Best Laid Plans(83)
But when she walked through Naygrew’s door and saw one of the men who had been at Adeline’s house that morning, the one she thought she’d seen before, she knew that this was something else entirely.
“Agents Crawford, Kincaid, thank you for coming in so quickly,” SAC Naygrew said. “Please sit.”
There were two chairs on the left side of Naygrew’s large desk. Lucy took the one farthest from Adeline’s staffer, which afforded her the best angle to watch him. Barry sat next to her. Juan was already seated directly across from Naygrew, like a mediator between the two sides.
Naygrew waited until Lucy and Barry had both sat before he started. “Introductions—my agents, Barry Crawford and Lucy Kincaid, who have been working on the murder of HWI CEO Harper Worthington. Crawford, Kincaid, meet SSA Logan Dunbar out of our Washington, D.C., office. I learned late this morning that two separate investigations, out of two different offices, have collided. I’ve asked Agent Dunbar to come in to brief you, and then hopefully we’ll come out of this meeting with a mutually agreeable game plan.”
Dunbar. D.C. office. That’s why she recognized him. They’d never met, and she didn’t recognize his name, but she must have seen him during the few months she’d worked out of the D.C. regional office before she left for Quantico last year.
Lucy began to piece together what was happening. Dunbar worked out of the D.C. office, which often took the lead on cases of political corruption in Congress. He’d been at Adeline’s house; he must be investigating Adeline Worthington for political corruption.
“You’re undercover,” Lucy said.
“I was afraid you’d blown my cover, Kincaid. You don’t lie well.”
“Excuse me?” Why was he so hostile?
“When you saw me at Adeline’s house, you gave me a look and I thought for certain you were going to out me.”
She straightened her spine. “If I had recognized you, I would have figured it out immediately. I’m pretty good on my feet.”
“Let me make one thing clear: Adeline Worthington did not kill her husband.”
Barry said, “We haven’t said that she did. We simply asked for permission to pursue a line of questioning with her because there are inconsistencies in her initial statement, as well as our follow-up this morning.”
“The night Worthington died, Adeline went to a charity event, then spent hours in a meeting with her campaign team, which included me. I drove her back to her house at one thirty in the morning.”
“We don’t believe that she personally killed her husband, but she may have a motive to have had him killed,” Lucy said.
Dunbar shook his head. “We have access to all her phone records and emails. I have staff in D.C. rechecking everything we’ve gathered, and nothing suggests that she hired a hit man. So, respectfully, I’m asking you to back off. I am very close to taking this woman down on political corruption and bribery, and your investigation is hampering mine. She’s naturally paranoid; your constant questioning is making her more so.”
“If our investigation is having an impact,” Barry said, “that should tell you she might have something more to hide.”
“I’ve been working on this case for more than a year. It didn’t start last weekend,” Dunbar snapped. “It’s not just me—I have several UCs working in different areas, and I can’t have you jeopardizing them, either.”
“A man was murdered,” Lucy said. “Murder trumps bribery.”
Dunbar glared at her. “If it was anyone but you pushing this, I wouldn’t even be here.”
“Excuse me?”
“Don’t pretend you don’t know.”
Lucy had no idea what he was talking about.
Juan cleared his throat. “This isn’t productive. Agent Dunbar, please explain to my team what you told Ritz and me earlier.”
Logan Dunbar took a breath, then nodded. Formally, he said, “Sixteen months ago, an informant in the Congressional Interior Committee alerted my office about suspicious activity involving a staff member and a potentially illegal land transaction. A large parcel of land in southern Texas was purchased by the government for three times the market rate because of a supposed environmental protection consideration. Upon further review, the report had been doctored, so we looked deeper and learned that the seller of the land then bought another parcel from Adeline Reyes-Worthington at an inflated price. Under federal campaign law, individuals are strictly limited in political contributions that they can give to a candidate, but candidates can spend their own money with no limit.”
Dunbar leaned forward in his chair. “It took us months, but we found several other similar transactions. For a while we thought that her husband was involved because he has the technical skill to bury these types of financial crimes, but when we began our undercover operation, it became clear that the two of them keep their finances almost completely separate. Still, I wasn’t positive—he could have been helping her.”
“Which is why you bugged his office,” Lucy said.
“Your boyfriend tampered with a legal federal wiretap.”
How did Dunbar know that Sean was her boyfriend? Or that he was even involved?
“You listened to our call,” Lucy said, putting it together. Dunbar had the wiretap, it made sense that he would get a transcript or tape of all calls.