They didn’t say one word while they were in the car or while they waited in the small take-out place for the food to be prepared. He wasn’t ready to speak yet, and she followed his lead. His silence was fueled by anger. Hers was more placid—it was just a reaction to his, and it annoyed him even more that she knew him well enough to wait for his mood to change rather than challenge it.
When they returned to his house he set the food—dropping it, still in the brown paper bag—on the small dining table that sat in his living room. He went into the kitchen and when he returned with two bottles of beer she had already removed the food cartons from the bag and placed them on the table. He put one beer on the table in front of her.
“Thanks for remembering,” she said.
“Fuck you,” Justin said.
“Well,” Reggie said, “at least we’re talking.”
He turned and went back into the kitchen, emerging moments later with silverware and two plates. He put the plates on the table and served himself some food. He made no effort to serve Reggie, just pushed the white cartons closer to her.
They ate slowly and silently. She was halfway through the food on her plate when she looked up and said, “Are you ready yet?”
“For what?”
“For a conversation.”
“No,” he said. Then, putting his fork down, he said, “I thought you were in prison.”
She shook her head. “No.”
“How is that possible?”
“I told you, Jay, or I tried to tell you, you just wanted to see me in jail so bad you wouldn’t listen to me.”
“You belonged in jail.”
“I was doing my job.”
“Nice job. Killing an innocent man.”
She winced. “Yes. Something I’ll have to live with the rest of my life. And it won’t be easy. But I thought I was doing it for national security reasons. I thought the orders were coming all the way from the White House. I was lied to, and I have to stay awake at night knowing I believed the lies. I was manipulated, and maybe I was stupid, but I did what I was trained to do and what I hope I could do again if I had to for the right reasons.”
Justin didn’t say anything, even when Reggie said, “You’ve killed people before. People who didn’t deserve to die.” And when he looked up sharply, ready to respond in anger, she said, “You think we don’t know what happened to Lieutenant Colonel Warren Grimble, military intelligence?”
Justin went silent for a moment. Grimble had been the man in charge of his interrogation at Gitmo. Justin had managed to learn his identity. And then he’d done more than that. He was too weak to act himself, so he hired Bruno to do the job. Lieutenant Warren Grimble had disappeared. Justin knew that the disappearance was permanent. Bruno was good at his job.
“He was not what I’d call an innocent man,” he said.
“Maybe. But what he did to you, he was doing because he thought it was the right thing to do, because he was under orders to do it.”
“No,” Justin said quietly. “There are no orders that would cover what he did to me.”
“Jay,” Reggie said, just as quietly and just as urgently, “after you arrested me, the FBI got me released from custody almost immediately. It wasn’t even a question. The slate was wiped clean. The fact is, they examined what happened as thoroughly as it was possible to examine a case. I don’t have to tell you what the ramifications were after everything that occurred. They thought I did a good enough job that not only was I exonerated, they assigned me to New York. That’s where I’ve been the last year.”
“You did a good job,” he said. “I’d never deny that. You did one helluva job.”
“I saved your life,” she said. “Or are you forgetting that?”
“I haven’t forgotten anything.”
“I wanted to come see you,” she told him. “Almost every day for the past year, that’s pretty much all I thought about. But I knew you wouldn’t want to see me or hear anything I had to say.”
“You’re right on that one.”
“I asked for this assignment. I want you to know that. When word came down, I asked for it.”
“And they
gave
it to you?”
“Sometimes God works in mysterious ways.”
“I don’t believe in God.”
“Neither do I. So I guess it’s the FBI that’s pretty mysterious.” Reggie finished off the bottle of beer in front of her and said, “I wanted this job because I care about you. No matter what you think of what I did or what you think of me, I care about you. And I think I owe you something. I’d like to make it up to you—what I did and what happened.”
“All of a sudden I’ve got a lot of people trying to make things up
to me.”
“I know. That’s one of the reasons why they agreed to send me here.”
“I’m not following.”
“The people I work for aren’t as dumb as you like to think they are. They can be pretty insightful. And pretty manipulative.”
“I still don’t follow.”
“They think you’ll trust me.”
He just laughed. A quick, harsh burst of a laugh.
“Because of what happened to Wanda. And with us. Because of what happened . . . what’s happened in your past. They think you’ll trust me because you’ll want to trust me. And maybe want to help me and protect me.”
“Out of guilt?”
“I said they can be smart and manipulative.”
“And what do you think, Reggie? Do you think I’m going to go along with this because I feel guilty about other women in my life?”
She did her best to draw on her lopsided smile. “I’m hoping you’ll go along with it because of my natural charm.” And when he said nothing, didn’t change expression, just stared at her with that hard stare of his, she said, “Then how about the fact that I’ve already called Larry Silverbush and told him that you’re working with me and that we expect him to give you his full cooperation?”
“Full cooperation with someone he’s looking at as part of his murder investigation?”
“Not anymore. I told him we’ve cleared you of any involvement.”
“And is that true?”
“The ‘we’ part probably isn’t. But I’m the agent in charge now, so it’s my call. And I don’t think you’re involved in any way.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t think you’d kill anyone or anything because of a woman. Hell, I know you were falling for me just a little bit . . . and you tried to send me to prison.”
“What is it you don’t think I’m capable of? Falling in love or killing someone out of love?”
“I don’t know, Jay. I didn’t get to know you well enough to make that call.”
She closed her eyes once, opened them quickly, did it again. He remembered that she did that—batted her long lashes and widened her already large, round, blue eyes. She thought it made her look irresistible. The thing of it was, it did make her look pretty goddamn irresistible.
Justin swatted at the plate of food in front of him and sent it flying off the table. When she jumped, he anticipated her move, reached out, and grabbed her by her collar, pulling her closer to him over the table.
“Reggie, let’s get a few things straight.” His voice was low and ragged. “I don’t trust you. I doubt that I ever will. And I won’t be charmed by you, no matter how many times you blink those blue eyes at me. I don’t feel guilty, and even if I did, it wouldn’t make one fucking bit of difference. And I’m sure as hell not going to sleep with you or fall in love with you, not even a little bit.”
She didn’t look frightened or even surprised at his outburst. She just gave him that lopsided smile. “But you’ll work with me?” she said.
He loosened his grip on her collar. “Yes. I’ll work with you.”
“Why?” Reggie asked.
“Because right now I need you to get information and to get inside the investigation. And I can use you to help me figure out what the hell’s going on.”
“And that’s the only reason?”
“That’s the only reason.”
“It’s a start,” she said. “Now . . . shall we clean up the mess you made?”
The thing is: they worked well together. They had in the past and they did now. Reggie was meticulous and tireless, and while her instincts weren’t quite as acute as his, they were fine. And she could cut through the bullshit to make a point when it needed making.
He printed up his notes and gave them to her to read. As she pored over them, she looked up from time to time to ask him questions: about Evan and Abby, about his relationship with Abby, about the conversations he’d had on his one visit to Rockworth and Williams. Her questions were sharp and clinical and on point. When she was done looking at his lists and written comments, he handed over the various folders of information he’d collected and told her she should go through it all over the next twenty-four hours. She said she would, and he knew she’d have a worthwhile take on what she read. He told her what his plans were for the next day and he told her what he wanted her to concentrate on. She agreed.
“Now,” she said, “what do you need from me?”
He told her he wanted to know everything that Wanda knew about Evan Harmon’s business. He wanted to know why Evan was being investigated.
“We don’t have a lot,” she told him. “And what we have isn’t all that firm. Wanda wasn’t reporting on a lot of what she was doing. And one of the problems is that Evan Harmon came in through the back door. He wasn’t who we were investigating.”
“Who were you looking at?”
“Leonardo Rubenelli. Your friend Bruno’s boss.”
“I know who he is. You guys have been trying to get something on him for most of my lifetime. What is it now?”
“Money laundering.”
“And what the hell is the connection between Evan Harmon and Lenny Rube? How’d they even cross into the same world?”
“Come on, Jay. You should be able to come up with that one. Who could link a New York hedgehogger with the head of the New England mob?”
Justin shook his head. “Ronald LaSalle? I don’t believe it. Just because he was a money guy in Providence? My
father’s
a money guy in Providence.”
“You should check with your pal Bruno.”
“Since he’s not here, why don’t you tell me what he’d say?”
“I don’t know what he’d say. I don’t have the same high regard that you do for his character,” Reggie told him. “But I know he’s been dealing with LaSalle. We have the two of them meeting several times over the past year. And we know that Bruno was here in East End Harbor for several weeks last year. Hell, you and I know that from personal experience. It would have been easy for him to cross paths with Harmon.”
“Do you have proof of any direct contact between Bruno and Evan?”
“Only according to Wanda’s reports. But they weren’t incident specific.”
“‘Incident specific.’ Nice phrase. I like that,” he said.
“We don’t have an eyewitness—is that better? At least none we know about. It seems as if Wanda did. But we can’t ask her.”
Justin frowned. “Evan and Ronald were laundering money for Lenny Rube—and Bruno was the go-between? It just doesn’t add up.”
“Why not?”
“From everything I’ve been told, Ron LaSalle was as straight as they come.”
“And who did the telling? The people who worked for him? His wife? Maybe they have a lot to gain by making us think that.”
“It’s possible.” He was thinking about sitting in Vicky’s living room, listening to her talk about her husband. She wasn’t lying. She might have been duped, but she wasn’t lying.
“What else doesn’t add up?” Reggie asked.
“Bruno. He’s not exactly the go-between type.”
“That’s right. That’s why we think he’s involved in a lot bigger way.”
“You think Bruno killed them?”
“We think it’s a good possibility.”
“I like the way you use the all-protective plural, Reggie. Do you ever think something all by yourself?”
“I’ve been out of the loop on this case, Jay. I was brought in at the last minute, so I can’t even say I’m fully briefed. I’m just telling you what I’ve been told so far. The more involved I am, the more I’ll learn and be able to think for myself. And the more I’ll be able to tell you.”
“All right, so give me some more groupthink on Bruno.”
“We know he was dealing with LaSalle on a regular basis. And we know he was using LaSalle to invest millions of dollars. Some of the investments were corporate investments. LaSalle was dealing with Bruno as if he were an institutional investor.”
“Bruno?” Justin had to smile. “He’s not what I’d call the corporate type.”
“Our point exactly. One of the companies investing has Rubenelli on its board.”
Justin sighed. “So you started investigating, looking for a way to get to Lenny Rube.”
Reggie nodded.
“I still don’t see the link to Harmon,” Justin said.
“I told you, we don’t have it firm. But it exists. We know from Wanda’s notes that some of the Rubenelli money was going through Harmon’s hedge fund.”
“If you know that, why don’t you have it firm?”
Reggie looked embarrassed. Finally she just shrugged and said, “You know what it’s been like since 9/11. If it’s not terrorism related, no one actually gives a damn. At least at the top levels. We’ve had a lot of our resources taken away from us. So we haven’t been able to make a financial paper trail.”
“So good old mob crimes and killings don’t really matter anymore?”
“Not so much, no. But Wanda wouldn’t let go of this. She thought it was big. And she was working on making the connections.”
“Which is why she got killed.”
“That’s what we’re assuming. And that’s why we’ve moved this to high priority.”
“Come on, even Lenny Rube’s not stupid enough to off a federal agent. Bruno certainly isn’t that dumb.”
“Again, you have a higher regard for your friends than we do.”
“I wouldn’t exactly call Lenny my friend.”
“And Bruno?”
“‘Friend’ is too strong a word. But just because we’re on opposite sides of the fence, I don’t underestimate him.” He was still shaking his head. “It makes sense on the surface, but it’s off. For one thing, even the way the murders were done. It’s not Bruno’s style. One thing you can count on, he wouldn’t have left Wanda alive long enough to do what she did.”
“Nice that you know his modus operandi so well.”
“It may not be nice, but it’s meaningful. Especially if your theory’s based on the fact that Bruno was killing for the family.”