But he didnt get it?
My father said Walters schemes were all too big and not well thought through. My parents argued about it. It must have been my mother who invited him that afternoon. Id never liked Walter, and I could tell my father didnt either, but he was a friend of my mothers so hed always been around. I was so stupid then, I didnt even know what friend of my mothers meant.
Thats the wrong word, Joe said. Stupid.
She shrugged that off. Anyway, he was there, and even I could see he was getting nowhere with the moneymen. I went to my room for something, I dont remember what, and when I came out, there was Walter. He cornered me. He said Id better be quiet or Id embarrass my father. I tried to push him away but
He touched me, kissed me
whispered things Id never even heard. His breath was so hot. I kept twisting around, completely trapped. The only thing I could have done was yell. But I didnt. Because of the clients. Finally it couldnt have been very long but it seemed like hours someone called his name. He turned, and let go just enough for me to knee him in the crotch. One of the older girls at school had told us about that, to do it if a man got fresh. I didnt know what fresh meant and I didnt know if what Walter was doing was it, but the knee thing seemed like it might work. It did. He was the one who shouted. I squirmed away and ran to my room. Ive always wondered what he told them about the shout. She paused again, but this time not for long. I didnt tell my father about the hallway. When I told him about Walter and my mother I had some dumb idea hed make Walter stay away from her, and that would keep him away from me, too. But what he got furious about wasnt the two of them so much I think he must have known, somewhere, that that was going on but that Walter had set me up to see it.
Set you up?
Suggesting I come for coffee. There was no coffee. Just Walter and my mother, half naked and rolling all over each other on a bear rug. Have you ever heard such a cliché? My mother
A crow squawked and flapped in a pine, startled by something. Joe searched the branches but couldnt see it.
He did it, Walter did it he invited me, I mean to get back at me. And because he knew Id come. To show him I wasnt scared. Any sensible fourteen-year-old would have avoided him like a disease, after that scene in the hallway. But he knew Id take it as a dare. And I fell right into it.
The deep shadows that covered the yard had settled into the trees now, too, though the sky was still light.
He must have known I might tell my father, she said, and he didnt care. More than didnt care. He wanted that. So my father could see who won.
Sutton Place
Unable to stay still any longer, Ann plunged down the steps, strode across the yard until she reached the peonies backed onto the rocks and could go no farther. She stopped, looking around at the areas Joe had cleared and at the ones he hadnt gotten to, at the plants hed brought here and the ones hed uncovered and encouraged. Beside the peonies stood a patch of thin-leafed, knee-high stalks. Some kind of vine corkscrewed over them, weighing them down, but she could see more of them popping up here and there, even in the peonies. Go ahead, she could hear them say to the vines, try to smash us down: we still have tricks up our sleeves. Suddenly she wanted more than anything to be like Joe. She wanted to know what to do here, in this one place; to have a task she could accomplish and something cheering for her to succeed, even if it was only a patch of thin-leafed plants.
Rudbeckia.
She hadnt heard Joe come up but she wasnt surprised to find him there.
In a month theyll be almost as tall as you are, he said. With yellow flowers.
What do they need?
Just sun. They do everything else themselves.
What about that? She pointed at the vine.
Grapes. Ill take it out but they wont really care. If they have to theyll grow right through it.
Theyre coming up here, too, and over there.
Theyre tough little bastards. Theyd take over if you let them. Just the way the grapes would. In a way, they deserve each other. Except that its not up to them.
What do you mean?
In the dusk she saw his old, slow smile. Its up to me. Tell me why you told me that story. Why you said Now is the only time.
She wanted to keep talking about the flowers but she couldnt think of anything to ask. Walter was responsible for those accidents. And the murders of those gangbangers, and Jen, too. Maybe he didnt kill anyone personally, I dont know. But hes responsible.
All that evidence
Was discredited. I know. And we thought that meant we were reading it wrong. But thats not what happened. We were reading it just the way we were meant to. It was all planted. She took a breath and told him the worst part. And it was planted under my nose. Because Walter knew Id fall for it. Now that shed spoken it into reality she braced herself, expecting the weight of her stupidity, of the disgust and pity Joe would surely feel, to crush her into the ground.
Nothing happened. Joe didnt speak, the earth didnt open, and the sky stayed where it was.
Tentatively, as though stepping onto a log across a brook, she went on. It was all so carefully planned. When everything was ready he had me called back from Siberia, gave me a stick to sniff, and turned me loose. And what a good little puppy I was! I dug it all out and brought it back just the way he knew I would. Just the way I found him with my mother, and told my father. Just the way he knew I would.
She gazed into the flower bed, then leaned forward and seized a handful of vine. She tugged; the entangled stalks bent but the grapevine didnt yield.
Not that way, Joe said. Its roots are back by the rock. Pull it gently in the direction its growing from. Itll let go.
She waded into the rudbeckia, hesitantly at first, then with a rhythm, wrapping the vine around her hand as she tugged it loose. She followed it through the patch, to the boulder. What do I do now?
If you can find where it comes out of the ground, pull it up. If its between the rocks and you cant get at it, break it off.
Wont it just come back if I do that?
Its better than nothing.
So she twisted and bent the vine until it broke, then plowed her way out of the rudbeckia, bearing her trophy.
You think Im crazy, dont you?
No. I think I need to hear what happened in the last two days that brought you to this conclusion.
I told it all to Greg. He thinks Im crazy.
When did you do that?
Yesterday.
Before you saw Walter at Jens memorial.
There was enough to tell.
Then tell it to me.
*
Joe made scrambled eggs, toast, and bacon. And Fig Newtons for dessert, he said.
Dont you ever eat real food?
Canned beef stew?
Ill take the scrambled eggs. Are you going to put anything in them?
Canned beef stew? He grinned when she smiled.
While they ate she told him everything: ODoul, the jeweler, Shamika, Blowfish and the Latin Kings.
I was wondering about the thunderbolt, Joe said.
She inspected her nails. Only two got broken in the garage. I dont know what she uses but I think Ill go back to her. Joe? What am I going to do?
I dont know.
Those words might have brought despair but Ann felt a sudden wave of déjŕ vu. Not disorienting, as that sense usually was. Reassuring and familiar, instead. This was how they used to work, Chinese food containers or pizza boxes building a temporary landscape across his desk or hers. Theyd lay out facts and look at them, talk about them, and decide what to do next. I dont know didnt mean Joe was at a loss. It just meant shed asked too soon.
She cleared the table while Joe built a fire. He brought the box of Fig Newtons and sat beside her on the sofa.
Hes made you into the boy who cried wolf, Joe said. If youre right about Glybenhall being the one who sent the guy after you today
What do you mean if?
then it makes sense that the guy was supposed to hurt you but not kill you. Youre still official, even if youre on desk duty, so killing you would bring down weight. But an attack in your own garage could be written off to just another mugging. Youd get the message without much risk to him. But
But what?
But something doesnt feel right.
She stared into the night. You said that before.
I did?
When this started. You said it didnt feel right, and I said it felt like Christmas. It felt like that because it was. Walter was giving me gifts. A log crumbled in the fire. Trojan horses. You were right.
I just feel like theres something missing, Joe said.
Like what?
The connections arent clear. Even if Shapiros working with Glybenhall
For, not with. No one works with Walter.
And why kill Jen? Why?
Like I said, lovers kill each other. Maybe it had nothing to do with this. Or maybe it did. Maybe she knew something.
You think she helped set you up? Planted evidence, was a go-between?
God, no. No, not Jen. Shed do almost anything for a laugh but she wouldnt have thought that was funny.
So it might be something shed found out by accident?
Could be.
The fire was mesmerizing, beautiful to watch, but Ann found it wasnt warming her. I need to go to sleep. But first I need to know what youre thinking, Joe.
What Im thinking is, if I were on the job, Id want to do more digging before I set my trap.
If you can think of how or where I could dig
But you cant. Its not safe now. Hell be waiting to see whether you took his warning. If you did hell leave you alone, but if he thinks you didnt there wont be a second one.
So you do think it was him.
It was somebody. Right now, hes most likely.
She smiled wryly. You always were a belt-and-suspenders guy.
She expected that to make him smile, too, to find, after all this time, her eagerness still straining against his caution. But he shook his head. Not always, he said, in a voice so soft she almost couldnt hear him. Not when it counted most.
In the garden the moon cast a silvery glow and some flowers she hadnt noticed in the daylight seemed to gleam in answer.
Move over. She settled against him and welcomed his warmth. She didnt speak. What could she have told him?
We need a confession. He coiled his arm around her.
I didnt do it, she said sleepily.
He looked down at her. Not, he said, from you.
Oh. You want Walter to confess? Go ahead and call him, I have him on speed-dial. Though if this is your interrogation technique, I suggest you refine it.
If we cant get a confession we need a smoking gun.
I had a gun. It was the wrong damn gun.
What about your friend Perez?
What about him?
Would he do some more digging?
Hes been ordered off this. Told to keep away from me. If we had a map to the treasure with a big X on it, Perez might dig. Otherwise, I dont think so.
But if we baited a trap, and it got sprung, could we count on Perez to come collect the rat?
She sat up to look at him. You have a trap?
I dont know. Im thinking. But if no ones there except you and me to see it catch anything, it wont work.
Perez got burned pretty badly. At this point Im not sure what would make him join up with me again. But there is someone we could count on.
Who?
Greg Lowry.
Lowry? I thought he was ready to lock you up.
He is. Thats why. Look how upset he got when I told him Mark Shapiro had to be involved.
You were dissing the honor of the agency. After me, thats got to be a sore point with Lowry. He smiled when he said that, but not with his eyes.
Ann kissed him and said, I dont think thats it. Greg wanted the Commissioners job and hes actually more qualified. It was political that Shapiro got it. Think of how frustrating it has to be for him to think that Shapiros involved in this but that I screwed it up so badly that none of it can ever be investigated again.
For that hed have to believe you. You said he thinks youre crazy.
I still could be right. The possibility must be driving him crazy.
So how does that help us?
If whatever trap youve thought up
I havent thought up anything.
But you will. And if it has the potential of handing him Shapiro if Im right, and me if Im wrong, Ill bet I could sell it to him.
You? Im not handing you to him.
When did it get to be your choice? The chance of that is whatll close the deal. He has to see that he cant lose. Walter and Shapiro for being as bad as I think they are, or me for stalking and harassing them, and Greg gets to save them. Hes a hero either way.
No. Softly, Joe said, Its no joke, Ann. Its nothing to be brave about. You dont know what its like.
No, I dont. And Im not very brave about it. But if Walter takes whatever bait youre thinking up, someone has to see it besides us, like you said. Its a risk worth taking.
Its not worth taking. Well think of someone else.
Who? Theres no one else, Joe. It has to be Greg. Whats the name of those plants, the ones that get as tall as I am?
Rudbeckia.
Think of me as them.
Youre much prettier.
And Walters the grapevine. Only this time, its not up to you. Im going to pull him up by the roots.
Joe stared, then burst out laughing.
She flushed. That was a little grandiose, right?
Oh, maybe just around the edges.
But you know what I mean. Walter cant do this to me twice. If theres any chance of nailing him, the risk is worth taking.
He gazed at her, his face shadowed. He pulled her to him and they didnt talk about the future again until morning.