Discretion (30 page)

“No note?” Sam asked.

“I’m thinking that press conference yesterday was her note. She didn’t want to turn over her records, but she wasn’t going to jail.”

“Was there a box for the gun or a box of ammunition?”

“Hm. Not that we’ve found.”

“Any sign of the agency’s records here in the house?”

McGee shook his head.

“Check the garbage, look for a shredder, ashes in the fireplace, something like that,” Sam suggested. “And don’t let the cleaning lady leave before I speak to her. I’m gonna look around.”

“Suit yourself,” McGee said. “But my men have been through the house. There’s nothing in it.”

That itself was suspicious. Madeleine was dead, her books detailing the workings of her escort agency gone. Dozens, perhaps hundreds, of D.C.’s most powerful men had a motive to kill her.

Sam walked through the house slowly, like a real estate agent making an appraisal. It was the home of a woman who liked beautiful things. The decor was coordinated throughout in shades of raspberry, cream, and chocolate. Antique furniture filled the rooms except the kitchen, which had the stainless-steel appliances and granite countertops necessary in any pricey renovation of a historic home. Sketchings and floral artwork covered the walls.

Upstairs was more of the same. A tech was dusting the hallway for prints, but otherwise, it was deserted. Madeleine’s large master bedroom was at the back of the house. A raspberry and gold comforter covered the neatly made bed. Raspberry curtains were held back with gold tassels. The white linen suit that Madeleine had worn to court yesterday was draped over a brown velvet chair. On a dresser was a photograph of Madeleine with a gray-haired man. A boyfriend or family member? Samantha took the photograph.

She headed to the master bathroom, the repository of secrets in any woman’s home. Madeleine’s big bathroom was larger than the bedroom Sam had as a kid. Marble countertops and bath, ornate gold mirror. Counter covered with expensive lotions and serums with words like “anti-aging” and “rejuvenating.” Sam could relate. She shook off the urge to try the creams. She snapped on a pair of latex gloves and opened the drawers in the vanity: a floral case with high-end makeup, a hair dryer that looked like it could take out a SWAT team, a variety of brushes and curlers.

Sam felt empathy for the woman who’d died alone in her house.
In many ways, they were alike. Samantha was thirty-four, single, and very aware of her ticking biological clock. If she died tomorrow, she would leave behind a similar collection of lotions and hair products in an empty house.

In the cabinet under the bathroom sink was a curious item. Next to household cleaners and hand-soap refills was a large safe bolted to the floor. The door to the safe was cracked. Samantha pulled it completely open. The black felt-lined interior was empty.

Sam went downstairs to find McGee. An officer pointed her through the door at the back of the kitchen. McGee was surveying the fence in the small backyard. It was made of thick wooden slats and was over eight feet high.

“No climbing over that without a ladder,” Sam said.

McGee turned to her. “Yeah. And the back door was locked with dead bolt and chain. Windows latched. Front door locked.”

“Just the lock in the door handle? Or also the chain and the dead bolt?”

“Just the door handle, so the cleaning lady could get in with her key.”

“Someone could lock that from the inside, go out, and close the door behind them.”

“True.”

“Background check on the maid?”

“Clean.”

Samantha handed McGee the photograph of Madeleine with the gray-haired man. “We can ask if she knows this guy. Neighbors hear anything, see anything, last night?”

“Nothing yet. And no papers in the garbage, no ashes, no shreddings, no books.”

That comment triggered a flash of recognition. “Come with me,” Samantha said, heading back into the house.

In the sitting room, a tech was shooting photographs of the madam at her desk. Samantha leaned over the corpse to turn on the blood-spattered lamp.

“That’s not how she was found,” the photographer protested. “Don’t touch anything!”

Sam peered closely at the corner of the desk where it touched the wall. “Look at this,” she said to McGee.

McGee squinted at the desk. It was hard to catch, because the desk was a dark brown and the walls raspberry. The blood spatter covered the dark pink wall in a typical pattern, denser by the bullet, with the flecks more spaced out toward the edges—except for a small spot on the wall near the desk. There was a clean patch, rectangular and a few inches square, in the area where the spatter started to peter out. Samantha pointed to the antique desk. There, too, was a clean patch.

“Something was on this table when that bullet went through her skull,” Sam said.

“Oh, shit.”

“I doubt it.”

“Very funny.” McGee frowned. He preferred to be the one making the jokes—and the evidentiary discoveries. “What, then?”

“Based on the size and shape”—Sam pointed at the straight edge that delineated the stain on the desk—“I’d guess a small notebook or something like that.”

McGee whistled through the gap in his teeth. Then he called to one of his technicians. “Bag her hands,” he directed, pointing to the corpse. “Let’s see if there’s any gunshot residue.”

35

A
nna managed to keep it together as she walked from Carla’s office. As a prosecutor, she was used to things breaking badly. It wasn’t unusual to be yelled at by unsympathetic judges or cursed at by hostile family members of the defendant. The ability not to cry in public was a key skill learned early on. She kept a pleasant face as she greeted people in the hallway. Until she got to her own office, shut the door, and sat down at her desk.

Then she let her face crumple, as it had been threatening to do since she stood in front of the Main Justice Building. She cried for the woman who had been in her office a day ago and now was dead; for the end of her relationship with Jack, which, despite its complications, had brought her much happiness; and for the fact that Caroline’s killer was still out there somewhere. She cried until she ran out of tissues, then jotted a note to buy another box, and cried a little more.

She thought about calling her sister, Jody, for advice. But she wasn’t ready to admit to Jody that her relationship—and her case—were failures. She knew what Jody would do in this situation: wipe her face and get back to work.

Anna took a deep breath, found a Starbucks napkin in her drawer, and wiped her cheeks. She took out a compact of powder and dabbed at her splotchy face. Her blue eyes were rimmed with red, but that would pass in a few minutes. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and decided she looked respectable enough for anyone who might come into her office. She snapped the compact shut, then swiveled her chair so she was looking out the window at the homeless shelter and the Capitol behind it.

Jack wasn’t on the case anymore. But she’d been around him long enough that she should be able to guess his strategy. What would he do?

She considered the facts—and the numbers. In four days, two
women from Discretion had been killed. She didn’t think Madeleine’s death was a suicide. Whoever had killed Caroline might be covering his tracks. She had to consider the real possibility that more Discretion women might be targeted.

The killer had known where Madeleine lived, and he might know how to find the other escorts. How could Anna find them? All she knew about the other escorts was their working names from Trick-Adviser.

The madam’s lawyer might know more. Anna called Jane Thomasson. She offered her condolences, which Thomasson accepted graciously.

Anna asked, “Did Madeleine say anything about suicide yesterday?”

“No. She knew this was the end of Discretion, and she was mourning that. But overall, she was optimistic. We talked about the fact that it might be the start of something better. She mentioned the Mayflower Madam, book deals, movie rights, even joked that she wanted a spot on
Dancing with the Stars.
”

That sounded more like the reaction Anna had expected from the madam. “Do you know whether she had plans to meet anyone last night?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Do you happen to have Madeleine’s records or a copy of them?”

“No. They should be in her home. We were going to go over them this morning before the hearing.”

“What about the other escorts who worked for her? Do you know their names or have any idea how I can get in touch with them?”

“No, I’m sorry. She deliberately kept their identities secret.”

Anna thanked the attorney, and they hung up.

Where else could she find out information about the other escorts? She needed an unrestricted computer. She considered going to the war room but didn’t want to run into Jack and risk continuing their fight. Instead, she went down to the library and logged on to TrickAdviser. She called up the profile of every escort who worked for Discretion and printed out their screen pages. But there was no way to contact them. Their profiles didn’t include photos. Without
Madeleine or her books, Anna had no idea who these escort avatars really were, where they lived, or what their phone numbers were.

She brought the printouts to her office and studied them, hoping to find some pattern or clue. Nothing popped out immediately, but she was glad, at least, to lose herself in work for a bit.

An hour later, Samantha was in Anna’s office with a box of items seized from Madeleine’s house. She confirmed what Anna had suspected.

“The Medical Examiner found no gunshot residue on her hands,” Sam said. “Which means she wasn’t holding the gun when it fired.”

“Someone else shot her,” Anna murmured. She needed a moment to process the information, but Sam had already digested it. She barreled ahead.

“She had two cell phones. This one looks to be personal.” Sam pulled up a dual-screen Android phone from the box. “But this one is a burner.” She handed Anna a basic LG cell phone. “Pay as you go, no subscriber information. And it’s the same number that was on the back of the card we took from the concierge.”

“If I subpoena the records, can you have your analysts schedule out the call records from these phones? Maybe we can figure out who the johns or escorts are that way.”

“Sure, they can try. It might take a while. I spun through the call logs and contact lists on both cell phones. There’s one number that appears in them both, listed as Morris. And it was the last number she called last night. Might be a boyfriend.”

Anna dialed the number on speakerphone, so Samantha could hear. It went to voice mail. A man’s deep voice said, “You’ve reached Morris Peal at Dewey and Simon . . .”

Anna knew the law firm of Dewey & Simon. She’d interviewed there during her last year of law school before landing her dream job with the U.S. Attorney’s Office. The firm had two hundred lawyers in D.C., over a thousand worldwide, and offices across the globe.

“Should we leave him a message?” Anna said.

Sam shook her head. “I think I’ll pay Mr. Peal a visit.”

“You mean we’ll pay him a visit.”

Sam sighed as she stood up. “Let’s go.”

36

D
ewey & Simon was located in a glass office building on the same section of K Street where Anna and McGee had questioned prostitutes plying their trade in the dark of night. Now early-afternoon sunlight shone on lunch-bound lawyers and lobbyists as they walked to upscale sandwich spots, pricey restaurants, and food trucks tweeting out their locations through the neighborhood.

Anna and Samantha walked into a large, airy lobby overlooking a tree-filled inner courtyard. A uniformed security guard ignored them as they breezed confidently to the elevator banks. They rode to the twelfth floor, the highest in the building. In a city without Washington’s height restriction, the downtown would be a canyon of skyscrapers like New York. But D.C.’s height limit, which originally mandated that no building be higher than the Capitol, kept the skyline low.

The elevators opened onto Dewey & Simon’s sleek white reception area. A pretty young woman sat at a long, curving glass reception desk.

“We’re here to see Mr. Peal,” Anna said.

“I’m so sorry.” The receptionist smiled sadly at them. “He’s canceled all his appointments today.”

“He’ll want to see us,” Samantha said, flashing her FBI credentials.

The receptionist’s eyes widened. She picked up the phone and spoke softly behind a cupped hand. When she hung up, she led Anna and Samantha down a wide hallway hung with huge panels of cubist paintings. They stopped in front of a closed door. The receptionist seemed to muster up all her courage, then knocked.

“What is it?” barked a voice inside.

The receptionist opened the door and peeked inside. She signaled for Anna and Sam to enter, then scurried away.

Morris Peal sat tall, hands folded together calmly on the desk in front of him. He was a large man with close-cropped gray hair and a square chin battling the forces of jowliness. His pink-rimmed eyes were the only visible sign of anything amiss in his otherwise formidable figure. Anna assumed he’d heard about Madeleine’s death on the news. It was being widely reported. Between police scanners and leaks within MPD, there was no keeping it a secret.

Anna had read Peal’s online résumé. He was a partner in Dewey & Simon’s government-affairs practice group, which everyone outside the practice called lobbying. He was senior enough that he didn’t have to spend his days writing the research papers or PowerPoint slide shows that were the grunt work of younger lobbyists. Peal had never been a young lobbyist. He’d come to Washington right out of college, forty years ago, to work as a legislative correspondent for his local congressman—the equivalent of working in the office mail room. He stayed on the Hill for almost thirty years, eventually becoming the Chief of Staff for his state’s senior Senator, a powerhouse on the Senate Appropriations Committee. When his Senator became chairman of the committee, Peal left the modest life of a public servant for a seven-figure salary in Dewey & Simon’s lobbying shop. The key value to his clients was the close relationship he had with that powerful Senator. Now his job was to nurture the friendships he’d developed in Congress for the rest of his life. Anna guessed he spent his days at restaurants, golf courses, and on the telephone. As a result, when his clients needed a favor, they got one.