A Murder of Crows (24 page)

“What am I supposed to do with these?” Harrison demanded.

“If the U.S. government is short of toilet paper, I assume—”

“Enough,” Yslan said.

“I thought you were the truth expert, Roberts.”

“It's not as simple as that.”

“Really? Why's that?”

“Look,” Decker said pointing at the stack of paper, “these folks knew they were being interrogated. Knew that they were suspected of doing something that they probably had nothing to do with.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Simple math. I've gone through almost two hundred and fifty interrogations. It's not possible that all of them had something to do with the attack. Not possible.”

“Yet more than two hundred of them you've marked as suspicious.”

“No. As potentially untruthful.”

“Same thing.”

“No, it's not. These people may be hiding something. Sure, but fuck, it could be anything. Maybe they're illegal in the country, maybe they cheated on their taxes, maybe that they hate America, maybe they oppose democracy, maybe they despise Chicken McNuggets—could be anything.”

“And why would that make them lie?”

“Oh, come on. You're the bad guys as far as they're concerned. They don't think you're questioning them to help them—or keep them safe. They think you're there to accuse them of complicity. So they hedge their bets.”

“They lie,” Harrison said.

“No. I didn't say that. They could be prevaricating or equivocating or paltering.”

“Or fucking lying.”

“Yeah, or that. All I can tell you is that I think they weren't telling the truth on the sections I underlined. But I have to tell you I'm not confident in even that. First, I wasn't there to see them talk.”

“And that's important?”

“It's sometimes crucial to me.”

“And this time?”

“I don't know.”

Harrison turned to Yslan. “I want them all questioned again. This time about their contacts with Professor Frost.” Then he turned to Decker. “You have just short of two hundred interviews left to review.”

“Maybe you folks are barking up the wrong tree by interviewing Muslims.”

“Really, Mr. Roberts.” He paused, evidently in some sort of argument with himself. He just as evidently came to some sort of resolution and said, “Do you know who Gerald Bull was?”

“No.”

“Well, Dr. Bull was a crazy-assed weapons inventor who was dealing directly with Saddam Hussein, and our dear Professor Frost had business dealings with that creep. So it's logical that his accomplice or accomplices were from the Muslim community, wouldn't you say?”

Decker ignored the rhetorical question but asked one of his own. “That's why the minimal security clearance on his file?”

“Yeah,” Harrison said. He pointed at the computer on Decker's desk and said, “The interviews are there for you to download and analyse. I want your opinion by nightfall.”

Decker had never heard the word “opinion” used as an obscenity before. But before he could say anything else, Harrison turned and left his room.

Yslan went to follow, then stopped herself and closed the door.

“You don't buy it, do you.”

“Buy what?”

“The jihadi connection to Professor Frost.”

“It's not for me to say. It's not why you brought me here.”

“But you don't buy it,” she pressed.

Decker reached into his backpack and took out two paperback books. The first was le Carré's
A Murder of Quality
. The second was Ancaster College's library copy of John Fowles'
Ebony Tower
. He handed them to her. “Read the underlined passages.”

Yslan accepted the books, put them on the desk and pulled up a chair.

“Explain,” she demanded.

“Just read the damned books.”

“Why?”

“I find books helpful,” he said.

“Okay. But that's just because you know literature, right?” Yslan said. “At least modern literature.”

Decker didn't answer. He hoped she was right but had a sneaking suspicion it had something to do with his other gift.

“Well, isn't it? You've done adaptations of a bunch of novels for the stage, haven't you?
Lady in the Lake, The Great Gatsby, A Canticle for Leibowitz, Brazzaville Beach
and
Rapture of Canaan.”

“I only started work on those last three, I—”

“—never produced them. Right. But you did get to adapt and direct
The Dwarf,
didn't you? In Cincinnati as I recall.”

“You know very well I did.”

“Yes. I do recall that.”

“That's how you found me, wasn't it? Through the Cincinnati Playhouse. That led you to Steven Bradshaw, who led you to me?”

Yslan didn't answer.

She didn't have to.

A look Decker hadn't seen before crossed her face. “Wanna know what's up with your supposed friend and accomplice in that little Cincinnati episode, one Mr. Steven Bradshaw?”

“Is this some kind of bribe or trick?”

“Neither. But I'm tired of you thinking of yourself like some kind of saint.” Before Decker could protest she continued, “After you used him—yes, that's the right term Mr. Roberts—used him, he had a seizure, then about two hundred more over the next month.”

“And is he—”

“All right now? No, I wouldn't say that unless you think that living in a vegetative state is ‘all right.' Perhaps you should be more careful, Mr. Roberts.”

More than you could possibly imagine,
he thought as he remembered finding Seth's diary in the hostel on Vancouver Island—with its eight by ten photograph of the dead boy from Stanstead, Quebec, whom Ira Charendoff had had killed. But more than the photo he remembered Seth's cutline on the bottom: “This is what happens when you get close to people, Dad. Stay away from me.”

Decker had used Steven Bradshaw's good services to contain Henry-Clay Yolles of Yolles Pharmaceuticals, but the last time he saw Steven the young man's eyes were glazed and he was seemingly unable to control the movement of his limbs.

Decker turned away. He couldn't allow Yslan to see his eyes.

“So, tell me about you and these books. This isn't about you and truth-telling. What's this—another parlour game of yours?”

Decker assumed his ability to walk down aisles and aisles of books and somehow find something of relevance to him was another subset of his gift. Like his ability to tell people's ages and backgrounds and his ability to find order in events—what he called “semblant order.” But he wasn't sure he wanted to share any of this with Special Agent Yslan Hicks.

“It's not a parlour trick.”

“Fine, what is it?”

“Before you met me, could you have worked out the riddle of the two sisters in the house at the fork in the road?”

Yslan opened her mouth, then shut it.

“Don't do that. Just answer my question and remember I know if you're telling the truth.”

After a moment she said, “No. I don't think I could have figured out the riddle.”

“Right. But I always could figure out things like that. Always. A library is just another kind of riddle.”

“Books speak to you?”

“I won't answer snide questions like that.”

“Fine,” she said and pointed to the computer. “Back to work with you.” She turned to go.

“Read the books,” he said.

She turned back to him. “And
L'Étranger,
should I read that, too? You still don't get it, do you?”

“Get what?”

“The moment you picked up that le Carré book in Johannesburg I had someone read and annotate it for me. You got the John Fowles book and
L'Étranger
from the library, they immediately reported it to us and they're being annotated, too.”

“Like Coles Notes.”

“What?”

“Canadian reference.”

“I can Google it or you can tell me what the fuck you're talking about.”

“They publish précis of books so school kids don't have to read the whole thing.”

“Ah, CliffsNotes. America invented that.”

“Another fine American export.” Decker remembered Eddie's admonition that there was no shortcut to living your life. “So, did you read the précis?”

“Yes, and the full books.”

“Good. Okay, so what did you think?”

“Well I get that the le Carré book implies that college towns are incestuous pits of liars and cheats, which we've found to be absurdly true. But I don't get what attracted you to the John Fowles book or
L'Étranger.
Or
Fanny and Alexander
while we are on the subject.”

“How did you—”

“Never mind. Tell me about the books.”

“Okay, remember the ‘Ebony Tower' short story in the book?”

“Yeah, the old writer goes to a cabin on the moors to complete his novel. A young thug comes in, ties him up and robs him.”

“Not as simple as that. The kid robs him but then promises to call the police to tell them to come and free the guy. Then he makes sure that the restraints aren't too tight, that the guy is comfortable.”

“Right,” Yslan said. Her eyes brightened as she said, “Then he sees the almost-completed novel.”

“Yeah, and when he learns that the old guy had written it what does he do?”

“He tightens the bonds, burns the novel and never calls the police. The old guy almost starves to death.”

“And what does the professor make of the thug's change in behaviour?”

“Something about those who—”

“Those who feel part of the secret of the written word and those who know that there is something special out there but they can't comprehend it. That they know they are being left behind. Left out of what some Irish poets call ‘life's roar.' Outsiders . . .
l'étrangers.
”
Lost in the woods,
he thought,
unable to find the clearing
.

“Not outsiders like an anchorite, though,” Yslan said.

Decker looked at her. “A what?”

“Nothing. Just a random thought. But you think—”

“That it's more likely you're searching for an outsider. Someone who feels he's been looking in the window of an expensive restaurant knowing he'll never have the money—or perhaps even the taste—to enjoy the secret in that place.”

“Stoney River.”

“Yeah, a whole town that works here but is on the other side of the glass—outside the secret.”

Yslan was suddenly on her feet. “And this person could have access to the entire university.”

“Yes. Access to the labs. Access to the graduation ceremony.”

“So a worker, a lab technician, a teaching assistant.”

“Or a janitor.”

She looked at him sharply.

“Read this,” Decker handed over Grover Cleveland Rabinowitz's paper on the microwaving of human fecal material.

Yslan quickly scanned it and was about to speak when Harrison barged back in, his face contorted with anger.

“What?” Yslan demanded.

“The president's changed his mind.”

“Well, that's a relief.”

“Not really.”

“Why's that?”

“He's decided not to come in four days, he's decided that the nation can't wait so he's coming the day after tomorrow.”

THE WALL-SIZED FLAT-SCREEN WAS ON AS THE GREY-HAIRED MAN
entered his three-storey loft. CNN was flashing a bulletin that the president had moved the funeral at Ancaster College forward.

He put aside his coat and watched the rest of the coverage, then poured himself a drink of pure rainwater as he thought about funerals.

He liked funerals. No, that's not the correct way to put it. He found that in the midst of the grief and grieving he was able to catch a whiff of their feeling. For a while he'd attended many funerals but never got exactly what he wanted from them. But this funeral in the small upper New York State town was something different, in both size and scope. So many people grieving at one time in one place—so much feeling in the air to wrap around himself.

He hit number 2 on his speed dialer and when the other end was picked up he said, “You know who this is.”

An affirmative response.

“I want a seat for the memorial at Ancaster College. Can that be arranged?”

Another affirmative.

He disconnected, then hit number 4 on his speed dialer and said, “Get the crew and plane ready.”

SO THE PRESIDENT IS COMING TO BLESS WHAT I HAVE DONE
, Walter thought.
Good. Very good. Very right. Yes, it's right that he comes and sees what I have done.

He almost used the word “wrought.” As in “See what I have wrought.” He knew that word from Sunday school. His teacher told him that the word meant “done.” He recalled asking her why they didn't just say what they meant. Then he remembered the girl beside him laughing at him.

He wanted to grab her long, narrow nose and pull it and pull it and pull it. But of course he didn't. He never did anything he really wanted to do back then—when he was a boy.

But now that he was a grown-up . . .

The president would speak at the church on Main Street, of course,
he thought.
No, not the church where my mother made me go to Sunday school—no, that wouldn't be good enough. And—and oh, yeah, of course—I won't be invited. Not invited. Left out, again. Laughed at.
He wanted to do more than pull someone's nose this time—much more.

He felt the headache begin and he tried to keep his eyes away from the setting sun. The sun sometimes made it worse. Then he felt himself smile, before he knew he wanted to smile.