The Betrayed (9 page)

“We came here just to talk to you, Jerome. We weren’t lookin’ to jam you up, but now that we’ve found the rocks, we may be in a different position. Unless you talk to us.”

“Fuck you, D-Train. I want a lawyer.”

Train shook his head. “That’s your right—and your call, Jerome, if you want to make it. But you may do better if you just talk to us first.”

Cassian pulled Washington up out of the chair roughly, elbowing him in the stomach and leaning in close as he doubled over. “I think you should take the man’s advice.”

Washington glared up at Cassian and then turned back to Train. “Bullshit, Train,” he spat out. “You can call off your boy, here, ’cause I ain’t buyin’ it. You ain’t never looked out for me. Not when I was growin’ up, not when you busted me the first time, and sure as shit not now.”

“You’re wrong, Jerome,” Train said.

“Save it, D-Train. Mr. high school hero. Mr. college star. What you say don’t mean shit to me. Look where all your ‘success’ got you—bustin’ your own people in your own neighborhood. Save your sympathy and your self-righteousness—it’s all a bunch of bullshit to me anyhow.”

Train looked at Jerome Washington for a moment, and he could feel his shoulders tighten. There was a part of him that wanted to take a swing at the young man: to feel the satisfaction of knocking him senseless. He’d get away with it, too. A bruise or two on a suspect brought into the station house was almost expected, and if Washington complained, it would be his word against the word of two detectives and a patrolman. Neither Cassian nor Minnelli would take sides against Train.

But Train knew he wouldn’t do it. As much as he might have enjoyed pummeling the young man, to do so would only prove him right, and Train was better than that. At least, he thought he was.

“Let’s put this piece of shit in the car and get him down to the station,” Train said, rubbing his chest. Then he turned and headed down the stairs.

S
YDNEY
C
HAPIN SAT
in the library of her mother’s house, staring out the back window into the generous yard that was ringed with tall trees and a wall of bushes that surrounded the prop
erty. With all the coverage provided by the greenery, you’d never know that the house stood in the middle of one of the nation’s largest cities.

The house was quiet. Her mother had disappeared a little after noon; she’d said that she had to make some “arrangements,” and although she hadn’t elaborated, Sydney assumed she was attending to the details of Liz’s funeral.

Amanda had slept through the night, which was a blessing. She’d awakened briefly while the doctor was there in the morning, and although she still hadn’t spoken, she seemed more aware and responsive than she’d been the prior day after her gruesome discovery. She’d fallen back to sleep quickly, aided by the pills coaxed down her throat, and the doctor didn’t expect her to wake again before the evening. “A shock like this exhausts the system,” he’d explained. “If she’s still not speaking in a day or two, we’ll take her in to a neurologist, just to be sure, but I don’t expect that to be necessary.” That left Sydney alone in the house, for all intents and purposes.

She walked over to the small marble table near the library door; the day’s newspapers had been fanned out there on the table as always. The
New York Times
, the
Wall Street Journal
, the
Washington Post
, and the
Washington Times
were all laid out in order of national renown, crisp and neat and imposing.

She picked up the
Washington Post
and unfolded it so she could see the entire front page. The story was there; below the fold, but on the front page nonetheless. “Post Reporter Knifed to Death.” That was the headline; not very dignified, Sydney thought. The article itself seemed to take pains to describe in the fullest possible detail the physical violations visited on her sister, even teasingly pointing out that the police “would not comment on whether Ms. Creay had been sexually assaulted.” Of course, the police had told the family that there didn’t appear to be any sign of rape, but as long as the newspapers could work sex into the article, even in its vilest form, it would seem more sensational. It was, Sydney believed, proof that the media were willing to devour even their own in the pursuit of any story that would sell.

And yet the story wasn’t all bad. It contained a glowing account of Liz’s life; a life with which, as she read, Sydney became acutely aware she was unfamiliar. The article described Liz’s involvement with various charities and civic organizations. It detailed interviews with several of the people whose lives her sister had touched: a lonely old woman who had lost her son to gang violence whom Liz made time to visit every week; a young girl to whom Liz had been a tutor and a mentor; a fellow volunteer at the Special Olympics. Each of them told stories of boundless kindness and energy, and these made Sydney feel angry again at the loss of her sister.

The article also mentioned many of the news stories Liz had written in the past two years since joining the
Post
, describing most of them as powerful and controversial. She had been responsible, the paper said, for leading an investigation into the former mayor’s office that had proved politically devastating, and had been credited with costing him any chance at reelection. She had investigated irregularities in the trading of the city workers’ pension fund, which had led to the indictment of several prominent fund managers. She had shined a light onto the practices of several city hospitals that were accused of gouging people without medical insurance, violating numerous federal laws in the process.

In all, other than the unnecessarily detailed description of the circumstances of Liz’s death, the article was complimentary and well written, and Sydney found herself again wishing she’d known her sister better. She felt a thirst to understand her only sibling in a way she knew she would never have the opportunity to do.

It took a moment before she realized she was crying, and the tears brought to her a recognition of the strange cocktail of anger and sadness that was flowing through her body. She wiped her face and cleared her throat; there was no point in wallowing. That wasn’t what Liz would want her to do.

Sydney got off the leather chair and turned toward the door. She took a step in that direction before she froze, a feeling of absolute emotional panic ripping through her.

Amanda stood in the doorway. Her hair was a mess, and she was wearing sweatpants and a dirty T-shirt—the same T-shirt they had put on her when they’d put her to bed the prior evening. But it wasn’t the disheveled appearance that so startled Sydney; it was the expression on her face. She looked calm—poised, even—as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened to her in weeks.

Sydney stood as still as she could, afraid to make any move lest she unsettle her niece. The fear that raced through her heart was the worst she’d ever experienced—the terror of her own inadequacy. Faced with the pain and need that was so plain in Amanda, Sydney worried that she would’t be strong enough to help her in any way that would make a difference.

“Amanda—” she began, and then stopped. She had no idea what to say. What do you say to a fourteen-year-old girl who’s just found her mother brutally murdered in her apartment? “Good morning,” she managed at last.

“Is it morning?” Amanda asked, her voice even but stilted, as if emotions couldn’t make it past her vocal cords.

Sydney looked at her watch. “No, I guess it’s not.” The two of them stood silently for a long moment, neither of them moving. “How do you feel?” Sydney ventured tentatively.

Amanda’s eyes went down and focused inward, as if taking genuine stock of her well-being in response to the question. After a moment, she gave a look that seemed to fall somewhere between a nod and a shrug. “Where’s my mom?” she asked.

Sydney gave no visible reaction, even as her heart rate doubled.
How am I supposed to handle this?
She looked closely at her niece, wondering whether she’d lost the memory of having found her mother. It was possible; after all, who could imagine a more traumatic experience?

“Amanda, your mother had an accident,” Sydney said softly, with as much tenderness as she could.

“My mother’s dead,” Amanda said, rolling her eyes slightly. “She was murdered—I haven’t forgotten.” Sydney felt like her niece had been able to read her face. “I want to know where her body is.”

Sydney was rocked by the matter-of-fact tone of Amanda’s voice. In many ways, it reminded her of her own mother. She recovered quickly and took a deep breath. “She’s down at the hospital,” she said, answering Amanda’s question. “At the morgue.” Her own words sounded harsh to Sydney, but they seemed to satisfy Amanda.

“Where’s Grandmother?”

“She had to”—
make your mother’s funeral arrangements
, Sydney thought—“run some errands.”

Amanda nodded, and the two of them stood in silence again, looking at each other almost as strangers, both petrified of each other. And then something happened. Amanda glanced away for a brief second, and then looked Sydney in the eyes. “Sydney?” she started.

Sydney focused hard on her niece, and for the first time she noticed that the teenager’s lower lip was quivering ever so slightly, the tears beginning to gather in the corners of her eyes, like puddles in the rain, welling until they spilled over, running down her cheeks. “Yes?” Sydney answered.

“What happens now?”

Sydney could feel her own tears falling again now, dribbling down over her lips and off her chin freely. She moved forward, opening her arms to Amanda, who took two quick steps and nearly fell against her, sobbing. Sydney closed her arms around the girl and held her tightly, rubbing her back, trying to find the words to comfort her.

“Now,” she said at last, her own voice sounding foreign to her, “we work together—you and me and your grandmother. We put our lives back together and we move forward— because that’s what your mother would have wanted us to do.”

Amanda buried her face deeply into Sydney’s shoulder, holding on to her as if for dear life, sobbing harder now. And yet, somehow, Sydney sensed that some of the emotion spilling out of the young girl, mixing with the grief and fear that was inevitable, was relief.

T
RAIN WAS STILL HOLDING
his ribs when he walked into the First District station house on Capitol Hill. He let Cassian deal with Jerome Washington to avoid any residual temptation to exact some retribution, and he held back a few yards as he watched his partner manhandle the drug dealer through the booking process.

“We got a real scumbag here, Fritzy,” Cassian said to the desk sergeant, pushing Washington hard into the front edge of the high counter.

“What’s on the menu for him?” the graying, deliberate officer on the other side of the counter asked.

“Let’s start with possession with intent to distribute.” Cassian held up the bag of drugs in the evidence pouch. “Toss in a lit
tle trespassing, a touch of parole violation, a dash of conspiracy, and top it all off with a heaping helping of attempted murder of a police officer.”

The desk sergeant raised his eyebrows at Washington. “You got a lot on your plate, son,” he said.

“That’s bullshit!” Washington protested.

Cassian smacked him in the back of the head. “We’ll figure out what’s for dessert once we’ve had a chance to chat.”

“Sounds like a swell date to me,” Fritz replied. “Before you settle in for the duration, though, Reynolds wants to see both you and Train in his office.”

Cassian nodded. “That’s fine. Just have Minnelli and Johnson process him and stick him in one of the interrogation rooms, okay?”

“Will do.”

z

When Train and Cassian entered Reynolds’s office, they were disappointed, though not surprised, to see Chief Harold Torbert seated in one of the chairs in front of the captain’s desk.

“Train, Cassian,” Reynolds began, “I believe you know Chief Torbert.” He raised his eyebrows to warn the detectives that the meeting might not be pleasant. Reynolds had a manner of communicating nonverbally that way. He was popular with his men, who recognized that he’d risen to his position as a result of his police skills, rather than political prowess. He was a pragmatist, but his loyalties remained with his men, and they returned that loyalty in kind.

“Not well,” Train said. “I think we’ve met only once.” He of
fered his hand reluctantly.

Torbert was short and heavy, with an oily complexion and a toupee that looked as though it had been a decade at least since it had fit his scalp. He was an adept pencil pusher with little street experience, and he’d always made it clear to those beneath him that the chief’s office was nothing more than a brief stopover on his way to political office. “Sergeant,” he said in a voice that came more from his nasal passages than from his chest or throat. His hand felt boneless and slick to Train, who had to work to keep from wiping his own hand on his trousers when he took it back.

“The chief stopped by to get an update on the Creay murder,” Reynolds said. He rolled his eyes again.

“That’s right,” Torbert agreed, settling his flab back into his chair. “I understand we got a fingerprint at the scene.” Train noted the man’s use of the word “we,” as though he’d actually had some role in the investigatory process.

“We did,” Train said.

“And?” Torbert pressed.

“We just picked up a suspect. Jerome Washington; a small-time dealer with a history of B&Es.”

“Excellent, excellent,” Torbert said excitedly, rubbing his hands together. Train thought he heard them squish. “It’s good to see that we’re working this so quickly. I’m sure you’re aware of the importance of this matter; she’s from a very prominent family—and a reporter to boot.”

“Yes,” Train said. “I can see how her murder would be more important than others.”