The Advocate's Daughter (25 page)

He slid into the coat closet again, pulled the door closed leaving a crack, and held his breath. The condo door opened, then shut, and someone shuffled about. Sweat poured from Sean's forehead, dripping into his eyes. He put a hand on his leg to prevent it from jack-hammering.

From the crack in the door he watched as the person paced into the living room. The man's back was turned, but he was dressed in a suit, not Finkle's ball cap and jeans.

Emily's voice pierced the silence: “Sean … are you there?… Sean?” Her voice reverberated through the stillness, but the man didn't seem to hear it. Sean disconnected the line with a click of his thumb. He risked another peek. The man turned toward the closet and threw his suit jacket across the leather couch. Sean got a clear view of him.

Senator Mason James.

The senator went to a drink cart that was filled with thin bottles and shiny metallic bartender tools. He poured himself two fingers. Sean heard the door open again. Someone else was in the condo, but the visitor was out of his line of sight.

Senator James looked toward the door. “Hey there.”

“Hey. You got in okay without anyone seeing you?”

“No problems,” the senator said. “Ditched the security guys and came into the building from the back entrance.”

Sebastian Finkle walked into Sean's field of vision from the crack in the closet door.

“How'd it go today?” the senator asked.

“Not bad. Got the final package delivered.”

“You were careful?”

“Of course. The staff still thinks I'm visiting with my father at the nursing home in the afternoons, so no one has seemed to miss me. Airtight alibi for visiting hours.”

That explained Finkle's routine of leaving the office every day at the same time.

James continued. “No violence this time, I trust? We can't have another—”

“Don't worry,” Finkle said, “nothing happened.”

“And Justice Carr?”

“You were right. He actually showed up. He was
pissed.
Said I could go fuck myself.”

Senator James smirked. “He'll come around. They always do. But if not, we don't really need him.”

“Yeah, I wondered about that. The others I can understand, but not sure how Carr can help with your nomination.”

“It always helps to have support from someone inside the building,” the senator said. He took a pull from his drink and studied the glass. “But with Carr, I'm really thinking more of the long game. I wanted to send a message that, when I am confirmed and we're on the bench together, he'll be my bitch.”

Finkle let out a dry laugh and clinked glasses with James.

And then something unexpected happened. Senator James and Finkle kissed passionately.

 

CHAPTER 67

In the smothering air of the closet, Sean's mind raced. Senator Mason James was gay. Married to a woman and gay. The cheating alone could derail his nomination to the Supreme Court. Sean watched as James and Finkle began to undress one another.

Sean realized that a photo of James and Finkle could be valuable. He could make a trade—evidence of the senator's affair for the evidence against Ryan. A secret for a secret. Sean slowly raised his phone and toggled his thumb to the camera app. Was he really going to stoop to this? In the cramped closet it was hard to position the phone to get a visible shot of the men who were now breathing loudly and clawing at one another on the couch. Sean held in a breath and tapped a button on the phone. He hadn't expected the flash or the loud click.

Finkle's head snapped up. His eyes widened, and he pounced over the couch toward the closet. Sean burst out and scrambled for the door.

“Stop!”
Finkle yelled as Sean darted out of the condo.

Without looking back, Sean ran with everything he had down the hallway. He thumbed the elevator button rapid-fire. He twisted around and saw Finkle, shirtless, muscles pulsing, bearing down.

Sean sprinted to the emergency stairway and ran full-throttle, skipping steps. He heard the screech of sneakers racing after him echoing above. He stumbled, nearly nose-diving down the concrete stairwell. If Finkle didn't kill him, the fall damn well might. On the ground floor, Sean stole a quick look up the stairwell. He and Finkle locked eyes. Sean pushed through the emergency door and ran through the lobby and outside. He saw Emily standing across the street and he caught her eye. He shook his head and mouthed
Go.
He then raced in the other direction.

 

CHAPTER 68

Sean had eluded Finkle, assuming the man had even followed him out of the building. He called Emily and they met up at the Friendship Heights Metro station where they caught a cab home.

Ryan was waiting for them at the door. He was pacing about the entryway. “I found them. I found everything you needed.” He held a messy stack of papers in his hand.

Sean squeezed him on the shoulder. “Nice work.” Sean tried to sound enthusiastic, but he was coming down from the adrenaline rush fueled by his turn as a breaking-and-entering artist and voyeur. His quest to secure hard evidence against the senator had failed. The image he'd snapped was of two blurry masses. On the bright side, James didn't know that. And, photo or not, Sean knew James's secret.

It was good to have some possible leverage against Senator James, but beyond that Sean and Emily weren't sure what this meant about Abby's death. Until then, Emily's working theory had been that James raped and murdered Natalie Carlisle, John Chadwick had taken the fall, and Abby was a threat to James because she could expose the truth. They had no evidence that James or Finkle had killed Abby, but that day in the hideaway office James had confirmed that they'd at least been following Abby and had warned her to back off. And there were those missing girls from James's past. But his relationship with Sebastian Finkle changed everything.

Sean thought of his meeting with John Chadwick at the prison. The man was certain that the senator had nothing to do with Natalie's death.
Trust me, Mason James is the last person in the world who'd rape and kill Natalie.
Did Chadwick know James was gay? Chadwick wasn't smirking when he'd said it, but looking back, there was a wink to his tone. Was that all this was about—James trying to hide his sexual orientation? Was that why he'd had Finkle follow and then threaten Abby? Was that why he'd been following Sean the night Brice died?

Ryan flattened a sheet of paper on the kitchen counter. Sean couldn't make the kid wait any longer. “So what'd you find?”

Ryan displayed a handwritten list. “These are the owners of the houses for the addresses you gave me.” There were two names written in Ryan's messy scrawl. “And here's the owner of the Range Rover. That took longer to find.”

Sean read the names. They were familiar, but he couldn't quite place them. Emily looked at them and her brow furrowed.

Then Ryan revealed another sheet of paper from behind his back. His eyes glimmered with pride. “And here's how they're all connected.”

He handed Sean a printout from a website. The header read
UNITED STATES SENATE COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
—the committee that voted on Supreme Court nominees. Under the header was a list of names, the eighteen members of the committee. Three names were highlighted in yellow marker. Sebastian Finkle had delivered the envelopes to members of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Ryan smoothed out another sheet of paper on the counter. A news story with the headline
THE FOUR HORSEMEN: THE BIPARTISAN OPPOSITION TO THE NOMINATION OF MASON JAMES.

“I ran a search of all their names together and found this story. These three and one other senator announced that they would likely vote against Senator James's nomination to the Supreme Court.”

“Great work, buddy,” Sean said.

“What's it all mean?” Ryan asked.

That was a good question. It was evident that James was blackmailing the hostile senators on the Judiciary Committee to prevent them from voting against his nomination. And he obviously had something on Justice Carr, whom he appeared to be blackmailing into supporting the nomination.

But all Sean worried about was what it meant for Ryan. What could Sean and Emily do with this information?

The answer came in the form of an e-mail delivered to Sean just before midnight. The e-mail did not show the name of the sender, and it deleted itself from the computer two minutes after Sean had opened it.

Mutual assured destruction.

 

CHAPTER 69

A week after the break-in at Sebastian Finkle's condo, Sean sat in a conference room in the U.S. Attorney's Office. On the battle-worn table—marred by scratches and stains from years of trial preparation—was a stack of legal pads and a pencil holder filled with sharp no. 2s. The walls, tired and off-white, were bare except for the Justice Department seal, an eagle clutching a quiver of arrows in its claws. Under the bird, a motto written in Latin. Abby could read Latin, but not Sean. He couldn't escape the constant reminders of her that were everywhere.

A black woman, short with thin eyebrows, strode into the room. Behind her, an older man, hound-dog face and thinning hair, and two wide-eyed women in their twenties.

“Sean, so glad you could make it,” said Patti Fallon, the lead prosecutor.

After introductions to her team and small talk, Fallon said, “The hearing tomorrow should be pretty short.” She was sitting next to Sean, her hands folded on the table. “You probably already know all this, but just so everyone is on the same page, I thought I'd walk you through what will happen.”

Sean nodded.

“Malik Montgomery has moved to suppress evidence concerning your visit to his home that night. He's trying to get the court to exclude from the trial that your daughter's phone was hidden in his house. Most important for our purposes, he says that since that search was illegal, everything else that followed should be excluded from evidence.”

“Fruit of the poisonous tree?” Sean asked. That was first-year law student territory.

“That's right. So, he's not just trying to exclude Abby's phone, but everything he said to you and Deputy Director Pacini—
and
the surveillance video at the Supreme Court. He argues all of it should be thrown out.”

“You can't be serious?” Sean said. “I searched the house, not Frank, and I'm not with the government so what's his basis for exclusion? The Fourth Amendment doesn't apply to searches by private parties. Also, as for Malik's statements, Frank Mirandized him before he talked to us, so those can't possibly be thrown out, can they?”

Fallon gave a satisfied smile. “I'm glad to hear you say all that. Those will be my key arguments. The problem is that it was an unusual situation. Frank was there that night as a friend, but he's still an FBI official. The line between friend and government agent also got a little blurry as the night went on. Blake Hellstrom will argue that Frank's presence alone rendered the whole thing a government search. So the critical question could become consent: whether Malik Montgomery consented to the search. If he consented, it doesn't matter if it was a government or private search.”

Sean said, “This shouldn't be a problem. It's hazy, but I remember Malik saying he wanted to help and he let us in. He consented.”

Fallon smiled again and scribbled something on a legal pad. She explained that the hearing shouldn't last more than an hour or two. She would call Frank Pacini and Sean as her only witnesses. She wasn't sure who Blake Hellstrom would call as witnesses—the judge didn't require each side to exchange witness lists for hearings on pretrial motions.

“He wouldn't call Malik as a witness, would he?” Sean asked.

“He might.”

“Isn't that risky? Aren't criminal lawyers usually loath to put their clients on the stand?”

“Suppression hearings are different, so Hellstrom may take the risk. The law in D.C. is good for him on that. Nothing Malik says at a suppression hearing can be used against him at the trial. Also, Judge Chin will keep me on a short leash on cross. She won't let me get anywhere near the merits of the case or allow me to try to pin him down on the facts.”

Sean took a deep breath. “Look, the evidence should stay in, but I need to ask you something.”

Fallon lifted her gaze from the legal pad.

“Are you sure Malik Montgomery killed my daughter?” Sean asked. “I mean
really
sure?”

Fallon's eyes flashed. She put down her pen. “I wouldn't be prosecuting him if I didn't believe he did it, Sean. I don't understand the—”

“Have you looked at other suspects?”

“I believe the agents looked at all angles, yes.”

“You
believe.
”

At this, Fallon exhaled heavily. Her colleague picked imaginary lint from his shirt. A moment passed and Fallon said, “Malik Montgomery was the last person seen with your daughter alive. She broke up with him and witnesses saw them arguing right before she was murdered. Her telephone was found in his home. He lied about being at the court that night. And he had access to erase the court's surveillance recordings.”

“But there's no physical evidence,” Sean said. “And no witnesses.”

Fallon took a sip of her Diet Coke. She considered her words. “It's rare that a prosecution has everything. You know that it's not like television, and, without a confession, most murderers would walk. Here we have a sophisticated perp who won't confess, so we have to go where the evidence leads. And it leads only one place: Malik Montgomery.”

“Like I said on our call, it just doesn't make sense how someone so smart would be dumb enough to leave Abby's phone at his house and turned on so it could be traced. Or how he would erase the video
except
for parts incriminating himself.”