The Silent Places (6 page)

“Then order pizza.”

“Who’s giving her a ride?”

“Mrs. McGregor. I told you. She’s a neighbor of ours.”

“Well, can’t you call her and have her drive Amy to my house?”

Hastings exhaled. “No,” he said.

“Why not?”

“Because I’m not asking her to do that. She’s already done enough for us.”

“Well, give me her number, then. I’ll ask her.”

“You’re going to ask a total stranger to drive your daughter out to West County so you don’t have to drive to South St. Louis to pick her up?”

“Yeah. What’s the big deal?”

She doesn’t see it, Hastings thought. She really doesn’t.

Hastings said, “No.”

“No?”

“No.”

“You mean you’re refusing to give me the number?”

“Yes. I’m refusing to give you the number.”

“Fine,” Eileen said, “I’ll pick her up at your house. God, you’re such a child sometimes.”

Eileen clicked off and that ended that conversation.

It wasn’t much better at the dinner table.

Carol kept her eyes on her menu. The waiter came with their drinks. Carol gave the waiter her order without asking Hastings if he was ready. Hastings wisely ordered an entrée without thinking much about what he actually wanted, and the waiter took their menus and left them alone.

Hastings said, “Sorry.”

Carol shook her head, not making eye contact with him.

At other times, Hastings might have elaborated on the apology, given her a fuller explanation. But now he wasn’t feeling that generous. Another stupid fight with Eileen, a day of getting bawled out by the brass.

He said, “Carol, give me a break, will you?”

She gave him a sharp look. “You’re mad at
me
?”

“I’m not mad. I’d just like to enjoy this dinner and not have to spend half of it trying to get you to forgive me for something that’s out of my control. Or have you sit there punishing me with silence.”

“It’s not out of your control.”

“I’m not having that discussion.”

“It’s not out of your control.”

“Look. You knew when we got involved that I’m a divorced father with an irresponsible ex-wife. Eileen does these things, you know, and I have to deal with it. That’s the way it is.”

“Eileen’s not your daughter. Or your little sister.”

“She’s the mother of my daughter. Because of that, I have to deal with her.”

“George, try to see it from my perspective. I wanted to spend the evening with you. A nice dinner, a few drinks, and then we spend the night together. Now that’s not much to ask for.”

“I was five minutes late. Then I had maybe a five-minute call. That’s nothing. These are things people with children have to deal with.”

“Oh, I see.”

He saw where she was going. He said, “Oh no.”

“Because I don’t have children, I wouldn’t understand.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You think it.”

“I don’t think it.”

“Yeah you do. You just don’t say it.”

“Well, do you want children?”

And like that, it was out. The subject they had avoided for almost two years.

“I don’t know,” she said. “My ex and I, we never—I don’t know.”

“If you don’t, it’s okay.”

She looked at him for a long time. Then she said, “I’m not—I’m not ready to have this conversation.”

Hastings sighed and said, “Look, it’s out now. Why don’t we talk about it?”

“I’m not ready for that,” she said.

“Carol—”

“No, George.” She looked at him for a long time, not saying anything. Then she said, “I have to go.”

The waiter was gracious when Hastings canceled Carol’s dinner order. Hastings ate his meal alone and left a generous tip. When he was finished, he called Amy on her cell phone to make sure Eileen had indeed picked her up. Eileen had. Amy said she was sorry if she’d caused any trouble and Hastings said not to worry, she hadn’t, and he would see her in a couple of days. Then he got off the phone before Amy did something stupid, like ask if he wanted to say anything else to her mother.

George Hastings was not his daughter’s biological father. He had adopted her after he married her mother, Eileen. Amy was five at the time. Until the marriage, Hastings had had ambivalent feelings about being a parent. He had grown up in an unhappy home. His mother had been a good woman, though not a very strong one. His father had been a shitpoke. A bully and a jerk, angry and bitter for reasons Hastings never figured out. Hastings had never attempted to “resolve” his anger at his father. But he believed he had come to terms with it. Both his parents were dead now.

With that background, he was surprised to find that he loved being a father. Like being a police officer, it was not something he had planned, but something that had come naturally to him. His paternal relationship with Amy outlasted his marriage to Eileen. Eileen left him for her boss, a lawyer named Ted Samster. But, to her credit, Eileen did not fight Hastings on the custody of Amy. She might have had her own selfish reasons for doing this, of course. But Hastings didn’t think so. He knew that she knew how much Amy meant to him. And though Eileen could be thoughtless and inconsiderate, she was not cruel.

A few years had passed since the divorce. The hurt and pain of Eileen’s betrayal had since dissipated. Now when he got angry at her, it was usually related to some
recent
selfish act. Sometimes when they argued, Hastings thought they sounded like a brother and sister. At times, he thought of her as a sister. Not in a gross way. But that they were family somehow, for good or for bad. Eileen was inconsiderate, immature, beautiful, and vain. Perhaps she had never really grown up. Hastings was honest enough with himself to admit that he had been drawn by her cool blond beauty. He sometimes wondered how she would have turned out if she had not always been pretty. Would she have developed more as a person? Focused on things less superficial? Not put so much of her identity in being a beautiful girl? But then, Hastings knew this line of thinking was itself vain, because he would probably not have gone after her if she hadn’t been beautiful. He’d pursued her, charmed her, fallen in love with her, and then married her. And for a few years, he had convinced himself they were happy. Eileen could make him laugh as few women could. And sometimes she could be very insightful. Once, when he was down over a case, she had cheered him up by telling him that he was going to show them “how this shit works.” Because that was who he was. That it was his quiet, arrogant confidence that had first attracted him to her. That it was that same quality, in part, that made him a great detective.

Shortly before she left him, Eileen told Hastings he would be better off without her. She had paraphrased Margaret Mitchell and said that like belonged with like. She said she was better suited to someone superficial and materialistic like Ted Samster. In turn, he, George, would be better suited to someone else.

Now Hastings thought, Yeah, but who?

He had been dating Carol McGuire for almost two years now. She was his first girlfriend and long-term lover since his divorce. She was attractive, smart, and sexy. She was also a good friend. She had helped him get over Eileen and had helped him see things that were wrong in his marriage that he was too close to see on his own.

But time is the enemy of every great love affair. And now time was closing in on them. Or rather, reality was closing in on them.

Joe Klosterman had once told Hastings that the girl you fall in love with and the woman you’re married to are two different people. Perhaps he had fallen in love with Carol McGuire. But it was becoming increasingly clear that she could not be his wife. Not because she worried about the dumb television-show issues of being a cop’s wife. No, the main problem for Carol was Amy.

It was not that Carol disliked Amy. She didn’t. Her relations with Amy had always been friendly. But Carol showed no maternal interest in Amy. Indeed, she seemed not to have much interest in children in general. Hastings did not think this made her a bad person. Not everyone was cut out for parenting. Carol had never said she wasn’t. But she had never said she was, either. In any event, every time Hastings tried to picture the three of them living together, it didn’t work. And that made him wonder where they were going to go from there.

What was the Woody Allen line? A relationship has to keep moving forward, like a shark, otherwise it dies. And what we’ve got here is a dead shark.

Hastings parked the Jag in front of his house. He went inside and turned on the lights and found himself alone.

Maybe the shark was dead. Or maybe he could call Carol tomorrow and see if she wanted to talk about it.

A. Lloyd Gelmers, lobbyist and former congressman, managed to wrap up his work by six o’clock that evening. He called his wife at home. She answered and he told her he had to go to the Capitol Grille to meet with representatives of an insurance company. He said he probably wouldn’t be home till after midnight. He asked how their children were and she told him they were fine and then they said good-bye.

The next call he made was to his mistress. Her name was Lana. She was twenty-three years old, from Arkansas, about fifteen pounds overweight, and she had those sort of oversized, gangly breasts that older men like. She was what A. Lloyd sometimes referred to as “quality skank.” A. Lloyd said, “Hello, sunshine,” and she said, “Hello, baby,” and then he told her he’d be at the apartment in forty-five minutes.

Unbeknownst to the present Mrs. Gelmers, A. Lloyd was co-owner of a group of apartment buildings in Silver Spring, Maryland. There were three of them in a row. Redbrick buildings, each one containing eight apartment units. Tasteful and simple. To the common observer, they might have seemed like the sort of place Mary Richards would live. But they were used to entertain clients of his lobbying firm and the politicians they needed. Usually prostitutes and drugs were involved. In some of the apartments, cameras were installed, though not in the one A. Lloyd used.

Sometimes he would meet Lana there, or another girl. Sometimes he liked to go there alone. The apartment was his refuge from the world, which could even wear a man like him down from time to time.

He climbed the stairs to the second floor, unlocked the apartment door, and let himself in.

“Hey, babe,” he called out.

There was no response. And it was not until he walked into the living room and dropped his keys on the coffee table that he saw the man with the gun sitting in the red armchair in front of the tall oak armoire.

Reese said, “Hello, A. Lloyd.”

Gelmers stared at the man for a few moments. The hair was no longer blond. Though it wasn’t gray, either. Dark—dyed? And then he knew.

“John.”

“Sit down,” Reese said.

A. Lloyd took a seat on the couch.

“Keep your hands on your knees.”

“John,” A. Lloyd said, managing a smile. “What are you doing pointing a gun at me? We’re old friends.”

“No, we’re old associates. There’s a difference. Aren’t you curious about the girl?”

“Oh. Lana. What did you do with her?”

“She’s in the bathroom. Tied up, gagged. She’ll be fine.”

“How did you know I’d come here?”

“Well,” Reese said, “some things don’t change, I guess. Southern girls, hideaways. You always were predictable.”

“Can’t say the same for you. How did you get out of prison?”

“I was kind of wondering if you could tell me that. A team of mercenaries came bearing the right paperwork. Top forgeries, or, more likely, they paid some people off. Whatever. If you’re in prison that long, you don’t care who it is who gets you out so long as they get you out. But these gentleman intended to kill me. Do you know why?”

“Now how would I know?”

“Well, you put me in there. I figured maybe you had a hand in getting me out.”

A. Lloyd Gelmers was an experienced politician. Lying came easily to him. He put on a disappointed face and said, “John, you’re not well.”

“I’m alive,” Reese said. “I had a lot of time to think about things. Several years, in fact. My lawyer had a lot of time, too. He requested documents under the Freedom of Information Act. You know, trying to help me on appeal. Didn’t do any good, obviously. But he found one piece of paper saying the U.S. attorney’s office received the initial tip about my work in Syria from a ‘reliable informant.’ Now who could that be? Who knew what I was doing in Syria?”

“John—”

“Three people. One of them was Jackson, and he wouldn’t have told anyone. The second was Carlyle, and he was dead. So that left you.”

“John—”

“The reliable informant was the army intelligence liaison to the Senate. Which, at the time, was you.”

“John, you’re crazy.”

“What did you get for that, A. Lloyd? What did you get for giving me up? Was it a favor from someone in the Senate? Or at the Agency? Or was it just vengeance? Anger at me because I always knew you were a fraud.”

“John, you’re not yourself. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, cut it out, A. Lloyd. I know. Two and two make four. I always suspected it was you anyway. Now I know.”

“Okay,” A. Lloyd said, “so what, then? You come here to kill me, John? Another confirmed kill?”

Reese smiled. “I was a soldier,” he said. “Perhaps you’d understand if you’d ever been one yourself.”

A. Lloyd reddened. “Oh, fuck you, John. Come in here with your macho bullshit. Look at you. You look ridiculous. Hair dyed, pointing a gun with a silencer at me. What if I did turn you in? What are you going to do now? Kill me for it? You’ll still be nothing. A broken-down fugitive. You’re finished. Killing me isn’t going to make things any better for you.”

“Maybe not,” Reese said. “Then again, maybe I’ll feel better. Tell me who broke me out and why.”

“How should I know? These guys don’t tell me everything.”

Reese studied his old colleague.

“What guys?” Reese said.

“What?”

“You said ‘These guys.’ What guys?”

“I don’t know.”

“A. Lloyd, just tell me what you know.”

“All right,” A. Lloyd said. “I’ll tell you what I know, on one condition. Let me check on Lana.”