The Sleeping Beauty Killer Read online

  She barely noticed the sound of her phone ringing and Grace picking it up, until Grace told her that General Raleigh’s assistant, Mary Jane, was on hold. “She wants to know how much time she should allot for the General’s interview as well as hers. I offered to juggle the schedule if they had somewhere else to be, but she said his time is tight every day of the year. She said Arden’s pushing him for pages, whatever that means.”

  “He’s working on his memoirs,” Laurie said. Something about Grace’s question was bothering her, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on it. Most likely, it was that she had no idea how long Ryan would take to conduct his interviews. Was she ever going to get used to working with Ryan instead of Alex? “See if he can give us an hour. I assume she’ll be more flexible.”

  Of the suspects Casey had identified, Mary Jane seemed the least likely. Hunter may have worried about the assistant’s motives, but fifteen years later, she appeared to still be working as a dutiful servant. And General Raleigh did not seem like a man who would be taken advantage of easily.

  While Grace returned to the phone, Laurie went back to her list of questions, but Mary Jane’s phone call was still nagging at her. Arden. Where had she heard that name recently? Who else had been talking about a book publisher? And then she remembered her conversation with Casey’s ex-boyfriend Jason. I’ll admit that calling her Crazy Casey in the book title was a little unfair. Frankly, Arden Publishing insisted. Could it possibly be a coincidence that General Raleigh’s and Jason’s books shared a publisher?

  “Jerry, when you talked to Mark Templeton, did you ask him about the gap between his employment at the Raleigh Foundation and his new job at Holly’s Kids?”

  “No. As I said, I wanted it to seem like we only wanted to talk to him about seeing Casey and Hunter at the gala. I thought you should be the one to decide whether to push him on the rumors about the foundation’s assets.”

  Laurie walked to her computer, typed Holly’s Kids into the search engine, and pulled up the website for the nonprofit that currently employed Mark Templeton as its director. She clicked on the list of the board of directors. Her eye immediately moved to one name in particular: Holly Bloom, as in Holly’s Kids, listed as both board member and founder. She clicked through to Holly’s bio and then tilted the computer screen toward Jerry. “The Holly of Holly’s Kids is the president of Arden Publishing, also known as the publisher of Jason Gardner’s book and General Raleigh’s forthcoming memoir.”

  Jerry was staring at the screen. “Whoa. I think I just felt the room tilt.”

  Laurie still didn’t know who killed Hunter Raleigh, or even whether Casey Carter was innocent. But she was putting certain pieces of the puzzle together. If she was right, then Casey never had a fair shot at trial.

  • • •

  She picked up the phone and called her father. “Dad, I have a favor to ask. Do you know anyone with the Connecticut State Police?”

  “Of course. I may be off the job, but my old Rolodex still comes in handy.”

  “Can you see if anyone who worked on the Hunter Raleigh murder case would be willing to talk to me off the record?” She remembered his wistfulness last week when he seemed to miss being in the middle of an investigation. “Maybe you can come with me.”

  37

  The next morning, Leo waited at the curb outside her building behind the wheel of a rental car, blinkers flashing.

  “Thanks for this, Dad,” Laurie said as she hopped in the passenger seat.

  “And for this,” he added, handing her one of two Starbucks cups from the car’s console.

  “Best dad and driver ever.”

  Yesterday, Leo had called his friend, the former commissioner of the Connecticut State Police, to ask for a meeting with Detective Joseph McIntosh, the lead investigator on the Hunter Raleigh case.

  “So who’s taking my job for the day?” he asked.

  “Kara.”

  “That’s great. Timmy likes her.”

  As hard as Timmy tried to convince Laurie that he was no longer in need of a babysitter to walk him to and from school when his grandfather was unavailable, all protests ceased when it came to Kara, who loved sports, made chocolate chip pancakes from scratch, and shared Timmy’s growing love for jazz.

  “When it comes to your role in Timmy’s life, you’ve got tenure, Dad. You know where we’re headed?”

  “Already got it in the GPS. Detective McIntosh, here we come.”

  •••

  Detective Joseph McIntosh was still with the Connecticut State Police, but his current title was lieutenant. He did not look happy to meet Laurie, but was considerably warmer to her father. “Commissioner Miller had a world of good to say about you, Deputy Commissioner Farley.”

  Once they began talking about the evidence, it was clear that McIntosh had no doubts as to Casey’s guilt. “You’ve got to understand that the defense lawyer even suggested I was responsible for Rohypnol being found in Casey’s purse. Until we found those pills, we were on her side. She seemed genuinely distraught when we arrived. We only tested her hands for gunshot residue as part of the protocol. In our eyes, she was one of the victims. She’d lost her fiancé to horrible violence. From all appearances, her sickness that night probably saved her life. And when her cousin arrived, she suggested we test Casey Carter’s blood to see if she had been drugged. Ms. Carter consented and we asked the medic on the scene to take a blood sample. Later it was confirmed that she had Rohypnol in her system. At that point, we still believed it was possible the killer had drugged her.”

  “How would you describe Hunter’s father, James, when you broke the news of his son’s death?” Laurie asked. “Did he consider Casey a suspect?”

  McIntosh gave her a half smile. “I see where you’re going with this. Powerful family, eager for answers. You’re wondering who was pulling the strings.”

  Laurie was still trying to make sense of everything she knew, but yes, that is what she was wondering. It was no secret that James had been pressuring Hunter not to go through with his marriage to a woman he viewed as trouble. When Hunter was killed shortly after Mindy Sampson photographed him with Gabrielle Lawson, he would have naturally suspected Casey—whose jealousy was well known in the family—as the murderer.

  So was it possible General Raleigh tried to tip the scales of justice against her? Whoever was behind the RIP_Hunter posts clearly admired Hunter. Had the General written them? At the time of the murder he would have been in his mid-sixties, pretty old to be an early user of the Internet, but could Mary Jane have helped him? Had he gone further and bribed the police to frame Casey? If so, and Mark Templeton knew about it, it would explain why the General publicly praised the resigning CFO even as the Raleigh Foundation floundered. It couldn’t be a coincidence that the same woman who was publishing the General’s memoir had also hired Templeton at her nonprofit, in addition to publishing Jason Gardner’s very negative book about Casey. Laurie found herself wondering again why Alex had warned her about taking this case.

  She wasn’t about to share all her suspicions with Lieutenant McIntosh. “Did General Raleigh immediately suspect Casey,” she asked, “or did he come around to that conclusion gradually?”

  “Well, his initial response was utter shock and grief. Then he asked if Casey was okay. When I said she was, he replied, and I quote, Hear this in no uncertain terms: she’s the one who killed him. So, yes, I think it’s fair to say he suspected her,” he chuckled. “But I don’t take orders from anyone, not even General James Raleigh. We did a thorough investigation, and, sure enough, all evidence pointed to Casey.”

  “Did you ever figure out where she obtained the Rohypnol?”

  He shook his head. “That would’ve been nice, but the drug was easy enough to buy on the street, even back then. I hear your show is going to reinvestigate the case. I can’t imagine what you think you’re going to prove. We
had means, motive, and opportunity.”

  Laurie listened patiently as McIntosh laid out the case. Means: As Hunter’s future wife, Casey had taken up his hobby of shooting and knew where he kept his guns. She began firing at Hunter in the living room. When she missed, Hunter ran to the bedroom, perhaps to lock himself in the master bathroom or to grab another gun in self-defense. Once he was cornered in the bedroom, Casey fired the two fatal shots.

  Motive: Casey’s engagement to a member of the Raleigh family raised her social station considerably. She could also be extremely jealous where Hunter was concerned. Hunter’s father was pushing him to break up with Casey, and just days before his murder, Hunter was photographed with socialite Gabrielle Lawson at his side. After the fact, even some of Casey’s former friends were willing to entertain the possibility that she might have “lost it” if Hunter broke off their engagement.

  Opportunity: Casey faked her illness to create a partial alibi, claiming to be asleep during the murder. Then after she shot Hunter, she took Rohypnol so it would appear as if someone had drugged her.

  “You should have seen her face when her own defense lawyer shifted gears during closing argument,” McIntosh said. “The lawyer went from she didn’t do it to well, maybe she did, but if so, she was out of her mind. Casey looked like she wanted to send her lawyer to the grave, too. That’s how strong our case was: even the defense attorney could see the writing on the wall. If you ask me, that jury just didn’t have the stomach to put an attractive young woman in prison for life. Manslaughter? How can you believe it was a spur-of-the-moment killing without explaining why she had those drugs in her purse? She had those pills for a reason.”

  It was Leo who interrupted the lieutenant’s narration. “And that’s why the defense lawyer accused you of planting them or tampering with evidence.”

  “She certainly raised the possibility. She said maybe the real killer put the pills there, but she also went so far as to suggest that the pills I took from Casey were not the ones that were sent to be tested. They somehow got switched. But again, Casey wasn’t even a suspect at that point. We let her cousin take her back to her apartment in the city while we finished processing the scene. In a homicide case, we are thorough. Trust me, the last thing I suspected to find in or next to her purse were so-called roofies.”

  “Did you need permission to search her purse?” Laurie asked.

  “No, it was left at the crime scene, on the couch, behind a pillow. And it was overturned and the pills were clearly visible.”

  “You knew right away what they were?” Laurie asked.

  He nodded. “They’re stamped with the pharmaceutical com­pany’s name, and we were starting to see more and more of them in use by bad guys, unfortunately.”

  Laurie was glad he mentioned the thoroughness of his searches. “Did you happen to see a framed photograph of Hunter with the President when you searched the house? It was in a crystal frame.”

  He shook his head. “I certainly don’t remember that. Not sure I would, though, and I’ve got a darn good memory. Why?”

  She told him about the photograph that had been on Hunter’s nightstand prior to the murder, but appeared nowhere in pictures of the crime scene.

  “Maybe the housekeeper’s mistaken about the timing,” he said. “Hunter had an apartment and an office in the city. He could’ve moved it. Or maybe it broke. There could be a million explanations. Regardless, not sure I’d call a missing picture reasonable doubt.”

  Laurie could tell by the way Leo avoided her eye contact that he agreed.

  “What do you remember about Mark Templeton?” she asked, shifting gears.

  “Name sounds familiar—”

  “He was the chief financial officer at the Raleigh Foundation and one of Hunter’s closest friends.”

  “Oh, sure. Good guy. He was terribly broken up.”

  “Did you check whether he had an alibi for the time of the murder?”

  McIntosh laughed at the suggestion. “You really are casting a wide net, aren’t you? Well, I wouldn’t describe it in those terms, but we got a time line from every person we talked to about that night. Hunter’s father took a few VIP donors to his private club for a nightcap after the gala. His driver took him home from there, and he has a live-in assistant. So in case you also suspect General Raleigh”—his sarcasm was apparent—“his alibi’s locked down. But everyone else at Hunter’s table that night went home alone from the gala.”

  Laurie knew the table seating by heart: Hunter, Casey, Hunter’s father and brother, Mary Jane Finder, Casey’s cousin Angela, and Mark Templeton. Neither Mark nor Angela had a date. Angela’s boyfriend at the time, Sean Murray, was out of town, and Mark’s wife stayed at home with their children. After confirming each name with the lieutenant, Laurie asked what he recalled about Hunter’s phone call on the way to the gala, asking a friend for a referral to a private investigator.

  “We knew about it because the friend contacted us after the murder. Hunter wanted a background check on someone, but didn’t have a chance to identify the person. Personally, I thought it might be Casey. Maybe he was beginning to share his father’s concerns and wanted to know more about the woman he was planning to marry.”

  “Which is what the prosecution argued,” Laurie said, “but it was complete speculation. It seems equally possible that he was looking into his concerns about his father’s assistant, Mary Jane. He was determined to have her fired. Mary Jane was at the gala that night, but did she accompany the General when he brought donors to his club afterward?”

  The lieutenant squinted, trying to access the information from memory. “No, she didn’t. But she told us the next day that she heard him come home after she turned in, and then she was the one who answered the telephone when we called to tell him there had been a shooting.”

  “So you have no idea exactly what time she returned from the gala. She could have gone up to Connecticut and back before you phoned the house. In fact, for all you know, she came home after the General and was lying about hearing him return.”

  “I suppose that’s possible.” Then he added with a wry smile, “But not likely.”

  Laurie began to slip her notes into her bag. “Thank you again for your time, Lieutenant. I admit I didn’t expect you to be so forthcoming.”

  He held up both hands. “The way I see it, if I do my job right, you can go over it with a magnifying glass, and I’ve got nothing to worry about. You don’t seriously think Hunter’s best friend or his father’s assistant killed him?” He still seemed amused.

  “Did you know that in addition to inquiring about a private investigator, Hunter was also looking into financial irregularities at the foundation?”

  McIntosh’s smile fell from his face. “Now, that I would remember. No one ever mentioned such a thing.”

  “It’s just a possibility at this point.” She saw no reason to tell him that Casey was the only source on this issue. “But Mark Templeton did resign suddenly four years later, with the foundation’s assets significantly reduced, and did not get a new job for almost a year.”

  The lieutenant was squinting, as if a memory was tugging at him.

  “Does that ring a bell?” she asked.

  “Maybe. Remember I said we do a thorough search of the home? There was a note on Hunter’s desk that had a couple of phone numbers jotted down. According to the phone records, he never actually called the numbers. But here’s the thing: they were both major accounting firms that specialized in forensic accounting, and in the margin next to the numbers, Hunter had written: Ask Mark.”

  “I assume that’s Mark Templeton. So did you ask him?”

  “Sure did. He said he had no idea what the note meant. Maybe the Raleigh family needed a new firm and he was planning to get Mark’s opinion. But like I said, take your magnifying glass and go for it, Nancy Drew. I know we convicted the right person.”r />
  38

  Laurie’s father had just buckled his seatbelt when he asked what she was thinking. “Do you really believe Hunter may have been killed because of problems at the foundation?”

  “I’m not sure, but I definitely get the feeling that Hunter’s father put his thumb on the scales of justice at some point.” She explained the role of the General’s editor, Holly Bloom, in assisting both Mark Templeton and Jason Gardner.

  “But you can’t believe the General was actually involved.”

  “Of course not.” The possibility was unimaginable. James Raleigh was a national hero and by all accounts adored his older son. Even if she doubted him, his whereabouts were accounted for up until the moment he was notified of Hunter’s death.

  “Why would he cover up for his own son’s murderer?”

  “If he thought his other son was responsible. According to Casey, Andrew Raleigh could be very resentful of his older brother, especially when he was intoxicated. Even when I met with Andrew, he made it very clear that Hunter was the favored son. Or General Raleigh may have genuinely believed that Casey was guilty. But what if he was wrong?”

  “Or maybe he was right, Laurie. Even if he did get Jason Gardner that book deal, even if he had something to do with the RIP_Hunter posts, even if he was trying to stack the deck against Casey—she could still be guilty.”

  Maybe, Laurie thought.

  They were only two days from filming, and she was finding more questions than answers. She now knew that police had found the numbers of forensic accountants on Hunter’s desk, along with a note to Ask Mark. That likely corroborated Casey’s claim that Hunter was looking into irregularities at the foundation. She was going to have to take another run at Templeton.

  In the meantime, she had one more stop to make before they could return to the city. The rental car’s GPS instructed her father that their destination was on the left.