Oh, I don’t have a problem with that. I wouldn’t have it any other way. Wilcox should know better than to even ask. Finding those shooters might be my lifeline back into Homicide, but bringing Keller down, that would be personal. Like I said, I have my reasons.
“You take care of things with the district attorney,” I tell him, “and I’ll make sure Thomson’s ready to talk. And, Steve, we should move fast on this, all right?”
“I’ll start making the calls the minute I leave.”
I reach my hand across the table. “It’s good to be working with you again.”
He just looks at my hand, not wanting to take it. At the last second he changes his mind. We shake, and afterward we both look away in embarrassment.
“This doesn’t change anything,” he says.
“I know.” I lay some cash on the table and get up. “But it will.”
“March, wait.”
I stop, but I don’t sit back down.
“How’s Charlotte doing?”
“Charlotte? She’s fine.”
“Things between you two, they’re all right?”
“What is this, a counseling session? If I want therapy, I’ll sign up for an art class, okay?”
He holds his hands up in surrender. “I’m just asking, man. I know it’s tough, this time of year. Tell her I said hello.”
But he’s not just asking. I know Wilcox. I understand the way his mind works. He’s sensed something in me, but can’t put his finger on exactly what, so he’s rooting around a little to see if he can work it out. Judging from the look on his face, he thinks he has.
CHAPTER 11
Apologies for my late lunch turn out to be unnecessary by the time I catch up to Cavallo, who’s packed the witness statements up tight and transferred the box to the trunk of her city car. I reach her in the parking lot just as she’s about to leave the station without me. If it were directed at me, the look in her eye would give me pause, but she hardly acknowledges my arrival.
“What’s up?” I ask.
She gazes into the sky, brushing the hair back from her face. “Oh, I don’t know. It’s just that as of this morning, we had no developments on the Fontaine front, and now all the sudden the order comes down to snatch him. Apparently he just made a buy.”
“Stupid kid,” I say. “We’re making the arrest?”
“The Sheriff ’s Department’s going to do the heavy lifting, leaving us to ask the questions. Are you up to it? Only it’s not like we have anything on him. The kid deals some weed, he knows our missing juvenile – that’s about it.”
“If we catch him dirty, that’ll give us some leverage.”
She shakes her head. “Not enough. All this investigation needs him to do is lead us to Hannah. If he can’t do that, he’s a waste of time. But if he can, do you really think he’ll cop to a kidnapping charge to get out of possession with intent?”
“You have a point,” I say. “But still, how else would you expect them to play it? If surveillance really caught the kid making a buy, it’s not like we can pass up the chance to apply the thumbscrews, is it?”
“We could play that card anytime. Doing it now reeks of desperation, if you ask me. But Wanda won’t listen. After this morning, she’s operating on the news cycle.”
We climb into the car, slamming doors and snapping seat belts into place, then she reverses out of the parking space, cranking the wheel sharply. The tires kick up loose gravel as we bounce onto the road, cutting in front of oncoming traffic. Next time I’ll volunteer to drive. Cavallo has a knack for channeling emotion into the gears, and as often as I dream about it and wake up sweating, I’d just as soon not die in a car crash.
“It’s all spinning out of control,” she says.
“The case or the car?”
She ignores my attempt at humor. Frustration comes off her in waves. I suspect that what isn’t released through her cathartic high-wire driving can only come out by talking. She’s not the type to hit or break things, which is too bad considering how calming violence can be.
“Once a case gets traction in the media,” I say, hoping to get her talking, “you can only work it the right way as long as you keep getting results. As soon as you hit a wall, the daily pressure from upstairs to provide new sound bites overrules everything else. It’s not Wanda’s fault – ”
“So have you heard the latest?” She wrenches the steering wheel with white-knuckled intensity, like she’s thinking about snapping it off. “They’re trying to persuade Donna Mayhew to go on TV alongside the chief. They want to get her on Larry King Live.”
“How does she feel about that?”
“I’d ask her, March, if I could get her to pick up the phone.”
“Ah,” I say.
“Ah, what?”
“That’s why you’re so worked up. You have a special bond with that woman, and you don’t like anybody interfering.”
She stomps the accelerator like it’s my face. “Of course I have a bond with her. Who wouldn’t? Doesn’t your heart go out to her in a situation like this, with her daughter gone and – ”
“Of course.” I cut her off, not wanting to dig too deeply into my heart and what it goes out to. “But you’ve been very protective of her.” I tighten my grip on the door handle. “Of them.”
“Them? Who do you mean by them?”
“The church people. The mother, yes, but Carter Robb, too. You know. Your fellow travelers, so to speak.”
She makes no reply at first, letting her lead foot do the talking. I hunker down into my seat, trying not to think about air bags and side impacts and trauma to the head. I was lucky to avoid a chewing out for my late return. I should have left well enough alone.
“March,” she says.
The silence was too good to last.
“Do you have some kind of issue with me?”
“Issue?” I ask. “What kind of issue would I have?”
“You keep needling me all the time, like I’ve done something to you. But apart from bending over backwards to do you a favor, and then taking responsibility for you when your friends in Homicide gave you the boot, I can’t think of what you’re holding against me.”
She drifts in and out of the lane as she talks, while I do my best not to flinch.
“Seriously? Listen, Cavallo, I think you might be projecting your frustrations about the case onto me – ”
“What was that quip about my ‘fellow travelers’ then?”
“I just meant… you know. That cross you wear.”
She fingers the necklace, then lets it drop. “What do you believe, March? About God, the universe and everything?”
“You’re asking me this for real?” I should keep my mouth shut. “All right, I’ll play along. About God, I guess it depends on what kind of mood I’m in. Sometimes he exists, sometimes he doesn’t, and when he does sometimes I’m all right with that, and sometimes I want to give him a good kicking.”
She flinches and I know I should really stop. But I’m on a roll.
“The universe? It’s pretty screwed up, if you ask me. The world is on its last legs, people are pretty much rotten, and happiness is just an illusion, a kind of opiate – but it’s not actual happiness that keeps us going, it’s the promise of getting a fix later on in the soon-to-be perfect future, which makes it that much more desperate when you think about it… Not that I often do.”
There’s more. Something underneath the words, unspoken, for me unspeakable, an article of faith I can never doubt. What I believe in is evil. Its existence and power, the way it grows like mold on every surface, teeming beneath the walls, as insinuating as the Gulf Coast heat. It has a grip on all of us. It has its claws in me.
“Fascinating,” she says. “And what do I believe?”