In a quick appraisal, Carter saw that the events of the past two weeks had played havoc with Hess’s looks. When Al had first come on at Sunset, she’d been in her mid- to upper thirties and quite attractive, vivacious and upbeat, with a body that was a little short of spectacular. Over the years, she’d softened her image, and her body tone, considerably until she began to fit Al’s description of the poster child for the aging female bureaucrat-large and gray. But especially when she smiled, which had until recently been quite often, her face had always retained something of its youthful glow and even beauty.
But not today.
Today she wore fatigue like a shroud that enveloped all of her. Her eyes, rimmed with dark bags, had sunk in over her hollowed-out cheeks. Even through the thick padding of imperfectly applied makeup, blotches were apparent on her forehead, on the imprecise, jowl-lined thickness of her jaw.
The conversation she was engaged in with the other women around her concerned the AmeriCorps improprieties and what they would mean in terms of immediate funding, whether there would be layoffs, how it would affect Sunset’s ability to conduct business with the city. Hess, a master at these administrative and bureaucratic details, was holding her own against the onslaught, downplaying the threat, but Al could clearly see that on top of everything else she’d endured, these topics and her people were wearing her down.
He decided to rescue her. “Pardon me for butting in,” he said, “but Lorraine’s telling you the truth. It’s not going to change anything. Dominic knew all about this long ago too. He was trying to get it all straightened out behind the scenes before they went public with it, but… well, we know what happened before he could do that.
“But the plain fact is, and we’ve all heard him say it a hundred times, that with government funding, when you get a difference of opinion, one side is going to say that the other is guilty of sin. That’s discouraging, especially when we’re set on helping others. But the thing we have to do now, all of us, is just to forget about all this bad news and go back about our work and not concern ourselves with things over which we don’t have control. First of all, Len Turner and Dominic were already talking about appealing the suspension of funding, and next, when Lorraine takes over here full-time, she’ll convince these auditors that all of these are insignificant issues that have, for the most part, been resolved. Isn’t that right, Lorraine?”
She forced a weary smile. “Exactly. That’s what I’ve been trying to say. This isn’t the time to panic, but to buckle down and do our work. And, Al”-now the smile came to bloom-“for a minute there, you sounded like you were channeling Dominic.”
“I think after eight years he may have rubbed off some.”
“Well, keep him around if you can.”
Al showed some of his own teeth. “I intend to.”
The bell, indicating the first period of the school day, sounded, and Al more or less naturally fell into step beside Hess as she headed back toward her office. When they’d cleared the lounge, she took his arm and leaned in toward him. “Thank you for that in there.”
He shrugged. “They’re just worried. It’s a hard time.”
“Tell me about it. But I’m still very grateful for your help speaking up. It gets tiresome talking about it.”
And then she was opening her office door and they were inside. Hess went around her desk and, sighing, lowered herself into her chair.
“I wanted to ask you,” Al began, “any word on when we get the limo back?”
She shook her head. “Shouldn’t be too long. Why do you ask?”
“Well, nobody’s noticed too much yet, but I don’t seem to have a job. I’ve been filling the hours distributing pledge cards, but…” He trailed off with a hopeful smile.
“But that’s hardly the most productive use of your time.”
“Well, yes, that. But more, I was wondering about… later.”
“In what sense?”
“I mean, when you move up, the whole question of the limo. If you’d be doing the job the same way Dominic did. In that way.”
From her reaction, it might have been the first time she’d considered that question. She cocked her head to one side, let the beginning of a small thoughtful smile hover at her lips for a moment. “If you’re asking me will I be needing a driver,” she said, “I can’t imagine doing the job without one. And I also can’t imagine it being anyone but you, Al. Does that answer your question?”
He didn’t want to appear either too grateful or too needy, so he simply nodded. “Yes, ma’am, it does. Thank you.”
So great was Hunt’s fury that he didn’t trust himself to come out of his office and face Mickey again. After first verifying that Mickey had independent transportation around town-Tamara’s Volkswagen-he gave his orders to Tamara by intercom that Mickey was to get the identity of everybody who’d been at the Monday night Communities of Opportunity meeting at City Hall, and then get all of their alibis: what they’d done after they’d left the meeting. That ought to take Mickey the rest of the day and maybe then some, Hunt thought, and it might possibly, though not definitely, keep Hunt from killing or maiming his young, gullible, dumb-shit associate.
When he was sure Mickey had gone, Hunt stood up, opened his door, went into the outer office, and put a haunch on the corner of Tamara’s desk. “Did he tell you?”
“Uh-huh. Basically. She’s at your place.”
“If she hasn’t stolen my goods and lit out for the border already. But did he also tell you about her lying to the police?”
Her brow clouded. “I think he left out that part.”
Hunt filled her in. “And you know what this means, don’t you?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Well, forgetting the obvious obstruction of justice, and let’s do that, this is the one bit of information that, if she tells it to Devin or Sarah, puts her in jail.”
“Why?”
“Because getting fired on the last day of Dominic’s life counts, believe me. If we only know about that from Ellen Como, it’s just what she thinks Dominic intended to do. If we get it from Carter, it’s what he thinks he overheard. But if it’s an admission we get directly from Alicia, guess what? It’s a fact.” He slammed a palm on her desk. “Shit. Pardon the language.”
“It’s okay,” she said. “You should have heard me last night.”
“What were you swearing at?”
“The idiots at the hospital. You don’t want to know. Oh, and then Jim. He never came home.”
Hunt took a long beat. “Jim didn’t come home? Till when?”
“So far, till the last time I tried to reach him, which is like ten minutes ago.” She gave Hunt the excuses she’d fed herself last night. He had been planning on going to the Como memorial. After that, he might… or he might… finally, she ran out of steam. “He just could have picked a better night,” she concluded. “That’s all.”
“Let’s hope that’s all.”
As soon as he’d said them, he regretted the words. And Tamara called him on it. “What do you mean, ‘Let’s hope that’s all’?”
Hunt hesitated, wanting to avoid coming out with it directly. But there didn’t seem to be any other way. “I mean, if he went to the memorial, Tam, maybe he met somebody there among our group of possible suspects. Which I wouldn’t want to think. But you know, I was there, and I never saw him.”
“Maybe he never got there.”
“Or couldn’t get in. The place was packed.”
“Okay.” She assayed a low-wattage smile. “Now we can say ‘Let’s hope that’s all.’ I just wish he’d turn up.”
Hunt slid off the edge of her desk. “Me, too, hon. Me too.”