The Innocent (12 page)

LAS VEGAS, NEVADA

FBI FIELD OFFICE

JOHN LAWRENCE BAILEY BUILDING

OFFICE OF THE SPECIAL AGENT IN CHARGE

FOR ADAM YATES IT STARTED out as another day.

At least, that was what he wanted to believe. In a larger sense, no day was ever just another for Yates- at least, not for the past ten years. Each day felt like borrowed time, waiting eternally for the proverbial ax to fall. Even now, when most rational people would conclude that he'd successfully put his past mistakes behind him, the fear still gnawed in the back of his brain, tormenting him.

Yates had been a young agent then, working undercover. Now here he was, ten years later, the SAC- Special Agent in Charge- for all of Nevada, one of the FBI's most plum positions. He had risen up the ranks. In all that time, there had not been the smallest inkling of trouble.

So heading into work that morning, it seemed to be another day.

But when his chief advisor, Cal Dollinger, walked into his office, even though neither had spoken about the incident in nearly a decade, something in his old friend's face told him that this was indeed
the
day, that all others had merely been leading up to this.

Yates glanced quickly at the photograph on his desk. It was a family shot- he, Bess, the three kids. The girls were in their teens now, and no amount of training adequately prepares a father for that. Yates stayed seated. He wore his casual uniform- khakis, no socks, brightly hued polo shirt.

Cal Dollinger stood over his desk and waited. Cal was huge- six-seven and nearly three hundred pounds. Adam and Cal went way back, having first met as eight-year-olds in Mrs. Colbert's third-grade class at Collingwood Elementary School. Some men called them Lenny and George, referring to the Steinbeck characters in
Of Mice and Men
. There might be some truth to it- Cal was big and impossibly strong- but where Lenny had a gentleness, Cal had none. He was a rock, both physically and emotionally. He could indeed kill a rabbit by petting it, but he wouldn't care much.

But their bond was even stronger than that. You go back enough years, you pull each other out of enough fires, you become like one. Cal could be cruel, no question about it. But like most violent men, it was just a question of black and white. Those in his very small white zone- his wife, his kids, Adam, Adam's family- he'd protect with his dying breath. The rest of the world was black and inanimate, a distant backdrop.

Adam Yates waited, but Cal could wait longer.

"What is it?" Adam finally asked.

Cal's eyes swept the room. He feared listening devices. He said, "She's dead."

"Which one?"

"The older."

"Are you sure?"

"Her body was found in New Jersey. We ID'd her by the serial numbers on the surgical implants. She was living as a nun."

"You're kidding."

Cal did not smile. Cal did not kid.

"What about"- Yates didn't even want to say Clyde's name-"him?"

Cal shrugged. "No idea."

"And the tape?"

Cal shook his head. It was as Adam Yates had expected. It wouldn't end easily. It would never end at all. He cast one more glance at his wife and children. He looked about his spacious office, the commendations on the wall, his nameplate on the desk. All of it- his family, his career, his entire life- seemed wispy now, like holding smoke in a hand.

"We should go to New Jersey," he said.

SONYA MCGRATH WAS SURPRISED to hear the key in the lock.

Today, more than a decade after her son's death, the photographs of Stephen were still in the same frames on the same side tables. Other photographs had been added, of course. When Michelle, Sonya's oldest daughter, got married last year, they naturally took photographs. Several were framed over the fireplace. But no pictures of Stephen had ever been taken down. They could pack away his things, repaint his room, give his clothes to charity, sell his old car, but Sonya and Clark could never touch those photographs.

Her daughter Michelle, like many brides, had chosen to do the standard group photographs before the marriage ceremony. The groom, a nice guy named Jonathan, had a large extended family. They took all the usual shots. Sonya and Clark had gamely posed- with their daughter, with their daughter and soon-to-be son-in-law, with Jonathan's parents and the new bride and groom, whatever, but they balked when the photographer called for the "McGrath family photograph," the one that would have consisted of Sonya and Clark and Michelle and Cora, Michelle's younger sister, because all any of them would ever see, even after this joy-filled day, was the giant hole in the "McGrath family photograph" where Stephen still belonged.

The big house was silent tonight. It had been that way since Cora started college. Clark was "working late again"- a euphemism for "sleeping with the bimbette"- but Sonya didn't care. She didn't question his hours because their home was even lonelier, even more silent, when Clark was here.

Sonya swirled the brandy in the snifter. She sat alone in the new theater room, in the dark, cuing up a movie on DVD. She'd rented something with Tom Hanks- his presence, even in crummy movies, oddly comforted her- but she hadn't hit the play button yet.

God, she thought, am I really this pitiful?

Sonya had always been a popular woman. She had many true and wonderful friends. It would be easy to blame them, to say that they slowly disengaged themselves from her after Stephen's death, that they had tried to be dutiful but after a while, you can only take so much, and so they made one excuse, and then another, gradually drifting away, cutting ties.

But that would not be fair to them.

It might be true in some small part- there had certainly been a detachment of sorts- but Sonya had been far more responsible for that than any of her friends. She pushed them away. She did not want comfort. She did not want company or camaraderie or commiseration. She didn't want to be miserable either, but perhaps that was the easiest and ergo best alternative.

The front door opened.

Sonya turned on the small lamp next to her movie-theater recliner. It was dark outside, but in this airless room that didn't matter. The shades blocked out all light. She heard the footsteps in the marble foyer and then on the polished hardwood floors. They were coming toward her.

She waited.

A moment later, Clark stepped into the room. He said nothing, just stood there. She studied him for a moment. Her husband looked somehow older, or maybe it had been a long time since she had really studied the man she'd married. He'd chosen not to go distinguished gray and took to coloring his hair. The coloring was done, as with all things Clark, meticulously, but it still didn't look right. His skin had an ashen tone. He looked thinner.

"I was just going to put on a movie," she said.

He stared at her.

"Clark?"

"I know," he said.

He did not mean that he knew that she was putting on a movie. He meant something else entirely. Sonya did not ask for clarification. There was no need. She sat very still.

"I know about your visits to the museum," he went on. "I've known for a long time."

Sonya debated how to reply. Countering with an "I know about you too" was the obvious move, but it would be both too defensive and entirely irrelevant. This was not about an affair.

Clark stood, his hands at his sides, his finger itching but not clenching.

"How long have you known?" she asked.

"A few months."

"So how come you didn't say anything before now?"

He shrugged.

"How did you find out?"

"I had you followed," he said.

"Followed? You mean like you hired a private investigator?"

"Yes."

She crossed her legs. "Why?" Her voice raised a notch, stung by this strange betrayal. "Did you think I was sleeping around?"

"He killed Stephen."

"It was an accident."

"Really? Is that what he tells you when you have your little lunches? Do you discuss how he accidentally murdered my son?"

"Our son," she corrected him.

He looked at her then, a look she had seen before but never directed at her. "How could you?"

"How could I what, Clark?"

"Meet with him. Offer him forgiveness-"

"I've never offered him anything of the sort."

"Comfort then."

"It's not about that."

"Then what is it about?"

"I don't know." Sonya rose to her feet. "Clark, listen to me: What happened to Stephen was an accident."

He made a noise of derision. "Is that how you comfort yourself, Sonya? By telling yourself it was an accident?"

"Comfort myself?" A dark chill ripped through her. "There is no comfort, Clark. Not for a second. Accident, murder- Stephen is dead either way."

He said nothing.

"It was an accident, Clark."

"He's convinced you of that, eh?"

"Actually, just the opposite."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"He's no longer sure himself. He feels tremendous guilt."

"Poor baby." Clark made a face. "How can you be so naïve?"

"Let me ask you something," Sonya said, moving closer to him. "If they fell another way, if the angle had been different or if Stephen had twisted his body and Matt Hunter had hit his head on that curb-"

"Don't even start with that."

"No, Clark, listen to me." She took another step. "If it had gone another way, if Matt Hunter ended up dead and Stephen had been found on top of him-"

"I'm not in the mood to play hypotheticals with you, Sonya. None of that matters."

"Maybe it does to me."

"Why?" Clark countered. "Weren't you the one who said that either way Stephen is dead?"

She said nothing.

Clark crossed the room, moving past her, keeping enough distance so that he did not so much as brush up against her. He collapsed into a chair and lowered his head into his hands. She waited.

"Do you remember the case of that mother drowning her kids in Texas?" he asked.

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"Just"- he closed his eyes for a moment-"just bear with me, okay? Do you remember that case? This overworked mother drowned her kids in the tub. I think there were four or five of them. Awful story. The defense made an insanity plea. Her husband supported her. Do you remember, on the news?"

"Yes."

"What did you think?"

She said nothing.

"I'll tell you what I thought," he continued. "I thought, who cares? I don't mean that to sound cold. I mean, what's the difference? If this mother was found insane and spent the next fifty years in a loony bin or if she was found guilty and spent the rest of her life in jail or on death row- what does it matter? Either way you killed your own children. Your life is over, isn't it?"

Sonya closed her eyes.

"That's how it is with Matt Hunter to me. He killed our son. If it was an accident or intentional, I only know that our boy is dead. The rest doesn't matter. Do you understand that?"

More than he could ever know.

Sonya felt the tears escape from her eyes. She looked at her husband. Clark was in so much pain. Just go, she wanted to say. Bury yourself in your work, in your mistress, in whatever. Just go.

"I'm not trying to hurt you," she said.

He nodded.

"Do you want me to stop seeing him?" she asked.

"Would it matter if I did?"

She did not reply.

Clark rose and left the room. A few seconds later, Sonya heard the front door close, leaving her yet again all alone.

LOREN MUSE MADE even better time on the way back from Wilmington, Delaware, to Newark. Ed Steinberg was alone in his office on the third floor of the new county courthouse.

"Shut the door," her boss said.

Steinberg looked disheveled- loose tie, collar button undone, one sleeve rolled up higher than the other- but that was pretty much his normal look. Loren liked Steinberg. He was smart and played fair. He hated the politics of the job but understood the necessity of the game. He played it well.

Loren found her boss sexy in that cuddly-bear, hairy-Vietnam-vet-on-his-Harley vein. Steinberg was married, of course, with two kids in college. Cliché but true: The good ones were always taken.

When Loren was young, her mother would warn her to wait: "Don't get married young," Carmen would slur through the daytime wine. Loren never consciously followed that advice, but she realized somewhere along the way that it was idiotic. The good men, the ones who wanted to commit and raise children, were scooped up early. The field became thinner and thinner as the years went by. Now Loren had to settle for what one of her friends called "retreads"- overweight divorcées who were making up for the years of high school rejection or those still cowering from the anguish of their first marriage or those semi-decent guys who were interested- and why not?- in some young waif who'd worship them.

"What were you doing in Delaware?" Steinberg asked.

"Following a lead on our nun's identity."

"You think she's from Delaware?"

"No." Loren quickly explained about the implants' identification code, the initial cooperation, the stonewalling, the connection to the feds. Steinberg stroked his mustache as if it were a small pet. When she finished, he said, "The SAC in the area is a fed named Pistillo. I'll call him in the morning, see what he can tell me."

"Thank you."

Steinberg stroked his mustache some more. He looked off.

"Is that what you needed to see me about?" she asked. "The Sister Mary Rose case?"

"Yes."

"And?"

"The lab guys dusted the nun's room."

"Right."

"They found eight sets of prints," he said. "One set matched Sister Mary Rose. Six others matched various nuns and employees of St. Margaret's. We're running those through the system, just in case, see if anybody had a record we don't know about."

He stopped.

Loren came over to the desk and sat down. "I assume," she said, "you got a hit on the eighth set?"

"We did." His eyes met hers. "That's why I called you back here."

She spread her hands. "I'm all ears."

"The prints belong to a Max Darrow."

She waited for him to say more. When he stayed quiet, she said, "I assume this Darrow has a record?"

Ed Steinberg shook his head slowly. "Nope."

"Then how did you get a match?"

"He served in the armed forces."

In the distance, Loren could hear a phone ring. Nobody answered it. Steinberg leaned back in his big leather chair. He tilted his chin to look up. "Max Darrow isn't from around here," he said.

"Oh?"

"He lived in Raleigh Heights, Nevada. It's near Reno."

Loren considered that. "Reno's a pretty long way from a Catholic school in East Orange, New Jersey."

"Indeed." Steinberg was still looking up. "He used to be on the job."

"Darrow was a cop?"

He nodded. "Retired. Detective Max Darrow. Worked homicide in Vegas for twenty-five years."

Loren tried to fit that into her earlier theory about Sister Mary Rose being a fugitive. Maybe she was from the Vegas or Reno area. Maybe she'd stumbled across this Max Darrow sometime in the past.

The next step seemed pretty obvious: "We need to locate Max Darrow."

Ed Steinberg's voice was soft. "We already have."

"How's that?"

"Darrow is dead."

Their eyes met and something else clicked into place. She could almost see Trevor Wine pulling up his belt. How had her patronizing colleague described his murder victim?

"A retired white guy… a tourist."

Steinberg nodded. "We found Darrow's body in Newark, near that cemetery off Fourteenth Avenue. He was shot twice in the head."