Due Justice

Chapter 30

Tampa, Florida

Sunday 3:50 p.m.

January 24, 1999

On the return flight, I got my list of suspects out again and I had more to think about. If Morgan was being blackmailed, and he’d paid over a million dollars over the years in what the novelists call “hush money,” where did he get it?  He was a successful doctor, I’m sure he made a good living for his time, and he had written more than one successful textbook. But he’d had more than a little trouble with lawsuits, drugs, and high living. He made some money from his ownership interest in MedPro. Still, even one million after tax dollars would be hard to come by.

I pulled out the photographs I took of Morgan’s house. I looked at the kitchen, the blood on the wall, the position of the table and the door. I looked at the living room again, examining the strewn furniture and books. I remembered that something about the house bothered me when I was there and I tried to look at it again in my memory, with the pictures to help. I visualized the scene, then looked at the picture of that part of the house. I kept looking at the pictures and visualizing the rooms. Suddenly it came to me. I had it. It wasn’t what I’d seen, but what I hadn’t seen that had bothered me.

I thought about every private home I’ve ever been in, including ours. Had I ever seen one so obviously lived in as Michael Morgan’s with absolutely no personal photographs at all?  I couldn’t think of one.

So where did Morgan’s personal photographs go?  And why?  Did they include the killer?  Or the reason for the murder?  Too many questions, and too little information. But it was an angle I hadn’t considered before, and I knew Hathaway hadn’t either. I wrote the word “Pictures” in capital letters on the top page of my yellow pad.

Another thing was the blackmail. Everything I knew about Morgan’s finances would fill a thimble but I just couldn’t make it add up to a few million extra dollars to pass to a blackmailer after taxes, or even more unlikely, outside the IRS. Where did the money come from?  Maybe he got the money the same way he paid it out, in blackmail. I liked the idea, but I had no evidence to support it; unless it was in this bag of video tapes I’d practically had handcuffed to my wrist since Robin gave them to me. I wrote “Blackmail” on my legal pad, too, as if I’d forget it.

I got back from Detroit about 6:30 at night. I hadn’t had a chance to call George to tell him about my conversation with Robin, so he didn’t yet know about the tapes. When I got home, the first thing he told me was that Grover was being held for questioning in the murder of Michael Morgan. George had called Ben Hathaway and told him we believed Grover had some knowledge of Carly’s whereabouts, so Ben agreed that we could come down to the station and observe him question Grover through the one-way mirror. Grover had refused a lawyer. What did he need one for?  And even if he did need one, he’d never admit it.

Ben believed Grover had been blackmailing Morgan. Morgan’s bank statements showed several large payments to Grover’s partner, Fred Johnson, over the last four years. Ben wanted to believe the money went to Grover but if Grover knew, he wasn’t saying.

George drove us to the Tampa Police Station at about 10:30 p.m. Grover was in the interrogation room and we could both watch and hear. He consistently denied any knowledge of Dr. Morgan’s new research conclusions. He knew Dr. Morgan was working on a solution to the breast implant autoimmune disease issues and, he claimed, that’s why he refused to allow Morgan to be deposed in any of his cases.

He said he had not seen Dr. Morgan for several months before Morgan died and had no idea that he had reached any definitive conclusions. Grover admitted to being under financial pressure over the loans he had taken out to finance his breast implant cases, but he denied any involvement in Morgan’s death. He said he was going to be an even richer man when his cases settled. Why would he need to blackmail Morgan?

After an hour, Ben Hathaway came out and told us he would be keeping Grover for further interrogation the rest of the evening, but, unless something new came up, there wouldn’t be enough to arrest him.  George and I went home after Hathaway promised to call us if an arrest was made.

On the way home, I told George what Robin had said about the blackmail. “What I can’t piece together,” I said, “if Johnson was getting the payments, as the bank records showed, why didn’t Ben detain Johnson instead of Grover?”

“Too simple, I guess. We’ll have to watch the tapes. The more interesting question is, where did Morgan get the money to pay Johnson?”

“I’ve been thinking about that. The only thing I can figure is that Morgan blackmailed someone else to get it.”

George seemed to consider that for quite a while before he said, “Yes, and there are so many possibilities. All those rich women with their secrets. Any evidence that Morgan kept a record of what they all told him?  And what they might have paid to keep him quiet?”

It was an issue I hadn’t considered. What if whoever trashed Morgan’s apartment was looking not for “The Silicone Solution,” but for a record of blackmail payments?  Wouldn’t that put a different spin on things?  Things are not always what they seem, I had learned over and over in this investigation. But this time, I thought we’d been the victims of deliberate misdirection.

When we got back to Minaret, we walked into the lobby and there was Carly sitting on the couch. As soon as she saw us, she ran toward us, sobbing hysterically. She kept saying, “You’ve got to help me, you’ve got to help me” over and over and over.

We took her upstairs and managed to get her calmed down. Between sniffling and hiccupping, she managed to tell us the problem. “Christian’s been arrested. They think he murdered Dr. Morgan. You’ve got to help me get him out.”

I shook her, hard. It startled her into a less histrionic pose, but only for a moment. “What do you mean?”  I asked her. “Grover’s not been arrested, he’s being questioned. Maybe he killed Dr. Morgan. And if he did, he’ll be charged.”

“Oh, Willa!” and she began to sob all the harder. “Christian didn’t kill Dr. Morgan. We can’t let him be charged with murder.”

“How do you know he didn’t do it?”

“I know him. He couldn’t have done it. Anyway, I know who did. That’s why I’ve been hiding. It wasn’t Christian,” she said while tears continued to pour from her eyes at about the same water volume as the Naguchi fountain in front of the Convention Center.

“Then who did kill Dr. Morgan?”  I asked her, fully expecting her to name Johnson or Young or even Aymes.

“O’Connell Worthington.”

“But that’s not possible!” I said.

“That’s preposterous!” George said simultaneously. We both sat down heavily on the couch.

“Maybe,” Carly hiccupped, “but true. I saw him outside Morgan’s house that night. I went to see Morgan. I had convinced MedPro that he’d found The Silicone Solution and it was good news for us. I wanted to tell him they’d meet with him. It was what he wanted, and I knew he’d be happy.”  Her nose was streaming at the same rate as her eyes and George gave her his handkerchief. George might be the only man on the planet who still has a freshly washed linen handkerchief at all times.