“So how did the mother and son end up in The Plains, Virginia?”
“Tony Hall had a heart attack and died. Bruce and his mother opted out of the program after that and literally disappeared. No word from them since.”
“Where were they located when they were in the program?”
“That I don’t know. FYI, I got a call from an FBI Special Agent Cary Pinker. He’s coming in from DC to talk to me about the case.”
“Any idea why?”
“Nope. But just so you know, I did tell him about you.”
Gibson said, “Okay, what are the odds of my sitting in on the meeting with him?”
“Zero and nada.”
“Just thought I’d give it a shot.”
“Yeah, I would have, too.”
“Can you let me know what he says?”
“Within professional boundaries, yes.”
“Thanks.”
She clicked off and looked down at her hands. He was holding back. And she was holding back. And Gibson wasn’t sure where that would get either of them.
But you’ve been taking your own tack on this. And he knows nothing about Clarisse, or Langhorne’s cryptic message left with his registered agent in South Dakota. So just keep pushing.
She picked up the phone and called Earl Beckett. She told him about Daryl Oxblood’s being Bruce Hall.
“Jesus,” he exclaimed. “So he’s dead, too? We didn’t get an alert from the FBI yet.”
“And we think there’s a connection between his death and Harry Langhorne’s.”
“What kind of connection?”
“You tell me. Where were the Halls located when they were in WITSEC?”
“I don’t know that offhand.”
“Can you find out?”
“I could. But I’m not sure I can tell you.”
“Why not? They’re not in WITSEC any longer and they’re all dead.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“You told us about Langhorne.”
“I told you when you were with Detective Sullivan. But on your own you’re just a civilian. And as a rule the Marshals Service doesn’t talk about WITSEC without serious justification.”
“Two people’s being murdered seems like justification enough for me. And all I want to know are two things: Was Bruce Hall his WITSEC name or his real name? And where were they located when they were in the program? That’s it.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” said Beckett.
“And were you able to find handwriting samples for Francine and Doug Langhorne?”
But Beckett had already hung up.
She sat back and fiddled with her pen. Okay, he’s clearly not getting back to me.
So who had the motive to kill Bruce Hall? Clarisse?
But why, if she and Julia Frazier were one and the same, would she go back to the scene of the crime? She had tried to erase the phrase on the wall, for sure. And she had looked at the comic book that Gibson now had. She was probably regretting that she hadn’t simply taken it.
But according to the neighbor Barbara Cole, Frazier had seemed shocked by the discovery of the body. And she had told Cole to call the police before hightailing it out of town.
If not her, then maybe Francine — if Clarisse wasn’t her — and/or Doug Langhorne had killed Hall. They could have also killed their father. Although Clarisse hadn’t said so, it might have been Doug visiting Langhorne shortly before he was killed, with Francine waiting for him in the car.
She thought it too improbable that former WITSEC members would just run into each other. But why kill Hall? Was he looking for the treasure, too? Did he know something, and Doug and Francine had tracked him down and silenced him after getting that information?
Or was there another reason?
Chapter 52
Two a.m. and sleep would not come for Gibson; she was exhausted, but her mind would not turn off. She figured she and about eighty million other stressed-out Americans were wandering around their houses right now trying to get their shit straight and then go back to bed, with limited success.
She had already checked on the kids. Sleep came easily for them. Then they woke and proceeded to race a million miles an hour until collapsing from sheer exhaustion.
I wish I still had the energy to do that. But then again, they have nothing to worry about. That’s my department. I have everything to worry about.
She walked to her office and settled in front of her computers.
Gibson had been searching for some lead on Pottinger and been mostly disappointed. The only thing she had really scored was the clue that Dexter Tremayne had provided her. But it wasn’t much, because she had no context with which to figure it out.
She loaded in her search and the screen started filling up with all things Harry Langhorne.
Born in the town of Yarden in upstate New York in a modest home in a working-class neighborhood, died near Smithfield, Virginia, in an empty mansion. His family had moved to New Jersey before he was five. He’d gone to public schools there and then attended college at Pace in New York City. He’d gotten his accounting degree, and then obtained his CPA license. Then he’d gone to work for the Giordanos. He had married Geraldine, and later they’d had Francine and Douglas.
She read another article about Ida Giordano’s being Langhorne’s mother and the sister of Leo Giordano, which her father had already told her. That had been the portal, the article had reported, to Langhorne’s becoming a mob accountant.
And Langhorne’s father, Joel Langhorne, had been one of Giordano’s muscle, probably something also connected to his marriage to Ida. Hell, it was probably the reason he had gotten permission to marry Ida, Gibson thought. The mob was not known to encourage outsiders coming into the fold.
You marry one of us, you become one of us, Gibson reasoned.
Joel Langhorne had been killed in a shoot-out with police when Harry had still been in grade school. Gibson wondered if that had changed Harry, made him willing and eager to go over to the dark side. The Giordano family had also taken care of the Langhornes after Joel’s death. That had probably endeared Harry to them as well.
Langhorne, by the accounts she could find, had been damn good at his job. The books he maintained evaded all attempts by legal authorities to get to the Giordano family, and others.
Now Gibson asked herself something she should have thought of before.
Why had Langhorne agreed to help the Feds take down the Giordano crime family, if they had taken care of him after his father’s death? If they couldn’t get the evidence because he was so good at being the mob’s accountant, what had happened to make him turn on the hand that fed and protected him and his family?
Art Collin had told her that his undercover work had nailed Langhorne to the wall, forcing him to turn on the Giordanos to save his own ass. But was that really the case? Langhorne struck her as a guy three steps ahead of everyone else. And while Art Collin might have been good at his job, it all seemed too neat and clean. Then something occurred to her which might explain that.
What if Langhorne wanted to be caught and then “turned”? And why might he want that? The reason was obvious. Money. He had ripped off the Giordano family. Sooner or later they would knock on his door and kill him. But if he helped the government take them down? He would get federal protection and years to effectively hide what he had stolen. Then he would do what he eventually did: disappear and take that fortune with him, and safely live in the lap of luxury for the rest of his days.
This revelation was so startling that Gibson had to sit there for a few minutes and probe it from all sides to see if it held up. And it did. But she wanted to make sure that her theory was correct.