I didn’t know how to answer that, so I said nothing.
I’d been saying nothing for a really long time, so I was used to it.
If I had to be doing interviews, I’d have preferred the Today show.
Instead, I had two Federal agents at my office when I got in. They had more hair than Matt Lauer but not nearly as much personality.
They were investigating the violence in Brayton. Edward Holland had been calling for Federal or state intervention for days, but it apparently took blowing up half the state to make it happen.
I was a key to their investigation, because I had been the one who realized what might happen that night. It was fairly easy for them to know that, since TV cameras had been at the site and captured everything.
The speeches of both Holland and Alex Hutchinson before the explosion had been playing in what seemed like an endless loop on television, and I had my share of airtime as well. I’m sure that both Holland and Alex were being subjected to the same type of interrogation as I was.
I had no reason to hide anything from them, until I came to a realization midway through. While they were investigating the explosion and murders in Brayton, they had not tied it in to Judge Brennan’s murder. They still thought that was solved, and that Steven was guilty.
I’m not sure why I didn’t enlighten them; I probably would have if they asked directly. It could be that I was paying back Barone for all he had done for me; I knew that Barone would want a head start in a reopened Brennan investigation, and I was giving him that. I also knew that Barone would want to manage how the information got out to the public that I shot the wrong guy.
I also realized in the moment that I had been through so much that I wanted a shot to get to the bottom of it myself. Bryan went through his terrible ordeal, Emmit was shot, and Chris Gallagher was killed. I wanted to find out who was responsible for all that, and I wanted to do one other thing.
I wanted to get justice for Steven Gallagher.
So I told the agents that I had learned about the Brayton situation while investigating the Brennan murder, but making it sound as if it were peripheral to that. And for a long time I had believed it was, while I was intent on lying to Chris Gallagher, rather than finding the truth.
When the agents left, I went in to see Barone, and told him that, for the time being at least, we had a head start on the renewed investigation into Brennan.
“Now these are the kinds of conversations I like,” he said.
“I thought you would.”
“So where do we start?”
“In Brayton,” I said. “That’s where it begins and ends.”
“So what is your ass doing here?”
I finally had time to approach the investigation my way.
Without the horrible clock ticking on Bryan’s life, I was able to analyze the Brayton system more logically and dispassionately. I did what I always did on a case. I wrote down what I knew, what I didn’t know, and why.
And then I went for a drive.
The only people who could be said to have come out of the carnage as winners were Edward Holland and Alex Hutchinson. Holland had constantly tried to protect his citizens, and it was manifested in his constant pleas for outside assistance, and most profoundly in his ordering his police chief to do whatever was necessary to remove them from a dangerous situation.
He risked unpopularity by doing so, but when he was proven right he became a political hero. He was already being talked about as the leading candidate for the open US Senate seat, and he was milking the publicity every chance he got.
Alex Hutchinson was in a similar situation, and her story was even more appealing. She was a mother protecting her children, protecting the children of an entire town, and she stood up to incredibly powerful forces arrayed against her.
Not only that, but she succeeded where Holland and the police had failed; she got the people to move off the land before the explosion. I certainly couldn’t have managed it, and neither could the local police.
With Holland moving on to a Senate bid, there was talk of drafting Alex for Mayor. Since there hadn’t been a contested mayoral election in Brayton in twenty years, it was hers for the taking. She had also been doing some interviews, but not as much as Holland.
So Alex was my first stop when I got to Brayton. She was at her normal spot behind the cash register at her diner, but that was the only thing that was the same as my last visit. It was so crowded that I had to park down the block, and there was a line stretching out the door of people waiting for a table. Even if Alex did not become the Mayor, she was already parlaying fame into financial success.
I worked my way through the line and went up to the register. She brightened when she saw me, and said, “What brings you back here?”
“My job,” I said. “Got a minute?”
She looked around at the madhouse that was the diner, and I thought she was going to ask me to wait. But she called over one of the waitresses and asked her to watch the register.
Alex smiled. “Our regular table seems to be taken. Want to take a walk?”
“Sure.”
We went out the back and walked towards a small park, with a children’s playground, a couple of tennis courts, and not much else. But it was a nice day, and I liked being around Alex. I figured things could work out between us, if she weren’t married, with two kids, and living in Brayton. Oh, well.
“You’re pretty famous,” I said.
“As are you.”
“So are you going to be Mayor, or continue fighting Hanson over the land, or both?”
She seemed surprised. “You didn’t hear?”
“Hear what?”
“They’re saying that most of the explosives were planted underground, down some of the holes that had already been drilled. It caused like a small earthquake.”
“So?”
“So I’m not an expert, but it changed the whole picture. It might have made it too expensive to get to the natural gas in the shale. Either way, it will set them back at least a couple of years before they know for sure.”
I hadn’t heard that, and I said so. “So you’ve won, with some help.”
She nodded. “Not the way I wanted to win, but I’ll take it. That poor guy that was killed that night was right.”
She was talking about Chris Gallagher. “What do you mean?”
“He told me that nobody was going to drill on that land, and that we should leave when the police told us to. You think he could have planted the explosives?”
“No, Alex, I don’t. I knew him pretty well.”
“Oh,” she said. “I’m sorry.”
We walked some more, and I said, “Alex, I want to ask you a question. But first let’s reduce it to simple terms. Your side wanted the drilling stopped, and the other side wanted to drill. OK?”
“OK.”