Dead Lies (26 page)

Recalling Melinda’s impression that her boss didn’t seem to know who Serena was, Anna wasn’t so sure she agreed. “Did you know they dated?” she asked Web.

Web shook his head. “She never mentioned him to me, which makes sense, given that Gordon McGrower has been married for over ten years. Obviously they had an affair. That would explain Serena’s secrecy about everything.”

Kreeger seemed lost in thought. “This is really something,” he said finally. He turned back to Web. “And yet what you’re telling us makes sense. Remember that personal day your sister took on December 9?”

Web nodded.

“Well, we just learned she came here that day and had a private meeting with McGrower,” Kreeger said. He went on to explain that Melinda Madison had come forward to reveal how Serena had gotten in to see McGrower. He also mentioned the mysterious ‘donation to St. Nicholas’s’, asking Web, “Do you have any idea what that could mean?”

Web shook his head. “Could St. Nicholas’s be the hospital where Serena gave birth?”

“No,” Tim piped in. Everyone turned to look at him. “It’s the name of an adoption agency right here in the city. I have a colleague who just adopted a child there.”

Kreeger nodded thoughtfully. The picture was becoming still clearer. “So McGrower might not be the biological father, just the adoptive father. That would explain why Gordon McGrower didn’t seem to know who Serena was when she showed up here. Maybe he really
didn’t
know her.”

Kreeger said, “Then how did Serena know who Violet really was?”

No one spoke. Hopefully McGrower could supply the answer.

“We’ll have to ask McGrower,” Kreeger said, echoing Anna’s thoughts.

“There’s one thing I still don’t understand,” Anna said. “What would make Serena think she could get her child back after all this time?”

The group fell silent for a moment.

“I don’t think she was thinking clearly,” Web said finally. “You have to understand, she was desperate to get pregnant. It must have driven her crazy that she’d given up her one chance to have a biological child… Plus, those allegations of abuse, neglect… Even if they’re not true, they would have made her crazy.”

Anna nodded in agreement. It made sense. Serena wanted to protect her child. She looked at Kreeger and knew she didn’t have to say it aloud: McGrower, too, had wanted to protect his child. That’s why he had hired Lester Malik to kill Serena.

For a minute nobody spoke. Then Web said, “So, if you didn’t know any of this, why are
you
here?”

Kreeger related Melinda Madison’s story. “We think McGrower’s security Chief is the man who attacked you. McGrower must have sent him to find the file after Lester Malik screwed up, because it was the one piece of evidence that could tie him to the crime.” He added, “Melinda’s description of Ivan matches yours. He’s short, stocky and very strong.”

“He’s also a known coffee drinker,” Anna added unnecessarily.

Web was shaking his head in disbelief.

“There’s something else,” Kreeger said. “We found Lester Malik dead yesterday. He’d been stabbed in the heart.”

Web’s jaw dropped.

“We got some prints off the handle, and we’re running them now,” Kreeger said. “When we checked Ivan out, we learned he spent time in prison in both Russia and the U.S., so we have his prints on file. We’ll know in a few days if they’re a match.”

Web’s mouth had drawn into a hard line, and his eyes glittered. Anna could see that he was clenching and unclenching his fists in his lap. “Are you going to arrest the bastards?”

“Not yet,” Kreeger answered. “We have to build our case. At this point, all we have is circumstantial evidence.”

Web opened his mouth to protest then closed it. The anger seemed to drain out of him. He looked from Kreeger to Anna with an expression of defeat. His shoulders slumped.

“Go home now,” Kreeger said gently. “Let us take things from here.”

Web looked like he wanted to argue, but he didn’t. Everyone filed silently out of the conference room. Anna and Kreeger escorted the men back to the elevator bank, and Kreeger pressed the call button. Anna knew the detective was making sure Web and Tim really did leave. She didn’t blame him. Web didn’t look entirely stable. He looked like a man who had nothing left to lose.

Kreeger stepped close to Web and said in a low voice, “I understand what you’re going through right now, Web, but if you get within 100 yards of McGrower or any other important witness in this case, I want you to know that I’ll personally arrest you on obstruction of justice.”

A look of outrage swept over Web, and Anna’s breath caught in her throat. It was hard to listen to Kreeger playing hardball with a man who’d just buried his sister, discovered his long-lost niece, and uncovered his sister’s killer—all in the same day. And yet she knew he had to do it. Web had been an idiot to come here. He needed to be reigned in.

Web opened his mouth to protest, but Kreeger cut him off. “You may think playing detective is a good idea, but if you try to solve the case yourself I guarantee it’ll be thrown out of court on a technicality. And your sister’s murderer will walk. If something like this happens again, I promise I won’t be nice. Are we clear?”

Web looked like a coiled snake about to strike, and Tim took a step toward Kreeger. Both men looked like giants next to Kreeger and yet the detective—the unflappable detective, as she’d begun to refer to him in her head—appeared entirely unconcerned. Anna had a fleeting wish Web would throw a punch. She would have liked to see how Kreeger handled himself.

A few tense seconds passed and Anna held her breath. Finally Web nodded at Kreeger and turned toward the elevator, which had just dinged to announce the arrival of a car. The doors opened, and Web and Tim stepped inside.

CHAPTER 28

G
ORDON MCGROWER WENT BACK TO HIS OFFICE TO WAIT FOR THE COPS
and poured a finger of whiskey to calm his nerves. He considered calling his attorneys but quickly decided against it. His staff had witnessed everything and were no doubt speculating about his involvement with the murdered woman. If he called his lawyers now it would make him look like he had something to hide. If he cooperated with the police, he might be able to turn it into good internal PR.

Besides, he knew he could handle a couple of dumb cops from New Jersey. He’d dealt with much tougher foes in the past, from the greasy-haired gang-bangers on the mean streets of Upton Park to wing-tipped trust-funders threatening to bury each other over whiskey and cigars at The Metropolitan Club. But his true confidence came from the understanding that if the cops could actually pin Serena Vance’s death on him they would have shown up with an arrest warrant.

Still, it was difficult for McGrower to believe things had gone this far. He recalled the moment Serena Vance had waltzed into his life several weeks ago, announcing that she was Violet’s biological mother. He’d been shocked, but he’d known right away she was telling the truth. The physical resemblance alone was compelling enough, but then there were also details Serena told him that only the mother could have known—how Violet was born at 3:47 a.m. on May 9, in London, and that she had a strawberry-shaped birthmark on the top of her right buttock.

He’d heard the Vance woman out while she’d described the events that had led her to his office then cut to the chase. “What do you want?” he’d asked, knowing there had to be something. People
always
wanted something. “Money?”

“Money?” she’d answered, looking surprised and even a little offended. “I have plenty of money,” she’d said proudly, sitting further upright in her seat. “No, I want to get to know my daughter.”

“Get to know her?” he’d asked incredulously. “After she was born you had six months to change your mind about giving her up, and you didn’t take it. When you signed the papers, you gave up any legal rights you had to ever see her again.”

“I know what I did,” she’d said. He could see her green eyes growing damp at the corners, and they darted between him and the window behind his head. “Back then I was single and scared and in a very different place than I am now.” Her voice dropped to a whisper, and she was no longer the confident woman who’d talked her way in to see him. She’d looked…
defeated.
For a moment he’d almost felt sorry for her. But then he remembered why she’d come. “But I’m still her mother, and I love her,” she’d said.

I’m still her mother.
The words had chilled him, but he’d feigned contempt, a tactic he often used to intimidate competitors. “That’s irrelevant, according to the laws of the State of New York,” he said, trying to remain calm.

“Please, Mr. McGrower, I just want to meet her,” the woman had pleaded. “One day she’ll want to find me, and I think if she got to know me now it would lessen the blow.”

McGrower knew that would never happen. Violet didn’t know she was adopted, and she would never know. She was
his
daughter. He could feel ire replace his earlier sense of panic.

“I’ve thought about it, and I’ve come up with a plan I know will work,” she’d continued. “You could introduce me as a family friend, or maybe hire me as a nanny or French teacher or whatever. I promise I would never tell her the truth unless I had your permission.”

McGrower had been outraged by her suggestion, and he hadn’t bothered to hide it. “You expect me to welcome you into my home?” he’d said, acidly. “You must be insane. Here’s the reality, Ms. Vance. You are nothing to me or my daughter. You will leave here today and never contact me again, or I will bring the full weight of the law and every other ounce of influence I have at my disposal down on you. Do I make myself clear?”

She stared at him for a moment, and she’d blinked—once, twice, three times. Then her face had turned to stone. Her emerald eyes glittered, and he saw his daughter’s eyes reflected in them. Something in the air shifted in her favor. The uneasiness he’d been trying to hide morphed into fear. He realized he was facing every adoptive parent’s worst nightmare. He held his breath and waited to see what she would do.

“I’m sorry to hear you say that,” she’d said, her voice flinty. “I’d hoped you’d be more agreeable to my request, but now that I know you’re not willing to work with me, I’m afraid you’re not going to like what I have to say.” Then she calmly explained how she intended to get Violet back.

His heart had almost stopped when she told him how. It was such a simple plan, and yet he’d never imagined it possible. It was an ace in the hole.

The noise of the buzzer startled McGrower back to the present. Serena was dead, and now the cops were at his door. He took several deep breaths and pushed the button. “Yes?”

“The police would like to see you now,” said his secretary.

“I’ll be right out.”

He put his empty whisky glass in the bar and waited a moment until his heart rate returned to normal. Then he went outside to his secretary’s office. The middle-aged detective and his female partner were standing in front of Frances’s desk. He forced a smile. “Please follow me,” he said politely.

He led them back through the ante-chamber that separated his private office from the secretary’s room and paused at the other end, the way he usually did. He wanted to give his visitors a chance to be impressed. He’d hired an architect, an interior decorator, and a lighting expert to design the space, and the expense had been worth every penny. The dropped ceiling and soft overhead lighting gave the small room a sense of intimacy, and the cream-colored walls covered in soft silk fabric imported from France created a hushed elegance that said only the privileged got this far. But the piece de résistance was the four small, gold-framed paintings—a Monet, a Manet, a Renoir, and a Corot—hanging on the walls, two on each side. They were unmistakable masterpieces, even to the unschooled eye, and he could tell from the looks on the officers’ faces that even if they couldn’t identify the artists they knew they were looking at original works that cost millions.

Personally, he didn’t care for Impressionist art—he preferred his collection of de Koonings and Diebenkorns hanging in his TriBeCa loft—but the little paintings were useful nonetheless. When visitors recognized them, it made them feel smart, and that gave McGrower leverage at the negotiating table.

He pushed open the door to his inner sanctum and held it open for the officers. The male detective strode in purposefully, but the female cop took a moment to absorb her surroundings. He watched her eyes roam over his huge teak desk, the wall of celebrity photos that showed him posing with everyone from baseball legends to movie stars and presidents, and the breathtaking views of Manhattan from floor-to-ceiling windows lining two sides of the room.

She was actually quite beautiful, McGrower thought, as her face caught in the afternoon sunlight. She had dazzling blue eyes and knockout curves that even her drab blue uniform couldn’t hide. Under different circumstances he would have enjoyed flirting with her. He’d never bedded a cop, but the idea appealed to him. He knew he could come up with some creative uses for that nightstick hanging from her utility belt.

He motioned for the officers to be seated. “May I get you some coffee, water?” He’d found that another way to disarm visitors was to have the most powerful man in New York wait on them.

They both declined. McGrower sat down as the officers pulled out their notebooks and pens.

The male detective spoke first. “We understand Ms. Vance came to your office a few weeks before her death. Can you tell us why?”

“First let me say for the record that I had nothing to do with Serena Vance’s death,” McGrower responded calmly. Neither officer jotted anything down, so he continued. His strategy was to be as honest as he could—to a point. “Six years ago my wife and I adopted a baby girl. Ms. Vance came to my office claiming she was the biological mother.”

“Was she?” the detective said.

The lie rolled off his tongue. “Not likely. I don’t see how she could have known if she was or wasn’t. The adoption was closed.” There was no way in hell he was going to tell the truth on this particular point. He had no intention of handing the cops a motive for murder on a platter.

“So you didn’t father the child with Ms. Vance?”

“No. I said, my wife and I adopted her.”

“Did you know Ms. Vance before December 9?”

“Never saw her before in my life.”

“So what brought Ms. Vance here? What made her think she was the child’s mother?”

“
Biological
mother,” corrected McGrower, speaking more harshly than he intended. “My wife is her mother.” He paused to steady himself. “Ms. Vance told me she saw an article about me in
Vanity Fair
. She said she recognized Violet from the picture.” He laughed, allowing a hint of scorn to escape. “I told her she was crazy, and wondered if she’d gotten the information some other way.”

“How?”

“While we kept the adoption a private matter, there were still a handful of people who knew about it, including the representatives from the adoption agency, the lawyers, the judge who signed the papers… I figured Ms. Vance might have paid one of them for the information. That kind of thing is a reality for a man in my position.”

“That would be a hell of a coincidence,” said Kreeger.

McGrower shrugged. “No more than opening the right
Vanity Fair
.”

“Did you ever find out who might have talked to her?” the female officer piped in.

McGrower looked at her. It was the first time she’d spoken, and her voice was lilting, seductive. His eyes bored into hers. “How would I do that? Track all of those people down and accuse them indiscriminately?”

She said, “Ms. Vance’s brother seems to believe his sister was, in fact, Violet’s biological mother. Can you tell us why he might think that?”

“Yes. He’s crazy.”

“He’s grieving,” said the woman.

McGrower fixed her with a stare. “I’m sure he is, but does that give him the right to barge in here and accuse me of something I didn’t do?”

“No, of course not,” she fumbled.

McGrower saw Kreeger shoot his partner a look that said, “Let me do the talking here, okay?” She looked away.

“I saw photographs of Serena Vance when she was little and held them up next to ones of your daughter,” Kreeger said to him. “I have to say the resemblance is striking. Did she show them to you?”

“Yes, and you’re right, there is a… resemblance. But as I told Ms. Vance, a photograph doesn’t prove anything. It doesn’t matter anyway. Even if she was Violet’s birth mother, she has no case.”

McGrower realized he’d slipped the moment the words came out of his mouth, and the detective pounced on it. “So Ms. Vance threatened you with some sort of lawsuit?”

Shit.

“No,” he said smoothly. “She said she only wanted to meet my daughter. I extrapolated about a custody lawsuit. You have to understand, a man in my position is always aware of lawsuits, attacks, and other threats.” He paused. “Besides, adoptive parents always fear in the back of their mind that the birth parent is going to come back into the picture and try to take their child away.” He hesitated, realizing he’d just done what he’d been trying to avoid—handing them a motive for murder. But it didn’t matter anyway. They’d never be able to prove it.

“What did you say when she asked to meet your daughter?”

“I told her it was out of the question. I told her that even if she was the birth mother, there’s no way she’d ever be able to prove it unless my wife and I consented. And obviously we would never do that.” McGrower thought he detected a hint of compassion in the female cop’s eyes, but he didn’t know if it was for him or Serena.

“How did she react?” asked Kreeger.

McGrower uttered a measured sigh. “She threatened to go to the press.”

“How did you respond to her threat?”

“I told her blackmail is a crime, and that if she carried through with the threat, I would prosecute her to the fullest extent of the law.” He said this matter-of-factly to make it clear that he wasn’t the one doing the threatening.

“And how did she take that?”

“She didn’t like it. But she saw that I was serious. And then she left.”

“Why didn’t you call the police when she tried to blackmail you?” said the female officer, ignoring yet another look of annoyance the detective flashed her. “As you said, blackmail is a crime.”

McGrower looked at her with steely eyes. “Your name again, Miss…?”

“Valentine.
Officer
Valentine.”

“Because, Officer Valentine, in this town I’m known as a crack negotiator. I can read people and make them believe that my best interests are their own. That’s exactly what I did with Ms. Vance. I established very quickly that she was harmless. When I made it clear she would get nowhere with me, she actually broke down and apologized. She admitted she’d been driven to desperation because she was 38 and couldn’t get pregnant. Now I know a little something about that kind of disappointment, Miss Valentine, and it made me feel sorry for the woman. By the end of our conversation she sounded genuinely contrite, so I let the matter drop.”