She took another sip of coffee and then looked down at her freshly done nails. “I was very excited that night. After meeting the president and all.” She glanced up, seemingly trying to read their reaction to this. “It made it difficult to sleep.”
Decker shifted his large bulk in his small seat as he perceived what she was trying to do. “And when you couldn’t sleep, what did you do?”
“I might have gone out into the hall and... walked around, gotten some fresh air.”
“And saw... something, perhaps?” interjected White.
“What did this Secret Service agent look like?” Fellows asked abruptly.
Decker took his phone from his pocket, pulled up a file, and showed her a photo of a far younger Kanak Roe from his company’s website.
She looked at it and nodded. “Yes, that looks like the man I saw that night. At least I think so. It was a long time ago, after all,” she added with a touch of defiance. “Memories are not infallible, you know.”
“Yeah, I know,” said Decker, drawing a surprised glance from White. “What was he doing?”
Fellows suddenly became rigid, closed her eyes, and shook her head. “I really don’t want to revisit this. There’s no point in dredging up the past. No good can come of it.”
White leaned forward. “I know this is hard, Ms. Fellows. I really do. But there are some people who could unfairly be found guilty of murder and go to prison, or worse, if we don’t get to the bottom of this. And what you tell us will go no further. We just need some information, that’s all.”
Fellows pulled a tissue from her pocket and dabbed at her eyes. After a few moments she said, “I... I heard raised voices from a room.”
“Could you hear what was being said?” asked Decker.
She shook her head. “But the door was open a crack. I... I took a peek.”
“What did you see in the room?”
“This agent, and another man... and a woman. A young woman.”
“What were they doing?”
“The...” She looked away and rubbed at her eyes with the tissue. “I really had forgotten all this. And now you come here and stir everything back up again. It can’t possibly matter one bit now.”
“It does matter,” said Decker. “A great deal to some people. Enough to kill over, in fact. And I don’t think you ever forgot it. You just didn’t want to ever think about it again. Because the possibilities were too frightening.”
She shuddered. “Are there really innocent people who might go to prison, after all this time?”
“There is no statute of limitations on murder,” White pointed out.
“Oh my God. I can’t believe this has come back to bite me in the ass.” She looked out toward the Gulf for a few moments before turning back to them and saying in a low voice, “They were... wrapping her in... sheets.”
“Was she dead?” asked White.
“I... I don’t know, but I think so. She wasn’t moving. She looked... limp.”
“Who was the other man?”
“I... I think he might have worked on my...”
“On your father’s campaign?” prompted White.
“Yes, but I never knew his name. Hell, I’m not even sure he did work for my father. He just looked the type.”
“Didn’t they see you?” asked White.
“No. I was very quiet and just peering through the slight gap.”
“So they were wrapping up the body?” said Decker in a prompting manner.
She closed her eyes and dipped her head. “They... they put her in a suitcase. I... I ran away before... they could see me.”
“So you don’t know what they did with it?”
“No.”
“Did you recognize the woman?”
Fellows shook her head.
“Can you describe her?” asked White, taking out a notebook and jotting some things down. “I know it was a long time ago.”
Fellows said quietly, her gaze downcast, “She was Black, in her twenties, long dark hair, slender, quite beautiful, even in... death. And she... was naked.”
“You saw all that peeking through a crack in the door?” said White skeptically.
“Well, maybe it was open more than a crack.”
“Why would they have left the door open at all if they were putting a dead, naked woman in a suitcase?” asked White.
“It wasn’t the door going into the hotel room. It was a two-room suite. It... it was the door going into the bedroom.”
“But then how did you get into the room?” asked White.
Decker held up a hand. “Just continue with your story,” he told Fellows. “Did you see any wounds? Any signs of trauma, or blood?”
“No, nothing like that. And I think I would have on the white sheets. She was just... not breathing, or moving.”
Decker leaned in. “Why didn’t you alert someone in the hotel? Or call the police?”
“I... I don’t know. I was just a kid, really. I was scared. Confused. I... I just wanted to run away and forget what I saw. And I have, all these years.” She snapped, “Until you showed up.”
Decker said, “I think there was more to it than that. Far more.”
“What the hell do you mean?” she exclaimed, looking fearful.
“It was your father’s room, wasn’t it? That’s how you got in, right? You had a key to his room.”
Fellows broke down and started to sob.
Chapter 75
“So, we have to find a missing and maybe murdered person from over four decades ago, no problem,” said White as they drove back to Ocean View.
“We have some things to go by,” noted Decker.
“Fellows also said her father wasn’t in the room and had nothing to do with the dead woman.”
“What else did you expect her to say? And he might have left by then so Roe and the other guy could clean things up.”
“What do you think happened that night?”
Decker shrugged. “Young Black woman dead in the bed of an older, powerful, rich, and married white guy running for the Senate? That’s a career-ender. Either things went sideways and he killed her, or she had some sort of medical emergency and died in his bed. He called a trusted aide to deal with it, and Kanak Roe stumbled on it somehow. I think the fact that Roe didn’t raise the alarm leads me to believe the woman wasn’t murdered but died of natural causes. Otherwise, I think Roe would have blown the whistle.”
“But still, even if it wasn’t murder, why cover it up? Why would Roe take that risk?”
“The guy in question had just done an event with the president that Roe was guarding. If the truth came out, it would not have been good for anybody. And Roe probably didn’t want to drag his boss into something that he had nothing to do with and knew nothing about. With news like that everybody tends to jump to conclusions.”
“So he helped with the coverup in return for what?”
“Maybe enough money to start his company.”
“So Kanak wasn’t so much of a straight arrow then. He saw an opportunity and took it.”
“A lot of people do,” replied Decker.
“Okay, how do we locate the dead woman?”
“More to the point, how do we locate the other guy in the room?” said Decker.
“Fellows thought he worked on her father’s campaign, but wasn’t sure about that.”
“He might be easier to track down than the dead woman.”
“How?”
“We can check on Tanner’s campaign staff. He was a senator for nearly twenty years. The Bureau should be able to get some names for us.”
“Okay, I’ll get on that. And the woman? I’m sure her friends and family would like some closure.”
“I’m sure they would, too,” Decker said quietly. “I know I would.”