A Slow Walk to Hell (28 page)

“I
t’s absolutely beautiful,” Amanda said.

We were following Crenshaw’s Mercedes. A quarter mile from the gate, the thick forest transformed into a pastoral setting reminiscent of a Greek postcard. Before us were colorful gardens and picturesque water fountains. Past them towered a Mediterranean villa that easily approximated the size of a small hotel. Paths led off in various directions, several ending at iron gates, vine-covered bungalows visible behind them. Over to the left I saw tennis courts and beyond them, a building that looked like a stable.

To carve this Garden of Eden out of the forest must have cost millions and I asked no one in particular how Slater had footed the bill.

“He was a blackmailer,” Amanda responded, as if that said it all.

“Before
he built this place?”

She saw my logic and didn’t reply.

“Slater could have funded the construction on his own,” Simon said. “He’s wealthy in his own right. He was a television producer, prior to becoming a political consultant.”

Explained his expertise with videos.

The Mercedes stopped in front of the villa and we parked beside it. Climbing out, I took a look around. I didn’t see anyone, but I didn’t expect to. It was 6:30
A.M
. After a hard night of partying or whatever, the guests would still be asleep, probably for several more hours.

Simon asked Crenshaw, “Were all your rooms set up with video cameras?”

“Only the bungalows. Those we assigned to the more…exclusive guests.”

I said, “Those who were worth the trouble of blackmailing?”

A wan smile.

“Where are the videotapes?” Simon asked.

“In my office.”

Crenshaw led us up the stone steps into the hotel.

The interior of the villa was as dramatic as the grounds. Ornate chandeliers dangled from vaulted ceilings that had to be twenty feet high. The floor was polished Italian marble, the walls a soft coral stucco, accented by rich mahogany trim. Gilt framed paintings and brightly colored frescos adorned the lobby area, enhancing a feeling of wealth and elegance, which, of course, was the intention.

Roland Slater wanted to attract people who could afford to pay.

Stopping by the reception desk, Crenshaw spoke briefly to a young woman. He must’ve told her we were cops, because she looked startled.

“This way,” Crenshaw said, walking past us.

He led us down a long corridor, past a glassed-in bar and lounge, complete with a dance floor and a metallic disco bulb. At the end of the hall, he made a left into a narrower passageway and pushed through a door marked “Administration.”

We entered a cramped anteroom with a secretary’s desk and a modest sitting area. Crenshaw continued to another door affixed with a gold nameplate inscribed with his name.

We followed him into a roomy office dominated by a large desk, several leather armchairs, and a cherry television cabinet. Stepping around the desk, Crenshaw knelt at a chest-high steel safe tucked in the corner and dialed the combination. At a click, he opened the door and reached inside.

“Step away,” Simon said.

Crenshaw moved back.

Squatting down, Simon removed videotapes and passed them to Amanda and me. Before we placed the tapes on the desk, we read the labels. A majority of the names were repeats, indicating they’d visited more than once. Several were celebrities and high-ranking government officials. Five were prominent members of Congress, the most notable being Senator Tobias Hansen, the conservative senator who’d bucked his party by endorsing Congressman Harris for the presidency.

Seeing Hansen’s name suggested that Slater hadn’t blackmailed individuals solely for monetary gain. This suspicion was validated when we saw another tape with the name of the retired general and recent Gulf War hero, who was now the commandant of cadets at Virginia Tech.

“Now we know why General Murdock is supporting Harris,” Amanda said.

I still couldn’t believe it. I thrust the tape out to Crenshaw. “General Murdock is gay?”

“His daughter.”

He said it with a little smile, as if he found the irony that a general would have a lesbian daughter somehow funny.

I saw red. He was a scum-sucking blackmailer who destroyed reputations and lives. It was all I could do not to jerk him by his ponytail and slap the smile from his—

“This the last one, Martin,” Simon said.

He was holding out a tape to me. As I took it from him, I read the name on the side.

Harris.

Another piece of the puzzle—the key piece—slipped into place. We now understood why Congressman Harris, a man with a reputation for integrity, had become involved with a disreputable political guru like Slater.

I shook my head as I set the tape on the desk. Simon had called Harris an unwilling participant. But blackmail or not, he
had
participated and five people were dead.

So much for his integrity.

“How many?” Simon asked, contemplating the tapes on the desk.

“Forty-eight,” Amanda answered. “But there are only twenty-eight individuals. Four tapes are Talbot’s. Probably the originals of what we saw.”

“Where the hell are the rest of them?” Enrique asked, confronting Crenshaw. “There must be hundreds more. Where are they?”

“This is all of them,” Crenshaw said. “There are forty-eight—”

“Bullshit,” Enrique said flatly.

“Think about it,” he said. “What’s the benefit of continually taping a specific client? There isn’t any.”

“What about the other guests who have stayed in the bungalows over the years?” Enrique demanded. “Where are their tapes?”

“The vast majority we didn’t bother to tape—You going to let me answer or not?”

Enrique remained silent, glowering.

“Mr. Slater,” Crenshaw continued, “was very selective. He knew he was engaged in a high-risk endeavor. He only pressured individuals who he was certain wouldn’t go to the authorities and would be of use to him. That’s another reason he restricted the number of tapings. To minimize the risk that a video might be misplaced or stolen, perhaps find its way to the authorities.”

Enrique squinted at him, trying to determine if Crenshaw was lying. “Bullshit,” he announced again, making his decision.

But I saw the logic of what Crenshaw was saying. I said, “I noticed there’s no tape marked with General Baldwin’s name.”

“No,” Crenshaw said. “To avoid confusion, Mr. Slater only marked the tapes with the people he was targeting. Their partners are referenced in the ledger. It’s in the safe.”

Simon reached inside it.

I said to Crenshaw, “You’re telling me Slater never targeted General Baldwin for blackmail?”

“Not to my knowledge. Mr. Slater’s criterion for videotaping someone was whether they could be politically useful.”

“Slater threatened General Baldwin with the tape last night.”

Crenshaw shrugged, cinching his robe tight around him. “I wouldn’t know about that.”

Amanda asked, “What about money?”

Crenshaw’s brow wrinkled.

“Money,” she repeated. “Surely Mr. Slater blackmailed people for money.”

“He didn’t,” Crenshaw said. “Mr. Slater only sought influence. Power.”

“Like controlling the president of the United States.”

Crenshaw was silent.

“He’s lying,” Enrique said. “There have to be more tapes. Look at the size of this place. It cost millions. He’s lying.”

“There are only forty-eight tapes,” Simon said.

He was staring into a green ledger. He shook his head and closed it. He had the same expression of deep sadness that we’d noticed at the Days Inn.

“What is it?” Amanda asked. “What did you see?”

“A name.”

“Whose name?”

Instead of a reply, Simon told Crenshaw to play the Harris tape.

Crenshaw walked over to TV cabinet and inserted the video into the VCR. Stepping back, he said to Simon. “The remote is on the desk, Lieutenant.”

As Simon picked it up, Crenshaw gave him a tiny smile. “You really didn’t know?”

“I didn’t want to know,” Simon said.

He extended the remote and stood frozen. As if with great effort, his thumb slowly depressed a button. Seconds later, we realized why he was reluctant to view this video.

When the image appeared, Amanda gave a little gasp and my knees almost buckled. We’d mentally braced ourselves for several scenarios, all involving Congressman Harris. Nothing prepared us for seeing two nude women interlocked in each others arms. Even though their faces were shielded by a wild mass of hair, we knew who they had to be. One was a tall and black, the other a slender blonde.

“I can’t believe it,” Amanda said. “I can’t.”

But we had to believe it because the blonde woman brushed aside her hair and we found ourselves staring at the face of Teresa Harris.

N
o one spoke. We couldn’t.

A voice in my head told me it couldn’t be true. Slater had been a TV producer. He must have staged this somehow, altered the image with some kind of special effects trick. The bright and beautiful Teresa Harris wouldn’t be involved in a lesbian affair with her personal assistant.

But of course it wasn’t a trick. In our hearts, we knew we were staring at reality. Teresa Harris and her assistant were not only lovers.

They were killers.

I rubbed my face hard, thinking I should have at least considered this possibility. The reason I hadn’t was because I’d focused on the obvious. I’d assumed the killers had been men. Women don’t kill in such a brutal fashion. They don’t torture people to death. Certainly not their own nephew. They don’t.

My mind shifted back to the clues that had been there all along. Subtle, but they were there.

The height disparity between the killers, one tall and the other much shorter.

The closeness of the killers to Talbot; why he let them into the house.

Major Tenpas’s statement to me:
Major Coller is separating from the Air Force…He’s going to work as an administrative assistant for Mrs. Harris.

The absence of an alibi; Teresa Harris
hadn’t
campaigned with her husband in Pennsylvania.

Simon’s comment to Amanda:
I want so much to be wrong. Can you understand that?

And Harris’s admonition to the Secret Service agent:
You’ve already screwed up enough for one day, Hassall.
That singular comment should have been a huge red flag. Hassall’s job was protection. His screwup must have been that he’d failed in that duty.

And lost his charge, Teresa Harris.

No, I should have known. The clues were there, if I’d only paid attention. Even now, I still had difficulty believing what I was viewing on the screen. How could this stunningly beautiful woman kill all those—

I frowned. Coller’s murder? How could she have pulled off Coller’s murder?

I asked Simon if Teresa Harris was an expert marksman.

“Exceptionally so,” he said. “It was her discipline in the Olympics.”

“Excuse me?” Amanda said. “She was a cross-country skier.”

“Not exactly,” Simon said. “She competed in the biathlon.”

Which meant Teresa Harris had spent years shooting at targets with a rifle. “Jesus,” Amanda said.

Coupled with the church janitor’s description of the killers, this fact explained why Simon had harbored suspicions of Teresa Harris. What it
didn’t
explain was how someone could be in two places at once.

I said to him, “So how did she manage Coller’s killing? We saw her and her assistant…”

“Abigail Gillette.”

“Board the helicopter. Teresa Harris couldn’t have driven to Talbot’s apartment in time to murder him. Not from Harris’s home.”

“Perhaps the helicopter dropped off the women en route.”

“She ditched her Secret Service security a
second
time?” Preposterous. Agent Hassall would never allow himself to be burned twice.

Simon passed on a response. He didn’t seem concerned about explaining away this inconsistency. I wondered why, since it had bothered him a great deal, back at the rectory.

“A man,” Amanda said, highlighting another problem.

“Officer Hannity seemed convinced the person in the car was a man.”

“From the height,” Simon said. “That’s why he concluded the driver was male.”

“So what are you saying? You think
Gillette
was the person in the car?”

Another diffident shrug. Simon making it clear he had no desire to discuss this.

A warning bell chimed in my head. Yet again, his behavior indicated he was withholding information—

“Here it comes,” Crenshaw announced. “You don’t want to miss it. Mrs. Harris has
varied
sexual tastes.”

We all looked at him. He was focused on the screen, his eyes shiny. He murmured, “Such a shame. He was such a good looking man.”

Amanda said, “Mrs. Harris is
bi
sexual?”

Crenshaw didn’t answer her. He was fixated on the television.

On screen, we saw the women sit up and look toward the foot of the bed, at something or someone off camera. Teresa Harris pouted seductively and flashed a kittenish smile. Her assistant, Abigail Gillette, began motioning insistently. Both women giggled. They kissed on the lips and looked again toward the person—apparently the unseen man—who was in the room. The women smiled provocatively and cupped their hands in a slutty, come-on gesture, urging the man to join them.

We glimpsed an arm at the lower edge of the screen. A man’s arm. Teresa Harris pulled on his hand and the man tumbled between the women. He was nude except for his briefs. The women playfully pounced on him. Teresa Harris pressed her face down upon his, gave him a violent kiss and rubbed his crotch.

“Who is he?” Enrique said. “Can anyone tell?”

There were arms and legs everywhere. Teresa Harris’s face and hair completely covered the man’s. He struggled to free himself, but she continued to cling to him, her mouth pressed against his lips. I should be disgusted by what I was watching, but I couldn’t turn away. Teresa Harris had been an athlete. Her body was lithe and spectacular. She exuded a primal, animalistic sexuality.

It was exciting to watch.

Seconds later, Teresa Harris released her grip on the man and pushed away. And that’s when we finally saw his face.

Simon’s only reaction was a low hiss of disapproval. Because of the ledger, he’d known what to expect. The rest of us were slack jawed, reeling. We never considered that the male lover would be this particular man. It was unthinkable. Gay men don’t have sex with women. And they certainly don’t have sex with female family members.

But on screen, that was precisely what was happening.

Teresa Harris wet her lips and buried her face in the crotch of her nephew, Franklin Talbot.

As the sex act continued, Talbot looked awkward and uncomfortable. His eyes floated around the room, looking everywhere, but at his aunt. It was obvious he wasn’t enjoying himself.

So what the hell was he doing there?

Abigail Gillette joined in and both women worked on Talbot. It soon became apparent he was responding physically. The deviancy was too much. One by one, we turned away from the television. First Amanda, Enrique, and me. Crenshaw remained riveted on the screen, his breathing labored. It creeped me out.

Amanda glared disgustedly at Crenshaw. To Simon, she said, “I think we know how it ends.”

No reaction. Simon was looking at the screen with a distracted expression. Not so much watching as thinking, trying to understand.

Amanda said impatiently, “Anytime, Simon.”

That remark got through and he raised the remote. When the tape kept running, we looked to him quizzically. He was staring past us, toward the doorway. For an instant, I detected what appeared to be an expression of relief. But that didn’t make sense because of what Simon said next.

“Put the gun down,” he ordered.

Crenshaw gave a strangled cry and the rest of us spun around.

Him?