You Have the Right to Remain Silent (24 page)

“I would have said Webb.”

“Webb? Why?”

“Primarily because he'd been with Universal Laser since the day it was born. For Webb it would be like watching a child growing up straight and strong and then inexplicably turning twisted. Going to Washington with the story would simply be a way of seeking help.” Holland's words were becoming slurred.

It was a mystery doomed to stay a mystery. Marian and Holland both realized they'd never know which of the men had tried to stop the development of the laser handgun and whose good intentions had gotten all four members of the liaison team killed. “What were Page and Quinn planning to do with the damned handgun anyway?” Marian asked irritably.

Holland tried to stifle a yawn and failed. “Oh, Page undoubtedly has little groups of people picked out all over the world that he wants to arm with superior weapons. Guerrilla groups, infiltrators. Good guys who'll fight against whatever force Page thinks is threatening the security of the land of the free and the home of the brave—said force subject to lightning-swift change, of course. Page is really a CIA man at heart.”

That made Marian feel more discouraged than ever. “I can't think what to do next.”

“Nor I. Sergeant, I'm going to have to borrow your sofa for a few hours. I haven't had any sleep since Thursday night, and I'll not be of any help until I've done some catching up.” He looked ready to collapse right there on the kitchen table.

“Use the bedroom,” Marian said, putting her raincoat back on. “I'm going out for a couple of hours anyway.”

“Now? Where are you going?”

“Personal matter,” she said, and left.

20

Kelly Ingram hadn't been up very long and her eyes were still sleepy. “Marian!” she cried. “Did you see the reviews? They
loved
us! Every single one of them loved us! Well, almost every single one. Come in, come in!”

Marian followed her friend into her kitchen, saying nothing but listening closely to Kelly's cheerful morning-after-the-debut chatter. Selfishly, that's what she'd come for; maybe she could absorb some of Kelly's upbeat energy and fight off the glooms. She accepted a cup of coffee but said no to a muffin.

“I was just starting to listen to my phone messages,” Kelly was saying. “I had to turn the bell off, or I wouldn't have gotten any sleep at all! I must have a zillion messages—I didn't know I'd given my phone number to that many people. Oh, Marian, it's all worked out better than I ever hoped. Did you read any of the reviews?”

“I read every one I could get my hands on,” Marian said. “In fact I read them twice. They all had such
respectful
things to say about you—”

“Yes! That's just it! They treated me with respect, even the one or two critics who were lukewarm about the play. Not one of them so much as mentioned all those tootsie roles I used to play on television. They treated me as if I have a right to be here!”

That brought a faint smile. “Is there any doubt? You do belong on the stage.”

“Oh,
I
know that, but I just wasn't sure the rest of New York knew it. But now they do, snicker snicker, and ah ain't a-never gunna let 'em fergit it. Oh,
god
, Marian, I feel so good! Did you know David Lynch was there last night?”

Marian listened quietly as she tried to let herself be drawn into Kelly's world. She wanted to will away all thoughts of laser guns and treacherous FBI agents, of police captains blinded by personal ambition, of the man asleep in her apartment whom even now she had trouble trusting. She tried not to think of the manhunt then in progress, with Edgar Quinn running for his life. And in trying not to think of those things, of course she ended up thinking of nothing else. She brought herself up short and forced herself to listen to what Kelly was saying. Only Kelly wasn't saying anything.

Instead, her friend was looking at her worriedly. “Marian? What is it? What's the matter?”

Marian was feeling too sluggish to pretend to be cheerful but she did manage to say, “Just not enough sleep, Kel, that's all. Listen, I meant to ask you, who hosted the party we went to last night? I never did meet him, or her, or them.”

But Kelly just shook her head. “Won't do, Marian. Don't try to change the subject. Something has got you down—I know the signs too well. Come on, tell me. What's eating at you?”

Marian was silent for a long moment, and then for the first time she put into words what had been on her mind for some time. “I'm thinking of resigning from the police force.”

Kelly was shocked. She grabbed Marian's hand and started squeezing it, for Marian's comfort or her own neither one of them could say. When Kelly finally got her voice back, she said, “But, but you
love
police work!”

“I used to,” Marian said. “It was the only career I ever considered. But the job has changed, or I've changed, or both. I don't like what I'm doing anymore. I don't like the place I work or the people I work with.”

“Well, sure, criminals and murderers and—”

“I don't mean them,” Marian said with a groan. “I mean the so-called good guys, the cops. The FBI. I don't like any of them, and most of all I don't like seeing them in
my
profession.”

Kelly's eyes widened. “FBI? You mean Trevor?”

“Yeah, Trevor too. I've been building up to this for a couple of months, and Trevor Page is just the icing on the cake. Oh, it's all very involved, and all I want is to turn my back on it and walk away. There's another FBI agent, a man I don't completely trust—but I'm going to have to trust him, and I don't like that either. Oh, lord. When you're this miserable about your work, aren't you supposed to do something about it?”

“Like quit?” Kelly asked indignantly. “Is that the only solution you can come up with?”

“Frankly, yes.” She thought a minute. “When you're a cop, you know you can never put an end to crime. But you do have a realistic hope of containing it, of limiting the harm it can do. Kelly, I no longer have that hope. Everything's out of control. I'm a cop, and I can't count on the cops anymore.”

“You mean they're crooked? On the take?”

“No, not that. It's as if they've all been sucked into an attitude toward their work I can't live with … a way of doing things that pretty much neutralizes any good you might do. I have a captain who's more interested in promoting himself out of the Ninth Precinct than he is in catching the right perpetrator. I have a partner who's turned sour and who was never too bright to begin with. And the FBI … the FBI has been using the police for its own purposes. The end justifies the means, every time. No exceptions.”

“Well, now, you know that isn't true,” Kelly said pragmatically. “And I'm sorry, Marian, but I just don't believe there's nothing you can do about it. You're the most resourceful person I know, and I can see your situation must be pretty bad if
you
are thinking of giving up. I'd guess you're just kind of overwhelmed right now … but that's only right now. Don't make any decisions while you're feeling so down.”

“Oh, I know better than that,” Marian said with a faint smile.

“Good.” Kelly looked at her watch. “Come talk to me while I get dressed—I'm supposed to be at the theater at one. I want to know what Trevor Page's part is in all this.”

Marian was appalled. “The theater? Oh my god, you have a matinee today! I forgot, I completely forgot. Oh, Kelly, I'm sorry—I would never have dumped this on you if I'd—”

“Marian,” Kelly said firmly. “Don't be a twitterhead. I would have been hurt if you
hadn't
come. But I don't know any of the details. How much can you tell me about your case? Is Trevor—”

But Marian was on her feet and gathering up her things to go. “Kelly, you should be thinking about your performance this afternoon, not about my problems. Put me out of your mind and concentrate on Sheila and
The Apostrophe Thief
. We'll talk later, I promise. I'll tell you all about the case.” She took a deep breath. “I'll even tell you what Trevor Page did.”

“
Mar
-ian!”

“'Bye, Kelly. Knock 'em dead.” She gave her a quick hug and left.

It had rained while she was in Kelly's apartment, and the air was muggy and heavy. Marian stopped at a deli and loaded up on food, two bags full; there was no knowing how long Holland would have to stay at her place. And Marian needed to eat; she was getting a headache.

The rain started again as she ran from her car to the apartment building. Upstairs, she put the soggy bags down and unlocked all four locks. From the doorway, she could see straight into the bedroom. And what she saw was Curt Holland, sitting up on the bed, his eyes glazed … aiming a gun directly at her.

“Holland,” she said softly. “It's me.”

When he'd focused on who she was, he lowered his gun and fell back on the bed, asleep again in an instant. Marian's hands were shaking as she turned the bolts in the door behind her.

In the kitchen she opened a carton of chicken salad and dipped in with one of the plastic spoons the deli had provided. But once she had the chicken salad in her mouth, her throat tightened up on her and she couldn't swallow. The day had finally gotten to her, the betrayals and the double-crosses and the sure-fire knowledge of trouble still to come. Noiselessly she slid to the kitchen floor and sat there, her back against a cabinet door and both legs straight out in front of her.

Seeing a loaded gun pointed at her when she came in was the last straw. Marian didn't blame Holland; he was only protecting himself. But getting shot as she entered her own home would have been a fitting climax to the day. The new alliance between DiFalco and Page was a dangerous one; DiFalco was willfully blind and Page was acting out of desperation. Of the two betrayals, Marian resented DiFalco's the most. Even worse than his threats was the dirty trick he'd played, springing his “solution” to the case on her the way he did—in public, so she couldn't stand up and say
Hey, there, Captain—you got it wrong
. She wondered about Edgar Quinn; it was hard to believe Page would let the one man who could incriminate him stay alive. Maybe Quinn was already dead.

If he wasn't, Page would be looking for him, the way he was sure to be looking for Holland. And if he found out Holland had confided in her, she would be next on his list. Trevor Page, the new “interesting” man in her life, would kill her without hesitation if he thought she posed a threat to him. In spite of DiFalco's self-congratulatory winding up of the case, it wasn't over yet. But how to blow the whole thing open before Page did any more killing? And how to keep from getting caught in the fallout? She had no idea; she was tired of the case and tired of thinking about it. How she wanted to walk away! It was as if the little Dutch boy had pulled his thumb out of the hole in the dike and said, “To hell with this—I'm going home.” With her eyes closed, Marian could see the cracks spreading across the dike.

What is the matter with me?
she thought with a start.
Sitting on the kitchen floor thinking about dikes and deluges! Have I gone completely daft?

She got to her feet, swallowed the chicken salad she'd been holding in her mouth all that time, and ate some more. She put the perishables away in the refrigerator, took a long drink of tonic water, stumbled in to the sofa, and collapsed.

The phone ringing woke her up.

“Don't answer.” Holland was standing in the kitchen doorway, holding a plate of deli meats and pasta salad. They listened to the message.

It was Page. “Marian, this is Trevor—where are you? I've been trying to find you all day. Why did you run out this morning? I have much to tell you, starting with one Captain DiFalco and his grandstand play. That circus this morning wasn't my idea—I was under orders to go along with him.” There was a pause. “This thing isn't over yet, in spite of what the good captain may think. Marian, I do need to talk to you. Something's happened. Holland has dropped out of sight, and I think he may be the key to the whole mess. I need your help.” Another pause, and Page's voice changed, softened. “I want to see you, Marian. We can't let DiFalco's jumping the gun spoil last night for us. Call me.”

Holland put down his plate of food and turned on her in a movement that made her wince. His expression was glacial. “Last … night.”

Marian flapped a hand at him. “Relax, you haven't delivered yourself into the enemy camp.” When he continued to look icebergs at her, she said, “We went to a play, that's all. Don't create problems where there are none.”

“You went to a play. I didn't know you were even that chummy.”

Marian didn't like the implications of that. “And if you had known?”

“I wouldn't have come to you for help,” he said bluntly. “How can I count on you to hunt down a man you've been he-ing and she-ing with?” Holland looked as if he wanted to strangle her. “I was a fool to come here,” he muttered.

“No, you weren't,” Marian said hotly, “but you're being a fool now. Goddammit, Holland, who the hell are you to tell me I won't do my job?
I'm
the professional here, not you. You're just a lawbreaker who got blackmailed into working for an organization you don't give a hoot about. I'm a hell of a lot more worthy of trust than you are. Now you get off my back—
do you understand?
”

He held his glacial look a few seconds longer and then eased into the sardonic, arrogant smile that Marian hated. “A very impassioned speech,” he said with a faint sneer. “Almost convincing, in fact. Especially that part about trustworthiness. However, I'm sure you'll understand if I do not immediately fall to my knees in abject apology.”

They glared at each other for a moment. Then Marian said, as calmly as she could, “Look, if I can adjust to the idea that you are the good guy, you can live with the fact that I went to a play with Trevor Page. It didn't contaminate me, you know.”