Mistaken Identity (24 page)

Forty-Five

District Attorney Michael Reed and Federal Prosecutor Alicia Monroe greeted Lucinda and Jake when they arrived at the justice center. “John Kidd is in the interrogation room with his attorney, Stephen Theismann,” Reed said.

“Not Theismann,” Lucinda groaned.

“Afraid so, Pierce. But it won’t be a problem. Kidd’s ready to deal, so we won’t need the two of you in the room.”

“Excuse me?” Lucinda snapped.

“Pierce, settle down and hear me out. Here’s how we’re going to play it. You and Special Agent Lovett will be on the other side of the glass, able to hear every word. Prosecutor Monroe and I will be in the interrogation room wearing earpieces so that you can communicate with us – feed us any relevant details, suggest questions, whatever.”

Lucinda threw up her hands, “Fine. Fine. But if he balks …”

“We hit a brick wall, Pierce, we’ll bring both of you in.”

“Okay,” Lucinda said, shaking her head in disagreement.

“Pierce, don’t come barging in there without an invitation – you got it?”

“Whatever,” Lucinda said, walking down the hall and into the observation room.

Reed and Monroe entered interrogation, sat down across from Kidd and Theismann and put in their earplugs. Reed introduced Monroe to the attorney and his client, then said, “Mr. Theismann, for the record, what is your client offering and what does he want?”

“Mr. Kidd is offering up the identity of the shooter and his willingness to testify against this perpetrator in a court of law. He is also prepared to plead guilty to desecration of a corpse and complicity after the fact. In exchange, he wants a sentence commensurate with those lower level felonies.”

“As if.” Lucinda chuckled.

“Providing that your client is completely truthful with us here today and testifies to the same, we are in agreement.”

“He’s got to be kidding! I will not let them do that,” Lucinda said, reaching for the button to speak to the prosecutors.

Jake grabbed her wrist and pulled it back. “Wait. They’re only talking about dropping the murder charges. And what if there is another shooter? The kidnapping is a federal rap guaranteeing a stiff sentence and – unlike the state – in federal prison, the sentence given is pretty darned close to the time actually served. He’s not off the hook, Lucinda. And if he makes one false statement, we’ll prove it and the deal is off.”

“The murders of Parker and Jeanine Sterling are not irrelevant, Jake.”

“No, they’re not. But we need to be practical. This could give us the best of both worlds – an accomplice and Kidd behind bars for a long time.”

“I still don’t like it.”

“Let it play out.”

Lucinda nodded and returned her attention to the other room.

“Mr. Kidd, are you claiming you are not the shooter?” Reed asked.

“Not just claiming. It’s a fact. It was not my gun and I did not pull the trigger.”

“Who do you allege fired the weapon in the Sterling home that morning?”

Kidd looked at his attorney. Theismann nodded. “Pamela Godfrey,” Kidd said.

“Holy shit,” Lucinda said, picking up her cell and speed-dialing Ted’s number. “Go pick up Pamela Godfrey immediately and bring her in for questioning.”

“She’s the accomplice?”

“That’s what he says.”

“On my way.”

Lucinda turned back to Reed mid sentence. “… the nature of his relationship with Ms. Godfrey?”

“She’s a lesbian – we don’t have a ‘relationship’. I’m not her type.” Kidd laughed.

“Mr. Theismann, will you please remind your client of the seriousness of this interview and request that he respond accordingly,” Reed said.

“Mr. Reed, my client is well aware of the gravity of his position. He is apprising you of the situation, nothing more.”

“Well, Mr. Kidd, can we start at the beginning?” Reed asked. “Take me back to your arrival in town and why you came here in the first place.”

“You sure you’re not a shrink? Taking me back to the horrors of my childhood?” Kidd asked.

“You weren’t raised here, Kidd. You can skip the heart-wrenching biographical sketch.”

“Not really, Mr. Reed. Not if you want the story to make sense.”

“Okay, fine. Go ahead.”

“My father, the philandering William Blessing, fathered quite a few children in his lifetime. My mother knew nothing about it until after his stroke killed him. When he died, they cleared out his office and turned his personal belongings and papers over to my mother and that’s when she learned the truth. He had extracted himself from our lives but since they were still legally married, my mother assumed that he was as faithful to her as she was to him. When she read his journal, she found out otherwise and took her life – she killed herself over that miserable son of a bitch.”

Reed looked back over his shoulder toward the glass and raised his eyebrows. Lucinda pressed the button. “Yes, his mother did commit suicide.”

“I take it you saw the journal after your mother’s death?” Reed asked.

“Yes, I did. I found a list of the women who slept with my father, complete with dates. And it was their fault that my mother and I had to struggle to exist – we lived on beans, rice and water for a long, long time. My father never gave us a penny after he walked out the door. So I set out to get what was owed to me by those slutty women. You found my papers, you saw all the women and the children they had with my father – children that replaced me.”

“Your father ran a sperm bank, Mr. Kidd. Did it ever occur to you that all you found was a list of women who were artificially inseminated with your father’s sperm?”

“Of course I thought about it. But that would have been unethical – he ran the place, he couldn’t participate.”

That astonishing response left the prosecutor momentarily speechless. In his ear, Lucinda said. “That was just one set of documents. What about the one that went back generations?”

Reed asked about the centuries-long genealogy chart and John Kidd laughed again. “I just made that one up.”

“And why would you do that?”

“Well, that wasn’t my original plan. I came looking for Jeanine Sterling – not Victoria Whitehead. I looked up Freddy’s birth certificate and saw that Parker was listed as his father and I knew that wasn’t true. I figured the easiest way to get the money Jeanine owed me for sleeping with my father was blackmail. I thought if I threatened to tell her husband about her affair and the paternity of her son, she’d pay me anything I wanted to keep quiet.

“Unfortunately, she just told me to go to hell. So I had to come up with another plan and that’s when I discovered Victoria. She was easy pickings – most of those older women are; they’re usually widowed or divorced with no one giving them a second glance. They’re so appreciative of the smallest kindness and so grateful if you seduce them. It’s kind of pathetic, really.

“I thought I could use her to get what I wanted. I realized she was a sucker for all that off-the-wall, mumbo-jumbo, supernatural stuff. So I created a story that Parker Sterling had sold his soul to the devil in exchange for immortality. Those phony documents I drew up made her a believer. I figured if she hated and feared her son-in-law, I could use that to my advantage.”

“So where does Pamela Godfrey come into the story?” Reed asked.

“The thing with Victoria wasn’t working as I planned. Instead of convincing her daughter of the evilness of Parker, Jeanine grew furious at her mother and stopped talking to her. So I staked out the Sterling house, looking for something else to use. I knew I had it the day I saw a woman walk out the front door, then stop to embrace and lay a passionate kiss on Jeanine’s mouth. That woman was Pamela Godfrey.”

“How did you figure out who she was?”

“I kept watching the house. I saw her come and go many times. Then one day, she stormed out, slamming the door behind her. I followed her to the parking lot of the complex where she lived. I approached her and told her I knew about her and Jeanine and thought she might be pissed off at someone in the Sterling house.

“She said she loved Jeanine but Jeanine had called off the relationship – said she didn’t want to see Pamela any more. Boy, was Godfrey pissed. So I made her a proposition: we’d both blackmail Jeanine over the lesbian affair. No way could that woman survive in her social circle with her secret out. That’s why we went to the house that morning. We wanted to catch both of them at home, thinking that if Jeanine balked, her husband would pay anything to keep that assault on his manhood private.”

“So you want us to believe that the two of you went into the house for no reason other than extortion?” Reed asked.

“Yeah, man, I swear, that was
my
only reason. I didn’t even know Pamela was carrying a gun.”

“Then what happened?”

“We went upstairs and found them both in the bathroom. I told them why we were there and the next thing I know shots are firing and two people are dead on the floor. On top of that, Pamela was getting all weepy after killing them. I had to help her move Jeanine’s body to the bed. She cried over her the whole time she was fixing her up. I kept telling her to make sure her tears didn’t fall and leave traces of her DNA behind.”

“That explains the scene we found in the bedroom, but why was Parker’s body mutilated?”

“Well, you see, I’d already fed my story to Victoria and she bought into it. So I figured if I made it look like Parker killed his wife and left some poor slob in the tub with his identifying features removed, she’d help me with an alibi and with cash when I needed it. After all, she would now control Freddy’s estate, so she could get her hands on lots of money.”

“How did you know that? About her control of Freddy’s inheritance?”

“Asked her about that a long time ago, just trying to figure out alternative ways to get to Jeanine’s money.”

“That makes it sound as if you had a good motive for the shooting, Mr. Kidd,” Reed said.

“Please, on the surface, sure, but I had this blackmail scheme going. I wanted to play that out and that damned Godfrey woman screwed it up.”

“I’m not buying this story, Reed,” Lucinda whispered into the microphone.

Reed just shook his head. He turned to Alicia Monroe and they exchanged nods.

“Wait!” Lucinda urged. “Ask him about Parker’s other hand.”

“Mr. Kidd, we recovered Parker’s head and one of his hands. Where is the other hand?”

John Kidd shrugged. “Got me. Pamela wanted to keep it. Thought it was kind of weird but I let her have it – I guess she still has it.”

“Thank you,” Reed said. “Mr. Theismann, we accept your offer of a plea to the lesser charges.”

In the other room, Lucinda said, “Jake how can they do this? It’s outrageous!”

“Shh, Lucinda. Listen, we still have the kidnapping rap – we’ve got him dead to rights there.”

Jake and Lucinda turned their attention back to the interrogation room in time to hear Kidd’s attorney ask, “And the federal charges, Ms. Monroe?”

“As long as your client continues to cooperate, tell the whole truth and testify at Ms. Godfrey’s trial, the abduction charge and all related charges will be dropped. The federal government will not prosecute your client.”

“No,” Lucinda screamed into the ears of both prosecutors. “You can’t do this!”

The prosecutors cringed at the loud noise, exchanged a glance, pulled the plugs out of their ears and flipped the switch, cutting off the audio feed into the observation room.

“I’m going in there,” Lucinda said. “They can’t do this.”

Jake grabbed her arms and turned her to face him. “Listen, Lucinda, they can and they did. Confronting them in there right now will do no good. We need to prove he’s lying. Even if most of the story is true, all we need is one inconsistency to give the prosecutors the option of negating the agreement.”

Lucinda jerked away from him.

“C’mon, Lucinda. You know I’m right.”

“I know it. I just don’t like it.”

“Let’s go see if Godfrey’s here yet. You can take your frustration out on her.”

Forty-Six

Lucinda and Jake found Ted at his desk busy with paperwork. He looked up when they entered. “Pamela Godfrey is down the hall. I’ve got an officer in the room with her and her attorney and another posted outside the door.”

“Great,” Lucinda said. “Anything we should know?”

“When we got to her apartment, a packed suitcase sat on the floor by the front door. We smelled a faint whiff of decomposing flesh and knew that gave us the right to look for the source. We followed the odor to the bathroom. We found a human hand in a bag in the back of the toilet.”

“How did she respond to that?”

“She said, ‘Oh, my God! I called the landlord about that smell. I thought it was coming from the sewer lines.’ I asked her how the hand got in the back of her toilet and she clammed up, demanding her attorney before she answered any questions.”

“Well, this ought to be fun. If half of what Kidd said is true, her lawyer won’t let her open her mouth. Let’s go, Jake,” Lucinda said.

Lucinda introduced Jake to Edwin Prager and Pamela Godfrey. “We’ll start off easy, Ms. Godfrey. Just where were you headed when the officers knocked on your door?”

“I was going down to the Outer Banks to get away for a few days.”

“A few days?”

“Yes, when you lose someone you love, you often need some time by yourself to grieve and heal.”

“Do you recall our recent conversation when you told me you didn’t know Jason King?”

“Yes. And I don’t – but I did recognize his name. I told you that.”

“Yes, you did. How about John Kidd? Does that name have any significance for you?”

“No. None at all. Should I know him?”

“He knows you, Ms. Godfrey.”

Pamela furrowed her brow and shook her head. “Are you sure?”

“Yes. In fact, he said you were with him in the Sterling house the morning Jeanine and Parker were murdered.”

“Well, that is a flat out lie.”

Jake jumped into the questioning. “He told us you pulled the trigger. Why would he say that, Ms. Godfrey?”

“I have no idea. But I know he is lying.”

Prager put a hand on Pamela’s arm. “My client has denied these allegations. Let’s move on to another area of questioning or let us leave now.”

“Oh, I see,” Lucinda said. “A man Ms. Godfrey claims she doesn’t know puts her at the scene of a double homicide. We’re to take her word that John Kidd is lying, even though the male victim’s hand was found in the back of her toilet?”

“You had no search warrant, Lieutenant. That so-called evidence will be thrown out of court.”

“I doubt it, but even if it is, you have a sloppy client, Mr. Prager. I’m sure a complete search of her home and her office will lead us to the murder weapon.”

“Murder weapon? I don’t have a murder weapon. I don’t even know what it is.”

“Pamela, please, not another word,” Prager said.

“You didn’t know Jeanine was shot in the head, Pamela? You spent an awful long time fixing her up in bed after she was dead not to notice that.”

“Shot? You mean a gun? I don’t have a gun. I don’t like guns. I loved Jeanine, Lieutenant. I had no reason to kill her.”

“Oh, yes, you did, Ms. Godfrey,” Jake said. “She broke off your affair. It’s one of the oldest motives in the book.’

‘It was a temporary break-up – just a timeout, nothing more. We were getting back together in the fall.’

Jake asked, ‘So, if you weren’t at her house the morning she was murdered, what did keep you away from the office until nine thirty?”

“Pamela, don’t answer that,” her attorney urged.

“Oh, please, it’s a simple explanation.” Pamela blew a forceful blast of air through her lips. “It’s an embarrassing situation that I hope we can keep in this room. The CEO of a major firm spent the night with me the evening before. In the morning, he was hung over, puking and generally making my morning miserable. I asked him not to return.”

“His name?” Jake asked.

“I told him I didn’t want him in my bed again but I didn’t say I didn’t want him as a client. If I give you his name, I’m sure he’ll cancel the contract. You can’t expect me to do that.”

“And we can’t expect you to be honest, now can we? Did you help cut up Parker’s body, Ms. Godfrey?” Lucinda asked.

“Pamela, I really mean it. Shut up now,” Prager said.

“But, Edwin, I didn’t do anything. I’m innocent.”

“Unfortunately, Pamela, that doesn’t always matter.”

“It does here, Mr. Prager,” Lucinda snapped. “All I need from your client is proof that John Kidd lied about some detail of the murders – anything. She gives me that, I can’t say she’ll walk free, but it will definitely improve her situation.”

Pamela shrieked, “I don’t know who John Kidd is! I don’t know what happened in that room. I am heartbroken. I want to kill whoever killed my Jeanine! Can’t you understand that? Don’t you grasp simple human emotions?”

“Lieutenant Pierce, Special Agent Lovett, I am terminating this interview now,” Prager insisted.

“Fine,” Lucinda said. “I’ll go get the arrest warrant prepared and get a search under way.”

“You have no grounds for an arrest.”

“Oh, really? I have a victim’s hand in the possession of your client – and even if you get that evidence thrown out in court, it’s good enough for now.”

The door to the room creaked open. “Lieutenant?”

“Not now.”

“Lieutenant, he said it was an emergency.”

“Too bad. Take a message.”

“But, Lieutenant, it’s just a kid.”

“What? Who?” Lucinda asked, her mind jumping immediately to Charley.

“Freddy Sterling and he sounded really scared.”