I felt my left hand curling into a fist, my right hand in my pocket, clenched around my knife. “Dammit, Ostler!”
“He’s paid for it, and moved on,” said Ostler. “People change—do you want me judging you by your worst mistake?”
“You mean you don’t?”
“Just read the letter,” said Diana. “It’s probably going to get a lot worse before it gets better.”
Ostler continued with the message: “‘I’ve met the girl—she’s much older now, of course. Much prettier than his real wife. Maybe that’s why the ugly one died so young?’”
“She died in a car accident,” said Trujillo, and now his face was as thick with anger as mine. He rolled up his sleeve to display a long scar on his forearm. “I was in the car, too—to even suggest that I would kill my own wife—”
“‘Diana Lucas was drummed out of the air force,’” Ostler read, cutting him off, “‘dishonorably discharged for beating another woman. The victim was sent to the hospital with two broken ribs, several internal injuries, a concussion, and a dislodged eyeball.’”
“Wow,” said Nathan. “What’d she do to you?”
“Nothing,” said Diana curtly.
“I don’t mean injuries,” said Nathan. “I mean what did she do to deserve it? What started the fight?”
“She did nothing,” said Diana slowly. “It wasn’t a fight, it was a…” Diana sighed. “Gang initiation. She wanted to join our crew, and that means you take a beating. Same thing I got when I joined.”
“They have gangs in the army?” asked Nathan.
“Air force,” Diana corrected him sharply. “And yes, every branch of the military has gangs. I was in one before and I was in one there.”
“And now?” I asked.
“Now I send a quarter of my paycheck to inner-city schools,” said Diana. “Now I volunteer at a Big Sisters program whenever we’re in a town big enough to have one. Now I think I’ve done pretty damn well for myself in paying for that mistake, and I don’t want to have to relive it for you all any more than Trujillo wanted to relive his.”
“So far these have both been a matter of public record,” said Nathan. “Kudos to him for digging them up, but anybody could have done the research. He’s not a mind reader.”
“He knows about you,” said Ostler.
Nathan shook his head. “I haven’t done anything like this—”
“‘Nathan Gentry sold cocaine in West Philadelphia for three years,’” Ostler read, “‘and then again in Harvard for two. Most of his customers dropped out, unable to continue school; one of them turned to prostitution to pay for her habit.’”
“I didn’t know about that,” said Nathan.
“Are you kidding me?” asked Diana.
“I didn’t know about the prostitution!” he protested. “Of course I knew about the drugs.”
“And you thought that wasn’t the same?” asked Trujillo. “I lived with an underage girl who thought she loved me—you destroyed dozens of lives.”
“And then tried to hide it from us,” added Diana.
“I was never caught or convicted,” said Nathan, “I didn’t think he’d know about it. I didn’t think anybody knew except Ostler, and that’s because I’m the one who told her.”
“Mr. Gentry has moved on,” said Ostler, “just like the rest of you.”
“But he didn’t suffer for it,” said Diana, and I could tell from the curl of her brow that she was furious. “Trujillo went to jail, I was court martialed, and Nathan just skates by?”
“I knew it was wrong so I got out,” said Nathan. “Do you know how hard it is to get out of dealing? And I think the fact that I did it voluntarily should say a whole lot more than you’re giving me credit for—would you still be gangbanging if the air force hadn’t forced you to stop?”
“They forced me to leave the air force,” said Diana. “I could have kept banging anywhere I went.”
“Arguing about these details gets us nowhere,” said Ostler. “I wouldn’t even be reading this if I didn’t think it would help us catch a bad guy. How did he find out about Nathan? Where is that information available? What kind of person might have access to it? Put the past behind you and let’s treat this letter like the clue it is.”
I listened to them argue without joining in. Didn’t they see that Nathan’s crime was different, though? Not just because he didn’t get caught, and not just because he only hurt people indirectly—his was different because he did it for different reasons. Trujillo was in love, or at least he was horny, and Diana wanted to fit in. They were both emotional acts, made for social reasons. Nathan’s crime was all about himself: he wanted money, so he went out and got some. He sold drugs to get ahead.
As if I needed any more reasons to hate him.
“Okay,” said Nathan, closing his eyes. “Who knows about me?… One of the other dealers, maybe? The kid who supplied me?”
“Kid?” asked Diana.