grew somber again and said, 'You're right, but… how are we supposed to know which cop, or which taxi driver, or which hospital employee is the one not to trust? That's the problem I'm having right now.'
Skeptical as I was of conspiracy theories to explain evil in human affairs, it was plain enough that Timmy's fears were not groundless, just, it seemed to me, highly exaggerated. Even more important, his fear was interfering with his analytical powers and clouding his judgment-often far keener than mine-in a way I knew was not going to help. I believed that taking the first train home to Albany would have been the smartest thing for him to do until he regained his perspective. But I knew he wasn't about to do that: he wouldn't leave Maynard; lie wouldn't leave me.
I said, 'What we have to do, I think, Timothy, is find somebody in authority who we can trust absolutely- someone who is known and trusted by someone in Washington we know and trust-and then confide in that person and ask him or her to help. What we need first and foremost is an honest cop. Preferably a top-echelon honest cop.'
'That makes sense,' Timmy said. 'But how would we ever be sure that the honest cop was an actual honest cop and not someone whose sole purpose in the police department wasn't to pose as an honest cop and gain the confidence of people like us and then-do something. Get rid of us or whatever.'
'Boy, you are freaked out.'
'I guess I am.'
'Do you want to go home?'
'Of course not. I mean, I'd love to, but it's out of the question.'
'I figured that. Would you like any help in getting through this? I mean beyond what I have to offer-kind words, back rubs, active and/or passive anal intercourse three point two times a week, et cetera?'
'No, what you have to offer sounds sufficient, Don. Why? What else did you have in mind?'
'I don't know. Pharmacological assistance perhaps, of a legal or illegal variety?'
'Nah.'
'A priest?'
'No, as you just pointed out, I've got you for anal intercourse.'
'How about a Jungian analyst? A little dream work might be just what the doctor ordered for a boy overcome with the heebie-jeebies. Or an orthodox Freudian perhaps. I've heard Washington is overrun with them. 'So zen, tell me, Mr.
Callahan, vaht cumps to mind?''
He rolled toward me and said, 'I guess we do have to just find somebody to trust with all this crap. You're right. That's a good first step. Maybe I'm feeling the way I'm feeling because we're so isolated with our dangerous knowledge, so alone with it. And we don't need a spiritual adviser, we need a good, old-fashioned clean cop. If possible, more than one. Then there'll be at least three of us to get to the bottom of this, and that'll make it easier.'
'Timmy, I don't think 'we' have to get to the bottom of anything. All 'we' have to do is find an authority we can trust and tell him or her what we know, and then make sure Maynard is safe and recovering well. I guess we could straighten up his house, too-pick the Indonesian wombat knuckles out of the kitchen sink and so forth. But we can leave it to others better equipped than we are to get to the bottom of things.'
This elicited a spontaneous snort, as I suspected it might. 'Don't kid me,' he said gaily. 'You wouldn't miss sticking your nose in this reeking swamp of intrigue for anything in the world.' I shrugged. 'I know it's only a matter of time,' Timmy went on happily, 'before you're off to Mexico, and maybe even darkest Central Pennsylvania. I might not be able to tag along-I've got lo be back to work on Tuesday. But I certainly wouldn't attempt lo restrain you. I know you're in this awful thing to the finish, and I just want you to know, Don, that I'll help out in any way I can, personally and financially, and all I ask is that you get used to the fact that I am scared to death and even acknowledge from time to time that I actually have reason to be.'
He seemed more relaxed now, and I was a lot less apprehensive about his mental health than I had been a few minutes earlier.
Then someone knocked at the door.
We both started, and Timmy, big-eyed, whispered, 'Who knows we're here?'
'Five friends of Maynard's I just phoned,' I whispered back. 'The two I talked to and the three I left messages with.'
The knock came again, three quick, hard raps.
I got up, went over, and looked through the peephole. I said to Timmy, 'Take a deep breath and let it out slowly.'
I opened the door and there stood Ray Craig glowering in at us like some grade-B film noir house dick. 'It wasn't easy tracking you two down. I had to check half the hotels on the Hill.' He must have been upwind of us, for his nicotine stench again rolled into the room.
I gestured for Craig to come on in, and as my glance fell on Timmy, I could actually see his pulse beating in his neck.
Chapter 6
Using the pretext of having to hurry back to the hospital and check on Maynard, we were able to extricate ourselves from Craig within twenty minutes. He told us he wanted to hear our narratives of the shooting a second time. He said sometimes details floated back into memory during the retelling of a traumatic event a day later. This was true, but with Craig the line sounded phony. Again, he sat jiggling his loafer and looking both suspicious of and mildly disgusted with everything we had to say. Then, with barely a word uttered, Craig got up and left. This time, he had asked about Mexico only twice instead of six times.
'What is it with that creep?' Timmy muttered after Craig shut the door behind him.
'I don't know,' I said, 'but I think it's time we talked to somebody we can trust who'll at least be in a position to offer an informed opinion on Craig-and maybe everything else that's happened. Don't you know somebody in Frankie Balducci's office?' Frankie Balducci was the openly gay congressman from Boston who'd been a relentless voice of sanity on gay matters in an institution where understanding of, and attitudes toward, homosexuality had not yet, as the twenty-first century approached, advanced far into the eighteenth.
Timmy said, 'Bob Bittner. He was in my class at Georgetown.'
'Can you call him? Don't tell him why, but just ask him if he can find a D.C. police officer who's cleaner than Mother Teresa.'
'That treacherous, headline-grabbing, reactionary old crone?'
'All right, then. Cleaner than… than any other cop in D.C. Gay might help, too, closeted or not.'
Timmy reached his old friend, who agreed to try to track down an indisputably clean cop, no questions asked, and he said he'd get back to Timmy in fifteen minutes. I showered and Timmy went downstairs for a newspaper, and then Bittner called back. The officer we should talk to, he said, was Detective Lieutenant Chondelle Dolan.
After he hung up, Timmy said, 'Bob says she's gay, she's smart, and she's squeaky-clean. Dolan is disinclined to rock any department boats, and she goes along and gets along with the mayor and his crowd of leeches and scam artists. But Bob says a woman he knows, Rain Terry, was once involved with Dolan for several months, and Terry swears Dolan is both one of the most uncorruptible people she's ever met and one of the most discreet.'
'That's our cop.'
'Bob wasn't sure she'd talk to us. Dolan is one for going through channels, he said.'
'But if she's that clean, I'll bet our story will pique her interest, at least.'
While I dialed Dolan's number, Timmy walked over and yanked open the door to the corridor. Assured that no one was lurking there, he shut the door and came back and sat on the bed while I waited for an answer at Dolan's home.
I was about to hang up when a low, groggy voice came on the line. 'Yeah, hello.'
'Lieutenant Dolan?'
'Yeah?'
'I'm Donald Strachey, a private investigator, and a friend of a friend of a friend of Rain Terry, who suggested
