Chapter 62

"I thought things would be different, now… with Ross," Bobby told her in the car.

She gave Bobby a glance, then turned back to the road. "It's personal for him. Last time you went round with him, it was personal for you."

"He's been spending a lot of time with his… old friend…" Bobby said with a nod. "You think he and Rodgers are on the outs?"

She shrugged, but said nothing. She'd been wondering the same thing.

Kathy seemed to know nothing about her husband's past. The detectives told her they suspected he'd killed Avery.

"That was the mistake," the woman sighed.

Alex glanced over at Bobby. "What mistake, Kathy?"

"Woody called me two days ago."

The detectives turned to each other, sour looks on their faces. "And you're just telling us this now?" Alex asked. The woman nodded. "You know, the Captain put himself on the line for you," Alex told her.

She apologized, said she was malfunctioning. It turned out she'd wired $10,000 to Scott Woodley. That was Woody's real name.

They decided it would be best for Eames to fill in the Captain. It would put a buffer between him and Bobby. Ross took the news like a champ, talking like a competent Captain and not a man who was being used by an old friend. They caught up to Bobby in the AV room, where he was tracking Woodley's cell phone signature, to try and figure out what flight he'd taken, where he went. He was able to trace the phone to Mexico City, where the signal died.

"He hasn't picked up the money yet," Ross said.

"Yeah, if he even, uh… flew down there," Bobby added. He showed them on the computer that the flight path didn't fit with commercial airline flights. It matched flight patterns for a delivery package service.

"So… Woody shipped his phone and bought himself another two days," Ross said.

He seemed too clever. "Maybe money isn't the only help Woody's crime writer wife has given him," Alex said.

Ross still defended the woman. "He's using her to help him get away," he said.

To his credit, Bobby bit his tongue. He shifted in his chair, silently.

"Or maybe she thinks he's coming back," Ross added, with an unpleasant smile and looking straight at Goren.

They brought Kathy in again for questioning. Alex and Bobby sat together on one side of the table, and the woman sat on the other.

Bobby listened to her words, and when she called the man a sociopath, he said. "A week ago, he was an old soul… so now he's a sociopath?"

"Well, they're masters at hiding that side of themselves, as I'm sure you know," she told him with a smile.

"I can't believe you never looked into Woody's past," Goren told her. She produced his sealed juvy record from Ohio and said she'd just gotten it yesterday. Bobby questioned that she'd just gotten hold of it yesterday.

Kathy suggested that Woody's might have killed his own mother, and his father took the rap for him.

Alex spoke. "Kathy, in hindsight, there had to have been clues. Something that might help us track him now." Goren stared at the woman. Everything about his body language was telling Alex he suspected Kathy.

"Yeah. I loved him," she said, throwing her hands in the air. Ross watched for a moment from the hall, and Kathy saw him standing there.

Afterward, he told his detectives, "She told me her blinders are off, and she's on the case."

"What about your blinders?" Bobby grunted. "You know that she's lying to you," he said warily, his hands in his pockets. "She's used her connections to…uh, the department, to lead us around from day one, sir."

"Kathy has been a good friend and a colleague for 20 years," Ross said.

"Then you knew her second husband, Judge Feld," Alex said. "The obits were sketchy on his place of death."

He called them into his office to continue the conversation. Apparently, the judge was with two male prostitutes in a motel when he died. Alex turned to Bobby. "Oh, she really can pick 'em, can't she? NYPD covered it up?" She asked her boss.

Ross said they were protecting the judge's teenage daughter.

"And the judge cheated on her, and so did Woody," Bobby said, "and they're both dead."

"What are you saying?" Ross laughed. "That she's a serial killer?"

Goren didn't respond, just gave him a level stare. Alex convinced him to help them get a court order to exhume the judge's body.

He'd died from the interaction of a virility drug with his high blood pressure medications. Rodgers had spoken with the man's doctor. He would have known not to take it, and he had triple the normal dose in his system when he died.

"If there had been an autopsy," the doctor told them, "bells would have gone off."

Eames looked back at Ross, who had his arms folded and a bitter look on his face. "It's hard to imagine Kathy didn't know about the judge's sex life," she said.

"I mean he was probably meeting boys online, arranging hookups," Bobby said. "Kathy has written about spyware." They continued connecting the dots for their Captain. Ross stood silent, and Bobby finally spoke. "Captain?"

With a sad shake of his head, he told them to investigate her further. "Find out what she knew about Woody's plans and when."

They were all silent when he left the room, including the doctor, who simply looked down sadly.

They brought Kathy out to the site where they'd found Woody's license plate. To protect the Captain, Eames purposely gave both him and Kathy the same, wrong, directions. The Captain showed up late and pointed out the directions were wrong.

"I checked my GPS," Kathy said.

"Well, this lot isn't on a GPS grid," Eames informed her, and she said her service must be different.

"That would be the same as Woody's?" Bobby asked. "Is that how you tracked him the night that he drove here?"

"Excuse me," she said, and turned to Ross. "Danny, wrong directions? That's their idea of a trap?"

"Detective, you checked Kathy's GPS. She wasn't here."

"Captain, she could have turned it off," Goren said. "I mean, we doublechecked Woody's GPS. Someone hacked into it and then tracked him here."

She balked and Goren turned up the heat. He pointed out how systematic she was and then insulted her. "Is that why your books never really get to that level of… art?"

"Oh, you're a critic now?"

"You've stopped writing," Goren said. "But, I mean, why research someone else's crime when you can just… plot your own."

"I loved Woody," she said in her own defense.

"You didn't follow him here?" Alex asked. "March him into the water and then shoot him so there'd be no blood?"

"Into the water. Then his body would have surfaced by now."

"Kathy's right. She would have known to cut his stomach so he'd sink," Ross said, jumping on board with his team. He said she could have used the tarp in her nursery to keep the blood from the scene.

She told them she knew they didn't have a body. Alex said they did. "Your department leaks like a sieve. I'd have known."

"You want to see it?" Alex asked, and then described the body of the dead Judge. They taunted her, tried to get her to say something incriminating.

"Danny, you're letting them tear me apart. Why? Because I rejected you?"

Ross turned his head to his detectives. "You're right. She really is a narcissist." Then he turned back to his former friend. "I helped you when I thought you were in distress, and you used me to cover up three murders." He smiled at her. "You're on your own, Kathy."

She accused Ross of betraying her, and Bobby came to his aid. "But you're used to that, right? You're successful, and you're… beautiful…but that's not enough for the men that you choose."

She looked at Ross and called him a fool.

"Go to hell," he spat and walked away.

She yelled out her confession, appealing to Ross, and saying this wasn't how it was supposed to end. The other officers cuffed her and led her away. Ross drifted farther away from his detectives, and Bobby called after him. "Captain?"

"Not now, detective," he said. "Not one word." He continued to walk further away, deep in thought.

Bobby and Alex shared a look, then watched him with concern.

"You don't think he'll blame you, do you? Hold some kind of grudge about it?"

Bobby shrugged her statement away. "Nah, you know, the Captain, he's… he's a man of integrity. He'll get over it."

Alex smiled at him, then. "Might be a good idea to hold your tongue for a while. Until he gets over it."

Bobby nodded. "I'll keep that in mind."

She stepped out of the elevator and turned back to her partner. "I know you will," she told him, and there was affection in her eyes as the doors closed between them.