eyes and opened the folder. 'This is what happens when Milo Weaver defends his dignity?' He snapped the folder around to reveal page-sized color photos of Tom Grainger, crumpled in front of his New Jersey house on Lake Hopatcong. Fitzhugh went through them one at a time for Milo's inspection. Panoramic shots, showing the position of the body-five yards from those concrete steps. Close-ups: the hole through the shoulder, the other through the forehead. Two soft dumdum bullets that widened after entry, taking out a massive chunk as they left, leaving a mutilated shell of Thomas Grainger.
Milo's crying intensified, and he lost his balance, falling to the floor.
'We've got a weeper,' Fitzhugh observed, standing.
Everyone in that small white room waited. Milo took loud breaths until the tears were under control, wiped his wet eyes and runny nose, then worked himself into a hunched standing position.
'You're going to tell me everything,' said Fitzhugh.
'I know,' said Milo.
4
Across the East River, Special Agent Janet Simmons worked her way through slow Brooklyn traffic, stopping abruptly for pedestrians and children leaping across Seventh Avenue. She cursed each one of them. People were like that-they blundered through their little lives as if nothing would ever cross their paths. Nothing, not automobiles, crossfire, stalkers, or even the unknown machinations of the world's security services, who could easily confuse you with someone else and drag you to a cell, or simply put a misplaced bullet in your head.
Instinctively, she parked on Seventh, near where it crossed Garfield, so that she wouldn't be seen from the window.
She'd made a lot of noise with Terence Fitzhugh, but the truth was that she had no real jurisdictional authority concerning Milo Weaver. He'd killed Tom Grainger on American soil, but both were CIA employees, which left it to the Company's discretion.
Why, then, was she so insistent? Not even she knew for sure. The murder of Angela Yates-perhaps that was it. A successful woman who had made it so far in this most masculine of professions had been killed in her prime by the man Simmons had let go in Tennessee. Did that make her responsible for Yates's death? Maybe not. She felt responsible nonetheless.
This baroque sense of responsibility had plagued her much of her life, though her Homeland therapist, a skinny, pale girl who had the nervous, awkward movements of a virgin, always turned the equation around. It wasn't that Janet Simmons was responsible for all the people in her life; it was that Janet Simmons believed she could be responsible for them. 'Control,' the virgin told her. 'You think you can control everything. That's a serious error of perception.'
'You're saying I have control issues?' Simmons taunted, but the virgin was tougher than she looked.
'No, Janet. I'm saying you're a megalomaniac. Good news is, you chose the right profession.'
So, her urge to right Milo Weaver's wrongs had nothing to do with justice, empathy, philanthropy, or even equal rights for women. That didn't mean that her actions, in themselves, were not virtuous-even the virgin would admit that.
Yet for weeks her desires had been stumped by a simple lack of real evidence. She could place Weaver at the deaths of the victims, but she wanted more. She wanted reasons.
The Weavers' brownstone lay on a street of brownstones, though theirs was noticeably more run-down. The front door was unlocked, so she climbed the stairs without buzzing anyone. On the third floor, she rang the bell.
It took a moment, but finally she heard the soft pad of bare feet on wood leading up to the door; the spy hole darkened.
'Tina?' She produced her Homeland ID and held it out. 'It's Janet. Just need a few minutes of your time.'
The shift of the chain being undone. The door opened, and Tina Weaver stared back at her, barefoot, in pajama bottoms and a T-shirt. No bra. She looked the same as at their last meeting in Disney World, only more tired.
'Did I come at the wrong time?'
Tina Weaver's body shrank slightly at the sight of Simmons. 'I'm not sure I should speak to you. You hounded him.'
'I think Milo killed two people. Maybe three. You expect me to let that go?'
She shrugged.
'Did you know he's back?' Tina didn't ask where or when; she just blinked. 'He turned himself in. He's at the Manhattan office.”
“He's all right?'
'He's in trouble, but he's fine. Can I come in?'
Milo Weaver's wife wasn't listening anymore. She was walking down the corridor toward the living room, leaving the door open. Simmons followed her to a low-ceilinged room with a big flat-screen television but old, cheap-looking furniture. Tina dropped onto the sofa, knees up to her chin, and watched Simmons take a seat.
'Stephanie's at school?'
'It's summer vacation, Special Agent. She's with the sitter.”
“They're not missing you at work?'
'Yes, well.' Tina wiped something off her arm. 'The library's flexible when you're the director.'
'The Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library, at Columbia. Very impressive.'
Tina's expression doubted anyone would be impressed by that. 'You going to ask your questions, or what? I'm pretty good at answering. I've had plenty of practice.'
'Recently?'
'The Company sent some goons two days ago, right in this room.'
'I didn't know.'
'You guys aren't very good at communicating, are you?'
Simmons rocked her head. 'The different agencies cooperate like an estranged couple. But we're in counseling,' she said, smiling to cover her annoyance: Fitzhugh had lied about interrogating Tina. 'Fact is, we're now investigating your husband on multiple levels, with the hope of understanding how the levels connect.'
Tina blinked again. 'What multiple levels?'
'Well, murder, as I said. Two suspected murders and one verified murder.'
'Verified? Verified how?'
'Milo confessed to killing Thomas Grainger.'
Simmons braced herself for an explosion, but got none. Wet, red-rimmed eyes, yes, and tears. Then, a quiet sobbing that shook Tina's whole body, her elevated knees swaying. 'Look, I'm sorry, but-'
'Tom?' she spat out. 'Tom Fucking Grainger? No…' She shook her head. 'Why would he kill Tom? He's Stef's godfather!'
Tina cried for a few seconds, face down, then raised her head, cheeks damp.
'What does he say?'
'What?'
'Milo. You said he confessed. What's his goddamned excuse?'
Simmons wondered how to put it. 'Milo claims that Tom used him, and in a fit of anger he killed the man.'
Tina wiped at her eyes. With eerie calmness, she said, 'Fit of anger?'
'Yes.'
'No. Milo, he-he doesn't have fits of anger. He's not that kind of person.'
'It's hard to know what people are really like.'
A smile filled Tina's face, but it didn't match her voice: 'Don't be condescending, Special Agent. After six years, day-in-day-out, with the stress of raising a child, you get a pretty good idea what someone's like.'
'Okay,' said Simmons. 'I take it back. You tell me, then-why would Milo kill Tom Grainger?'
It didn't take long for Tina to reach a conclusion: 'Only two reasons I can think of. If he was ordered to do it by the Company.'
