Guilt (24 page)

“Now you know the room is going to be dark,” Peter explained. Even for someone who wasn't paranoid, entering a small, darkened room with a bunch of strangers in it could be intimidating. “That's because of the one-way glass. It's dark on our side so we can see into the other room where the suspects are, but they can't see us.”

MacRae held open the door. Already inside, standing in the shadowy room, were Neddleman and a man in a suit whom Peter took to be the DA.

Harry paused on the threshold. MacRae looked exasperated, like he wanted to drop-kick Harry into the room. Peter motioned to him to cool it. Finally Harry slid sideways inside and, hugging the wall, made his way around to the edge of the one-way glass. He waited there, his ear to the window frame.

Five men were lined up in the adjacent room, visible through the glass. Peter recognized an unhappy-looking Rudy Ravitch. Next to him was a fellow who looked familiar. It was the man Peter had watched MacRae interview. James Tietz. Had he been so pale before? Now there were hollows under his eyes. Peter remembered his long-standing vendetta against officialdom. Here was a man who was not a schizophrenic, but he distrusted the police every bit as much as Harry.

Peter didn't recognize the other three men in the lineup, though he assumed they were faces from the gallery of photos in the situation room.

Harry inched forward so he could just see through the glass. His arm snaked out across the window and whipped back. Harry watched. No one in the lineup flinched. Harry did it twice more. Then he walked to the middle of the window. With his face nearly touching the glass, he wiggled his fingers behind his ears and stuck out his tongue. Finally, he stretched his arms up over his head and pressed his palms to the glass. Peter could imagine the caption to the picture:
SPLAT!
Still, no one on the other side of the glass reacted.

Harry took a few steps back. Peter put his hand on Harry's shoulder and exchanged looks with MacRae before he said anything. “See anyone you recognize?”

“Sure,” Harry said. Peter could feel a collective intake of breath. “That.” Harry pointed to a man on the end, heavyset and dark. “He gets coffee at Peet's in the morning.” Peet's was a coffee joint in Harvard Square. “Takes the T. And that one.” Harry indicated James Tietz. “He was at that so-called hospital where they kept me locked up.”

“I mean, do you see the man who took your flag?” Peter said.

Now Harry took his time. He looked at each man in the lineup, his gaze lingering on Rudy Ravitch. Ravitch's brow was glistening with sweat. Then Harry studied James Tietz. Tietz looked tired and uncomfortable. He raised his arm and coughed into the crook of his elbow. When he put down his arm, Peter noticed what looked like cold sores, one at the corner of his lip, another on the end of his nose. In the harsh light, the sores looked like they were crusted over with putty, like he'd tried to cover them with makeup. Tietz had more sores on the backs of his hands.

When Harry finished his survey of the suspects, he turned his attention to the men in the observation room with him. He took his time giving Neddleman the once-over. Next he scrutinized McRae, then the DA, and finally Peter.

“He's not here,” Harry said. “Figures. I didn't think you were going to get my flag back.”

*   *   *

After the lineup, Peter waited in the hall. He suppressed a smile as he watched Harry take his good sweet time putting on his coat. Then Harry asked where was the men's room. Five minutes later, he ambled past, torturing the uniform assigned to escort him out by meandering through the hall, sticking his head into office after office. He stopped to commune with the soda machine. He cadged some money off his escort and got himself a Coke.

Neddleman stepped into the situation room and motioned for Peter to follow him. He pulled the door shut, then stepped over to the bulletin board with the head shots of active suspects.

“The man that Harry said takes the T and goes to Peet's?” Neddleman said, indicating the photo of one of the men Peter had seen in the lineup. “He's a janitor at the law school. Harry probably does see him around the Square, maybe even at Peet's.”

“Which suggests that Harry's right about Tietz, too,” Peter said. “Did you notice, that guy doesn't look well. He's got some kind of cold sores on his face, and also on the back of his hand. Maybe Harry did see him at Cambridge Hospital. Could be that's the reason he wouldn't tell you where he was at the time of the courthouse bombing.” MacRae made a note. “Maybe he's being treated for something he doesn't want his boss and his coworkers to know he's got.”

Cambridge Hospital. Peter knew it had an AIDS out-patient clinic. He hoped they'd have a hard time finding out if Tietz was one of its clients. Patient confidentiality should count for something.

“So none of the men in the lineup took his flag?” Neddleman asked with a weary sigh that almost made Peter feel sorry for him. “I suppose negative progress is still progress.”

Peter had to get back to work. He glanced at his watch. “Getting late,” he said.

“Thought you'd be interested in these,” Neddleman said, ignoring the hint. He spread out four photos on the table. “These are the men who had their key cards stolen. Notice any similarities?”

They were all men in their thirties or forties, all with dark hair, two with glasses and two without, not one of them distinctive-looking.

Peter realized what Neddleman was getting at. Maybe the A-bomber had stolen photo IDs of men who approximately resembled himself.

“How do you think he managed to get all those key cards?” Peter asked.

“As you pointed out, this could easily have been pulled off by one of the security guards. Any reasonably nimble pickpocket could have done it, too. The IDs could have been lifted in the courthouse caf. People use key cards to get a discount, then half of them eat with their IDs sitting on their trays. All you'd have to do is stroll by and help yourself.”

He told Peter that they had the State House “battened down tighter than a drum.” The governor was scheduled to address a joint session the following Monday. “We'll have uniforms all over the place, ultratight security, snipers up in the gallery. We're not taking any—”

Peter broke in. “Listen, this is all fascinating, but I gotta get back.”

“Of course. I'll get someone to take you, and thanks for the help with Harry.” Peter shook his offered hand, and Neddleman held on. “There's one thing I wanted to ask.” Here it came, the reason he was being so chatty and nicey-nice. “It's critical that we know when this maniac sends you another email.”

“I'll let you know the minute I do.”

Neddleman dropped Peter's hand. “With all due respect, if past performance is any indicator, you don't check your email more than a couple of times a day. That may not be enough. If we could get access to your account, then we could monitor it and…”

Peter understood that Neddleman was concerned about public safety, but still, how could he make such a suggestion? As if doctor-patient communications were no more sacrosanct than transactions on eBay. He tried to keep his voice calm. “That's impossible. Patient confidentiality is at issue, and the hospital is on a secure network.”

“We won't read your email, just monitor it, screen for messages from CANARY911.” Neddleman's informality had been transformed into military stiffness.

The arrogant sonofabitch. “Are you kidding? I'd get fired, and rightly so.”

Neddleman gave Peter a hard, impassive look. “I
can
get a warrant.”

It seemed incomprehensible that the police could get a court order to check his email. Wasn't privacy guaranteed in the Constitution, not to mention HIPAA regulations and doctor-patient privilege?

“Then you'd better get one,” Peter said, and picked up his jacket.

Neddleman was barely breathing. He had his hands clasped in front of him, and one finger was going up and down like a metronome.

Time to deescalate. They were talking about messages from someone who didn't care how many people he killed. Peter consciously unfolded his arms and softened his stance. “Tell you what, you got a computer with Internet access? I'll check it right now. And again when I get to the Pearce. And then every few hours.”

“Every hour. And when you're sleeping?”

“I only sleep about six hours.”

Neddleman gave a grudging nod. “We'll see how it goes.”

Like a good soldier, he went into Neddleman's office and checked his email. No new messages from CANARY911.

Neddleman promised a squad car would pick him up in front of the police station in ten minutes. Before leaving, Peter took a detour to MacRae's cubicle, intending to blast him for getting him snarled up in this mess. But as he got near, he heard voices. MacRae wasn't alone. The other voice was a woman's. Peter paused to listen more closely. It was a very familiar woman's voice, too low to make out the words. He strode past, giving a quick sideways look just to confirm. It was Annie. She and MacRae were leaning toward each other over MacRae's desk. He had his hand over hers.

Peter headed for the exit. He had no right to be angry, he knew that. Annie and MacRae had a long friendship going back to when they were kids. They'd grown up in Somerville, gone to the same high school, and law enforcement ran in their families. Still, he'd have been happier if Annie had told him why she was going to be visiting MacRae. What were they doing holding hands, anyway?

*   *   *

Annie knew she was losing it. She lowered her voice to a whisper, but she had her hand balled up in a fist. It was all she could do to stop herself from banging on MacRae's desk, or better yet, his thick head.

“I know there isn't a missing person's report,” she said. “Brenda Klevinski has been estranged from her family for years, and why would her ex-husband want anyone to look for her when he probably killed her? She and her son could be buried in the basement of that house.”

MacRae put his hand over hers. “You don't know that. Annie, calm down.”

He could be so damned patronizing. Annie eased her hand away. “What if I get her sister to file a missing person's report?”

MacRae leaned his chair back. “After what, five years? That's not going to count for much. She's over twenty-one.”

“Don't you get it? Her ex-husband has her mail delivered to a PO box. He's using her credit card to make it look like she's still around. And there's a bank account with twelve thousand dollars in her maiden name that I'm sure her ex doesn't know about because the bank statements go to the house she hasn't lived in for six years. I'm telling you, Brenda Klevinski is not alive and well and living in Reno.”

“Annie, has it occurred to you that we have an awful lot going on right now? If the mayor's wife went missing, we'd have a hard time freeing up personnel to do a serious investigation.”

“If it turns out that Brenda Klevinski's ex-husband killed her and, because you're too busy to give this any bandwidth, his wife and little girl get hurt—”

MacRae held up his hands in surrender. “Okay, okay. I'll get someone to look into it.”

“When?”

“Soon.”

“You're not just saying that to placate me.”

“YES, I'm saying that to get you off my case.” He stood. “I told you, I will put someone on it. Next week, after Monday.” When he set his jaw like that, she knew that was the best she was going to get out of him.

Annie got up. “You can be such an asshole.”

MacRae leaned forward, his hands on desk. “So can you.”

25

P
ETER BLINKED
into the bright sun outside the police station. Annoying but not surprising, no police cruiser was idling at the curb waiting to take him back to the Pearce. It had only been a few minutes since Neddleman promised a car would be there.

A virtual city of TV vans were camped out near the police station. There was barely room for the chess players and street people who usually owned the benches on the patch of scruffy lawn adjacent to the Central Square intersection. Harvard Harry was there, talking with a man in a dusty overcoat who sat on a bench beside a full shopping cart topped off with a blanket.

“Dr. Zak! Dr. Zak!” Peter groaned, recognizing the high-pitched, lispy voice. Sure enough, the man who came loping over to him had press credentials hanging from around his neck. It was the reporter who'd been pestering him with telephone messages.

“Walter Waxman.” Waxman offered a pudgy hand. “Have you got a minute for some questions?” He was a short, overweight man, a little soft around the edges, with dark, thinning hair.

“I'm not answering questions. Talk to media relations. That's their job.”

Waxman peered at him, eyes intense through smudged Clark Kent glasses. He held up a microcassette recorder. “Dr. Zak—”

“Please, get that thing out of my face.”

Where the hell was his ride? He glanced back at the police station. Annie was coming out the door and across the sidewalk, heading toward him. She held her jacket closed and had her head down.

“Would you get lost, please,” he told Waxman. Annie drew level with them, her back hunched, her body tight and closed. “Annie?”

Her head jerked up. She glanced back to the police station, then at Peter. “What are you doing here?”

“I was helping them…” Peter started. Waxman took a step closer. The last thing he wanted was to give this idiot inside information.

“You a friend of Dr. Zak's?” Waxman said, all innocence.

“Annie Squires,” she said, before Peter could stop her.

“This man is a reporter,” he told her, raising his eyebrows.

Annie eyed the press credentials.

“You're one of the detectives?” Waxman asked.

“It's none of your—” Peter's words were interrupted by a high-pitched wail.