Tail Spin

Rachael paused for a moment, her eyes unfocused. She swallowed, said, “I can see so clearly that twisted smile he gave me. He said the shrink he’d been seeing had never spoken about confessing what he’d done; the shrink had only spoken of forgiving himself for an unfortunate mistake. Unfortunate mistake, he repeated, the little girl was nothing more than an unfortunate mistake.”

Sherlock’s eyebrow shot up. “A shrink?”

“Yes, he went to a psychiatrist for maybe six months. Jimmy told me Greg hadn’t believed it smart to see a local psychiatrist—too much chance for it to get out since there were probably three news sharks hanging around every doctor’s office to see if any of the great and famous paid them a visit.”

She took a deep breath, looked at all of them. “Jimmy finally decided to call a press conference. He was going to confess what he’d done, then go to the police. Only thing is, he didn’t have the chance. He died.”

Sherlock said, “Since you believe the Abbotts killed him, he must have told his sister and brother what he was going to do, right?”

“Yes, he told them.”

“Did he call his ex-wife and his daughters?”

“I don’t know. Maybe he did since the fallout would affect them. I’m sure he gave everyone close to him fair warning, probably begged for their understanding and forgiveness since they’d have to deal with the consequences. I believe his brother Quincy told him to plant a tree in her memory, in Delancey Park, where he’d hit her.”

Savich looked up from MAX’s screen. “The little girl’s name was Melissa Parks. Her case remains open. A hit-and-run.”

“Anything else about her we should know?” Sherlock asked.

“A year ago, Melissa Parks’s family received an envelope containing one hundred thousand dollars in untraceable small bills with a note that said only ‘I’m sorry.’ It revved up the investigation again, but since they couldn’t trace the money, or the note, it once again went cold.”

“Jimmy didn’t tell me about that,” Rachael said. “I remember a couple of days after he told me about the accident, I walked into his study and saw him staring at his phone. I knew he wanted to call Melissa’s parents, call the police, simply end it all, right then. Unfortunately he waited a few more days, warned those who would take a hit, and then he was dead.”

Sherlock said, “Rachael, you know for sure your father told his family and Greg Nichols, right?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. I have to tell you, I have a hard time believing that his confession would enrage his family to such a degree that they’d kill him.”

“There’s more. The reason his death was declared an accident was because when the two patrolmen found Jimmy’s Beemer at the bottom of a cliff, Jimmy was alone in the driver’s seat. They said they could smell the alcohol on him. They said it was apparent he’d had too much to drink and lost control of his car, and hurtled down a steep embankment just off the Beltway, near Bethesda Navy Medical Center.”

“Yes, I remember that,” Sherlock said.

“Jimmy told me after he hit the little girl, he simply couldn’t make himself get behind the wheel any longer. The fact is, he stopped driving. It was manageable because he had a car and driver available to him. Not only that, he hadn’t had a drink since the night he killed the girl. That’s what he told me, and I believed him.”

“Then why didn’t you tell the police the truth?” Jack asked.

“I couldn’t,” Rachael said. “It would have meant telling them why he’d stopped drinking and hadn’t driven a car for the past eighteen months. I simply couldn’t bring myself to do it. All of it would have come out. It would have destroyed his legacy.” She drew a deep breath. “That was the main reason I took off for Sicily. I had to decide what to do. For two weeks I chewed it over every which way, and I came to a decision. I was coming back to Washington to tell the truth. Of course, I was going to discuss it with my mother, but I knew she would agree with me and it was what Jimmy would have done, what he was fully prepared to do. The least I could do for him was honor his wishes. After I nail Quincy and Laurel, I can and will do what Jimmy wanted to do. I will clear his conscience for him.”

Sheriff Hollyfield was tapping a pen on his desk blotter. He said thoughtfully, “Your father’s dead, so is his conscience, so is his guilt. I’m thinking like his aide did—why ruin Senator Abbott’s name? Why ruin his memory? Why destroy what he stood for, what he was as a man for most of his lifetime? And that’s what would happen. The sum of his life would be forgotten—he’d end up being remembered for killing a child in a park, and hiding it.” He sat forward, his hands clasped.

“Rachael, do you want what happened in the final year and a half of your father’s life to define him? That he go down in history as the rich guy who killed a little girl when he was drunk?”

Rachael jumped to her feet, began to pace the small office. “I’ve used the very same argument to myself, but I know he wouldn’t! When I tell everyone how he’d planned to confess, surely they would see how moral he was, how ultimately honest.”

Jack said very gently, “I’ve known since I was twenty years old that the human mind doesn’t work like that. Sheriff Hollyfield is right—your father would be cut to pieces, all the good he ever did in his private life, in his political life, distorted, questioned, erased. As for you, there would be no recognition that you were simply following through on his wishes. You’d be the bastard daughter who destroyed her father’s name.”

“I know you’re trying to help, but again, I’ve thought about all this, and it doesn’t matter what anybody thinks or says about me. I think you’re wrong, Jack, you have to be.” She shook her head, then tucked her long hair behind her ears.

Savich looked up from MAX. “Did you tell anyone you were going to make your father’s confession for him since you’ve been back?”

“I told Mr. Cullifer, Jimmy’s lawyer. I’d have thought Jimmy would have filled him in on his plans, but he hadn’t. He was pretty emotionless about it, told me he’d suspected something was very wrong with Jimmy, asked if I had any proof, like fingerprints or witnesses, which of course I didn’t. He then said if I made Jimmy’s confession for him, I would find myself in a snake pit—people vilifying me, accusing me of lying because he left my mother all those years ago, that I was doing it to get back at him, and he wasn’t even here to defend himself. I’d thought about most of those things, but I’ll tell you, the way he spoke, the utter certainty in his voice, I was nearly ready to flip-flop on my decision. Then I found Jimmy’s journal. It was filled with his misery, his guilt, his hatred of himself for what he’d done, and that’s what made me decide to go ahead, no matter the fallout. I felt I owed it to him.