Wells shook his head.
“Count the McDonald’s. Morgan City only has but one McDonald’s. Lafayette has a whole bunch of ’em. Are you married, Mr. Wells?”
“I was.” Wells felt the need to say something more. “The job sort of took over.”
“Uh-huh.”
There was a whole speech in those two syllables, Wells thought. “Tell me about Jerry’s last tour, in Poland.”
“A few months before, he’d gotten back from a deployment in Afghanistan. I was worried they were going to send him there again. He wouldn’t have argued. He wasn’t the type to say no. Then he got this call, a special assignment in Poland, working with detainees.”
“You know why they chose him?”
“In Afghanistan, he’d done some interrogations.”
“How did you know?”
“I was, I am, his wife. He told me enough; I got the picture. They were trying to put a new unit together, one that wouldn’t have any connection to the old squads. Or Guantánamo. One that could run more or less on its own.”
“That’s about right.”
“I know that’s right, Mr. Wells. I wasn’t asking.”
“Did you mind having him over there?”
“Matter of fact, I didn’t. Figured he was safer in Poland than anywhere else.”
“But did you have a problem with what he was doing, the interrogations?”
“These men who want to blow us up? Kill my husband? And then they cry for lawyers soon as we catch them? Start talking about their rights? You are not seriously asking me that.”
“Jerry felt the same.”
“Of course.”
“But not everyone on the squad agreed. Somebody thought they were going too far.” Wells was guessing, chasing the defensiveness in her voice.
“That what somebody told you?”
“Yes,” Wells lied.
“I don’t know all that much about it. But I do know there were arguments. And they got worse as the tour went on. My husband, he went over there with the attitude that they didn’t have to give these guys feather pillows. I don’t got to tell you, Mr. Wells. If there’s one person who knows, it’s you. But it’s strange, ’cause he came back with a different attitude.”
“Like how?”
“It’s hard to explain.” She edged away from Wells on the couch, turned to look at him full-on. “Mr. Wells. Do you think my husband did something wrong? If you do, tell me now.”
“Look. Somebody’s killing the squad. We don’t know why. The logical assumption is that it’s because of something that happened over there. So, we need to know what that was. And there’s only three guys left from the squad, not counting Jerry, and they aren’t talking much—”
“Why—”
“Maybe they’re worried they’re gonna get prosecuted for torture. And the records of what they did, they’re buried deep. So, the best bet is talking to you and the other families. You have my word, whatever Jerry did, I’m not after him. I’m not a cop or FBI. I’m working for the agency, and only the agency, to figure this out. And I’m a friend of your husband’s. I know it may not seem that way, since we’ve never met before, but believe me, Ranger training, the guys in your unit, by the end you either can’t stand the sight of them or they’re friends for life. And Jerry was a friend. If he’d called me two months ago, said, ‘I’m in trouble,’ I would have been on the next plane down, no questions asked. That’s just how it is.”
Not a bad speech, Wells thought. Even if the reality was more complicated. After fifteen years, he probably would have asked at least a couple questions before buying his ticket. But Noemie seemed to like it. She patted his arm, leaned in.
“I’m telling you, I don’t know much.”
“Anything.”
“They were rough. And I think near the end, something went wrong.”
The FBI interview report didn’t have anything like this from her. Wells waited. “What gave you that impression?” he said finally. “Something he said?”
“He changed. The last couple months, he didn’t want to talk. Stopped e-mailing. He was hiding something, like he was having an affair. But Jerry would never have done that. Anyway, it was Poland.”
“He never said anything about what had actually happened?”
“No.”
“What about the information the squad developed? Did he ever talk about that? ”
“No.”
“Mom-mom!” From the second floor. A boy’s voice.
“Jeffrey,” she said. “He has nightmares. Since Jerry’s gone. He knows what’s up. The others don’t, but he does.”
She hurried upstairs.
I don’t got to tell you, Mr. Wells, she’d said. If there’s one person who knows, it’s you. Was he a torturer? A killer, yes. But never a torturer. Though he’d come close, that night in the Hamptons with Pierre Kowalski, the arms dealer. Another bit of unfinished business. Close to a year before, Wells had found himself outside Kowalski’s mansion in Zurich, pacing, hand on the Makarov tucked into his pants. Then he’d walked away. He’d made a deal with Kowalski, and he’d keep his word. For now.
NOEMIE RETURNED, trailed by a small boy, a miniature Malcolm Gladwell, a shock of curly hair springing from his head. His T-shirt, printed with a caped Will Smith from the movie Hancock, reached to his knees.
“This is Jeffrey,” she said.
“Hi, Jeffrey. Did you like Hancock? ”
“Mommy wouldn’t let me see it! ”
“Touchy subject,” Noemie said.
Jeffrey tugged on his mother’s pants. “I’m sleepy, Mommy.”
“If you’re sleepy, why weren’t you sleeping?”
“Want to sleep in your bed.”
“You know that’s not allowed.” She put him on the couch, settled beside him. He curled into her lap, his face just visible.
“Please.”
“Go to sleep here, and when you wake up, it’ll be morning. Deal?”
Jeffrey nodded happily.
“We’re going to go from twenty to zero. Promise to be asleep by zero.”
“Promise.”
“Close your eyes. Twenty, nineteen. ” She rubbed his forehead as she counted, and by the time she was done, the boy’s mouth had dropped open and his breathing was as steady as the fan overhead.
“You’re a magician,” Wells said.
She glanced at her watch. “Anything else you need to know, Mr. Wells? I should get him to bed.”
“Tell me about what Jerry was like when he got back.”
“He was quiet, not talking much.”
“And you read into that what?”
“I told you. That something happened he didn’t want to talk about.” She leaned back against the couch. The boy in her lap stirred, and she ran a finger down his arm to calm him. “One time.” She broke off, and Wells waited. “One time, I got home early from work, and he was reading a book about the Nazis. When I saw him with it, it was like I’d caught him looking at I don’t know what. He tried to hide it from me double-quick. I asked him about it, and he told me to mind my business. Which was not usual for him, even at that time. But I let it go. And I never saw the book again.”
“The Nazis. Do you remember the name of the book?”
“I do not.”
Again the boy stirred in her lap, and again she soothed him. “All right, Mr. Wells. I think it’s time for this one to go to bed. Me, too.”