The Body of David Hayes

authorities to make a deal. “I took all this to Danny Foreman today,” she described. “We made a deal that I’d try to get permission to release some of the classified bank information to him if he’d work on a deal to get David and his mother relocated.”

Boldt said calmly, “There’s a saying in witness protection: The difference between deal and dead is one letter.”

“Right, well… what I want to say is I’m embarrassed and ashamed by all of this, by everything that’s happened, back then, now, the fact he contacted me. But I can’t hide it, won’t hide it. And I won’t give anyone the chance to use that against me, against us.”

“I know how hard this must have been for you. Coming here. Explaining this. But if you expect me to thank you-”

“I don’t expect any such thing. Do I want you to thank me? No! But a reaction would be nice. Shout at me, scream at me, be angry with me. What are you feeling in there, and why won’t you show me?”

“I’m thinking you’re the one that needs protection.”

“Not thinking,” she complained. “Feeling. What are you feeling?”

Lou straightened up and waited for her eyes to meet his own. “I don’t feel in this office. This is not a place for that. I work here. I process facts. I process death. I occasionally allow myself to feel when I get into my car and head home, but even then I turn the radio up real loud, put the windows down, and stay quiet about it. You feel for about the first six months on this job. That would be a while ago for me. After that you try not to let emotion overcome reason. Not that you’re always successful. You’re not.

“What am I feeling now?” he continued. “Hurt. Trapped. Concerned for you. Worried about Danny Foreman being involved because he’s famous for what we call a Lone Ranger attitude and I don’t want you caught up in that. At the same time I’m grateful to be included, I do thank you for that, and while I’d like to be feeling more, at least for your sake, I find myself instead trying to jump ahead and get this thing contained, because you’re my wife and I don’t want you in the middle of this.”

“Trapped?”

“Did I say trapped?”

“You did.”

“I don’t know what I meant by that.”

Despite his outward facade of complacency, she recognized his fixed stare. He was lost to thought. She felt this kind of information was better doled out in doses than dumped all at once as she had done, but she’d had little choice.

“So what do we do?” she asked.

“I talk to Danny. We sort this out.”

“And me?”

“We handle it from here, Liz. If he contacts you again, then that’s where you’re involved again. But that’ll be by phone only. You’re not to make any kind of physical contact with him again.”

Any kind of physical contact; she resented him including that. “I wasn’t the one who made contact. I thought I explained that.”

“You went to see him,” Lou reminded. “You cooperated. That wouldn’t look good to a judge or jury.”

“What are you talking about?”

“What if it comes down to his word against yours that you had nothing to do with the original crime?”

“We’re past that. We’re way past that. Don’t you think that just might have come out in the original trial?”

“How is the bank going to feel about you taking a meeting in secret with a convicted embezzler? Was the bank notified?”

“It’s none of their business!”

“It’s exactly their business. It’s none of your business, or shouldn’t be.”

She processed this and knew he was right, and this filled her with an added dread.

“I’ll talk to Danny,” Boldt said again.

She didn’t want Lou comparing notes with Danny Foreman, but any thought of containing this was long gone.

“Who else has access to I.T. the way you do?”

“That’s what Danny wants too.”

“I’m not Danny.”

“I do. Tony does, of course. Phillip-goes without saying.”

“Maintenance?” he asked. “Programmers?”

“A dozen or more for the UNIX system, sure. Not the AS/400s. Tony’s the only programmer we have who works with the AS/400s. Typically we outsource that work to IBM anyway. They’re their own worlds, the AS/400s.”

“So, in some ways, Tony LaRossa is more important to Hayes than you.”

“Except that David has a past with me. He thinks he can use it to his advantage. He’d have to strong-arm Tony or try to bribe him, and neither of those is even a remote possibility.”

“Either is a possibility,” Lou said. “These people drugged Danny. You said they pulled a couple fingernails off Hayes. They killed a dog. Threatened an old lady. What makes Tony LaRossa immune?”

“Okay,” she said. “So Tony’s in the picture as well. I’ll call him.”

“No,” Lou said sharply. “You’re discounting the possibility that Tony was involved from the beginning.”

“Tony? He’s my director of I.T.!” She said this but felt a worming sensation overcome her. “Tony? We barbecue with Tony and Beth. The twins-”

“… were an expensive adoption,” Boldt interrupted, finishing her sentence for her. “The failed in-vitros must have run in the tens of thousands. Where’d Tony get that kind of money?”

“He makes a good living.”

“He’s worth a look.”

“We all get favorable loan rates. Don’t lump Tony in with David Hayes. He’s not that kind of person.”

“And you are? Stay clear of Tony, Liz. Not a word until we’ve had a chance to run some background.”

“I didn’t come here to turn the investigation over to you, Lou. I came here to be honest with you, to include you.”

“Consider me now included.”

“Not like this.”

“What’d you expect? I’d let Danny run you?”

“No one’s running me.”

“Hayes is running you. Or trying to. Going to Danny before coming to me… How am I supposed to feel about that?”

She hadn’t considered his professional pride might be more wounded than his husband’s pride. Then, realizing the two were impossibly intertwined, she resigned herself to the fact that she’d botched the whole thing from the start. Without thinking, she asked, “Are you alright with this?”

“‘Conflicted,’ I think it’s called.” Sarcasm was misplaced in him, like a preacher swearing. “I obviously failed you as a husband. No matter how far in the past, that kills me. Your taking this to Danny before me also hurts and, I might add, makes it all the more difficult for us both. Unlike Danny, I put your safety first, the investigation second. Whether or not I can make that happen at this late date is anybody’s guess, but it has to happen because I am not exposing you to this guy again.”

“I won’t have his mother’s murder on my conscience, Lou. That might not make any sense to you, but I want you clear on this. I will be involved, at least to the extent David thinks I’m involved. I want to be cooperative, I want to work this out, yes, but as wife and husband, not informant and detective.”

“I can’t make any promises. At least not the one you’re asking for. I’ll need to make some calls.”

She felt a victim again, much as she had after the meeting with David. Lou had boxed her into something she’d not seen coming, and she deeply resented the way he felt it was his right to make decisions for her.