“I take it Aunt Sheila didn’t mention this,” Lesley said.
“No,” Rose said, shaking her head weakly.
“I always thought it would be exciting when I showed you a diamond, that we’d jump up and down and giggle or something.”
“It’s beautiful.”
Lesley sighed. “He proposed Monday night. We were going to call you last night, but … well, then he was arrested.”
“I don’t know what to say,” Rose said, her face somber. “I mean, ‘congratulations’ doesn’t seem right, but …”
“It’s okay, Mom. Come on in and sit down.” Lesley led the way into the kitchen. “Have you had lunch?”
“I’m not hungry,” Rose said as she sat at the kitchen table.
“Me neither.”
Leo scampered to his dish, turned his nose up at the dried remnants he found there and started rubbing against Lesley’s ankles. She took the hint and opened the cupboard to get a can of cat food.
“I always thought Rob was such a nice young man,” Rose said. “I guess it shows you never know.”
“But we don’t really know what’s going on yet. It could all turn out to be a mistake.”
The can opener hummed and Leo’s ankle rubbing intensified.
“Really? But Sheila said they found all sorts of evidence that proved he was the one who stole the money.”
Lesley rolled her eyes. “Nobody stole any money, Mom.”
She scooped fishy paste into a fresh bowl.
“Then what did he do?”
“He says he didn’t do anything.”
“People don’t get arrested for doing nothing.”
Tiny anger lines appeared between Lesley’s eyebrows. She put the fresh food on the floor. Leo started smacking contentedly.
“I don’t want to get into it all over again,” Lesley said. “The police found this, the police found that. It’s all anyone wants to talk about today.”
Lesley started straightening up things on the counter, rearranging canisters that looked perfectly fine before she started.
Rose pulled a package of cigarettes from her purse. She had one out and was thumbing her lighter before Lesley noticed.
“I wish you wouldn’t do that here,” Lesley said.
Rose stopped and let the flame die.
“You’re right,” she said, busily stuffing everything back in her purse. “I forgot, I’m sorry. I’m just not thinking straight right now.”
“Don’t make a big deal out of it.”
“I just thought if I could help, you know, make you feel better or something.”
“I’ll be all right, Mom. Really.”
“Because I’ve been through this, you know, so I thought—”
Lesley set the toaster down with a sharp clunk, spraying crumbs all over the newly wiped patch underneath it.
“This is not the same,” she said, turning to glare at her mother.
Rose returned none of Lesley’s anger. Her look was full of worry and compassion instead.
“I know it’s hard,” Rose said. “Believe me, I know.”
“I knew you were going to do this. I just knew it.”
“Right now you think you’ll never get over Rob, but—”
“Who said anything about getting over him?”
“I want you to be happy, that’s all. After this I can’t imagine Rob doing that for you.”
“We love each other, Mom. This will all turn out to be a mistake, you’ll see.”
Rose looked at her daughter with infinite sadness.
“That’s what I said, too.”
Lesley flung the damp cloth into the sink and glared at her mother.
“Rob is not like Dad.”
Leo made a warm spot on Lesley’s lap as he slept in a contented ball. Apparently the ferocious hunter was temporarily tuckered out.
Lesley’s head reeled as her long-held convictions about Rob collided violently with the reality being laid out for her by the two FBI agents sitting in her living room. She wanted to find a hole to poke in the agents’ story. There had to be one, some way she could show everyone they were wrong about Rob. Especially her mother, who had insisted on staying when the agents showed up.
“We need your help on one thing, though,” Steeves said. “Rob says he was with you Monday evening at 7:30. Is that right?”
“Yes, we were still together then. Why?”
“Someone used the computer in Rob’s apartment to send out several messages about the attack, and we know it happened at that time.”
Lesley blinked in astonishment. This was it. Her chance to help clear Rob.
“There’s no way he could have done that,” she said. “We were together all evening until he dropped me at home.”
“What time was that?” Steeves asked.
“After eight o’clock. He was called into work and I remember looking at the clock in his car and thinking I hadn’t expected our night to end so soon.”
“Rob says you stopped at his apartment first.”
“I had to fix my makeup. It was the closest place. But he didn’t use his computer.”
“You were with him the whole time?”
“Yes.”
“He never left your sight.”
“Well … yeah, I guess he did. But just when I went into the bathroom to fix my makeup.”
“And how long did that take?”
Lesley felt the cold start to trickle back into her gut. How long was she in there? And how long does it take to use a computer?
“I’m not sure.”
“Less than a minute?”
The trickle gathered speed.
“More like ten minutes or so.”
“Or so,” Steeves said. “Could it have been fifteen minutes?”
Lesley remembered Rob’s remark about how long she had spent in the bathroom.
“I suppose,” she said. “I don’t really know.”
Steeves nodded. “So the two of you were in his apartment at the exact time the messages were sent, and Rob was out of your sight for ten or fifteen minutes. Was there anyone else in the apartment with you?”
Lesley looked from Steeves to her mother, who was wringing her hands on her lap and looking distraught.
“No,” Lesley said in a small voice.
“Then that leaves two possibilities,” Steeves said. “Either Rob did this when you were in the bathroom …”
Steeves paused while Lesley squirmed.
“… or the two of you did it together.”
Rose’s head snapped up. “You have no proof of that,” she said.
Lesley was too astounded to add a retort of her own.
“It doesn’t matter whether you actually helped him,” Steeves said. “If you knew what was going on, you can be charged as an accessory to a Federal crime.”
Lesley’s feeling of disorientation went to a whole new level.
“How about it Lesley?” Steeves said. “Did you and Rob cook this up so you’d have a big juicy story to cover? A story where you’d have an advantage over every other reporter in town. Access to your uncle. The inside scoop. Lots of brownie points with your boss.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Lesley said.
“Or did Rob convince you how nasty the banks are?” Hanley said.
Lesley looked from one agent to the other. They both stared back impassively. She turned to her mother, suddenly needing the support that had irritated her so badly only a few minutes before.
Rose’s face said “I told you so” as clearly as if she had spoken the words aloud.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Ray Landry looked at the graffiti on the walls as he climbed the stairs of the tenement building. He turned onto the fourth floor and stepped over a discarded brown sweatshirt as he looked for number 406. Rap music thumped from behind one door and competed with the wails of a baby in another apartment. Landry was no stranger to squalor, but he found it hard to imagine how the human spirit could survive in such conditions.