“Why is this the first we’re all hearing about this?” Tomlinson said.
“That’s on me,” Henderson said. “We didn’t want to jeopardize our investigation. Also, I thought we could help you all out a little better if we didn’t disclose it right away. But this morning, Allison and another federal agent engaged in an undercover buy directly with Mr. Warwick. He’s on tape. All wrapped up with a bow. We arrested him on the spot.”
“Arrested him for what?” Asra said.
“Trafficking in stolen art. There’ll be other charges to follow. Money laundering, wire fraud. It’ll be a decent chunk of time he’ll be facing when it’s all added up.”
“Where is he now?” Asra asked.
“Federal custody. Over at the MCC.”
“How does keeping one of our prime suspects in a murder investigation on ice in federal lockup help us out?” Gabriel asked.
“Our initial thought was that maybe if we questioned him, you know, focusing on the federal crimes, he might let down his guard and give us something on the murder,” Henderson said.
Gabriel actually laughed. “Yeah, how’d that work out for you?”
“About how you figured it would, based on your sarcasm. He lawyered up instantly. We’re still going to hold him for the full forty-eight hours. Hoping that a taste of prison life might soften him up a bit. But once he appears for arraignment, we expect him to make bail on the art charges.”
“Well,” said Asra with a shrug, “at least we can take Allison off our suspect list.”
“And put Reid Warwick at the top,” Gabriel added.
Reid did not like a word of what Steve Weitzen was telling him.
He had been sitting in a prison cell for more than six hours now, clinging to the idea that he’d be out as soon as his mouthpiece showed up. Now that mouthpiece was telling Reid that he’d be staying put for a while.
In Reid’s line of work, keeping a guy like Weitzen on retainer was the equivalent of visiting the dentist twice a year. You wanted to check in every so often to make sure you were not going to have a more serious problem down the road, and if something came up in the middle of the night that needed immediate attention, you had someone at the ready to take care of it.
Reid had first retained Weitzen’s services ten years earlier, regarding a money-laundering investigation in which he had become enmeshed. He liked Weitzen’s bedside manner. The way he told it to Reid straight, and didn’t seem to judge him. Of course, he mainly liked the fact that he hadn’t been indicted that time around. Some of his associates hadn’t been so lucky.
Over the next decade, the advice of a criminal defense lawyer had come in handy in probably half a dozen instances. Usually they concerned Reid’s principal business, which was money laundering. Occasionally, they involved his side hustles, like trafficking in stolen art. None of them had ever involved murder, however.
This was also the first time he’d been in the unfortunate position of talking to his lawyer while incarcerated.
“I’m sorry, Reid,” Weitzen said. “I can’t push up the arraignment date. By law, they can hold you for forty-eight hours. I think they want to squeeze you a bit on the Sommers murder.”
“I don’t know anything about the murder,” Reid said.
Weitzen showed no emotion. Reid knew he didn’t care one way or the other about whether his client was a murderer, a money launderer, or an art thief.
“I hear you. The good news is that you’ll get bail when we get before the judge. The bad news is that they think you do know something about the murder, and that means you’re inside for two more days.”
“What if I give them my DNA? Will that give us some leverage with them to push up the bail hearing?”
Weitzen considered this for a moment in his lawyerly way. “It can’t hurt,” he finally said. Then he caught himself. “Are you absolutely certain that your blood isn’t going to be a match?”
Reid looked at him. “I’m not stupid, Steve. I wouldn’t be suggesting this if I had actually murdered the guy. My DNA will be at his office because I was there. But that’s not a secret at this point. I don’t know what they’re looking for with my DNA, but it’s not going to show I killed James because I didn’t.”
Jessica had been told that once she invoked her right to counsel, the police wouldn’t bother her anymore. Yet there they were, standing on the other side of her front door.
Even before she could tell them to leave, Lieutenant Velasquez said, “We have some news about the woman who was doing the art deal with your husband. The woman named Allison.”
She considered telling Lieutenant Velasquez that she didn’t care anymore, just like she’d said the other day. But that hadn’t been true then, and it wasn’t true now.
She opened the door. No harm in simply listening, she figured.
“Okay. So tell me about Allison.”
“It turns out Allison is Allison Lashley. She’s an FBI agent.”
If they had said Allison was Bigfoot, Jessica would have been no less surprised. “Why was an FBI agent involved in selling art?”
Detective Jamali smiled at Jessica’s mistake. “She was working undercover. The FBI was investigating stolen art. The pieces that your husband was selling with Reid Warwick—the Pollocks—were stolen.”
When Jessica finally made sense of what the detective was telling her, her sole takeaway was that James hadn’t been unfaithful. Of course he hadn’t. She was annoyed with herself for ever doubting him and hoped that, wherever he was right now, he forgave her.
“Did you hear what I just said, Mrs. Sommers? Your husband was trafficking in stolen art.”
Instinctively, Jessica wanted to defend James; then she remembered that he didn’t need her help. He had the best defense possible—he was dead.
Wayne looked forward to seeing Jessica when he arrived at the hospital. He was hoping that she might agree to have dinner tonight.
