“No, thankfully. Anyway, tell us what happened.”
I told them what happened. “Someone came off the elevator to help Jeri, I think, but I didn’t see who it was.”
“It was Austin and Dominic Torrente, and we spoke to them on the scene. You hired Golden Elite Associates to work for you, and Jericho Hess was a contractor for them. Is that true?”
“My car was blown up and my assistant was dead in the trunk. Did you think Iwouldn’thire someone?”
Mathers stepped forward. “You did what I’d have done in your position, Sean. Anyway, we think this was part of a coordinated effort of a hate group from North Carolina that’s spread north. A reporter was undercover with the Defenders of the Faithful at their home base in Southern Pines, North Carolina, when your name was mentioned.”
Great. Now I’m being talked about in hate groups.“What happened that my name came up?”
Compton stared at me without blinking before he spoke. “It was the scene of a murder-suicide that occurred around the same time as a group of Defenders showed up here looking for you, a homosexual who they believe is leading decent young men down a sinful path. Judith Hill, the woman Hess hit in the face with his foot—”
“The woman whoshotme?” No way were they going to make it out like it was Jeri’s fault. That harpy tried to kill me, plain and simple.
“Please forgive my homophobic colleague. Detective Compton, who bleeds Republican red, is leaving the job here in DC and returning to Mississippi to take a position as an investigator for the governor down there. He’s anxious to be back withhis people, as he calls them.” Mathers gave Compton a scathing look, which brought a smile from me.
“I’mnothomophobic. I’m just stating the facts, Mathers.”Sure,he’s not homophobic.
“Anyway... How did my name come up?” I didn’t give a fuck about their arguments. I had my own issues.
“It’s an ongoing investigation, but we’re sharing information with the North Carolina State Troopers who were first on scene. They were able to send us this picture of the members of the Defenders of the Faithful. Can you point out any familiar faces for us?”
Mathers handed me a tablet with photographs. I glanced at the first one, seeing a very old woman standing with her arm around someone who had been cropped off. “No.”
I swiped the next one, seeing the woman who had shot me. “Yep. That’s the shooter. I also saw her at Café Berlin once, a few weeks ago.”
“Judith Hill. Keep going.” Mathers made a note on a pad she pulled from the front of her belt.
The next photo was one of the twins. “Yes. I saw him at Café Berlin with Judith Hill. He threatened me in the men’s room.” The next one looked just like the first except he had a scar on his right eyebrow where some of the hairs were missing.
“That’s the other man I saw at Café Berlin. He made a motion like he was pointing a gun at me.” I held up my fingers and mimicked his gesture for Officer Mathers. “I don’t know their names, but they weren’t the ones downstairs holding Adriana and Ralph hostage. I’d never seen those men before today.”
“The twins are Abner and Aaron Hill. The first picture was their grandmother, Judith’s mother.”
“Judith mentioned that someone like me—which I took to mean a gay man—took her husband away. I’m guessing that’s where part of the hate comes from.”
Mathers nodded.
I flipped through a few more pictures. “Yeah, this one was one of the men downstairs.” I flipped through five guys more, who were probably just thrown in to make it interesting. I noticed Judith Hill and her mother were the only women in the photo array.
I swiped to the next picture and froze. “This has to be a mistake.” There, looking back at me was Marvin Thompson. Chief of Staff to Senator Eileen Rowe.
Compton stepped around and glanced over my shoulder. “You know him?”
I swallowed. “Where was this taken?”
Compton flipped through his notebook. “Uh, Camp Brotherhood. Southern Pines, North Carolina.”
Fuck!
“That’s Marvin Thompson, Chief of Staff to Senator Eileen Rowe from Texas. I had drinks with the two of them yesterday. My late assistant had been shopping a story to the press about Marv and me having shared a few...uh, liaisons of a sexual nature. Marv’s married and has a few kids. He’s in a closet so deep it’s like the presidential bunker.
“Byron Haight had dinner with the Hill twins and their mothers at Café Berlin a week before he ended up in my trunk, charging the dinners to my account. Do you have the pictures you took inside my office building’s garage? I realize the two men in the pictures from the garage were masked, but maybe you can compare them?”
I then remembered what Lawry Schatz had told me about Dagmar and Claus. “You should also look into Dagmar Volt and Claus Wagner. They both work at Café Berlin. Dagmar warned me that someone wanted to kill me.” I thought I’d told them about Claus and Dagmar, but so much shit had happened that it was hard to remember what I’d said to whom.
Mathers turned to Compton. “That’s how we tie it all together. Wagner is the brother-in-law of Martin Dale, the leader of the Defenders. God, it’s a conspiracy. We need to bring in the Feds. This is above our pay grade.”
