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He gave her another of those penetrating stares that seemed to see right through her. If that was true, would he like what he saw?
“I’m not sure yet, but I’ll let you know as soon as I figure it out.”
Nicoletta had no idea how to take that, but since she needed him and his help, she decided she could be patient.
For now, anyway.
Several membersof Nick’s national security team arrived after breakfast to provide his daily briefing. While he was cloistered with them in a secure room next door, Sam got out her laptop to read the latest emails about the Stahl investigation.
Included in one that Captain Malone had sent to all personnel was a photo of Stahl’s home in Northeast, shrouded now in a tent and yellow police tape. The photo, taken by drone, also showed a crowd of people gathered outside the police perimeter. Lookie-loos, they called them. It was human nature, she supposed, to want to know what was going on. That was until disaster struck their own home, and then they asked for privacy.
She read Malone’s email update.Crime Scene detectives arrived at the Stahl home to find that his sister, Cindy, and her two young children were living there. The sister put up a fight when asked to leave and was told she’d be taken into custody unless she and her children vacated the premises immediately. She swore at the officers, told them they had no right to enter her home (despite having been presented with the warrant) and was generally uncooperative. Lieutenant Haggerty gave her ten minutes to pack the family’s belongings and expelled her from the house.
Sam wasn’t surprised to learn that Stahl’s sister was unpleasant, but Sam felt for her for being booted from her home thanks to her good-for-nothing brother.
The sister demanded to know what the police wanted at the house and was told they had no obligation to discuss that with her as she isn’t the subject of the investigation. She said her lawyer would be in touch, as Stahl made her the owner when he went to prison. Once the occupants were removed from the house, Haggerty and his team started in the basement with a full investigation that may involve the breaking of the concrete floor and excavation of the yard. We expect this investigation to take several weeks to complete.
Detectives have been assigned to reopen the cases of each of the missing women who may be tied to Stahl. More information will be shared with you as it becomes available. Needless to say, we are carefully managing the distribution of information to the media until such time as we have more concrete evidence of the former lieutenant’s involvement in these cases or until we rule him out. Gonzo and Cruz talked to the sister last night, learned there was a brother between her and Stahl who went missing in high school. We’re adding the name of Michael Stahl to the list of potential victims. In addition, Cindy, who is thirteen years younger than Stahl and shared his father, told them that Stahl came to live with them when he was thirteen due to an incident with his mother that involved the police. We’ll be looking for more information about that today.
Sam responded to him to let him know that reporters traveling with them in Delaware had asked about Stahl’s connection to missing women.
He wrote right back to that.Great.
In a separate email, Malone had sent the files for two of the missing women, both of whom were originally from Delaware.
Brittany Carter had grown up in the Wilmington area, the third child in a family of six siblings. Her father had worked in finance and her mother as a school librarian. After high school, Brittany moved to the District to work at a bank and had been arrested for public drunkenness and disorderly conduct on several occasions.
According to the report, at some point she’d been fired from the bank and had become an escort. The family hadn’t learned that detail until much later. They’d suspected she was taking and possibly selling drugs, but had been unable to confirm that. Despite her troubles, they’d made the effort to stay in touch and to offer help that she’d rebuffed.
And then she’d stopped returning their phone calls.
Her parents had gone to DC to look for their daughter and had called the police when they were unsuccessful in locating her.
Detective Leonard Stahl had responded to their call.
Sam sighed as she sifted through the brief notes Stahl had made in the file about contacting her friends and known associates, interviews with her roommates at the time and the frustrating conclusion that she was known to go missing for days at a time before showing up like nothing had happened. Sam found no indication that he’d followed up.
As she studied the photo of the young woman with pale skin, big green eyes and light brown hair, she was filled with despair to know he’d done so little to “investigate” her disappearance.
And now Sam had to go see her parents, reopen the wound and remind them all over again how her department had failed to find their daughter. In fact, if current suspicions were true, the officer who’d investigated her disappearance might’ve killed her.
Sam was astounded that she could still be shocked by anything Stahl had done—or not done. The sheer scope of his crimes was overwhelming.
Caren Hans was originally from Newark, Delaware. She’d done a semester at Howard University before dropping out to work at a District restaurant. She’d quit her job a few months later and gone missing shortly after that, although her disappearance hadn’t immediately been reported by anyone. A few months had passed before her grandmother had reached out to the MPD. Again, the case had been assigned to Detective Stahl, who’d done the most basic investigation.
It made Sam sick to think that he might’ve investigated crimes that he’d committed with no one the wiser that a killer worked among them.
She did a quick search online and learned that Caren’s grandmother had died five years ago without ever knowing what had become of her grandchild. A sister had since checked in with the MPD only to be told there was no new information.
Sam wrote down of the sister’s name—Cristen Hans Reid—and her address in the Newark area. Then she did a search to see how far Wilmington and Newark were from Dewey. About two hours each way. At least the two cities were close, so she could do both interviews in one trip.
The last thing she wanted was burn a precious vacation day running down a cold case tied to that son of a bitch Stahl, but this was an all-hands-on-deck situation, and she was determined to help get answers for families who’d waited far too long already. The second-to-last thing she wanted was for anyone she worked with to think thatshethought she was special because of her role as first lady. She wasn’t special on the job, and she was determined to stay that way.
So she picked up the phone and called Brittany Carter’s mother, Theodora.
“This is Lieutenant Sam Holland with the DC Metro Police Department.”
As usual these days, the recitation of her name was met with silence.
