“We need to speak to her now, Mr. Matlock,” Letitia Gordon said, “before the Feds get here and try to big-foot us.”
“I am the Feds, Detective Gordon,” Thomas said.
“Damn. Er, a pleasure to meet you, sir.” Detective Gordon cleared her throat. “It’s important, sir. There was a murder committed here in New York, on our turf. It’s our case, not yours, and your daughter is involved.” Why had she said all that? Because he was a big federal cheese, and that’s why she’d tried to excuse herself, tried to justify herself. What was he going to do?
Detective Morales smiled and shook Thomas’s outstretched hand. “Hector Morales, Mr. Matlock. And this is Detective Gordon. We didn’t realize she had any relatives other than her mother.”
“Yes, she does, detectives,” Thomas said. “There’s still some drug in her system, so she’s not really completely back yet, but if you would like to speak to her for a couple of minutes, that probably wouldn’t hurt. But you need to keep it low-key. I don’t want her upset.”
“Look, sir,” Detective Gordon said, pumping herself up, knowing that she should be the one giving the orders here, not this man, this stranger who was with the government. “Ms. Matlock ran away. Everyone was looking for her. She is wanted as a material witness in the shooting of Governor Bledsoe of New York.”
Thomas Matlock merely arched a very patrician brow at her and looked intimidatingly forbearing. “Fancy that,” he said mildly. “I can’t imagine why she would ever want to leave New York what with all the protection you offered her.”
“Now see here, sir,” Detective Gordon said, and tried to shake off Hector Morales’s hand on her arm, but he didn’t let go, and she looked yet again into that man’s face, and she shut up. There were words bubbling inside her, but she wasn’t about to say them. He was a Big Feeb, and she saw the power in his eyes, something that flashed red warning lights to her brain, an ineffable something that shouted power, more power than she could imagine, and so she kept her mouth shut.
“There is a lot we do not understand, Mr. Matlock,” Detective Morales said, his voice stiff, with a slight accent. “May we please speak to your daughter? Ask her a few questions? She does look very ill. We won’t take long.”
The thing of it was, Letitia Gordon thought as she walked to the bed where the young woman lay staring at her with dread, her dyed hair tangled and dirty about her face, she wanted to stand very straight in front of that man, perhaps salute and then do exactly what he told her to do. And here was Hector, acting so deferential, like this guy was the president or, more important, the police commissioner. Whatever he was, this man wore power like a second skin.
“Ms. Matlock, in case you don’t remember, I’m Detective Gordon and this is Detective Morales.”
“I remember both of you very clearly,” Becca said, and concentrated on clearing the sheen of tears out of her eyes. These people couldn’t hurt her now, Adam and her father wouldn’t let them. And she wouldn’t, either. She’d been through enough now that a couple of hard-assed cops couldn’t intimidate her.
“Good,” Detective Gordon said, then she caught herself looking over at Mr. Matlock, as if for approval of her approach. She cleared her throat. “Your father said we could ask you a couple of questions.”
“All right.”
“Why did you run, Ms. Matlock?”
“After my mother died and I’d buried her, there was no reason for me to stay. He found me at the hotel where I was hiding, and I knew he would get me. None of you believed me, and so I didn’t think I had a choice. I ran.”
“Look, Ms. Matlock,” Detective Gordon said, coming closer, “we still aren’t certain there was a man after you, calling you, threatening you.”
Adam said mildly, knowing until he and Thomas had discussed it, Krimakov’s probable identity would remain under wraps to the NYPD, “Then who do you think kicked her out of a moving car at One Police Plaza? A damned ghost?”
“Maybe it was her accomplice,” Detective Gordon said, whirling on Adam, “you know, the guy who shot Governor Bledsoe.”
Becca didn’t say anything. Thomas saw she was pulling away, even though she hadn’t moved a finger, trying to draw into herself. She looked unutterably tired.
“Also,” Detective Gordon added, not looking at Mr. Matlock, “our psychiatrist reported that he believed you have big problems, Ms. Matlock, lots of unresolved issues.”
Adam raised an eyebrow. “Unresolved issues? I love shrink talk, Detective. Do tell us what that means.”
“He believes that she was obsessed with Governor Bledsoe, that she had to have his attention, and that was why she made up these stories about this guy calling her and stalking her, threatening to kill the governor if she didn’t stop sleeping with him.”
Adam laughed. He actually laughed. “Jesus,” he said. “That’s amazing.”
“I’m sure that old woman who was blown up in front of the Metropolitan Museum didn’t think it was funny,” Detective Gordon said, her jaw out, not ready to give an inch.
“Let me get this straight,” Adam said mildly. “You now think she blew up that old woman to get the governor’s attention?”
“I told you the truth,” Becca said, cutting in before Letitia Gordon could blast Adam. “I told you that he phoned me and told me to look out my window, which happens to face the park and the museum. He killed that poor old woman, and you didn’t do anything about it.”
“Of course we did,” Detective Morales said, his voice soothing and low. “It’s just that there were a lot of conflicting stories coming in.”
“Yes,” Becca said. “Like the ones Dick McCallum told the cops in Albany that made all of you disbelieve me. This guy probably paid off Dick McCallum to lie about me, and then he murdered him, too. I don’t understand why it isn’t clear to you now.”
Detective Gordon said, “Because you ran, Ms. Matlock. You wouldn’t come in and speak to us, you just called Detective Morales from wherever you were hiding. You’re at the center of all this. You, only you. Tell us what’s going on, Ms. Matlock.”
“I believe that’s enough for the time being,” Thomas said, and calmly moved to stand between the two New York detectives and his daughter. “I am very disappointed in both of you. Neither of you is listening. You are not using your brains. Now, let’s get this perfectly clear: Since you’re having difficulties logically integrating all the facts, I want you to focus on catching the man who kidnapped my daughter and shoved her out of his car right in front of cop headquarters. I trust you people have been trying to find witnesses? Questioning them? Trying to get some sort of composite on this guy?”
“Yes, sir, of course,” Detective Morales said. As for Detective Gordon, she wanted to tell him to go hire his damned daughter a fancy lawyer, that Dick McCallum had been murdered, that she could have had something to do with that, too, maybe revenge, since McCallum had blown the whistle on her. She opened her mouth, all worked up, but Thomas Matlock said quietly, “Actually, detectives, I am a director with the CIA. I am now terminating this conversation. You may leave.”
Both detectives were out of there in under five seconds, Detective Gordon leading the way, Morales on her heels, looking both apologetic and scared.
Becca just shook her head, back and forth, back and forth. “They didn’t even want to know anything about him. Don’t they have to believe me now that Dick McCallum was murdered, too?”
“One would think,” Adam said, his eyes narrowed, still looking at the now-empty doorway. “New York’s finest aren’t shining in this particular instance. Now, not to worry, Becca.”
“I think Detective Gordon needs to be pulled off this case,” Thomas said. “For whatever reason, she made up her mind about you early on and is now refusing to be objective. I’ll make a call.”
“I want to leave this place, Adam. I want to go far away, forever.”