“Wait.” I see it now. “You guys got a call?”
He looks off. “Dodi Meyer. She said there was something going on at the base. She told us about the lights. She thought . . . she thought maybe some kids broke in and turned on the floodlights and set off firecrackers.”
I feel a small stone form in my chest. “So what did you do, Augie?”
“I was in my office. The dispatcher asked me if I wanted to take the call. It was late. The other patrol car was handling a domestic disturbance. So I said yes.”
“What happened?”
“The lights were out by the time I got there. I noticed . . . I noticed a pickup truck by the gate. It was ready to pull out. There was a tarp over the back. I rang the bell at the fence. Andy Reeves came out. It was late at night, but I didn’t question why so many people were still at a Department of Agriculture compound. What you said about a black site, that doesn’t surprise me. I didn’t know exactly what was going on, but I still foolishly trusted my government back then to be doing the right thing. So Andy Reeves comes to the gate. I tell him about us getting a disturbance call.”
“What does he say?”
“That a deer jumped into the fence. That’s what set off the alarms and lights. He said one of his guards panicked and started shooting. That was the gunfire. He said the guard killed the deer. He pointed to that tarp in the back of the pickup.”
“Did you buy that?”
“I don’t know. Not really. But the place was classified government stuff. So I let it go.”
“What did you do next?”
His voice is coming from a million miles away now. “I went home. My shift was over. I got into bed, and a few hours later . . .” He shrugs away the rest of the thought, but I’m not ready to let it go.
“You got the call about Diana and Leo.”
Augie nods. His eyes are wet now.
“And you didn’t see a connection?”
He thinks about that. “Maybe I didn’t want to see one. That way, like I asked you with Maura, it wasn’t my fault. Maybe I was just trying to justify my own mistake, but I never saw much of a link.”
My phone goes off. I see the time is 9:10 A.M., even before I read Muse’s text: Where the F are you??!!
I text back: There in a minute.
I rise. His eyes are on the floor.
“You’re late for your meeting,” he says without looking up. “Go.”
I hesitate. In a way, all this explains so much—Augie’s reticence over the years, his insistence that it was just two stoned kids doing something stupid, his disconnect. His mind wouldn’t let him link the murder of his own daughter to his visit that night to the base because then he’d have to live with the additional guilt of maybe not doing anything about it. As I turn and head for the exit, I wonder about that now. I wonder about dropping this all on him, shattering him anew, whether every night from now on, as he closes his eyes, he’s going to see that tarp over the back of a pickup truck and wonder what was underneath it. Or has he already been doing that in some subconscious way? Is the reason he so easily accepted the more obvious explanation for his daughter’s death because he couldn’t face his own small role in what happened?
My phone rings. It’s Muse. “I’m almost there,” I tell her.
“What the hell have you done?”
“Why, what’s up?”
“Just hurry up.”
Chapter Thirty-one
The Essex County Prosecutor’s Office is located on Market Street in the simply dubbed Veterans Courthouse. I work here, so I know the building well. This place is always humming—more than a third of the entire state’s criminal cases are tried here. As I head inside, I hear an unfamiliar ding coming from my phone and I realize it’s that new app Maura installed. I read the message from her: Drove by again. Cops found yellow Mustang.
This isn’t good, of course, but it would still be a while before the course of events I laid out earlier would lead them to me. I have time. Probably. I type back: Okay. Heading into meeting now.
Loren Muse is waiting for me at the door, staring daggers. She is a short woman, and she is flanked on both sides by tall men in suits. The younger of the two is thin and wiry, with hard eyes. The older guy sports a halo of too-long hair circling his bald dome. His protruding gut is giving his shirt buttons a hell of a battle. When we step into the outer office, the older guy says, “I’m Special Agent Rockdale. This is Special Agent Krueger.”
FBI. We shake hands. Krueger, of course, tries to give me the dominant squeeze. I frown at him.
With that done, Rockdale turns to Muse and says, “Thank you for your cooperation, ma’am. We would be grateful if you could leave us now.”
Muse doesn’t like that. “Leave?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“This is my office.”
“And the bureau appreciates your cooperation in this manner, but we really need to speak to Detective Dumas alone.”
“No,” I say.
They turn to me. “Pardon?”
“I would like Prosecutor Muse to attend any questioning.”
“You’re not suspected of any crime,” he says.
“I still want her here.”
Rockdale turns back to Muse.
Muse says, “You heard the man.”
“Ma’am—”
“Stop calling me ma’am—”
“Prosecutor Muse, my apologies. You received a call from your superior, did you not?”
Through gritted teeth, Muse replies, “I did, yes.”
Her superior, I know, is the governor of the state of New Jersey.
“And he did ask that you cooperate and give us jurisdiction on this matter of great national security, did he not?”
My phone vibrates. I sneak a quick peek, and I’m surprised to see it’s from Tammy.
Van of guys searching your house. Wearing FBI windbreakers.
I’m not surprised. They’re looking for the original tape. They won’t find it in my house. I buried it—where else?—in the woods near the old base.
“The governor did contact me,” Muse continues, “but Detective Dumas has now requested counsel—”
“Irrelevant.”
“Sorry?”
“This is a matter of national security. What we are about to discuss is highly classified.”
Muse looks at me. “Nap?”
I think about it. I think about the issues Augie had raised, about what we should keep secret, about who is to blame for what happened to Leo and how I can get to the bottom of it and end this once and for all.
We are standing in the doorway. Muse’s support staff of four are all pretending not to be listening. I look at the two agents. Rockdale is giving me flat eyes. Krueger is clenching and unclenching his fists, glaring at me like I just dropped out of a dog’s behind.
I’ve had it.
So I turn to Muse and say loud enough so that her support staff can hear, “Fifteen years ago, the old Nike control base in Westbridge was an illegal black site incarcerating and interrogating American citizens suspected of colluding with terrorist entities. A bunch of high school kids, including my dead twin brother, taped a Black Hawk helicopter landing there at night. They want the tape from me.” I gesture toward the two agents. “Their colleagues are, in fact, searching my house right now. It’s not there, by the way.”
Krueger’s eyes go wide in shock and anger. He jumps toward me, his hand darting out to throttle me. You need to understand, Leo. I’m good with my fists. I’ve trained hard, and I’m athletic enough. But I imagine, under normal circumstances, this guy is more than up to the task of taking me down. So how to explain what comes next? How to explain that I move fast enough to parry his attack with a forearm? Simple.
He is going for the throat.
The part of me that lets me breathe.
And after last night, after being strapped to the table, something primitive in me will not let that happen. Something both instinctive and maybe supernatural will protect that part of my anatomy no matter what.