Twenty-One
Using the information Tony Gorman gave her, Taylor set Lincoln to verify his story. Gorman didn’t realize just how valuable the information he’d provided was. Taylor immediately recognized the makings of a massive federal case, and knew she didn’t have much time.
She’d let Gorman go; Marcus escorted him to the front doors and found him a cab. She didn’t think he’d be back for more any time soon. He wasn’t a player in this operation, just a willing voyeur. As long as they were of age, there was nothing blatantly illegal about watching other people have sex. He’d be a good boy and stay quiet, Taylor was sure of that. The child porn threat had been a good guess, he looked like a man ready to get home and erase his hard drive as soon as humanly possible. Score one for her talent of reading people. If he got caught up in arrests later, she wouldn’t mourn for him.
Drumming her fingers on the desk, she thought about her next steps. She needed to get to the cabin. The scene of this humiliation. She’d kept it as a rental property-her first home, there was no way she was going to sell it to a stranger. Instead, she’d rented it to two girls from Belmont University. Which meant that one of them had a camera pointed at her bed.
Baldwin. She knew she needed to tell him what was going down. Knowing she was just stalling, she promised herself that she’d call as soon as there was more time to actually talk. She couldn’t just call him in the middle of the day to cry on his shoulder about what was turning into the most colossal bad day she’d ever had. Worse than having her throat slashed by a suspect. Worse than being kidnapped on her wedding day. Worse than having to arrest her own fucking father, for the sweet love of Christ.
Stop that, she commanded herself. She bottled up her own emotions, tossed in a liberal dose of the thought of Baldwin’s disappointment in her and put in the cork. There was work to be done.
Despite everything happening, her number one priority right now had to be the Todd Wolff case. It felt like she’d been divorced from the process for years instead of an hour. Not trusting herself to make the walk down to central booking to see how things were coming along, she called Fitz’s cell phone.
“Heya,” he answered. Blessed man. He knew nothing of the craziness that had just ensued upstairs. If Taylor couldn’t face Baldwin’s disenchantment with her, how was she going to handle things when Fitz found out? She swallowed hard at the thought and put on her brave face.
“Heya back. How’s the processing going?”
“Wolff isn’t a happy camper. But that’s to be expected. It’s Miles Rose we need to watch out for right now. He marched out of here about ten minutes ago, swearing high and low that he was going to call a press conference and let the world know how his client is being railroaded.”
“Funny, Miles doesn’t strike me as the press conference type.”
“Me either. But he and Wolff had their time to confer after we did the DNA swab. They both came out of it looking like the cat who ate the canary.”
“He doesn’t know we have his wife’s blood in his truck. He won’t be feeling too great when we clue him in about that. What else is going on?”
“I don’t know. He didn’t give us anything different, no new alibi, nothing like that. He’s making all the right noises about being booked. But I got a feeling something’s up.”
“When’s the press conference supposed to be?”
“I don’t know.”
“Okay. Thanks for handling this. I’ll talk to you later. If you hear anything, and vice versa.”
“Sure thing. Later.”
They hung up. Taylor blew her breath out hard. Lawyers. They could always find a way to get into the fray.
She started to get up but her telephone rang again. The D.A.’s office. Uh-oh.
“This is Lieutenant Jackson.”
“Hey, it’s Julia Page. I see that we’re filing against Todd Wolff as we speak. The general sessions warrant was issued already and the judge is going to set the date for a preliminary hearing, see if there’s enough to take it to the grand jury. We’ll go for a quick hearing date. Do you have any more new evidence?”
Taylor resisted smacking herself in the forehead. Oh man, the videos. She completely forgot the five discs she’d brought back to the office.
“I might. We’ve got some new evidence to run. I think you’re moving a bit too quickly, don’t you? We don’t have this case sewn up by a long shot. It’s definitely not ready to get to the grand jury.”
“It’s a piece of cake. He’s accused of murdering his pregnant wife. You know how low the threshold for probable cause is in a preliminary hearing. They’ll bind him over to the grand jury in a heartbeat.”
“Wouldn’t you rather have all your ducks in a row first?”
“Slam dunk, Lieutenant. Complete slam dunk. Trust me. We’ll get him arraigned and you guys can present the rest of your evidence as it comes in.”
“Will he get bond?”
“Maybe. I don’t know who’s up today. If it’s Judge Harrison, no way, no how. But if it’s that new chick, Bottelli, she might just spring him. Either way, it’ll cost him an arm and a leg.”
“Fine. Whatever you want, Page. You’re the legal eagle here, not me. Just make sure it all sticks. I don’t want to be answering questions on the news about how we fucked this one up. I will drop the blame squarely in your lap.”
Page laughed, and not in an entirely unfriendly way. “I know you will. I never doubted that for a minute. Bye.” She was gone before Taylor could say goodbye herself.
God, Page sounded like a tiger with a juicy hunk of steak. She could almost hear the girl growling in territorial fervor. Even the most jaded lawyers could get caught up in the glitz of a big murder case.
Too much to do, too little time. The cabin, her feelings, the violation of knowing her naked body was on display for any stranger willing to pony up the cash would have to wait for a little bit. She needed to do some movie analysis.
“Marcus!” she yelled. He came to the door of her office. His dark hair was mussed, making her long for Baldwin. She stowed her feelings.
“Nothing yet, LT. We’re-”
“It’s not about that, puppy. I’ve got five items I took from the Wolff crime scene that need to be looked at. In the mood for some more movie screening?”
The look on his face actually made her laugh, which poured from her mouth like a waterfall. Oh, that felt better. She had a brief moment of peace, knowing it was all going to be okay. She wasn’t quite sure how, but she’d make it through. It wasn’t like she’d been responsible, or willing, for that matter.
“Don’t worry, they aren’t of me. I don’t think. The Wolffs have a rather sophisticated movie studio hidden in their basement, and I believe this is the by-product. Since we’re overwhelmed with smut today, let’s go see what they’ve been up to.”
Marcus had the good taste to look chagrined. “Okay.”
“Hey, do me a favor? Order a pizza or something, I’m starving.”
“Sure thing. Pizza sounds good. I’ll meet you in the conference room in a minute.”
Taylor went into the conference room, popped the first of the five discs into the DVD player. She used the remote to fast forward to the first scene. Marcus came in, seated himself and nodded. She hit play.
Unlike the grainy feed from the Selectnet. com Internet site, the television screen filled with a warm, soft light, the camera clearly focused on a bed. Taylor recognized the setting. It was the Wolffs’ basement, no doubt. The movie was certainly homemade, but the quality was fine and the camera operator obviously had some training. A music track, new age jazz, played unobtrusively in the background.
The camera panned in. There were two women on the bed, passionately kissing, writhing together. They were mostly naked, though one was wearing a bra without cups so her full breasts showed, jutting up at an absurd angle. The other had a jeweled belt around her waist and nothing else. Taylor started to look away, then saw a man enter the picture. Todd Wolff came to the bed. The women greeted him, taking off his clothes, begging him to join them.
