Chapter 24
Freddie sat in front of Patricia Donaldson’s two-story home for a long time. He couldn’t imagine asking her the questions he needed to ask but knew it was long past time he got over the queasiness that struck him whenever he had to ask people personal questions—especially about their sex lives.
Perhaps if he got a sex life of his own, then he wouldn’t be so put off by asking about what other people did in their bedrooms. He’d been raised a Christian, had taken his religion seriously and had saved himself for marriage. That’s how he ended up a twenty-nine-year-old virgin, a fact he had shared with no one, lest he be ridiculed by his colleagues.
He’d had plenty of girlfriends and had done his share of fooling around, but he’d yet to have the full experience. Lately, he’d been thinking too much about what he was missing. And with no marital prospects on the horizon, he wondered how much longer he could hold out.
Since they’d interviewed that personal trainer the other day, Elin Svendsen, he had fantasized about her obsessively. The way she hinted at the nasty stuff she had done with Senator O’Connor… What Freddie wouldn’t give for one night with her. Maybe once they cleared the case, he’d be in the market for some personal training of a different sort.
In the meantime, he needed to go into that house and ask Patricia Donaldson if her son was John O’Connor’s son, if she’d continued a sexual relationship with the senator and if so, what kind of sex she’d had with him. The thought of asking those questions of a woman he’d never met made him sick.
Even if he sat there all night, he’d never be fully prepared. And since Sam was waiting for him to get this information and get it back to her, Freddie emerged from the rental car and headed up the flagstone walkway. With one last deep breath to settle his nerves, he rang the bell. Chimes echoed through the house. He waited a full minute before a fragile-looking blonde opened the door. Her blue eyes were rimmed with red, her pretty face ravaged with exhaustion. If this woman hadn’t recently lost someone she loved, Freddie would turn in his badge.
“Patricia Donaldson?”
“Yes?”
“I’m sorry to disturb you, ma’am. I’m Detective Freddie Cruz, Metro Police, Washington, D.C.” He showed her his badge.
She took the badge from him, examined it and handed it back to him. “This is about John.”
“Yes, ma’am. I wondered if I might have a few minutes of your time?”
With a weary gesture, she stepped aside to let him in.
Freddie followed her to a comfortable family room, noting the photos of the handsome blond boy scattered throughout the house. The place appeared to have been professionally decorated, but had retained a warm, cozy atmosphere.
When he was seated across from her, Freddie said, “You were acquainted with Senator John O’Connor?”
“We’ve been friends for many years,” she said softly.
“I’m sorry for your loss.”
Her raw eyes filled with tears. “Thank you.” She brushed at the dampness on her cheeks.
“You were just friends?”
“Yes,” she said without hesitation.
Freddie reached for a framed photo on an end table. “Your son?”
“Yes.”
“Handsome boy.”
“Thank you.”
“I can’t help but notice his striking resemblance to the senator.”
She shrugged. “Maybe a little.”
Freddie returned the photo to the table. “Is your son at home?”
“He went to do an errand at school. He’s a junior at Loyola.”
Relieved to know the boy wasn’t in the house, Freddie pressed on. “In the course of our investigation, we’ve uncovered a series of regular monthly payments Senator O’Connor made to you for the last twenty years.” Even though he knew the facts by heart, Freddie consulted his notebook. “Three thousand dollars, paid by check, on the first of every month.”
Her hand trembled ever so slightly as she reached for the gold locket she wore on a chain around her neck. “So?”
“Can you tell me why he gave you the money?”
“It was a gift.”
“That’s a mighty big gift—thirty-six thousand dollars a year, totaling more than seven hundred thousand over twenty years.”
“He was a generous man.”
“Ms. Donaldson, I realize this is a very difficult time for you, but if you were his friend—”
“I was his best friend,” she cried, her hand curling into a fist over her heart. “He was mine.”
“If that’s the case, I’m sure you want us to find the person who killed him.”
“Of course I do. I just don’t see what you need from me.”
“I need you to confirm that your son Thomas is John O’Connor’s son.”
“Do you, Detective?” she asked softly. “Do you really need me to confirm it?”
Her easy capitulation flustered Freddie. He’d expected to have to work for it. “I’d appreciate if you could tell me about your relationship with the senator, from the day you met him through to his death.”
She paused for a long moment, as if she were making a decision, and then began to talk so softly that Freddie had to strain to hear. “My family moved to Leesburg the summer before eighth grade. I met him on the first day of school. He was nice to me when no one else gave me the time of day, but that was John. It was just like him to make the new girl feel welcome.” Lost in her memories, she seemed to have forgotten Freddie was there.
He took notes, knowing Sam would expect every detail.
“We became friends—unlikely friends.”
“Why unlikely?”
“His father was a United States senator, a multi-millionaire businessman. Mine worked at the post office. We weren’t exactly from the same universe, but John was the least status-conscious person I ever knew. He couldn’t have cared less about his father’s position, which of course drove his father crazy.
“Over time, our friendship grew and blossomed into love. His parents never liked me, never welcomed me into their home or their family. That made John sad, but it didn’t keep us apart. He was the love of my life, Detective, and I was the love of his. We knew it at fifteen. Can you imagine?”
“No, ma’am.” He couldn’t imagine it at twenty-nine. “I can’t.”
“We were overwhelmed by what we felt for each other and determined to be together forever, no matter what it took.” She glanced down at her lap, her fingers twisting nervously. “I was sixteen when I got pregnant. My parents were devastated, but his were outraged. His father was in the midst of an ugly re-election campaign, and all they cared about was the potential scandal. They offered me a hundred thousand dollars to have an abortion.”
Freddie kept his expression neutral.
“I refused to even consider it. I was under the illusion that John and I would find a way to be together, to raise our child together. I had no idea then how far people with power could and would go to get what they wanted. Within a week, my father was transferred to a post office in Illinois.”
“What did John say about this?”
“What could he say? He was going into his senior year of high school. His parents still had him under their thumb.”
“Did he see the baby?”
She nodded. “He and his parents came out for a day when Thomas was born. The senator pitched a holy fit when I named him Thomas John O’Connor, but they had taken John away from me—away from us—they weren’t going to deny my son his father’s name. I had my limits, too.”
“What was your relationship with John like after the baby was born?”
“We talked on the phone as often as we could. We made plans to be together.” Her hands trembled in her lap. “After he graduated from high school, his father got him an internship in Congress for the summer and then they shipped him off to Harvard. It was more than a year before we saw each other again.”
“He was an adult by then. Why didn’t he stand up to his parents?”
“They controlled the money, Detective, the money he was using to support his son while he was in college. He did what he was told.”
“And after college?”
“His father threatened to disown him if he married me, because if he did, people would find out about ‘the kid’ as Graham called him, and there’d be a scandal.” Her voice had gone flat and lifeless. “As much as John loved me and Thomas, he wouldn’t have been able to live with being disowned by his father.” She leaned forward. “Don’t get me wrong, Detective. I hate Graham O’Connor for what he denied me, what he denied Thomas and mostly what he denied John. But John loved his father, and more, he respected him despite everything he had done to us. John was a good man, the best man I’ve ever known, but he didn’t have it in him to turn his back on his father. He just didn’t. I accepted that a long time ago and learned to be satisfied with what I had.”
“Which was what exactly?”
“We had one weekend a month to be a family, and we made the most of it. John was a wonderful father to Thomas. Between visits, he was completely available to him, and they talked most days. My son is devastated by his father’s death.”
“And no one ever questioned his resemblance to the senator in light of the fact that he had his name?”
“No,” she said. “Amazingly, we got away with it. The O’Connors managed to thoroughly bury us here in the Midwest. During John’s campaign and the first few months he was in office, we played it cool and didn’t see much of each other. Once the attention faded, we were able to pick things up again. The media never caught so much as a whiff of us.”
“I’m curious as to why he sent you monthly payments, rather than giving you a lump sum. His parents had money, and he became a wealthy man himself when he sold his company.”
“He took good care of us, but he liked sending the monthly payments. He said it made him feel connected to Thomas and to me.”
“I apologize in advance for what I’m about to ask you… But I need to know where the senator slept when he was here.”
Her eyes flashed with anger and embarrassment. “Where do you think he slept?”
“Was he involved with other women?” Freddie hated the pain his question obviously caused her.
“Yes,” she said through gritted teeth. “But my son doesn’t know that, and I’d prefer to keep it that way.”
“It didn’t bother you? That he was with other women?”
“Of course it bothered me, but I didn’t expect him to be celibate the other twenty-seven days a month.”
“Did you discuss the other women in his life?”
“We did not.”
“Not even when he was with Natalie for three years?”
“He had his life, and I had mine,” she snapped. “One weekend a month, we belonged to each other.”
“Have you ever been married?”
She laughed. “Where do you think I would’ve stashed my husband on the third weekend of every month when my longtime lover came to visit?”
“So that’s a no?”
“I’ve never been married.”
“When he was here,” Freddie said, trying not to stumble over the words, “you had sexual relations with him?”
“I don’t see how that’s relevant to the case.”
“It’s relevant, and I need you to answer the question.”
“Yes, I had sex with him! As much and as often as I could! Are you satisfied?”
“Was there anything, um, unusual about the kind of sex you had with him?”
She stood up. “We’re finished here. I won’t allow you to come into my home and debase the most important relationship in my life.”
Freddie stayed seated to give her the perceived advantage as he dropped the final bomb. “Did he ever try to get you to have rough sex or anal sex with him?”
She stared at him, astounded. “I want you to leave. Right now.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am, but you can answer the question here or I can take you back to Washington so you can answer it there. It’s your call.”
Her hands on her hips, her eyes shot daggers at him. “John O’Connor was never anything but a perfect gentleman with me. Every woman should have a lover as gentle and sweet. Now if there’s nothing further, I want you to leave my home.”
“Will you be attending the funeral in Washington?”
“Since there’s no longer an O’Connor in office, I can’t see any reason for my son and me to hide out anymore. We’re planning to go. John’s attorney called me today to tell me we need to be at the reading of the will the day after the funeral. I’m sure Graham and Laine are thrilled about that.”
“Have they ever had any contact with Thomas?”
“Not since the day after he was born.”
“The media will be all over you.”
He admired the courageous lift of her chin. “John suffered over the fact that he couldn’t acknowledge his son. The least I can do for him is rectify that now that he’s gone.”
“I’m sorry again for your loss, Ms. Donaldson, and I’m sorry to have upset you with my questions.”
She shrugged off his apology. “If it helps the investigation, then I guess it will have been worth it.”
“You’ve been a big help.”
At the door, she said, “Detective? Get the person who did this to my John.” Her eyes filled with new tears. “Please.”
“We’re doing everything we can.”