Midas

kitchen sink. From there she went straight to the front door, stopping only to say, “Thank you for hiring Regina. I appreciate it.”

“I hired her because she’s good, not because you asked me to.”

“Okay, then I don’t appreciate it. Check in with me when you get back.”

“Yes, boss,” he said.

“Don’t forget it,” she told him.

Justin tried to pay attention. But it was almost impossible. For one thing, he was thinking about what Leona had told him, what Jimmy had said about him. For another, the woman across the desk from him would not stop talking.

She was not unattractive, although she did her best to downplay any hint of a feminine side. She was probably in her early forties, her skin was clear and smooth, her dark brown hair drably cut, absolutely straight with no faddish layering. She wore a Nancy Reaganish red wool business suit-jacket buttoned nearly up to her neck and a matching skirt that came down to mid-calf. Shiny, trim brown boots with a thin two-inch heel rose up to meet the hem of the skirt, leaving no room for even an inch of skin to show through. Underneath her jacket was a dark blue shirt. The only thing left open in her outfit was the top button of the shirt, which allowed perhaps two inches of her neck to be exposed. She wore delicate and tasteful pearl earrings; other than that her only jewelry was a simple gold watch clasped around her right wrist on an equally simple gold band. As a package, it added up to something that was very conservatively marketed, refusing to draw attention to itself, insisting that the viewer concentrate on the substance rather than the nonexistent glitz.

Her voice was another thing altogether.

It was nasal and too high-pitched and did nothing but draw attention to itself. It lacked confidence and firmness and was just a shade too quiet. Mostly it was empty. It belied her substantive appearance and did little more than timidly whisper that underneath the surface there was absolutely nothing.

Justin Westwood wondered which half of this woman was for real-the substance or the emptiness. If he had to bet, he knew which way he’d go. She was a bureaucrat. Bet empty.

Justin was not, for the most part, prone to self-analysis. He did not usually care to examine the reasons he acted the way he did, because, with rare exception, he had little interest in acting any other way. Jimmy had definitely been right in that regard. When Justin mourned, it was because he wanted to mourn and had no interest in overcoming his grief. When he retreated from the world-which he’d done, in his own way, for quite a few years after Alicia and Lili died-it was because there was no desire to come out of hiding. When he got drunk or stoned, it was because being high felt better than not being high. And when he was sober it was because it seemed right to be anchored to reality and any ensuing pain was worth the effort. He might not like what he was doing at any particular moment but whatever he was doing it was because he liked the alternatives even less.

He rarely questioned himself when he took a stand, and it was even less rare that he cared about pissing someone off. He probably could have handled the few relationships he’d had after Alicia a lot better than he had, but even that didn’t worry him much. If he’d wanted them to last-really wanted them to last, not just superficially-then he knew he would have handled them better.

He did not put much stock in other people’s morals or values, only his own, because it was his morals that he trusted. Jimmy had been absolutely right about that. Justin knew that he did not even hold the law particularly sacred, even though he’d become a cop. He was much more interested in justice than the law. And justice, he understood, came from within. It was a belief, not a prescription for how to behave.

But as Justin sat across the desk from Martha Peck, in her impersonal, glass-encased Washington, D.C., Federal Aviation Administration office overlooking 1st Street NW, he was seriously questioning himself. As she droned on, he was wondering why it was he so detested bureaucrats. He could have a calm conversation face-to- face with a serial killer but one phone call with an employee of the phone company could drive him straight over the edge. There was no problem staying calm when some drunk in a bar was furiously trying to rearrange his face, but trying to convince a bank manager to change the mailing address on a tax form was enough to bring forth visions of the apocalypse. It was that bureaucratic condescension. That awareness that you needed them, that there was no place else to go. Maybe that was it-Justin liked alternatives. He believed in alternatives. For bureaucrats, choice was nonexistent. There was one way and one way only-the system. As the nasal voice went on and on, Justin felt himself relaxing. The simple act of understanding his disdain calmed him down. And he understood that, when dealing with an implacable system, anger was self-defeating. So he sat quietly, pushing any traces of ire away, and forced himself to listen to the administrator of the FAA as she told him that it was not possible that anyone in her area could possibly have done anything wrong. Certainly not willingly.

Justin had three people to see during the twelve hours he was planning to spend in the D.C. area. He’d thought that Martha Peck would be the easiest to deal with and probably the most productive. Based on the conversation so far, he sure as hell hoped he was wrong about that.

“Ms. Peck,” Justin interrupted. “Let’s forget the question of wrong or right, for the moment, okay?”

“As a police officer, I would have thought that was your most important question.”

“What I really need to know is why you removed Hutchinson Cooke’s file from your Oklahoma City office two days before his plane crashed.”

The woman behind the desk chewed on her lower lip for a moment, her subtle shade of red lipstick rubbed off on her front teeth. “I was told that if you came here I wasn’t to talk to you.”

“I’m sure you were.”

Her eyes widened just a bit. “That doesn’t surprise you?”

“The same person-or at least someone from the same organization-came to my station and told me not to pursue this.”

“So why are you?”

“Because someone was murdered in my town. And whatever else is involved, my job is to find the son of a bitch who did it.”

“You’re not afraid of the FBI?”

“Hell, Ms. Peck, I’m even afraid of you. But I’m not going to stop asking questions. And I don’t get frightened off my cases, no matter who’s doing the blustering.”

Now she used her tongue to wipe the lipstick off of her teeth. She hadn’t looked in the mirror so Justin wasn’t sure how she knew it was there. Maybe it was just a nervous habit. “What makes you think Hutchinson Cooke’s file was removed?” Martha Peck asked.

“Because it’s missing. It was electronically removed. Everything about Cooke and the plane he was flying is gone.”

“Files do go missing all the time. I sincerely doubt there was any intent to mislead or obstruct any kind of investigation.”

“Fine. If you didn’t do it, just tell me who else has the authority to remove a file. I’m happy to talk to him or her.” When Martha Peck didn’t answer, just began nibbling around the edges of a very red fingernail, Justin said, “Ms. Peck, I’m sure you can make my job extremely difficult. You and your bosses can hire lawyers and block subpoenas and all sorts of things you government people are really good at. But here’s the thing: I need to know who took the file and why it was taken. If you want me to guess, I’d say someone from the FBI came to you or someone else here and you or whoever it was buckled in the face of a badge and a few words about national security. If that’s the case, I don’t blame you. I probably would have done the same and I’m not looking to nail you, not at all. But I need to know who owned the plane that Hutchinson Cooke was flying the day he crashed. And, on top of that, I’d like to know who in your office had direct contact with Martin Heffernan. I’ll get that info somehow. Believe me. I will. I’m one of those annoying cops who sinks his teeth in and won’t let go. You’d be a lot better off telling me the truth and getting me out of your hair.”

“That’s the first thing you’ve said that makes any sense to me.”

“Good. Then you’ll give me what I need?”

“I mean the annoying part.” She straightened up the few pieces of paper on her desktop, which was already tidy and clean. “Do you truly think that someone in the FAA is involved in a crime?”

“Most likely murder.”

“I just don’t believe it.”

“At the very least, whoever took that file is guilty of covering up a murder. It’s still good for serious jail time.