The smell of Lysol and vomit stung her nose in the bathroom. She’d spent nearly two hours cleaning the place, and still the scent of half-digested gin clung to the ceramic tile.
She pushed at the window, though it was already open as far as it would go.
The doorbell rang. Her first thought was that it was someone from the Ser vice, coming for her because she’d missed her appointment. But that was impossible — she hadn’t missed it yet. And they wouldn’t bother to fetch her.
Amanda went to the front door and peered through the tiny peephole. A short Asian woman and a much older man stood in the foyer. The woman reached to the bell again.
“What is it?” said Amanda.
“Ms. Rauci?”
Amanda hesitated. If they knew her name they weren’t Mormons or someone else she could easily send away.
“We’re with the federal marshals’ ser vice, Ms. Rauci,” said the woman. She held up a government identification card. “We need to talk to you.”
Marshals?
“Why?”
“It’s about Gerald Forester,” said the woman.
Well, of course it was. Amanda turned the dead bolt but left the chain on the door, opening it a crack.
“What do you want?” she asked.
“This isn’t a good place to talk,” said the woman.
“I’m due at work in an hour.”
“This shouldn’t take long.”
The woman’s face was hard; Amanda realized she wasn’t going to be put off.
“It would be more comfortable for all of us inside,” said the man.
Even if Amanda hadn’t known and practiced most of the games a two-person investigation team would play, she would have pegged the older man as the good guy a mile away. He seemed to have cultivated a grandfatherly look to help him with his interviews.
She slid off the chain and took a step back.
“I’m Lia DeFrancesca. This is Hernes Jackson.”
“Hi.” Amanda remained in the hall.
“Maybe if we sat in the living room or kitchen?” suggested Jackson.
Amanda led them to the kitchen.
“You have a bag packed,” said Lia. “Coming or going?”
“Coming,” lied Amanda. She felt her lip quiver, and longed for a drink. “Thirsty? I’ll make some coffee.”
“No thank you,” said Lia. Jackson shook his head.
The two officers pulled out chairs but didn’t sit down.
Neither did Amanda.
“We were interested in knowing if Agent Forester ever discussed cases with you,” said Lia.
“That would be against the rules.”
“True,” said Jackson. “But sometimes things are said anyway. It’s not going to be held against him, I assure you.”
“He’s dead. How can you hold anything against him?” said Amanda.
“Did he?”
Amanda shook her head. “Jerry wasn’t like that. He…” The tears began flowing. She couldn’t help it. She ran to the bathroom and buried her face in a towel.
Lia glanced at Jackson. She had spent the entire ride to Amanda Rauci’s house exhorting herself to keep an open mind. But seeing Amanda convinced Lia once again that there was no way this was suicide. Amanda wasn’t beautiful; she was a bit on the plump side, and though she was only in her early thirties her face was already showing the signs of age. But still, it was impossible for Lia to believe that someone would walk out on both his kids and a girlfriend, especially one who obviously loved him.
“Maybe you should see if she’s all right,” Jackson suggested.
“Yeah.”
Lia went down the hall. The apartment smelled as if it were a hospital.
“Ms. Rauci? Amanda?”
“What?”
The sharp bite of her voice, stronger than Lia had expected, took her by surprise. “Hey, look, I know this sucks,” she told Amanda.
“Do you? Do you really know how it feels?” The truth was, Lia didn’t, not really, not firsthand. She’d been very lucky — Charlie Dean had come close to being killed on a mission but always survived.
“There were a couple of things about this that don’t make sense,” said Lia. “I don’t think it happened exactly the way everyone says it did. So, maybe, we can figure it out?” The door opened abruptly. Amanda, red faced, stared at her.
“Why are you interested?” said Amanda. “Who are you really with? I know you’re not federal marshals.”
“I told you, we’re working with the marshals’ office, helping out.”
“Who are you really?”
Lia could be harder than anyone, and yet she felt real sympathy for the woman. Rubens hadn’t told her and Jackson to lie, exactly, and Lia decided that Amanda was more likely to cooperate if she told the truth.
Even if it was in a roundabout way.
“We’re with the NSA, on loan to the marshals ser vice, which is helping with the investigation,” she said. “We’re trying to track down an e-mail your husband — your boyfriend — received. It may indicate that an assassination plot had an overseas origin. That’s why we’re here. That’s what we’re interested in.”
Either the explanation or Lia’s unconscious mistake about the nature of the relationship — calling Forester Amanda’s husband — softened her.
“Let’s go back into the kitchen,” she told Lia. “Or the living room. That’s better.”
Lia took Amanda’s elbow, clutching it gently as they walked down the hall. She suddenly felt like the host, rather than the uninvited guest.
“Do you want something?” Lia asked. “Coffee? Or something stronger?”
“Tea,” said Amanda. “There’s a kettle. Just tea.” talking about him was a catharsis. The words rushed from Amanda’s mouth, thoughts and emotions flowing that she had never even known she’d had. The two NSA agents, the hard Asian woman and the kindly grandfather, sat and listened. Amanda still wasn’t entirely sure why they were here, what they were really after — what Lia had told her made some sense but lacked enough real details to convince her. But once she had started to talk about Jerry, it didn’t matter.
Finally, the man, Jackson, interrupted her. “Did he say why he was investigating in Connecticut?”
“It wasn’t Connecticut. That was where we — where he — could get a hotel. The investigation was over in New York, a few miles away. We — I went up there to meet him. We were going to meet. But—”
The tears overwhelmed her for a moment. She thought of the nightgown she’d worn. She’d already thrown it out.
“He decided to stay in another hotel. I don’t know why. I thought he was coming to the hotel I was at. He called me and then, well, he said he would be there and didn’t come. I thought he stood me up. Well, I guess he did.” She bent over, sobbing until there was nothing left.
If they asked now whether she’d seen him dead, if they’d even hinted that they knew there was more to the story, she would tell them. She couldn’t hold back. She felt like a bal-loon that had been popped and left exhausted on the floor.
But they didn’t know to ask.
“The e-mail we were interested in,” said Lia, “came from Vietnam. Does that ring any bells?”
“Vietnam?”
“Did Forester know anyone there?”
“No.”
