Nothing he saw on the tape made him think she was wrong, but he didn’t answer.
The camera went back to Seth Randolph for a moment. Knowing how little future Seth had — knowing the futures of many of the people he was now watching — Frank found the tape unsettling. Lefebvre and Seth Randolph would die violently the next evening. Lefebvre, obviously a hero at this point, would be in disgrace during the ensuing decade. Irene would bury her father and suffer other ordeals, including being held captive in a small room — an experience that would leave her far too claustrophobic to stay calm in a room as crowded as the one on the tape.
She would also marry Frank — although she might, at the moment, count that as another ordeal.
Polly Logan would fail miserably at recapturing her youth — a bird that was already well on the wing ten years ago. As he watched, he was surprised by how much footage she had kept of this press conference — it was much more extensive than what had gone before on the tape. When he commented about this to her, she said, “I kept all of it, because it was the last time I ever saw him.” Tears started rolling down her expensive cheeks. “And the things they said about him! Look at him! Does he look as if he wants to harm that boy? No! He’s more protective of Seth than Tory is!”
Frank had to agree. The brief shots he had seen in Bredloe’s office on the afternoon news were, he realized, misleading. And when Seth’s reactions were shown in context, rather than in the brief segment he had seen before, he could see that the boy trusted Lefebvre — had turned to him for protection, in fact.
Hearing Polly sniff, Frank offered a tissue to her. She thanked him, wiped delicately at her eyes, then murmured, “I loved him, you know.” She blew her sculpted nose. “Not requited, I’ll admit.”
“No? You didn’t ever go out together?”
She shook her head, looking more miserable than ever. “No, not even when
“I don’t blame him,” he said evenly. “She was single, after all.”
“Your loyalty is refreshing, and of course you’re right — she was
She glanced up at him, saw the hard look that had come into his eyes, and said, “Don’t get bent out of shape — I didn’t mean anything by it.” She gave a short, bitter laugh. “God knows, I can’t cast any stones.”
He thought of the boy he had seen at the condo and asked, “Do you know of anyone else Lefebvre might have dated?”
“Other than Irene? No. Except for trying to go after her, he was married to his work.”
The tape started hissing, and she removed it from the VCR and held it out to him. “This copy is yours, if you’d like it.”
“Thanks,” he said. “This is a real help. And thanks for your time this evening.” He said this politely, even though he was irritated with her. If she had simply given him the tape or sent it to him at the department, he could have gone home much earlier. Instead, she had forced him to attend this private screening with her, while she grew maudlin over a man who had not, apparently, returned her affection.
Her devotion to Lefebvre did not puzzle him — long ago he had realized that some people never really wanted what they could have. Some women would fall in love with priests, with gay men, with men who were in love with other women — precisely because they were unobtainable. This devotion at a distance seldom ended with the beloved’s death — after all, nobody was more unobtainable than a dead man.
“When I heard you were on the case,” Polly said, looping an arm through his as she led him out, “I knew Phil stood a chance.”
He halted. A vision of Lefebvre as he had found him — dried remains in the wreckage of a plane — flashed before him. “A chance?”
She urged him forward. “Yes, to be proven innocent. It would have been important to him.” When they were almost at the building’s exit, she said, “I always hoped he’d come back alive. I thought I might be able to get him to take a second look, you know what I mean?”
“Sure.”
At the door he gently extricated his arm, said good night, and made his way back to the car. As he shut the car door, he could smell her perfume on his suit.
Perhaps she didn’t get all that plastic surgery to keep her job, he thought. Maybe she was trying to bookmark a page in her life, trying to stay at a certain point in the story, so that Lefebvre would come back to her like a reader who had only temporarily set her aside and find his place.
He turned his phone on, and it beeped twice to indicate that he had a voice-mail message. He retrieved the call, which had been received about five minutes after Irene had hung up on him.
“Frank, I’m sorry. Call me as soon as you have the phone back on — wake me up, I won’t care. Call me. I keep thinking about Bredloe and — just call and let me know you’re safe, okay?”
He glanced at his watch. It was after three in the morning.
He drove home without calling.
She was awake. She met him at the door, drowsy but intent, and without saying a word took his face in her hands and kissed him long and hard. He made a small, low sound of surrender, and she pulled him closer. She stepped back a little, wrinkled her nose as she caught the scent of the perfume, but didn’t remark on it. He started to say something, but she stopped him with another kiss, this one softer, sweeter, coaxing.
“Enough talk,” she said.
16
Tuesday, July 11, 9:00 A.M.
Las Piernas Police Department Homicide Division
The story of the attack on Bredloe made the front page of the
“Harriman,” he answered.
