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THIRTY-SEVEN
“What do you mean who’s been here lately?” I said, tossing a glance back at the burial ground as we walked out of City Hall Park.
“Like Do
“We’re about to find that out,” I said. “Think of it. The mayor goes up those steps every day, along with his bodyguards. Kendall Reid’s office is here. Ethan Leighton came by to see him-against Lem’s orders yesterday-which is really interesting.”
“And you know what, Coop? After the news story about the burial-ground ditches the other night, it would be the perfect place for someone out to nail Statler-like old man Moses-to have evidence planted, if that’s what your little baggie actually is. But don’t get too bent out of shape yet. Maybe the Avon lady dropped her stash.”
We passed through another security post and took the elevators to the task force quarters on the sixth floor. Most of the doors were closed and the corridor was quiet. The federal prosecutors’ offices were much newer and cleaner than our distressed old surroundings. We reached Baynes’s room and I knocked before trying the knob, but it was locked.
“Go around the corner,” I said to Mike. “He’s got a small conference room.”
As we made the turn I could hear voices. One man was shouting at another who kept talking over him-it sounded like Ukrainian to me-and again I knocked.
The shouting ceased. Someone called out, “Yeah?”
I waited for the door to be opened. Seconds later, I was rewarded by the sight of one of the federal agents, shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbows, who begrudgingly cracked it a hair.
“Who you looking for?” he asked as he eyed us.
“Donovan Baynes,” I said.
Chairs scraped the surface of the floor and I heard Do
The agent stepped away and Do
“Sorry to interrupt you.”
“Everything all right?”
“Yes. We’ve had an interesting day.”
“What are you up to?” Mike asked.
“The agents started with some of the boat crew yesterday, trying to reconstruct all the events. Find out what they know.”
“Who you got in there?”
“A couple of my guys, one of the young task-force prosecutors, an interpreter-and that’s one of the engineers from the boat.”
“He doesn’t sound happy.”
“If his happiness were my goal, Mike, I would have gone to clown school, you know?”
The shouting had begun again in earnest, voices overlaying each other, punctuated by the sound of a fist banging on the table.
“You waterboarding in there or just surfing?”
Do
“Can we talk to you for a couple of minutes?” I asked.
“What’s up?”
“In your office.” I gestured at the sterile corridor.
“Oh, yeah. Sure.”
He took us back, unlocked the door, and invited us in. It was already begi
“You look so serious, Alex. Everything okay with the two young women you spirited out of my custody?” He was adjusting the blinds as we lost the day’s light.
“We made some progress with the first interview. Nan and I are both optimistic that we’ll get these girls to open up. And from what we hear they had a great first night in the shelter. Nothing wrong on that front.”
“What, then?” Do
“I think we need to spend some time talking about your relationship with Ethan Leighton,” I said.
“He’s been a friend since law school. A good one. I don’t have to tell you how shocked I am by all this.” Now he was sorting the markers in the front of his desk drawer.
“You do, actually,” Mike said. “That’s just what you have to tell me. How shocked are you? I recall sitting with you Thursday night while Coop charted all the co
We had Do
“I did not know Salma. That’s a fact.”
“Never met her?”
“No,” Do
“I’m not sure what to think.”
“Why? Where did this come from?”
“Did you ever meet Salma Zunega? Not ‘know’ her, Do
“Look, can we talk one-on-one?”
“I’ve got no secrets from Mike.”
Do
“I don’t have anything at the moment except a hunch that you are so close to Ethan you must have been in Salma’s orbit every now and then. What am I going to find if I dig a little deeper? Are there photographs? You tell me.”
Mike was letting me take the lead, seeing that Do
“I didn’t know her, Alex. Can I swear I was never in the same room with the girl? No, I can’t do that,” Do
“You and I stood on the beach together Wednesday morning, with bodies washing up on shore and hundreds of victims whose lives had just been turned upside down. You were furious when Mercer Wallace arrived to tell us that Ethan had crashed his car-and by the way, had a lover, and a child he’d fathered with her. Did you fake that?”
“I didn’t fake anything,” Do
“I’ll ask you again, Do
“Now you’re asking a different question. Recognize her? Did she look like someone I’d ever seen before? You’re asking that?”
“Sorry if I didn’t make myself clear, Do
“She looked familiar. She’s a pretty girl.”
“You should have seen her before she went bottoms up in the well, man. She looked a hell of lot better.” Mike had focused his attention on a photo on the wall of Baynes shaking hands with Mayor Statler. “You keeping Hizzoner up to speed on the boat people? He knows what you’re doing over here?”
“Yeah, he does,” Do
“Today. You see him today?”
“Last night, when I knocked off,” he said, laughing a bit as he straightened out his blotter. “Jeez, Chapman, I’ve got to answer to you now? Something’s wrong with that picture.”