criminal? Of course her father was that. She had no doubt he had continued to commit crimes all these years. It was in his damn blood apparently. Like a coke addict. Incurable.

“He doesn’t kill people,” she said quietly. “He may steal from them, but he’s never hurt anyone. It’s not the way he does things.”

What had Jack said specifically? Her father was scared. Terrified so badly he was sick to his stomach. The police had never scared her father. But if he had killed the woman? Perhaps just a reflex, the gun fired and the bullet ended Christine Sullivan’s life. All that would have transpired in a matter of seconds. No time to think. Just to act. To prevent him from going to prison for good. It was all possible. If her father had killed the woman, he would be scared, he would be terrified, he would be sick.

Through all the pain, the most vivid memories she held of her father was his gentleness. His big hands encircling hers. He was quiet to the point of rudeness with most people. But with her he talked. To her, not above her, or below her as most adults managed to do. He would speak to her about things a little girl was interested in. Flowers and birds and the way the sky changed color all of a sudden. And about dresses and hair ribbons and wobbly teeth that she constantly fiddled with. They were brief but sincere moments, between a father and daughter, smashed between the sudden violence of convictions, of prison. But as she had grown up those talks somehow became gibberish, as the occupation of the man behind the funny faces and the big but gentle fingers came to dominate her life, her perspective of Luther Whitney.

How could she say that this man could not kill?

Frank watched the eyes as they blinked rapidly. There was a crack there. He could feel it.

Frank fingered his spoon as he scooped more sugar into his coffee. “So you’re saying it’s inconceivable that your father killed this woman? I thought you said the two of you hadn’t really kept in touch?”

Kate jolted back from her musings. “I’m not saying it’s inconceivable. I’m just saying...” She was really blowing this. She had interviewed hundreds of witnesses and she couldn’t remember one who had performed as badly as she was right now.

She hurriedly rummaged through her purse for her pack of Benson & Hedges. The sight of the cigarette made Frank reach for his pack of Juicy Fruit.

She blew the smoke away from him, eyed the gum. “Trying to quit too?” A flicker of amusement crossed her face.

“Trying and failing. You were saying?”

She slowly exhaled the smoke, willed her nerves to cease their cartwheels. “Like I told you, I haven’t seen my father in years. We aren’t close. It’s possible that he could have killed the woman. Anything’s possible. But that doesn’t work in court. Evidence works in court. Period.”

“And we’re attempting to build a case against him.”

“You have no tangible physical evidence tying him to the actual crime scene? No prints? No witnesses? Nothing like that?”

Frank hesitated, then decided to answer. “No.”

“Have you been able to trace any of the stuff from the burglary to him?”

“Nothing’s turned up.”

“Ballistics?”

“Negative. One unusable slug and no gun.”

Kate sat back in her chair, more comfortable as the conversation centered on a legal analysis of the case.

“That’s all you’ve got?” Her eyes squinted at him.

He hesitated again, then shrugged. “That’s it.”

“Then you got nothing, Detective. Nothing!”

“I’ve got my instincts and my instincts tell me Luther Whitney was in the house that night and he was in that bedroom. Where he is now is what I want to know.”

“I can’t help you there. That’s the same thing I told your buddy the other night.”

“But you did go to his house that night. Why?”

Kate shrugged. She was determined not to mention her conversation with Jack. Was she withholding evidence? Maybe.

“I don’t know.” That, in part, was true.

“You strike me, Kate, as someone who always knows why she does something.”

Jack’s face flashed across her mind. She angrily pushed it out. “You’d be surprised, Lieutenant.”

Frank ceremoniously closed his notebook and hunched forward.

“I really need your help.”

“For what?”

“This is off the record, unofficial, whatever you want to call it. I’m more interested in results than in legal niceties.”

“Funny thing to tell a state prosecutor.”

“I’m not saying I don’t play by the rules.” Frank finally caved in and pulled out his cigarettes. “All I’m saying is I go for the point of least resistance when I can get it. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“My information is that while you may not be wild about your father, he is still out there pining for you.”

“Who told you that?”

“Jesus I’m a detective. True or not?”

“I don’t know.”

“Godammit, Kate, don’t play fucking games with me. True or not?”

She angrily stabbed out her cigarette. “True! Satisfied?”

“Not yet, but I’m getting there. I’ve got a plan to flush him out, and I’m looking for you to help me.”

“I don’t see that I’m in any position to help you.” Kate knew what was coming next. She could see it in Frank’s eyes.

It took him ten minutes to lay out his plan. She refused three times. A half hour later they were still sitting at the table.

Frank leaned back in his chair and then abruptly lurched forward. “Look, Kate, if you don’t do it, then we don’t have a chance in hell of laying our hands on him. If it’s like you say and we don’t have a case, he goes free. But if he did do it, and we can prove it, then you’ve got to be the last goddamned person in the world that should tell me he should get away with it. Now, if you think I’m wrong about that, I’ll drive you back to your place and forget I ever saw you, and your old man can go right on stealing... and maybe killing.” He stared directly at her.

Her mouth opened but no words came out. Her eyes drifted over his shoulder where a misty image from the past beckoned to her, but then suddenly faded away.

At almost thirty years of age Kate Whitney was far removed from the toddler who giggled as her father twirled her through the air, or the little girl who divulged important secrets to her father she would tell no other. She was all grown up, a mature adult, out on her own for a long time now. On top of that she was an officer of the court, a state prosecutor sworn to uphold the law and the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Virginia. It was her job to ensure that persons who broke those laws were appropriately punished regardless of who they were and regardless of to whom they were related.

And then another image invaded her mind. Her mother watching the door, waiting for him to come home. Wondering if he were okay. Visiting him in prison, making up lists of things to talk to him about, making Kate dress up for those encounters, getting all excited as his release date came closer. As if he were some goddamned hero out saving the world instead of a thief. Jack’s words came back to her, biting hard. He had called her entire life a lie. He expected her to have sympathy for a man who had abandoned her. As if Luther Whitney had been wronged instead of Kate. Well, Jack could go straight to hell. She thanked God she had decided against marrying him. A man who could say those awful things to her did not deserve her. But Luther Whitney deserved everything coming to him. Maybe he hadn’t killed that woman. But maybe he had. It wasn’t her job to make that decision. It was her job to make sure that decision had an opportunity to be made by men and women in a jury box. Her father belonged in prison anyway. At least there he could hurt no one else. There he could ruin no more lives.

And it was with that last thought that she agreed to help deliver her father into the hands of the police.

Frank felt a twinge of guilt as they got up to leave. He had not been entirely truthful with Kate Whitney. In fact, he had downright lied to her about the most critical piece of the case other than the million-dollar question of where Luther Whitney happened to be. He wasn’t pleased with himself right now. Law enforcement people had to occasionally lie, just like everybody else. It didn’t make it any easier to swallow, especially considering the recipient was someone the detective had instantly respected and now heavily pitied.