Guilt (14 page)

MacRae introduced two other officers, Officer Tozzi and Agent Neddleman.

“Yo,” Tozzi said, and shook Peter's hand. The bald, heavyset man was in his shirtsleeves and looked as tired as MacRae.

Neddleman, a slight man with sharp, intense eyes, and skin the color of coffee loaded with cream, didn't say anything. He was a pretty cool character in his dark suit, white shirt, and blue tie. He just slid his eyes at Peter and gave a slight nod.

“Maybe it wasn't a bike at all,” Peter said. “I wonder if what she
may have seen
”—he carefully used that phraseology—“is something like a white motor scooter. That would have small wheels and a big headlight. And she said the bus sounded funny when it went by. Maybe that was the sound of the scooter and the bus combined.”

MacRae frowned. “And that would explain why she didn't see the bike emerge after the bus went past. The bus would've run blocking for the scooter.”

MacRae conferred with Neddleman and Tozzi for a moment. Tozzi left the room.

MacRae picked up a whiteboard marker and began adding items. The list already had on it:

Male

White

Local

Only child

Intelligent

Educated

Under or unemployed

Childhood abuse victim

Criminal record

Reads sci-fi/spy thrillers

Lack of empathy

Delusional

Anarchist (maybe)

He added:

Dark hair

Beard?

30–40

Bike or motor scooter, no helmet

On another whiteboard, Neddleman wrote:

Cross-check suspects for bike/scooter

and drew a big circle around it.

Taped to the wall were the two flyers Peter recognized from the bombings plus dozens more of the typical flyers you'd find posted on your average Cambridge lamppost.

“Turns out this guy's not very original,” MacRae said. “He's quoting Vanzetti and Thomas Paine.”

An anarchist fish peddler and a patriot—interesting choices. “He's smart,” Peter said. “Educated, probably well-read.”

“Though these days anyone can get quotes like those off the Internet,” MacRae pointed out. “That's how we identified them.”

Peter looked at the rest of the miscellaneous flyers, each one marked with a different Cambridge intersection where presumably it had been found.

“We've been bringing in anything that looks like it might be connected,” MacRae explained. He shook his head in disgust. “He couldn't pick some nice, quiet, conservative town like Andover to bomb. No, he has to blow up the People's Republic of Cambridge where every other nut is a frustrated guru.”

One flyer began
IS THE WORM TURNING? JOIN US IN OUR STRUGGLE
. It was signed
AAA ANONYMOUS ANTI-AUTHORITARIANS.

“That doesn't look like the work of your bomber,” Peter said.

“Why not?” MacRae asked. Neddleman was watching from the corner like a gray shadow.

“Doesn't strike me as a joiner.”

“Why don't you have a look at the others. See if any of them leap out at you.”

Peter examined the next flyer.
JESUS SAVES
. Unlikely, too. The messages they knew were his sounded decidedly atheist. Another one began:
GE KILLS
. Maybe. It wasn't a huge leap from legal institutions to corporate leviathans.

The next one was a drawing of a woman with a ball and chain around her ankle. It read
WAGE SLAVERY OR STARVATION?
Nope, not his concerns.

The next one gave Peter pause:
STOP PARTICIPATING IN THE RUIN OF CREATION. PARTICIPATE IN THE CREATION OF RUINS
. Beneath the words was a drawing of a cop's head with a pistol pointed at it. It had come from the corner outside the police station.

“Pretty sick, huh?” MacRae said.

“Sick all right. But I doubt if someone who's quoting Vanzetti and Paine would be so crude.”

Peter scanned the rest of the flyers. None of them felt like the first two. “Sorry, wish I could be more help.”

More head shots had been taped up. Joe Klevinski was still there. One of the new faces looked familiar. It was a man with a longish beard and a prizefighter's nose squashed against his face. Peter wondered if he'd acquired the nose defending the ears that stood out from his head like a pair of mud flaps.

“That's one of our local celebrities. Harvard Harry,” MacRae said. “He's missing.”

Now Peter remembered where he'd seen that face. It belonged to one of the more colorful characters who'd hung around the Square for years. Always polite, relatively clean, he'd stand across from the Coop holding an American flag and hand out literature.

Among the mug shots was a piece of paper with the black outline of a head with a question mark in the middle of it.

“That's just there to remind us, could be person or persons unknown,” MacRae said.

Neddleman had slipped out of the room. MacRae gave a nod toward the door and mouthed, “Fed.”

“No kidding,” Peter said.

MacRae lifted a stack of files from the top of a file cabinet, set them on the table, and handed Peter one.

“This one's being picked up for questioning.”

Peter opened the file. There was a mug shot that matched one on the wall, a man with disheveled, sandy-colored hair who looked like he'd just been yanked out of bed and had a light shone in his face. Peter read the summary sheet on top. James Tietz. Unfortunate name—kids in school must have tortured him.

Peter read down. Thirty-three years old. Father deceased. He'd been arrested once for driving under the influence. Once for speeding. Another time for disorderly conduct outside a police station—apparently he'd been part of some kind of demonstration.

There was a high school transcript, mostly Cs, some Bs. Ds in physical education. Then a transcript from a local community college. Bs, along with a fair number of incompletes. Looked as if he'd dropped out after three semesters.

After that, he'd been in the military, served under a year in the navy. Peter read the discharge papers. “Demonstrated Unreliability” was the navy's verdict. There was a check in the box beside “Apathy and/or defective attitude or inability to expend effort constructively.” Euphemism for what? Peter wondered.

Then there were copies of letters dated four years earlier to the Cambridge police chief, demanding $200,000 for fire damage to a home.

“Your officers are responsible for the damage,” began the rant in one of the letters. “Or should I say irresponsible.”
Irresponsible
was underlined three times. Peter scanned the two additional pages of neat, densely packed writing. The tone was almost threatening, but not quite.

“What happened?” Peter asked.

“His mother owned a house in Cambridge that caught fire. Apparently someone left food on the stove unattended. Shouldn't have been a big deal, but it was a comedy of errors. The police cruiser that got there first backed over the fire hydrant, so firefighters had to get a longer hose. By the time they got water in there, the fire was out of control. The insurance company wouldn't pay—his mother had been late sending in the last premium. He sued the insurance company and lost. Sued the police department, the fire department, the city, and when he lost he sued his lawyer for malpractice.” MacRae gave a tired smile and shook his head. “Poor schmuck.”

No doubt about it, here was someone with a legitimate bone to pick with the justice system. Peter turned back to the mug shot. Not bad-looking. Though the eyes looked funny, pupils dilated, like maybe he was on speed.

“Any incidents with the police before the fire?” Peter asked, as his mind flooded with other questions. Had Tietz been active politically? What kinds of assignments had he had in the navy? Why had he been discharged? Had he been abused as a child?

There was shouting outside the building. Through the window Peter could see reporters swarming three police officers who were escorting a man into the station. The man had his arms up over his face as cameras flashed.

“That's Tietz,” MacRae said.

He gave Peter a piece of paper. It was a confidentiality form, promising to keep anything that he learned confidential. MacRae offered a pen. Now raised voices were coming from the lobby. Peter hesitated. Did he really want to be doing this? He glanced back at the rows of photographs on the wall and wondered how many people in the greater Boston area were going to get dragged in for questioning because they were angry with the courts and read sci-fi novels.

That's when he noticed a map of Cambridge on the wall with an area outlined in red. Damned if the outline didn't include Peter's house.

15

“Y
OU PEOPLE
have got some nerve,” said a fuming James Tietz, his arms folded across his chest as he sat ramrod straight in his chair in the police interrogation room. Peter watched through one-way glass in a setup similar to the side-by-side treatment and observation rooms at the Pearce. But this was a different universe, with its uncomfortable-looking chairs, stark walls with chipped paint, and flickering fluorescent lights.

Tietz sat across from MacRae and a woman police officer whom MacRae had introduced to Peter as Jean Mulberry.

The compact, wiry man was sputtering indignation. “Who told you to pick me up? Harassment, that's what it is.” His face was pitted with what must have once been a raging case of adolescent acne, and he wore a crisp white dress shirt, cuffs rolled. “I know my rights. Am I under arrest?”

“No, but that can be arranged if you'd rather not answer our questions, which I know you're eager to do because you're a law-abiding citizen, aren't you?” MacRae said.

Tietz looked back and forth from MacRae to his partner. “Why me? I haven't done anything.”

“Last Tuesday. Where were you?” MacRae shot the words across the table.

Tietz gave several rapid blinks. “It's none of your business where I was. You people think you can—”

“You can spare the drama. Just answer the question. What were you doing a week ago Tuesday?”

Tietz shifted in his chair, his fists clenching and unclenching.

“At about two o'clock,” MacRae added.

Tietz loosened his fists. “Tuesday. That was the day—” His eyes went wide, as if he'd just thought of something. Peter realized that his eyes were just very dark, making his pupils appear to be dilated. Tietz muttered something.

“Pardon me?” MacRae said.

“I was at work,” Tietz said, his face impassive.

“Um-hmm,” MacRae said in a neutral voice while Officer Mulberry wrote. “Can you tell me where you work?”

“Sound City. In Somerville. I'm a repair tech.”

“Who saw you there?”

“I don't know. Everyone who works there—”

“When are you going to stop bullshitting me?” MacRae said, cutting him off. “We've already talked to the store manager. He says you weren't there.”

Tietz gripped the table, his knuckles going white. “You went to my work? You talked to my boss? You bastards. It's not enough that you destroy my home? Now you're trying to get me fired?”

MacRae seemed unmoved. “It would be a whole lot better for you to come clean, get this off your chest. I can help you.” His tone had turned urgent. “But if you don't tell me where you were and what happened, the truth this time, then I can't do a thing for you.”

It was quiet, except for a rhythmic creaking sound as Tietz jiggled his knee under the table.

“We know you didn't get back from your lunch break until after two-thirty. So where were you?”

“I don't have to put up with this,” Tietz said, getting to his feet. He picked up his jacket from the chair back. “You stay out of my life, you, you sons of bitches. It's none of your goddamned business where I was.” He swore under his breath.

“Actually,” said MacRae, standing and putting both hands on the table, “it is our business. When a bomb goes off—”

“Bomb?” Tietz reared back. He went a shade paler, and his jacket dropped to the floor. Either he was a very good actor, or he hadn't seen this coming. “And you think I…?” He stared goggle-eyed at MacRae. “I had nothing to do with that. I wasn't anywhere near—”

“So, where were you? Why not just cooperate with us and tell us? It will make things go so much easier for you.”

Tietz looked steadily at MacRae. “Cooperate,” he said. “The Third Reich had euphemisms for what they were doing, too. But it's still persecution. ‘Just doing our job,' that's what they said, too.”

“And what about September fourth, Tuesday at noon,” MacRae said, ignoring the diatribe. “Your boss says you weren't at work then, either.”

“Four weeks ago? How the hell am I supposed to remember—” He broke off. “September fourth? Actually, I do know where I was. I was at home. With my mother.”

“So I'm sure she'll be able to verify your story.”

Tietz gave a thin smile. “You're welcome to ask her. Though you'll have to bring in bigger guns to pull that off.” His look turned into an angry, sullen stare. “Stupid bumbling idiots. You've got your heads up your asses.”

MacRae sputtered an oath and turned purple. He looked as if he was about to grab Tietz by the neck, but Mulberry pulled him back.

“Hey, back off. That's enough,” she told him. “Why don't you go somewhere and cool off.”

MacRae glowered at Tietz. “If I find out you're the one responsible, I'm personally going to make your life miserable. And believe me, I can.”

MacRae slammed out of the room, and a moment later joined Peter. For all the fireworks, his interrogation had gotten nowhere. That's what happened when you backed someone like Tietz into a corner.

Peter started to say something to that effect when he realized that MacRae's color was back to normal and his face relaxed. He had a lazy smile on his face. Of course, it had been an act.