“Even if we don’t get to prosecute them,” Malone said with a bitter edge to his voice.
“Make it conditional,” Hope said. “If the investigation leads to Curtis, he will be charged.”
“Got it.” Sam could almost hear the minutes ticking away as she tried to wrap up this workday so she could tend to her other job. “Let’s see what he has to say.”
They returned to the room, where Curtis was still mopping up sweat, and turned on the recording device.
“The AUSA is prepared to offer you conditional immunity, meaning you won’t be charged with a crime unless the evidence points to you as the one who killed Sergei.”
“I didn’t kill him.”
“What was your plan when you picked him up at the observatory?”
“I wanted to talk to him, to tell him things between me and Gretchen had been good lately, and we were working toward a reconciliation. And then along comes the one guy in the world who could screw that up.”
“The one who got away,” Sam said.
“Yes,” he said through gritted teeth. “I’m not going to lie. I hated him. I hated that she had something with him that she’d apparently never had with me, even though I was the one who married her and gave her the children she wanted so badly. Yes, I also disappointed her, myself, the kids… But I worked hard to get past all that, and my entire motivation during rehab and all the meetings and doctors’ appointments was to get my wife back. To put my family back together. And it was happening… Gretchen and I were in a better place than we’d been in years, and it was good.”
Sam found it interesting that as he’d spoken so passionately about Gretchen, the sweating had stopped.
“So you picked him up…”
Curtis nodded. “I asked him if he needed a ride. He wanted to know why I was there. I said I thought we could talk unless he wanted me to blow the lid off him sleeping with the vice president. That got his attention.”
Sam took notes as he spoke. “Where did you go when you left the Naval Observatory?”
“We went to Glover-Archbold, a park on Macomb, and took a walk.”
“Did you intend to harm him?”
Curtis recoiled. “What? No. I just wanted him to fuck off.”
“What did you say to him?”
“Same thing I just said to you. How Gretchen and I were in a good place, working on reconciling, and I wanted him to know… Our family is everything to me, and being with him was risking everything for her—our relationship, her position as vice president, all of it. Turns out, I was right about that. Devon told me that Gretchen was fired as VP because of him.”
“Yes, she was. What did Sergei have to say?”
“He said he wasn’t trying to mess anything up for her, but he needed her help. I said if he really cared about her, he would leave her alone. According to him, that’s not what she wanted. She liked having him there and wanted to help his cause.”
“Did she care that he was technically still with his wife despite their divorce?”
“His wife supported him seeing her, because she knew Gretchen could help him.”
“Did his wife support him sleeping with her?”
“They didn’t sleep together.”
“That’s not what Gretchen told us.”
Curtis’s face lost all expression. “She wouldn’t do that.”
“She told us she did.”
He broke down into sobs. “That’s not possible. She was with me. We were back together.”
Shit, Sam thought, fearing further delay. “What happened in the park, Curtis? We need to know the details if we’re going to give you immunity from prosecution.”
