Deadly Cross (Alex Cross #28)(30)

I said, “But not enough to have two, maybe three people conspire to shoot her in the midst of a sexual tryst with her lover, an African-American with his eye on political office?” Willingham gazed at me levelly. “No, Dr. Cross. It has been almost two years since Kay left me. I’ve dealt with it. But as I said, even though her life was her own, I still loved her.”

“How do you know there were two or three assassins?” Barnes asked.

“An eyewitness claims it,” Mahoney said.

The vice president sat forward. His chief of staff did as well.

“Someone saw them shot?” Willingham said.

“Who was that, exactly?” Barnes asked.





CHAPTER 32





WE HAD AGREED BEFOREHAND TO share this information, but Mahoney still appeared uncomfortable as he said, “The eyewitness didn’t see the actual shots, but she heard them and claims to have seen two figures, males with hoods, escaping. She’s less sure on the other, saw a crouched figure moving in the shadows.”

“You believe this witness?”

“Not entirely,” Mahoney said. “She’s also a suspect.”

“Name?”

“Elaine Paulson. Randall Christopher’s widow.”

Willingham blinked, took a steadying breath, and said, “Let me get this straight. Christopher’s wife was there?”

“Admits being there, and she has a weapon,” I said. “A thirty-eight.”

“The gun you wanted tested?” he said.

“Correct.”

The vice president thought about that. “I take it she was unhappy with her husband’s fling with Kay? She knew, didn’t she?”

Mahoney nodded. “She did, sir.”

“Upset about it?”

“Very,” I said.

“I found in my years as a prosecutor that most often the simple explanations in life are the correct ones,” the vice president said. “She went there to scare them, but when she saw them, she went into a jealous rage and shot them both.”

“We’re certainly considering that possibility,” Mahoney said.

“What else?” Willingham said.

I said, “The killers took jewelry, watches, and wallets from the bodies.”

Willingham sat forward. “Anything on their clouds?”

Mahoney nodded. “We have specialists getting access to Mr. Christopher’s cloud, thanks to his widow’s consent. But we’re having trouble finding anyone who has access to your ex-wife’s accounts and passwords.”

“Good luck with that,” he said. “I know she changed every single account and password after the divorce. Who’s the executor of her will?”

“Good point,” Mahoney said.

“I’m sure it’s someone at Carson and Knight, right, Claudette?”

“I would assume, sir,” Barnes said. “The family’s longtime law firm,” she told us.

“Where are they located?” Ned asked.

“Montgomery, Alabama,” Willingham said.

“Sir, with all due respect, why did Kay suddenly come out and smear you the way she did?” I asked. “Calling you unfit for office and of low moral character right before the election?”

Willingham got a strange, sad expression on his face. “If I fully understood that, Dr. Cross, I might still be married and Kay might still be alive.”





CHAPTER 33





VICE PRESIDENT WILLINGHAM RETURNED TO his breakfast while his chief of staff continued to scribble. After a moment, she looked up at us.

“So we’re done, Detectives?” Barnes said. “The vice president has a busy schedule today and a meeting starting in about five minutes.”

I cleared my throat. “Just a couple more questions. You never retaliated after Kay’s attacks, Mr. Vice President. Never responded.”

Willingham chewed, swallowed, and said, “I was in no position to respond. I’d like to leave it at that.”

“Okay,” I said. “But are you saying, sir, that you have no idea what Kay was talking about when she leveled those accusations at you?”

He was soaking up egg yolk with an English muffin but stopped to gaze at me. “No,” he said. “I don’t. And if you go back and watch the videos where she made those claims, you’ll see there were never any specifics. It was just rage against me.”

“But what triggered it?” I asked.

Willingham pressed his hands as if in prayer, then sighed. “I’d hoped it would not come to this. Show them, Claudette.”

“Are you sure, sir?” Barnes said. “They have no legal right to it.”

“They could subpoena it, and I’d rather not be that public about Kay’s…issues.”

“Yes, sir.”

Barnes selected several documents from the files she’d brought in. “These are medical records that ordinarily would be covered by HIPAA, but Kay signed a release allowing her ex-husband to access them.”

Barnes slid them across the table at me. “I think you’d be the best person to review them first, Dr. Cross.”

I turned the documents around and saw I was looking at medical records from West Briar, a psychiatric inpatient facility in Hedges, Alabama, where Kay Willingham spent three months in the middle of her two-year hiatus from Washington, DC, following the death of her mother. I scanned the medical narrative, cringing at times, then I closed the file and pushed it to Mahoney. “But the meds helped her?”