The Divine Appointment, page 33
“What’s this?” Anna asked.
“It’s the lab report on Jessica Caldwell’s fetus.”
“I don’t understand.”
“At first I thought you killed her,” Tag said, finally breaking his silence. He returned to the sofa, beside Anna. “I was inside her town house with her when you were banging on the front door calling my name. So I knew you had found her place. And then I got the photograph of your car in the mail. It was time stamped well after I left Jessica’s town house.” His voice trailed off and became a whisper. “I thought you had gone back there again that night…and killed her. All because I was messing around with another woman, and you’d caught me.”
“You thought I killed her?” Anna stared incredulously at Tag.
He straightened his back and cocked his head toward Anna. “Don’t look at me like that. You think I did it, don’t you?” He looked toward Eli, and his tone turned pleading. “I didn’t kill her, Eli. I swear to God I didn’t and couldn’t kill her. But Anna is pregnant. I couldn’t let her go to jail for something she did just because she was mad at me. And because I’d fooled around, it was only right that I should be tried in her place.”
Anna gasped. “I don’t believe this. You thought I killed her and wanted to protect me? You’ve never acted like you cared that much for me before.”
“I loved my mother,” Tag said, “but she was taken from me. I didn’t want that to happen to you…or the baby. It wouldn’t be right. So I decided I had to protect you.”
But Eli wasn’t buying it. “That was your plan initially, right, Tag?” Eli asked. “You were afraid Anna had murdered Jessica Caldwell, so you were willing to face a jury in her place. It sounds very admirable.”
“But I didn’t do anything,” Anna protested. “There was no need to protect me.”
Uncomfortable silence ensued as Tag and Anna stared at each other. They searched each other’s face for answers, but neither held the complete truth. Only Eli had made all the connections. He spoke with authority to Tag.
“You didn’t know that in the beginning, though, did you? And the SUV is licensed to you, not Anna. You had no way of knowing that another photo existed that depicted the driver of the car. So you gave me the photograph, hoping it would further incriminate you. That way Anna would be off the hook. She could have the baby and go ahead with her life without you.”
Tag broke his gaze from Anna and shifted his head toward Eli. He nodded slowly.
“And the scratch on your face? How did that happen?” Eli asked.
“The night Jessica died we ended our relationship. She got mad and slapped me. She grazed my cheek. She had been acting weird for about a week anyway. Ever since she came back from Washington. After I was arrested, I was glad she’d scratched me. It directed the police toward me and away from Anna.”
The expression on Anna’s face showed she was clearly struggling to take all this news in.
“But then, in the preliminary hearing, you saw the HCG notation on the report,” Eli said. “And you pointed it out to me.”
Tag nodded. “When Jessica told me she was pregnant, I knew I couldn’t be the father.” He dropped his head. “Our relationship had lasted nearly three months, but we weren’t intimate until the last two weeks. I knew that was too soon for her to know she was pregnant from our relationship, so I knew I couldn’t be the father. But I still thought Anna had killed her, and I wanted to protect Anna. So the only thing I could think to do that day in court was to lie to you and say I was sterile.”
“That’s not exactly true either, is it, Tag?” Eli asked.
“What’s not true?” Tag’s tone was defensive.
“You didn’t tell me you were sterile to protect Anna,” Eli said slowly. “There was a different reason, wasn’t there?”
Tag looked uncomfortable.
Eli went on with his deductions. “And later, in the hearing, when the medical examiner said the fetus was twelve weeks old, you could easily have told me that the fetus was too old to have been fathered by you. The fetus was three months old, but your affair with her was much shorter.” He leaned toward Tag. “No, the reason you told me you were sterile was so I would have the body exhumed. You wanted me to find out who fathered her child. Isn’t that right?”
“If you’re not the father,” Anna said in Tag’s direction, “then why would it be important to you to know who was?”
Eli continued staring at Tag but talked to Anna. He watched Tag’s reaction to his words, and his reaction spoke volumes. “Tag realized at the preliminary hearing that you had nothing to do with Jessica Caldwell’s death. He could have ended the entire ordeal right there, but he had some guesses about who the father of her baby might be. The only way to prove it was for the criminal case against him to continue. If the case against Tag had been dismissed, then he wouldn’t get the one thing he so desperately wanted. He had to know for certain who had fathered Jessica’s baby. But to do that, the body had to be exhumed, in order for DNA tests to be run on the fetus. So, you see, Anna, Tag’s plans weren’t as much about protecting you…as they were about convicting someone else.”
Eli’s eyes met Tag’s.
“How long have you known?” Tag asked.
“I’ve had the DNA results a few days, but just now began to make it all fit together.”
“Known what?” Anna asked.
“That Tag’s father also had an affair with Jessica Caldwell.”
“Tag’s father?” Anna stared at Tag. “I thought you didn’t know your father.”
“He knows,” Eli said. “It’s the same man who fathered Jessica Caldwell’s baby.”
“I’m confused,” Anna admitted.
Eli continued to focus his vision on Tag while he spoke to Anna. “Look at that lab report. It says that Tag and the fetus of Jessica Caldwell were half siblings. Tag and the unborn child of Jessica had the same father.”
As Eli continued to study Tag’s face, things began to fall into place. Tag wasn’t sterile. Eli had confirmed that truth. And that meant Anna hadn’t lied to him the first time he’d met with her in his office. She was, in fact, pregnant—she looked it now—and Tag was the father.
The next piece to the puzzle was that Anna wasn’t involved in Jessica Caldwell’s demise. She was unwittingly complacent in Tag’s claim of being sterile, but that was her only offense. It didn’t matter to Eli why she had remained silent in the face of Tag’s lie. He decided not to even ask her. Perhaps she was scared or hoped the lie would somehow exonerate Tag. She had said earlier she wanted her baby to grow up with a father. Whatever her reasoning had been, it was irrelevant now. That issue was closed.
But more unanswered questions gnawed at Eli.
“What happened to your mother?” Eli asked Tag.
Tag’s expression changed to puzzlement. Eli realized that he was treading in an area of Tag’s life that Tag was surprised he’d discovered.
“She died in a car accident. Why?”
“Whether it was really an accident is questionable, isn’t it?” Eli asked.
Tag shook his head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“C’mon, Tag. Her car went over a cliff without any skid marks, and you asked the police to close the investigation? You know something about what happened to her. What is it?” Eli scrutinized Tag’s face.
Tag dropped his head. He couldn’t look Eli in the eyes. It was as if Tag thought Eli already knew the answer, and he had no option but to reply honestly.
Anna sat quietly, wringing her hands in her lap. She appeared perplexed. Eli sensed that the subject of the conversation between him and Tag was foreign to her.
Tag studied the floor. “I don’t have any proof,” he said in a low voice. “Only suspicion.”
“Suspicion about what?” Eli asked.
“That he was involved.”
“Who?”
Tag looked up at Eli and forced the words through his lips. “My father.”
“And he told you to leave it alone. He must be very powerful.”
Tag’s eyebrows rose and he nodded thoughtfully. “To say the least.”
“And that was why you wanted to find out the truth about Jessica’s fetus. You couldn’t prove he killed your mother, but perhaps you could at least find some way to tie him to Jessica Caldwell’s murder.”
Tag’s eyes were angry. He clenched his fists. “He deserves to pay dearly for murdering my mother. She never did anything to him. But if not for her murder, then he needs to pay for something. Without the DNA testing, there would be no way to link Jessica with him. No way to prove that he might be the one who killed her because she was carrying his baby.”
“How did you find out that he and Jessica had an affair?”
“She told me. He kept calling her and I saw that it upset her. I asked her who it was and she told me. She had no idea I knew him. The night she told me she was pregnant, she seemed scared. She said something had happened while she was in Washington. But I didn’t want to listen. I was ticked off that she was pregnant…and hadn’t told me before. We got in a fight, and she told me to leave. I was only too glad to do that. I had planned on telling her that night that it was over, anyway.”
“So who is it?” Eli prodded. “Who is your biological father?”
“My mother was only a teenager when she got pregnant. It was thirty-five years ago. She told me that he said he loved her but refused to marry her. I guess I should be grateful that he paid for my education, but when I finished medical school, he cut off all financial support. My mother confronted him about it. Two weeks later she was dead.”
“Who is it?” Eli insisted.
“When my mother got pregnant with me, he was the son of the governor of Tennessee. Does that tell you who he is?”
Chapter Thirty-Five
The Proctor residence, Washington DC
By noon, Holland and Jill had been working on Holland’s article for the Washington Post for over two hours. Evelyn did have something better for them to use than Jill’s laptop and a telephone line. Holland sat in front of a wide, flat-screen monitor and banged out a rough draft. The irony of using a computer in Senator Proctor’s house—in his own lavish study—to write an article about him that might be his undoing wasn’t lost on either Holland or Jill.
Jill stood over Holland’s shoulder and read every word. She offered suggestions and corrections, and Holland generally accepted them. He reminded her, though, that he was the journalist and she was the lawyer.
“I guess I’m too much of a stickler for accuracy and truth,” Jill chided.
Holland snorted and kept typing.
Albert Johnson, the man with the raspy voice, and his wife, Hazel, waited hand and foot on Holland and Jill. They were treated like favored houseguests. Hazel and Albert prepared breakfast, then lunch, and kept cups or glasses filled. Holland and Jill didn’t leave the computer.
At last Jill glanced at her watch. “I better call Eli. My plane landed in Nashville an hour ago, and I wasn’t on it. He’s got to be wondering what’s up by now.”
Holland grunted and nodded and kept pecking at the keys. Jill left the study and asked Evelyn Proctor if she could use the phone. Jill and Holland had intentionally turned the power to their wireless phones on and left them in Holland’s Camry. Evelyn readily obliged the request.
Jill dialed the number for Eli’s wireless. “Eli, this is Jill,” she said after he answered.
“Jill? I didn’t recognize the number. Where are you? I thought you were due back in Nashville before now.” Eli sounded puzzled.
“You’re not going to believe me.”
“Try me.”
Jill told Eli everything that had happened in less than thirty-six hours, beginning with the telephone call to Cooper Harrington and ending with the rescue by Evelyn Proctor.
“Are you safe now?” Eli asked.
“I feel safe, but I’m not sure yet.”
A pause, then, “And I guess you don’t think Mrs. Proctor was involved anymore?”
“Can’t be. She flew back to Washington on a charter after the fund-raiser. Cooper Harrington and Senator Proctor stayed until the next morning. But Mrs. Proctor doesn’t know which one was in Jessica Caldwell’s apartment that night either.”
“The DNA matches Senator Proctor.”
“Really? How do you know?”
“Because he’s also Tag Grissom’s father. Tag and the fetus of Jessica Caldwell were half siblings.”
Stunned, Jill fell silent. She studied the carpeted floor under her feet. “Can you have Barbara scan that report into the server and email it to me? I’ll log in from here and retrieve it. We may need it to corroborate the story Holland’s writing.”
“I’ll be back in the office in thirty or forty minutes, and I’ll have her do it. I’ll check on the fingerprint possibility you mentioned, too.”
“I’ve got to go,” Jill told Eli. “I need to help Holland. We’ve got some editing to do with this new information.”
“Call me later today. And, Jill?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ve told you this before, but I really mean it. Be careful.”
Jill ended the call and returned to the study. Holland was still hunched over the keyboard.
“You’ve got to do some revisions,” she announced. “I have some new information from Eli.”
En route to Jackson, Tennessee
Eli worried about Jill as he drove toward Jackson from Brentwood. This murder case now bordered on toppling one of the most powerful men in the country. And Jill was right in the middle of the danger. Eli prayed that God would protect her.
As Eli’s BMW traversed the bridge over the Tennessee River that separated west Tennessee from middle Tennessee, he dialed the number for Randy Dickerson’s office. Jill had mentioned the possibility that the unidentified fingerprints from the crime scene could be compared against the Office of Personnel Management database to see if they matched a print from Senator Proctor or Cooper Harrington. Eli needed to follow up on that theory, and the easiest and quickest way was through Randy Dickerson’s office.
“Has the state lab provided you with the DNA results on the Caldwell fetus?” Eli asked Randy.
“I received the results yesterday.”
“Interesting, isn’t it?”
“I’ll say. But that doesn’t exonerate Dr. Grissom,” Randy said quickly. “We can still place him at the crime, and his skin was under her fingernail.”
“I didn’t expect you to dismiss the charges yet, but that leads me to why I’m calling. I need some additional comparisons on the fingerprints found at the Caldwell murder scene.”
“What kind of comparisons?”
“I need the unidentified prints compared against the database for the federal Office of Personnel Management,” Eli explained.
“You’ve lost me.”
“I have a hunch—actually it was Jill who had the idea—that perhaps we’ll find a match in the OPM database.”
“Whose print do you think it will match?” Randy asked.
“I can’t say yet.”
“I can’t help you then.” Randy’s reply was terse.
“Randy, you know Judge Blackwood will order it done. And he won’t require me to tell you who I suspect. I’m just trying to get it done quicker. But you’ll know before I do if there is a match.”
“You think a federal employee was in her town house?”
“It’s possible.”
Randy sighed. “I’ll see what I can do. It might take a couple of hours.”
“Call me as soon as you know something.”
Washington DC
Holland worked furiously on the article about Senator Proctor. It covered his affair with Jessica Caldwell, her pregnancy, her murder, the death of Tiffany Ramsey, and the fact that Senator Proctor owned the town house Jessica and Tiffany had shared.
Jill retrieved the lab report via email.
Holland stood from the chair in front of the computer and stretched his arms and legs.
Jill moved into the chair previously occupied by Holland and read the draft on the computer screen. It was 1:00 p.m. eastern time.
“Holland,” Evelyn Proctor said. She appeared in the doorway to the study.
Holland and Jill turned their heads toward her.
“You have some competition for the front page.”
“What?” Holland stopped stretching.
Evelyn waved them from the room. “The FBI is conducting a press conference right now. You need to see this.”
Holland and Jill hurriedly vacated the study and followed Evelyn to the den. The trio stood before a large flat-screen television and watched as the interim FBI director, Phillip McFarland, stepped to a podium in the briefing room of the J. Edgar Hoover Building. Director McFarland was a tall African American with tightly curled black hair tinted with patches of gray. He wore a navy blue suit, red-and-
navy tie, and white shirt.
“Good afternoon,” Interim Director McFarland said. He read from a report on the podium in front of him. “We’re pleased to announce that we have a break in the ongoing investigation of the bombing at Judge Dunbar Shelton’s home in Vicksburg, Mississippi, six weeks ago and the murders of Myron and Dorothy Carlson almost two weeks ago. The two events were connected.”
For ten minutes Interim Director McFarland described the involvement of Stella Hanover and Joe Moretti with both the bombing and the murders. A chart appeared on the large screen behind him. The chart depicted a timeline of Joe Moretti’s travels immediately before the Shelton bombing and of the travels of Stella Hanover and Joe Moretti during the days immediately preceding the Carlsons’ deaths.
“We haven’t been able to locate Mr. Moretti, but we will continue to search for him. Regardless, the case against Ms. Hanover is airtight. We have agents in New York who are taking Ms. Hanover into custody as we speak. We have probable cause to believe that Ms. Hanover paid Joe Moretti to assassinate Judge Dunbar Shelton and also for the murders of Myron and Dorothy Carlson. But there is one part of the investigation that has not yet been completed.”
