As we were getting back to the hotel, Emmit asked, “Who do you think was behind it?”
He was referring to the massive explosions; we both knew that Rhodes was paid help.
“I think I’ll let the Feds worry about that,” I said. “It’s been a pretty long day.”
I got back to my room and got undressed. When I emptied my pockets, I saw that there had been an e-mail on my BlackBerry that I never opened. It was from Bryan, and it said:
And then I did something that I hadn’t done in many years, probably not since Bryan and I were in grammar school.
I cried.
My cell phone rang seventeen times during the night.
After the third call, I kept it in bed with me, so I could check the call waiting. I didn’t answer any; they all seemed to be Manhattan numbers, and I assumed they were trying to get me to do interviews on the events in Brayton. I was only going to answer if it were Julie or Bryan calling, but that didn’t happen.
I woke up, showered, and was five minutes away from going to meet Julie when she called. “He’s coming out of it,” she said.
“I’ll be right down.”
We drove to the hospital, and that made for probably the only time I’ve felt things were awkward between Julie and me. I didn’t know what she was going to do regarding her marriage, and I wasn’t about to ask her. I’m not even sure that she knew.
The truth was that I didn’t even know what I wanted her to do. I loved her, and I wanted to be with her. I had been denying that to myself for way too long. But I also wanted Bryan to have whatever it was that Bryan wanted.
I decided not to show Bryan’s last e-mail to Julie. He asked me to take care of Julie when he thought he wasn’t going to be around. Now that he was alive and hopefully well, he’d probably feel differently.
I figured it was too much to hope that Bryan met a great woman in the bomb shelter and they were engaged.
We got to the hallway outside his room, and a nurse greeted us with, “Doctor should be here soon, but he’s doing very, very well.”
At the door, Julie and I looked at each other before going in. I said, “One at a time?” She shook her head and said, “No. Together.”
I was shocked at how good Bryan looked. More important, he was alert and smiled when we walked in. It’s amazing what access to oxygen can do for somebody.
Julie went to him and hugged him, delicately because he still had tubes attached. She laid her head on his chest and kept it there for a while; she might have been crying, but I couldn’t tell for sure.
“Hey, babe,” he said, softly.
She lifted her head, and dried her eyes. She laughed a short laugh, and said, “Hey.”
I walked over and put my hand on his shoulder. “You made it,” he said. His speech seemed a little off but not too bad.
I nodded. “Thanks for hanging in there.”
“I knew you’d make it. But I knew you’d be a pain in the ass and wait until the last minute.”
“Hey, I’ve got a lot on my plate. I had to fit you in.”
He smiled. “I’m going to want you to tell me everything that happened, OK?”
“I will,” I said. “Now I’m going to leave you guys alone; I’ll be outside.”
It was about forty-five minutes later that Julie came out. I stood up, and she came over and put her head against my shoulder, and hugged me. As always, I didn’t have the slightest idea what she was thinking, or what she was going to say.
“Bryan and I are going to try and make it work,” she said.
I didn’t know how to answer that, so I said nothing.
I’d been saying nothing for a really long time, so I was used to it.
If I had to be doing interviews, I’d have preferred the
Instead, I had two Federal agents at my office when I got in. They had more hair than Matt Lauer but not nearly as much personality.
They were investigating the violence in Brayton. Edward Holland had been calling for Federal or state intervention for days, but it apparently took blowing up half the state to make it happen.
I was a key to their investigation, because I had been the one who realized what might happen that night. It was fairly easy for them to know that, since TV cameras had been at the site and captured everything.
The speeches of both Holland and Alex Hutchinson before the explosion had been playing in what seemed like an endless loop on television, and I had my share of airtime as well. I’m sure that both Holland and Alex were being subjected to the same type of interrogation as I was.
I had no reason to hide anything from them, until I came to a realization midway through. While they were investigating the explosion and murders in Brayton, they had not tied it in to Judge Brennan’s murder. They still thought that was solved, and that Steven was guilty.
I’m not sure why I didn’t enlighten them; I probably would have if they asked directly. It could be that I was paying back Barone for all he had done for me; I knew that Barone would want a head start in a reopened Brennan investigation, and I was giving him that. I also knew that Barone would want to manage how the information got out to the public that I shot the wrong guy.
I also realized in the moment that I had been through so much that I wanted a shot to get to the bottom of it myself. Bryan went through his terrible ordeal, Emmit was shot, and Chris Gallagher was killed. I wanted to find out who was responsible for all that, and I wanted to do one other thing.
I wanted to get justice for Steven Gallagher.
So I told the agents that I had learned about the Brayton situation while investigating the Brennan murder, but making it sound as if it were peripheral to that. And for a long time I had believed it was, while I was intent on lying to Chris Gallagher, rather than finding the truth.
When the agents left, I went in to see Barone, and told him that, for the time being at least, we had a head start on the renewed investigation into Brennan.
“Now these are the kinds of conversations I like,” he said.
“I thought you would.”
“So where do we start?”
“In Brayton,” I said. “That’s where it begins and ends.”
“So what is your ass doing here?”
I finally had time to approach the investigation my way.
Without the horrible clock ticking on Bryan’s life, I was able to analyze the Brayton system more logically and dispassionately. I did what I always did on a case. I wrote down what I knew, what I didn’t know, and why.
And then I went for a drive.
The only people who could be said to have come out of the carnage as winners were Edward Holland and Alex Hutchinson. Holland had constantly tried to protect his citizens, and it was manifested in his constant pleas for outside assistance, and most profoundly in his ordering his police chief to do whatever was necessary to remove them from a dangerous situation.
He risked unpopularity by doing so, but when he was proven right he became a political hero. He was already being talked about as the leading candidate for the open US Senate seat, and he was milking the publicity every chance he got.
Alex Hutchinson was in a similar situation, and her story was even more appealing. She was a mother protecting her children, protecting the children of an entire town, and she stood up to incredibly powerful forces
