Mortal Faults

22

The Boiler Room was just as Tess remembered it, a not-quite-seedy diner with a retro look. She pushed past a trio of homeless people cadging coins under the neon sign, and stepped into the white Formica glare. Even the smell of cooking hamburgers was as she remembered. They smelled good, but she’d already eaten, and she had other things on her mind.

Scanning the room, she saw Abby in a booth. The booth had a view of the entrance, probably selected so Abby could see her enter. So far, however, she hadn’t noticed. Intent on the plate before her, she seemed oblivious of her environment.

Abby, oblivious? That wasn’t like her. She was always alert, ready for anything.

Tess approached the table. As she drew near, she saw that Abby had ordered a steak sandwich and was attacking it with what might be described as gusto. Savagery would be a better word. She carved the steak with furious energy, sawing it as if she wished to saw through the plate and the table.

Tess slid into the Naugahyde benchseat opposite Abby. Only then did Abby glance up.

“Hey,” Abby said. She speared a chunk of beef with her fork and swallowed the red bite.

“Hi, Abby. How are you doing?”

“Fine and dandy.”

“You seem a little… distracted.”

“Just thinking.”

“From the way you’re tearing up that steak, they aren’t pleasant thoughts.”

“Hasn’t been my best day.”

“At least it wasn’t your last one.” Tess couldn’t stop looking at the steak. “Aren’t you supposed to be a vegetarian?”

“I eat meat. Not a lot of it. But occasionally”-Abby stabbed another forkful of beef-“occasionally I’m in the mood for something bloody.”

“So I see. You, uh, you sure you’re okay?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“There are approximately a million reasons I can think of.”

“I’m fine.”

“You seem kind of… hyper. Like you’re on speed.”

“I’m always that way.”

“Tonight, even more so.”

Abby shot her a scowling glance. “I don’t do drugs.”

“I know, but-”

“Look, dammit, I’m fine, all right? I’m fine.”

Tess sat back and nodded slowly. “I assume you’re wondering what brought me back to L.A.”

“I’m guessing it was either the daily smog alerts, or my insouciant charm.”

“Try Andrea Lowry.”

“Not her real name.”

“I know. I looked into it for you and set off some sort of alarm bell in D.C. The case was active, but it was being kept secret. I don’t like being left in the dark.”

Abby grinned at her between bites. “But you also wanted to help me, at least a little.”

“Maybe a little.” Tess shrugged. “Very little.”

“I’ll take what I can get.”

A waitress drifted by the table, menu in hand. Tess waved her off. “Nothing for me, thanks.” The waitress shrugged and drifted on.

“Not hungry?” Abby asked.

“Ate at the office. Sometime during the fifth or sixth iteration of the shooting review.”

“Got it all cleared up, I hope.”

Tess shook her head. “It won’t be cleared up for a while. Gunfights aren’t common in the Bureau. They always draw intense interest from OPR.”

“If that’s anything like NPR, it would probably put me to sleep.”

“It’s the Office of Professional Responsibility-our equivalent of Internal Affairs. They’ll be on the case, or I should say on my case, for months.”

“Your actions were justified.”

“I know that. So do they. They’ll still have me jumping through hoops. I’ll be filing forms in triplicate, giving statements, and basically wasting as much of my time as they find necessary.”

“You see? There are advantages to being a vigilante.”

Tess gave her a sharp glance. “Is that what you are now?”

“Just making conversation. So you were interviewed and reinterviewed for hours on end.”

“Yes.”

“During which time you told them the whole story-with key omissions.”

“Yes.” Tess hadn’t liked lying, but it seemed she had no choice wherever Abby was concerned.

“How’d Andrea hold up?” Abby asked.

“She didn’t breathe a word about you. Actually she didn’t say much of anything at all.”

“Shell-shocked?”

“Possibly. But I also think she’s afraid of law enforcement.”

“She’s afraid of everything. Paranoid.”

“She has her reasons,” Tess said.

Abby looked at her. “You sound like you know what they are.”

“I’m on the case. I’ve been briefed.”

“Great. Spill.”

“I’m afraid I can’t.”

Abby carved off another slice of meat, consumed it, and set down her knife and fork. “Then let me tell you. Andrea Lowry used to be Bethany Willett. She killed her kids and got sent to the booby hatch. She was briefly famous. The press nicknamed her Medea. Now she’s out of the cuckoo’s nest and living under an assumed name and stalking a congressman. Only, she doesn’t call it stalking. She just feels drawn to him, she says. How am I doing so far?”

“Better than you have any right to be.”

“Andrea opened up to me. I have a way of getting people to do that.”

“Then it looks like you don’t need me at all.”

“Wrong-o. There are still some gaps to be filled in. Such as the exact nature of Congressman Reynolds’ connection with Andrea, and how the feds got involved. And why Reynolds would want Andrea dead.”

Tess put up a hand. “We don’t know that Reynolds had anything to do with the attack this afternoon.”

“No, I’m sure it was just a coincidence.”

“We’re not making any assumptions.”

“Well, I am. It was him. That guy’s a real son of a bitch, you know? I mean, even by the standards of a politician, and that’s saying something.”

“How can you be so certain it’s Reynolds?”

“Instinct.”

Tess was sure there was more to it, but she also knew that Abby wouldn’t share without getting something in return. “I suppose,” she said slowly, “if you know that much of the story, you should probably know the rest. Especially since Andrea would probably just tell you, anyway.”

“Yes, I think she would. We were getting along pretty well until the shooting started. The attempted assassination kind of put a damper on things. By the way, I’m assuming her gun was confiscated.”

“For the moment, yes. It’s needed for ballistics tests.”

“Leaving her defenseless.”

“She’s hardly defenseless. She-” Tess stopped herself.

“She’s being watched around the clock by the FBI. That’s what you were going to say, isn’t it?”

“Well, yes.”

Abby had finished her steak. She pushed a hunk of cornbread around the plate, mopping up the juice. “I’m guessing it was being watched already, or you wouldn’t have made your deus ex machina arrival. What was the lookout?”

“House next door.”

“The one that’s boarded up?”

Tess nodded. “It’s abandoned. The Bureau commandeered it early this morning.”

“When did you join the stakeout detail?”

“Midafternoon.”

“So you saw me walk up to Andrea’s door?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t FBI agents usually work in pairs?”

Tess saw where she was going. “I have a partner, but luckily for you, I had the eye at the time.”

“Had the eye? What is that, a magic amulet?”

“It’s an expression. It means I was watching. We trade off so we don’t get tired. It’s standard procedure.”

“So what was your partner doing while you had the eye?”

Crandall had been using the bathroom, but somehow Tess didn’t want to say that. It sounded unprofessional, and there was the Bureau’s reputation to consider. “Raiding the fridge.”

“You even stocked the fridge? Ritzy. You didn’t tell him you’d seen someone enter the house?”

“It didn’t come up.”

“And how would you have explained it when I walked out?”

“I figured I’d keep watching until you were gone. I was doing most of the work, anyway. He was keeping his distance.”

“Slacker, huh?”

“He’s just a little unhappy with me.” This, Tess thought, was putting it mildly. “He has a right to be.”

“So it’s your fault if your partner doesn’t pull his weight? Seriously, Tess, those nuns in parochial school did a number on you.”

“Let’s keep my educational background out of this,” Tess said.

“Whatever. Where was this antisocial partner of yours while you were inside Andrea’s house?”

“In the backyard, securing the scene.”

“That’s not so good. He should have been backing you up when you went housecleaning.”

“Of course he should have. But I couldn’t afford to let him see you. I told him to wait in the yard in case any more suspects tried to flee out the back. And I got thoroughly chewed out for it during the shooting review, by the way.”

Abby shrugged. Clearly she didn’t care about the shooting review. She didn’t appear to care about Tess at all. She hadn’t asked if the shootout in the backyard had put her in any danger. The issue apparently hadn’t occurred to her.

That was a bad sign. Abby was normally somewhat self-absorbed, but not to the point of indifference when a colleague had placed herself at risk.

“So this guy didn’t see me when I went out through the carport?” Abby asked.

“That’s right.”

“He’s Sergeant Schultz, then?”

“What?”

“Your partner. He knows nothing.”

Tess just barely got the reference. She had always been clueless when it came to popular culture. “As far as he’s concerned, Andrea acted alone.”

“Like Oswald. Cool. So are you going to tell me a bedtime story or not? I want to hear the one that begins, ‘Once upon a time there was a lovely but psychologically unstable princess named Bethany…’”

Tess sighed. “I’ll tell you. But I may regret it.”

“Think positive. You’re positively going to regret it.” Abby grinned, but it was a false grin, like the leer of a mask. She was trying hard to sound casual, and not quite succeeding. Maybe it had something to do with the nervous energy that was quaking in every inch of her body. “By the way,” she added, “I’m assuming the three musketeers are still at large?”

“Your assailants? I’m afraid so.”

“Thanks for coming to my rescue.” The words were perfunctory, but Tess had been waiting for them.

“You’re welcome.”

“Not that I needed rescuing, of course. I already had the situation pretty well handled.”

“It didn’t look that way to me.”

Abby pushed her plate aside. “Hey, I scared those bad boys into running away.”

“They weren’t running, they were regrouping. Planning another assault.”

“I wish they’d tried it.”

“Do you?”

“They wouldn’t have outflanked me a second time. I would’ve had plenty of opportunities to treat them to a little street justice.”

“What does that mean?” Tess asked carefully.

“They’re garbage. You know what you do with garbage? You put it in bags. Nice heavy-duty bags, with zippers and everything.”

“Suppose you were the one who ended up in a bag.”

“It’s a risk I’d be willing to take.”

“That’s what worries me.” Tess leaned forward. “We’re supposed to be on the same side, Abby. The side of law and order.”

“I don’t remember agreeing to that.”

“Maybe you’re sorry I showed up. I robbed you of your vigilante moment.”

“I’ll have other moments.”

Tess stared at her. “What are you planning?”

“Who, me? A nice long soak in the tub, bottle of champagne, the soothing baritone of Jim Nabors on the CD player…” The smile on her face said that she wasn’t even trying to be taken seriously.

“Let the Bureau take care of this,” Tess said. “It’s our case now.”

“Oh, right. You’re from the government, and you’re here to help. By the way, since when does a home invasion fall under federal jurisdiction?”

“This was no home invasion. It was an attempted hit.”

“Still not a federal crime.”

“It is when a federal agent is involved. I was shot at during the performance of my official duties.”

“Fair enough. Except you still haven’t told me why your official duties required you to be watching Andrea’s house in the first place. I mean, what’s the point? It’s not like you could tail her if she went for a drive. You’d need a minimum of three vehicles to do a tail job on a paranoid target in broad daylight, and there weren’t that many FBI agents around.”

“How do you know?”

“Because they would’ve come running, like you. So if you weren’t there to shadow the suspect… Oh, I get it.”

“Do you?”

“You were waiting for her to leave. Not so you could follow her, but so you could break into her domicile and-what? Do a little illegal search?”

“We weren’t doing anything illegal.”

“Planting a bug, then. Or should I say, bugs. Plural. You wanted to know what was going on inside her house.”

“Yes.”

“Well, I suppose you got the opportunity to plant all the surveillance devices you wanted, once the house became a crime scene.”

“I let an agent from the tech support squad handle it. We had a warrant,” she added defensively.

“I’m sure you did. Kind of ironic, though, isn’t it? Andrea’s paranoid, thinks people are after her-and guess what? They are.”

“We’re not after her. We’re trying to protect her.”

“No, I’m trying to protect her. You’re trying to convict her.”

Tess bit back a sharp reply. “The truth is, we’re not sure what to make of her. Whether she’s a suspect or a victim.”

“Maybe a little of both,” Abby suggested.

“Maybe.”

“So fill in the blanks for me, girlfriend. What do you know that I don’t?”

“We can get into that.” Tess lowered her voice. “First I want to be reassured that you’re not going to do anything drastic.”

“Like what?”

“Like hunting down the intruders on your own.”

Abby gave her an unblinking doe-eyed stare. “Tess, I would never do a thing like that. Why, it sounds downright dangerous.”

“You’re failing to convince me.”

She dropped the act. “Okay, let’s say I’d like to track those assholes to their lair and give them what-for. How am I supposed to do it? All I know is they were three guys in ski masks and dark clothes. I’m guessing they’ve ditched the outfits by now, which leaves just three guys. Last time I looked, there were a lot more than three guys in the greater Los Angeles area.”

“You’re not holding out on me, are you?”

“Holding out what?”

“I don’t know. Evidence you found at the scene, possibly.”

“Did I have time to collect evidence? You were there. Was I bagging and tagging? Did you see me auditioning for the latest CSI spin-off? Which I hear is going to be CSI: Fresno, by the way.”

“All right, I suppose you couldn’t have picked up anything.”

“I’d play vigilante if I could, but as it turns out, I have to rely on the vaunted federal boobocracy. No offense.”

“We’re not as inept as you seem to think.”

“That’s good to know. If you were, this country would be in deep shit.”

“You’re in a hell of a mood.”

“Getting my hair parted by flying ammo has a way of doing that to me. What were they shooting, anyhow?”

“Forty-five caliber ACP plus-Ps.”

“Hot load. Serious stopping power. Get nailed with one of those, and it could ruin a girl’s whole day. Luckily I found a way to even the odds.”

“Three against one isn’t evening the odds.”

“It is when the one in question is me.” Abby shrugged. “What can I say? I believe in myself.”

“There’s a fine line between self-esteem and self-delusion.”

Abby shifted in her seat, kicking her shoes together beneath the table. “Self-delusion is a greatly underrated quality. Personally I’m in favor of it. People who have no illusions are dangerous. It’s our fantasies that keep us grounded. It’s our craziness that keeps us sane.”

Tess shook her head. “Now I know I’m in L.A.”

“Seriously, think about it. You have a couple who are married ten years, fight all the time but always kiss and make up, because that’s what lovers do. And they’re in love. That’s their fantasy. That’s the story they tell themselves. And then one day the fantasy dies, and they realize they’re not in love anymore and maybe they never were. No more illusions. No more kiss and make up. So one of them bludgeons the other one to death with a broom handle.”

“They were better off lying to themselves?”

“Absolutely. Lying to ourselves is the only way most of us can get through the day.”

The waitress returned with an offer of dessert. They both passed, then remained silent until she had dropped off the check and left.

“You’re a strange person, Abby,” Tess said finally.

“I just have a penchant for conversational detours.”

“Actually, it wasn’t as much of a detour as you think. Lovers who fall out of love-that’s quite relevant to the present situation.”

“Let me guess. Andrea Lowry and Jack Reynolds.”

“She was Bethany back then.”

“But they were together? They were a couple?”

“We think so.”

“When?”

“Twenty years ago. I assume you know that Jack Reynolds used to be the Orange County D.A. At that time, Bethany was his mistress. She got pregnant and gave birth to twin boys.”

Abby shut her eyes briefly. “Reynolds’ boys.”

Tess nodded. “Not that he ever publicly admitted to being the father. He was already married and raising a family of his own. He was planning a run for political office. Obviously he hadn’t wanted Bethany to get pregnant at all. She’d told him she was on the pill. It was a lie. She wanted to get pregnant, because she was convinced that if she bore his children, he would leave his wife for her.”

“Naive.”

“Extremely. Reynolds, though, was a smooth talker. He’d met Bethany in the courthouse-she was a legal secretary. He convinced her that his marriage wasn’t working, that he meant to get a divorce. She fell for it. They were together for a year or so, and she began to suspect he wasn’t going to hold up his end of the deal. Having children was her way of forcing his hand.”

“But it didn’t work out the way she planned.”

“Reynolds understood that Bethany had been trying to trap him. He’s not the sort of man who likes feeling trapped.”

“Not many are. How old were the twins when Bethany figured out that it was over?”

“Ten months.”

“She shot them,” Abby said, “when they were ten months old.”

“Yes. The breakup is what precipitated the double murder and the attempted suicide. Admittedly, it doesn’t make a lot of sense. She’s mad at him, so she takes it out on her own kids.”

Abby waved off this objection. “She wasn’t thinking of them as her kids. To her, they were his kids-his flesh and blood. She wanted to make him suffer. She wanted to take something away from him.”

“So she punishes him by killing her own children?”

“Something like that. It’s what Medea did, right?”

“I think so. Whatever her intention, she ended up punishing herself. She survived her suicide attempt, but it might have been better for her if she hadn’t.”

“I’m missing something here. After she woke up from surgery and realized she was going to live, why didn’t she tell the world about Reynolds? She could’ve ruined his career.”

“He got to her first. As D.A., he had access to her while she was in the hospital, under police protection. He must have intimidated her into silence.”

“How do you intimidate somebody who’s killed her kids and tried to kill herself? She had nothing left to lose.”

“I don’t know. But she kept quiet, so Reynolds must have managed it. He also had her declared incompetent to stand trial.”

Abby nodded. “Convenient. No testimony, no embarrassing questions.”

“Exactly. She was shipped off to a mental hospital. And Reynolds continued his illustrious career, which led him to Capitol Hill a few years later.”

“This is all very interesting.” Abby took out her purse and removed some cash, which she counted and left on the table. “But since she’s not talking to the authorities, Andrea didn’t give you this info. I doubt Reynolds did, either. So are we dealing with hard facts, or just supposition?”

“What we’re dealing with is the story Bethany told one of her doctors while she was in the psychiatric hospital. She doesn’t even know she told him. She was heavily medicated at the time.”

“And how did the FBI find out about it?”

“A walk-in. Two weeks ago this doctor came to the Bureau and reported what he’d been told.”

“Just two weeks ago? She’s been out of the hospital for eight years. You’re saying the doc kept the secret all that time?”

“He had no idea whether or not it was true. It could have been the babbling of a delusional patient. He wasn’t going to get involved in some political mess on the basis of something a patient told him in confidence and under medication.”

“What changed his mind?”

“Someone called the hospital two weeks ago, making inquiries about Bethany Willett.”

“What kind of inquiries?”

“He was trying to find out Bethany’s current address. The doctor, who runs the hospital now, thought it might be a journalist. But when he checked the call’s origin, he found it had been made from a pay phone in the Rayburn Building in Washington, D.C.”

“I’m guessing Reynolds works out of Rayburn.”

“He has an office there. And Congress was in session at the time. The doctor decided it was pretty good confirmation of Bethany’s story. He also decided that Reynolds probably wasn’t just trying to get back in touch with an old friend.”

Abby smiled. “I’ll bet the Bureau was none too thrilled to get hold of that information.”

“We investigate everything. We’re nonpolitical.”

“Right.”

“It was dicey,” Tess admitted. “Reynolds is a powerful congressman. He’s not the sort of person you can haul in for interrogation. The situation had to be handled with care. MEDEA was reactivated, and an investigative squad was set up. They located Bethany Willett under her new identity, and learned she’s visited at least one of Reynolds’ campaign events.”

“She’s visited a lot of them. She’s his number one fan.”

“Which is why Reynolds hired you, I assume. He was being stalked by the woman he’d broken up with twenty years ago-a woman who’s already proven herself to be psychologically unstable.”

“Isn’t it nice how all the pieces of our story are coming together in such a rich, satisfying mosaic?”

Tess ignored her. “Now that we’ve tightened our surveillance, there’s no way you can contact her again. If you continue your involvement in the case, you’ll be seen by surveillance. Someone will remember you from the Rain Man case. And we’ll both be in a lot of trouble.”

“So you’re saying…?”

“I’d like you to walk away.”

“Disappear, get lost. Is that it?”

“Yes.”

“I’m hurt, Tess. You don’t want us to work together, side by side? It was fun last time. You, all staid and bureaucratic, and me, your reckless, fun-loving sidekick. It was a regular buddy picture.”

“I remember that movie. I’m not interested in a sequel.”

“There’s rarely any artistic justification for doing one,” Abby conceded. “Okay, I’ll back off.”

Tess eyed her suspiciously. “You agreed to that a little too easily.”

“Why wouldn’t I agree? I don’t want to be ID’d by the Bureau, either. And it’s not like I have a client in this case. I quit on Reynolds even before his goons almost killed me.”

“Did you tell him where to find Andrea?”

“Nope. At least not intentionally. But I must’ve screwed up somehow, given him more info than I realized.”

Tess thought about it. “He could’ve had you followed.”

“I would have spotted a tail. It’s something else.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. He’s smarter than I thought, apparently. I led him to Andrea. I just don’t see how.”

“Regardless of that, you’re willing to leave it alone?”

“Yeah. I’ll walk. It’s not like I have a choice. “

Abby got up. Tess remained seated, watching her. “I’ve been straight with you, Abby. Are you being straight with me?”

“Honest Injun. Cross my heart. Come on, don’t you trust me?”

“I don’t trust anybody.” Tess looked away, feeling suddenly tired. “Not even myself. And I have you to thank for it.”

“ Moi?”

“You got me into this clandestine stuff. You brought me to the point where I am now, where I have to lie and cover up in front of everybody, all the time.”

Abby slung her purse over her shoulder. “Welcome to my world.”

“I never wanted to be in your world. I never wanted to live your life.”

“Yeah, well, I never asked you to get directly involved in this case, either.”

“I was keeping secrets even before I got involved this time.”

“You’re a government agent. Keeping secrets is your job.”

“Not when I’m keeping them from my superiors.”

“That’s where I’m lucky.” Abby smiled. “I don’t have any superiors.”

“Which means you don’t have anybody to keep you in line.”

“My conscience keeps me in line.”

“Does it?”

Abby didn’t answer that. “Bye, Tess. Nice running into you again. If I’m ever in Denver, I’ll look you up.”

She walked away. Tess looked after her, then at the plate across the table, the bloody carvings of gristle and fat in a thin red pool.