Deadly Cross (Alex Cross #28)(80)

“Absolutely not!” Barnes said. “This is preposterous and I want a lawyer.”

“You’re going to need one,” Willingham said, looking at her coldly.

“You don’t believe them, do you?” she said.

“If he doesn’t now, he will in a moment,” Mahoney said, sliding another file across the table to the vice president. “That’s the formation papers of a Delaware shell company that owns two other shells within shells that all lead to the original partners of Sutter Development Ltd. They’re listed on the last page. You’ll see Robert Carson Jr. and Claudette Barnes as the senior partners.” Willingham rifled through the pages to look at the last one. Then he glared at his chief of staff. “I believe them.”

“Walter,” she said. “Mr. Vice President — ”

“Did you kill Kay and Randall Christopher?” he demanded and then he smashed his fist on the table so hard, several of the coffee cups tipped over.

“What? No!”

“You weren’t there?” he shouted. “You can prove it?”

“Prove it?” she shot back. “Of course.”

“What about these papers? Do you deny knowing about them?”

Barnes stared at the documents, now stained with coffee. “I know about them. I was part of it, and it was Bobby’s idea. But I had nothing to do with Kay’s death and nothing to do with whatever happened to Althea. Nothing!”

“I don’t believe you,” Willingham said. He turned to his Secret Service agents. “Since you two seem more loyal to Claudette than to me, I’ll ask you once. Did she kill them? Or were one of you two there in that schoolyard on her behalf? Or both?”

Breit held up his hands. “We didn’t kill anyone, sir. We followed them that night — Kay and Christopher — at Claudette’s request but ended the surveillance when we saw them drive into that schoolyard around three thirty that morning.”

“It’s true, sir,” Price said.

“Why in God’s name were you two following them?” Willingham demanded.

The Secret Service agents looked like they wanted to crawl away from the question and said nothing.

The vice president turned his glare back on his chief of staff, who said coldly, “Because you would not have done it yourself, Walter. Because you always had a blind spot when it came to Kay. But I didn’t. I saw Kay for who she was from the get-go: a threat to you, your eventual presidency, and the future of this country.”

Willingham tried to interrupt, but she waved him off angrily. “Wake up, Walter! Your socialite ex-wife was a loose cannon on her best days. And then Kelli Ann came calling with supposed whispers from Kay about your past prosecutorial misconduct. That’s why they were following her.”

Willingham stared at the table, drumming his fingers.

I took the opportunity to say to Price and Breit, “Two men in hoodies were seen running from the murder scene.”

“Not us,” Breit said sharply. “No way. There have to be videos of our Suburban in the streets around that school. We drove right past the school a good thirty minutes before they were killed, and we never went back.”





CHAPTER 92





THE FOLLOWING MORNING, BREE SAT on a bench in the hallway of juvenile court reading a newspaper article, Clive Sparkman’s big scoop on the arrest of Vice President Willingham’s chief of staff for conspiracy to commit murder and fraud in Alabama.

Sparkman’s article also described the letter from Kay to her father and other evidence that might have proved Napoleon Howard did not murder Jefferson Ward.

Willingham had told Sparkman, “My heart breaks for the families of Napoleon Howard and Jefferson Ward. Had I known about this evidence, had the grand jury known about this evidence, Howard might not have been convicted so easily and might not have died in prison. My heart also breaks for my late ex-wife, Kay, and for myself because she died believing I had willfully ignored evidence that would have benefited Howard, which is fundamentally not true. As for my chief of staff, Claudette Barnes, I will let the justice system in Alabama do its work before commenting further.”

“Bree?”

She looked up from the article, which I’d read earlier, to see the cup of coffee I was holding out.

“Careful,” I said. “I don’t think I got that lid on tight enough and it’s hot.”

Bree set the paper down and took the cup. “Thank you.”

“Anytime.” I took a seat beside her on the bench.

Bree tapped the paper with her knuckles and whispered, “Are you the anonymous source saying Barnes is also under suspicion for Kelli Ann Higgins’s murder and her own husband’s death?”

“Not me, but it makes sense,” I said. “If she hired hit men to take out Althea Lincoln, maybe she’d hire someone to beat Higgins to death. And maybe she was the one who hit her husband while he was out riding his bike.”

Sampson walked up. “Ned says they’ve agreed to talk.”

We got up and followed him into a conference room where Devon Monroe and Lever Ashford sat flanked by their mothers and public defenders. Bree sat beside Ann Dean, the prosecuting attorney. Sampson and I stood at the back with Mahoney.

Devon Monroe looked haggard and resigned to his fate after a night in custody. Lever Ashford, the taller of the two, had his head up and was taking it all in, acting almost cocky.