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Jo’s stomach flipped, and her mind flew to the times when the people she loved had been put in danger because of her—most recently her own niece, and Matt. “That makes sense.”
“Once I realized that, I knew I had a gnat’s chance in a vat of frogs of getting her to testify, so I had to drop it all. And let me tell you, it killed me to let it go. Then Sandra called and dragged the whole thing up again. After I told her what I thought happened, she made some cryptic remark about having a little chat with Hauptmann. I told her there was no point in talking to either Hauptmann or Wharton, but she just thanked me and hung up.”
Jo sent another significant glance to Arnett.
“Got it,” Arnett said. “Thanks.”
“There’s more,” Nguyen said.
“More?” Arnett asked.
“I ran into Sandra about a month ago. Since I never heard anything about it again, I figured I’d razz her a bit about how talking to him hadn’t worked. She laughed and said, ‘Oh, it worked alright.’ I pressed her about what she meant, and she told me she’d gone to Hauptmann and told him that there were nine years left on his statute of limitations for that rape, and if he didn’t move out of Oakhurst County by the end of the month, she’d put Arlene Wharton and her daughter into witness protection so they could testify safely, add charges for intimidating a witness, and threatening an ADA, and put him away for the next twenty-five years.”
Jo’s mouth dropped.
Arnett winced. “No way she’d get approval for witness protection in a case like that. We don’t have nearly enough funding.”
“Exactly what I told her,” Nguyen said. “She just smiled and said, ‘Hauptmann doesn’t know that.’”
CHAPTEREIGHTEEN
Jo’s stomach flipped again; from the look on Arnett’s face, his had, too.
“Well,” Jo said, trying to get her feet back under her. “Sandra was right, he apparently didn’t. Hauptmann sold his house and moved to the far side of Berkshire County, almost to the New York state line. Frankly, I’m surprised he didn’t leave Massachusetts entirely.”
Nguyen whistled. “She always did have bigger balls than most guys I know. Almost makes me wish I’d thought of doing that. Look at her, scaring him straight even though it wasn’t her case.”
“I’m sure he’ll be on his best behavior for the next nine years,” Jo said.
Nguyen didn’t catch Jo’s scornful undercurrent. “Got that right. I asked her why she suddenly got a wild hair about the case when she’s in a different unit, but she wouldn’t tell me.”
“I can tell you,” Jo said. “Hauptmann was her neighbor up at her lake house. The annoying kind that makes life unpleasant, with loud music and rats dumped on her porch, and she apparently decided she didn’t want to deal with it anymore.”
“Holy shit.” Nguyen let out another whistle. “Talk about bringing a nuke to a slap fight.”
As Arnett thanked him for his help and hung up, Jo rubbed her temples, wondering if Nguyen was missing the point or just didn’t care. “Holy shit is right. I can’t even count the number of lines Sandra crossed with that.”
Arnett tensed. “Intimidation and blackmail, at least. Whatever you call it, it gives Hauptmann a clear motive for murder.”
“I don’t even know how to process it. I always thought Sandra’s integrity was unassailable.”
Arnett’s face went blank. “Nguyen might be right about her motives. She may have seen it as a win-win: get rid of the pain in her ass and scare him enough to keep him on the up-and-up at least until the statute of limitations ran out.”
Jo shook her head in disbelief. “And it lends credibility to what Flynn told us, that Sandra was willing to bend the rules past the breaking point of integrity. Between that and the faked confession, it definitely changes my perspective on her ex-husband.”
“How so?” Arnett asked.
“I don’t find it at all hard to believe she’d threaten him with a non-existent boyfriend and a non-provoked restraining order if that would get him to go away. Do you?” she asked.
Arnett’s eyes skimmed the desk in front of him for a moment before he answered. “Not in light of this, no.”
She pushed her chair back to her desk. Her mind was reeling, and she needed to rein it back in. “Recap our suspects and make a plan?”
He nodded, face still drawn tight. “First up, Flynn. Potential motive is she believes Sandra Ashville destroyed her career. If Sakurai is the mentor who advised her to file the complaint, she may think Sakurai tanked her with bad advice.”
“Hopefully Lopez will be able to clarify if there’s any personal connection between them. We can also ask Sakurai’s husband directly. He’d know if they were close.” Jo jotted it down. “Then there’s Hauptmann, with an even clearer motive, at least for Sandra. He may have decided he didn’t want to spend the rest of his life wondering when she’d show back up at his door. But what about Sakurai?”
Arnett shrugged. “Maybe he assumed Sakurai is the one who talked to Ashville about it. Or maybe Sakurai made it clear to him at the time that she knew he’d tampered with a witness even if there wasn’t anything she could do about it, and he didn’t want to risk that Ashville had talked to her about reopening the case. Hell, maybe he just snapped and decided to kill everyone involved. If that’s the case and he does intend to kill again, Nguyen might be next.”
