Aphrodite (28 page)
“Your parents …”
“Not much help, I’m afraid. My mother came to see me in the hospital. My father never did. When I got out, he wouldn’t take my calls. So I went to see him at his office, at the bank. His secretary let me in and my dad was sitting at his desk, working. He looked up at me and he said, ‘You took the thing I loved the most away from me.’ He meant his granddaughter. And that was it. He put his head down, went back to work. I haven’t seen or spoken to either one of them since.”
“And Alicia?”
“One year to the day after the break-in and the shooting, she killed herself. I was home and she went to the kitchen, right to the spot where she was standing when Lili was killed, and she shot herself. I had put the gun away that day, but she took it out of the closet, put it in her mouth, and pulled the trigger.
“I think I’m finished,” he said. “That’s the end of the story.”
Deena slid over next to him, put her head on his chest, and wrapped one arm around him. “I’m sorry,” she said.
“Bad stuff happens all the time,” Justin said. “It just seems a lot worse when it’s happening to us.”
“That’s not what I meant. I
am
sorry for all that happened. But I meant …you shouldn’t have gotten pulled back into the bad stuff. You’re here because of me. And you shouldn’t be.”
“No one really gets pulled into something they don’t want to get pulled into. Not exactly the words of the Buddha, I’ll grant you, but there’s my philosophy of life. When push comes to shove, people are where they want to be.”
He slid down on the bed so his eyes were even with hers and his mouth was an inch away from her lips.
“Do you want to be here?” she asked.
“Right now I do, yes.”
He could feel her warm breath on his face, feel the hardness of her body up against his.
“I know you’re out of shape,” she whispered, “and you haven’t been a real cop in a while. And I know my daughter can outtalk you on the telephone.” She put her hand on Justin’s cheek and stroked him gently. “But exactly how rusty are you?”
Justin leaned in to her and they kissed. Their lips were cracked and dry, and he winced when her shoulder bumped up against his. But he kissed her again, harder, and when she lifted her T-shirt over her head and tossed it on the floor, he pulled the sheet back and motioned for her to get under it.
“I think we’d better find out,” he said.
In the morning, Deena opened her eyes a few minutes after six o’clock. She thought an alarm had gone off, but then she heard someone talking, thought maybe it was a dream. She turned over, saw that he was gone. She realized it was his voice she was hearing. She looked across the room. Justin was on the telephone, speaking quietly.
“All right,” he was saying. “You be careful. If you can get what I asked for, that’s great. But don’t do anything if it’s too risky. Do you understand?” He listened for a moment, then said, “Okay. Thanks for calling back. If I’m wrong, I’ll let you call me paranoid. I’m sorry I woke you up.”
He hung up, saw that she was awake, smiled, and slid back into bed. “That was Gary. The kid I work with in East End.”
“Do you trust him?”
“I don’t really have a choice right now. People aren’t exactly lining up to help.”
She kissed the corner of his lips. “Has anything else happened?”
“Unfortunately, yes,” he told her. “There’s a warrant out for my arrest. And yours, too.”
“For what?”
“Murder. They’re saying I killed Ed Marion. And that we both killed Susanna Morgan.”
“I don’t understand,” she said.
“Somebody doesn’t want us to get any closer to whatever the hell is going on. And it’ll be a lot harder to get close while there’s a manhunt going on.”
He could feel her tremble as he held her. And he saw goose bumps raise on her arms.
“I’d better go back to my room,” she said. “So I’m there when Kenny wakes up.”
He nodded. Ran his hand through her hair. “I’m not going to let them hurt you,” he told her. “Not you or Kendall. I swear.” “I believe you.” She did her best to smile, and then she said, “Do you really have a plan?”
“Yes.”
“Do you want to tell me what it is?”
“We’re going to Providence,” he said.
She looked surprised. “What’s in Providence?”
“Almost everything we need,” he told her. “At least for now.”
Deena had asked if they could do a half hour of yoga before they left. She said it would do them some good. Justin thought of how his body had ached after their first session and how his shoulder throbbed now. Then he thought of Deena, under the covers, and he remembered touching her smooth, perfect body. He thought of all the things they had to do and the obstacles facing them, and then he said, “Sure. A half hour of yoga is just what I need.”
He had to admit he felt better afterward. He stretched and held poses, then she made him sit and do nothing but breathe deeply for ten minutes. It relaxed him and made him feel centered. After taking a shower, he actually felt pretty good. The first thing they did after leaving the motel was stop off and buy yet another cell phone. “It won’t slow ’em down for long,” Justin said, “but at least it’ll annoy them.” Then they bought copies of the
New York Times
and the local paper. The news that they were now wanted for questioning and were suspects in two murders was on page four of the
Times
’ Metro section. They had made page two of the local.
Front-page news was still dominated by the murder of Maura Greer and the burgeoning scandal with Greer and Frank Manwaring. Details were emerging daily—hourly, it seemed—that tied Manwaring closer and closer to the murder. The media were incensed by the veil of silence behind which the ex-secretary had hidden himself. They were calling for his head. D.C. police had revealed the depths to which Manwaring had gone not to cooperate with their investigation in the months prior to the discovery of the body. And Assistant Director Leonard Rollins of the FBI, in charge of the now-federal investigation, was quoted acknowledging that Manwaring had been on the East End of Long Island, in the nearby Hamptons, just two weeks after Maura had disappeared. When questioned about whether Manwaring could be tied to the attempt to hide Maura’s body in the waters off East End Harbor, Rollins gave a halfhearted “No comment.” The dead woman’s parents were insisting that such proximity to the murder scene could not be a coincidence. Public opinion polls showed that eighty-eight percent of America believed that Manwaring was involved, if not downright guilty, in the death of Maura Greer.
Manwaring, meanwhile, had his spokesperson yet again vehemently declare his innocence. The spokesperson also said that “Mr. Manwaring would not comment on any specifics of the investigation or any specific allegations. He is proceeding with his life as he normally would. Personally, he is dealing with the trauma this situation has caused his family. He is dealing with that privately with his wife and children. And he is continuing with his professional commitments, including attending an upcoming conference in Montauk, New York. The conference is hosted, as it is each year, by Herbert Borbidge, head of the Wall Street firm Borbidge & Company, and it brings together leaders from the media, government, and business communities to discuss wide-ranging issues and problems. Secretary Manwaring is attending as a private citizen, not as a representative of the current administration. And he is attending because he is on several panels discussing topics which he considers crucial to the future of our country. Mr. Borbidge has personally assured him that the secretary’s presence is not just welcome but essential to the success of the conference.” The story then quoted Herbert Borbidge giving a lukewarm endorsement at best, saying that Manwaring had been invited months ago and that, as of now, there was no intention of rescinding the invitation.
Deena read the story aloud as they drove north. She and Kendall were eating doughnuts. Justin had declined, saying that they were too fattening. When Deena looked up in surprise, he had shrugged and said, “If I’m going to start practicing yoga, I might as well lose some weight, too.”
When she put the paper down—after reading the story of Pedro Martinez’s two-hit shutout of the Yankees to Kendall—she turned to Justin and said, “Do you think he did it?”
“Which he are we talking about now?”
“Manwaring. Do you think he killed that girl?”
Justin chewed on his lip a moment before saying, “I have to admit, there are too many other murders I’ve been concentrating on to give that one much thought.”
“It’ll take your mind off other matters. Think like a cop.”
“It’s hard,” Kendall said from the backseat. “He’s rusty.”
“He’s not as rusty as you think, young lady,” Deena said. “Now hush.”
Justin accepted her words with a pleased raise of his eyebrows, then he said, “Okay, from what I’ve read, yes, he sounds like the absolute poster boy for guilt.”
“So he killed her.”
“Probably.”
“Not definitely?”
“When you’re working homicide there are two separate and distinct points of view you constantly have to juggle. The first is that people who commit crimes really do incredibly stupid things. It’s why we catch them. Every single time you think, ‘Well, this guy isn’t really going to leave a shirt with the victim’s blood lying around in his laundry for us to find’ or ‘He can’t possibly have buried the gun someplace as obvious as his front yard,’ and almost every time he does. Most killers either panic or just plain screw up. I’ll tell you the most amazing thing criminals do: They can’t resist playing around with their own names. If someone’s on the run and he checks into a hotel? Well, if his name’s Paul Davis, when he checks in he’ll use one of three variations. He’ll keep the same first name and a different last name, usually the same initial, though. He’ll use Paul Dillon or something like that. Or else he’ll use a different first name but keep both initials. Phil Dillon. Or else he’ll come up with some kind of rhyming scheme or pun. Saul Mavis. I swear. You find ninety percent of the people you’re looking for that way. Some of them want to get caught, some of them don’t know how to avoid it. But then there’s the flip side. Sometimes things are too easy, they fit too perfectly. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. But occasionally it’s something that someone else wants you to
think
is a cigar.”
“So you’re weaseling out of your answer, is that right?”
“My answer is the guy’s a politician. So the odds are he’s total scum and did what everybody thinks he did. But there’s also a chance that he’s just the unluckiest guy in the world, in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“Like us?”
“There you go. A perfect example.”
“Am I unlucky too, Mom?” Kendall asked.
“God, you have big ears,” Justin said.
“The biggest,” Deena said. “And no, Dumbo,” she told her daughter, “you’re the luckiest child on the planet because you’ve got me as your mom.”
“I agree,” Justin chimed in.
“Yuck,” Kendall said. “Yuck and double yuck.”
“I guess I have to agree with that, too,” Justin said.
Gary Jenkins watched as AD Rollins came into the police station, stopped just long enough to look over at him, a thin smirk lingering on his lips, then kept walking into Chief Jimmy Leggett’s office. Gary’s stomach clenched when, just a few minutes later, he heard Leggett call him into the office. He stood quickly, cracked his knuckles, and walked to the back of the police station. When he stepped through the office door, Agent Rollins was seated, his legs stretched out casually before him.
“Sit down, Gary,” the chief said and indicated which chair the young officer should sit in. Leggett remained standing.
When Gary settled into the seat, Rollins spoke. There was no urgency or anger in his voice. His words sounded as casual as his posture. “Let me get right to the point, Officer Jenkins,” he said. “I’ve been tracking the calls that have been coming in and out of this office. And I know you’ve received several calls from Justin Westwood.”
Gary had a little difficulty swallowing the saliva in his throat, but he forced it to go down and decided he was better off keeping quiet than saying anything.
“As a result of those calls, I got a tap on your office line. I also tapped your home phone, so I know you’ve called and spoken to Westwood.”
Gary decided he was definitely better off keeping quiet.
“Would you like to hear a tape of your conversation at 6:03 this morning, Officer Jenkins? Or do you remember the substance?”
Unfortunately, it was time to speak. “I remember, sir.”
“Westwood asked you to get him some information, is that right?”
“Yes sir.”
“Phone records.”
“Yes sir.”
“Are you going to keep yessing me to death, Officer, or are you going to explain to me what happened?”
“You know what happened, sir, if you listened to the conversation.”
“I want to hear your explanation.”
“Westwood called me early this morning. Woke me up. He asked me to get him a list of the incoming and outgoing calls for a woman named Helen Roag.”
“And why would he do that?”
“Because I got him similar information before.”
“What info?”
“When this all started to happen. Before you even got here. I got him phone records for a business in Connecticut called Growth Industries.”
Rollins nodded, as if that settled something in his mind. Then he said, “Did you get him the records for Helen Roag?”
“No sir.”
“Why not?”
“Because he’s a criminal, and I didn’t think it would be right.”
“Are you bullshitting me, son?”
“No sir. I told him I’d do it because I didn’t want to upset him. But I had no intention of getting him any more records.”
“Why didn’t you report this to me or to Chief Leggett?”
Gary hesitated. “Because Westwood’s a friend of mine, sir.”
“Is that right? Chief Leggett says you never got along with him. Isn’t that what you said, Chief?”
“That’s right,” Jimmy Leggett said. “He and Brian, they never got along with Jay.”
“That is right, sir,” Gary said to Rollins. “But that was before I knew all the stuff about Westwood and his wife and daughter. I never would have picked on him the way I did if I’d known what had happened. When I heard, it made me feel sorry for him.”
