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Authors: James Patrick Hunt

BOOK: The Betrayers
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Hastings left the crime scene around 3:00 A.M. and drove home. He lived in a two-bedroom condominium in St. Louis Hills. The condo was on Nottingham Avenue across the street from a park that covered two city blocks. It was a quaint, parochial neighborhood with a vaguely English sensibility. There was a church on each of the four corners of the park, the Catholic one being closest to Hastings's home. Lot of families in the neighborhood. Amy went to school at St. Gabriel's just down the street. Before the divorce, Hastings used to walk her there. Now that he had gotten joint custody of Amy, he still did, though it was no longer everyday.
George Hastings was raised in the Presbyterian church, but he had not attended services regularly since he was a teenager. Anne Klosterman, a devout Catholic herself, had once told her husband that George's agnosticism had something to do with his father being a churchgoing louse, but Joe had said father issues probably had little to do with it and that it may have stemmed more from his general distrust of institutions. Which is not at all ironic for some policemen.
Hastings's ex-wife, Eileen, was also a Catholic, in a way that Hastings had never quite figured out. Eileen actually owned paperback copies of the Catechism, Vatican II, Evangelium Vitae, and Chesterton's
Orthodoxy.
She could tell you the name of a conference that took place in 1930 wherein the Anglican Church formally split with the Vatican over the issue of birth control. She could explain in detail why she thought Cornwell's book
Hitler's Pope
was “a lot of shit.” And it was Eileen who filed for divorce and, within three months, married a lawyer she was working for who was about as religious as Ted Turner.
Eileen had given birth to Amy out of wedlock five years before she met Hastings. Amy's biological father was a man who styled himself an artist and left for California before the delivery. He had never attempted to support the child. Eileen had lived with her parents in Kirkwood and finished college. Hastings met her at a party, fell in love with her, and married her. He adopted Amy a year later. No one doubted that he adored Eileen. She was not popular with his friends and certainly not with other cops' wives. But to him she was clever, charming, stylish, and almost too beautiful. He soon discovered, though, that when it came to Amy, he felt he had won some sort of lottery. Until she became part of his life, he had not been aware of how much he could enjoy being a father. Perhaps because of this, he had hesitated to raise the subject of having more children in the early years of his marriage to Eileen. But as time went on, he did raise the subject with increasing frequency.
But Eileen Hastings was not interested in having any more children and she thought well enough of her husband to be candid about it. She had never misled him on that score.
“I'm too self-absorbed to be a parent, George.”
“But you're a parent now.”
“Not again. I don't want to do it again.”
She meant it too. Whatever else could be said about her, she usually meant what she said.
Last year he had found out she was having an affair with her boss. He was mortified and shocked. On top of that, he felt foolish because he had not seen it coming. He, the great detective and leader of men, was unaware. Amy, who was eleven years old at the time, probably sensed what was going on before he did. By the time the divorce proceedings were done, Eileen had ensured that they had joint custody of Amy and had even told Hastings that he would always be Amy's father. He decided that she meant it and was grateful to her. He was not sure he would have survived if he had lost Amy.
 
 
Hastings walked up the flight of stairs to his condo, unlocked the door, and let himself in. Closed the door behind him and switched on the lights to an empty home. The condo had a front living room that poured into a dining room, a kitchen, bathroom, and two bedrooms. The living room was sparsely furnished, now that Eileen's knickknacks were gone. Hastings had to admit he liked it better this way. He tossed his keys on a couple of magazines on the coffee table. He read more since the divorce because he had gotten rid of the cable television. Initially, it had been because he feared he would depend on cable like a drug to cope with loneliness, but he soon came to see that it gave him some relief that his daughter was not exposed to HBO or, worse, shows like
The Shield.
Quality television, maybe, but he did not want his twelve-year-old daughter to learn about sex from Kim Cattrall. Such things will bring out the James Dobson in most fathers.
The quiet surrounded him. He was tired. Friday, he thought. Tomorrow is Friday. He would have to pick up Amy at Eileen's and drive her to school. He looked at his watch. If he were lucky, he could get four hours of sleep. If the adrenaline and horror of the dead policemen did not prevent him from closing his eyes and shutting down for a little while.
 
 
Ted and Eileen lived in a split-level house in West County. It had five bedrooms and the carpet had been replaced by wood floors. There was a swimming pool in the backyard. Amy said that once, at a party, she had seen Ted jump from the second-story balcony into the pool. She said, “What an idiot.” Amy didn't seem to respect Ted very much. She said it was like living with a forty-five-year-old boy. It warmed Hastings to hear these sorts of observations from Amy, and after a time he came to believe that she meant them sincerely and was not just saying them for the sake of cheering him up. Though he would not have minded if that had been her intent.
For his part, Hastings could not really hate Ted Samster. In general, he was not a hater. And the harsh truth was if Ted had not taken Eileen away from him, someone else would have. Eileen simply did not want to be married to him anymore. Sort of like those people who will vote for anyone but Bush. Ted Samster was childish and materialistic, but he was obviously in love with Eileen and there were no signs that he mistreated her or took her for granted.
When Hastings pulled the Jaguar up to the house, Amy was standing out front. She was alone. Hastings felt a pang. He said to himself, what did you expect? That Eileen would be standing out there in her bathrobe—the black and white one he liked to see her in—waiting to greet him and ask, whatcha been up to? Again, he felt foolish. The woman stomps on your fingers as you're hanging off the cliff and you tell yourself, well, she's not stomping as hard as she could be.
Amy got in the Jaguar. They greeted each other and Hastings drove away.
Hastings said, “Do we have time to stop for coffee?”
“Sure,” she said.
 
 
Sitting at the table at the Clayton Starbucks, a to-go cup sat in front of Hastings, a small bottle of orange juice in front of the girl, her bookbag next to her feet. Pretty morning people came in and out, an old New Order song coming out of the speakers at a respectful decibel. They had about fifteen minutes, at most, to savor there before he took her to school and went to work.
Amy said, “How old were you when you first drank coffee?”
“I don't know,” Hastings said. “Maybe a couple of years older than you.”
“Did you like it? Then, I mean.”
“I don't think so. I started drinking it more when I was in college, to help stay awake in the morning. Then I began to like it.”
“Then it's sort of like a drug, isn't it?”
Hastings smiled. “No, it's not a drug.”
Amy said, “I saw this movie at Hailey's house the other night. It was black and white. It was just a bunch of people drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes.”
“Yeah? Did you understand it?”
“No. One of the parts had Meg and Jack White in it; that's why we rented it.”
“Who are they?”
“They're musicians.” She shrugged, like it was not worth explaining to him. She said, “Another part had Bill Murray in it. I mean, you know who he is.”
Hastings thought of
Stripes.
“Sure,” he said.
“He was drinking coffee straight from the pot. I guess it was supposed to be funny, but I didn't get it.”
“He used to be very funny.”
“When you were little?”
“Yeah,” Hastings said. “When I was little.”
An attractive woman in her thirties walked past them and gave Hastings a quick smile. It was the sort of thing that happened once in a while; he no longer wore a wedding band and a man with his little girl does not seem to present a threat. He half smiled back, and resisted the urge to turn and look at the lady's backside. Amy didn't miss much.
Even when he behaved.
She said, “Dad?”
“Yeah, honey?”
“Do you think you'll want to ever get married again?”
“I don't know. Maybe.”
“It's okay, you know. If you want to.”
“Is it,” he said, deadpan. “Can I marry Julia Roberts?” He said it because he and Amy had recently watched a PBS special together where the star had gone to Mongolia and lived with a family of nomads.
No makeup or script, and she was still quite a charmer. Though Hastings believed what had truly enamored him was when she played a coldhearted bitch on a
Law and Order
episode. He had some issues.
Amy Hastings rolled her eyes.
“She's married already.”
 
 
In the car, Amy said, “Mom is saying she wants to be a lawyer now.”
Oh, sweet Jesus, Hastings thought.
But he said, “Really? You mean she's going to go to law school?”
Amy shook her head. She had seen her mother go through a series of failed career attempts. “Who knows?”
“Well,” Hastings said, “maybe it will work out.”
Amy looked over at him like he was nuts.
He smiled, shrugged, and gestured. “Maybe it will.”
They got to the school and Amy said, “Oh, I forgot to ask earlier. Is it all right if Jen comes over tonight?”
“Yeah. As long as it doesn't interfere with dinner. What I mean is, I'm cooking tonight. If you have a friend over, we don't automatically order a pizza. We eat what I cook. Okay?”
“Okay.” She kissed him on the cheek. “Bye.”
He watched her walk to the school and become absorbed into the mass of uniformed children. You really can't complain, he thought. You really can't.
He was driving east on 64, downtown in view now with the St. Louis Arch looming beyond, when his cell phone rang. It was a number he did not recognize but he answered it anyway, keeping one hand on the wheel. Reckless driving habit, though most cops did it.
“Hastings.”
“Lieutenant?”
“Yeah. Lieutenant Hastings. Who is this?”
“This is Justin Elliott, Lieutenant, narcotics.”
“Oh, hey. What's up?” Hastings had met him before at a training seminar, but they hadn't said much to each other. The narcs sat at one table and the homicide dicks sat at another, tribes within a tribe.
Elliott said, “I understand you're heading the investigation on Hummel.”
“Yeah, both of them.”
“Okay,” Elliott said. “We need to talk to you.”
“All right. What is it?”
“Can you meet with us?”
It irritated Hastings, dodging the question. “I suppose,” he said. “You guys are on the fourth floor, right.”
“No, not at the PD. There's a bar in Fenton, Duke's. It's where the second shift from the Chrysler plant goes after work. You know it?”
“Fenton? That's a forty-minute drive.”
“Yeah, I know,” the narc said. “Can you do it? We've got a lead. In fact, I think we've got your case solved.”
Well ain't that sweet, Hastings thought.
Elliott said, “You know Chester Gibbs, assistant U.S. attorney?”
“I know who he is.”
“It'll just be me and him. Can you come alone?”
“Yeah. Okay.”
“We'll see you there at ten thirty.”
The guy clicked off and Hastings clicked off and dropped the cell phone on the passenger seat. Hastings sighed and took the exit ramp off the highway by the Purina dog food building. Narcotics. In love with a sense of mystery. Hastings remembered a guy in college who was studying aerospace engineering and working part-time for McDonnell Douglas; this was during the defense buildup of the eighties. The guy, who was all of twenty at the time, had a habit of telling people he was working on a “black project” at “Mack Doug” and when people would ask him what it was, he would say, “Can't tell you. Secret stuff.” Earnest
young fool, letting people know he was important. Yeah, you better put your dark glasses on in case Brezhnev is watching. Hastings imagined he had probably helped design some sort of clamp.

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