Political Suicide (8 page)

“I understand.” Lou forced himself not to avert his eyes.

“Well, I think Gary did it,” Jeannine said matter-of-factly.

“I know the police are certain that’s the case, but why are you?”

“Because I ended our … relationship. Because he was drinking and getting more and more desperate to make things right between us. I can play you the messages he left on my mobile. I saved them after I shared them with the police because, as you probably know, Gary was a hunter and a gun nut. He’s been on expeditions and hunting trips in the Rockies and Canada, and even a safari in Africa.”

Lou nodded, thinking,
There it is again: motive, method, and opportunity.
It seemed that Gary was just a weapon away from spending the rest of his life in prison, or from becoming the first execution in the state in years.

“Do you feel like talking about why you ended things?” he asked.

“Is that why Gary sent you to see me? To find out why?”

“No,” Lou said. “It’s me who wants to know. Gary is steadfast that he didn’t kill your husband. He knew I might be the only one on earth who would believe him and asked if I’d look into things. He’s right that I tend to accept what I’m told by my friends until I have ironclad reasons not to. So I’d like to understand as many of the events leading up to your husband’s murder as possible.”

Jeannine nodded. “Well spoken,” she replied. “Put simply, I had a change of heart. Elias came to me the evening before he … was killed. He took me in his arms and kissed me in a way he hadn’t in years. I felt it. I really and truly felt it like an electric charge shooting through my body. I’ll remember that kiss for the rest of my life. It was like our first kiss, the kiss after he proposed to me, and the kiss on our wedding day all rolled into one. I had been having misgivings about Gary—thoughts about pulling out. Guilt. Having my husband kiss me that way and tell me how much he loved me and needed me made up my mind.” She began to sob.

Lou waited. “It’s okay,” he said finally.

“No … no, it’s hardly okay. My surviving children despise me now. They blame me for their father’s murder. If I wasn’t having …
having an affair
—” Another gut-wrenching sob cut her words short.

Surviving children …

Lou had researched Mark Colston’s heroic death in Afghanistan. The twenty-seven-year-old’s platoon had come under attack by a group of Taliban fighters in the Ghazni Province, dubbed by many as being the most dangerous region in the country. Five members of the platoon were badly wounded in the ambush. Medical help could not reach them, because of heavy suppressing fire.

From the accounts Lou had read, Mark Colston strode into the line of fire with the calmness of Gary Cooper in
High Noon.
He shot and killed all but one of the Taliban militiamen. The one he did not kill, he mortally wounded. However, before he died, that Taliban fighter was able to toss a grenade at the fallen U.S. soldiers. Mark immediately fell on the grenade, saving the lives of five men, while sacrificing his own. He was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for bravery above and beyond the call of duty.

“I’m sure things will work out with your children,” Lou said. “Nine years ago, my wife divorced me while I was in rehab from an amphetamine and alcohol addiction. My daughter, Emily, was young then, but not so young that she didn’t understand I had done something very bad. She blamed me completely. But things change. Now she’s thirteen, and the two of us are as close as a parent and child can be. I have her nearly half the time, but just two days ago, she asked about moving in with me.”

“What did you tell her?”

“She loves her mother as much as she loves me. It’s just a teen thing. I said that if she left matters as is, I’d get us a cat.”

For the first time since Lou’s arrival, Jeannine Colston managed something of a smile. “Good luck,” she said. She paused, her expression wistful, possibly recalling cats in her family’s past. “Now, then,” she asked finally, “are there any other questions you have? Anything else you want to know about?”

“Congressman Colston was shot in your garage.”

“That’s right.”

“And his study is above the garage.”

“Right again.”

“Would you mind if I had a look around there?”

“As long as you don’t need me to do it. I don’t like being in either place. Besides, I feel a migraine coming on, and the only thing that ever really works at this stage is a nap.”

“No problem.”

“The code for both doors is five twenty-nine eighty-two, our wedding date.”

Lou repeated the number, thanked her, and agreed not to stop back on his way out unless something came up that was important. “I assume the police are done here,” he said.

“From what I could tell, they were done almost as soon as they started. They knew they had their man, and so did I.”

CHAPTER 10

Sarah Joyce Cooper was on a partner track, or at least that is what she had been told by the firm’s founder, Grayson Devlin. She was known for her intellect and composure in the courtroom, but when Devlin summoned her to a conference in his office, her nervousness was understandable.

The conference area, half the size of the one by the library off the main suite, was designed by one of Washington’s most prestigious architectural firms to evoke feelings of regality and power. It was a legal sanctuary, featuring rich mahogany paneling and a floor adorned by one of the most beautiful Oriental carpets Sarah had ever seen. There were leather couches and chairs positioned with a designer’s flair, bookcases filled with impressive legal tomes, and of course, a well-stocked bar. On one wall was a gas fireplace, and before it, an oval mahogany table with seating for eight.

When Sarah arrived, five of the firm’s seven partners were at the conference table. She had no idea how long the partners had been there, and indeed, it was possible they did not know themselves. There were no windows in Devlin’s private space, and no clocks. As Sarah found out during her first year on the job, the business of the senior partners of Devlin and Rodgers ended each day only when it had to.

She took her appointed seat and glanced at the papers set out for her, a stack considerably smaller than those in front of the others. She could see they had been reviewing the Gary McHugh case. It seemed a bit early for a strategy meeting of this magnitude, but she felt prepared. Still, she took a sip of lemon water against the raspiness in her throat. There were no prolonged greetings. The firm billed by the minute, and the senior partners’ philosophy was to charge only for time spent serving their clients.

Grayson Devlin spoke first. A tall and lean silverback with a full head of hair and a love for designer suits, Devlin, even in his seventies, could intimidate as equally on the squash court as he could in the courtroom.

“Sarah, I see that Dr. McHugh is still in jail.”

“The DA is certain he’s the man. They don’t want this to turn into a circus.”

“He’s been a good citizen. Any chance we could get him out?”

“He was having an affair with the victim’s wife, and he was on the scene intoxicated at around the time the murder took place.”

“Point taken. How is your defense shaping up?”

Sarah took another drink of lemon water. “Until we turn something else up, we’re going directly after the evidence,” she said.

Heather Goddard, the only female partner, made a disapproving sound. “I’ve read your brief, and that seems like a risky play to me,” she said.

Sarah loved Heather’s thinking, and did not feel at all on the defensive by having her question the strategy. The partners of Devlin and Rodgers were sharp and ethical, and they understood the critical nuances of the law. They also knew that in cases like McHugh’s, their job was not to judge a client’s guilt or innocence but, rather, to cast enough reasonable doubt to win an acquittal. When called upon, they functioned as a team to mount the best defense possible. If Heather had any concern, it was Sarah’s job to address it.

“The evidence builds a circumstantial case at best. Without a murder weapon, I don’t see any risk in attacking it,” Sarah said. “But that’s not to say I don’t share your concern, Heather, which is why it’s not my only strategy.”

Sarah was pleased to see Heather smile. Next to Devlin, she was the partner Sarah most wanted to impress. Five years before, Heather’s husband of twenty-six years had unexpectedly died in his sleep. Two years after that, following the death of Sarah’s husband, David, Heather became one of her closest confidantes.

“What else do you have in mind?” Heather asked now.

“It goes without saying that politicians make enemies, especially ones with the longevity on Capitol Hill that Elias Colston had. I’ve got an investigator checking around to see whose feathers he might have ruffled over the years.

Gordon Rodgers, the most senior partner after Devlin, appeared pleased by the plan. “Do you think a jury would buy that?” he asked.

“Without the murder weapon, anything is possible. The surveillance tape shows Dr. McHugh parking on the drive and leaving his car. But the cameras aren’t positioned to show him actually entering the garage or even going around the house. The next time we see him, he is more or less stumbling back to his car. Then he drives away. The crime scene people are fixing the time of death between eleven and two. That window would include Dr. McHugh, but it leaves room for someone else as well.”

“Someone else?”

“It’s a bit of a long shot, but I think we have an opportunity to focus some attention on Jeannine Colston.”

“I thought she had an alibi—some sort of meeting.”

“It was a meeting of congressional spouses. Quite a large meeting, in fact. It featured a buffet brunch. People milling around, then eventually sitting down. From what we can tell, she hasn’t produced any specific witness saying she was there throughout the time window when her husband was killed. It’s likely the police were so sure of themselves with Dr. McHugh that they never even asked her for an alibi, let alone someone to support it. All we have to do is create doubt. The longer we wait to ask her to produce an alibi witness, the less chance someone will be willing to swear under oath that Jeannine was at the meeting during the ME’s window.”

“Nice.”

“So you’re going to propose that Jeannine Colston shot and killed her husband before McHugh arrived at the property, and then left for the meeting in the Capitol?”

“Or after. Dr. McHugh was in a blackout. All bets are off. She could have been there and hid from him. Try this: Dr. McHugh shows up intoxicated. Jeannine and he have a fight. Colston overhears the squabble and confronts his wife about the affair. Tempers flare, and Jeannine Colston gets a gun and kills him.”

“Does Colston even own a gun?” Devlin asked.

Sarah had her sixty-plus-page report memorized. “If you turn to page thirty-five in your brief,” she said, “I have outlined our ballistics strategy.”

The partners flipped to the page.

“The bullets recovered from Colston’s body were fired from a .45 ACP,” Sarah said, summarizing the lengthy report. “Forensics showed the slugs had a six-groove left-hand twist rifling mark. The Colt company is the only major U.S. handgun manufacturer that consistently uses a left-hand twist. However, several foreign handgun manufacturers also use a left-hand twist, including Taurus. The Colstons happen to have a registered Taurus PT1911. Reasonable doubt. That’s our middle name, yes?”

It was no surprise how quickly the police had produced the ballistic forensic details. The Colston case was high-profile and demanded speedy processing of the evidence. Maryland also had one of the most comprehensive ballistics fingerprinting systems in the world. In fact, all new firearms sales were required to provide a fired slug to the state police, who then logged that information into their database.

Each year, Devlin and Rodgers sponsored a ballistics seminar for the firm. The comprehensive full-day session was one of the main reasons Sarah had signed on. Subsequently, several of her cases had hinged on ballistics evidence, and as a result, she had become something of an expert in the science. The inside of every gun barrel contained groove marks that helped a bullet spin and fly to where it was aimed. The “twist” referred to the inches of bore required for one complete rifling spiral.

The ballistics database contained measurements and photographs of the number and depth of each groove and right or left twist direction, in addition to a host of other identifiers. Those data were then used to determine a possible gun manufacturer and make of the weapon that did the firing. To get an exact match required the recovery of the murder weapon and a comprehensive firing test conducted by a ballistics expert.

“Did we test the Taurus?” Devlin asked.

“I plan to contract a three-fire test with one of our forensics experts,” Sarah said. “I don’t expect a match, but you never know.”

Devlin smiled. “You never know” was a favorite adage of his.

The ballistics expert would fire Colston’s Taurus three times into a water tank. The technique would cradle the bullet and preserve the grooves.

“Of course,” Heather said with a sly smile, “that doesn’t mean the Colstons’ couldn’t own another Taurus.”

“Always possible,” Sarah replied, “and a seed of doubt I will be only too happy to plant. For now, all I’m going to show is that they owned a gun from the same manufacturer that is potentially the manufacturer of the weapon that killed Elias Colston. Maybe the Colstons didn’t register all their firearms. Maybe the congressman received a Taurus as a gift from a lobbyist who knew he liked the make. Remember, he was a military man—a marine. Maybe Jeannine used that unregistered gun to kill her husband and then she hid the weapon somewhere.
Maybe
—one of our favorite words.”

The partners murmured their approval.

Only Devlin looked concerned. “Well done, Sarah,” he said. “Now, there’s something else I want to discuss.”

Uh-oh.
Sarah tried not to read much into the change of topic, but that was like trying not to breathe. “Anything,” she said.