CHAPTER 20
Lenz’s Mercedes shunts us through the night like spores on a wind. He says we’re headed back to McLean, Virginia, to an FBI safe house from which his digital decoy operation will be run. In the Delta I can drive for miles at night and see no light but moon and stars, but tonight I’m thankful for the busy interstate. The glaring lights and motion help me to suppress the image of the exploding PC and the screams of wounded men in the Dallas apartment.
“Are we somewhere near the Manassas battlefield?” I ask, recalling a golden summer years ago when my father and I climbed Henry Hill in the chill morning mist to see the spot where Stonewall Jackson earned his nom de guerre.
“Ten or fifteen miles to the west,” Lenz replies.
“Is it a Disney World now?”
“No, they finally killed that, thank God.”
The first uplifting news of a very long day. “Back there,” I say hesitantly. “At the trailer. I was thinking that Strobekker, or whoever he is, didn’t really mean to kill anybody.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean the explosion was pretty much confined to the computer. He could have flattened that whole building if he’d wanted to.”
Lenz ponders this for a few seconds. “That helps with the profile, but in the larger scheme it doesn’t make a bit of difference. When he killed that Hostage Rescue man, he practically signed his own death warrant. If he doesn’t surrender the instant we locate him, he’s a corpse.”
Lenz lights a fresh cigarette. “Why don’t we talk about it?”
“The case?”
“No. This thing that’s eating you.”
“Jesus, don’t you ever let up?”
“Believe it or not, Cole, I’m trying to help you. You fear my knowing anything about you. Having leverage over you. But if you’d really listened to me earlier, you’d know this case means life to me. It’s my personal resurrection. Don’t you see the leverage that gives
“But I’d never do that.”
“And I’d never betray a confidence from you.” He cracks his window slightly and blows a stream of smoke at the opening. “I respect you, Cole. You risked civil prosecution-maybe financial ruin-to come forward with the names of these women. Turner didn’t. Krislov didn’t. I don’t know that they ever would have, so long as they weren’t staring the corpses in the face.”
I start to argue, but Lenz may be right.
“Guilt is a funny thing,” he says. “A sense of guilt, I mean. It’s what separates you from Strobekker. Ironic, isn’t it? This cross you bear makes you a better man. I ask you to talk about it only because I know the pain of secrets so intimately. I’ve seen what it does to people. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t advocate unburdening yourself to your wife. That would make you feel better, but it would make her feel much worse. The noble thing is to bear the weight yourself. But that doesn’t mean you can’t share it a little. Even Christ did that.”
I study Lenz’s face for any trace of cynicism, but he seems sincere. “I don’t think I could just tell you. You or anybody. The bare reality of it is… I don’t know… too simple.”
“Just start talking. These things have their own rhythm. Anything else is just facts.”
“You don’t want facts?”
“Facts are for men like Daniel. I’m a truth man. And that’s altogether different.”
After a slow breath, I push my hands back through my hair and say, “You know my wife is an OB-GYN.”
“Yes.”
“You probably don’t know we were high school sweethearts.”
“You’ve been married that long?”
“No. We were high school sweethearts who got married twelve years after high school. We’ve only been married three years.”
“No other marriages before that?”
“No.”
I give Lenz a thumbnail sketch of Erin and Drewe’s family history, focusing on the opposite personalities of the sisters and the deceptions they used to hide them. The glow of Lenz’s cigarette bobs up and down as I try to describe Erin’s unique combination of beauty and sensuality, but I’m not sure he gets it. He seems more interested in Drewe.
“She graduated first in her class at Tulane Medical School?”
“Tied for first.”
“No mean accomplishment. You never slept with her in high school?”
“Plenty of times. A lot of making out, fooling around. But we only actually had intercourse once, and it was a disaster. I think she just wanted to get the whole virgin thing out of the way. It was a mistake.”
“You didn’t have sex with other girls during this time?”
“Too many.”
“Did your wife know this?”
“Eventually.”
“And she knew some of the girls.”
“Like I said, small school.”
“Was her sister one of these girls?”
“No. Erin and I were enemies then. Almost like brother and sister.”
“What life path did Erin take?”
“Four days after she graduated, she left Mississippi for Manhattan and never looked back. A guy saw her in a restaurant and
“For the next few years she kicked around New York and L.A. on the arms of various actors, artists, musicians. I actually ran into her a couple of times on the road. But we just played the roles we’d played since childhood.”
Lenz stubs out his cigarette and lights another. “How so?”
“Friendly but sarcastic. She made fun of Drewe, the saintly sister pursuing her medical degree with the commitment of a nun. She joked about my waiting for Drewe.”
“Were you?”
“I don’t know. I had affairs during those years. Long, badly ended relationships.”
“Did you have sex with Erin then?”
“Hell no. I told you.”
“Yes, but it’s obvious that there’s always been a strong attraction between you and your wife’s sister.”
“
“But Erin doesn’t feel reciprocal attraction to these masses of other men, does she? Not the kind of attraction she felt for you.”
“I didn’t know that at the time.”
“Of course you did. Continue.”
“No matter what relationships I was in during those years, I always stayed in contact with Drewe. Sometimes a year would go by without our seeing each other. Just a couple of late-night calls. But other times she’d call me in tears about something and I would drop whatever I was doing and drive ten or twelve hours to New Orleans to be with her.”
“Still no sex between you?”
“Not in the complete sense. She’s a different sort of girl. Very old-fashioned.”
