“Look at this,” Bea says, beckoning me over to an upright piano tucked against the wall. On top, a line of framed photographs, mostly of the two kids I recognize from the ex-wife’s apartment. There are two gaps in the row. Missing photos. “There used to be one of Brandon here. And there was one of him and Miranda with the children.”
She finds a pack of plastic bags in the kitchen and starts filling them with random small objects, anything that might yield fingerprints or trace evidence. Then she goes into the master bathroom in search of combs and brushes for stray hair.
“We’re going to find out if Hilda’s in the system,” she says. “Maybe we can get a real name on her.”
Given the fact that her supposed son was in the database, I seriously doubt that. But it’s worth a try. When she’s finished, we go out the way we came in, pulling the busted door shut. She stores her samples in the trunk of my car.
Back on the road, I ask if she wants to talk.
“What I want to do is find him,” she says.
We hit a series of locations, places she thinks he might be: a chain of bars and restaurants and cigar lounges along the Sam Houston Tollway, Hempstead, and Tidwell. She shows his picture around, but gets nothing. She has me drive slowly through the parking lot of several hotels along the Northwest Freeway without explaining why she’d expect to find him in these particular spots. None of this is likely to bring results, of course, but I’m humoring her in the hope that once she simmers down, she’ll be forthcoming with information.
“He’s going to be anywhere associated with his old life,” I finally tell her.
“You think I don’t realize that?”
“What next, then?”
She thinks it over. “We should have a talk with Miranda.”
“And tell her what? Her husband’s not dead? I think she’s the last person who’s gonna have a line on his whereabouts.”
“I don’t know,” she says. “He loved those kids.”
She turns her face back to the window, elbow on the sill, her balled fist pressed against her lips. Then it all catches up to her and she doubles over. She doesn’t cry, doesn’t sob out loud. She just tenses up like a woman in labor, only instead of giving birth, she’s trying to hold something inside. The gravity of the betrayal, the weight of her own misjudgment-whatever it is, she’s overcome. I put a hand on her back.
“I want to help you fix this,” I say, “but I need you to work with me.”
She sits up, burying her face in her hands. “I can’t do this. Take me back.”
“Bea, I need you.”
“Just drive me back. I can’t think. I can’t even breathe.”
I point the car in the direction of the Water Wall, trying to argue her out of it the whole way. She’s determined, though. Whatever force was driving her to the brink, overcoming all her instincts toward secrecy and self-preservation, now it’s gone. Perhaps she’s even a little scared of herself, afraid of the consequences of what she’s learned and what she’s done.
Just when I think I’ve lost her, pulling up to the curb behind her car, she turns in her seat and touches my arm.
“If I find anything, I will let you know,” she says. “You have to promise me to do the same. And remember: you’ll wreck us both if you’re not careful who you talk to.”
“What’s my next step?” I ask.
But she doesn’t know. “If you could figure out who that John Doe really is, it might help. Or get an ID on the guy you killed.”
“They won’t let me near the case. Is there anything you’re not telling me? Anything that could help?”
“I’ve told you everything I know.”
“What about Nesbitt? What’s his connection?”
“I don’t know who that is.”
Near as I can guess, she seems to be telling the truth. I fill her in on the shooting death of the self-proclaimed CIA agent and the fact that John Doe’s finger was found pointing toward the scene of his death.
“I don’t have a clue,” she says.
“Well, see what you can find out.”
She agrees. And she takes the bagged samples out of the trunk, too, suggesting she hasn’t abandoned the effort altogether. She just needs time, I tell myself. Once she’s had a chance to process everything I told her and figure out a way to collaborate without jeopardizing herself, she’ll come around.
My first partner, Stephen Wilcox, ended the relationship by leaving Homicide for Internal Affairs. We’d been through a lot by then. He had accompanied me on my early successes and then, following a personal tragedy of mine, watched my gradual decline. As my work became sloppy, he covered for me, but when he discovered my extracurricular vigilantism-nothing illegal, though I was pursuing some private vendettas at the expense of my casework-he decided he’d finally had enough. While he never came out and accused me of misconduct, he was pretty free with the accusations in private, especially among his new colleagues in IAD.
Over the years, as I’ve regained my balance, I have also made efforts to reconcile with Wilcox. The problem is, no matter how friendly and forgiving he seems, the old frustration is always bubbling under the surface. He can’t let go of it. As a result, I try to give him as much space as I can.
As he pulls into his driveway and sees me parked along the curb, the brakes on his Land Rover light up. He gets out, leaving the motor running and door open, bounding toward me with tight-lipped determination. I buzz my window down.
“What do you want?” he asks.
“Can we talk?”
He glances up and down the street, like he’s afraid the neighbors will notice. “You really think that’s a good idea? There’s an ongoing investigation into your shooting.”
“You’re not on that.”
“No,” he admits, “but I still think it’s a bad idea. If it’s professional, I can’t help you. And if it’s personal. .”
“Hey, Stephen,” I say, “last time we met, you were all worked up about the Fauk case. You ever hear how that turned out?”
He sighs. “Yes, I did.”
When we were partners a decade ago, we made headlines by putting Donald Fauk away for murdering his wife. Last December, it looked like that conviction was going to unravel, and instead of backing me up, Wilcox was only too happy to throw me under the bus. In the end, I not only kept Fauk behind bars, but I managed to hand the Harris County Sheriff’s Department the name of a serial killer who’d been flying under the radar. The detective who broke that case, Roger Lauterbach, went on record giving me the credit. And I’ve never heard a squeak of apology out of Wilcox in all this time.
“It gets old after a while,” I say. “Me offering a hand of friendship, you spitting on it. We’re on the same side, whether you realize that or not. It would be nice if you’d at least hear me out before pitching a fit.”
“Fine,” he says. “Let me get my keys.”
Instead of inviting me inside, where I might be seen by his wife and kids, Wilcox has me drive in circles around the neighborhood while we talk. I ask him what he knows about Andrew Nesbitt’s shooting, and even though he didn’t conduct the investigation himself, he seems very well-informed. I imagine that one received plenty of airtime around the IAD water cooler. And since it’s old news and I haven’t been forthcoming about the nature of my interest, he can’t see the harm in humoring me by answering a few questions.
“That one’s gonna go down in the records as one of the strangest incidents in HPD history. You would not believe how many people behind the scenes are divided over it. This Nesbitt guy wasn’t some random crank. He was well known by people in law enforcement. He was on the payroll of a couple of the big energy companies, where he did some very hush-hush consulting. As far as anybody in this town was concerned, before the night of the shooting he was exactly what he said he was: a retired CIA officer. In fact, a pretty senior one.”
“But they denied that after he was dead?”