Deadly Cross (Alex Cross #28)(75)

“Search me, then, if you dare put your hands on this fine temple of femininity,” she said. “I got nothing hot on me or at the house or anywhere else, much less in my panties.”

“You have good timing,” Bree said. “You should have been a comic.”

“Instead, I’m a diabetic,” Waffles said. “Can I drop my hands? Ten weeks out of stir, I’m not in shape for this. I’m getting a neck cramp.”

“Go ahead,” Sampson said.

She did, making a soft moan and rolling her shoulders.

Bree said, “So why are we hearing these rumors of you taking in stolen goods?”

Waffles took a deep breath and blew it out slow. “Some people know I used to do that kind of thing. It’s what I was in for.”

“Who knew?”

“Like a hundred people. I stood up and shared at a big NA meeting a couple of weeks ago.”

“Any of them stand out?”

“No.”

“Anybody outside AA?”

“NA, and … no,” she said, but she was looking at the ground.

Bree could tell Waffles knew more than she was saying, but she didn’t comment.

Finally the ex-con raised her head. “That it?”

“You should tell us now while you have the chance,” Bree said. “This is bigger than any fence job you’ve ever seen.”

“I told you — ”

“No, we’re telling you, Mary Jo,” Sampson said. “Someone took jewelry off the victims of a double homicide a few weeks back. A pearl necklace. Earrings. Bracelets. A man’s Rolex.”

Waffles shook her head defiantly. “Like I said, search me. Search my room at the halfway house. Search anywhere I go.”

“You could have already fenced them,” Sampson said.

“But I didn’t.”

Bree racked her brain for angles, and it did not take long to find one. “You know, I believe you,” she said. “You don’t have the jewelry and never have.”

Waffles sighed. “There you go. Can I go back to my job now before I don’t have one to go back to?”

“After you tell us who tried to sell you stolen jewelry in the past few weeks.”

“Didn’t happen,” Waffles said. “Fake news. Can I go?”

“You know what obstruction of justice is, Ms. Nevis?” Bree asked.

“I’m hyper-chubby, not stupid.”

“You understand that withholding material evidence to a capital crime is itself a form of obstruction. Knowing something and staying silent is a form of obstruction.”

“Unless I invoke the Fifth. What’s your point?”

Bree took a step forward and gazed up into the woman’s eyes. “If we find out you’re lying to us, your silence can break the terms of your parole, and the smart funny lady in front of me will be back doing standup for hard-timers in Joliet, still guilt-ridden and dreaming about her son, who just gets older and farther away from his gifted, funny mom every day that passes.”

Waffles held Bree’s gaze, but her expression shifted toward resentment.

“You don’t play fair,” she said.

“The murdered woman?” Bree said. “She was the ex-wife of the vice president of the United States. We don’t have to play even remotely fair with you.”





CHAPTER 86





IN THE DINING ROOM OF his official residence, Vice President Willingham shifted in his seat, took a sip of juice, and said, “When Althea Lincoln spoke to you, she told you about Bobby Carson being a swindler?”

“Among other things,” I replied. “As Althea says, when you keep your mouth shut for years, you tend to hear a lot.”

“Let me guess,” Willingham said. “Her brother? Napoleon Howard?”

“Half brother, and a little bit of that,” Mahoney said. “But Althea was more focused on West Briar and how the staff would not listen to her when she brought Kay in this last time. She kept telling them that Kay had been through two traumatic incidents in the weeks before she brought her to the facility.”

“What traumatic incidents?” Barnes asked.

“Her mother dying,” the vice president said.

“And the death of Napoleon Howard,” Mahoney said. “Ms. Lincoln said it was the straw that broke the camel’s back and caused the nervous breakdown.”

I could see the news had gotten to Willingham.

“Your ex-wife believed Mr. Howard was innocent,” Mahoney said.

“Kay sure did not believe that when he was convicted,” he said, setting his coffee cup down hard. “It’s how we met, you know. She walked up at a party, told me she’d been a childhood friend of Jefferson Ward, and thanked me after I put Howard away.”

Mahoney said, “She came around to Howard’s position over the years.”

“Napoleon Howard wasn’t innocent,” Willingham insisted. “He killed Jeff Ward in a drug-fueled rage. Cut off the man’s head, for God’s sake. His prints and Ward’s blood were on the knife. He lost every appeal. End of story.”

Mahoney said, “There might be a different angle on all of that.”

Barnes sat forward. “What sort of angle?”