“The young people I was with, they were involved in the case and had raised some possibly legitimate doubts about our investigation.” She looked over at the head of Major Crimes, searching his face for clues that what she was saying was having an impact. A frown. Raised eyebrows. A nod. A shake of the head. She barreled forward, hoping.
“I knew that you hate it when people have questions after some case has been officially closed, so, really it was intended to be therapeutic on my part. You know-quick trip up to speak with the potential witness. Get a statement. Rewrap the case up nice and tight, no holes anywhere. End of story…”
She noted a rueful smile. Her boss knew all about no holes and end of story and how unlikely that was. She persisted: “… Get back into the rehabilitation cycle. Back in time to make my meetings and see a counselor, just as you requested.”
Now she shrugged.
“Look, I had no idea the guy I went to see was running some sort of backwoods, low-rent, small but dangerous meth manufacturing site in his old trailer, and when he saw us coming, thought that he was being busted and decided to go out in some sort of blaze of glory-like that guy on television did. Jesus, could have killed us all, but we were lucky and the local cop I was with was damn good-maybe ought to consider him for down here on our investigative staff…”
Every word she spoke was calculated to convert something murderous into something benign. She was particularly pleased with her suggestion that she was trying to make sure a mistake hadn’t been made in a case. Like any top prosecutor, her boss was sensitive to anything in his domain that might devolve into a front-page news story that had the word incompetent implied somewhere in it close to his name.
“I know, boss, this all sounds like a major-league fuckup, and I’m not denying that it is, but my intentions were good…”
He believed that.
It surprised her.
He didn’t change her status-other than to warn her that there could be no more incidents that got in the way of her rehabilitation program. She knew this was a sincere threat.
Thin ice that just got thinner.
But as long as she didn’t move too quickly, she wouldn’t plunge through into freezing waters.
As Susan was on her way out, back to what her boss assumed was the process of getting sober and straight, the secretary handed her a large envelope. She fingered the collected pages inside, almost as if they would burn a hole through the paper until they reached the killer.
44
Susan resisted the temptation to rip open the envelope instantly, waiting until she returned to Moth’s apartment.
She was oddly formal as she dropped it on the desk. “Okay, Mister Warner. Here is the information you requested.” She saw Andy Candy blanch slightly, not all of the blood draining from her face, but a good deal of it. The contents of the envelope, Susan realized, ranged from utterly irrelevant to extremely dangerous. Opening it had the potential to set them on a course that there might not be any walking away from. She realized-as the oldest person and the only real professional in the room when it came to crime and punishment-she needed to point this out.
“You sure you want to look at this?”
Moth hesitated. “That’s what all this has been about, right?”
“Right. It’s just that up to now no one has broken any laws-maybe stretched them a bit, I’ll admit, but actually done something that I, or someone exactly like me, could successfully prosecute in a court of law? No. I don’t think so. Not yet.”
“There’s a but coming, isn’t there?”
“Yes. Open that envelope and then do what you’ve been saying you’re going to do, well, that’s a different thing altogether, isn’t it? ‘Conspiracy’ is a word that comes to mind.”
Susan used the same tone of voice that she’d employed when Moth first came to her office.
Moth didn’t answer. He just stared at the envelope.
Susan softened her tone-which contradicted much of the harshness in what she was saying.
“Look, Timothy, I know what you’ve said you want to do, but have you really thought it through? I don’t think you’re a criminal-and I don’t think you want to become one, either. But you’re about to. Shouldn’t we try to find some alternatives now?”
“Alternatives almost got us all killed,” he replied.
“I just want you to consider-” Susan started, but Moth interrupted her.
“Isn’t that all we ever do, Susan?” he asked quietly. “Every day. Is this the day we stay sober? Or is this the day we fail?”
Now it was Susan’s moment to remain silent.
“I am tired of being who I am,” Moth added. “I want to be someone different.”
Moth’s hand shook a little as he reached for the envelope, and it wasn’t the sort of quiver that he was familiar with: the morning after a night-long bout with the bottle. He looked over at Andy Candy, who seemed frozen in position, because what had once been intellectual, a challenge, a puzzle spread out on a table in a thousand pieces waiting to be fitted together, was now something different. “Andy,” Moth said quietly, “I see what Susan’s driving at. This just might be that totally crazy moment we talked about. If you want to leave, right now would be a good time to walk out the door and not look back.”
Saying this nearly nauseated him. A montage of grim futures flooded him. She walks, I’m alone. She stays, and what are we doing?
Thoughts pummeled Andy Candy.
Go, go, go, go, she thought. Then: No way.
She disagreed with herself: You’re being stupid. So? What’s new? Been stupid from the start. Why stop now?
When Andy shook her head, Moth felt an immense relief. Without explanation, she took the envelope from Moth’s hands. “Let’s see what we can see,” she said, not really trusting her voice much. “Maybe he won’t be here. Maybe yes. Maybe no. Maybe we won’t be sure. Then we can make some decisions.”
Coming to a decision seemed to renew her confidence. She reached over and grabbed the driver’s license photo of Blair Munroe. Whether he was the dead man or not was something being determined miles away, by forensic analysts in Massachusetts. The maybe dead man seemed very distant. The man who had called her on the phone and pushed her into a near panic seemed much closer. She set the maybe dead man’s picture on the table, then opened the manila envelope. Acting a little like a television game show host, she removed one sheet of paper.
The three of them craned over the pictures as Andy Candy set them side by side.
A man from a suburb outside Hartford, Connecticut.
“No,” Susan said. “Timothy?”
“Agree. Not him.”
Another picture.
A man from Northampton, Massachusetts.
“Nope,” Moth said. “Wrong hair. Wrong eyes. Wrong height.”
“Correct,” Susan said.
A third picture.
A man from Charlotte, North Carolina.
This picture made each of them lean forward. There were some similarities, obscured by eyeglasses. For a moment, Andy Candy held her breath; then she exhaled slowly as she realized it wasn’t the man they were seeking.
“Go on,” Moth said. “Another.”
Andy thought it was a little like playing the children’s memory game Concentration, where the idea was to place all fifty-two cards in the deck facedown, then turn them over two at a time, trying to remember where the previously exposed cards were to make pairs. She reached into the envelope and withdrew another picture.
A man from Key West, Florida.