TWENTY-NINE
“I’m surprised you’re here, Dr. Isles,” said Peter Lukas. “Since I haven’t been able to reach you on the phone.” He gave her a quick handshake, a greeting that was justifiably cool and businesslike; Maura had not been returning his calls. He led her through the Boston Tribune lobby to the security desk, where the guard handed Maura an orange visitor’s badge.
“You’ll have to return that when you leave, ma’am,” the guard said.
“And you’d better,” added Lukas, “or this man will hunt you down like a dog.”
“Warning noted,” said Maura, clipping the badge to her blouse. “You have better security here than the Pentagon.”
“You have any idea how many people a newspaper pisses off every day?” He pressed the elevator call button and glanced at her unsmiling face. “Uh-oh. I think you must be one of them. Is that why you haven’t called me back?”
“A number of people were unhappy with that column you wrote about me.”
“Unhappy with you or with me?”
“With me.”
“Did I misquote you? Misrepresent you?”
She hesitated. Admitted, “No.”
“Then why are you annoyed with me? Because you clearly are.”
She looked at him. “I spoke too frankly with you. I shouldn’t have.”
“Well, I enjoyed interviewing a woman who speaks frankly,” he said. “It was a nice change.”
“Do you know how many calls I got? About my theory of Christ’s resurrection?”
“Oh. That.”
“From as far away as Florida. People upset by my blasphemy.”
“You only spoke your mind.”
“When you have a public job like mine, it’s sometimes a dangerous thing to do.”
“It goes with the territory, Dr. Isles. You’re a public figure, and if you say something interesting, it gets into print. At least you had something interesting to say, unlike most people I interview.”
The elevator door opened, and they stepped in. Alone together, she was acutely aware that he was watching her. That he was standing uncomfortably close.
“So why have you been calling me?” she asked. “Are you trying to get me into more trouble?”
“I wanted to know about the autopsies on Joe and Olena. You never released a report.”
“I never completed the postmortem. The bodies were transferred to the FBI labs.”
“But your office did have temporary custody. I can’t believe you’d just let bodies sit in your cold room without performing some kind of examination. It wouldn’t be in your character.”
“What, exactly, is my character?” She looked at him.
“Curious. Exacting.” He smiled. “Tenacious.”
“Like you?”
“Tenacity is getting me absolutely nowhere with you. And here I thought we could be friends. Not that I was expecting any special favors.”
“What do you expect from me?”
“Dinner? Dancing? Cocktails, at the very least?”
“Are you serious?”
He answered her question with a sheepish shrug. “No harm in trying.”
The elevator opened and they stepped out.
“She died of gunshot wounds to the flank and the head,” said Maura. “I think that’s what you wanted to know.”
“How many wounds? How many different shooters?”
“You want all the gory details?”
“I want to be accurate. That means going directly to the source, even if I have to make a nuisance of myself.”
They walked into the newsroom, past reporters tapping at keyboards, to a desk where every horizontal square inch was covered with files and Post-it notes. Not a single photo of a kid or a woman or even a dog was displayed here. This space was purely for work, although she wondered how much work anyone could actually do, surrounded by such clutter.
He commandeered an extra chair from his neighbor’s desk and rolled it over for Maura to sit in. It gave a noisy squeak as she settled into it.
“So you won’t return my calls,” he said, sitting down as well. “But you do come by to see me at work. Does this qualify as a mixed message?”
“This case has gotten complicated.”
“And now you need something from me.”
“We’re all trying to understand what happened that night. And why it happened.”
“If you had any questions for me, all you had to do was pick up the phone.” He pinned her with a look. “I would have returned your calls, Dr. Isles.”
They fell silent. At other desks, phones rang and keyboards clacked, but Maura and Lukas just looked at each other, the air between them spiked with both irritation and something else, something she didn’t want to acknowledge. A strong whiff of mutual attraction. Or am I just imagining it?
“I’m sorry,” he finally said. “I’m being a jerk. I mean, you are here. Even if it’s for your own purposes.”
“You have to understand my position, too,” she said. “As a public official, I get calls all the time from reporters. Some of them-many of them-don’t care about victims’ privacy or grieving families or whether investigations are at risk. I’ve learned to be cautious and watch what I say. Because I’ve been burned too many times by reporters who swear that my comments will stay off the record.”
“So that’s what kept you from calling? Professional discretion?”
“Yes.”
“There’s no other reason you didn’t call me back?”
“What other reason would there be?”
“I don’t know. I thought maybe you didn’t like me.” His gaze was so intent, she had trouble keeping eye contact. He made her that uncomfortable.
“I don’t dislike you, Mr. Lukas.”
“Ouch. Now I fully appreciate what it means to be damned with faint praise.”
“I thought reporters had thicker skin.”
“We all want to be liked, especially by people we admire.” He leaned closer. “And by the way, it’s not Mr. Lukas. It’s Peter.”
Another silence, because she didn’t know if this was flirtation or manipulation. For this man, it might amount to the same thing.
“That went over like a lead balloon,” he said.
“It’s nice to be flattered, but I’d rather you just be straight-forward.”
“I thought I was being straightforward.”
“You want information from me. I want the same from you. I just didn’t want to talk about it over the phone.”
He gave a nod of understanding. “Okay. So this is just a simple transaction.”
“What I need to know is-”
“We’re getting right to business? I can’t even offer you a cup of coffee first?” He rose from the chair and crossed toward the community coffeepot.
Glancing at the carafe, she saw only tar-black dregs, and said quickly, “None for me, thank you.”
He poured a cup for himself and sat back down. “So what’s with the reluctance to discuss this over the phone?”
“Things have been… happening.”
“Things? Are you telling me you don’t even trust your own telephone?”
“As I told you, the case is complicated.”
“Federal intervention. Confiscated ballistics evidence. FBI in a tug-of-war with the Pentagon. A hostage taker who still remains unidentified.” He laughed. “Yeah, I’d say it’s gotten very complicated.”
“You know all this.”
“That’s why they call us reporters.”
“Who have you been talking to?”
“Do you really think I’m going to answer that question? Let’s just say I have friends in law enforcement. And I have theories.”
“About what?”
“Joseph Roke and Olena. And what that hostage taking was really all about.”
“No one really knows that answer.”
“But I know what law enforcement is thinking. I know what their theories are.” He set down his coffee cup. “John Barsanti spent about three hours with me, did you know that? Picking and probing, trying to find out why I was the only reporter Joseph Roke wanted to talk to. Funny thing about interrogations. The person being interrogated can glean a lot of information just by the questions they ask you. I know that two months ago, Olena and Joe were together in New Haven, where he killed a cop. Maybe they were lovers, maybe just fellow delusionals, but after an incident like that, they’d want to split up. At least, they would if they were smart, and I don’t think these were dumb people. But they must have had a way to stay in contact. A way to regroup if they needed to. And they chose Boston as the place to meet.”