Deadly Cross (Alex Cross #28)(76)

“Kay evidently believed her mind was being manipulated long before Dr. Tolliver and Dr. Hicks were ever involved in that facility.”

Barnes said, “This sounds like Althea Lincoln nonsense and a waste of the vice president’s time. Sir, you really do have to be at the White House at — ”

Willingham crossed his arms. “I want to hear this, if only to see how delusional Kay managed to make herself this time. Dr. Cross, she used to tie herself in knots with family conspiracy theories. It’s why her parents sent her to Switzerland for school when she was seventeen. She blamed Roy and Beth Sutter for everything wrong with the world and she needed some perspective on that.”

“When Kay was seventeen,” I said. “That would have been after her first stay at West Briar?”

He shrugged. “Sounds right.”

“Do you know why her parents committed her to West Briar that first time?”

“Bipolar disorder,” he said. “It’s a chemical imbalance, treatable with drugs.”

I said, “That was the diagnosis. But Althea says there was a traumatic incident that triggered the depression and Kay’s first commitment.”





CHAPTER 87





“WHAT DID ALTHEA SAY HAPPENED to Kay?” the vice president asked, the fingertips of his hands touching to form a steeple.

“She fell in love for the first time,” I replied.

“With Jefferson Ward,” Mahoney said.

“What?” Willingham said scornfully. “No, not a chance. She would have told me that.”

“And yet she didn’t,” I said. “But we’ve confirmed the romance with several sources, all teenage friends of Kay and Althea.”

“Whoever they are, they’re full of it. I know most of Kay’s teenage friends and never once did they mention Kay being in love with Ward. That’s preposterous.”

Mahoney said, “How many of those friends were black, sir, African-American?”

“Well … I don’t know.” I said, “Kay’s African-American friends, the ones we spoke with, were adamant that Kay had not only been in love with Ward but was in a sexual relationship with him. Kay’s parents found out and forbade her to see him. That’s what caused the depression. Not a chemical swing.”

“According to Althea Lincoln,” Barnes said, dismissively.

“And six other women, Ms. Barnes,” Mahoney said. “We have sworn affidavits.”

The vice president stared off as if seeing his late ex-wife in a different light. “Roy and Beth put her in West Briar for sleeping with Ward?”

“That’s our belief,” I said. “The problem was, Kay went right back to Ward after her release from West Briar, which was really what got her sent to school in Switzerland. Two years later, she came home to Montgomery at Christmas, polished, multilingual, and extremely well educated, on her way to being fully prepared for her future life. Jeff Ward had fallen on harder times. He’d lost his job. He sold drugs. Still, during that visit, Kay told Ward that when she’d finished her studies abroad and gotten her inheritance, she would return. They’d go away, make a life for themselves.”

Willingham stayed silent, watching us, while Barnes scribbled furiously. Then he shook his head. “We had investigators all over that case. We would have known this.”

“But you didn’t,” Mahoney said. “With all due respect, sir, we believe the Montgomery investigators were understandably lax about pursuing other explanations for Ward’s death. They had the weapon, the motive, and eyewitnesses who put Howard at the scene. Why would the detectives have looked at other theories?”

“Bill Miller, Howard’s public defender, was very good. He would have brought the relationship up at trial if it had been pertinent to Howard’s case.”

I said, “We asked Mr. Miller about that. He said he vaguely remembered that Kay had been in love with Ward when they were young but did not know about her visit home at nineteen and believed she’d been in Switzerland almost six years and was living with a Swiss man when Ward was murdered.”

“Henri,” Willingham said with a head bob to Barnes. “I met Henri once. A twit. But Dr. Cross, Special Agent Mahoney, I still haven’t heard anything that presents a new angle here. One night when Howard and his friend were high on booze, meth, and coke, tempers flared and Howard went berserk.”

“Or someone else did, Mr. Vice President,” Mahoney said.

He crossed his arms again, said, “You going to tell me Bobby Carson did it?”

Mahoney said, “No, sir. Bobby’s good for fraud and racketeering but not murder.”

I said, “We believe a hired assassin was watching Ward and Howard the night of the murder. The assassin saw them higher than kites and arguing. When they passed out, he took advantage of the situation, went in wearing gloves, cut Ward’s head off, and framed Howard for it with the knife.”

“C’mon,” Barnes moaned. “An assassin? Who’s going to believe that scenario?”

Arms crossed, frowning, the vice president sounded equally skeptical when he said, “Who do you think this assassin was?”

“I don’t think we’ll ever know exactly who, sir,” Mahoney said.