Washington, D.C.
Monday, September 8, 4:40 p.m.
Dylan Hunter liked Ed Cronin’s face.
The Alexandria homicide investigator had a squarish jaw, a fringe of close-cropped blond hair, and blue eyes that sparked with intelligence. He looked to be in his mid-forties; beneath his blue sports jacket he seemed trim and athletic. Maybe a handball player or runner. One of that minority of balding guys that women go for.
“I appreciate this, Mr. Hunter. I won’t take much of your time.”
“It’s okay, Sergeant Cronin. End of the workday. What can I do for you?”
“As I told your receptionist when I called, it’s about the murder of William Bracey.”
“Right. One of the trio I wrote about last week. I caught the news on the radio on my way here.”
“That’s the guy.”
“Well, I don’t think many people will lament his passing.”
Cronin smiled, the only editorial he would permit himself.
“But I put everything that I learned about the guy in the article. So if you’re looking for more information, I’m not sure I can help you.”
The detective leaned back in the guest chair. It didn’t creak as it had under the weight of its previous occupant. “Maybe you can. We found something unusual at the crime scene.”
He shut up. Waiting for him to fill the silence. The guy was good. But it would seem suspicious not to bite. “Unusual?”
Cronin reached into the large manila envelope he’d brought with him. Extracted a clear, zip-lock plastic bag and slid it across the desk toward him. He leaned over to look at it. Inside was a newspaper clipping with brownish spatters on it.
He looked up at his visitor. “You found this at the crime scene?”
Cronin nodded, watching him.
Hunter sat back, frowned, and spread his hands. “I don’t understand.”
Cronin stared at him for a moment. Then relaxed and sighed. “Neither do we, frankly. We can only speculate. Most likely thing is, somebody read your article, got royally pissed off, and decided to whack the guy. Then leave the clipping at the crime scene. As his justification.”
“You think my article motivated somebody to kill this guy?”
The detective shrugged. “Sure looks like it. From the way the crime scene was staged.”
“Staged?”
“Look, I tell you this, it’s not for public consumption, okay? I don’t want to read about it in the paper tomorrow.”
Hunter didn’t like it, but he raised three fingers. “Scout’s honor.”
“Okay, Bracey was shot lying in his bed. But that’s not where we found him. The perp, or perps, dragged him off the bed and perched him in a stuffed chair facing his front door. Then they positioned his hands on his lap. And they put your article in his hands. Like he was reading it.”
He blinked, his mouth hanging open. “You’re kidding.”
“Damnedest thing I’ve seen in a while.”
He stared at the cop. Then began to laugh.
Cronin smiled. “We thought it was funny, too.”
Hunter clapped several times. “Bravo! Somebody out there has a sense of-I don’t know, what would you call it?”
“Humor, for sure.”
“I was going to say ‘poetic justice,’ but that’s not quite right. And I don’t pretend my writing is poetic.”
“Whatever it is-between us, the guys in the department like it. We’re glad somebody’s saying this stuff, because we can’t. You know how it is.”
“I know exactly how it is.”
Cronin reached for the plastic evidence bag, returned it to the envelope. “No matter what I think about this privately, though, I have a job to do.”
“Of course. We can’t have killers walking the streets, now, can we?”
The cop caught the irony and chuckled. “No, of course not. Anyway, we’re doing the usual. Looking at Bracey’s associates, enemies. Checking out the families of his vics, to see if anybody might have gone over the edge. They’d probably have the most motive. We also talked to your editor, asked him for all the mail that came in about your article. Has anybody really upset contacted you privately about it? Mail, email, calls?”
Hunter looked off into space. “Not really. Certainly no one who sticks out as being unhinged.”
The detective got up, pulled out a business card, and left it on the desk. “Well, you let me know if anybody communicates with you that we should check out.”
Hunter walked with the detective back to the reception area. Danika looked up and smiled at them both.
“Sorry I couldn’t help you.”
Cronin turned and extended his hand. “Mr. Hunter, what you do, that’s already a big help. To everybody. Please keep it up.”
He held the man’s eyes. “Count on it.”
Washington, D.C.
Monday, September 8, 7:30 p.m.
She turned off 16th onto a side street that curved back into an upscale residential neighborhood of northwest Washington. In a couple of blocks, she pulled into the driveway of a large, stately home. After turning off the ignition, she remained at the wheel a moment, steadying herself for the conversation to come. They’d had a few such conversations before. They never lasted long. They never got easier. And they never got anywhere.
Maybe this time.
She got out and walked up the tidy brick sidewalk that arced toward the front door. Even before she rang the bell, Gracie, the old Irish Setter, began to bark inside.
Kenneth MacLean peered through the arched window of the door, and a smile spread over his face. The door opened a few seconds later.
“Annie dear! What a lovely surprise.” He opened his arms and she returned his hearty hug.
“Hi, Dad.”
“Come, sit down.” He put his arm around her shoulders and led her into the den. Gracie followed and Annie bent to pat her for a minute until, satisfied, the dog wandered off.
Paneled in dark oak, the room was a gentleman’s sanctuary from another era. The wall to the left was lined, floor to ceiling, with bookcases. The wall opposite featured a massive stone fireplace. Family photos adorned the mantelpiece, and a few paintings surrounded the window on the far wall. It had been her favorite place in the house as a little girl. Curled up with a story book in one of the big club chairs, she felt a sense of security, stability, and permanence.
She had not felt that here for a long time. She tried to recapture it now, as she took one of the twin stuffed chairs facing the fire.
“Let me pour some wine, sweetie. You still like Shiraz?” She nodded. “Good. I have something here you might enjoy.” He fetched a half-filled Wedgewood decanter and two crystal glasses from a sideboard and brought them to the coffee table between her chair and his.
Looking at him as he poured the ruby liquid, she marveled at how well he had aged. In his youth, Kenneth Martin MacLean had movie-star good looks, a boyish grin, and thick, unruly hair that, on a woman, would be called strawberry blond. Back then, he cynically exploited those looks, aided and abetted by a fortune inherited from the family banking empire. The looks and money had allowed him every advantage of social status, including the ability to break most of society’s rules and get away with it.
But that was then, and then was long ago. Today he dressed unpretentiously in corduroy slacks and a cable-knit sweater, both dark brown. The clothes reflected the different man he was now: spiritual rather than materialistic, self-effacing rather than self-indulgent, idealistic rather than hedonistic. He was still a handsome man, though the once-boyish face was lined and drawn; he still sported a full head of hair, though the rusty waves were streaked with gray.
He offered her a glass, tapped his against hers in a wordless toast, and settled into his chair. They exchanged idle questions and answers about each other’s work. Then the conversation petered out. For a few minutes they sipped in silence, enjoying the crackling of the fire and the ticking of the grandfather clock in the corner of the room.
He closed his eyes. “What brings you here, Annie?”
He can read me, of course. He knows something’s wrong.
“I had a tough day.”
He opened his eyes, looked at her. “Tell me.”
She did. She told him about the prison visit. About Susie’s confrontation with Wulfe. About the news of Bracey’s death. About their discovery of Bracey’s and Valenti’s participation in the Youth Horizons program. For some reason, she found that she didn’t want to mention the presence of Dylan Hunter.
“Dad, I’m just trying to understand all these programs that you run. Like this Youth Horizons. All for the benefit of those- animals .”
“Animals?”
“Well, what would you call the likes of Wulfe and Bracey and Valenti? Give me a name for creatures that could do things like that to decent people like Susie and Arthur.”
He stared into his wine glass, swirling the contents; firelight flashed from the crystal facets. “I suppose I’d call them what our Lord and Savior called them: His children.” He looked over at her, smiling gently. “They’re human beings, Annie. Not animals. Tragically flawed human beings.”
“Dad, look. I know how much your faith means to you. And how strongly you feel about compassion, and mercy, and rehabilitation, and all that. Very nice, in the abstract. But it all boils down to one ugly reality: You’re talking about letting bad people off the hook. You’re helping bad people get away with their bad behavior.”
He drained the last of his wine, set the glass on the coffee table. “I just don’t accept your premise, Annie. People can change. Look at me: I was a hell-raiser as a kid. But I changed. Rehabilitation is possible. That’s why I don’t think there is such a thing as a truly ‘bad person.’ To varying degrees, all of us are just victims of bad circumstances. And sometimes, circumstances drive even very good people to do very bad things.”
“You mean that people aren’t responsible for what they do?”
“Well, if you put it that way, I suppose I’d have to say-no. Not ultimately.”
She stared at him in disbelief. “Are you telling me that Adrian Wulfe isn’t responsble for what he did to Susie and Arthur? That he was just driven against his will to rape her?”
He shook his head. “That’s overly simplistic. But I can’t presume to know what terrible influences in his past could have twisted his thinking and urges so terribly. It must have been awful, though. So I have to feel some compassion for the miserable little kid who grew up to be such an unhappy adult.”
“ Unhappy? I’m not hearing this. How about a little compassion for his victims, Dad?”
“Of course I feel for them, Annie! I feel terrible for them. Because they’re victims, too-victims of whatever happened to him early in his life.”
“You mean they’re-what? Collateral damage?”
“That’s a strange way of putting it. But in a sense, it’s causally true.”
She looked at him, speechless.
“Forget Adrian Wulfe for the moment,” he went on. “Let’s talk about your friend, Susie. She just can’t continue to wallow in anger. You can’t live that way. You have to learn at some point to forgive and move on.”
Her eyes returned to a photo on his mantelpiece. “Like you forgave Julia?”
From the corner of her eye she saw him wince. A moment passed. When he spoke, his voice was softer.
“Annie, why don’t you call her ‘Mother’?”
She had to fight down the anger to keep her own tone even. “She’s no mother to me. Just like she was no wife to you. Dad, she betrayed you. She betrayed both of us. How can you keep her photo up there?”
He shook his head. “I forgave her long ago. I had to turn away from anger, or it would have consumed me.” He hesitated. “Just as you ought to forgive Frank.”
“You want to forgive, go ahead. I don’t forgive the unforgivable.”
“You should try to understand her. And him. Victor Hugo said it well. ‘To understand all is to forgive all.’ And you should give the Church a try, too. It turned my life around after your-after Julia left.”
“You mean, after she betrayed you and abandoned both of us.”
“I’m sure she had her reasons.”
“For deception? For betraying her marriage vows? Are you saying she had no choice? That she was like some sleepwalker, driven by forces beyond her control?”
“I don’t know. I suppose I was to blame. Maybe I didn’t give her enough attention. Perhaps-”
She picked up her purse from the floor and stood. “Well, you can believe whatever you want to believe about her. But I’ll tell you this: I wasn’t to blame for her leaving us. I didn’t deserve that. And I sure as hell didn’t deserve what Frank did to me, either.” She headed for the door.
He rose. “Annie, please, wait-”
She stopped. Faced him.
“Wait? For what? For more excuses? For you to try to convince me that it’s acceptable for people like Julia and Frank and Wulfe to do monstrous things to other people?” She looked at him, thinking about it. “Or are you just trying to convince yourself, Dad? Does it make you feel better to imagine that she really didn’t want to hurt you?”
She didn’t wait to see the impact of her words.