For good, she wishes. “I’m completely aware,” she says.
“Be back next Monday. Hanging out at the Vineyard, chilling, my dad knows where to find me if you need me.”
“You’ve taken care of all pending matters?”
He sniffs again. Lamont’s pretty sure he’s fond of cocaine. “Uh, like what?”
“Uh, like everything I’ve put on your desk,” she says, tapping a gold pen on a legal pad.
“Oh, yeah, sure. And I was a good boy, cleaned up everything, straightened up so you won’t have to pick up after me.” He smirks, his resentful feelings toward her peeking through his fog, leaves, shuts the door.
“One of my bigger mistakes,” she says. “Never do a favor for a colleague.”
“It’s obvious you’ve made your decision and it’s as final as death,” Roy picks up where he left off. “And I reiterate my belief that you’re making a very big mistake. Maybe a fatal one.”
“Cut the death analogies, Roy. They really annoy me. I could use a coffee.”
Governor Miles Crawley sits in the backseat of his black limousine, the partition up, his executive protection out of sight, unable to hear him on the phone.
“Don’t be so damn sure you get careless,” he says, staring down at his long, pinstripe-clad legs stretched out, staring blankly at his shiny black shoes. “What if someone talks? And we shouldn’t be talking about this….”
“The someone involved isn’t going to talk. That’s guaranteed. And I’m never careless.”
“No guarantees except death and taxes,” the governor says, cryptically.
“In this instance, you’ve got a guarantee, no way to lose. Who didn’t know where it was? Who lost it? Who hid it? No matter what, who looks bad?”
The governor gazes out the window at the darkness, the rain, the lights of Cambridge shining through, not so sure he should have gone along with this, decides, “Well, there’s no turning back since it’s out to the press. You’d damn well better hope you’re right, because the person I’ll blame is you. It was your damn idea.”
“Trust me, it will all be good news for you.”
The governor could use a little good news. His wife is a real pain in the ass these days, his bowels are acting up, and he’s off to another dinner. This one is at the Fogg Art Museum, where he’ll walk around looking at Degas paintings, then say a few words to make sure all the art-loving philanthropists and Harvard elitists are reminded of what a cultured man he is.
“I don’t want to talk about this any further,” the governor says.
“Miles…”
He hates being called by his first name, no matter how long he has known the person. It’s Governor Crawley. Someday Senator Crawley.
“… you’ll be thanking me, I promise…”
“Don’t make me repeat myself,” Governor Crawley warns. “This is the last time we have this conversation.” He ends the call, tucks his cell phone back in his jacket pocket.
The limousine pulls up to the front of the Fogg. Crawley waits for his private protection to let him out, lead him on to his next political performance, alone. Damn his wife and her damn sinus headaches. He was briefed on Degas not even an hour ago, at least knows how to pronounce his name and that he was French.
Lamont gets up, slowly paces, looking out the window at a depressingly dark, wet dusk, sipping coffee that tastes burned.
“The media’s already started calling,” Roy says as a warning.
“I believe that was the plan,” she says.
“And we need a damage-control plan….”
“Roy. I can’t hear much more of this!”
He’s such a coward, the gutless wonder, she thinks, her back to him.
“Monique, I just don’t see how you can possibly believe that any scheme of the governor’s is going to benefit you in the end.”
“If we’re going to get fifty million dollars to build a new crime lab,” she repeats herself slowly, as if he is stupid, “we have to get attention, show the public, the legislators, we’re completely justified in upgrading technology, hiring more scientists, buying more lab equipment, building the biggest DNA database in the country, maybe even in the world. We solve some old case that people in the good ol’ South have left in a cardboard box for twenty years, and we’re heroes. The taxpayers support us. Nothing succeeds like success.”
“More of Huber’s brainwashing. What crime lab director wouldn’t want to talk you into that, despite the risk to you?”
“Why can’t you see what a good idea this is?” she says in frustration, looking out at the rain, the relentless, dreary rain.
“Because Governor Crawley hates you,” Roy replies flatly. “Ask yourself why he would hand this off to you.”
“Because I’m the most visible DA in the commonwealth. I’m a woman. So he doesn’t look like the small-minded, sexist, right-wing bigot he really is.”
“And running against him — any failure will be on your head, not his. You’ll be Robert E. Lee surrendering your sword, not him….”
“So now he’s Ulysses S. Grant. Win will get this done.”
“More likely do you in.”
She slowly turns around, faces Roy, watches him flip through a notebook.
“Just how much do you know about him?” he says.
“He’s the best investigator in the unit. Politically, a perfect choice.”
“Vain, obsessed with clothes.” He reads his notes. “Designer suits, a Hummer, a Harley, raising questions about his finances. A Rolex.”
“A Breitling. Titanium. Probably gently used, from one of his many secondhand shops,” she says.
Roy looks up, baffled. “How do you know where he gets his stuff?”
“Because I recognize the finer things in life. One morning I asked him how he afforded the Hermès tie he happened to be wearing that day.”
“Consistently late when called to crime scenes,” Roy goes on.
“According to whom?”
He flips several more pages, runs down one of them with his finger. She waits for his lips to move as he silently reads. There, they just moved. Dear God. The world is full of imbeciles.
“Doesn’t appear he’s gay,” Roy continues. “That’s good news.”
“Actually, it would be rather huge-minded of us if our poster-boy detective was gay. What does he drink?”
“Well he’s not gay, that’s for sure,” Roy says. “A womanizer.”
“According to whom? What does he like to drink?”
Roy pauses, confounded, says, “Drink? No, he doesn’t have that problem at least….”
“Vodka, gin, beer?” She’s about to lose her patience entirely.
“I got no friggin’ idea.”
“Then you call his pal Huber and find out. And I mean before I get to the faculty club.”
“Sometimes I just don’t understand you, Monique.” He returns to his notes. “Narcissistic.”
“Who wouldn’t be if he looked like him,” she says.
“Conceited, a pretty-boy empty suit. You should hear what the other cops have to say about him.”
“I believe I just did.”
Win Garano enters her mind. His dark, wavy hair, flawless face. A body that looks sculpted of creamy tan stone. And his eyes, something about his eyes. When he looks at her, she gets the uncanny sensation that he is reading her, knows her, maybe even knows something she doesn’t.
He’ll be perfect on TV, perfect in photo shoots.
“… probably the only two good things I can say about him is he shows well,” poor inadequate Roy is saying, “and has somewhat of a minority status. Albeit high-yellow, neither nor.”