WE WERE FINISHING up lunch when I heard a knock at our side door.
“Who’s that now?” Nana Mama grumbled. “A damn reporter again?”
“If it is, I’m calling a real cop,” I said, grinning and tousling Ali’s hair because he seemed lost in thought.
I put my dishes on the counter, crossed to the side door, and opened it. A distressed Alden Lindel stood there.
“Mr. Lindel?” I said, stepping out and closing the door.
“I’m sorry, Dr. Cross,” the father of the kidnapped girl from Ali’s school said. “I know you’ve got your own issues, but I didn’t know where else to turn.”
I took a deep breath and then gestured to the basement door.
In my office, Lindel reached into his jacket pocket and came out with another flash drive in a baggie. “This time they hanged Gretchen.”
He dropped into the chair, hid his face in his hands, and sobbed. “God damn it, they hung my daughter, or made it look that way, and they’re selling tickets to the show on the Internet.”
I flashed on Jannie and felt sick to my stomach. I walked over, put my hand on Lindel’s shoulder, and said, “I can’t imagine what you’re going through.”
He looked up at me with bloodshot eyes. “My wife and I barely talk. I can’t work. My boss has threatened to fire me. Some days Gretchen’s all I think about. And then, just for a while, she slips my mind. I get a little rest, and then something like this shows up in the mailbox. What do they want, Dr. Cross? Why are they doing this?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “But you need to take the drive straight to the FBI. I’ve been cut out of the loop because of my trial.”
He continued to look at me, his face wretched. “You can’t help me?”
“I want to,” I said, sitting down across from him and leaning forward, my elbows on my knees, hands clasped. “Mr. Lindel, I want to help find your daughter and the other missing women in the worst way. I really do. But the ugly truth is, given my situation, I’m afraid I’d be more of a hindrance than a help to you. I hope you understand, sir. I’m not much good to you at the moment.”
He didn’t understand, not really. He got up, looking abandoned.
“You were our last chance,” Lindel said, defeated. “But I wish you luck in your trial.”
Feeling helpless, I shook his hand. “Don’t give up. They’re keeping Gretchen alive, which means there is hope you’ll see her again. But the FBI can’t find her if you’re not turning over things like this flash drive.”
He nodded. “I’ll take it straight to their office.”
When Lindel left, I went back into my office and collapsed on the couch. I felt bad, but what choice did I have? I couldn’t have gotten Rawlins or Batra to expedite an analysis of the flash. They thought I was a killer.
My cell phone rang. It was Anita Marley.
“Alex,” she said. “I’ve got bad news. Judge Larch is in the hospital. Possible stroke.”
“What?” I said, shocked. “When?”
“She was taken to GW last night,” Marley said. “They got drugs into her fast, so they’re hopeful, and they’re running more tests.”
I shook my head, seeing little Judge Larch striding up onto the bench in a way that made her seem ten feet tall, larger than life. A stroke?
I said, “What if she can’t go on?”
Anita sighed. “It will be a mistrial.”
I shut my eyes. “And months before any kind of verdict.”
“Let’s wait to hear the diagnosis.”
“I’ve got some bad news too,” I said. “The videos weren’t monkeyed with. At least, according to the metadata.”
There was a pause. “And how do you know that?”
“A well-placed source in the FBI told me last night.”
When Anita spoke again, she was irritated. “And you didn’t think it smart to alert me or Naomi? We’ve lost twelve, maybe fifteen hours of—”
“The news was pretty devastating. I guess I wasn’t thinking straight.”
She sighed and said, “Well, I’m trying. My people are still working on those videos despite what the FBI tells you. And I do have a bit of good news. The saliva tests are done. I’ve put in a call to an old chemist friend in San Francisco just to make sure I’m interpreting the results correctly, but let’s just say they’re interesting.”
“Can they clear me?”
“Given our inability to impeach the videos, no, it’s not enough. But if I’m right, with luck, we’ll be able to muddy the prosecution’s waters a bit, show there were mitigating circumstances.”
I started kneading my forehead and said, “Mitigating circumstances? Sounds to me as if I should be getting my affairs in order.”
There was a long pause before Anita said, “Always better to be prepared.”
CHAPTER
66
THE FOLLOWING TWENTY-FOUR hours were some of the lowest of my life. When Bree came home, I took her for a walk and told her what Anita had said. We held each other for the longest time.
“I can’t believe this is happening,” Bree said.
“Makes me wonder what I did to deserve this.”
“No self-pity. What do we do?”
“No self-pity, and we move to protect you, Nana, and the kids,” I said. “I can’t have you all being punished for something you didn’t do.”
The next morning, after church, we went down to my basement office, shut the door, and made a list of things that would have to be done if I was convicted. Transfer my personal bank account to Bree. Find a trustee to step in to oversee my grandmother’s philanthropic foundation. Transfer sole medical authority for Jannie and Ali to Bree. Transfer authority on the kids’ college funds to her. Ask Nana Mama if she still wanted me as the executor of her living will. Make Bree my executor should I die in prison.
“I feel like we’re getting ready for a funeral,” Bree said.
There was a knock on my office door.
“Dad?” Jannie said.
“We’re busy, sweetheart,” I said.
“There’s someone here to see you.”
I closed my eyes. When did people stop believing in Sundays?
“Tell them to come back tomorrow.”
Nana Mama said, “I think you’ll want to come out.”
Throwing up my hands in surrender, I went over, opened the door, and found Sampson and my father, Peter Drummond, a big, robust black man in his late sixties, standing there in the hall. Drummond had a face almost devoid of expression due to nerve damage associated with a large burn scar that began beneath his right eye and spread down much of his cheek to his jaw.
“Dad?” I said.
“I came to provide some moral support,” Drummond said and he gave me a hug and a clap on the back. “John picked me up at National.”
“It was supposed to be a surprise,” Nana Mama said.
“It is a surprise,” I said. “It’s … good. Is Alicia here too?”
“Indisposed, but sends her prayers,” Drummond said.
“Let’s go upstairs,” Nana Mama said. “I’ll make a big breakfast.”
Afterward, my dad, Bree, Sampson, and I took a walk. My father asked a lot of questions. Drummond knew as much about murder as we did and more about enduring tough times than we could imagine. He’d worked sheriff’s homicide in Palm Beach County, Florida, for thirty-two years. Before that he’d served in the first Gulf War, where he was caught in an oil-well explosion that burned his face.
After we’d walked several miles and I’d brought him up to speed on everything, he said, “I know your case looks bleak, son, but you can’t lose hope. I’m living proof of that. I lost hope of ever seeing you or Nana or your children, and then there you were down in my neck of the woods, looking for Reverend Maya. Miracles happen every day.”
“From your lips to God’s ears,” Sampson said, and he checked the time. “I’ve got to go. Promised Billie I’d watch the Redskins game with her.”
“Any progress with the blondes?” I asked. “Anything from that latest video of Gretchen Lindel? The one showing her hanged?”
Sampson glanced at Bree and then shook his head. “I haven’t heard about that one. But on my end, it feels like I’m banging my head against a brick wall.”
“And the new partner?”