Bird's-Eye View

by J. F. Freedman

  “No shit.”

  She ignores my gibe. “Flaherty lured Putov to Roach’s farm on the pretext that they had to include Roach in what they were doing. Putov would have bought into Roach’s being involved—he knew Flaherty and Roach had been partners, and assumed they still were. It was a crafty move on Flaherty’s part. He never intended to do a deal with Putov—he just wanted to kill him, for fucking up the other deal. He had other people like Putov he could do his business with.” She sighs. “By the time we figured it out, Putov was a stiff in a Baltimore slum, and Flaherty couldn’t be tied to his murder.”

  “That must’ve been embarrassing,” I say sarcastically.

  “It was a disaster, I’m not going to sugarcoat it. There was a lot of yelling and fingerpointing. The agent who was running Putov was terminated.”

  “He was killed?”

  She shakes her head. “Fired. We don’t kill people for screwing up. This isn’t Russia.” She pauses; then she gives me a nervous look. “Are you sure you want to hear the rest of this? It isn’t pretty.”

  “Yes,” I say resolutely. “I want to hear the whole story. All the unvarnished, sordid details. Leave nothing out. I almost got killed over this, in case you’ve forgotten. I deserve to know everything.”

  She draws her legs further up under her, unsuccessfully trying to get comfortable. “As I said, the Justice Department was pretty sure Roach’s farm was the killing ground and that Flaherty, if not the actual trigger, was behind it. One thing we knew for sure—the murder wasn’t a street crime, and it hadn’t gone down in Baltimore.”

  “So did the cops,” I tell her. “That cop from Baltimore, Marcus DeWilde? He’s been working this from the day it happened.”

  “We knew all about that,” she says almost dismissively. “They thought they had an exclusive, but they didn’t. But what we didn’t have, what nobody had, was incontrovertible proof that the murder had taken place on Roach’s property, and that Flaherty was involved. And we didn’t know how to get it.”

  And then, she tells me, they caught a break. They found out about a local resident named Fritz Tullis. He lived close by Roach’s farm, and he had taken photographs in the area. The dossier and psychological profile they hastily compiled on him informed them that he was an impetuous risk-taker who thought he was smarter and cleverer than everybody else. And most important, for this specific situation, his romantic history meant an attractive woman should be able to institute a relationship with him, and then exploit it.

  “We know everything about you, Fritz,” she tells me, her face flushing. “From the day you were born, until this very moment. More than you can remember yourself.” She pauses. “Given your situation, we assumed that if you did know anything, you’d try to be a hero and solve it. And we could piggyback on your effort.”

  I think back to my late-night session with Jack, the photo wiz at the Anacostia lab. He’d told me the same thing as an abstraction—nobody’s life is private anymore—but it went right over my head. I wasn’t thinking about myself then. Now I realize I should have known I’d be the one under the microscope once I got in Roach’s face.

  They had me pegged, all right. Johanna called it—there’s still a lot of the reckless adolescent in me. The boy, not fully the man. I feel like a jackass, an utter fool. “So they sent you to be Mata Hari.”

  She nods heavily. “We’d been keeping tabs on James Roach as well. At the beginning it was more for our comfort level than anything else, because his friendship with his ex-partner had bad karma written all over it. So we knew about Johanna Mortimer and your—” She catches herself.

  “One-night stand?” I say in self-flagellating anger.

  “Your evening together,” she answers tactfully. Having said that, she turns away. “That’s when they brought me in,” she says, still not looking at me.

  This is beyond embarrassment, chagrin, mortification. Samson was a rock of self-control compared to me.

  She was dispatched to Boston, where she bushwacked Johanna Mortimer and pried every detail about me out of Johanna that she could. Then she came down here, and the game began in earnest.

  “How did you know enough about birds?” I ask, ruminating on all the things that happened, from our first encounter on my front porch until now. “You faked it pretty good.”

  “I wasn’t faking it,” she says. “I’m a bird-watcher, for real. That’s one of the reasons why I was chosen. Do you remember that story I told you, about hiking in the Alps?”

  I nod mutely. I’m numb, listening to this.

  “That was true. Except I wasn’t the leader, I was just part of the group.”

  I think back to that sailing excursion on Roach’s boat, when he busted me for lying to Johanna. He knew the truth about me. As did Maureen’s people.

  Maureen. That isn’t even her name. Her name is Vanessa. Nothing wrong with Vanessa, it’s an okay name, but I don’t know Vanessa Gardner. Maureen O’Hara, real or fake, I know intimately. But as I’ve painfully found out, I don’t know her well.

  Fuck me—I don’t know her at all.

  My glass is empty. I don’t recall finishing my drink, but I must have. I pour myself another one. I doubt I’ll stop until the bottle’s empty.

  “Will you get me one, too?” she asks.

  “Aren’t you on the job?” I ask petulantly.

  “Screw the job. This is me and you. Please.”

  I make another drink, hand it to her. She takes a long swallow.

  “The government will do anything to get its man, is that how the game’s played?” I ask with bitter invective. “Including federal agents fucking potential witnesses? Shit, you didn’t even know I had the damn pictures when we became lovers. And you smoked your share of my weed, too. What’s the deal, it’s okay to break the law if the end justifies the means? Up to and including murder? What’s off-limits? Anything?”

  She blanches. “Not murder. And not sex. My job was to engage you, not sleep with you.”

  I’m getting sick, listening to this. “You used me. You fucking used me.”

  She hangs her head. “I know. I hate it.”

  “Didn’t stop you, though.”

  “It was my job, damn it! These were big stakes. You made the decision to play at this level, Fritz. If you’re going to do that, you have to play by our rules. And our rules can be cutthroat and vicious.”

  She’s nailed me, and I don’t like it. “If your people thought I had photos of the murder, why didn’t you come out and ask me?”

  “We didn’t know if you had anything. It became clear to me early on that you probably did, but I didn’t know conclusively until you told me.”

  “So why didn’t you say something then?”

  “I did,” she says fiercely. “Many times, if you’ll recall. Not directly, but as straight as I could. Then when I found out, I begged you to take what you had to the police. You wouldn’t. I pleaded with you to drop this. You wouldn’t do that, either—you had to solve this by yourself. The Lone Ranger. You had good intentions, Fritz, but you didn’t have a clue.” She pauses for breath. “You solved it, I’ll give you that. Unfortunately, people got killed because you were an obstinate . . . never mind.”

  “Asshole? I plead guilty.” A wave of profound, sad emotion washes over me. “My mother died because of my stupid recklessness. I’ll never forgive myself for that.”

  She reaches across the table, puts her hand on mine, and squeezes it. “No, Fritz. Your mother died because Ed Flaherty killed her. Just as he killed Wallace and Putov. Flaherty was a killing machine. Mary got caught in the cross fire. If it hadn’t been her, it would have been you. And Flaherty would have gotten away with it. He’d be alive, a free man.”

  She clutches my hand tighter. “It tore me up when I saw her body,” she says, her voice thick with regret. “I was ready to pack it in. But it was too late by then. I had to stick with this, if for no other reason than to bring retribution to her killer.”

  I pull my hand
away. “What about Roach?” I ask. “How does he figure in this?”

  She answers my question with one of her own. “Why do you think he bought his farm? He’s a city man, not a farmer.” She thinks back a moment. “That night he showed up at your mother’s house, I was afraid he’d recognized me—I’d met him at a reception, about three years earlier. My hair was different then, shorter. There were a hundred people at that party. I didn’t think he’d remember.” She looks bleak. “But as we know now, he did, and tipped Flaherty.”

  It all makes sense. “What’s going to happen to Roach? Is he going to finesse this, like he’s done everything else in his life?” That would tear it, if that fucker walked away from this unscathed.

  “I can’t answer that,” she says. “I think—I hope—I’m sure going to try to nail him—but his situation will be handled at a much higher level than I normally operate on. It’s a fuzzy area. For instance, those really were diplomats he was meeting with secretly that you photographed—he was telling the truth about that. But he was involved with Flaherty—he had no choice, Flaherty took a big fall for him back then, as you found out. Roach was grateful for that, but more important, Flaherty had a sword he could dangle over Roach’s head, which Roach knew he’d use if he bailed on Flaherty. At the least, we know that Roach not only supported Flaherty financially, but that he turned a blind eye when Flaherty wanted to use his property, like the day he and Putov landed on the runway. And tonight as well. It’s no coincidence that none of Roach’s security people were around.”

  Exactly what I’d thought.

  She sighs. “Bottom line, though, the only thing that matters is do my superiors think Roach was involved deeply enough to do something about it? The truth is, they don’t want to know. He’s a powerful man. He has powerful friends. But this time, thanks in no small part to you, I don’t think they’re going to be able to avoid it. The elephant in the room is too big to ignore anymore.”

  She regards me with her good eye. “Can we forget Roach now? He’s going to be dealt with, one way or the other. He’s not our problem anymore. What I want to know is, what about me, Fritz? When did you start doubting me?”

  I think back to the first time I laid eyes on her. God, what a sight that was. “From the beginning, as I think back on it,” I tell her honestly. “The way you showed up seemed bizarre, for openers. Then when we made our deal—a real ornithologist wouldn’t have allowed Ollie to stay out there in the wild, where any number of bad things could have happened to him. Regardless of personal gain, it was too dangerous for such an endangered species. She would have had him captured that very day, transported to the proper place for him. You never even mentioned the possibility of doing that.”

  She nods seriously, listening.

  “But I let all of those inconsistencies go, because I fell for you.” I crunch some ice cubes in my mouth. “Later, though, you did things that forced me to start doubting you again.”

  “Like not coming to the funeral.”

  “That, of course, but there were other incidents, too.” I pause—this hurts, badly. “Even with those iffy situations, I believed you, because I wanted to. I shouldn’t have, all the signs said not to, but you owned me.”

  “It was reciprocal.”

  I shake my head. Even if it’s true, I can’t handle it. I drain my drink, place the glass on the table. “Near the end, I even thought you might have been the killer. Or involved with whoever was.”

  She stares at me, wide-eyed. “How could you think something so horrible as that?”

  “Don’t play the wounded party,” I rail at her. “It’s logical, damn it! Look at the evidence, your deceptions, your convenient disappearances. It fits.”

  She nods wearily—it makes sense, she can’t deny it. “I was aching to tell you the truth. But I couldn’t.”

  I can’t look at her. “You have no idea how devastating my meeting the real Maureen O’Hara was. And then what’s happened tonight. I had a gun to my head. I could have been killed! We both could have. What if I hadn’t had my own gun in my pack, and the luck and guts to use it? I saved your life, for Christsakes!”

  She starts crying. “I know you did. I’m the professional, and you had to be the one to save us.” The tears are coming fast now. “Do you think I wanted you to be in that position? I love you! If you believe nothing else I ever tell you, you must believe that!”

  I explode. “Love? Who are you kidding, Maureen, Vanessa, whatever your name is. I was the Judas goat, is that it? Lead the flock to slaughter, and probably die in the process?” I’m shouting so loud now they can probably hear me clear back to Jamestown. “There was no other way? What if I hadn’t had my gun? What’s one more dead ex-professor?”

  I think back on my meeting with Roach at the State Department. He’d told me the truth, at least: What we’re doing is more important to the total picture than any single individual—including you. That may be cold, but it’s reality.

  She looks up, to tell me that wasn’t so. Then she turns her head from me, because she can’t.

  “All that shit about you wanting to marry me!” I rail on. “What if I’d taken you up on it? What would you have done then? Oh, I changed my mind, I have to wash my hair tonight, I don’t want to miss Sex and the City? What excuse would you have used when the judge asked for identification? You would have had to come up with a doozy, since you were never Maureen O’Hara in the first place!”

  “It was never going to come to that.”

  “Don’t be so damn sure. I wanted to. I thought about it, a lot.”

  “I know you did,” she says. “I still do. But there was no chance you’d take me up on it until this was all over.”

  “How can you say that? I was in love with you. You don’t doubt that, do you?”

  “No, I don’t doubt that.” She hesitates. “In the end, though, you wouldn’t have gone through with it.”

  “That’s bullshit.”

  She shakes her head. “The time before, in Texas, with the married woman? What was her name?”

  “Marnie.” God, that seems like light-years away. I barely remember what Marnie looks like anymore; the details that make the difference.

  “Marnie,” she repeats softly. “What if Marnie had said she was going to leave her husband, marry you, the whole shebang? What would you have done?”

  “Marry her, what else?”

  “I don’t think so, Fritz,” Maureen says knowingly. “You don’t go for women you can have, you go for women you can’t have, it’s part of who you are, your boyish charm. A rich married woman, almost a decade older—be honest with yourself, that’s as close to safe as there is in the real world. If that woman had said yes you would have run like hell, and later on convinced yourself it was she who kiboshed it, not you.” She puts a hand on mine. “Even with me, and I really do love you, it was going to be hard, but I was hoping I could change that.” She pauses, a long time. “Despite everything, I still do.”

  I don’t want to hear this, not now. It’s too close to the bone. I’ve had more emotional truth than I can handle.

  • • •

  The morning sun is on the horizon. She stands at her car. “You can’t talk about this with anyone,” she instructs me firmly, as Marcus had told me she would. “Any of it.”

  “The cops are in on the fix?” I ask in disgust.

  She nods soberly. “Everyone who knows is. Whatever comes out of this, with Roach or anyone else, it’ll be handled inside the necessary agencies. No one outside of those who need to know will ever see, hear, or feel anything.”

  “A conspiracy of silence. Our government at work.”

  She doesn’t respond.

  “Fine with me.” I kick at the crushed oyster shells under my feet. “I wish none of it had ever happened. It’s done nothing but fuck my life up, completely.”

  She looks away from me, looks back. “What about us?”

  “There is no us,” I tell her curtly.

  “There was
. There still is.”

  “There was Fritz Tullis and Maureen O’Hara. There is no Fritz Tullis and Vanessa Gardner. I don’t know anyone named Vanessa Gardner.”

  “But she knows you, better than anyone,” she answers stoutly. “And she loves you. Whether you want her to or not.”

  “That’s your problem.”

  “Yes. It’s my problem.” She stares at me with that one sad eye. “So I guess this is—good-bye?”

  “Good-bye,” I say flatly. I don’t hug her, I don’t shake her hand. I look at her. That’s all.

  She looks at me once more, opens the door of her car. But she can’t let this go—she turns to me. “Goddamn it, Fritz. It can’t end like this! Not like this!” She grabs my shoulders with both hands. “It was a job, yes. That’s how it started. But I didn’t sleep with you because it was a job. I could’ve done what I needed to do without doing that. I could’ve held you off, made excuses, diddled you around. I became your lover because I fell in love with you, and I’m still in love with you. It doesn’t matter what my name is, what matters is how I feel. And how you feel.”

  “I can’t,” I tell her. “I can’t handle this. It’s too much.”

  She takes a step back. “I understand. But when you get some feeling back, think about how it felt to know I’d be here, in your kitchen at dinnertime, or in your bed at the end of the day. Think about what that was like, for both of us. Then call me, if you want to.”

  She hands me a business card. Looking at it, I’m reminded of what we’ve lost. But I don’t say anything. There’s nothing I can tell her at this moment that would have any truth to it.

  She stares at me one last time; then she gets in her government car and drives away. I watch until she’s gone. Then, feeling very alone, I go back inside.

  I’ve been sleepwalking through these past few days. The only times I’ve been out of the house have been to visit the birds. The first day I came I shot a roll of film. Since then, I’ve left my camera at the house. I find a shady out-of-the-way spot, sit quietly, and watch.

  As adolescents grow and fill out, so do birds. Ollie has matured from when I first saw him. His immature reddish brown feathers are now almost entirely white. He is no longer a boy-bird. He’s a man.