Justifiable Read online

  She flinched at Turner’s curt answer. Add him to the list of people she’d rubbed wrong today, but she’d smooth it over with Turner when she saw him.

  “Something on the Germantown murder?” Hope for confirmation of a domestic killing curled in Cecelia’s voice.

  “Possibly. Catch you up when I get back from the morgue.” Kirsten squashed the guilt fingering her neck over letting Cecelia think this would be positive news.

  She’d done more than her share of stretching the truth since entering the investigative field, but she still felt the slap of a ruler on her hand from back in Catholic school.

  If she were a good Catholic, she’d go to confession

  No. If she were a good Catholic she’d have taken this position just to do the job and not for her own agenda – to find the truth behind a missing person.

  Cecelia headed for the door. “Unless you receive indisputable evidence at the morgue that proves otherwise, this case is DV.”

  Kirsten considered using the stack of files getting bent in her grip to beat some sense into this woman. Refusing to allow Cecelia’s threat to burn a hole in her control, Kirsten gave a noncommittal, “I understand.”

  Once Cecelia disappeared down the hall, Kirsten headed to where she’d left her purse and coat with the receptionist outside the conference room. She took a minute to hook up her cell phone Bluetooth receiver on her way out of the building. She considered swinging by her office in Three Penn Square to pick up her emails, but that would run her late with meeting the detective she was already inconveniencing. Besides, he could catch her up on the case in person.

  Her cell phone beeped with a call coming through on her way to the elevator. When she hit the receive button on her ear piece, she heard, “Hello, Kirsten?”

  How had he gotten her cell phone number when she’d just changed it? “Hello, Dad.”

  Chapter 6

  Kirsten exited the elevator on the ground floor of City Hall, waiting to find out why her father was calling. What game would he play this time to get her to come home?

  “I left messages for you.” Her father said that in his lecture tone, the one he used on employees who revered Theodore Massey.

  They didn’t recognize it as the voice of a man who could be cold as the Grim Reaper when someone refused him.

  Especially his daughter.

  She hated how the Bluetooth earpiece made it feel like he was inside her head. Flexing her jaw to loosen her clenched teeth, she tried to sound civil to the man whose voice turned her stomach inside out. “No, your assistant left voice mails. None that stated what you specifically wanted.”

  “I want to know how you’re doing.”

  Hadn’t taken long for his first lie to surface.

  “I’m fine. Anything else?” Kirsten clutched her trench coat close and wove her way around slower-moving pedestrians while brittle silence answered her. Don’t like it that you can’t bully me?

  “Your mother would want us to be together, to support each other.”

  No, she wouldn’t. Kirsten worked around the pain lodged in her throat. Her mother had rarely uttered her own opinion about anything when Kirsten lived at home, always parroting whatever her father said. The last time Kirsten had seen her mother at the family home in Chicago, her mother had cautioned her not to provoke her father.

  Kirsten had replied sarcastically, “I’m twenty six. What’s he going to do? Ground me?”

  Her mother’s voice had carried a chill of warning when she said, “You have no idea what your father is capable of.”

  Years of watching her petite mother live in the shadow of her father as nothing more than a doormat trophy wife had blown the lid off Kirsten’s patience. She’d stopped packing her clothes that last day at home and said, “You’re still very attractive. Divorce him and find someone who appreciates you. You deserve to be loved.”

  Hope had flared in her mother’s eyes before she looked away. “I can’t.”

  “Sure you can. I’m taking my bar exam in a week. I’ll represent you myself and – ”

  “No.”

  “Why are you so afraid of him?” Kirsten had finally asked.

  Her mother just shook her head. “I made my bed and can’t walk away from it. Just don’t cross him. He wants you here in Chicago and working with his company. Give him what he wants and you won’t have any problems.”

  Kirsten had heard that all her life. Do what your father asks. Mind your father. Your father is right.

  “I am not you, Mom. I will not live under his thumb like a helpless bug,” Kirsten had said in a snarling tone she regretted two weeks later as she’d watched her mother’s casket lowered into the ground.

  Four days before the unexpected funeral, Kirsten had received a cryptic voice mail from her mother saying, “I’m sending a friend to you who needs help.”

  After two hours of trying to locate her mother by phone, Kirsten had finally dropped what she was doing and driven to Chicago. By the time she’d arrived, her mother was in the hospital in ICU after having suffered a major stroke from which she died six hours later.

  The doctors had no idea what caused the seizure in a forty-eight-year-old woman who was an avid tennis player in optimum physical condition.

  Kirsten wanted an autopsy.

  Her father refused to have his wife’s body desecrated, but he’d had no problem cremating her.

  “Kirsten, I miss you,” her father’s voice said from the Bluetooth, yanking her back to the present. “Come home for a visit.”

  She inhaled a quick breath of icy air that froze her lungs. “I’ve got a heavy caseload and little time off.”

  “You don’t take time off.”

  “What do want from me, Dad?”

  “I feel like I’ve lost my whole family. I need to see you.”

  She struggled against all the things she wanted to scream at him. The audacity of his acting as though he’d lost a loved one. She’d lost her mother, because of him. “We never were a touchy-feely family. I do better working all the time. Like you.”

  He allowed the quiet to fill in for a few seconds, something he liked to do to put his opponents on edge. Didn’t work on her. She waited him out until he finally spoke again.

  “The new marker is finished. I thought it would be nice for us to be together the day they set it in place.”

  No, it would be nice to have her mother back. Kirsten couldn’t care less about the elaborate statue he’d probably had carved in honor of his wife. She’d bet the media would be involved as well, but refusing him would only raise his suspicions. “When do they plan to set it?”

  “Next Monday afternoon.”

  That only bought her a week. “I’ll ask about getting off work.” Kirsten moved on shaky legs toward the parking lot where she’d left her car. She squeezed the files when she wanted to have her hands around her father’s neck. He’d guilted her into doing what he expected of her since childhood, to make her perform according to his vision of a Massey woman. Her rebellion had started before her teens, when she’d recognized her mother’s meekness as fear.

  But what she felt now went way beyond rebellion and she was no longer a child.

  “I have a dinner party planned for this weekend. Why don’t you come home and just stay over? Everyone misses you.”

  “I’ll have to work this weekend just to get off Monday.”

  “That’s ridiculous. There’s more than one person who can do the busy work.”

  Busy work? She kicked a dirty snowball out of her way. “I’m not a flunky. My job entails more than pushing papers around.”

  “Why are you always so hostile, Kirsten?”

  Oh, I don’t know. Maybe it’s because I’m pretty damned sure you killed my mother for something she knew. Kirsten forced herself to take a breath. Maintaining control of her emotions was paramount in dealing with her father, who would attack a weak prey. She pushed calm into her voice so she’d sound reasonable.

  “I’m not being hosti
le. It’s cold and I haven’t had much rest. And discussing...Mom doesn’t bring out the best in me.”

  “I understand, honey. I miss her, too.” Her father allowed another one of those lapses in conversation to stretch for a bit. “Your mother would have been happier if you were here. Even if you didn’t want a position at my company, you’d make a hell of a lot more money at a prestigious Chicago law firm.”

  “We’ve had this conversation one time too many already. You’re not looking at this from my point of view.”

  “What I’m doing is protecting my family and my companies. It’s embarrassing that my daughter wants to work for slave wages and do grunt work...especially in a city like Philadelphia.”

  Her father and Cecelia Van Gogh had the same skewed set of principles when it came to protecting an image.

  Kirsten liked this city and believed in the work she did with law enforcement.

  She’d go home on Monday and suffer standing next to him at her mother’s grave while she bided her time in hope of gaining the one thing that would bring her father to his knees.

  A murder conviction.

  She had to suck it up and play nice for now to keep him from realizing the sole reason for her taking this job wasn’t simply to thumb her nose at him. She needed this job in this city for any hope of finding out what had happened to the woman her mother had asked her to help.

  Kirsten cleared her raw throat. “I’ll get home for a visit as soon as I can.” One lie to combat so many of his. Now to stay in character so he knew he was talking to his argumentative daughter when she really didn’t care what he thought. “But I’m proud of what I do with the DA’s office. I would think you’d see putting away criminals as being positive for the Massey image.”

  “You’re proud of being nothing more than a gopher after graduating Magna Cum Laude from one of the top law schools in the country? Any law enforcement grunt with a law degree could do what you’re doing. Massey women do not take pedestrian positions. You had an exceptional opportunity waiting for you here. Still do.”

  That had worked to shift his attention. He never missed the chance to point out that she had a position in the legal department of his international communications firm waiting for her. If she let him continue, next he’d remind her that he paid the Pennsylvania Law School on the other side of Schuylkill River a hefty amount for Kirsten’s degree, which meant she owed him. After all, he’d threatened to cut off her financial aid when she told him she was moving to Philadelphia.

  He’d thought since he controlled her trust fund and, thus, the checkbook, she’d come to her senses.

  Big mistake.

  “I’ve never been interested in corporate law,” she said, digging for her keys when she reached the parking lot. And, more specifically, she was not interested in his corporate legal issues. She hated anything to do with the heartless media business where the end justified the means – to quote her father’s philosophy – and wouldn’t have taken a position with his company for any enticement.

  Admittedly, she’d gotten her stubborn genetic coding from this very man.

  “Kirsten – ”

  “I really have to go. I’m running late for a meeting. What time is the...event on Monday?”

  Another long pause. “I’ve got a call holding. I’ll let you know as soon as I have the exact time.”

  The call ended, saving her from acting on the urge to shout, “Liar.” He wouldn’t have called if he didn’t know the time of the new headstone placement down to the second. She could not give in to his badgering and guilt dumps. Not if her hunch was correct about her father’s culpability in her mother’s death.

  Especially if she found the young woman Kirsten’s mother had sent to her for help. Right before the funeral, Kirsten had received a call from a frightened woman who’d given her name as Jane Doe and sounded like she was in her late twenties. Jane said she’d only talk in person and only if Kirsten could help her deal with the FBI. That’s when Kirsten knew in her heart that her mother hadn’t died of natural causes.

  Kirsten had told Jane to meet her at an apartment that belonged to Elicia Halladay, the first person Kirsten had made friends with in the town where she’d attended college.

  Her first and only friend outside the Massey influence.

  After the funeral, it had taken until the next day to get away from her father’s house under the pretense that Kirsten needed time to mourn alone. When she’d arrived at Elicia’s apartment it was empty and both women were gone.

  Did she believe her father was capable of murder?

  Yes.

  And she’d make him pay for it.

  Powerful men just fell that much harder when brought down by the law.

  Finding Elicia was key to locating Jane Doe, if either one of them was still alive.

  Kirsten spent some part of every day searching for her friend. Elicia trusted one person who lived here in Philly and, based on what Elicia had said, she’d never move away. Kirsten hadn’t found that person yet, but she would.

  Right now, her job was investigating Sally Stanton’s murder and keeping the media – specifically Riley Walker – from interfering while she did. If Walker knew she was taking a closer look at the Stanton murder and agreed with him on several points, he’d dig harder than a dog after a juicy bone.

  The minute he turned this case into anything news worthy, the mayor would come down on Cecelia who would make Kirsten’s life hell. She could have her choice of jobs with her degree, but Philadelphia was the only place she could find out what happened to Elicia and, possibly, Jane Doe.

  Being a DA Investigator gave her access to information and suspecting foul play in her mother’s death gave her a legal reason to be searching for Elicia.

  Kirsten wouldn’t let anyone – especially an ambitious newsman – cost her this position. Nor would she allow Sally Stanton to receive anything less than her best effort in the meantime.

  Walker was no slouch when it came to reporting. He had a dangerous background in the media that someone like her father would respect. Not her. With twenty-four hour security squatting outside Judge Berringer’s residence, there was nothing Walker could get from digging around that location.

  Walker had used his anchor position to film a special that helped Philly PD get some badly needed equipment, but Detective Turner wouldn’t talk to the media about a case either.

  That meant Riley Walker had no more information than the rest of the reporters who’d left with Cecelia’s lame press release and he didn’t give two hoots about a welfare mother’s death. He’d only come to the press conference to harangue Cecelia about the mayor’s economic and tourism programs.

  Riley Walker should be out of her way for a little while with the assault charges the newspaper reporter was probably filing at this very minute. The idea lifted her spirits until she wondered again how her father had gotten her new, unlisted cell phone number.

  She had only given it to a few people, all of whom were either in the DA office or law enforcement.

  Not for the first time, Kirsten wondered just how far her father’s powerful fingers could reach.

  Chapter 7

  Sunshine finally won the battle over fog, leaving the mid-morning skies bright blue beyond the windows of George Lehman’s eighth floor office.

  Riley sat with his arms crossed, waiting on WNUZ’s general manager to finish his rant. Yada, yada, yada...you’re making my life difficult ... yada ... yada...

  Lehman walked to the window that looked out over the west side of downtown Philly where the traffic was probably mangled along Independence Boulevard. He raked his fingers through the few hairs left on his balding head. “I will not have this station in constant legal battles over bullshit.”

  Not much to say to that, but Lehman didn’t want a reply.

  Riley had a grudging respect for the general manager even if the man was as abrasive as sharkskin rubbed the wrong direction. Most of the staff and newsies hated the GM’s micromanagi
ng, but the station had shown significant improvement since this hardass had taken over operations.

  People rarely liked the person who had to make the tough calls.

  “I didn’t agree with bringing you in, Walker.”

  “I know that. Think I’ve proved my value.” Riley let that sink in. Lehman might not have agreed with WNUZ’s board of directors’ decision, but even he had to admit that Riley had increased revenues for the station.

  But would it be enough to hold onto this job?

  Lehman scratched the heavy jowl that belonged to a man who had enjoyed a daily quota of hard liquor for most of his sixty years. His beady eyes hadn’t lost any fire. “This stunt at City Hall could tank the ratings you gained.”

  “My special last week on child abuse didn’t hurt us.” Maybe Riley should keep his mouth closed, but he had to point out some silver in the cloud lining.

  “That rating spike was Dr. Ziegler’s. Not yours. Now with this City Hall incident . . . ”

  “And Dr. Ziegler is now our new expert on child abuse.”

  Lehman released a terse sigh. “Fine. You came up with the special, but any doctor on child abuse – ”

  “No. Ziegler’s different and you know it,” Riley argued. The woman had almost a sixth sense about knowing if a child had really been abused or not and how to get down to the truth.

  “This isn’t about her.” Lehman’s cold glare was low on patience. “This is about you not managing a volatile situation today.”

  Riley hadn’t caused the problem, but Lehman had to give the board a scapegoat. Regardless of what happened, Riley wouldn’t point a finger at Biddy.

  Enough was enough. He asked, “What do you plan to do?”

  Lehman paced back across the room and stopped at the side of his desk, tapping the files stacked on the surface with a long finger. “No one is worth putting this station in jeopardy. Your contract is clear as glass about confrontations.”

  Lehman was a bottom-line kind of guy who wielded his power over anyone who stumbled in his path, but Riley had some juice with the board of directors right now. This station hadn’t seen a consistent ratings hike in the two years prior to his showing up.