“That’s why we’re heading to Miami. To ask her.”

  “And you think she’ll really answer truthfully?”

  “We’ll see, won’t we?”

  He had been told to go to Roe’s home instead of the office. They took the elevator up, and the woman herself answered their knock.

  “Not working today?” said Decker.

  “I’ve decided to take some time off.”

  She was not her usual put-together self, Decker noted. She was dressed in faded jeans and a T-shirt, and was barefoot. Her hair was unbrushed, and her face, normally made up to an exacting degree, was apparently free of anything other than the woman’s actual skin.

  She led them into a room set up as a small study. Decker looked around, his gaze first fixing on the object over the door, and then moving to two items resting on a small table. He glanced at White but said nothing.

  They all sat and Roe looked across at them.

  “How can I help you?”

  “Are you a fan of eBay?” asked White.

  “Excuse me?”

  “It’s an online market—”

  “I know what eBay is. Why do you want to know if I’m a fan?”

  “Have you ever used it?”

  She sat back. “Well, I guess I have purchased a few things from them over the years.”

  “What sort of things?” asked Decker.

  “Look, where is this going?”

  “Did you buy something around three weeks ago?”

  “What exactly are we talking about?”

  Decker said, “You should be able to remember if you bought something on eBay three weeks ago.”

  She looked put off. “Why won’t you tell me what this is about?”

  “We’d prefer to hear an answer from you first,” said Decker.

  “Okay, I don’t specifically remember buying anything on eBay three weeks ago. In fact, I don’t think I’ve bought anything from there since I was in college.”

  “Okay.” Decker looked over at White.

  She held up her phone. “We got confirmation from eBay that you purchased Slovakian money from one of their vendors three weeks ago. And Decker has confirmed that the bills purchased are the same ones found in the throats of Draymont and Lancer.”

  Roe stared at White like she couldn’t really understand what she was saying. “Why would I buy old Slovakian currency?”

  “It was your father’s homeland,” replied Decker.

  “But my father has been gone for three years. Where did you get this information?”

  “From eBay.” White showed her the screen. “It shows the credit card account you have on file to make the purchase and a PO box delivery address.”

  “I don’t have a PO box. And since I haven’t bought anything on eBay since college, any credit card would have long since expired.”

  “Okay, then somebody could have hacked into your current credit card account and linked it to a bogus account set up on eBay. Can you check your statements to see if that charge appeared on it?” asked Decker.

  Roe rose and got her laptop. After a few minutes on it she glanced up. “Okay, there is a charge here from eBay that matches the amount paid for the money. But I did not purchase it.”

  “So why didn’t you challenge the amount?”

  “I don’t go over all my charges line by line. If it’s over a certain amount the bank contacts me. This purchase wasn’t even close to that. Less than fifty dollars.”

  “The PO box is in Naples.”

  “Like I said, I have no PO box. And even if I did, why would I have it in Naples?”

  “Then somebody stole your credit card information, bought the currency, and had it shipped in your name to the PO box. Why go to all that trouble?” White wanted to know.

  “To frame me for two murders, apparently,” said Roe.

  “Interesting, since we’ve already made an arrest and the gun used for the killings has been tied to that person.”

  “I don’t profess to understand it.”

  “If you’re telling the truth, it seems like someone is trying to punish you, Kasimira,” noted Decker.

  She shook her head. “I can’t imagine what I’ve done to elicit that sort of hatred.”

  “I don’t think it’s connected to you. I think it’s connected to your father. And something he might have done.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Decker took a few minutes to tell her about what had happened in Miami back in 1981.

  As he finished, Roe looked devastated by these revelations. “And…and you think my father—”

  “I don’t know how he saw what he did, but he was in that room, helping to put a dead prostitute in a suitcase. The body has never been recovered.”

  “And Senator Tanner?”

  “Was probably very grateful. Which might explain how your father was able to quit the Secret Service and start his security firm. It might also be that as a senator and wealthy, well-connected businessman, Tanner managed to throw a bunch of business your father’s way.”

  “In return for keeping his mouth shut?”

  “I’m not sure I see another reason, unless you do?” said Decker, who was watching the woman closely.

  Roe seemed to hover between screaming or crying, and he was unsure, ultimately, which way it would fall.

  She surprised him by doing neither. She sat up straight and said, “Then why, after all these years, did this happen now? My father presumably kept the confidence.”

  “You told me your father was religious. He obviously raised you the same.”

  “What?”

  Decker pointed to the crucifix over the doorway into the room, and a set of rosaries lying on a credenza next to a bible.

  “Yes. He was a devout Catholic. That’s how I was raised.”

  “And when people are dying, someone like a devout Catholic harboring a guilty secret, what might they do?”

  Roe walked over to the credenza, picked up the rosaries, and began fingering them. “They would confess their sins for absolution of their soul in the eyes of God, so they could be forgiven and go to Heaven.”

  “And if your father went further, and told others who were also involved in that secret that that was his intent? To make his secret public, and not just confess it to a priest in private?”

  Roe walked over and sat back down.

  “So you think those people killed him to prevent him from confessing his guilt, and theirs?”

  “It’s certainly one plausible theory.”

  Finally breaking down, Kasimira Roe put her face in her hands and started to weep.

  Chapter 84

  AFTER THEY LEFT ROE’S CONDO, White received another email.

  “It’s from Deidre Fellows.” She read over it. “She said she believes that the photo I sent of Wanda Monroe is the woman she saw back in 1981.”

  “Okay, so she was a prostitute and she was in Mason Tanner’s hotel suite when she died. We just don’t know how she died.”

  “Fellows didn’t see any blood. But Monroe could have been strangled.”

  They got into the car and drove away.

  “And what about Roe?” asked White.

  “She seemed stunned by her father’s secret.”

  “Nice call on the Catholic piece.”

  “End-of-life guilt can be immense,” noted Decker.

  “You really think Kanak Roe was killed by the people he worked with all those years ago to cover up Tanner’s having a dead prostitute in his bed?”

  “It certainly fits the facts as we know them.”

  “What about Tanner? I know he has Alzheimer’s now, but what about three years ago?”

  “No, he’s been incapacitated for at least the last five years.”

  “So we have to find the guy in the room with Kanak. If he’s still alive. We should get a description from Fellows.”

  “The other thing is, whoever killed Draymont and Lancer might have tried to implicate other people. Barry Davidson, by using his gun, and Kasimira Roe, by buying the Slovakian currency with her credit card.”

  “Well, if they really wanted to implicate someone successfully they should have picked one and stuck with it.”

  “I think I might know one reason why they didn’t.”

  “What?” asked White.

  “Let me think about it some more. But let’s see if we can find that man.”

  * * *

  “You son of a bitch!”

  Decker and White had just walked into the lobby of their hotel when Dennis Langley jumped up from a chair and confronted them.

  “Excuse me?” said Decker.

  “Don’t play bullshit games with me,” said Langley. “I’m going to sue you for theft and defamation and anything else I can think of. Your fat ass is going to jail.”

  “Well, maybe we’ll be cellmates then.”

  Langley looked taken aback by this. “What do you mean? I’ve broken no laws.”

  “Really? So you won’t have a problem with the authorities checking into your business and financial dealings? And I would imagine a full accounting of any funds you hold for clients would probably be a good thing, because a man with a gambling problem doesn’t tend to care where he gets his money from to pay off who he owes. And you have to pay them off, because Vegas casinos can get really nasty if you don’t. I’ll contact the necessary organizations and get that inquiry into your finances rolling.”

  Langley’s hand balled to a fist.

  White stepped between the two men. “Don’t even think about it. Assaulting a Fed gets you a minimum of five years in the pen.”

  “You think you’ve really got me, don’t you?” barked Langley as he looked over White at Decker.

  “I think you really don’t have Gloria Chase and her money anymore and you needed to take it out on somebody and I’m it. But your being here saved me a trip to see you. When your marriage play with Judge Cummins didn’t pan out because she saw right through you, was that motive enough to kill her?”

  “I have an alibi.”

  “Not anymore you don’t. Chase recanted.”

  Langley glanced nervously at White. “I didn’t kill Julia.”

  “I’ve yet to meet a murderer who openly confessed to killing anyone,” replied Decker.

  “Why would I kill her? I had Gloria.”

  “With some people it’s not about money. It’s about ego. How is your ego? Strong enough to handle rejection like that? Or should Chase hire security to protect her now? From you?”

  Langley took a step back. “You’re an asshole.”

  “Well, it usually takes one to know one. And I definitely know you. And if you didn’t kill her, why did you work so hard to have Gloria as an alibi that night? You went to the liquor store, sure, we confirmed that. But where else did you go?”

  Langley turned and stalked out.

  White let out a breath and said, “Okay, I thought I was going to have to pull out my karate again. Though it would have given me great pleasure to put my foot right against that jerk’s square jaw.”

  “He’s a bully. You pop him in the nose, he runs away crying. That’s not really important. What is important is does he have it in him to stab a woman ten times?”

  “And remember the card left behind with that legal phrase. He’s a lawyer. That fits.”

  “But the blindfold with holes? How does that tie into Langley?”

  “I don’t know,” confessed White.

  “Neither do I. But that may be because he didn’t do it.”

  “Then there must be someone else out there that we’re not aware of yet, Decker.”

  “Maybe we are aware of them.”

  Chapter 85

  LATER THAT NIGHT WHITE KNOCKED on Decker’s door. He let her in and they sat across from each other.

  “Andrews left the hospital today. He’s starting rehab.”

  “Good. Hope it goes well.”

  “And I got a call back from DC. No one matching the description that I got from Deidre Fellows worked at Senator Tanner’s office or on his campaign.”

  “At least that anyone can remember.”

  “Right. But we end up in the same place—nowhere,” said White.

  “If he wasn’t working on the campaign, what was he doing in Tanner’s room cleaning up that mess?”

  “A good Samaritan passing by would not have stuffed a woman into a suitcase. They would have called the police. Same for someone working at the hotel.”

  Decker said, “There’s something we haven’t thought about yet. Why would Tanner, on the very night of his big fund-raiser with the president, and all those Secret Service agents around the hotel, have invited a prostitute up to his room? Why take that chance? He could have done it another night, or at some hideaway of his. The guy was rich.”

  “You’re right—it doesn’t make sense.”

  Decker pulled out his phone and made a call. “Ms. Fellows, Amos Decker. Thanks for getting back to us on that photo, but I have another question to ask you, and some new information to share. Please don’t take it the wrong way, because it might be shocking to you…Okay, all right…Thanks. We found out that the woman you saw in your father’s hotel room that night might well have been a prostitute. Her body was never found. Now, I know you were just a teenager back then, but was that something you could see your father doing? Hiring a prostitute?”

  Decker listened for quite a while before saying, “Well, thank you for being so candid. We’ll let you know what we find.” He clicked off and looked at White.

  “Well?” she said.

  “She said she wasn’t aware at the time of her father’s sexual endeavors. But she said as she got older she discovered that her father had a wandering eye as a younger man, though he and his wife apparently worked through those issues, at least according to Deidre. And they did stay married all these years.”

  “So that was why Wanda Monroe was in his bed?”

  “Not necessarily. She still might have been placed there.”

  “But you just said the man had a wandering eye?” she pointed out.

  “Even if he did, like we just discussed, would he risk having a prostitute in his bed on the night of his big event with Reagan, and while Secret Service agents and media people are swarming all over the place? That’s just too risky.”

  “So they knew he was promiscuous and they set him up.”

  “Tanner was running to be a U.S. senator. That’s a useful position if you want to blackmail someone.” He took out his phone and performed a search. “Mason Tanner was a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee and ended up chairing it for four years.”

  “Meaning he would be privy to national security intelligence,” said White.

  “Right. And back in Miami he ends up with a dead woman, possibly a prostitute, in bed. Then this man shows up to take care of things. And then Kanak Roe appears and together they get rid of the body.”

  “So they were setting up Tanner for blackmail, and Roe shows up by chance and they enlist him to help? Why not just kill Roe? How could they be sure he wouldn’t pull his gun and arrest them all? I mean, I know we went over this before, but that’s what I would have done. It’s what you would have done.”

  “The Secret Service is a little different. Reagan was Kanak Roe’s boss, the most powerful man in the world. The repercussions if the truth came out might have been really bad. Better to bury it than have it become a national scandal. And Roe probably only had seconds to make a decision. And keep in mind that he might not have known that anyone had set up Tanner or was planning to blackmail him over this. He might have only been told that the woman had died by natural causes and they just needed to get her out of there to save Tanner’s reputation and chance at winning his election. She had no obvious wounds, so he might have believed that she had a heart attack or maybe overdosed. And they might have made him an offer of payment, or he might have come back later with that sort of demand. Since he might have wanted to confess decades later, my thinking is he decided to demand payment for his silence. Tanner had enough money to pay him off. And that’s also why they didn’t just kill Roe. Maybe you could make a prostitute disappear without consequences, but you can’t do the same with a Secret Service agent. There would have been a scorched-earth investigation and they couldn’t chance that. So they paid him off.”

  White shook her head. “God, dirty all around. And Lancer and Draymont?”

  “They were already in the blackmail business. I think they stumbled onto all this, or maybe something else just as incriminating, and believed it could be a big payoff for them.”

  “So you think the fix-it guy in Tanner’s hotel room is down here now?” asked White. “And they tried to blackmail him?”

  “I do. Only this guy decides to bite back. Hard. He kills Draymont. And then snatches Lancer from the hospital, and kills her after getting whatever information they could out of her.”

  “But why the Slovakian money?”

  “Whoever is behind this might have seen it as Kanak Roe’s having taken the money years ago to build his empire, then deciding to rat them out. They would not have been happy about that. And that’s why they killed him.”

  “Okay. But trying to implicate Kasimira?”

  Decker said, “If she goes down for murder, what happens to Gamma Protection Services?”

  “It would probably go down the tubes. And you still think the murder of Julia Cummins is unconnected to all this?” she asked.

  “I do.”

  “Damn, Decker, this is getting to be the messiest case I’ve ever been involved in.”

  Decker didn’t respond to this. He was thinking something else entirely.

  Maybe in some ways, it’s finally beginning to clear.

  His phone buzzed. Decker listened, mumbled a few words in response, and then clicked off.

  “That was the U.S. attorney. They let Barry Davidson go.”

  “What? Why?”

  “A neighbor on the floor just below him was out on his balcony that night. He came forward to make a sworn statement that he heard Barry in his office—I guess the doors were open—from around eleven thirty until around three.”

  “Why was the guy up that late and why didn’t he come forward before?”