CHAPTER 20
EAST HAMPTON, NEW YORK
Elise Campbell stepped off her train and onto the East Hampton platform. The evening air was chilly and damp.
The Secret Service agent had caught a high-speed Acela Express from Washington to Penn Station and from there the Long Island Railroad via Jamaica Station out to the easternmost town on the South Shore of Long Island. Standing beneath the portico was Detective Rita Klees.
“Whatever you do,” said Rita as she greeted Elise with a hug and took her bag, “please tell me you didn’t eat any train food.”
“Rita, I’ve been on trains and in stations for over seven hours. So sue me, I broke down and had a sandwich.”
Klees made a face. “I refuse to eat that garbage they serve.” Nodding toward her car she said, “C’mon. We’ll get you a real dinner. And a drink.”
The detective threw Campbell’s overnight bag into the cargo area of her Mini Cooper and then slid into the driver’s seat. After starting the car, she picked up a pack of cigarettes and asked, “Do you mind?”
The car already smelled like an ashtray. “Go ahead,” said Campbell as she rolled down her window.
They chatted about Elise’s trip up from D.C. as Rita drove to a small restaurant called Thackers and parked her car. She grabbed her briefcase from the backseat and the two women made their way inside.
It was obvious by the attention Klees received from the hostess, as well as the piano player segueing out of the song he had been playing and launching into the Sinatra classic that closed every Yankee game, “New York, New York,” that she was a bit of a regular.
Rita waved and said hello to other patrons she knew as they were shown to a quiet leather booth in the corner. When the hostess presented the menus, Klees declined and asked Elise, “You’re a meat eater, right? Do you like short ribs?”
“I love short ribs,” replied Campbell.
“These are the best you’ll ever have,” she said and then looked back at the hostess. “Two orders of the short ribs, then, and I’ll have a Johnnie Green on the rocks.”
Elise ordered a glass of red wine and the hostess disappeared. Reaching into her briefcase, Rita removed a thick folder and set it on the table.
“Is that it?” asked Campbell.
Klees nodded.
Elise had spent the trip up from D.C. trying to figure out what to say to her friend. She knew she couldn’t lie to her, which left her with only one option—the truth. But how much of the truth should she reveal? “I need your word that none of what I’m about to tell you will go any further.”
“If we’re talking about a crime being committed—” began Klees, who stopped when a waiter appeared with their drinks.
Once he had gone, Elise said, “I don’t know for sure if a crime has been committed. That’s why I’m here. But, if I’m wrong and there’s nothing to this, then my career’s over.”
“So this has to do with the president?”
Campbell nodded.
“Can I assume he’s the one you were referring to when you said maybe somebody wasn’t completely truthful in their witness statement?”
Again, Campbell nodded.
“Okay. Did he have something to do with the accident?”
Elise looked at her friend. “I hope not.”
“Then where’s all of this coming from?”
“I may have overheard a conversation.”
Rita stirred the ice cubes in her drink. “Now I understand.”
“This puts me and the Secret Service in a very difficult position,” said Campbell. “If he didn’t do anything wrong and it gets out that I told people about the conversation, then the entire Secret Service not only looks bad, presidents will forever distance themselves from us, which will make it even harder to protect them.”
“But if he did do something, then he’s an idiot to have mentioned it in front of you.”
“He didn’t exactly know I was there.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I was standing guard in a wooded area. He couldn’t see me. He stopped within earshot and I heard his conversation.”
“Who was he talking with?”
“Do I have your word that this will stay just between us?” asked Elise.
Rita nodded.
“He was talking with Stephanie Gallo.”
“That’s who was having the fund-raiser for him here.”
“I know,” said Campbell.
“That’s also whose house he was staying at.”
“I know.”
“It’s also where Nikki Hale had been before she left and had her accident.”
Campbell reached for her wine and took a long sip.
“Were Gallo and the president having this conversation in person or was he on the phone?” asked Klees as she glanced around the room to make sure no one was eavesdropping on their conversation.
“They were together, taking a walk on her horse farm just outside D.C.”
“What exactly did they say?”
Elise filled Rita in on the kidnapping of Julia Gallo, the ransom demand, and Stephanie Gallo’s threat to expose the president’s involvement in the death of Nikki Hale unless the president got her daughter back. When she was finished, she lifted her wineglass, sat back, and tried to dissolve into the booth.
“I’m stunned,” said Klees.
“You and me both.”
“He doesn’t seem like that type of guy.”
“I know,” replied Campbell.
“So what exactly are the specifics of his involvement or this alleged cover-up around Nikki Hale’s death?”
“That, I don’t know. He and Gallo walked off before I could hear the rest of the conversation.”
“Then you do have a problem. A big one.”
“But if he wasn’t really guilty, why would Gallo threaten to expose him and ruin his presidency?”
“Good point,” said Klees as she stood up with her drink and left the file sitting on the table between them. “I’ll have to think about that. I’m going to go have a cigarette. When the waitress comes back, order me another cocktail, okay?”
The East Hampton detective stood outside long enough to smoke two cigarettes and polish off her drink before returning. She was tempted to have a third cigarette, but worried it would be obvious that she was avoiding going back in and having to face Campbell. She steeled herself with the knowledge that as a detective, especially one in whose jurisdiction the crime in question took place, she had every right to do what she had done to Elise. It was time to face the music.
Walking back into the restaurant, she found a fresh Johnnie Green at the table and Campbell on her second glass of wine. The file was back where she had left it and their dinners had arrived. As she had expected, Elise was not happy.
“You told me you were going to let me see the entire file.”
“That is the entire file,” replied Klees as she took a sip of her new drink.
“It can’t be.”
Rita set down her cocktail and said, “East Hampton PD conducted the investigation as well as the on-scene accident reconstruction. The vehicles in question were impounded to our motor pool, where each underwent a full safety inspection by our mechanics.
“The bodies of the deceased were removed from the scene to the Suffolk County medical examiner’s office in Hauppauge. Per the attached report, their portion of the investigation was to detail the cause of death for each fatality and to run toxicology tests to determine the intoxication and/or presence of any other substance or substances in the drivers’ bodies that would have impaired them. As you can see from the report, Nikki Hale was the only one who was impaired. Case closed.”
“Case closed?” replied Campbell as she reached over and shook the file. “You’ve got photographs, diagrams of the crash scene, everything but witness statements.”
“That’s because there were no eyewitnesses to the crash. One of our patrol officers was the first person on the scene.”
“But what about the people back at Stephanie Gallo’s estate? What about them? What about putting together what led to Nikki Hale’s intoxication? Who was drinking with her? Who saw her last and so forth?”
Klees understood where Campbell was going. “You were a patrol officer when you were with the Virginia Beach PD, not a detective, right?”
“What do you mean by that?” she asked, a bit defensively.
Rita put up her hands. “I’m just trying to explain the way these things work. As a patrol officer, you take eyewitness statements at the scene. Anything above and beyond that is normally handled by detectives.
“If Nikki Hale had survived the accident, then the investigation would have definitely been more in-depth. We would have wanted to know what happened at the fund-raiser, how much she had had to drink, etcetera, because she’d be facing criminal charges. But since she’s dead, there’s no one to charge with a crime. Hence, case closed.”
“So you let me come all the way out here knowing there were no witness statements for me to go over?” asked Campbell.
“You said you wanted to see the file. You didn’t say you only wanted to see witness statements.”
“Which I assumed were in there.”
“And which you could have specifically asked about,” replied Rita.
Elise shook her head in frustration. “I feel like you lied to me.”
“I never lied to you. You held back from me, and I’ll admit I wasn’t 100 percent forthcoming with you, but what you were suggesting over the phone was that there might be adjunct criminal activity to Nikki Hale’s death. I could have kicked it up the chain of command and made it official, or I could do it this way. I love you, Elise, but cop to cop, there wasn’t a third option.”
Campbell lifted her fork and stabbed at her food. “Without any witness statements, I can’t even begin to piece together what happened that night and what the president’s involvement in all of this might be.”
“Wouldn’t the Secret Service have written up a report of some sort?” asked Klees.
“I’m sure they did, but that’s not something I have access to.”
“Maybe not,” replied Rita, as an idea began to form in her mind, “but you could get access to the agents who were on duty the night Hale was killed.”
Elise thought about it. “Theoretically, but I don’t have any authority.”
“Maybe you could. Sort of.”
“What do you mean?”
“If a civil suit had been filed, everyone, including then senator and now president Alden, would have been subpoenaed.”
“But a civil suit never was filed, was it?”
Klees shook her head. “No. With Charlie and Sheryl Coleman and their two children dead, the only surviving relatives were Charlie Coleman’s parents. They decided not to sue.”
“Sheryl Coleman didn’t have any family?”
“None.”
“At the risk of sounding callous,” said Campbell, “everyone sues today at the drop of a hat, but in this case it might have been justified. I’m no lawyer, but I would think that the Coleman parents could have named both Gallo and President Alden as defendants. They would have been prime targets.”
“From what I heard,” replied Rita, “they were.”
“You mean Charlie Coleman’s parents did want to sue?”
Klees nodded.
“So what happened?”
“The Hamptons’ rumor mill has it that Stephanie Gallo bought them off.”
“Are you serious?” asked Elise.
“If you believe the gossip,” replied Klees.
“And do you?”
“I saw Charlie Coleman’s parents not long after the accident. His mother was beside herself and his father was mad as hell. I also gathered that he was not a big fan of Senator Alden’s.
“He lawyered up pretty quick and hired a big firm out of Manhattan. They wasted no time in getting a lawsuit rolling. They were a couple of months into everything when all of a sudden the firm was discharged.”
“Because Gallo bought them off?”
“Makes sense,” said Klees “The one thing Gallo has in greater supply than anything else is money. I have a feeling that if she wanted to avoid a messy trial and save her candidate the embarrassment and bad press, she could pull it off.”
“That’s something else that’s bothering me,” remarked Campbell. “How did this story never make national news? Something this scandalous, especially during an election, is pretty juicy, doubly so by today’s journalistic standards.”
“I’m sure President Alden can thank Gallo for that as well. She’s a very powerful woman. Probably insisted on some sort of a gag order from the get-go.”
“And if the Colemans reached a settlement with her, she probably would have had them sign a bunch of nondisclosure agreements. They’d be gagged so tight their lips would turn blue.”
“Agreed.”
“So without any other relatives, that’s it,” said Campbell. “They’re the only ones who could bring a civil action to get to the bottom of what happened.”
“Not necessarily,” replied Klees. “There may be someone else who still has legal grounds for a suit.”
“So? How would that give me any leverage with the agents who were posted to Gallo’s home that night?”
“It depends on how far you’re willing to go to get to the bottom of this.”
Campbell drained the last sip of wine from her glass, held it up to get the waiter’s attention, and then replied, “I’m still sitting here, aren’t I?”