When No One Is Watching (26 page)

“So Blair wasn’t driving?”

“Hell, no! Whoever is telling that story is crazy. Moran confessed, for Chrissakes!”

“So why didn’t you tell me all of this before?” Bobby asked, his voice still harsh.

“We thought it was a nonissue,” Sam replied. “It happened ten years ago. No one pointed any fingers at Blair then, so it just didn’t seem to matter,” said Sam, his tone almost apologetic.

“Well, Henry Hamilton is going to try to convince the world that it does matter. And they claim to have evidence putting Blair at the scene.”

“Evidence?” Sam sounded puzzled. “What evidence could they possibly have?”

“For starters, they claim to have a recording of the 911 call you just mentioned.”

“Son of a bitch! What else?”

“There’s a police report showing that blood was found in Moran’s car—blood that matches Blair’s blood type and not Moran’s. They also claim there was a witness, the daughter of the driver who was killed.”

“Does Hamilton’s team have this evidence?”

“Not yet. It sounds like their source doesn’t have it yet either. He’s a former cop who’s been in Vegas for the past ten years. He claims that he left the evidence with somebody inside the Chicago Police Department for safekeeping. He’s on his way to get it.”

Sam rubbed his big right hand vigorously over his face, up and down. “Look, Bobby, if they don’t have this evidence, then all they have is the word of some crazy ex-cop who’s just trying to get some attention, right? Like I said, Moran confessed.”

Both men were in action mode now, past their anger, trying to formulate a plan. Bobby paced across the room, hands behind his back. “I know somebody who’s got some contacts with the Chicago PD. They might be able to take a look at that evidence to see what’s really there. With a little luck, it just may happen to get lost.”

“Let me handle it, Bobby,” Sam insisted. “It’s my town, and I can assure you, I’ve got the right connections. I shut this down the first time, and I can do it again!”

Bobby eyed Sam skeptically. “Okay, but listen to me, Sam. Don’t do anything stupid, got it? We can’t risk drawing attention to this. If we can’t make this go away quietly, we’ll just need to be prepared to respond when Hamilton attacks. We’ll point out that this is ten years old, the driver confessed, and it’s just a desperate attempt to smear a good man’s name, based on a wild, uncorroborated story from an attentionseeking, has-been cop.”

“I’ll take care of it,” Sam said resolutely.

“Who else knows about this little incident, Sam?” Bobby asked, looking worried.

“Nobody except me, Blair. and Kimberly.”

“Is there anything else you haven’t told me, Sam?”

Sam glared again. “No, Bobby. There’s nothing else.”

“I need to have a serious talk with Blair,” Bobby said. “But if it looks like this may blow over, I’ll wait a few days. We can’t have him rattled going into the convention. He needs to be focused and at his best.”

Kimberly Van Howe looked at herself in the bedroom mirror in her upscale Georgetown townhouse. She’d been trying on various outfits that she was considering for the convention. She smiled smugly at herself in the mirror, knowing full well that she looked great in all of them. Her phone rang, and she ignored it until the answering machine clicked on and she heard her father’s voice. “Kimberly, pick up the phone. It’s important!”

“Hi, Daddy,” she said sweetly. “I was in the shower. What’s up?”

“I need to talk to Blair right away. Is he there?”

“No, he just left. He’s having lunch with Senator Couch.”

“See if you can get him on the phone, okay? I need him right now!”

“What is it, Daddy? Something’s wrong—tell me.”

Sam hesitated, then told his daughter about the conversation he’d just finished with Bobby Rosensteel.

“Oh, my God, not now! How can this be happening?” she stammered through tears of rage and frustration.

“Kimberly, I’m dealing with it, but I need Blair now. Find him!”

Within ten minutes, Blair Van Howe called his father-in-law in his San Diego hotel room and listened as Sam recounted the story he had just heard from Bobby Rosensteel.

“Blair, I’m telling you this because I didn’t want you to get blindsided when Bobby confronts you. But for now, you need to forget about it and focus on the convention. Bobby and I have some ideas for handling this. Leave it in our hands. You just focus on the convention, and we’ll deal with this when it’s over.” There was an urgency and forcefulness in Sam’s voice.

“How can I forget about it, Sam? This could be an absolute disaster! What does Bobby say?”

“He didn’t even want you to know yet because he wants you focused on the convention, which is precisely what you need to be doing. But remember, when you do talk to him, your story is that you just left the scene—you weren’t driving. That’s what I told him, and no one can ever prove any different.”

“I don’t know about this, Sam,” Blair said doubtfully. “Bobby is my campaign manager. I have to trust him. Maybe we should tell him everything.”

“Not a chance!” Sam said emphatically. “He might resign, then there’d be all kinds of questions and rumors and innuendo, even if he kept his mouth shut. We need to stick to our story, Blair. There’s a big difference between leaving the scene of an accident when you can’t do anything to help compared with driving the car and … what actually happened. Anyway, the situation is contained. I just wanted to be sure you knew what I told Bobby.”

“One more question,” Blair asked, sounding dazed and despondent. “How do we know what Hamilton’s got?”

“Bobby’s got a source in Hamilton’s inner circle.”

“My God, Sam, what kind of people are we dealing with?”

Slazak knew that if Nolan came through with his evidence, he would have a pretty compelling case. However, it would be far more compelling if Ashley McGrath supported his story. There was nothing like an eyewitness to move a case from the realm of conjecture and possibility to the realm of certainty. He had told Freddy Salazar that his eyewitness could put Blair Van Howe at the scene of the accident. He needed to tell Salazar that to be sure that he got his attention. Now he had to find her and determine what kind of witness she would really make.

During their only other encounter, Ashley had been adamant that there was a man at the scene before the police arrived. She had been convincing, too. Ten years ago, Slazak had intended to follow up with Ashley to show her pictures of Van Howe and ask whether he was that man, but he never got that opportunity. That was a long time ago, and it was entirely possible that Ashley wouldn’t remember now. Also, she clearly had some type of mental disability and was probably in shock following the accident. Van Howe’s people would surely raise all of those points if Ashley came forward as a witness. But Slazak didn’t need to prove his theory in a court of law. He just needed to raise serious questions, and the media would do the rest. There was plenty of solid circumstantial evidence, even if he couldn’t find Ashley or her memory had faded, but having her as an actual eyewitness would be powerful.

Slazak had been unable to find a telephone number for Nancy McGrath, which didn’t surprise him. He realized that there was a good chance she had remarried and changed her name. He drove his rented Ford to the North Beverly home where the McGraths had lived at the time of the accident. The young woman who answered the door didn’t know the McGraths or their present whereabouts. She explained that she had purchased the house four years ago from another family, so the McGraths must have moved well before that. She suggested that Slazak visit Mr. or Mrs. Patton across the street, who had lived there for over twenty years and were very active in neighborhood affairs.

As Slazak walked across the street, Mrs. Patton emerged from her house with her cocker spaniel on a leash. She had been friendly and happy to share what she knew about the McGraths, although her cheery disposition darkened as she told her story. Nancy McGrath had married within a year of Terry’s death and had been divorced at least twice that she knew of. The boy, Tommy, had turned into a bad sort, into drugs and alcohol from an early age. As for the little girl, Nancy McGrath couldn’t manage to keep her own life together, so she had Ashley moved to an institution for children with special needs. She thought it was somewhere in the south suburbs.

Armed with that information, and with some help from the Internet and the Beverly Library, Slazak made several phone calls and confirmed that the home in question was called Concordia, and that Ashley McGrath was indeed a resident. It was located in Blue Island, just a few miles south of Beverly. Thirty minutes later, Slazak drove through the front gate and pulled into the visitors’ parking lot, in front of a large, red brick building.

Slazak walked through the glass doors and found himself in a spacious entryway with portraits of priests and nuns hanging on the walls. To his left was an office, identified by a sign that read “Administration.” He walked into the office to find two women seated at side-by-side desks, conversing in quiet tones as they busied themselves with some sort of paperwork.

“Good afternoon,” Slazak greeted them in the most pleasant voice he could muster. “I was hoping you might be able to help me. I’m looking for a young lady by the name of Ashley McGrath.”

“Hello, I’m Sister Therese,” said the older of the two, standing and shaking his hand. She was a pleasant-looking woman wearing no makeup, who appeared to be in her early sixties. “Are you a relative of Ashley’s?”

“No, Sister, actually I’m a police officer, and I just need to ask her a few questions. It shouldn’t take more than ten minutes.” He pulled out his badge and his ten-year-old ID card that he’d never relinquished.

“Is there a problem, Officer?” Sister Therese asked, a concerned look crossing her face.

“No, nothing to worry about, Sister,” Slazak assured her, trying his best to sound nonchalant and put her at ease. “She was a witness to an incident that happened a long time ago. I interviewed her then, and I just need to confirm a few things. You know how the legal system is,” he said with a smile and a shrug. “Sometimes it takes years before a case finally works its way through the system.”

“I understand, Officer,” the nun replied. “Kara, would you take this gentleman out to the grounds and find Ashley for him? I imagine she’s at the track.”

“I’d be happy to,” replied Sister Therese’s office mate, a fresh-faced girl in her late teens with flaming red hair. “Right this way, Officer.”

The campus included an array of similar-looking red brick buildings, old but well maintained, surrounded by spacious, well-manicured grounds. Kara explained that the larger buildings were residence halls that provide living quarters for over five hundred residents of all ages with a variety of special needs. There were also classrooms, a cafeteria, a bakery, a library, and a gymnasium. A beautifully landscaped path wound through the campus toward a large athletic complex, which included a soccer field, a swimming pool, a baseball diamond, outdoor basketball courts, and a running track. Teenagers and young adults in powder-blue T-shirts were everywhere.

“There’s a lot of excitement around here today, Officer,” Kara said. “The Windy City Olympiad starts tomorrow—it’s an Olympic-style competition for special needs kids from all over the tri-state area. Quite a few of our residents are participating.”

Slazak stared in amazement at the hordes of young athletes scattered around the area. Several dozen kids were engaged in drills at various stations around the soccer field. A field hockey match was in full swing on the basketball court. The track was crowded with runners of all types: sprinters racing against a stopwatch, long-distance runners tirelessly circling the track, and others jumping hurdles.

“Wow, do all these kids live here?” Slazak asked.

“No, not all of them. A lot of them do, but others come from all over the area because we have the best athletic facilities around. This event is really a big deal for these kids.”

They reached the track. “That’s Ashley there,” Kara said, pointing to a short, stocky girl running past them with a determined look on her round face. “She runs several of the long-distance races—the four-hundred-meter and sixteenhundred-meter, I think.”

Slazak watched the little figure as she rounded the track. Her form was odd, as if she were running with baby steps, but she moved pretty fast. She completed her lap, then walked toward the bleachers, limping slightly, and took a long gulp from a plastic water bottle, spilling most of it on her shirt.

“You were flying, Ashley!” Kara called out enthusiastically as they approached the little runner. “You’re going to bring back that gold medal, I just know it!”

Ashley gave her a wide, open-mouthed grin. “Hi, Kara-Bara,” she said in a low voice, wrapping Kara in a sweaty embrace.

“Ashley, this is a police officer. His name is Detective Slazak. He’d like to talk to you for a few minutes, okay?”

“Okay,” she said, still smiling.

Slazak looked around for a place they could talk privately, yet still be out in the open, so Ashley wouldn’t feel threatened. “Let’s sit over there in the bleachers, okay, Ashley?” Slazak suggested.

“Okay.”

A few athletes and spectators sat in the lower rows of the bleachers facing the track, so they climbed past them and sat together in the top row.

“We met once before, Ashley, a long time ago,” Slazak said gently. “You probably don’t remember.”

“I remember,” she said matter-of-factly.

Slazak stared at her, unsure whether she did or not. “Then you have a very good memory.” He smiled at her. She smiled back, obviously proud of herself.

“That’s Ricky,” Ashley said, pointing to another young runner sprinting past them. “He’s fast.”

“He certainly is,” Slazak replied. “But I bet he’s not as fast as you,” he added, smiling at the young girl. “I’d like to ask you a couple of questions, Ashley.” He pulled out a wrinkled envelope and extracted two pictures. He showed her the first one, a photograph of Blair Van Howe taken from one of his presidential campaign posters. “Have you ever seen this man before?”