“Okay, so she was a prostitute and she was in Mason Tanner’s hotel suite when she died. We just don’t know how she died.”

“Fellows didn’t see any blood. But Monroe could have been strangled.”

They got into the car and drove away.

“And what about Roe?” asked White.

“She seemed stunned by her father’s secret.”

“Nice call on the Catholic piece.”

“End-of-life guilt can be immense,” noted Decker.

“You really think Kanak Roe was killed by the people he worked with all those years ago to cover up Tanner’s having a dead prostitute in his bed?”

“It certainly fits the facts as we know them.”

“What about Tanner? I know he has Alzheimer’s now, but what about three years ago?”

“No, he’s been incapacitated for at least the last five years.”

“So we have to find the guy in the room with Kanak. If he’s still alive. We should get a description from Fellows.”

“The other thing is, whoever killed Draymont and Lancer might have tried to implicate other people. Barry Davidson, by using his gun, and Kasimira Roe, by buying the Slovakian currency with her credit card.”

“Well, if they really wanted to implicate someone successfully they should have picked one and stuck with it.”

“I think I might know one reason why they didn’t.”

“What?” asked White.

“Let me think about it some more. But let’s see if we can find that man.”

“You son of a bitch!”

Decker and White had just walked into the lobby of their hotel when Dennis Langley jumped up from a chair and confronted them.

“Excuse me?” said Decker.

“Don’t play bullshit games with me,” said Langley. “I’m going to sue you for theft and defamation and anything else I can think of. Your fat ass is going to jail.”

“Well, maybe we’ll be cellmates then.”

Langley looked taken aback by this. “What do you mean? I’ve broken no laws.”

“Really? So you won’t have a problem with the authorities checking into your business and financial dealings? And I would imagine a full accounting of any funds you hold for clients would probably be a good thing, because a man with a gambling problem doesn’t tend to care where he gets his money from to pay off who he owes. And you have to pay them off, because Vegas casinos can get really nasty if you don’t. I’ll contact the necessary organizations and get that inquiry into your finances rolling.”

Langley’s hand balled to a fist.

White stepped between the two men. “Don’t even think about it. Assaulting a Fed gets you a minimum of five years in the pen.”

“You think you’ve really got me, don’t you?” barked Langley as he looked over White at Decker.

“I think you really don’t have Gloria Chase and her money anymore and you needed to take it out on somebody and I’m it. But your being here saved me a trip to see you. When your marriage play with Judge Cummins didn’t pan out because she saw right through you, was that motive enough to kill her?”

“I have an alibi.”

“Not anymore you don’t. Chase recanted.”

Langley glanced nervously at White. “I didn’t kill Julia.”

“I’ve yet to meet a murderer who openly confessed to killing anyone,” replied Decker.

“Why would I kill her? I had Gloria.”

“With some people it’s not about money. It’s about ego. How is your ego? Strong enough to handle rejection like that? Or should Chase hire security to protect her now? From you?”

Langley took a step back. “You’re an asshole.”

“Well, it usually takes one to know one. And I definitely know you. And if you didn’t kill her, why did you work so hard to have Gloria as an alibi that night? You went to the liquor store, sure, we confirmed that. But where else did you go?”

Langley turned and stalked out.

White let out a breath and said, “Okay, I thought I was going to have to pull out my karate again. Though it would have given me great pleasure to put my foot right against that jerk’s square jaw.”

“He’s a bully. You pop him in the nose, he runs away crying. That’s not really important. What is important is does he have it in him to stab a woman ten times?”

“And remember the card left behind with that legal phrase. He’s a lawyer. That fits.”

“But the blindfold with holes? How does that tie into Langley?”

“I don’t know,” confessed White.

“Neither do I. But that may be because he didn’t do it.”

“Then there must be someone else out there that we’re not aware of yet, Decker.”

“Maybe we are aware of them.”

Later that night White knocked on Decker’s door. He let her in and they sat across from each other.

“Andrews left the hospital today. He’s starting rehab.”

“Good. Hope it goes well.”

“And I got a call back from DC. No one matching the description that I got from Deidre Fellows worked at Senator Tanner’s office or on his campaign.”

“At least that anyone can remember.”

“Right. But we end up in the same place — nowhere,” said White.

“If he wasn’t working on the campaign, what was he doing in Tanner’s room cleaning up that mess?”

“A good Samaritan passing by would not have stuffed a woman into a suitcase. They would have called the police. Same for someone working at the hotel.”

Decker said, “There’s something we haven’t thought about yet. Why would Tanner, on the very night of his big fund-raiser with the president, and all those Secret Service agents around the hotel, have invited a prostitute up to his room? Why take that chance? He could have done it another night, or at some hideaway of his. The guy was rich.”

“You’re right — it doesn’t make sense.”

Decker pulled out his phone and made a call. “Ms. Fellows, Amos Decker. Thanks for getting back to us on that photo, but I have another question to ask you, and some new information to share. Please don’t take it the wrong way, because it might be shocking to you... Okay, all right... Thanks. We found out that the woman you saw in your father’s hotel room that night might well have been a prostitute. Her body was never found. Now, I know you were just a teenager back then, but was that something you could see your father doing? Hiring a prostitute?”

Decker listened for quite a while before saying, “Well, thank you for being so candid. We’ll let you know what we find.” He clicked off and looked at White.

“Well?” she said.

“She said she wasn’t aware at the time of her father’s sexual endeavors. But she said as she got older she discovered that her father had a wandering eye as a younger man, though he and his wife apparently worked through those issues, at least according to Deidre. And they did stay married all these years.”

“So that was why Wanda Monroe was in his bed?”

“Not necessarily. She still might have been placed there.”

“But you just said the man had a wandering eye?” she pointed out.

“Even if he did, like we just discussed, would he risk having a prostitute in his bed on the night of his big event with Reagan, and while Secret Service agents and media people are swarming all over the place? That’s just too risky.”

“So they knew he was promiscuous and they set him up.”

“Tanner was running to be a U.S. senator. That’s a useful position if you want to blackmail someone.” He took out his phone and performed a search. “Mason Tanner was a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee and ended up chairing it for four years.”