The President's Daughter - Mariah Stewart [84]
“Or, in this case, even to your federal law enforcement agency. You don’t know who’s who and who they might be connected to.” Simon pondered the situation.
Simon turned to Betsy. “Are you certain that your father’s investigator never found anything? Have you seen all the reports that he may have received?”
“I started looking for the file, but I didn’t find anything,” Betsy told them. “There’s always the chance that perhaps I missed something. We can take another look after lunch.”
“Simon, you must have some ideas about who might know about Blythe. About me.” Dina leaned back in her chair.
“I’ve been thinking about this for several weeks.”
Mrs. Brady appeared at the top of the ramp that led down to the patio below and asked about lunch. Betsy nodded that now would be a good time.
“And what have you come up with?” Dina asked.
“Well, there’s Philip Norton. My old journalism professor from Georgetown. He was Hayward’s press secretary, and he had been close to Hayward while he was alive and has remained close to the Hayward family over the years. He’s the one who proposed the book I’m writing. Norton knows about Blythe and about Dina. I’m still trying to figure out what else he might know.”
“Philip was very close to the President,” Jude said.
“You know him?”
“It’s been a few years since I’ve seen him, though we’ve spoken on the phone from time to time, so yes, I know him. I can’t believe he’d have harmed Blythe. Or been involved in anything that could hurt Dina.” Jude shook her head slowly.
“Okay, so we know that this Philip Norton knows. Who else, Simon?” Dina prodded him.
“Mrs. Hayward, I believe, knew about Blythe, but I don’t know that she necessarily knew about Dina. It’s possible. If Hayward had in fact told his wife that he wanted a divorce, he might have told her about the child he’d fathered with Blythe. As for the Hayward kids, I have no way of knowing that they knew about either.”
“So you’re saying that maybe Norton or Mrs. Hayward could be the person we’re looking for?”
“I don’t think we should count anyone out at this point. But I think that we also have to realize that there could be any number of reasons why someone may have wanted Blythe dead. This many years later, it’s unlikely that we’re going to be able to figure out all of them.”
“We’ll start with looking for the investigator’s report,” Betsy decided. “And we’ll do that right after we finish this excellent lunch Mrs. Brady is bringing us. . . .”
It took them until nearly four that afternoon, but the report that Foster Pierce had received from his investigator was finally found in an unmarked file.
“Doesn’t appear that there’s much in here. Police report regarding the accident itself . . .” Simon noted.
“May I see that?” Dina asked.
Simon handed it over and continued.
“ . . . and reports from the investigating officer to the effect that, other than one witness, who may or may not have been drunk, a canvass of the neighborhood found no one who had heard or seen a thing. The case was closed within the week,” Simon mumbled as he skimmed the typed pages. “This isn’t the entire police report. I’ve already spoken with the investigating officer. He said his report was six pages long when he turned it in. The report in the file is only two.”
“Someone removed four pages?” Dina’s eyebrows knit together.
“Exactly. The officer told me that the report he’d made had been purged by someone in the department way higher than he was. And since he was a rookie at the time, he was afraid to make waves.”
“So someone with a lot of clout had the investigation stopped,” Dina said softly.
“Well, if you are assuming that someone from our short list was that person, wouldn’t that eliminate the professor? How much pull could he have had?” Betsy asked.
“Depends on whose behalf he was acting,” Simon said. “Don’t forget that he was the President’s press secretary and close friend. So the request to quash the investigation could have come from