Silenced

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Sean didn’t talk to Paxton unless he had a specific question. He detested being in the same room with him. While poring over the schedules and lists he’d created, one part of his brain was working on how to take down the senator—as soon as the statute of limitations ran out in Massachusetts, which was months away.

Sean reviewed all the background checks he’d started on Paxton’s employees, current and former, and nothing stood out. There were no spouses or boyfriends or girlfriends or exes or relatives that stood out as having a reason to take the locket and threaten Paxton.

“Why did Chris Taylor leave your office?”

“Because he deserved a chief of staff slot, and Dale Hartline is from my home state. I recommended him for the position.”

“You wanted someone loyal to you in Hartline’s office.”

“Dale is a novice, and a good man. Too trusting. Chris wouldn’t betray him.”

“Or you.”

Paxton slapped his palm on his desk. “I rearranged my night to meet you here. The locket went missing three weeks ago, the week after I gave the media the photos of Alan Crowley and the prostitute. I already reviewed the security tapes. No one came into my office outside of those meetings.”

“Which reminds me—why did you keep it in your Senate office when your house is more secure?”

“More secure? You easily broke in.”

“Not everyone is me.”

“The locket has always stayed in the drawer in my Senate office, except when I travel home for break. I bring it with me.”

Sean didn’t think Paxton was being honest, but what did he expect? “Let’s assume that whoever came into your office had a reason to be there,” Sean said. “They had to have suspected you had something incriminating in your office.”

“I thought of that. I went through the list of everyone I met with—there’s no one who could have known about the locket or the note.”

“But someone did know. If they didn’t, then the locket and message mean nothing.” Sean hunched over his laptop and re-sorted his lists. “Other than Mallory, who took credit for killing Morton, who knew the truth? Russo?”

Paxton nodded.

“And?”

“No one else. Dave Biggler, who’s in prison after the WCF sting, wasn’t there. It was just Mallory, Russo, and me.” Paxton sighed. “I was not a good father,” he said quietly.

“I don’t care.”

“I was a workaholic,” he continued as if Sean hadn’t spoken. “I didn’t give Monique what she needed.”

Sean ignored him. He didn’t want to be drawn into a conversation with the senator about his daughter, because it would inevitably end up as a conversation about Lucy. His eyes wandered from the laptop to the shredding machine where Lucy’s statement was in a million pieces.

“We’re on the same team,” Paxton pleaded.

“We don’t even play in the same ballpark.”

“You’d be surprised what you’re capable of,” Paxton said.

Though it was difficult to ignore that statement, Sean said, “I’ve divided the meetings into categories—those who had private meetings with you, and those who had group meetings. I can’t discount group meetings because I can see any number of scenarios where someone in a group may have been left alone, or came back to the room because they forgot their papers or purse or briefcase.”

Paxton didn’t say anything. Sean could see he hadn’t considered that possibility.

“The other thing: I strongly believe that the person responsible has been in your office more than once. They may have been looking for something incriminating without knowing what it was. They may have had an idea as to what to look for. Who knows you killed Roger Morton?”

Paxton reddened. “I’ve tolerated your disrespect all day. Do not push me.”

“You put yourself in this position.”

“I told you. Only Mick Mallory and Sergio were there,” Paxton said quietly.

“Anyone else who might have suspected?”

“Fran Buckley talked to me about Mallory, but I never admitted to her that I was even there, let alone pulled the trigger.”

“All someone needs is to think it’s true. Someone who knows about the locket, that might think it has a secret that damages you—even if they don’t know what the secret is.”

Sean looked at his lists. He turned his monitor around and showed them to Paxton. “I ran the names of the individuals, every associate, common interests, some other factors, and came up with this short list of people who were in the office more than once since the beginning of the year.”

“I wasn’t the only one being blackmailed.”

Why was Sean surprised that Paxton hadn’t told him everything? “Who else?”

“I only know one for certain. Judge Robert Morgan.”

Sean searched his memory—the name was familiar, but he didn’t know why.

“Three months ago,” Paxton said, “Bob killed himself in his chambers.”

Now Sean remembered. “He called recess on a murder trial and blew his brains out, right?”

“He was a friend of mine.”

“Sorry. And you think he was being blackmailed?”

Paxton didn’t answer.

Sean closed his laptop and stood. “That’s it, I’m done.”

He walked to the door.

“Wait.”

“No. You need to tell me everything, or I’m walking out. I will tell Lucy what happened, and she’ll deal with it like she’s dealt with every shitty thing life has handed her. And you can feel like scum of the earth for putting a woman you ostensibly love like a daughter into the untenable position of losing her career and everything she holds dear because she was protecting you.”

Paxton waged an internal battle, and Sean wasn’t going to wait indefinitely.

He opened the door.

“Chris told me.”

“Chris Taylor,” Sean said flatly.

Paxton’s jaw tightened.

“If I walk out, we’re done. I will go to Noah. I’m willing to go to jail if that’s what it takes. But I will tell him, and Lucy, everything you’ve said to me.” Part of that was a bluff. Sean would leave the country before going to prison.

“Last year, Chris was upset about his wife’s work. Really worried about her. I knew about MARC and the work they did, I wanted to help. If it was money, I’d pay it. If it was legal matters, I’d find them an attorney or draft legislation and get it fixed. That’s what I do, Sean—I want to help people who no one else will.”

“Save it for your fucking campaign.”

Sean felt Paxton’s hatred rolling off him.

Paxton said, “Sergio and I took him out for drinks. He’s a lightweight. He told us Jocelyn was helping a young prostitute, and he thought she was too involved. It’s all she was working on, a mission. I didn’t know who it was at the time, but Sergio started following Jocelyn.

“Sergio took pictures and subsequently identified the prostitutes Jocelyn was helping,” Paxton continued. “Including Ivy. It was easy to put together that Ivy and her girls worked for Wendy James. I knew Wendy was having an affair with Bristow, a prick of a congressman from Colorado. But Bristow was single, so I didn’t think anything about it. Then Sergio said he had evidence that Wendy wasn’t a mistress, but a prostitute like Ivy and the others.

“Sergio got pictures of Ivy, Wendy, and the others with several prominent people—but nothing compromising. Then Bob—” He stopped.

Sean waited. He would wait all night, because this story just kept getting more and more interesting. And unbelievable. It was increasingly difficult to separate the truth from the lies.

“Sergio found out Bob was involved with Ivy. He was single, but I thought it odd that he would pay a call girl, considering he’s a judge and older than I am. We’d been friends a long time, but I couldn’t fathom being friendly with a man who was sleeping with a woman as young as Ivy.

“The day after Morgan’s suicide, I had Sergio confront Ivy, and set up a meeting with me. At first she didn’t want to talk, but I told her Bob was an old friend, that I wanted to know why he killed himself. She confessed that she’d been paid by Wendy James to make sex tapes with her clients. And then I realized, Wendy was blackmailing these people.”

“A twenty-eight-year-old secretary blackmailing congressmen and judges? You think she could have pulled it off?”

“Ivy was truly upset by Bob’s suicide. She said he’d been a client for three years and she regretted videotaping him, but she’d been paid twice what Wendy usually paid her. I offered her ten thousand to prove Wendy James was blackmailing anyone, preferably someone in a position of power. Something to use to avenge Bob’s death, which had to have been connected. But she and Wendy had a falling-out over it. All she could get were pictures with Crowley. I used them, hoping that when they were exposed, the truth would come out. But Crowley and Wendy covered it up, called it an affair! It wasn’t an affair. It was a paid relationship.”

“And you reneged on your deal with Ivy Harris.”

“Hell no! You know who she is. You did the research.”

“I know she’s the supposedly dead daughter of a wealthy televangelist.”

“Her father is sick, and he’s on my list.”

“Stop.” Sean closed his eyes and breathed deeply. He had already crossed the line, but he couldn’t go any farther. “Do not tell me anything about crimes you plan to commit.”

“What crimes?” Paxton answered with sincerity. Or fake sincerity.

“Who killed Wendy James?”

“I don’t know!”

“You have to go to the FBI with this information. They have no idea about Judge Morgan, and they’re just now figuring out the blackmail, but they don’t have names or motive.”

“I’m not going to the FBI. They need to figure it out themselves. And they’re close. After talking to Noah and you, I think they’re very close.”

“How many innocent people are going to die because you’re trying to protect your ass?”

“I didn’t figure it out until Chris was killed this morning.” He looked at the clock. “Yesterday morning. I can’t believe the feds haven’t put it together!”

“Noah didn’t tell you everything, but they don’t have all your information. They don’t know that Wendy was a prostitute, but they did find a room where recording equipment had been.”

“Had been?”

“It was cleaned out.”

Sean watched Paxton carefully. He was used to playing God. Sean wanted to take him down a peg.

“Five people are dead because you remained silent.”

“That’s not what happened!” He pounded his fist again. “I didn’t have anything to take to the police! I haven’t even really been blackmailed. I simply got the threat from this elusive they about Lucy’s note and my locket. They’re waiting to use it; I have to find them before they do.”

“These meetings were three weeks ago.”

“Correct.”

“And no one has asked you to do anything specific.”

“Correct.”

Sean sat back down and opened his laptop.

“Do you remember the trial that Judge Morgan was running when he killed himself?”

“No—I think it was a homicide. He sat on a lot of capital cases.”

Sean did a quick Internet search. “Commonwealth of Virginia versus Thomas Joseph Crandall. Ring a bell?”

Paxton shook his head.

Sean ran a program to pull out all the data he could find on Crandall.

“Anyone else?”

“Excuse me?”

“Anyone else you know about who Ivy or Wendy were blackmailing. We need a connection between those being blackmailed. And since they haven’t asked you to do something yet, we don’t have that—except we have a list of people who had access to your office that week. So think! Who else in the last year or so has voted in a way that had you suspicious?”

Paxton leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. Sean thought he had fallen asleep. Maybe everyone was for sale and the list was too long to remember.

Sean read the report on Crandall. The thirty-three-year-old mechanic had been accused of killing a bank executive for no apparent reason. He refused to talk, had a history of misdemeanors and one felony hit-and-run when he was eighteen, which landed him three years in prison. It seemed like an open-and-shut case, though it was odd that even the prosecutor found no apparent motive.

There was a retrial, with a change of venue because Crandall’s attorney argued that after the suicide of Judge Morgan the jury pool was tainted. Morgan was a known law-and-order judge with tough sentencing standards. The case was moved from Fairfax to Richmond, and a judge dismissed the case with prejudice because of prosecutorial misconduct. Crandall was a free man. He spoke to no one except his attorney during the entire yearlong process.

“There’s Gene Carpenter.”

Sean looked at the senator, who still had his eyes closed. “Who’s he?”

“Senator Carpenter. This was over a year ago. He’s a friend, and I believed his excuse, but last week he told me he’s not seeking reelection. One term in the Senate—it’s rarely done.”

“And he did what exactly?”

“The bill had something to do with a federal grant, but it was related to government unions. Gene was a big supporter of unions in general, but he opposed government unions on the grounds that no one represented the taxpayers in the negotiations. He wouldn’t have had a complete change of heart on something like this, not without making a floor statement or publicizing it. I called him on it, and he said his wife had convinced him he needed to change his mind on the matter. It didn’t sound right, because I had met her a few times and she seemed very uninterested in politics. But I let it slide because pillow talk always wins.”

Paxton leaned forward and pulled up the legislation on his computer and printed Sean a copy.

“I don’t know how this helps,” he said.

Sean took the paper. “If you’re right about Carpenter, it tells me that someone who benefited from the passing of this bill is involved. That, coupled with your list of appointments, will narrow it down. Wait—”

Sean stopped mid-sentence.

“Wendy James worked for a lobbyist, correct?”

“DSA.”

“Does that stand for Devon Sullivan and Associates?”

“Yes.” Paxton rose from his desk and leaned over to look at Sean’s laptop.

“Bingo! DSA carried the bill your friend caved on. Devon Sullivan had a meeting with you the day you noticed the locket missing.”

“Devon Sullivan.”

“You know her?”

“Yes, but I know her husband better.” Paxton sat back in his chair, his face surprisingly calm. “I will kill him,” he said matter-of-factly.

“Who are we talking about?”

“Her second husband is Clark Jager.”

The name was familiar. “A criminal defense lawyer, correct?”

“Yes. He—”

Sean interrupted. “He represented Crandall, the guy who was on trial when Morgan committed suicide.”

“He also represented Fran Buckley.”

“Lucy’s former boss?”

“She’s bitter and angry and hates me. She knows not to say anything against me because I know far more about her that never came out. But she knew I wanted Monique’s locket. She might have thought it was for a reason other than nostalgia.”

“I think she’s right.”

Paxton stared at Sean and shook his head, but his lips curled into a snarl, reminding Sean that they were enemies. “I think we have our blackmailer.”

“We need to take this to the feds.”

“It’s two in the morning. I’ll think of a plausible reason to talk to Noah Armstrong at nine about Devon Sullivan. I’ll steer him in the right direction. You have seven hours to find the locket.”