Rausch & Donlon - Can Be Murder 02 - Love Can Be Murder (25 page)

She raised an eyebrow and said, “Damn. Who is it this time?”

“Sandra Womack.”

It took Jo a moment to make the connection, but when she did, she inhaled a sharp breath. “The wife of the ex-Viking football player, ‘Mountain Man’ Womack? That Sandra Womack?”

“Yup, the same woman who co-founded the mega-church in Shakopee with her husband.”

Jo had a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. “Another outspoken, ultra-conservative.”

“Uh-huh. Not only that, but she and her husband were pretty chummy with Freemont.”

“How chummy?”

“They went to college together and the Womacks donated a bunch of money to Freemont’s campaign.”

“Well, shit.”

Frisco’s chuckle was gruff. “That sums up my feelings precisely. So, I was thinking, we need to get over to the church and talk to the folks out there. Where are you now?”

“I’m still in the parking lot at the Hennepin County Jail. Why?”

“I’m right near there. How about I swing by and pick you up? We can talk more about the case on the way.”

Jo turned off her engine. “Wouldn’t it be great if we could actually find Sandra Womack before it’s too late?”

“That would be a nice change.”

* * *

Detective Frisco drove westward along highway 101, which followed the south side of the Minnesota River. Jo tapped away on her iPad, researching the Womacks and their church. As they passed the turnoff for the horse racetrack at Canterbury Park, Frisco cleared his throat and looked over at Jo.

“No offense, but you look like hell. Can’t just be this case. I know you are having a hard time with John …”

Jo stowed away her tablet and quietly said, “John’s been abducted.”

Frisco swore under his breath and Jo felt the slight sway of the car as he inadvertently jerked the steering wheel in shock. “Abducted? When did that happen?”

“Two days ago,” Jo said looking at the floor. She was surprised when she thought about the time frame. It had seemed like weeks ago when she stood in her den and held John’s luggage tag in her hands.

“And just when were you planning on telling me?”

She finally looked at Frisco’s face and she could see the anger and hurt that crossed his features. Jo felt the heat in her face when she responded, “Look, Frisco. I just couldn’t bear to talk about it. It’s killing me.”

Frisco turned his attention back to the highway and Jo could see a muscle jump in the detective’s jaw. He was silent for a moment, and then he said, “Tell me what happened.”

Jo began her story, starting with the night of John’s disappearance when she discovered he had been in her house and concluding with the video she had watched earlier in the day. She left nothing out, including the swing she took at Agent Daniels in her boss’s office.

Frisco didn’t say anything at all during her monologue and Jo wondered if he was still angry with her or just processing the information.

He pulled into the parking lot of Heaven’s Crossing church and turned off the car. Jo could hear the quiet ticking of the engine as it rested on the pavement of the enormous lot. Frisco stared out the windshield for awhile, making no move to get out.

Jo could take his silence no longer. “Frisco, say something. What do you think?”

The detective turned toward her and his eyes were tired when he finally spoke. “I think Agent Daniels is right. You painted a big-ass target on your back with that dance routine of yours. Not your brightest move.”

Then he grinned. “But you don’t lack for guts, that’s for damn sure.”

Jo was shocked. “So, you aren’t pissed at me?”

He shrugged his shoulders. “Nah. Well, maybe just a little bit, seeing how you left me out of the loop for so long. But how can I be mad when I probably would have done something just as stupid?”

He stared off toward the mega-church, but didn’t seem to be seeing it, as if his mind was a thousand miles away. He finally spoke, “I was also thinking that sometimes life just doesn’t make a damn bit of sense. The doc finally comes to Minneapolis to work things out with you and then some psycho-stalker decides to nab him, to use as bait to get to you. Here we are trying to solve a couple high-profile cases and you have to deal with this, too.” He paused and then gave her a small, crooked smile. “No wonder you look like hell.”

Leave it to Frisco to cut through the bullshit.
Jo felt her lips twitch in return, grateful that Frisco had apparently forgiven her. It had relieved some of the tightness in her chest to finally be able to talk to her friend. “Thanks, Frisco.”

A frown appeared between his brows. “For what?”

“For being you.” She unlatched her seat belt and opened the car door.

As they strode across the huge parking lot, Jo heard Frisco whistle. “Would you take a look at this place? Looks more like a place built to worship money than a place to worship God. Sure don’t have places like this up on the North Shore.”

Jo looked at the sprawling complex. Frisco was right; it did look more like a corporate headquarters building than a church, with a large center building and several wings spilling to the sides. It was an impressive monument to adoration.

Frisco followed Jo into the building. Here again, everything was done on a massive scale. The large atrium area was filled with light from windows that soared above their heads. Every detail was constructed to draw the eye upward.

Frisco was about to head through an open doorway, when they heard a voice off to their left. “May I help you folks? Worship is not scheduled for another two hours, but you are welcome to go into the private sanctuary just down the hall, if you’d like.”

Jo and Frisco turned to see a tall, powerfully built man walking toward them, dressed immaculately in a dark gray custom-tailored suit, a crisp white shirt and an eggplant-colored tie. He was instantly recognizable. Kent Womack was nick-named “Mountain Man” not because he resembled a person that lived in some back hills country, but because he looked like a mountain. And seemed just as immovable.

According to his professional stats that Jo had read on the drive out to the church, Womack stood six-foot-eleven inches. In his days as an offensive tackle for the Minnesota Vikings, he weighed in at 410 pounds, which made him one of the biggest players in the NFL. Even the mega-church’s interior could not diminish his size. When Jo stood next to him, she had to tilt her head back to look into his eyes.

What Jo saw there was a combination of fear and bone-deep sadness. She thought the pain in his dark brown eyes mirrored her own.

Jo was the first to speak, “No thank you, Pastor Womack. We’re not here to pray. My name is Special Agent Jo Schwann, with the FBI, and this …” She waved her hand in Frisco’s direction, “… is Detective Mike Frisco. We’re here to speak with you in regards to the disappearance of your wife.”

The big man’s eyes filled. “Thank you for coming. Won’t you follow me? If you don’t mind, I would prefer to talk in my office, where we will have some privacy.” The thick carpet muffled their footsteps as he led them down a long corridor.

Womack quietly closed the office door behind them and said, “What can I do to help you find my wife?”

Jo thought the man looked like he was barely hanging on to a thread of control. It made her think about her own worries about John and she found herself empathizing with the giant in front of her. Her voice was gentle when she said, “First of all, Pastor Womack, we want you to know that we will do everything in our power to bring your wife back to you.”

Kent Womack’s chin quivered a bit as he struggled to hold back the tears that threatened to slip from his eyes. His booming voice was raw when he replied, “Please, call me Kent. Thank you for that. Sandra is everything to me. Did you know we were high school sweethearts?”

Womack’s voice cracked on the word “sweethearts” and he reached out for the water glass on his desk, taking a deep swallow.

“No, I hadn’t heard that,” Frisco said.

Jo hated to be abrupt, but time was of the essence, so she said, “Do you know of anyone who would want to hurt your wife? Or you, through her?”

“Sandra is loved by everyone who has ever met her. I’m sure I’ve accumulated my fair share of enemies over the years, but I can’t think of a single person who would do such a thing.”

“So, no hate mail or anything like that? I know that both of you have frequently spoken out against some hot-button topics, such as gay rights and abortion, for instance,” Frisco questioned.

“Yes, and we’ve received some pretty ugly letters and emails. But nothing that we deemed threatening.”

Jo looked briefly at Frisco, who raised an eyebrow as if to say,
I wouldn’t be too sure of that.
“We’ll need to see those notes, just to cover all bases,” Frisco said.

“Of course. We didn’t save all of them, but I’ll give you what we have.”

Jo changed the subject. “What can you tell me about your connection to the Freemonts?”

“We’ve been close friends since college. Tanya and my wife were in a sorority together. We’ve contributed to Lee’s political campaigns over the years …” He stopped for a moment, and then his eyes widened. “Wait. You, um, you don’t think Lee’s murderer took my wife, do you?”

“We’re looking into all possibilities. Were you also friends with Annie McDonald?” Frisco said.

“Um, yes, of course. We were all friends. It was Annie that talked Lee into running for office in the first place.”

“Did you know that Lee Freemont had another family in Baltimore?” Jo asked. She held her breath, waiting for Kent’s response. They still didn’t have proof that the state representative had fathered the Bishop children, but she was hoping they would get some answers, here and now.

The big man’s face turned white and he sank deeper into his chair. He eventually nodded and said, “Yes. I did. I found out at Lee’s first campaign party. He’d been drinking for most of the evening when he pulled Annie and my wife aside and told them. Tanya, his wife, didn’t know a thing about it and he was freaking out that she would find out.”

When he paused, Jo said, “And what did your wife and Annie do about it?”

“They told me. We confronted Lee the next day, when he sobered up. Annie convinced him to offer a settlement to his mistress, so she and her children would quietly disappear from his life. I gave him the money to do it. We couldn’t risk Tanya finding out. She would have divorced him and he would never have been elected. Not with a scandal like that hanging over his head. ”

They were all silent for a moment, absorbing the latest information. Jo took no joy in having been proven correct.

Finally, Frisco said, “When was the last time you saw your wife?”

“This morning, around six. We had breakfast together in our home and then she was coming here, to get things rolling for the day.”

“I have to ask. Since she’s been gone less than a day, what makes you so certain that she’s missing and not just out running errands?” Jo said.

Womack looked Jo in the eyes and said, “Sandra never misses the morning service. Never. She would cut a meeting or appointment short, if that’s what it took to be here at 10:00 a.m. on the dot. Today we were going to hold a special memorial service for Lee Freemont, and she would never miss that.”

Frisco looked up from his notes. “So, she hasn’t answered her cell?”

Womack shook his head and looked down at his hands. Jo was relieved to see a bit of color coming back into his cheeks.

Frisco wrote in his notebook and then looked up. “Did anyone see her here this morning?”

“No, but she always arrives before the rest of the staff and she could have gone back out before anyone saw her. When we realized that she was uh, missing …” Womack stopped and swallowed, struggling to continue.

“Take your time, Pastor,” Jo said.

He nodded and then continued, “Sorry. I … well, by the time we realized that she wasn’t here, we just started calling everyone we know. No one had seen her. Not since the interview.”

Frisco’s head shot up from his note taking. “Interview? Who was the interview with?”

“Marjorie Payne, a reporter for the local NBC station. She was doing a special interest piece on our church, how it was founded, and so on.”

Jo’s heart sped up.
Holy God!
She looked at Frisco, who stood up in his excitement. The detective said, “Pastor, your wife had an interview this morning with Marjorie Payne and you’re just now telling us about it?”

A puzzled look crossed Womack’s features. “I’m sorry. I thought I mentioned it when I reported her missing to the police. Guess I was so frantic that I forgot.” He looked back and forth between Detective Frisco and Jo, the crease between his brows becoming a deep furrow. “Why? Is it important?”

Jo said, “Yeah, it just might be. Do you know where they were meeting?”

“Some coffee shop, over in Minneapolis.” He paused, and looked upward, as though the answer could be found on his office ceiling. “She said somewhere along St. Anthony Main, near the Stone Arch bridge.”

His eyes brightened. “Wait, it’s called The Bean Counter.”

“We’ll check it out. Maybe someone there will remember seeing them. Do you have a recent photo of Sandra?” Jo asked.

Womack grabbed the picture frame on his desk and extracted the picture of his wife. He handed it to Jo, who tucked it in her suit jacket for safekeeping.

Frisco began packing up his notes and then he reached out to the pastor, who stood up from his chair and enveloped Frisco’s hand in his own mammoth paw. “Thank you for your time. We will be back in touch as soon as we know anything.”

Jo stood up as well. She didn’t bother reaching out for the pastor’s hand, because he had crumbled back into his seat. Looking small for the first time since they had arrived, the tears had finally started to flow down his fleshy cheeks. “Please. Do what you can to get her back to me. I’ll … I’ll do anything they ask.”

She patted his beefy shoulder before they walked out of his office. Jo felt the panic rolling off the man like fog on a lake. She thought about her own fears about John.
There’s a lot of that going around.