Thank you, BAU.
It was going to take patience and finesse to get her to come clean—and perhaps the picture.
“We apologize for adding any strain to what is most certainly a difficult time, Mrs. Burke,” McCall said. “If you don’t mind, could you tell us about the last time you spoke to your husband?”
Good, Vaill thought. Let McCall get all the bullshit out of the way. He’s smart to keep it nonconfrontational—good cop, bad cop.
Lola sighed heavily. She then went through a long and passionless diatribe about the day her husband left for his latest assignment. She shared what he ate for breakfast that morning, how he kissed her good-bye and said he’d call her soon, same as he always did when he left on an assignment. She was adamant that he did nothing at all out of the ordinary—no indication that he was planning on going rogue.
McCall dutifully took notes, even though Lola had already provided the same information to the agents who had been there before.
“So there’s nothing else?” McCall said. “No explanation for your husband’s actions? No idea where he might be?”
Lola shot McCall an angry sideways glance. “I don’t have any information, Agent McCall. I’d be more interested to know what you all have come up with.”
Jackpot.
This was the opening Vaill had been waiting for.
“You want our theories?” he asked.
“I’d like to think the massive manpower of the FBI could come up with something, so yes.”
More anger. More negativity. More lies.
“I can’t speak for the Bureau,” Vaill said, his eyes fixed on her, “but I’ll tell you what I think. There are three possible reasons why someone would betray their country: money, sex, or ideology. Now, you’re a good-looking woman, Lola. If you don’t mind my saying so, any man would be a fool to betray you in that way. That doesn’t mean anything, though. As they say, love is blind and it can be blinding. But you don’t seem like a woman scorned, and if your husband had left you for another woman, if he’d been seduced into this betrayal, you’d have had at least some suspicion along the way. You seem angry with us for intruding, but not angry at Alexander. So let’s take sex off the table for the moment.”
“Whatever.”
“How about money? Did he get paid to murder two agents? If he did, it had to be a hell of a lot of money, which would make me think again about sex … or drugs, I suppose. But when I look around this house, and from what I could tell of Alexander, I don’t see a man obsessed with money, or on drugs. Just my opinion, maybe I’m wrong.”
“You’re not,” Lola said flatly.
“So, that leaves ideology—a belief so profound, so consuming, it could make a person commit an unspeakable act. It would need to be something at their core—a powerful, misguided sense of justice. Maybe you share that belief. Maybe that’s why you’re angry with us instead of outraged and sickened by your husband’s actions. Is that your husband, Lola? Was he a misguided individual? Is that why you’ve lost him?”
“Misguided is your word,” Lola said, looking away.
“Well, I lost something, too,” Vaill said. “Mrs. Burke, I’m not speaking to you as an agent. I’m not even here to vilify your husband. I’m here because of this scar.”
He pushed aside his hair to give Lola a look at the track left by the bullet that had torn through his scalp and into his brain.
“Why are you showing this to me?” Lola asked, looking away quickly.
“Because that’s where your husband shot me,” Vaill said. “I was standing next to my wife, my partner, a beautiful woman named Maria, when he shot her dead at point-blank range. Right here, just above the bridge of her nose. Then he shot me—twice.”
“Please stop.”
“I didn’t see evil in Alexander’s eyes. I saw fervor—a belief. And I don’t see any evil in you, Mrs. Burke. I see a woman who loves her husband very much, the way I loved my wife. And I think he made a promise to you. I think he told you he’d come back for you when he could, when it was safe. But I’m here to tell you that he’s never going to come. He’s never going to come because sooner or later we’re going to get him—and because the belief that led him to kill my wife is stronger than his love for you. Like me, the person you love more than anything, is never coming back.”
This time, Lola’s quivering lip and the tears welling in her eyes seemed genuine.
“I … I want you to leave,” she managed.
“We can do what’s right, Mrs. Burke,” Vaill went on, ignoring her plea. “We can do what’s right and not turn our back. Please, Mrs. Burke, you’re not in any trouble. You won’t be in trouble. You have my word on that. But please stop lying for him. Tell me everything you know that might help us and we’ll be gone.”
Lola bit her lower lip.
“Please go,” she said. But there was no force behind her words.
Vaill forged ahead.
“Do it for my wife.”
He withdrew the envelope with the crime scene photos inside and spread the three of them on the table. It had ripped at his guts to keep it so near to his heart, but Lola Burke was close to cracking. This was a beautiful woman’s flesh and blood and bone. Lola gasped at the gruesome photographs. Even McCall looked disturbed. Vaill kept his eyes fixed on her, in part to keep himself from looking at the pictures again.
A tear broke loose from the corner of Lola’s right eye and wound down her cheek. She flipped the photo facedown on the table.
Then, without a word, she stood, walked through the kitchen entranceway, and disappeared down the hall. McCall was reaching for his gun, but Vaill raised a hand to hold him back.
“Don’t, Chuck,” he said. “We’re okay.”
A moment later, Lola returned with a small plastic baggie. She passed it over to Vaill.
“This is the DVD my husband sent me after he disappeared,” she said. “It’s the last time I heard from him. It contains everything I know. I’m sorry about your wife. I’m so sorry.”
She walked McCall and Vaill to the door.
“We’re going to have this handled by our evidence-processing people. You know the drill. There’s almost sure to be more questions once we’ve gone over this,” McCall said.
“I’ll be here,” Lola said. “I’m not going anyplace for the time being.”
“It goes without saying that if you hear from your husband, please call me,” Vaill said, passing over his card.
“I can’t promise that.”
“As you wish.”
The two agents had driven more than a mile before McCall spoke.
“That was masterful, man,” he said. “Truly masterful. I know that picture was a tough thing for you to show, but you did it. And just at the right moment, too. This DVD could be the break we need.”
McCall had his phone out, dialing the field office while he was driving and talking.
Vaill was facing away from him, face turned toward the passenger window, eyes closed tightly. The blinding pain behind his eyes had come on with unrelenting force.
CHAPTER 19
Secrecy is tantamount to success and therefore to know a Neighbor’s true identity is to strip them of a fundamental power.
—LANCASTER R. HILL, 100 Neighbors, SAWYER RIVER BOOKS, 1939, P. 100
“I created a spreadsheet and I think the Bake-a-Thon could raise a thousand dollars,” Emily said.
Lou was back at work at the PWO when his fourteen-year-old called with the latest development in her campaign to raise money for Cap and the Stick and Move gym. Much to her mother Renee’s chagrin, and Lou’s delight, she had been training with Cap for more than eight months and was actually showing serious potential in the ring. Not surprisingly, she absolutely adored the man, and was desperate to do what she could to help pay his mounting bills and save the gym.
“That’s great, sweetie,” Lou said, cupping the phone’s receiver and speaking softly. With well less than nine hundred square feet of office space, n
o matter how quietly people spoke, conversations in the PWO were rarely private. With the other associate director Wayne Oliver in the next cube over, and secretary Babs Peterbee almost directly across from them, it was hard not to know one another’s business.
Meanwhile, Lou was eyeing the mountainous stack of paperwork Babs had just deposited on his cluttered desk. She appeared unfazed that the carpeted floor inside his cramped cubicle was already serving as an auxiliary workspace. In the span of less than a week, the usual pile of documents and paperwork had multiplied like rabbits. Lou stopped multitasking so he could give Emily his undivided attention, not that she needed it. He had seen his daughter take up the banner of a cause before, and knew what an unstoppable force she could be.
He thought back to the time her computer crashed, and with it the term paper she had finished less than a day before. There were no tears. No throwing things. No rants. She did not talk about asking for an extension. What she did instead was to berate herself for not making a backup, then vowed never to repeat the mistake again. Finally, after a bowl of her favorite mint chocolate-chip ice cream, she gathered her reference books and rewrote the entire eleven-page paper in one marathon session.
A+.
In the game of life, divorce or no divorce, Lou’s money was on his kid.
She was just four when Renee decided that Lou’s amphetamine addiction was bigger and stronger than their marriage and, quite understandably, bailed. For a couple of years, it was hard going for all of them. But gradually, understanding, flexibility, and communication took the place of anger, and Emily became a tribute to what was possible when a husband and wife refused to allow the failure of their marriage to mar their commitment to their child and the strengthening of her self-esteem. Now, a byproduct of that commitment had been the reestablishment of the friendship and mutual respect with Renee that years of Lou’s self-serving drug use had destroyed.
Mental … Physical … Spiritual—like water from a pipe leaking in the attic, Lou’s alcoholism and other addictions had seeped down and destroyed the fabric of all three aspects of his being. Now, recovery and hard work had restored them, and in doing so, had stabilized the life of a kid who was already making a difference in the world.
“I think what you’re doing is great, Em,” Lou said. “You’ve got my full support.”
“I don’t need support. What I need is a hundred and fifty boxes of brownie mix.”
“Hey, I thought we were trying to raise money, not spend it.”
“We are,” Emily said. “I’m looking for donations.”
“Donations? Who are you soliciting? Betty Crocker?”
Emily got quiet.
“Well, actually…”
“Hey, wait, I was kidding,” Lou said. “You really did solicit Betty Crocker?”
“It’s General Mills,” Emily replied, “and yes, I’ve been in touch with the public relations department. I put together a PDF of all of Cap’s good deeds and got testimonials from some of the kids he’s helped get off the streets.”
“A PD-what?”
Emily sighed. “PDF, dad. Portable Document Format. It’s … it’s like a brochure for the Web.”
“Oh, I was thinking of the other PDF. Listen, I really want to help, so just let me know what I can do.”
“Check out the pages I made on GiveForward, Fundbunch, and GoFundMe,” Emily said, “and let me know what you think. I’m trying to put together a street team through my Facebook friends.”
“What do you need to get the ball rolling?” Lou asked.
“Just money from you and Mom, and Grandpa Dennis, and Nana, and Uncle Graham, to add to the five hundred the people at General Mills will be sending.”
“Consider it done,” Lou said.
He left out the part where he was scheduled to meet with his tax guy later that afternoon to help him figure out which of his raggedy collection of mutual funds he could sell. Based on hours of phone calls with Cap’s doctors in Atlanta, and his own research, Lou estimated the total cost of his sponsor’s care would exceed 150,000 dollars.
Still, brownies were a great start.
“I’ll e-mail you the links,” Emily said. “Can you get back to me in, say, an hour with your ideas?”
Once again, Lou eyed the stack of work surrounding him—the forms and follow-up reports dealing with the docs he was monitoring—each in serious, potentially career-ending trouble. Somehow, someway, he would find the time to do it all, including his weekend plans to fly back to Atlanta. The only person who might get squeezed out of seeing him was high-powered attorney Sarah Cooper, but their on-again, off-again relationship had been steadily drifting toward off-again, anyhow.
“Of course, sweetie,” he said. “Send the links my way and I’ll give them a look. Together, and with Mom’s help, we can pull this off.”
“You bet we can, Pops.”
“I love you, princess.”
“Love you, too.”
As Lou was hanging up, Walter Filstrup marched past his cubical without a word or even a glance, then left the office. The usually bombastic director, as difficult to read as time on Big Ben, had been icy and distant since Lou’s return from Atlanta. With the man’s wife out of the ICU and improving from her cardiac problem, it was clearly the lost election that was continuing to vex him—the lost election and the man he believed was responsible for it.
CHAPTER 20
That which is attained without conflict or strife is rarely worth attainment at all.
—LANCASTER R. HILL, PERSONAL COMMUNICATION TO ROBIN BROADY, 1942
Three days later, Filstrup’s gloomy state of mind was unimproved. The man had not once mentioned the election results and had shown no curiosity at all regarding Cap’s condition.
Pleasantville.
Several times, Lou ticked through what he had explained to Filstrup in the call from Arbor General. He and his best friend went for a run. Cap fell, sustained a compound fracture of his femur, and nearly bled out. Lou administered first aid and possibly saved Cap’s life. They took a helicopter to the hospital, and Lou missed giving the speech. A reasonable sequence and explanation if ever there was one.
Now, Lou was debating rolling out plan B—earnestly sharing with Filstrup his gut instinct about the unlikelihood of the man’s ever squeaking out a victory in the election, even if Lou had given his speech. For the moment, he chose to shelve the idea. He expected his boss would evolve back to his baseline, self-absorbed, testy state in a matter of no time. He always did.
This time, Lou was wrong.
He had opened the top folder on his bottomless stack of dictations while awaiting a return call from Emily regarding the bake sale, when his desk phone rang.
“Hey, sweetie,” Lou said. “What took you so long?”
“Excuse me,” answered an unfamiliar male voice, “I’m looking for Dr. Louis Welcome.”
Lou cleared his throat, heat from the embarrassment crawling up the back of his neck.
“I’m sorry. I thought you were my daughter calling back,” Lou said. “This is Dr. Welcome. How can I help you?”
“Dr. Welcome, this is Dr. Win Carter, I’m the president of Arbor General Hospital in Atlanta. Do you have a minute to talk with me about Mr. Hank Duncan?”
Lou went cold. He clutched the lip of his desk, steeling himself against a rush of panic. Barely able to catch his breath, he tried willing his racing heart to slow down.
“I’m fine,” he managed. “I mean, this is a good time. Is he all right?”
Everyone at Arbor, it seemed, had heard about Lou and Cap’s exploits in the woods, so he was not that surprised his name had reached the hospital president’s desk. Maybe while Cap was still in the hospital, they wanted Lou to give a grand rounds talk to the medical staff about the treatment—bring Cap down for his version. Maybe the call was about Cap’s ballooning hospital bill. The thoughts were quickly replaced by a far more frightening one. He was Cap’s medical proxy. Something bad—real bad—had happened
. But the two of them had just spoken yesterday, and aside from some new aching in the leg, everything seemed okay.
Hey, easy does it! he shouted at himself. Easy frigging does it.
“Actually, that’s why I’m calling,” Carter was saying. “I’m sorry to disturb you at work, but I wanted you to know that we’ve begun work to contain an infection in your friend’s leg.”
Lou strained to pick up any clue in Carter’s voice regarding the severity of the infection, trying to block out the reality that Carter simply making such a call was all the indication that was needed.
“He told me yesterday he was experiencing some new discomfort,” Lou managed.
Why is the president of a huge hospital calling to tell me this?
“Well, his surgeon has done an aspiration of pus from an area beneath the incision. A drain was placed there during the surgery as a precaution, but apparently it wasn’t enough. They’ve called in the infectious disease consultant on the case, and have changed antibiotics. But what we have learned has made us all a bit nervous here, and Mr. Duncan’s team is considering taking him back to the operating room.”
“Nervous?”
The word was unusual in this context, and Lou had picked up on it immediately.
“It’s complicated,” Carter said.
Anxiety was now swarming in Lou’s throat like army ants on the march. He had little doubt Carter was holding something back—something big.
“Complicated?” Lou asked, feeling like an idiot for repeating the man’s word again.
“It looks like Mr. Duncan is the second case we’ve had at Arbor General of a very unusual bacterial infection. Something we’re not entirely sure how to contain.”
Very unusual?
Lou stopped himself at the last possible instant from another echo. He sucked in a breath and gritted his teeth as though expecting to take a punch to the gut.
“Please, tell me what you know,” he said.
“Truthfully, it’s best not discussed over the phone,” Carter said. “Obviously, I am calling you instead of having Dr. Standish do it because this germ is of concern to the whole hospital.”
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