“We were friends. Trained as Rangers together.”
“That was a long time back. Before he met me.”
The windows were open, and a light breeze stirred the humid air through the curtains. But the city around them was anything but romantic. Police sirens screamed down Elysian Fields Avenue, four blocks away. Somewhere overhead, a helicopter buzzed.
“Lot of action,” Wells said.
“Bangers banging. This neighborhood’s not too bad, but the city’s so small you can’t get away from it. Unless you live in one of those mansions in the Garden District. Doesn’t matter, anyway. Soon enough, another ’cane will make our acquaintance and even us Louisiana lifers will have to admit this place isn’t meant to be. And that
“You and Jerry have three boys.”
“Asleep. Or pretending to be. Maybe reading comic books under the covers. Long as they’re reading.”
“What are their names?”
“Unfortunately, Jerry was a member of the George Foreman school of naming. The boys are named Jerry Jr., Johnny, and Jeffrey.”
Wells couldn’t think of any way to spin that.
“Every so often he’d have an S-A-N moment, and that was one.”
“S-A-N?”
“S for stupid, A for ass, and N for a word I don’t use around white people, no matter how well I know them. And I don’t know you too well.”
“You seem pretty calm about what’s happened.”
“The boys are used to Jerry being gone. He shows up tomorrow, they’ll think this was just another mission. No need to upset them just yet. Though we’re two months on. They’re wondering.”
“You don’t think he’s coming back.”
“You don’t shine it up before you spit it out, do you? No. I do not. Let me tell you why. We were having some troubles, no two ways about it. But Jerry Williams, Major Jeremiah Williams, he was very conscious that he was a man with three sons. A
Her voice had stayed even through this explanation. Now tears sprung from her eyes, slid down her cheeks. Wells put his hand on her shoulder.
“Mrs. Williams—”
But she shook him off and walked out of the room.
Wells shifted on the couch, listening to the fan rustling overhead, and tried to figure what he’d done. Someone else — Exley, say — could have asked the same questions without inciting such a ferocious response. But Wells seemed to have lost his sense for the give-and-take of human interaction.
Noemie stepped back in.
“I’m sorry,” Wells said. “I can come back.”
“Just ask your questions, Mr. Wells.”
“Let me start again, then. You were married in, what, ’99?”
“Correct. You knew Jerry before that?”
“In Ranger training. You know, I was gone awhile.”
“I know who you are.”
“But before I went to Afghanistan, I remember him saying he was getting married, his wife was ten times as beautiful as he deserved.”
Noemie gave him the tiniest of smiles.
“You’re from New Orleans?”
“No. Came here for college, got my degree in social work from Tulane. After I met Jerry, we jumped around base to base. But I always wanted to come back. Last year, when Jerry retired, I told him after all that time in North Carolina and Texas and what all, he owed me. He didn’t want to, but eventually he agreed.”
“But you are from Louisiana.”
“Grew up in Lafayette. Couple hours west of here on the Ten. Mom was black and dad was white, which accounts for this cracker accent. They were both from this swamp town, Morgan City, deep in the bayou. Back when they met, it wasn’t so safe for a white boy and a black girl to be in love down there. Though better that than the other way around. So, they moved to Lafayette. The metropolis. You know how to tell the size of a town in Louisiana?”
Wells shook his head.
“Count the McDonald’s. Morgan City only has but one McDonald’s. Lafayette has a whole bunch of ’em. Are you married, Mr. Wells?”
“I was.” Wells felt the need to say something more. “The job sort of took over.”
“Uh-huh.”
There was a whole speech in those two syllables, Wells thought. “Tell me about Jerry’s last tour, in Poland.”
“A few months before, he’d gotten back from a deployment in Afghanistan. I was worried they were going to send him there again. He wouldn’t have argued. He wasn’t the type to say no. Then he got this call, a special assignment in Poland, working with detainees.”
“You know why they chose him?”
“In Afghanistan, he’d done some interrogations.”
“How did you know?”
“I was, I am, his wife. He told me enough; I got the picture. They were trying to put a new unit together, one that wouldn’t have any connection to the old squads. Or Guantanamo. One that could run more or less on its own.”
“That’s about right.”
“I know that’s right, Mr. Wells. I wasn’t asking.”
“Did you mind having him over there?”
“Matter of fact, I didn’t. Figured he was safer in Poland than anywhere else.”
“But did you have a problem with what he was doing, the interrogations?”
“These men who want to blow us up? Kill my husband? And then they cry for lawyers soon as we catch them? Start talking about their rights? You are not seriously asking me that.”
“Jerry felt the same.”
“Of course.”
“But not everyone on the squad agreed. Somebody thought they were going too far.” Wells was guessing, chasing the defensiveness in her voice.
“That what somebody told you?”
“Yes,” Wells lied.
“I don’t know all that much about it. But I do know there were arguments. And they got worse as the tour went on. My husband, he went over there with the attitude that they didn’t have to give these guys feather pillows. I don’t got to tell you, Mr. Wells. If there’s one person who knows, it’s you. But it’s strange, ’cause he came back with a different attitude.”
“Like how?”
“It’s hard to explain.” She edged away from Wells on the couch, turned to look at him full-on. “Mr. Wells. Do you think my husband did something wrong? If you do, tell me now.”
“Look. Somebody’s killing the squad. We don’t know why. The logical assumption is that it’s because of something that happened over there. So, we need to know what that was. And there’s only three guys left from the squad, not counting Jerry, and they aren’t talking much—”
“Why—”
“Maybe they’re worried they’re gonna get prosecuted for torture. And the records of what they did, they’re
