Bitter Crossing (A Peyton Cote Novel) (26 page)

She was missing something.

THIRTY
-
ONE

T
HURSDAY MORNING,
P
EYTON WAS
at the kitchen table, sipping coffee. Lois entered the kitchen, put her arm around Peyton, and squeezed.

“So glad you’re alright, sweetie. I couldn’t sleep all night, thinking about what might’ve been.”

“Please don’t squeeze me, Mom.”

“God, you look in pain.” Lois pulled Peyton’s pajama top out and looked at the bruise.

“Mother, don’t look down my shirt, for God’s sake.”

“It’s the color of an avocado.”

“You really know how to start a girl’s day off on the right foot.”

On the table before her, the
Bangor Daily News
was opened to the front page headline “Shooting Follows High-Speed Chase in Garrett; Second Border Patrol Agent Shot.”

According to the article, the shooting was “under internal review.”

“What’s the article say?” Lois said.

“Nothing.”

Lois rinsed her mug in the sink. Her back was to Peyton as she spread dish detergent on a sponge and scrubbed.

“I’ll read it myself. Listen, Elise came by last night. She had to pick up Max.”

Sunlight streamed in through the window over the sink. Outside, tree branches sheathed in ice dripped as last night’s freeze melted.

“I just want her to be happy,” Lois continued. “I think she’s very brave, and I’ll support her all I can. But it’s difficult for me. Do you understand?”

“She told you?”

“Yes. My own daughter, and I never knew. How can that be?”

“I had no idea either.”

“Father O’Donnell at St. George’s says it’s a disease, that if you fail to guard your family, the virus can infect it. Did I fail?”

“Is he an idiot?” Peyton felt her hand tighten on her coffee cup.

“Don’t speak about a priest that way,” Lois said faintly.

Peyton knew it was a losing battle. Her mother, like most in her generation who were born and raised here, was French Catholic, which meant she understood guilt like few in this world. Subsequently, she would defend the Church until her dying breath. But Peyton couldn’t let the comment pass.

“First off,” she said, “the Catholic Church ought to clean its own house before criticizing anyone. Second, that statement is totally nuts. You know that, right?”

“Rationally, I know it, but still …”

Peyton saw the struggle on her mother’s face.

“I was raised in the Church, Peyton. It’s hard to question. Last night, I watched you sleep and thought,
What have I let happen? Have I failed? One daughter is shot, the other is infected
—is that the right word?—
and now both are alone.
”

“Mother, come sit down.” The entire house smelled of baked bread and sugar. Her mother had been up baking for hours—she cooked when stressed.

Lois left the sink and sat across from Peyton.

“Homosexuality isn’t a disease. You
know
that. If anyone other than a priest made that same statement, you’d laugh at them.”

Lois nodded, sipped her tea. “Elise told me that she always knew … I just want her to be happy. I respect her for doing this, but I don’t know if I can go back to St. George’s.”

Peyton exhaled. Her chest hurt. The headache she’d woken with was getting worse.

“Elise doesn’t expect you to give up your religion,” Peyton said.

“I know she doesn’t.”

Each sipped. The television droned on in the living room.

“Jonathan left her before they could settle their finances,” Lois said. “The house payment is due next week, and the bastard runs off with a former student.”

“She’s better off without him.”

“Not financially. What is she going to do? She has no career.” Lois tugged at the hem of her apron. “She’s brave as hell.”

“Yes,” Peyton agreed and smiled at her mother, just as someone knocked on the door.

Peyton pulled her robe tight before opening the front door.

PAIC Mike Hewitt, uniform crisp and creased, stood before her, hat in hand. He was wearing Polo cologne. It was Thursday at 8:45 a.m.

“May I come in?”

“You’d better,” she said. “It feels like February with the door open.”

He smiled, and she led him to the kitchen, where Hewitt took a seat at the table. There were scars on the table that had been there since Peyton was Tommy’s age. Lois was nowhere in sight. Knowing her mother, Peyton figured she was watching from the pantry.

“Coffee?”

“That would be great.”

She brought him a cup and the cream and sugar, then sat across from him. “How are Stan and Miguel?”

“Miguel is the same. He’s in the ICU in a coma.”

“God,” she said.

“Stan is coming around,” Hewitt said. “They put in a stent. He’ll actually be home tomorrow.”

“That’s a relief.”

Hewitt had never come to her home before. And the shooting, according to the
Bangor Daily News,
was under internal investigation.

“Everything okay, Mike?”

“Listen,” he said, “your shift doesn’t begin until tonight, but I know you. Figured you’d be in early.”

“Actually, I was planning to eat a late breakfast and go to the station this morning.”

He set his cup down. “Peyton, I hate telling you this, but you can’t work until the shooting is cleared. There’s no way to know for certain who fired the first shot. No one saw it.”

“I knew something was going on. Mike, Bruce Steele knows the difference between the sounds of a forty caliber and a twenty-two. Have you asked him what he heard?”

“They were nearly simultaneous. No one knows for sure.”

Her eyes narrowed. In the system, Kenny Radke was a known commodity, a dirtball. She was a BORSTAR agent. And this wasn’t her word against Radke’s. Sadly, he was dead.

“What’s going on here? Someone’s questioning my account of what happened? I fired in self-defense, Mike.”

Hewitt’s coffee mug had a map of Maine on it along with the words MAINE POTATO GROWERS. He examined it for several moments and bit his upper lip, collecting his thoughts.

“Two shots were fired. There’s no way to say definitively who shot first.”

“Sure there is,” she said. “I’m telling you my weapon was fired in self-defense. That means I shot second. No one’s ever questioned my integrity before.”

“I’m not questioning your integrity.” His eyes held hers firmly. “Every shooting involving an agent is investigated.”

“Then I should be cleared within twenty-four hours, right?”

“Doubtful.”

She looked at him. “Someone’s making something of this,” she said.

“A lawyer. A guy from Boston named Alan McAfee.”

“I know that name.”

“Yeah, he represents your brother-in-law. Wants you thoroughly investigated.”

“Since when do we take orders from a defense attorney,” she said, “especially one holding up an internal review?”

“Peyton, people tell us what to do all the time. Usually, we don’t listen. This is different. The shooting of a federal agent—in this case, Miguel—would be tried in federal court. An assistant US Attorney named Marcy Lambert called to say she wants things airtight to bring a case against Jonathan Hurley. She’s our counsel, and
she
’
s
the one who suggests we cooperate with McAfee.”

Her head was spinning. A case against Jonathan?

“What did the search warrant lead to?” she said. She hadn’t executed the warrant, but someone had found something.

He looked at her.

“I understand the game, Mike. Some lawyer is trying to discredit my shooting of Radke to make it look like I didn’t know what I was doing when I questioned Jonathan.”

“We searched Hurley’s house and classroom last evening. Your sister was very cooperative.”

“And?”

“And we got a soil match to the land near the river on three pairs of his shoes, which is all consistent with the meeting-his-girlfriend story you told me. The second thing isn’t as straightforward. In the deleted email folder on his home computer, there were two sets of
e-ticket receipts for international flights. Both were round trips to England.”

“Sets? Pairs of tickets?”

“Yeah. One is for next March. The other pair”—he looked at her—“was for last week, and Hurley missed work last Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. Garrett High School says he drove downstate, to Augusta, for a US History conference. I called down there. He never registered at the conference, never checked into the hotel.”

“You think he was in England?”

“All the tickets are to Heathrow. They leave from New Bruns-
wick.”

“I didn’t see Elise after lunch yesterday,” Peyton said. “What did she say?”

“That he was gone from Tuesday night through Sunday. Says he was in Augusta for a history conference.”

“So he told everyone the same story.”

“Or she’s covering for him,” Hewitt said.

“Never.”

He didn’t say anything.

“Did he call home?” she said. “We could track the calls.”

“He didn’t call home.”

He’d left her sister with their baby for five days and never called to check on either. Good lord.

“He’s run off with his girlfriend,” Peyton said. “We should watch those tickets closely. See if the departure date gets rescheduled.”

“That’s what complicates things.”

“How could this mess get any more complicated?”

Using thumb and forefinger, he squeezed the bridge of his nose. “The other name on each set is your sister’s.”

“Elise? She was home last weekend. I was at her house.”

“I know,” he said.

“So only one ticket was used?”

He clucked his tongue. “Ah, no.”

She inhaled deeply, recalling her doorstep conversation with Hurley. He’d blamed his actions on Elise. Apparently, there was more to those actions.

“Mike, do you remember that coffee cup I bagged? Can you run a DNA sample on that? See if it matches the baby?”

“Already on it,” Hewitt said. “We don’t know who used the other ticket, but the girlfriend he’s been meeting at night is a pretty good bet. The airline checked photo IDs in Boston before people boarded the flight.”

“The girlfriend has a photo ID with
Elise’s
name on it?”

“Looks that way. Your sister can’t find her passport.”

“So you know she’s not covering for him.”

“Yeah,” he said, “but I get paid to play devil’s advocate.”

“I know that,” she said. “Any airport surveillance photos?”

“We’re working on that. He ever mention England to you?”

“Never.”

“Elise ever speak about England?”

“No. If he’s running off with his girlfriend, why there? Clouds and rain aren’t my idea of a romantic getaway. Or why not Aruba, say, or Hawaii?”

Hewitt shook his head. “No idea.” He drank some coffee.

“This lawyer, McAfee, has to disclose Hurley’s location, right?”

“Not if he denies knowing it. And he strikes me as smart enough to make sure he wouldn’t know it.”

“What’s he say about the tickets?”

“Says Hurley’s an avid traveler, likes to see new places.”

“He’s an ex-con fleeing a Goddamn investigation, Mike. And before this he dragged my little sister halfway around the world and back.”

“Let’s leave that out of it—that’s a family matter, has nothing to do with this.”

“True. But I want to be cleared quickly. I don’t want this Alan McAfee twisting my shooting of Radke—which was legit—to get Hurley off. This is my career we’re talking about.”

Hewitt ran a hand over the table. “Great table. Old wood. Been refinished a lot.”

Peyton waited.

“No one’s selling you out,” he said. “Marcy Lambert, our attorney, looked at your credentials. She knows you’ll be cleared and wants to get that over with, but she’s also trying to take away any loophole McAfee might look for.” He sipped his coffee and looked away. “I just didn’t want you going to work. I didn’t want to have to send you home in front of the others.”

She watched him and drank her coffee. Marcy Lambert’s request made sense. The timing couldn’t have been better for McAfee. Anything to damage her reputation was ideal for a defense attorney. But, according to Hewitt, Lambert was sure she’d be cleared. She’d like to hear it from the Assistant US Attorney herself.

“So where does all this leave me?”

“On administrative leave until the shooting is cleared. It’s standard procedure.”

She nodded. “How long are we talking? Forty-eight? Seventy-two hours?”

He shrugged but looked away.

“What is it you’re not saying?” she said.

He put his coffee mug down, clasped his hands, and stood. “The internal investigation will be thorough,” he said.

“What’s that mean? You think I’m lying?”

“No. That’s why I came here.”

“To check out my story?”

“To do my job,” he said.

“Someone at the station thinks I’m lying? You’re saying the internal investigation is being dragged out.”

“I believe you, Peyton. I need to get going.” He let himself out.

THIRTY
-
TWO

I
T WASN’T EXACTLY PROFESSIONAL,
and the only way she could justify the illegal aspects of what she was doing—at least to herself—was because she’d been ordered to do it previously.

But she’d not been on administrative leave then.

And those people hadn’t been federal agents.

Midmorning on Thursday, she was in Lois’s Camry, following several cars behind the white-and-green Chevy Tahoe. When he turned into the gas station, she drove past and pulled over near the post office. He went inside, and she waited, tying her hair in a ponytail and pulling it through the back of her Red Sox cap before adjusting her sunglasses. A camera lay on the passenger’s seat.

He came out of the gas station carrying a paper bag and a Styrofoam cup from which steam rose.

He began again, and she slid in two cars behind him once more. It wouldn’t work if he went off road. She wasn’t dressed for the outdoors.

They took Route 1, and she thought he was headed to the border or to Smythe Road, where Autumn had originally been found. But that wasn’t what he had in mind. On the long stretch where open farmland lay on each side, Agent Scott Smith hit his blinker and turned right, entering Morris and Margaret Picard’s driveway.