“Maybe she just liked it of herself.”
“And maybe that photo held special meaning for her. Come on, Fletch. Think about it. Twenty-three years later, Ledbetter and Leighton are both murdered on the same day? There’s a connection here.”
Fletcher thought about his meeting with Gretchen Leighton, and her infinitesimal reaction when he asked if she was familiar with Loa Ledbetter or if her husband knew her. The tiny eyelid flutter. He’d wondered at the time whether she was hiding something. But if your husband is a congressman, he’s going to know a lot of people.
“There’s one more interesting thing. Ledbetter’s daughter, also named Loa, was with her during her year she was sequestered with the Mountain Blue and Gray, but she never mentions her daughter in her memoir of that time. This is the daughter she’s estranged from and who inherits everything.”
“Where’s the daughter?”
“In D.C., I think, or thereabouts. From what I’ve ascertained, Ledbetter had to leave the girl behind because she fell in love with one of the men in the camp, and ran away with him. She showed up back in D.C. two years later. I’ve got her phone number if you want to talk to her. She might be able to shed some light on things.”
“Where did you get this information?”
“Ledbetter’s assistant, George. He’s a treasure trove of information.”
“All right. Thanks for this. When are you coming back?”
“Soon. But we have a date with a large animal vet and some autopsy reports first. A man out here, name’s Sal Gerhardt, died a few months ago, along with several of his cattle. A lung ailment. I just want to check and see if there’s a chance our killer tested his abrin out before the attack. Has the Moroccan dude talked?”
Fletcher double-checked that he was out of earshot from anyone else at the JTTF before he spoke again. He kept his voice low.
“This is for your ears only. I’m pretty sure it’s not him. It’s a diversion. They’re trying to lure the real killer out. So you keep on your trail, and on your toes, and tell me everything you find out.”
“I figured as much. Will do, Fletch. Talk to you soon.”
She hung up, and Fletcher put his phone back in his pocket.
He felt better now that he’d told Sam the truth. He didn’t agree with the tactic of allowing the media to think they’d caught the man who did this. He thought it was a dangerous ploy, one that could easily backfire on them.
But that wasn’t his problem, that was Bianco’s. He had another focus.
Who the hell was behind the murders of the three Indiana girls? And how was that connected to Tuesday’s Metro attack?
Chapter 39
Loa Ledbetter the younger lived on Connecticut Avenue, near the Washington Zoo. Inez tracked her down, asked her to make herself available for an interview. She was actually coming downtown to meet a friend for lunch at Old Ebbitt, and said she would be happy to stop by the JTTF for a chat.
Fletcher realized he needed to start thinking about this case differently. Sam emailed him the photographs she had found, and he had Inez start going through them. Finding a connection between the congressman and Ledbetter was a good step. It at least proved they knew each other. He wished there was a direct and contemporary correlation between Leighton and Conlon, then they’d really be cooking with fire.
But he still couldn’t figure out why and how the subway attack figured in. If you want to murder three people, why run the risk of killing hundreds?
Sam’s theory was as good as any he’d come up with. The point was to attack hundreds and mask the true targets.
If he was a profiler, he’d start looking at this killer more like a workplace shooter, someone with an ax to grind, who felt he was being disenfranchised. Someone whose world was falling apart, and blamed the people around him for that downfall.
Congressman Leighton, Dr. Loa Ledbetter and Marc Conlon.
Each knew the other in some capacity. But where was their overlap? Who had come across all three of them in such a way that he, or she, was infuriated enough to kill them all?
“Inez, where’s that list of staffers from Leighton’s office? And I want to start talking to the people who were with him the morning of the attack. I don’t care what Temple said, one of them could have had some sort of access to him.”
“Right here.”
She handed him a file folder.
“What about the damn detective from Indianapolis? Has he ever surfaced?”
She glanced at her watch. “Yes, he did. He’s supposed to call at three. He’s at a conference in Berlin, and won’t be free until this evening.” She perched on the edge of his desk. “You look like a man with something on his mind.”
“You can say that again. Too much information coming at me from too many quarters. But that’s good. The artist off to Mrs. Conlon?”
“Yes. You probably have an hour before Ms. Ledbetter joins us. Can I get you anything?”