The End Game (25 page)

TUESDAY

42

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

After a troubled night tossing around Gigi’s sofa bed I decided to make a very early start and it wasn’t even eight o’clock by the time I found myself standing outside the Criminal Justice Center on Filbert Street, waiting for Faye Devane, hoping she’d be willing to talk about someone who died more than thirty years ago, someone she may not want to think about, let alone discuss.

Courtesy of Kurt and Gigi, I had a recent photo of her and a solid idea of where she’d be at this time of morning. I didn’t feel great about Kurt having hacked her email account and credit card statements, but I couldn’t risk either the delay or the point-blank rejection that would, in all likelihood, accompany a polite request.

Faye Devane was a Philly native. She’d grown up in Glenwood and won a scholarship to George Washington where she’d spent nine years that culminated in a doctorate in Juridical Science. After that, she’d moved back home and joined the Philadelphia Bar. She lived alone in a Brewerytown apartment, having never married nor had children. Her persona appeared to be reflected totally in her professional life as an assistant defender working exclusively for the Philadelphia Defenders Association, a non-profit organization whose members are barred from both private practice and partisan politics. From the snapshot of her that my indefatigable, if quirky, support staff had put together, I suspected she’d be a formidable opponent, both in court and as an interview subject.

Kurt had been tracking her cell phone since she’d left her apartment at six forty-five and had messaged me that she’d be arriving at some point within the next five minutes, her routine being to get in at least an hour before she was due in court.

After several minutes scanning the pedestrian traffic in both directions, I saw her approaching, briefcase in hand. She looked much younger than her fifty-six years. She wore a navy blue pants suit, which I assumed would highlight the blue eyes I’d already seen in her photos, and polished black loafers. Her raven-dark hair was short—almost boyish—and it didn’t look like her slim figure had changed much over the past thirty years: easier to maintain given she’d never been at the mercy of pregnancy and childbirth and the hormones and physical changes that accompany them. It was still easy to guess how she would have looked when she knew my dad and just as easy to see why any man would have fallen for her. She had an agile grace and moved with total confidence—both regarding her professional status and her appearance.

As she approached, I intercepted her as gracefully and non-threateningly as I could managed.

“Faye?”

She paused and nodded, her face giving absolutely nothing away. I guess she’d had years to practice that skill.

“I’m Sean Reilly, Colin’s son.” I watched and saw her eyes fill with recognition, then surprise, before settling on a forced confusion. “Can we please talk? Just for a few minutes?”

She made a move to get past me. “I don’t know who that is.”

I put my arm out while giving her a relaxed, warm smile. “I hope you lie better in court.”

She fixed me with a firm, no-nonsense look. “I never lie in court. I leave that to the cops.” She scrutinized me more closely. “You’re a cop yourself, aren’t you?”

She tried to step around me again, but I blocked her. “Faye—”

“I’m expected in court.”

I knew I had only one chance to get through to her.

“I’m not a cop,” I told her. “I’m with the FBI. And from what I’ve read, you and I share something else with my dad. Your whole life is about fighting for justice in the face of huge odds. About the greater good rather than personal gain. He would have been proud of you. I hope he’d be proud of me, too.”

She was quiet for a moment. “What do you want?”

“Just to talk. Give me ten minutes. Please.”

Her eyes flicked down to her watch then back to me. She sighed. “OK. Ten minutes. This way.”

She gestured east along the street and we headed in that direction. She eyed me as we walked, sizing me up, but more than that—like she was looking for something in me. It made me wonder if, somewhere in her mind, she was twenty-four again and walking with my dad.

“You’re from here, aren’t you?”

“Look, I know you probably know more about me than I remember about myself. Just do me a favor and don’t tell me how, OK? ’Cause I’d really rather not know.”

We covered the block in silence. I thought about the fine line between how a tragedy can either define your life—make everything about that one moment—or give your life crystal-clear definition, as it seemed to have had with Faye. The jury was still out on which applied to me, because although my life had definition for many years, over the past few months everything had become defined by what had happened to Alex and by my father’s suicide. I just hoped there was a way to get back to the other side.

I followed her across Twelfth Street and into the Reading Terminal Market, which occupied the lower levels of a nineteenth-century train shed. She led me through the market stalls—most of them only just open for the day—till we arrived at Old City Coffee.

I asked her what she wanted and ordered, then carried our coffees over to an empty table at the edge of the seating area where we took seats opposite each other. She sat in silence for a moment, then turned toward me.

“You look like him,” she said as her gaze danced around my face. “Not just the eyes. The expression.”

I nodded, half-smiling. “So I hear.” I paused for a breath, then I asked her, “Were you together?”

Much as she tried to mask it, I could see her breath catch and her eyes flare. “You don’t mince words, do you?”

“I’m sorry, but—I wouldn’t be here if this wasn’t important. And I’m not some troubled soul looking for some kind of closure related to his parents, believe me. This has to do with an investigation.”

“Into what?”

“His death.”

This time, she didn’t try to hide her surprise. “What are you talking about? And why now, after all these years?”

“Tell me about you and him first,” I said.

A solemn sadness spread across her face. “We were together,” she said, averting my gaze. “Very much so.”

Even though I suspected as much, the stark, unabashed confirmation still hollowed out my stomach. The idea of my dad, a dad I hardly got to know, someone I’d idealized despite the way he died, maybe even more so because of it, the idea of him, leading a double life, cheating on my mom—it was a tough image to accept, even after all this time.

I asked, “How long were you together?”

“Just over a year,” she answered without hesitation. “I’m sorry if this is disappointing to you, but I feel you want the truth.”

“I do. And I appreciate your candor.”

She nodded and looked away, into the distance. “I never recovered, you know. He was very special. A big part of me died with him. I never forgave myself either.”

“For what?”

She took a strengthening sip of coffee. “Your dad was drifting through life when I met him, Sean. He and your mother . . . they loved each other, but they weren’t
in
love. Do you understand what that means? I mean,
really
understand?”

“Time affects all couples, married or not,” I countered. “It’s only human, right?”

“Yes, but your dad . . . he was a man of passion.” She visibly blushed, then shook her head. “I don’t mean it that way,” she said. “Not that he wasn’t—what I mean is, he expected a lot out of life. Big gulps of it. And, over time, his life with your mom had gone stale. A lot of it was her fault, he felt.” She paused a bit, hesitated, then added, “You know she had a miscarriage?”

And the hits keep on coming. I had no idea. “No.”

“I’m sorry . . . she did. A girl. Six months in. She would have been around four years younger than you.” She took a breath, watching me, clearly judging whether to keep going. “It was bad. Colin said she was never the same after that. He said there was a sadness in her that was always there. And Colin couldn’t blame her for it. It was just bad luck. But it took its toll on them. On him, too, first because of the miscarriage, then because of how your mom couldn’t come out of it. I mean, he understood she’d feel devastated. He was too. But, year after year, she stayed that way. He could see it in her eyes. He ended up morose, dour. His spark was gone.”

“And that changed when you came into his life?”

She seemed increasingly uncomfortable.

“Please, Faye,” I said. “It’s fine. I’m not judging you, not at all. I just need to know. It’s important.”

She nodded, willing herself to keep going. “He came back to life. He told me that’s how he felt, but he couldn’t bring himself to leave your mother. Or you. He said it was out of the question. He cared for you both too much. He couldn’t do it.”

“But you wanted him to?”

I watched as she allowed the memories to rise to the surface—feelings she maybe hadn’t allowed herself for over three decades. “I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want him all to myself. But, above all, I wanted him to be happy. And part of his appeal was about how good a person he was. I know it sounds perverse, but his firm commitment to you both—it just made me want him more. And then, a few weeks before he died, he told me he’d decided to leave your mom. He was worried about her—worried about you, even more—but he felt he only had one life to live and he’d done everything he could to try and make things better and that maybe she’d be happier having a fresh start with someone else, without that baggage. He asked if I’d wait for him to find the right moment to do it. I know, a lot of guys say that, right? It’s like Meg Ryan’s friend in
When Harry Met Sally
, the pathetic mistress who’s totally delusional about her guy leaving his wife for her and they keep reminding her, ‘He’s never going to leave her for you.’ But your dad wasn’t like that. He wasn’t lying about that. And I was in no rush.” She dropped her eyes, and her voice broke a touch. “Afterwards, I felt so guilty about what happened. I thought that maybe if nothing had happened between us he wouldn’t have . . . I never imagined it would make him do what he did.”

Only then did I see the true sense of loss in her eyes. Maybe still as raw as the moment she heard Colin was dead. A bottomless chasm that could never be filled.

Still, something wasn’t sitting right. “That’s why you feel guilty? You think he killed himself because he couldn’t handle his double life or the thought of leaving my mom?”

“Well, what else could I think? It was the only way I could make sense of it. I mean, he was a strong man. Clear-thinking. He seemed to be in control; he had two separate, parallel lives, and he seemed OK with how he was going to handle it. But I couldn’t see any other reason why he’d do it, and I could never talk about it, not to anyone. No one knew. Isn’t that why you’re asking me all this?”

“You think that was the cause of his depression?”

“What depression?”

“He was seeing a shrink in the months before he died. He was diagnosed with clinical depression. He was being treated for it.”

“Nonsense. Colin wasn’t depressed. Conflicted, yes. Torn, maybe. But depressed? No way. Not at all.” She said it with total conviction. “I would have known. He was at peace with it. I mean, he felt bad about what he was going to do and about me having to wait, but like I said, I was in no rush. I was very young. I wasn’t thinking that far ahead. Little did I know how deeply he’d already affected me.” She sat back, visibly relishing some lost memory. “He was happy when he was with me. We were happy.” Emphasis on the “we.”

Right then, I think she wished she’d been more tactful.

I looked away, gave her some space to recover her poise. “He certainly wasn’t seeing any therapist,” she added, her tone firm. “I would have known about it.”

“My mother didn’t know. I’m pretty sure she didn’t know about you either. The man could keep secrets.”

“Not from me, believe me. Not about something personal like that.”

“Maybe he couldn’t bring himself to tell the shrink about you, and since he couldn’t find a reason for his being depressed, the shrink ascribed it to clinical depression. It’s in the coroner’s report. My mom met the shrink. I mean, he did kill himself—or that’s what everyone accepted at the time.”

“But you think otherwise?”

“I’m not sure.”

Her eyes flared wide. “You think he was
murdered
?”

“I don’t know.”

I’d been thinking about this all night. If he had a lover and felt conflicted about it, it could explain a depression and maybe, maybe, the suicide. But if he’d been planning to leave my mom—and me—for her, then it underlined my suspicions. Someone with plans to make a new life with his lover doesn’t go blow his brains out. And from what Faye was telling me, he didn’t seem overly troubled by it. Certainly nowhere near enough to even begin to justify a suicide.

I asked, “What can you tell me about the days or weeks leading up to his death? Was there anything particular he was involved with?”

“Something that he’d kill himself about? Or that others would want to kill him for?”

“Maybe.”

She finished her cup as she thought about it. “He was very focused on all the big issues facing the country, and it wasn’t a good time,” she said. “We were in a deep recession. Inflation, interest rates, oil prices—they were big problems. And that was the year of the presidential election, Reagan against Carter, a big showdown . . . they had opposing ideals, you were too young to really know about it. They were troubled times. Abroad, there was the hostage crisis in Iran.”