Guilt (25 page)

“Traitor! Traitor!” Harvard Harry was standing on a bench and pointing directly at them, screeching. “TRAITOR!”

“A fan of yours?” Waxman asked, deadpan.

“I'm parked across the street,” Annie said. “Let's get out of here.”

Annie's Jeep was just a half block up on the other side of Mass Ave. They walked to the intersection. When the traffic let up, Peter put his arm around her and they crossed. It felt good walking with his arm around her shoulders, hers around his waist. Like coming home. With her long legs, she could easily match him stride for stride.

He told her about the lineup, how Harvard Harry hadn't identified anyone as the man who'd bopped him on the head and stolen his flag.

“Harry's pretty pissed at you,” Annie said when they reached her car.

“He seemed okay when he left the police station. Go figure. I guess the atmosphere out here is enough to set anyone off.” He took her hand. “So what are you doing here, anyway?” He tried to make the question sound casual. What he really wanted to know was why the hell she and MacRae were holding hands.

Annie gave him a steady look, and his stomach sank as he felt her weighing her answer. “I asked Mac to do a little research for me. I was just following up.”

“Research? Isn't he flat-out, investigating the bombings?”

“That's what he says. So I was twisting his arm a little.”

That's all?
Peter wanted to ask, but he stopped himself. Jealousy was ugly and counterproductive.

“So, I got invited to Sophie's birthday party,” Annie went on.

He didn't point out that she was deliberately changing the subject. “Right. Sunday. Come early. You can help us decorate.”

Annie did a double take. Her look said
You, decorate?
“I'll be there. But I have to leave early for church.”

It was Peter's turn for a double take. In all the time they'd been seeing each other, Annie had never once mentioned church. He'd always assumed she was a thoroughly lapsed Catholic. Maybe it had to do with the upcoming wedding.

“You going for Abby?”

“Thank god she's not tormenting me with that, too. No, I promised Chip I'd go with him. It's an annual thing at the cathedral. Anyway, it's a lot of pomp and circumstance, and hey, we can all use a little divine guidance these days. If I don't like what they say, I can always join the picketers outside.”

Peter knew he needed to get back to work, but another minute wouldn't hurt. He took her in his arms and examined her face. He could feel the tension in her body.

“You okay?” he asked.

Annie put her arms around his waist. She paused a second, like she was thinking about how to phrase her answer. “Just a case I'm working on. It's got me worried. Same old, same old.”

“Anything I can do?”

She smiled and shook her head. “Nah. I'm sure it'll sort itself out.”

She tightened her arms around him and he pressed her hips into his. He could smell her sweet, fruity scent. More than anything he wanted to bag the day and go somewhere they could be alone and reassure himself that everything was all right.

An older woman walked by pushing a double stroller holding a pair of identical tow-headed toddlers. She cleared her throat and looked down her nose at Peter and Annie with distaste.

Annie pulled away. “Oh dear. Mustn't set a bad example.” She gave him a peck on the cheek, got into her car, and left.

Peter crossed back over to the police station. He zigzagged through media encampments, keeping his head down to avoid eye contact. Harry was still there, talking with his friend on the bench and sipping his Coke. There was still no cruiser waiting to take him back to the Pearce. Damn. He checked his watch. It should have been there by then. He marched back toward the police station, gearing up to hassle Neddleman. He had no intention of waiting there half the day.

“TRAITOR!”

Peter didn't look around. He knew Harry had spotted him. Nothing wrong with that guy's short-term memory.

He reached for the front door and began to pull it open, and stopped. Where was Walter Waxman? He turned and scanned the sidewalk, the grass, the benches outside the police station, ignoring Harry's accusatory finger and continued screaming. Why wasn't Waxman out there trying to interview Harvard Harry, or buttonholing police officers. Peter could see Waxman's intense, nearly cross-eyed gaze, his glasses, his features indistinct like a blurry photograph—it was a face he'd seen before.

“TRAITOR!” Harry screamed again. Now Peter knew why.

*   *   *

Neddleman was with the DA when Peter burst into his office. “You still here? I told them to send a car to pick you up.” He reached for the phone.

“Harvard Harry recognized him.”

Neddleman and the DA stared at Peter like he had a few screws loose.

“I was waiting for your damned cruiser, which by the way has not shown up, and I'm telling you, Harry recognized the guy who stole his flag. This reporter comes over to me and Harry starts screaming ‘traitor' at me, like he thinks I'm communing with the enemy.”

“A reporter stole his flag?”

“Where are those pictures? The ones of the people whose key cards were stolen.”

Neddleman tossed Peter the file folder. He opened to the photo of Walter Waxman. The dark-haired man in his thirties wore dark-rimmed glasses and had a muscular, taut face with broad cheeks and squinty eyes.

“I'm telling you, that's not him.”

“That's not who?”

“That's not the guy outside wearing
Boston Phoenix
press credentials and passing himself off as Walter Waxman. The one Harry recognized.”

Neddleman jumped to his feet. “Why the hell didn't you say so?”

Peter ran to keep up as Neddleman hurried down the hall and into the office area. Neddleman rounded up a half-dozen officers and they stood in a group while Peter described, as best he could, the suspect's face, the glasses, his stature and paunch. He told them where he'd seen him last.

“Wearing?” Neddleman asked.

“Press credentials.” For the life of him, Peter couldn't remember what else the guy had on. “Harry could tell you.” Neddleman looked at him, disgusted. “But the guy's gone now. Must have realized Harry recognized him.”

“Why didn't you tell us sooner?”

“I didn't put it together. I thought Harry was just being, well, Harry.”

“Anything else?”

“Yeah. Two things. I've seen him before. He was in the coffee shop near the district court right after the bombing. He left without paying his tab. And I recognize the voice. It's kind of squeaky. He's called me on the phone, left me a message with questions about the A-bomber, like he was a real reporter.”

“So we've got him on tape, maybe,” Neddleman said, his voice hopeful.

Peter couldn't remember if he'd deleted the message. “I can check.”

Neddleman dispatched the officers to look for the man pretending to be Walter Waxman, and to nab Harvard Harry, who'd been promoted from crackpot to star witness.

Peter called his own voice mail and went through the old messages. He was relieved to find the message was still there. Neddleman put it on speaker phone.

“Hey, you promised to get back to me,” began the high-pitched voice. As the man purporting to be reporter Walter Waxman read off his questions, Neddleman sat back, sipping coffee. “Is there a profile of the type of person who does this kind of thing? Why is he quoting American patriot Thomas Paine? Do ‘raptor' and ‘maw' suggest the influence…”

Neddleman snapped forward. He listened through to the end, then replayed the message.

“That confirms it.” Neddleman said. “There's nothing about raptors or maws in the content we released to the public. Those words were in the email message sent to you. He's our guy.”

Peter realized he wasn't going to get back to the Pearce anytime soon. He sat with a police sketch artist picking from eyebrows, chins, and hairlines until a drawing was completed. Peter examined it. This pudgy, innocent-looking guy was the A-bomber. He'd long ago learned that there was no such thing as “the face of a killer.” Ted Bundy's twenty-eight victims trusted the notorious serial killer, who came across as handsome and charismatic, a showered and shaved Ivy-Leaguer. The man who'd killed Kate looked like a blond, blue-eyed Boy Scout. Here they were, dealing with a terrorist who resembled a potato dumpling.

26

W
HEN
A
NNIE
got back to the office, Jackie was on the phone, hunched over the receiver, her body turned away from Annie. “Yes, I know you like mustard on your sandwich. I just forgot … Right, no mayo, white bread.”

Annie poured herself coffee. So Joe had moved back in. Jackie hadn't told her as much, but she wasn't surprised. She wondered if he liked his sandwich cut in triangles with the crusts trimmed, too.

“I'm sorry.” Jackie took a tissue and wiped a tear from the corner of her eye. “Uh-huh.”

Annie poured coffee for Jackie. How pathetic was that, to be bullied to the point of tears over a ham sandwich?

Jackie blew a kiss into the receiver and hung up.

Annie brought the coffees over and sat down across from Jackie's desk. Jackie forced a smile. “Thanks, Annie. Oh, and I have a message for you. Joe wanted you to know, he's sorry for making such a mess of things.”

I'll bet he is,
Annie thought.

Jackie went on. “Really. He wants to make things right.”

“He's moved back in?”

Jackie nodded. “I was just now talking to him. He's shopping for a birthday present for Sophie. Isn't it sweet, Pearl offering to throw her a little party? She's been so generous.”

Annie didn't feel like playing along. “What about the restraining order?”

Jackie looked down into her lap and twisted the tissue.

“Has he started hitting you again?” The words were out before Annie could stop them.

Jackie hunched her shoulders and turtled her head.

Annie felt a pang of guilt. She was battering Jackie, too. “I'm sorry, but … no, I'm not sorry. I have to tell you, I think this man is even more dangerous than you imagine.”

“Annie, I know you think you're helping me. But would you just back off?” Her voice broke. “Please.”

Annie couldn't stop herself. “Do you really think his first wife just upped and disappeared?”

Jackie lifted her head, defiant. “She did. She took Joey and she—”

“Vanished into the ether? Leaving no word of where she was? No forwarding address for mail? Without ever getting in touch again?”

“But she has been in touch.”

Annie felt her mouth fall open. “She's … You've seen her?”

“No, we haven't seen her. Not since they left. But Joe hears from her. Sure. How do you think he pays child support?”

“Child support? He…” Annie found herself at a loss for words as her mental image of Brenda Klevinski resurrected itself from the grave.

“He just mentioned the other day that he was paying a tuition bill for Joey. She's got him enrolled in a parochial school near Ann Arbor.”

Michigan? Annie tried to take a step back and digest this new information. Had she let her flat-out loathing for Joe Klevinski fire her imagination? Was Joe Klevinski picking up mail from the PO box that was Brenda Klevinski's MasterCard billing address simply an innocent arrangement designed to maintain child support from a safe distance? Sounded pretty convoluted, more like something Joe made up when he realized Annie was onto him.

She retreated to her office and rummaged through the pile of papers on her desk, looking for the printout she'd made of the dozens of Klevinskis she'd found listed in the country. She paged through. Not a single one in Michigan.

Annie itched to get a look at the latest credit card bill and see for herself if there were any tuition charges. But how? Then she remembered that she'd been able to look up her own credit card account on the Internet. She'd had to request a password; with that and the account number, she'd been able to log in, and there it had been in all its glory, her last six months of profligate spending. She could do the same thing now, call and request a password for Brenda's account. All she had to do was find out the credit card company's customer service number. She blew on her fingertips, like a safecracker confident of her skills, and began to type.

Annie had no trouble convincing the phone rep that she was Brenda Klevinski. After all, she knew Brenda's account number, date of birth, social security number, mother's maiden name, and mailing address. The only fly in the ointment was that she couldn't get the password over the phone. “For security reasons,” the woman said, it had to be emailed. Annie promptly opened herself a Yahoo account under the name BRENDAK5000 and had them send it to her there.

When she got into the online listing for the account, she found the balance due was up to four grand plus a hefty finance charge. She scanned the items in the last month. There'd been almost daily charges in the twenty-dollar range from Nasty Pete's, an appropriately named bar in North Cambridge; other charges were from Shell and Exxon stations in the Boston area, a couple of hits from CVS, another from Best Buy. Nothing remotely resembled a parochial school tuition payment, and nothing at all from Michigan.

Child support my ass,
Annie thought as she printed the account activity. She put the pages into a file folder and set the folder in her top desk drawer. But what now? Short of digging up the basement of the house Brenda had shared with her husband, she'd run out of ideas. She had nothing even approaching a bloody glove to wave at the police. Maybe she should confront the guy and spook him into revealing something. Or tell Jackie what she knew to get her to stay the hell away from him. Jesus, the woman had not a single ounce of sense. Any idiot could see— Annie stopped herself mid-rant. She had to be careful. Her actions could easily backfire and put Jackie and Sophie in greater danger.