“There are hospital bills for Sophia McHill, dating from the time she was newly married to Harry Alexander until about three months before her son was born. Broken bones, two times it was the ribs, open wounds in the area of the head that had to be sewn, a knocked-out tooth. When she was six months pregnant, she was in the hospital for two weeks because she was in danger of having a preterm birth after falling down the stairs. After the birth, no more hospital bills.” Shireen sounded angry, and rightfully so. As members of the police force, George and Andi were all too familiar with those kinds of injuries. They didn’t paint a happy picture of Sophia McHill’s marriage.
“Shortly after the son was six months old, Harry Alexander took his first mistress, some A. L., as he calls her in his documents.” When she saw their raised eyebrows, Shireen shrugged. “I already told you he didn’t keep them secret. Had a folder and an account for every one of them. And the hospital bills for them always coincide with some big purchase of jewelry. You’re looking at an abuser, gentlemen, a violent one who has obviously gotten away with a lot.”
“You mean all those mistresses have every reason to want him dead?” Andi heard the dread in George’s voice as the mountain of suspects started growing again.
“Yes and no. Some of them stayed with him quite long, for years, and as far as I can see from his finances, he paid them very generously for their silence and acquiescence.”
“Hatred can fester for a long time.” Andi made that statement matter-of-factly.
“Yes, it can. The question is whether a check with seven zeros can purge that hatred.” Shireen showed them the copies of several checks written for different women. Harry Alexander McHill had been as generous with his money as he had been with his fists.
“Do you think he simply let them go when they wanted?” There was a certain resignation in Andi’s voice. Sadly, the victims of domestic abuse often put blame on themselves or simply weren’t able to leave their abusers.
“Yes, he did.” Another document popped up, showing the photo of a legally binding contract between Harry Alexander and one Susan Ferrier. “You see that paragraph here? It states that when the woman decides to end the relationship, she has the right to a certain amount of money paid directly and in full to her. If he ends the relationship, aka grows bored with her, the sum doubles.”
“Let me guess, those contracts were drawn by David Hector Portius II.” George did nothing to keep the disgust from his voice.
“And the participant gets a hundred bonus points. I have more, though.” Shireen started tapping her tablet. “David Hector II wasn’t a choir boy either. He didn’t weigh himself down with mistresses. He had two high-end brothels, one here in Charleston, the other in New York, which he frequented, according to what I could find in his finances and from the brothels themselves. Really, these places have immaculate bookkeeping. I know some huge companies who should take a leaf out of their book, if you get my meaning—” The way Shireen talked made it clear she didn’t think her joke was that hilarious. She just wanted to fill the space between one piece of disgusting news and the next with something a little lighter. “Anyway, he paid both establishments a pretty six-figure sum per year to keep him in barely legal company. He wasn’t picky either. As long as they looked young, he didn’t discriminate between gender, skin color, or looks.”
“I wonder why he wasn’t a customer of Jake Castain?” Andi was fiddling with his cup of tea. What he was learning about the victims made him want to take a long hot shower and clean himself with a steel brush.
“I wondered the same and cross-checked, but it seems Portius wanted to maintain some kind of—respectability, I guess?” Shireen scrunched up her nose. “He always paid, he always made sure his company was legal, even had a contract with both brothels that if they ever provided him with somebody who was underage, they’d have to pay back the equivalent of three yearly payments.”
“And of course he made it look as if it were legally binding.” George huffed.
“He was a cutthroat lawyer. What do you expect?” Shireen turned the huge flat-screen on the wall dark. “That’s it from me for the time being. I’ll keep digging and inform you as soon as I find something new.”
“You’re the best, Shireen. Thank you.” George made a little bowing gesture. “If you could compose short papers on every mistress and whore Harry Alexander and David Hector II had dealings with, that would be wonderful.”
“The mistresses are easy, but the sex workers….” Shireen shrugged. “Even though the brothels are exceptional with their bookkeeping, they didn’t use their employee’s legal names. It’s going to take some time to find them all.” She tapped her chin with her right index finger. “That sounds like a job for our rookie. Timmy!”
“Yes, Shireen?” A young man of perhaps twenty-five years came running from the other end of the room. If he’d had a tail, Andi was sure it would have wagged like crazy. Shireen didn’t seem to notice. “I’ve got a job for you.” She gestured to one of the desks, where Timmy immediately went. George and Andi waved Shireen goodbye, which she acknowledged with a nod before she concentrated on Timmy.
Andi followed George out of Shireen’s domain and down the hall to the stairs leading to Evangeline’s kingdom. For a moment Andi pondered how the two women had managed to make the IT-center and the morgue their own when there were others working there as well, but the answer was really simple. Both Shireen and Evangeline were the kind of women misogynist men feared the most: strong, capable, intelligent, unbending. In other words, everything Andi would have wished for his own mother to be.
On the stairs, George broke the silence. “What do you think? Do we visit the wives again, or do we invite them to the precinct?”
Andi was pretty sure he knew what his partner wanted to do. “I’m tempted to invite them to the precinct, but we both know they won’t cooperate then. We’ll have to visit them in their homes, where they feel safer. And we have to give them notice. They won’t talk to us without their lawyers this time around. Not when we’re going to ask such personal questions.”
George nodded. “Yeah, I’m still surprised they did the first time.”
“I guess we caught them by surprise.” Andi shrugged.
They reached the door to the morgue. George lifted a brow. “I’ll let you handle this.”
“You’ve seen me do it before. Don’t you want to try?”
“No. Not yet. Perhaps never. I know what we’re about to do is technically not illegal, but for some reason, the words manipulation of evidence keep echoing in my mind.”
Andi huffed. “It’s not manipulation. It’s gentle nudging in the right direction.”
“Yeah. Whatever. I want you to do the nudging.”
“As you wish.” Andi held the door open for his skittish partner. Sometimes George really was a bit of a crybaby. They found Evangeline in her chaotic office, where she greeted them over the rim of a mug of steaming tea. “Detectives,malo lava le taeao. What can I do for you?”
Andi sat down in one of the two chairs standing in front of Evangeline’s desk. Her thick dark hair was in a messy bun on top of her head, indicating the previous days had been rough. “A good morning to you, too, Evangeline.”
The coroner merely took a sip of her tea when George closed the door to her office before sitting down as well, wishing her a good morning.
