“What?”
“I’m off the case.”
31
THE OLD MAN PEERED cautiously through the blinds, angled so that he could look out at the cruiser across the street. The officer in the car was watchful, but well past the point where boredom had set in. Would he fall asleep?
The old man wouldn’t. He slept little now. He was fully dressed, waiting. He was always waiting. For almost twelve years now he had waited. He had thought of them each day when he awakened, each night, until exhaustion overtook memory. It was worse during the month of June. In June he hardly slept at all.
He had waited on that Father’s Day for the boys to identify him, to at least mention a policeman.
But the boys hadn’t spoken. Even their drawings had never included a policeman. He knew, because he’d asked Frank Harriman about them.
He had almost confessed everything to Frank. More than once. But each time, he’d thought of Diana Harriman, thought of the cruelty of telling Frank of his betrayal. It should be someone else, he told himself, but never sought another priest.
Instead he waited. He woke up every morning, wondering, Will this be the day?
Three years of hell went by. Silent hell. When the boys started talking, he was sure the first words out of their mouths would be his name.
Instead they didn’t speak of it at all. Did they know then? Did they know how their silence punished him? Made his nights sleepless? Left him wondering when he did sleep, if he had shouted the truth in dreams?
Now this surveillance. He looked back out at the cruiser. Had Cassidy asked them to wait in plain sight, knowing how it would chafe at him?
There was a soft tapping at the back door.
He glanced at his reflection in a hallway mirror, straightened his tie.
“It never hurts to look your best,” he could hear his mother’s voice say, somewhere deep inside his head.
The tapping came again.
He opened the door.
“You,” he said, mildly surprised.
“Us,” came a whispered voice, as others stepped out of the shadows.
32
IT WAS TOO DARK INSIDE the small plane to read the business card I held in my hand, but I skimmed my fingertip over the print, over the embossed insignia of the Las Piernas Police Department and the name Thomas Cassidy. I didn’t need light to know what it said; I had looked at it a dozen times before takeoff.
“Detective,” it said, along with all the other official humbug. On the back of the card, nestled against the palm of my hand, in bold, blue strokes, he had written his home phone number. “Say hello to Frank for me,” he had said as he’d handed it to me. “Tell him to give me a call when he’s up to it.”
I had taken it, not nearly so able to pretend I had faith that I would be able to give it to my husband. “I’ll let you know what happens,” I had said, knowing that for Cassidy, giving me his card was a way to stay connected to the case. For me, the card was a talisman, a protection from panic.
Bredloe had decided that Cassidy needed a few hours’ sleep. That was the story. They needed someone in place in Las Piernas, Bredloe said, needed someone who could take over immediately. It would take Cassidy about three hours to drive back, about an hour and a half to fly. Too long either way. And Cassidy sounded tired, he said.
That was the official line, but Cassidy didn’t buy it. He figured Bredloe had listened to that tape and worried that his negotiator was not in control, had shown a lack of judgment. Worries Cassidy couldn’t blame him for, not with the life of one of his officers on the line.
“Who was Johnnie Lee?” I asked.
“The woman of my dreams,” he said dryly. “Literally. The dream I had this morning.”
“She was the teller? You knew her?”
“Yes. The negotiation part of the dream — that never happened. I was just a kid, just out of high school, trying to decide if I would survive my first year of college without her.
“That summer, I tried to see her every chance I got. She worked in the bank. She’d get a fifteen-minute break at ten-fifteen in the morning. I’d go over there, spend her little break with her, cool my heels until lunch, show up again, and take her to lunch. I did that every day, waited around that damn town for every minute I could spend with her.”
He paused and swallowed hard. “Except — that last morning, when I showed up, the bank was surrounded by cops — wouldn’t let me near it. Local sheriff was a hothead,” he said. “Went in with guns blazing. Used to brag that thanks to him, the robbers didn’t get a dime out of that bank.” He took a deep breath, let it out slowly. “She was a remarkable young woman,” he said, but nothing more.
“I’ll talk to Bredloe,” I said.
“No,” he said.
When I abandoned arguments he simply would not respond to and began to plead frantically with him to fly back with us, he said, “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t make this any harder than it already is.”
Calm.
I went into the kitchen, talked to Bea, and made a phone call to Cecilia. I gathered my belongings and waited in Bea’s car while she gave Cassidy instructions on locking up.
I should have been glad to know that they had located Frank, but I was filled with uneasiness. He was still in the hands of Hocus. The man who best knew Hocus, who was best prepared to meet them, was left behind, packing up his gear in Bakersfield. Our disagreements meant nothing. I trusted Thomas Cassidy, would trust him with Frank’s life.
