Silenced

that she wasn’t going to have a breakdown on the job. Not just for his safety, or her future partner, but for her.

Miriam Douglas and Henry Archer from cyber crimes were in the room along with Josh Stein, Slater, and Hans. Noah pushed aside his thoughts about Lucy.

Slater asked, “What’s the word on apartment seven-ten?”

Henry said, “The cables and wires are consistent with audio and video recording equipment, but we found no equipment anywhere in either seven-ten or Wendy James’s apartment. We sent her laptop to the lab as a priority, hoping they can rebuild deleted files, but our examination indicates they were deleted by a high-end erase program. It’s doubtful we can get anything from it.”

“What about other apartments in the building?” Slater asked.

Noah was about to respond when Stein said, “I’m working with the U.S. Attorney’s office on warrants for all executive apartments, but the management company is balking. We asked, they refused, we got the warrant for number seven-ten”-he shot Noah a dirty look-“after we nearly blew the case searching without one.”

Noah wasn’t going to let that comment stand. “We had the express written permission of the manager to search that apartment, and the general warrant for James’s residence covered our subsequent searches.”

“As soon as you found the first hidden compartment you should have sealed the room and contacted me.”

Stein wasn’t budging, but neither was Noah. “We didn’t know what was in there until we found it.”

“If this case gets blown because of an illegal search, I’ll have your badge.”

Slater put up his hands. “No one is stripping badges. Precedent allows management to give access, and we got the warrant before a full and complete search. There was no fishing on this one, it’s a gray area, but the law is on our side.”

“I want Crowley. We have to do this right,” Stein said.

“If Wendy James was making sex tapes, that opens up a whole array of possible suspects,” Noah said.

“Who? We have no evidence of other affairs, other than Congressman Bristow who, by the way, has also lawyered up.” Stein was turning red in frustration.

Hans spoke up. “I think we’re all missing an important component here. Did Ms. James clear out the apartment? Was she the only one who used it?”

Slater asked, “Where are we with the rentals?”

Miriam spoke up. “The last lease was for one week, the governor of Oregon. That was over a month ago. Before that was ten days for an environmental protection organization that was lobbying Congress, before that a one-month stay, the wife of an alternative energy executive, then a long dry period. In February, a union representative stayed for two weeks. I’m digging deeper, seeing if any of them had meetings with Congressman Crowley or Congressman Bristow. We should send agents to interview each of them, none are local.”

“Miriam,” Slater said, “contact each local agency and brief them. We need the interviews stat.”

Hans said, “Tell them to go in easy, no hint that we think they were recorded. I suspect if they were being blackmailed, as soon as the Park Way apartment is mentioned they’ll show signs of distress. Tell them to be on the lookout for not only the standard signs, but subtle clues. Anyone who acts suspicious or nervous, we’ll look at harder.”

“But Crowley’s the one who’s sitting in Congress and admitted to having an affair with her!” Stein exclaimed. “It all comes back to him.”

“Who tipped off the media?” Hans asked. “Maybe Wendy tried to blackmail him and he didn’t bite, so she released the photographs.”

“The pictures weren’t taken in seven-ten,” Miriam said. “We believe they were taken at a local hotel, and we’re working on finding the exact location.”

“Let me know,” Slater said.

“None of that means Crowley didn’t kill her-or have her killed,” Stein said.

Noah had had it with Stein. “Why do you want him so badly? What if he’s just an asshole who cheated on his wife?”

“Get off my case,” Stein said.

Hans intervened. “Crowley is arrogant and didn’t want to be caught in the affair-or, if it was blackmail, he didn’t want anyone to know, but he had no reason to kill Wendy James.”

“Except for what she was going to tell the U.S. Attorney this week,” Stein said.

“But you don’t know what she was going to say,” Hans said. “She could have been nervous about being interviewed. Her personal life had just been exposed by the media and she lost her job because of it. She was under a great deal of stress, and no grand jury is going to take that one interview where she lied about an affair with another congressman as evidence that she had some damning information against Crowley.”

“It’s too much of a coincidence,” Stein said.

“It seems that way, and I’m not saying that her murder isn’t connected in some way to Crowley, but his alibi cleared and so far his finances have held up and there’s no evidence he hired someone to kill her. It could be if she did blackmail him that he released the pictures so as not to be under her thumb.”

Noah hadn’t thought of that angle, but it made sense. “And all the lies about the affair, the subsequent apology-?”

“To make it seem like a common affair, when it was anything but.”

“What about the murder itself?” Noah asked Hans.

“It doesn’t look like a professional hit to me.”

“What do you think it is, Dr. Vigo?” Slater asked.

Hans flipped through the crime scene photos. “I’ve only given a cursory glance at the report. The killer may not have known her, but he knew of her. He may have spoken to her on occasion, but he wasn’t close to her. I don’t think this was a random crime, it was definitely premeditated. There’s something odd about it, but I can’t put my finger on it.”

“What about the way she was strangled?” Noah asked. He glanced at Stein. He couldn’t mention Lucy’s name without getting Stein’s panties in a twist, so he kept his comment vague. “The coroner said she was strangled from behind.”

Hans stared at the photo of the victim’s throat. “That is odd. I don’t think I’ve seen this before. And she wasn’t raped?”

Before Noah could speak, Stein said, “Attempted.”

“There’s no evidence of an attempted rape,” Noah said.

“Her pants were pulled down and he wrote on her ass,” Stein snapped.

“Respect for the dead, Agent Stein,” Hans snapped.

Stein mumbled an apology, then continued. “My guess is that Crowley hired a lowlife to kill her. If she attempted to blackmail him, that gives him motive. The killer got his hands on her and got horny, wanted to rape her, but lost his nerve.”

“If someone like Crowley hired a professional hit man, James would either never be found, or her death would be made to look like an accident,” Hans said.

“Or,” Stein pushed, “a random crime.”

Hans conceded that point. “Possibly.”

“We have no other directions to go in.”

Slater leaned back in his chair. “Nothing on the security cams, nothing useful on her computer-yet. Several potential suspects to interview based on room seven-ten. She may have been juggling more than one guy.”

“Multiple affairs,” Hans said. “Have you identified any of the other men, other than Bristow?”

“Bristow is single, no big scandal for him to be sleeping around,” Slater said. “No one has come forward, and she didn’t keep records.”

“That’s another odd thing,” Noah said. “We couldn’t find a calendar in her apartment or on her computer.”

“Hmm.” Hans looked again at the photo. “We definitely need more information. If there was blackmail