Morton wouldn’t know how to cover up a crime. That was all Adam, the genius. And maybe it was strictly Adam’s crime that they were covering up.
“Maybe you had nothing to do with the rape. Maybe Adam told you about it. Boasted. Maybe he needed help getting rid of the body.”
Morton squirmed. Dillon didn’t smile, though he felt some small pleasure in weaving through the facts and conjecture and nailing Roger Morton. He certainly would lose at poker.
“What was her name?”
“You’re fishing.” Morton’s voice was weak.
“We’ve reopened the investigation into Trevor Conrad’s death,” Quinn said. “We’ll exhume the body and with technology today, it’s very easy to determine the cause of death even after twenty years in the ground.”
That wasn’t always true, but Morton didn’t know that.
“It was an explosion. Not much left of Trevor.”
But Morton was losing some of his cockiness.
Quinn turned back to Adam Scott’s disappearing act. “Scott took a federal agent to Mount Baker in an attempt to draw Agent Donovan out. He shot him in the back while you were back on the island. He knew about the raid on the island, but he didn’t warn you, did he? He just walked. Left you, Denise, the others to take the rap. He had a huge head start. You could have escaped. But he took the only boat.”
Morton frowned. Didn’t say anything.
“What we want is your cooperation. We want the names and whereabouts of Scott’s victims’ remains. We want every known hideout of Scott. Bank accounts, property, the works. Everything you know.”
He didn’t say anything. Thinking.
Dillon glanced at Quinn, got the nod. “What I want to know is why?”
“Why what?” Morton asked.
“Why Lucy?”
He shrugged. “She’s hot. Just like-” he stopped.
“Like who?”
Something clicked in Morton’s head. He straightened his back. “If I give you something, something really good, that will solve a major case for you, what do I get in return?”
“It depends on the information,” Quinn said.
“I need something better than that.”
“You give us everything on Adam Scott, tell us what happened with Trevor Conrad, and cooperate from here on out, I’ll put in a good word.”
“A good word?” Morton laughed, leaned back. He knew he had them on the hook. Dillon feared that the conversation was turning away from them and that they wouldn’t get anything.
“I’m not a U.S. attorney,” Quinn said. “But I can make a recommendation to deal, simple felony rape instead of kidnapping, conspiracy to murder, manslaughter, and a host of other charges the lawyers will pile on when they know they can get the death penalty.”
Quinn stared at Morton. “I can also tell them that you’re a vicious prick who rapes teenagers and watches as they die. I can nail you for Henshaw’s murder even though the man wore a mask. You were there. We have your prints. We have a nice federal prison down in Florida. Cuban gangs run it. They won’t like it that you hurt one of their own. And I’ll make sure every guard knows exactly what you did and who you did it to.”
Morton squirmed. “I’ll tell you what. I’ll give you one thing, then I want an attorney in here who can make me a deal before I give you everything. Got it?”
Quinn nodded.
“Does the name Monique Paxton mean anything to you?”
Quinn shook his head, then stopped. “Paxton? You mean Senator Jonathan Paxton?”
Morton nodded. “He was some low-level politician at the time. Monique was fucking Adam. They were hot and heavy for a couple months. One night things got kind of rough. She ended up dead. I mean, if she was just some whore from the wrong side of the tracks, no one would care. He could have dumped her body and no one would have looked too closely at anyone. But it was Monique Paxton and he couldn’t just drop her on her daddy’s doorstep. He called me, and I had Trevor with me. I don’t know why he called me-I was hours away. But his parents were out of town for the weekend. So I went down, brought Trevor, and we took care of her. But when Trevor saw the news on Monday about how this politician’s daughter was missing, he sort of flipped. Adam didn’t tell us who she was at the time. Trevor wanted to confess, the stupid prick. Adam convinced him not to, but didn’t trust him. Got Paul to help get him to the lab, then rigged it to explode. But he was already dead.”
“How?” Quinn asked.
Morton shook his head. “Nope, nothing more. I want a deal on the table or you get nothing more from me.”
Dillon spoke quietly. “And Lucy looks like Monique.”
“They could be fucking twins.”
TWENTY-NINE
“SENATOR PAXTON?” Dillon asked.
“New York,” Quinn said. “His daughter disappeared more than twenty years ago. Ironically, his political career took off soon after. He was a state representative, then ran for attorney general on a strong public safety campaign. Won, parlayed that into the governorship eight years later, and then, when there was an open seat, ran for the Senate. He’s been there for four or five years now.”
“And his daughter was never found.”
“Not to my knowledge. I think I would have heard. The FBI was involved, and it was a case that we studied at the Academy. Can someone vanish off the face of the earth? The only way anyone can disappear is to completely assume another identity, be reclusive and live in the middle of nowhere and see no one, or be dead. The conventional wisdom was that she was dead, but there were no signs of foul play, no evidence, and if I remember currently no known boyfriend in the picture. So if Roger Morton is telling the truth, Monique never told her father she was dating Adam Scott. Never brought him home. And since he wasn’t a student at her school-he went to an all-male boarding school in Connecticut-he wouldn’t even have been looked at unless one of her friends had mentioned him.”
“So Adam Scott got away with murder,” Dillon thought out loud. “Was she the first? If it was truly an accident like Morton said, he may have learned that he experienced more sexual satisfaction during scarfing. Only instead of using a scarf or cloth, he used his own hands.”
“How does that fit in?”
“Consider this. He kills Monique while having sex. They’re going at it, probably consensual at first. He puts his hands around her neck and feeds off the fear on her face. He isn’t planning on killing her. But the excitement of her fear keeps him going too long. He climaxes, but she’s dead. From then on, he can’t climax without killing. And considering his actions last night, he’s even having problems with that.”
“So Trevor Conrad is going to go to the cops and he kills him. Blows up the lab at school to cover up the crime.”
Dillon nodded. “And Paul Ullman and Roger Morton are under his thumb. They aided and abetted. Even if Morton is right and Scott killed Trevor, and they only helped cover it up, Scott would still have control over them. They knew. And Monique Paxton was a high-profile victim. Her father was a politician. Not something they’d be able to walk away from easily, even with their family money.”
“I need confirmation before I can go to the senator. At least a location where her remains are buried.”
“They weren’t buried,” Dillon said solemnly.
“Why do you say that?”
“Adam Scott would have obliterated her remains. There may be traces, but my guess is that he burned the body and spread the ashes, or used some sort of chemical to quickly eat away the flesh.”
Quinn nodded. “Because there was physical evidence on the body.”
“Exactly. His sperm, his DNA, skin under her fingernails, marks on her body. He had to literally destroy her to save his life. His DNA isn’t in the system. Whether he subconsciously knew he was going down this murderous path, or it was a natural sense of self-preservation, Adam Scott vanished Monique Paxton.” Dillon glanced at Quinn and said, “I think it’s safe to give Senator Paxton the news.”