Best Laid Plans(8)
And Julie was right about the money—Worthington could afford a much nicer place, and considering he’d paid hundreds of dollars for the flight, why not fork over a hundred bucks for a halfway decent dive? There were motels and hotels closer to the airport. This made no sense. Except that it was anonymous. But if he wanted to remain anonymous, why stand out by giving the taxi driver two hundred dollars to return?
Barry approached her. “Let’s go.”
“We should talk to the manager.”
“I did.”
She glanced up at him. “I would have joined you.”
“It was routine. And you’re better with these lab rats than I am.”
“I used to be one,” she said. “What did he say?”
“Nothing that helps.”
She mentally counted to ten so she didn’t snap at her partner. “How did Worthington pay for the room?”
“He didn’t. Manager didn’t even see him. I got a basic description of the girl, but the taxi driver had more detail. Not much to go on, but maybe Mancini has a photo for him to ID.”
“Prostitutes don’t pay for the room. And if he didn’t recognize her, she wasn’t a regular.”
“These kinds of places thrive on anonymity. I pressed, he couldn’t give me anything.”
“If she’s in the system, we’ll ID her,” Lucy said. “There were prints on the vodka bottle and his wallet.”
“We need to notify his widow before the press gets wind of this,” Barry said.
Lucy looked at her watch. It was just after six in the morning. “Julie Peters said I could assist with the autopsy, if you want me to head over there.”
“Let Peters do her job, you do yours,” Barry said. “Meet me at FBI headquarters. I’ll brief Juan and then we’ll go to Worthington’s house. So far, SAPD has kept everything quiet, but considering we have a couple witnesses, the crime scene techs, and a half dozen cops, I suspect the press is going to be circling like vultures before noon. I don’t want the congresswoman hearing about her husband’s death, or the circumstances, from anyone but us.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Harper and Adeline Worthington lived on a large ranch twenty minutes northwest of town, where working ranches were interspersed among gentleman farms and horse property. Even the smaller tracts of land had to be at least ten acres, Lucy thought. Worthington’s property didn’t have cattle, but a large barn could be seen in the distance, surrounded by an empty corral.
Barry turned off the two-lane road and drove a hundred yards to a gate. He identified himself and a moment later the metal gate silently slid open. The system wouldn’t keep out anyone determined. Two signs proclaimed that the land was monitored 24/7 by hidden cameras. They weren’t that well hidden—Lucy spotted several at the gate and along the fence.
A wide expanse of grass separated the sprawling two-story ranch-style house from the perimeter, and towering, neatly trimmed ash trees lined the drive, providing shade and decoration. Though the house was large with a Spanish flair, it wasn’t ostentatious.
“The legislature is in session,” Lucy said. “Why is Congresswoman Worthington in town?”
“Congresswoman Reyes-Worthington,” he said. “She hyphenates her maiden name. You should know that. As far as being home, she made a promise during her first campaign to return to the district on weekends.”
Lucy hadn’t immersed herself in local politics, and had only read a bit about the congresswoman while waiting for Barry to brief their boss. She’d been elected during a special election seven years ago when the sitting congressman had died while in office, a year after she’d married Harper Worthington. If the media could be believed, this upcoming election was going to be her most hard fought, as her opponent was a military veteran and the district had a sizeable veteran population in addition to displaced civilian employees from military base closures over the past twenty years. Yet she seemed popular and had built a broad coalition, according to the local newspaper’s editorial board. They’d written an op-ed when they endorsed her in the first election that opined she was intelligent (graduating cum laude from a prestigious Texas university), successful (running her own real estate development business for two decades), had a popular father (a former six-term mayor), and had married into an old-time, well-respected Texas family (the Worthingtons).
She was Worthington’s second wife—she’d married him eight years ago and had no children of her own. Worthington had one daughter from his first marriage, which had ended when his wife died from cancer when his daughter was only five. Now Jolene was twenty-nine and worked for her father at HWI headquarters.
“The spouse is always a suspect in a suspicious death,” Lucy commented.
“This is a different situation. Worthington was supposed to be in Dallas.”
“I wasn’t implying she was guilty of anything, only that married men who use prostitutes tend to be repeat customers, and I’d think a wife would pick up on something like that.”
“I may ask her that, but a suspicious death doesn’t always mean foul play. We’re not here to interrogate the congresswoman. Understood?”
“I wasn’t intending to, I just thought—”
“I’m lead, so follow my lead.”