Shattered (Michael Bennett #14)(70)

I grabbed a quick hotel breakfast of stale English muffins and cereal. Mrs. Parker had said she and Laura would meet me at the FBI field office at eight o’clock. The thought of heading home after that lifted my spirits. All I could think was Home to my family. Home to Mary Catherine.

I’d been worrying about her even more than usual over the last few days. She sounded tired. Somewhere deep in my heart, I thought she might be pregnant. The thought was not upsetting at all. I know, I know, I already have enough kids. The other way to look at it is that one more kid can’t be much more effort. Either way, my first concern was Mary Catherine’s health and comfort.

At exactly eight in the morning, I rolled into the visitors’ area of the lot across from the FBI DC field office. My nondescript little Prius held a single suitcase and a big case folder. I was in the middle of deciding whether to give it to Bobby Patel or the DC homicide unit. If I saw Bobby this morning, I might try to feel him out on the subject.

I got a surprise hug from Mrs. Parker and Emily’s sister Laura. I understood Laura’s hug, but Mrs. Parker did not impress me as a fan of personal, physical contact. You live and you learn.

I’ll admit I was a little disappointed in our reception. I had assumed the special agent in charge or another high-ranking Bureau official would meet us. Instead, it was the personnel director. And I guessed she had never even met Emily.

The personnel director was about forty with neat blond hair and reflective glasses that looked like they could incinerate ants if she held them up to the sun. She was professional if somewhat curt as she ushered us into a conference room four doors down from the lobby. In the hallway, agents and analysts hustled back and forth.

Sitting on the table in the conference room was a box with all of Emily’s personal belongings from her desk. At least it was an official FBI evidence box and not a paper towel box from Costco.

I didn’t say a word. I was just there for support. As the FBI personnel director left us, she said, “Take all the time you need. When you’re done, just come out the door, turn left, and the lobby is straight ahead.”

I had to admit she had a very nice voice.

I watched as Mrs. Parker grimly poked around in the box. She pulled out a framed photo of her, Emily, and Emily’s two sisters. Another photo showed Emily on a treacherous mountain-bike trail.

Emily’s sister Laura saw me looking at the photo and said, “She picked up mountain biking in LA. Just loved it.”

The rest was the usual stuff crammed into a cop’s desk. Notebooks, a Rubik’s Cube, and a few mementos from different cases. There was also an unmarked metal cigar tube.

Mrs. Parker set the cigar holder down on the table. “I’m glad I never saw her smoke.”

Laura said, “It was like five cigars a year. But they were expensive ones. She loved to smoke Cuban cigars despite the ban.”

When I picked up the cigar holder, it rattled with a weight that didn’t feel like a cigar. I quickly unscrewed the brown base and tipped the holder. A blue pen slipped out and clattered onto the table, breaking the silence in the room.

I picked it up. It was a really nice pen. Expensive. A blue Montblanc.

Laura looked at it in my hands.

I said, “Recognize it?”

Laura shook her head.

I held it close to my face to read the tiny inscription on the pen’s silver clip. It said From BP with love. I read it aloud. Then I looked at both women and said, “Any ideas?”

Mrs. Parker and Laura looked uncertain, then began to chat about who it could be. They mentioned a couple of names. Mrs. Parker said, “Oh, what about Bill Parker?”

Laura looked at me and said, “He’s our cousin.” Then she looked at her mother and added, “He’s too cheap to buy extravagant presents. This seems more like a boyfriend gift.”

Something about the words boyfriend gift made me pause. Then it hit me. BP was Bobby Patel. The pen was a gift from Bobby. I recalled Rhea Wellmy-Steinberg saying Emily had received an unwanted, expensive gift. Despite Bobby claiming that he and Emily were work friends, he had wanted more.

Thinking back to Bobby’s commentary on Rhea Wellmy-Steinberg, I realized he had been leading me toward Rhea. Had he really been trying to cover his own involvement in Emily’s death?

I felt a little shaky as I considered all the possibilities.





Chapter 93



I found myself still holding the cigar tube in my hand. My mind worked overtime. I desperately wanted to find some reason that discounted Bobby as a suspect in Emily’s death.

Mrs. Parker dug around in the box a little more. Then she said, “I thought maybe her ring was in here. It wasn’t found by the police when they recovered her body.” She choked on the word body.

My brain was working on a different frequency. I barely heard her.

Laura said, “Her emerald ring?”

Now I looked up, and Mrs. Parker explained it to me. “When the girls were little, I took them to Tennessee. When we were in Pigeon Forge, Emily wanted to go to the campy little place where you buy sacks of sand and strain it through an old-time waterwheel. Like panning for gold. She found an emerald, and we had it made into a ring. We had to resize that ring six times as she grew older and refused to take it off.”

I noticed Mrs. Parker look off wistfully. I knew she at least had good memories of her daughter. To confirm it was the same ring I recalled, I said, “Can you describe the ring?”