"Yup. That's what I see, too," Fletcher said. "You know what it means?"
Justin was still looking down at the body. He didn't look back up at Agent Fletcher. "Maybe," he said. "At least some of it. JW are my initials. She knew she didn't have a lot of time, so it could just be a shortened version of my name."
"We agree. That's why you're here. How about 'payback'?"
Now Justin looked up. "It's part of what we talked about earlier. When I met her in her car. She owed me something. At least I thought so. We talked about what the appropriate form of payback would be."
"Payback on whose end?"
"On hers."
"How about on yours?"
Justin shook his head in quiet disbelief. "You think I killed her? As payback? That's what you think this means?"
"You want to convince me otherwise?"
"Can I?" Justin asked.
"What was the topic of conversation when you met with her today?"
Justin decided there was no point in holding back. There were too many things he didn't understand about the murders of Evan Harmon and Ronald LaSalle and now of Wanda Chinkle and how they were connected. He wasn't really worried about FBI suspicion of his involvement. That would take care of itself. He wanted to know what the hell was going on. And the only way to begin to get any answers was to speak on the level.
"I came up here at the request of my father and my sister-in-law, Victoria LaSalle," Justin said. "I'm sure you know why."
"Her husband's murder. What was she expecting you to do?"
"I don't know. Basically, find out what happened."
"And what have you found out?"
"So far, not a thing," Justin said. "I've just begun talking to people. Before Billy picked me up, I was at Ronald LaSalle's office, talking to the people who worked for him."
"Looking for something in particular?"
"Looking for absolutely anything that I could tie together. Just throwing a lot of shit against the wall and seeing if anything'll stick."
"What did Wanda tell you about the murder?"
"Nothing. In fact, she went out of her way to tell me nothing. She wanted to meet with me to tell me to stay away from the investigation."
"Why?"
Justin sighed. "For my own good."
Fletcher looked at him curiously.
"Look," Justin said. "We had a complicated relationship. We were friends, but we also had our differences. Sometimes our goals were not exactly in sync."
"You blamed her for the time you spend at Guantanamo last year."
"I didn't blame her," Justin said. "I knew she'd allowed it. Possibly even manipulated things so it would happen."
"And you didn't like that."
"No, I didn't. Would you?"
"So you killed her as payback."
"I told you. 'Payback' refers to our conversation today. She thought she was doing me a favor by warning me off Ronald LaSalle's murder." Again, Justin decided there was no point in holding back. Agent Fletcher had the look of someone well aware of what was going on around him. "And not just LaSalle. I'm involved in investigating the murder of Evan Harmon down in Long Island."
"You're involved in more than the investigation from what I hear."
"Whoever you're hearing that from doesn't know what he's talking about. Wanda knew the truth. She was telling me to back off that one as well."
"Because they're connected?"
"She wouldn't say. But it seems like a logical conclusion."
"And what was your response to her payback?"
"I told her it wasn't even close."
"Not good enough?"
"That's right."
"So you don't think she was pointing the finger at you?"
"I know she wasn't. I think she was trying to finish the job she started this afternoon." He looked down at her body. "What she did to herself isn't about me, it's a message for me."
"Hades and Ali. That's her payback to you."
"I think it might be, yes."
"Then what do they mean?"
Justin shook his head. "I don't have any fucking idea," he said.
He spent nearly two more hours with Agent Fletcher and Billy DiPezio back at Billy's office at the station house. First they made him go over his movements so they could verify Justin's whereabouts every second of the day from the moment he left Wanda's car. They examined every word that Justin could remember about his conversation with Wanda. They hammered away at the meaning of the words "Hades" and "Ali" with absolutely no luck or new insight. They went over every possible thing Justin could add to their understanding of Wanda's murder, and Justin was as cooperative as he could possibly be. He told them everything, except for one detail. He made no mention of his meeting with Bruno Pecozzi that afternoon. He wasn't sure why. It wasn't just to protect the big man, although he didn't feel any great desire to simply throw Bruno to the wolves with no cause. The truth is, he thought there might be cause. Wanda had insinuated that Bruno was playing some kind of role in all this. Justin decided he needed to know what that role was before he gave up any more information.
Somewhere around 12:30 a.m. Fletcher finally told him he could go. As he was leaving, Billy told him that they'd speak soon. Fletcher said, "Wanda's advice was solid."
"About not getting involved," Justin said.
"That's right."
"I'll keep it in mind," Justin said.
"But you're not going to follow it, are you?"
"No," Justin said, "I'm not."
"Then I need a favor," Agent Fletcher said.
"You want me to do the FBI a favor?"
"All right," Fletcher said. "Let's consider it an offer more than a favor."
"I'm listening."
"Work with us."
Justin tried not to let his surprise show. "I think my hearing must be bad. You want to repeat that?"
"Wanda Chinkle was by the book. She was as straight as it got. But there are things that don't add up here. That aren't strictly by the book."
"Like what?"
"You met Agent Korkes. Well… you did more than just meet him, but let's save that. Wanda was his superior and she told him to contact you off the record. She didn't want the Bureau to know she was talking to you. Why was that?"
"She told me I came with a lot of baggage. That the Bureau wouldn't be happy that she was talking to me."
"That's bullshit," Fletcher said.
"It's what she told me."
"Yeah, yeah, I believe it's what she said. But it's total bullshit. You've had some run-ins with us, yeah, and maybe you've stuck it to us once or twice. But you think we actually go around thinking 'ooohhh, big, tough, scary cop from little tiny town on Long Island, we better stay away from him'? You don't have to answer, I'll tell you right now: No, we don't. You're not on our radar."
"So why would she say it?"
"You said she knew you well, knew how to manipulate things. I think she was jerking you around again. She tells you to stay away from something, what's that do to you? I mean as the big, tough, scary cop that you are."
"All right. I get your point," Justin said. "She tells me to stay away, she knows that's not going to work."
"No. It means you're going to do the opposite: jump right into the center of the action."
"But if she wanted help, wanted me to do something, why wouldn't she just ask? Why the secrecy and the manipulation? It's an investigation I was already involved in."
"I'm not sure. But if I had to guess, it's 'cause there was something she didn't want us to know. Her reports on this investigation were not detailed. She had sources we weren't aware of. She was working on her own, which wasn't what Wanda did. So I'd say there was something she was worried about internally."
"Like what?"
"Don't know. Maybe leaks. Maybe political bullshit. We have a lot of ways we fuck up."
Justin was starting to like Agent Fletcher. Well, no, he thought, that was an exaggeration. But he was beginning to trust him a little bit. "So what is it you want me to do?"