Sam’s heart slowed to a crawl as she saw red. “Who told you that?”
“You know I can’t reveal my sources.”
“Tell me right now, Darren. Was it someone at HQ?”
“Might’ve been. So is it true?”
“Listen to me. Are you listening?”
“Yeah, yeah. Don’t shoot the messenger, Lieutenant.”
“We’ve withheld that detail because we might need it later. I’m asking you as a professional and as a colleague not to run that. We haven’t told his wife about that either. I’d hate for her to hear it in the media.”
“Aw, jeez, Sam. You’re killing me here.”
“How about this? When we close this one, I’ll give you the exclusive. Do we have a deal?”
“Oh, all right. But don’t forget you owe me.”
“I won’t,” she said blowing out a deep breath. “Tell me one thing, Darren. Was it Stahl who called you?”
“I’m not saying. You know I can’t.”
“Fine. I’ll be in touch.” She ended the call muttering, “Motherfucker” under her breath.
“Got a leak?” Hill asked.
“More like a rat,” Sam said as she dialed dispatch and asked to be patched into the chief immediately.
“Lieutenant,” the chief said. “Do you have news for me?”
“Nothing yet, but we’re following a number of promising leads.” Promising might be taking it a bit too far, but he didn’t need to know that. “The reason I’m calling is we’ve once again got a leak at HQ. Darren Tabor just called me to ask if it was true that Willie was found in a Dumpster. We’ve kept that detail quiet in case we need it later, so I’d like to know how this is happening—again.”
“So would I,” he said in a tight tone that told her he was pissed too.
“You know as well as I do that it was Stahl. He’d love nothing more than to make me look bad by sabotaging my investigations. I don’t want to tell you how to do your job—”
His bark of laughter halted her diatribe. “By all means. Don’t let me stop you.”
“Have Archie check the phone logs. I bet the call traces back to Stahl.”
“You think he’d be stupid enough to place a call to a reporter from inside this building?”
“I think he’d be arrogant enough to assume he’d never get caught.”
“You might be right about that.”
“I’m always right about these things. Will you have Archie check?”
“Yes!”
“And will you tell me what he finds out.”
“No way.”
“That’s not fair.”
“Life isn’t fair. Go back to work. Find me a killer.”
“I’m on it.” She slapped her phone closed. “I hope he nails that bastard.”
“What’s the deal with that guy Stahl anyway?” Hill asked as he navigated beastly midday traffic.
“I wish I knew. He hates my guts and always has. It didn’t help when I was promoted to lieutenant and they gave me his command. He got sent to the rat squad,” she said, referring to the Internal Affairs division, “and he’s been a pain in my ass ever since.”
“So you used to be under his command?”
“Yeah, and those were good times, let me tell ya. It’s safe to say he was a pain in my ass then too.”
Hill laughed. “I bet you were a pain in his as well.”
“Me? A pain in the ass? I’m hurt.”
“Sure you are,” he said.
“He’s a total boob. Couldn’t find his own ass in a barrel of monkeys and had no business running a detective squad.”
Laughing again, Hill said, “Where the hell did you hear that?”
“Hear what?”
“The thing about the barrel of monkeys.”
“I made it up. You got the point, right?”
“You’re a character, Holland. Truly.”
“I hear that once in a while.” Sam ventured a wary glance at him and found him watching where he was going. Perhaps it was possible, after all, for them to find their way to a collegial relationship that had no hint of romantic interest attached to it. She sure hoped so because if he was sticking around, she didn’t need the headaches associated with that kind of drama.
“So what did you do to stir the ire of Lieutenant Stahl?”
“Well, first I was born to Skip Holland. They started out together, and my dad made it to deputy chief while Stahl never got past lieutenant. He always resented my dad for that. So when I came along and rose through the ranks pretty quickly, he was all set to hate me just because my last name was Holland. It didn’t help, I suppose, that I was, you know, somewhat insubordinate while under his command.”
“You? Somewhat insubordinate? I can’t picture that either.”
“Shut up. Yes, you can.”
When they arrived in the Adams Morgan neighborhood, Sam directed him to Jamie’s apartment building off Columbia Road. They parked and walked up three flights of stairs.
“I pictured something fancier for the head trainer of a Major League Baseball team,” Hill said when they reached the third-floor landing.
“I know. This is nice but average at best.”
“Right. And everything in her financials checked out?”
“I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary.”
Sam knocked on the door and pressed her ear against it, but didn’t hear any movement inside. She knocked again, this time using a closed fist for greater impact, and heard the shuffle of feet on the floor.
“Who is it?”
“Lieutenant Holland,” Sam said, holding up her badge to the peep hole, “and Agent Hill.”
A series of locks disengaged and the door opened to reveal a woman who looked much different than the one they’d met yesterday. Judging from her puffy eyes, red nose and disheveled appearance, she was clearly in the throes of grief and hadn’t slept at all.
“What’re you doing here?”
“We need to speak with you again,” Sam said. “Could we come in, please?”
“Um, sure. I guess. I’m not really dressed.”
“We won’t take much of your time.”
Jamie stepped aside to admit them. The living room was simply furnished with a sofa, love seat and small entertainment center. No pictures, knickknacks, nothing of Jamie. Sam wondered if this was one of those places that came already furnished.
She and Hill took seats on the sofa while Jamie curled her legs under her on the love seat. “Have you found out what happened to Willie?”
“Not yet,” Sam said. “We’re still working on it. That’s why we wanted to see you.”
“Why me?”
“We’ve heard from several people associated with the team that you and Willie shared a particularly close relationship.”
“So? I told you that yesterday. We were good friends.”
“From what we’ve heard from others, it was common knowledge that you and Willie were... How shall I say it? Closer than friends.”
Jamie’s face went blank for a second and then a flush of anger flooded her cheeks. “They’re saying we were having an affair.”
“There is some speculation to that effect. Yes.”
Jamie stared straight ahead and was quiet for a long moment. “Do you know what drives me crazy?”
“What?”
“That men and women can’t be
friends
without people jumping to all sorts of incorrect assumptions.”
“So you’re saying there was no affair?” Sam asked.
“I said yesterday there was no affair.”
“That was with your bosses outside the door. We were hoping you’d be more forthcoming away from work.”
“There’s nothing to say! We were friends!
Colleagues
. We worked closely together all season and then later when he was trying to stay healthy enough to finish out the postseason. I don’t understand how that becomes an affair.”
“People see two people spending a lot of time together, and they jump to conclusions,” Hill said.
“There was no affair. He was devoted to his wife and children. He was my friend, and I loved him. As a
friend
. Nothing more.”
Sam was beginning to believe her. “Did he speak to you about his wife or his family or any issues they might’ve been having?”
“Here and there. I knew about the situation with Carmen’s brother. That was weighing on him. He wanted to give him the money, but he was afraid he’d be throwing it into a bottomless pit. It had to stop somewhere, you know? He’d given him a lot of money.”
“Do you know how much?” Sam asked, running on a hunch.
“I think it was close to a million.”
“That’s a rather personal detail to share with a colleague, isn’t it?” Sam asked.
“He was torn up about the situation. He’d worked so hard to get where he was, to make the kind of money that most people only dream about. And everyone in his life wanted a piece of his pie.”
“Who else besides Carmen’s brother?”
“Her parents, her other brother, his parents, his siblings, his cousins, the friends he grew up with in the D.R. Everyone was after him all the time. It hurt him because it wasn’t in his nature to say no to the people he loved. But he said he felt more like a banker rather than a ballplayer. Sometimes I got the feeling that he thought no one cared about
him
. They only cared about his money.”
“Does that include Carmen?”
Jamie pursed her lips, as if she was trying to decide how much she should say. “Carmen enjoys the finer things in life. Willie was happy to provide them for her.”
“But?”
“No buts.”
“Did he include her among the people who wanted his money more than they wanted him?”
“I couldn’t say. He didn’t talk about her like that with me. He was always very respectful of her as the mother of his children.”
“He loved his kids.” The statement was intended to gauge Jamie’s reaction to the mention of Willie’s children.
Her eyes flooded with tears. “He adored those boys. He said everything he did was for them, so they could have a better life than he’d had.”
“Did he grow up poor?”
“Extremely. He worked so hard. No matter what anyone says, he was the hardest working member of the team. No one wanted that win more than he did. I just... I don’t know how he missed that ball. It was so shocking.”
“Who were his friends on the team?”
“Until the other night, I would’ve said all of them. But he was closest to Chris Ortiz. They both grew up poor in the D.R. and found their way out with baseball. They had a lot in common.”
“Do you know where we might find Ortiz?”
“Probably at his winter home in Fort Myers. He goes there the second the season ends and doesn’t leave again until spring training. I think I have his number in my phone. I can check if you’d like.”
“Yes, please.”
Jamie left the room and returned a minute later with a piece of paper that she handed to Sam.
“If you think of anything else that might be relevant, please call me,” Sam said, handing her another card in case she’d lost the other one from yesterday.
“I will.”
At the door, Sam turned back to Jamie. “I’m sorry for the loss of your friend.”
“Thank you.”
When they were back in the car, Hill said, “Where to?”
“Back to HQ for now to talk to Collins, and then I want to see Lind.”
“You believed Jamie when she said there was no affair.”
Sam found it interesting that he didn’t pose a question, but rather a fact. “I do. How about you?”
“Yeah. And I was thinking, even if there was an affair, why would she kill him? Because he missed the ball? What would that have to do with her or what might or might not have been happening between them?”
“Right. Nothing to do with her beyond the team losing its chance to go to the World Series.”
“So we can knock her off our list of suspects.”
“I’m not ready to completely eliminate anyone.” Sam dialed into the pit and reached Detective Arnold. “How’s it going with the phone dump?”
“Slow. Lot of calls received before and after the game.”
“Any outgoing calls?”
“Only to his wife.”
“Are you near a computer?”
“Yep. What do you need?”
“A number for the George McPhearson Agency in New York City. A sports representation firm.”
“Hang on a sec.”
Sam could hear him clicking around on the keyboard as he did a search.
“Ready?”
As he rattled off the number, Sam wrote it down in her notebook. “Thanks. Let me know if anything pops on the phone log.”
“Will do.”
Sam ended the call and began to punch in the number for the McPhearson agency.
“You know,” Hill said, “there’s this marvelous new invention called a smart phone where you can search for things like phone numbers and then call directly from the website.”
While she listened to the ringing phone, Sam said, “Why bother with a smart phone when I have smart people at my beck and call?”
“George McPhearson Agency. How may I direct your call?”
“To Mr. McPhearson.”
“He’s unavailable at the moment. May I send you to his voice mail?”
“Do not send me to his voice mail. This is Lieutenant Holland, Metro Washington, D.C. Police about the Willie Vasquez murder. Put me through to him. Now.”
“Please hold.”
“Another receptionist ripped to shreds,” Hill said.
“My special gift.”
“Mr. McPhearson’s office.”
“Lieutenant Holland, Metro Washington D.C. Police, about the Willie Vasquez murder. Please put me through to Mr. McPhearson immediately.”
“I’m sorry but he’s in a meeting and can’t be disturbed.”
“Let me tell you how this is going to go. Are you listening?”
“Um, yes...”
“I’m going to hang up with you and make a phone call to my colleagues in New York City. They’re going to send over a couple of uniformed officers who will march into Mr. McPhearson’s very important meeting. They will then handcuff him and take him into custody so we can ask him the questions we need to ask.
Or
... You could put him on the
goddamned phone right now
. Any part of that you don’t get?”
“Please hold.”
As he drove, Hill shook with silent laughter.
“Put me on fucking hold again.”
The phone line clicked. “George McPhearson.”
“Ahh,” Sam said, “finally.”
“I don’t appreciate you intimidating my staff.”
“And I don’t appreciate being stonewalled by people who think a meeting is more important than getting justice for a dead man. In my world,
nothing
is more important than that.”