Playing Dead (43 page)

Mitch couldn’t lose Claire now. She hated him, and he didn’t blame her, but he would fight for her. He loved her, dammit, he wasn’t going to lose her, to her own hurt feelings or to a psychopath.

Why had Palmer kidnapped Claire? What did he want from her? Was this related to O’Brien’s conviction, or some sick obsession that had developed over the years? If it was related to O’Brien, that meant it was related to Taverton and the past.

“Collier,” Mitch said.

Hans nodded as Grant stared. “Excuse me?”

“Collier knows what’s going on. He has to. Because if he doesn’t know where Phil Palmer took Claire, she’s going to die.” And if Claire died, Mitch wouldn’t—

Don’t.
He couldn’t think the worst. He wouldn’t be able to do his job.

I’ll find you, Claire.

On the drive back to headquarters, Mitch spoke to Meg and learned there was no other property owned or leased by Philip Palmer in Sacramento County or any surrounding county. Mitch talked again to Dave Kamanski, who said he didn’t know where Phil would be, or why he would have kidnapped Claire.

“Why didn’t I see something? Phil’s a good friend. My partner. He wouldn’t hurt Claire. Why would he?”

“Hell if I know, but he’s unaccounted for and that’s the only explanation.”

“Phil adores Claire.”

“How much?” Mitch demanded.

“That’s not—”

“Dave, how well do you really know Philip Palmer?”

“He’s been a cop for over fourteen years.”

“Fourteen? He wasn’t on the job when O’Brien was framed for murder?”

“What? What does that have to do with anything? Why aren’t you looking for Claire?”

“When did he start with Sacramento PD?”

“I don’t know—yeah, okay, it was during Tom’s trial. I was on leave, and when I returned he was on my squad. He wasn’t even here during the murders. He lived in Los Angeles.”

Mitch frowned. Maybe he was wrong and Palmer had nothing to do with the Taverton-O’Brien double murder. But why would he kidnap Claire
now
? Something had to have happened to make Palmer act
now,
and the only thing that even remotely fit in was that he knew about or was involved in O’Brien’s frame job. He whispered to Grant, “Call Meg and have her follow up on Palmer being from Los Angeles.”

To Dave, he said, “I need everything you know about Palmer. Family, history, where he went to school, where he grew up, police academy, college, anything. Fax it over.” He gave Dave the fax number in Meg’s office.

Grant pulled into FBI headquarters. Mitch walked directly to Meg’s office. “Anything?”

“Palmer graduated from Los Angeles Police Academy, but never served in LAPD. Sac was his first assignment.”

Odd, but not unheard of. “Fourteen years ago?”

“Yes.”

Mitch frowned. He looked at his notes from his first conversation with Dave. “Palmer is nearly fifty. Isn’t thirty-six a little old to join the academy?”

“I’d think.”

“Dig deeper. There’s something there.”

“I have everyone on it, but we have a crisis with Collier right now. His attorney is here and I don’t see how we can hold him. Matt went around with the U.S. Attorney on charges, and I think they’re on the same page. Matt went in with Collier when his attorney arrived.”

“Who’s with Collier now besides Matt?”

“Richardson.”

Bob Richardson was the special agent in charge. Mitch and Richardson had butted heads on more than one occasion, but Richardson had also gone to bat for him during Mitch’s last round with the Office of Professional Responsibility. Besides, Mitch knew more about this case than anyone.

Meg handed him an envelope. “J. T. Caruso came through. This might come in handy.”

Mitch glanced at the document and nodded. “Perfect.”

He stalked into the interview room, Hans Vigo at his side. Richardson showed no reaction at their entrance.

Collier’s attorney was saying, “Release my client or I’ll file charges for false imprisonment, false arrest, failure to—”

“Shut up.” Evidently, Richardson had had enough of Collier’s attorney. They were playing hardball, and so was the FBI.

Claire’s life was at stake. Collier knew something important, and Mitch was determined to get it out of him.

Hans Vigo said, “We have one offer for your client. He’d better take it, or we’ll hold him.”

“You can’t hold him.”

“Domestic terrorism,” Richardson said.

“That’s bullshit!” Collier screamed. “You fucking fascists. You think just because you have a badge you can wave around false charges and accuse me of terrorism? Where’s the Department of Homeland Security? Bring it on, I’ll have all your pensions in my bank account . . .”

“A sitting judge is dead. A developer. A congressman is missing. And the person who killed them is still out there. Do you think he’s going to let you walk?” Mitch said. “Do you think you can disappear?”

Collier’s Adam’s apple was moving up and down, though he kept quiet. Oh, yeah, he was scared.

“You are protecting a killer, and we will find him. And you will be charged with accessory to attempted murder of a law enforcement officer.”

Matt Elliott spoke. “We already have evidence that you worked in the same law firm as Thomas O’Brien’s defense attorney. And”—he pulled papers out of a file folder—“we also know that you worked as an intern in the same law firm as Hamilton Drake, prior to your employment at Johnson & Mather. I’ve already cut one deal today, and I’m not too eager to cut another when I would rather see you rot in prison for what you did.”

“I didn’t do anything.”

“Shut up,” Collier’s attorney said.

“It’s nonsense. You don’t know anything.”

“We have a statement from Randolph Sizemore with the Western Innocence Project that you lied to him about your employment history when taking pro bono work.”

“A slap on the wrist by the Bar.”

Mitch slapped the statement Meg had handed him on the table in front of Collier. “Reny Willis, forensic pathologist, states that you instructed him on how to testify on the stand at O’Brien’s trial.” He flashed the other documents. “And helped him falsify the coroner’s reports.”

“He’s lying,” Collier said weakly.

Mitch was losing it. Collier didn’t care that Claire’s life was in danger. “A woman’s life is at stake!” he exclaimed. “And if anything happens to her, you’ll be just as guilty as Phil Palmer!”

Collier’s face drained.

“You know him, don’t you?” Mitch said. “You know who Palmer is. Tell us exactly how he plays into this and why he took Claire.”

“I don’t know,” Collier said weakly, looking down at the table.

Richardson said, “The U.S. Attorney is ready to make a deal. We have D.A. Elliott here ready to sign away jurisdiction. With Reny Willis’s statement, we can get subpoenas for anything we want—your house, your office. With Drake and Mancini dead, we have our best people working through their records. We already learned that Judge Drake arraigned Frank Lowe, and was likely the only one privy to Chase Taverton’s plea arrangement with Lowe. They are all dead.”

Matt said, “There is a manhunt on right now for Phil Palmer. If we find him before you get off your high horse, there is no deal. If we find him and Claire O’Brien is dead, we’ll have you in for murder two.”

“Bullshit,” Collier’s attorney said.

“Try me,” Matt said.

Silence.

With every second that passed, Claire was at greater risk. Mitch forced himself to stay calm.

“You were doing a favor for a friend,” Hans Vigo said, giving Collier an out. “Didn’t think it was that big of a deal, a favor for a sitting judge, a judge who used to work for your old law firm. But after one thing, they asked another. And another.”

Mitch picked up on the thread. “You got in so deep you didn’t know how to get out. Oliver Maddox took up O’Brien’s cause because he saw something in the files that didn’t jibe. You panicked. But you didn’t kill him, did you?”

“Don’t answer,” Collier’s attorney said.

“But you know who did, you kept them informed of Maddox’s investigation. You set the poor kid up. You listened to everything he learned, and when he got too close you sent him to his death.”

“No,” Collier whispered.

“Shut up,” the attorney said.

Now Mitch wanted to smack the attorney more than Collier. “This is the only chance you’re going to get to make a deal, and clear your conscience in the process.” Mitch doubted Collier had a conscience, but he kept it to himself. Collier was weighing the pros and cons, Mitch saw it in his eyes.

Richardson said, “You have five minutes, then the deal’s off the table. You’ll be required to give up your license to practice law. You’ll be required to answer truthfully all our questions, and assist us with information we uncover in the process of this investigation. In exchange, we will grant you immunity from prosecution. The U.S. Attorney is writing it up in my office as I speak. It’s now or never. And I don’t bluff.”

“Leave me alone with my client,” the attorney said.

The four men left the room. “He’ll take it,” Hans said.

“I hate letting him off,” Matt said.

“Me too, but he may be the only one who can save Claire’s life. And if he doesn’t know where Palmer took Claire, she’s going to die. I know it.” Mitch was grim.

“If it’s unconnected to this case, we just gave him immunity for nothing,” Richardson said.

“Rest assured, we didn’t,” Hans said. “Collier knows who killed Drake and Mancini, and he knows who framed O’Brien and why. There’s a lot at stake here, but Claire O’Brien needs to stay our number one priority right now. And while I just came into this case today, I don’t see how her kidnapping
isn’t
connected. It’s the timing. If Palmer wanted to kidnap Claire for an unrelated reason, he had many, better opportunities to do so over the years. But when she was in a houseful of friends and with an FBI bodyguard? His actions tell me that Palmer feels cornered about something—perhaps information that we have, or he thinks we have, about the Maddox murder or O’Brien frame.”

Meg walked briskly down the hall. “Palmer entered the police academy in January of ’94. But when the Los Angeles DMV faxed over his driver’s license, I called them about a mistake. They double-checked. There’s no mistake.”

She held up an enlargement of a DMV photograph of Philip Palmer. A large black man smiled back at them. “Palmer?” Mitch asked. He hadn’t met him before.

“The real Philip Palmer.” She held up another photo. White guy. “This is the man who stole the dead Philip Palmer’s identity and graduated from the L.A. Police Academy.”

“Then who is that guy?”

“We’re working on it. L.A. has his prints on file, but it’s Saturday and they need to find someone to get into the archives. I’m also having the Sac PD run the prints they have for Palmer.”

Meg’s secretary, Bonnie, rushed up to them. “Here’s the information you wanted from Stanford. Lexie just called it in.”

“What’s that?” Richardson asked.

“It’s the list of everyone the police interviewed at Stanford about the disappearance of Jessica White, the girl who was on Maddox’s flash drive.” Meg scanned the list. “Drake, Riordan, and Mancini are
all
on the list. They were members of one of the fraternities that Jessica was seen at the night she went missing.”

“This is perfect,” Richardson said.

“Is Phil Palmer on it?” Mitch asked.

“No,” she said. “Sorry. We ran all cars and property under his name, and there’s nothing but his house on Robertson and the SUV found in the garage.”

Mitch followed Richardson and Hans back into the interview room where Collier sweated.

“Time’s up,” Richardson said.

“We want it in writing before my client says anything,” the attorney said.

“You’ll have to be satisfied with it on tape,” Richardson said, handing over a tape to the attorney. “The clock is ticking on a young woman’s life, and I haven’t the time to play any more games.” He slammed the list of names in front of Collier.

“Do you know what this is?”

Collier frowned, read the list. Suddenly, his eyes widened. “I never knew.”

“Knew what?”

“Phil Palmer. That’s not his real name. I never knew he went to Stanford. I swear, all I knew was that Judge Drake had blackmailed someone into killing Taverton. I didn’t know before they were dead, I swear to God, it was after the fact. After they were already dead, Hamilton asked me to sit on Reny Willis and coach him in how to falsify the coroner’s report and testify in court. Hamilton had dirt on Willis—I don’t know what it was, but it was serious enough that Willis was willing to help frame Tom O’Brien.”

“Why did they want Taverton dead?”

Collier licked his lips. He was shaking. “Riordan, Hamilton, and Mancini—they killed Rose Van Alden and the judge forged a will so that she’d sell the land to Waterstone. She was old, she was stubborn.”

“Where does Frank Lowe fit into it?”

“He saw Riordan leaving the old lady’s house. He didn’t know who he was at the time, he was a nobody, but Lowe later figured it out and kept his mouth shut. I guess he wanted to live. Then he was arrested and facing major time, and he talked to Taverton. Taverton brought in Judge Drake, not knowing he had a hand in Van Alden’s death, and Hamilton called this guy from his fraternity. He told me later that they used this guy for murders. He was their own personal assassin. Hamilton thought that was funny.”

“He’s not laughing now,” Mitch said. “His blood is spattered all over 4th Street.”

Finger shaking, Collier tapped a name. “Bruce Langstrom. He changed his name to Philip Palmer, but they are one and the same.” He stared at them, his face white. “I’ve only met him once, but he’s the coldest bastard I’ve ever seen. He’ll kill me. I’m not leaving this room until you have him in custody.”

FORTY-TWO

Phil kept the large-screen television replaying her most private life while he bandaged her leg. Claire was numb inside. Her privacy, which had been so important to her especially since her father’s conviction, had been violated in ways she’d never imagined.

This psychopath—someone she’d thought was a friend—had watched her for years. Getting undressed. Sleeping. Stretching. Doing crunches and push-ups and leg-lifts in her bra and panties. When Claire had thought she was alone.