Best Laid Plans(85)

“Not if Gary and Harper did everything via email.”

“But there was a phone call—we have the phone records before Worthington made the flight arrangements.”

“Maybe Gary set him up.”

Dunbar watched the conversation between Barry and Lucy. “And I’ve said Adeline has done nothing to make me think she had anything to do with her husband’s death. She was surprised when she found out she’d been cut out of the will—and that’s the only motive you could possibly have.”

“Or she’s a good actress,” Barry said.

“Elise was shot by whoever hired her to set up Worthington,” Lucy said. “She claimed that she thought she was giving Worthington a knockout drug so that she could take explicit photos of him having sex with a prostitute, which she assumed were to blackmail him.”

“This is getting wilder and wilder,” Dunbar said, as if he didn’t believe their story. Lucy was already irritated with his attitude, but he was getting worse. As if his investigation was worthy and theirs wasn’t.

“On the contrary,” Barry said, backing Lucy up, “in the course of our investigation, we’ve learned several things that we believe are connected to Worthington’s death. For example, four weeks ago—around the time you planted the bug in Worthington’s phone—he stopped using his desk phone and his computer. He used another office. He had a tablet that no one knew about, and on it were spreadsheets and notes that appear to be related to land transactions.”

“You need to turn that over to me now,” Dunbar said.

Naygrew spoke up. “Juan will see to it that you get a copy of all our documents. Go on, Agent Crawford.”

“According to multiple sources, Worthington began to act preoccupied four weeks ago—about the time he returned early from a four-day trip to Washington with his wife.”

“What if,” Lucy said, “Harper realized what his wife was doing? He’s an accountant, one of the best in the business from what we’ve learned. Maybe she said something, or he saw a financial statement that made him think his wife was doing something illegal? And the fact that he was obsessed with the BLM audit suggests that he did know something, but maybe couldn’t prove it.”

“If he accidentally tipped his hand, that would have given her motive,” Barry concurred.

“That still doesn’t explain why he traveled out of his way to a seedy motel for a meeting,” Lucy said.

“Maybe Gary was his informant,” Barry said. “There were three meetings that we know of, all in equally seedy places.”

“And Adeline found out about the meeting and sent a prostitute to kill him?” Lucy shook her head. “There’s something more to it than that. And Gary is a real person. He has to factor in somehow.”

“Juan,” Barry said, “we’re in the middle of our investigation. We have Elise Hansen under guard at the hospital. SAPD Detective Tia Mancini is lead, and she’s a good cop who knows about the sex trade. We have extensive evidence that we’re in the middle of analyzing, and several people we need to interview or re-interview. Hansen admitted that she took pictures of herself with Worthington, as well as implied she might have taken photos of another client, a developer named James Everett. We want to re-interview him to see if he’s being blackmailed. That could point us to Worthington’s killer.”

Dunbar reacted to the name Everett, but didn’t say anything.

Was Lucy the only one who saw it? Barry was about to continue, but Lucy said, “Dunbar, what do you know about James Everett?”

“It’s not relevant.”

“We’re sharing everything we know, it would help if you did the same.”

Dunbar snorted and looked away.

Naygrew looked pointedly at Lucy, then at Dunbar.

“Agent Dunbar, has the name James Everett come up in your investigation into Adeline Worthington?”

It was clear he didn’t want to answer, but because this was the SAC asking, he did. “He is a person of interest in several of the illegal land deals.”

“So he was working with Congresswoman Worthington?”

“Everett and Adeline were partners before she married Worthington. She left the partnership before she ran for public office, but Everett handled many of these suspicious transactions. However, they appear to have had a falling out recently—over the last couple of months—and he endorsed her opponent.”

“Do you know why?” Naygrew pushed.

“No, sir.”

But he wasn’t looking directly at Naygrew. Lucy’s instincts twitched. “He’s one of your informants, isn’t he?”

Dunbar reddened. “I’m not at liberty to discuss any of our confidential informants.”

Which meant yes. Everett was an informant and he didn’t want his reputation to be tarnished when Adeline went down for bribery and political corruption.

“Why did you bug Worthington’s phone only four weeks ago?” Lucy asked. “Especially since you’ve been here for six months. That was right when he came back from D.C., right about the time he started acting out of character … Did Worthington talk to someone on your team?”

“I can’t—”

Naygrew leaned forward. “Logan, I understand you’ve put a lot of time and effort into this investigation, but my team is investigating the homicide of a federal contractor who had access to confidential financial information that involved national security. It helps us to know what he was doing during his last weeks of life.”