Chapter 5:
"Okay." Jack said when the whole team was sitting around the conference table. "The new evidence Martin and Sam just came up with makes Alexander Rowley the prime suspect in the Juliet Newman case. There is a great chance that, if we find Rowley, we might learn something about Juliet Newman as well. So we'll double our efforts to find him. Danny, you and Elena check out the bar Rowley has been to. Maybe somebody remembers anything. Viv and I are going to pay his Boston friend another visit. Martin and Sam, you are on the Juliet Newman angle. Try to find out if her friend or brother or anybody else remembers anything."
Vivian sighed as if as if there was something on her mind, but she had to consider whether to say it or not. But she did.
"Jack? I don't like to be the spoilsport, but couldn't it be that they just ran away together?"
Danny was the one shaking his head in response. "I think that's very unlikely. Alex Rowley hasn't taken a single cent from his bank account and he doesn't even have a credit card. His wife does all the financial stuff. And as far as Martin has told me Juliet Newman wasn't exactly somebody with a lot of money. So what would they live from?"
Martin nodded. "And if Alex was indeed the guy who got Juliet pregnant and she really wanted money from him, because that's what Lucy seems to remember..."
Sam continued his thought once more. "Then were did he get it, if he did indeed pay. I doubt it would have passed unnoticed, if he took it from his bank account. Especially since his wife does the financials. Unless he didn't pay at all."
Jack held up his hands to stop her.
"Let's not give in to all this speculation. I agree that this is a twisted case and that's why we should try to solve it as quickly as possible."
"What can I get you?" The bartender ask when he saw two people coming up to him. It was almost 6 p.m. and it not very busy yet.
"Danny Taylor and Elena Delgardo, FBI." He let the person behind the bar see his badge and put it away again. "We would like to ask you a couple of questions about yesterday night."
The bartender shrugged although his confusion was obvious.
"Yeah, sure, but I wouldn't know about anything unusual yesterday."
Elena took out a photograph of Alexander Rowley and placed it on the counter for the bartender to see.
"You recognize this man?"
He nodded.
"He's been here every now and then. A Boston kid if I'm not mistaken."
Elena put the photo back into her pocket.
"Right. Has he been here yesterday?"
"Yeah, he was here with Phinn, who lives just 'round the corner. They often came here together. Not so very often in the last couple of months, but..." He shrugged again and began to tap a Guinness for a guest who had just ordered. But that didn't stop Danny and Elena to continue their inquiries.
"Did you notice anything abnormal? Odd behavior? Anything?"
The bartender stop tapping for a moment to try to remember the scene from the evening before clearly.
"Phinn was his usual self. A very cheerful and lively guy who drank a bit too much. Alex Rowley was a bit serious yesterday. Wouldn't even laugh about one of my Irish jokes. But I figured he was in a bad mood so I left him alone. Then he got a call on his mobile and seemed quite agitated afterwards. He left not much later. I would say about nine."
Danny who had taken a seat on one of the chairs leaned forward.
"You sure it was nine and not, let's say ten?"
The bartender shook his head.
"No, I always get my break at ten and he had been gone for some time by then."
"Okay and what about Phinn? When did he leave?" Elena asked.
"First he followed Alex, but he came back later. I'm sure he just wanted to know why he was in such a bad mood. That didn't happen very often with Alex. Then he stayed until ten. He said he had to work an early shift so he went home."
"Sam, take a look at this." Martin called from his bullpen. Sam stood up from her chair with a moan. She was beginning to feel a little stiff and feeble. The last thing she needed right now was getting sick, but she tried to hide it as good as she could.
"Coming." She said when she was almost there. "What have you got?"
"Look," He pointed at a specific section on his screen. "Obviously Juliet tried to call her mom last week and again yesterday morning, but nobody answered the phone."
Sam looked at him in surprise.
"You think she might have been calling for help?"
"Perhaps, but I wonder why she didn't ask her brother then."
Sam sat down on the edge of his table.
"You've seen how little he has. Maybe she didn't want to burden him with that."
Martin agreed and turned back to his screen and let out a deep sigh of frustration.
"You know, Martin, when she was pregnant she might have seen a gynecologist, right?"
"Probably. You want the numbers of those in her neighborhood?"
"That would be great. I'm not sure whether anyone is going to tell us anything, but it's worth trying."
Martin looked at the numbers of gynecologists in her neighborhood.
"It's your lucky day. We've got 18 within a radius of 10km and there's no guarantee hers is among them."
Sam took the numbers and walked back to her bullpen. Her phone was waiting for her.
But about half an hour later she was indeed lucky.
"No, I forgot my appointment." She said still on the phone. She decided it was easier trying it like this than choosing the official way. She doubted that people would have been that cooperative then. "Yes...of course...it won't happen again... no...of course...bye."
"Hey Martin," she leaned back in her chair so she could look over to him. "Four-month pregnant Juliet Newman was seeing a Dr. Ryes for only three weeks. She must have found out she was pregnant just then. I just had to listen to the phone lady telling me not to be so careless with my appointments in my present situation."
"Well at least we're off the speculation track concerning her pregnancy then. I just talked to her mother. She didn't hear anything from her daughter in 4 years. She ran away when she was 17. Her son Matthew calls her every now and then to tell her everything is okay, but she didn't know Juliet was missing until now. She has been on holiday somewhere and just came back. She's taking the next flight to NY."
"Mr. Fitzlewis we're sorry to bother you again, but we have some more questions we would like to ask you." Jack explained when he and Vivian entered the mess he called his apartment.
"Okay, why don't you sit down."
The agents accepted his offer.
Before Jack had even began to question Fitzlewis his mobile rang. It was Danny.
"Would you excuse me?" He didn't really expect an answer so he stood up and put some distance between them.
Mr. Fitzlewis sat down on his couch and tried to listen to the conversation on the phone as well as he could.
"Hey, what have you got?...Really?...Okay, thanks. Anything from Martin?...So she is? Yeah okay. I'll check it out."
Jack came back and saw Fitzlewis nervously shifting in his seat. He had heard what he had talked about on the phone and he knew that the following interrogation was going to be tough for him.
"Mr. Fitzlewis," Jack began in a friendly tone, "you told one of my agents that you thought Mr. and Mrs. Rowley had some trouble in marriage."
"Maybe. That was just the impression I got."
"Would you mind describing the sort of trouble they had?"
Fitzlewis tried to keep up the appearance of innocence and raised his shoulders just to let them fall down a moment later.
Jack knew Fitzlewis would be easy to break, but he decided to play his game for a moment longer.
"You also told one of my agents you and Alexander Rowley left the bar together at 10. Is that correct?"
The man sitting opposite of Jack was getting nervous. He rubbed his hands on his trousers and nodded.
"That's right."
Jack nodded and then a long silence passed between them. Now was the right time...
"It's strange that we seem to know the facts quite better than you do."
The muscles in Fitzlewis face began to twitch.
"I don't know what you mean." He tried to save himself one last time.
"Well then let me help you a little bit. Alex Rowley had an affair. You could call that quite a problem in marriage I would say. Now would this affair not be the least bit interesting for me, if your Boston friend hadn't got that young woman pregnant. She wanted to have this baby, but he obviously didn't. She called him on his mobile that night when you were at the bar. She wanted to meet him, because she wanted to have some money from him and I can't even blame her for that. So he drove away to meet her and left you alone in the bar so you could provide him with an alibi. Now that's friendship. The only problem is that he didn't have any money, because he wanted to get rid of this problem in another way. He killed her and you covered for him. This means you will be charged for being an accessory to murder. You like my story?" Jack asked smiling sarcastically.
Fitzlewis was left speechless for a couple of moments.
"I swear I didn't know anything about somebody being pregnant and about all that money stuff you were talking about. I went with him to the pub that night and he was in a bad mood. When he got a phone call he was even worse and wanted to go. I had never seen him like this so I followed him outside. He told me the story about an affair, but that he wanted to break up with that woman for Catherine's sake. That's what I thought I covered for. He wanted to meet her and tell her it was over. I thought I was just helping my friend."
Vivian just couldn't believe it. She shook her head.
"Mr. Fitzlewis, you will have to come with us."
"Anything from Jack?" Sam asked with a drowsy voice. She had rested her head on her right hand. It was becoming heavier and heavier every minute and every now and then a slight shiver was shaking her body.
Martin came over to her and leaned against her desk.
"No, not yet. He is still busy with Fitzlewis in the interrogation room."
Sam silently sighed.
"So there is little hope of finding Juliet alive?"
Martin nodded. He knew how hard this had to be for her. Finding out how a basically identical life could become so different by just one decision you make during a lifetime. This woman could have been Sam, if she had made only one other decision in her life.
"I keep thinking about her mother, you know. I think she really wanted to be back in her daughter's life and now she has missed that chance all because of a stupid coincidence. If she hadn't been on holiday none of this might have happened. All of this just seems so pointless."
Sam couldn't stop some silent tears that began rolling down her cheeks. This moment of weakness started her shivering again.
"Hey..." Martin said gently stroking her arm.
Sam tried to regain her composure again, but didn't really succeed. Angry with herself she wiped the tears away.
"I'm okay." She attempted to convince him.
"You don't really look like that." He replied honestly. Her cheeks were glowing and her eyes were glassy. He reached for her forehead and as he had expected it was burning.
"Come on, I'll take you home. You're hardly in the condition to work."
"I'm fine. Really."
Martin looked into her eyes and she could never lie when he did that.
"You're right. I don't feel that well, but have to stay a bit longer. Just to know what has become of Juliet. You're free to take me home then."
"I take your word for it."
She smiled weakly. "But only if I get a nice, hot cup of tea."
"I think I could arrange that."
„I swear it! I don't know where he went. He headed for his car and I went back inside. That was the last time I saw him." Phineas Fitzlewis was getting tired reaffiming he hadn't seen anything. And to be honest Jack didn't think that he knew more than what he had already told them.
„Would you know of any places where he used to meet that woman?"
Fitzlewis rubbed his eyes leaned back in the incomfortable chair.
„The only thing he told me is that he met her at a club and that was it. I didn't even know he had an affair until yesterday. So the answer to your question would be no. I have no idea."
„But he did take his car, right?" Jack tired to approach this from another direction. Fitzlewis didn't know anything about Alex Rowley's whereabouts so there was no point following that track.
„Yes." The interviewee nodded.
„What kind of car would that be?"
„A red Ford Windstar."
„Okay, thanks." Jack chose to say something nice for a change. Fitzlewis wasn't a bad guy. He was just terribly naive and good-natured and that was not the most beneficial combination in that world outside. He was the perfect target to take advantage of which even his best friend seemed to do.
Jack headed for the door.
„Just wait here for a moment. I'll be back in a minute."
„Danny, have NYPD check for a red Ford Windstar. Maybe Rowley's car gives us a new lead in the case."
„I'm on it." Danny answered from his bullpen already dialing a number.
„Martin, Sam, I want you to talk to the mother as soon as she arrives. You are the experts on the Juliet Newman case so I think you are best qualified for the job." Both agents nodded and a concerned look from Martin on Sam didn't go unnoticed. But if it was something that should concern all of them Jack was certain that Martin would have mentioned it. And what passed between them privately was not up to him to decide. He just wanted Sam to be happy.
It was not much later when Jack came in with bad news.
"NYPD just called. They've found the red Ford Windstar in the woods along with two bodies not far away. They are positive that they belong to Juliet Newman and Alexander Rowley. Obviously Juliet has been stabbed and Rowley has cut his arteries. They found a picture of Juliet's only ultrasound from a week ago at the scenery."
The team was silent. Everybody could imagine what had happened last night: Alex and Juliet had met and he had killed her for whatever reasons he had. When he found the picture of the ultrasound he realized what he had done. He saw the innocent life he had just ended and couldn't stand that.
They all knew that they couldn't save everybody, but that made the cases they lost not easier to bear.
But they came back to their job every day and hoped for a good ending of the next case.
„Mrs. Newman? Thanks for coming in." Martin who entered the room first said while he held the door open for Sam.
The agents sat down with the elderly-looking woman. She couldn't be that old, but life had definitly left its traces on her.
„Have you got any news on Julie? Have you found her yet?" Mrs. Newman sounded so full of hope and her eyes told them that she couldn't wait to get her daughter back again.
Martin glanced over to Sam. She didn't appear to be in the condition to tell the mother the unwanted truth and he didn't want to burden her with that. Her body was shaking from fever and she seemed absent.
He decided not to beat about the bush and make this as painless for everybody as it was possible under the circumstances.
„Mrs. Newman, your daughter was pregnant from a married man. He has... She's dead. I'm very sorry."
Mrs. Newman didn't say anything, but the hope in her eyes expired immediately.
„No." Her voice was merely a whisper.
Martin's gaze sunk to the ground and Sam continued staring into nothingness for fear she might lose the fight she fought with her tears.
„I..." Mrs. Newman wanted to begin after a long silence, but she just couldn't. After some time she finally found enough words to make the agents understand that she would rather be alone.
Martin and Sam stood up and left the room.
Outside Martin let out a deep sigh. This was something he would never get used to.
„Martin?" He heard Sam's low voice beside him.
His look shifted from the ground onto her. He had never seen her so fragile as she looked now.
„Yeah?" He asked.
„I would really like you to take me home now."
THE END
A/N: So that was it! I hope you enjoyed it and I would really like to know what you think of it! I take this opportunity to thank every one who has reviewed the last chapters! Thanks to pealee, babs6608, saturn 567, specialfrog, Hamilyn (you should really do a longer story. I would definitely read it!), Elena ;) and all the anonymous reviewers (sam4martin, watSM, erg and Just me:) ) It really meant a lot!