They drove through the night, Eisler asleep in the back seat, Oppenheimer hunched down in front in a counterfeit of sleep, restless but quiet. The road was completely deserted, their headlights the only points of light in miles of darkness, but Connolly was alert, rubbed by the tension beside him, Oppenheimer wanting to ask about the call and Connolly not telling him.
He wasn’t sure why. Oppenheimer had a right to know. What could be more conclusive than a confession? It was useless to pretend he could offer any reason to doubt it. The rest of the story wrote itself now: Oppenheimer’s wry thanks and a ticket back to Washington; his billet in the house on L Street, shared bathroom down the hall; another year or so of shuffling paper, until the war came to its end; his discharge to a life that wasn’t there anymore. But it wasn’t finished yet, not the case, not anything about Los Alamos. He wasn’t ready to go. The truth was that he felt alive here, somehow on active service at last, a part of the project. He understood for the first time how the scientists felt, unwilling to think about anything else until the main point was reached, until it went off. There would be time later, but there wasn’t any now. They were so close. And as long as he had his case, his peripheral investigation, he could still be part of it. Didn’t he owe it to Bruner to follow this through to the end?
But even he could see that he was building an absurd house of cards. You can talk yourself into anything if you try. It wasn’t his project. He didn’t owe Bruner anything except an apology for trying to use his death to do something interesting with his own life. A Mexican pickup, a senseless crime. Life was like that. Maybe his refusal to accept it had a simpler reason: if he left the project, he’d be leaving her. He glanced over at Oppenheimer. He deserved to know. Connolly’s silence bordered on military insubordination. Dereliction of duty. All because it might interfere with his urge for a woman? Was that really what it came down to? Still, Oppenheimer didn’t care, and what did it matter? He wasn’t asking for a lot of time-just enough to be sure, before he gave it all up.
They were still south of Santa Fe when first light streamed over the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, lifting mist off the sage and the juniper trees. It was going to be another spectacular morning, erasing all the uneasiness of the night, clear and uncomplicated. Oppenheimer, exhausted finally from whatever worries had preoccupied him in the dark, now fell sound asleep. Eisler, who confronted demons and then offered a roll, was snoring softly in the back. The car felt safe and ordinary again. Why was the night always filled with ultimatums? Go one step at a time. In the new light, he would see what he would see.
He dropped both men, groggy, at the entrance to the Tech Area, then returned the car to the pool, eager now for a shower and a fresh start. But Los Alamos was still asleep, glistening and empty. Mills wouldn’t be ready for hours, and Albuquerque would be hours after that. Only a few trucks disturbed the peace. He could have coffee, check in at the office. He could take a walk, shake the drowsiness off by strolling around Ashley Pond. Instead, he stood at the edge of the dirt road, not doing anything. He started toward his dormitory, then hesitated. He turned toward the Admin Building, then stopped a second time. He was a teenager again, nervously looking for excuses in the street, when he knew what he had to do was go up on the porch and ring the bell.
He rapped softly on the door in the Sundt complex, afraid to wake the neighbors, but she must have been up early, because the door opened at once. Her hair was down, uncombed, and she was wrapped in a robe, a clinging prewar silk that draped slightly at her breasts. He felt the warmth she still carried with her from bed.
“Are you mad?” she said quietly. “You can’t come here.” Her eyes looked quickly to each side.
“Come out, then,” he said.
“Sssh. Someone will hear. Do you know what time it is?”
He nodded, but didn’t move.
She glanced around again, then swung the door open further. “Come on,” she said, drawing him in, then closing it behind her. “What is it? You look like hell.”
He had turned to face her, unconsciously pinning her back against the door, and stared at her for a minute, his face close to hers, as if the distance would lower the sound of their voices. “You don’t,” he said, moving his eyes over her face.
She gave a half-smile. “I asked for that, didn’t I?” she said softly. “At six in the bloody morning.”
“I need to talk to you.”
“Not here.”
“He won’t be back till Friday.”
“It isn’t that. We can’t-not here.” But she didn’t move, and he could feel her in front of him, warm, their faces almost touching.
“I need to tell you. I may have to leave.”
She looked at him. “Will you?”
“I may. They found someone. I may have to leave.”
“Why are you telling me?” she said, her eyes still on him.
“I can’t promise you anything. You should know that.”
“I know.”
“It may be important to you. I don’t want to be unfair to you.”
She placed her hand along his cheek. “But you’re not fair,” she said, drawing him closer. “There’s nothing fair about you.” She kissed him. “You’re here,” she said, kissing him again, lightly, as if she were drawing a breath between words, “and then you’re not. It’s not fair. You’re warning me. What else?”
“I don’t want to leave,” he said, kissing her back.
“Then stay for a while. Now.”
“Are you sure?” he said, still kissing her.
“Yes.”
“I don’t want to hurt you.”
“This is a funny love affair. Apologies at the beginning, not the end. It’s not fair.”
“No.”
“Let’s pretend we’re at the beginning.”
He kissed her hard then, pinning her against the door, his hands behind her, drawing her closer. He could feel the heat of her skin through the silk as his hands moved down her back, pulling her toward him so that their bodies ground together. Then her robe fell open and he moved his hands inside, feeling the skin itself, hot, alive to his touch. She held the back of his head, her mouth everywhere on his face.
“Come to bed,” he whispered.
“No.” She was gulping air. “Not there.”
And as his hand rounded her, moving toward the back of her thigh, she brought her leg up beside him, as if he were taking her right there, standing up, and his prick jumped with excitement. He rubbed his hand under her thigh until he felt her hair graze his fingertips, already moist, and the wetness made his erection pulse again, almost painful now in his pants. His fingers moved up along the moist lips, slick, back and forth, so that she began to ride them, her mouth making stifled noises behind the kiss. Then he turned his hand so that his open palm held her, the heel of it grinding against the front of her as the wet finger still slid back and forth, and she pulled her mouth off his to gasp for air, her lower body still moving against him. But he couldn’t stop now-the fierceness of it, the hurry, was outside them. He could feel her breath, ragged, in his ear. He covered her mouth again, their tongues slippery, as he moved his hand away to unzip his pants, fast, so that when it sprang out it moved toward her at once to replace the hand, sliding along the wet part of her until it slipped inside and he thrust up, filling her, and she gasped, dropping her head on his shoulder. He thought for an instant he would come then, still, her heat wrapped around him. There was nothing but feeling now, so complete he was afraid to disturb it. But then he felt the walls of her vagina grip him, making gentle spasms, and they were moving again. “Oh,” she said, a low sound from her throat, her head back against the door, and the sound of it excited him more, and he put his mouth back on hers, kissing her as he gripped her below, pounding into her with her thigh still drawn up beside him. He could hear them thudding against the door, oblivious as animals, and then a sharp sound from her as he felt her grip him again inside, and he knew she had come, so that he was released now too and after a few more jabbing thrusts it spurted out of him, everything in him shooting out, taking his breath with it.
They stood there for a few minutes, still locked together, gulping air, and he knew they must look absurd, their mouths smeared with saliva, standing against the wall like dogs, his pants down below his knees. But her face glowed, and when he looked at her he felt an immense gratitude. It had been so quick, but she had let him, not protesting, giving herself to it. He had wanted to make love, not just fuck, but they had already waited too long to take their time. Now he kissed her gently and lifted her up, still hard inside her, and moved haltingly toward the couch, his pants wadded foolishly around his calves. But the point was not to leave her. It didn’t matter how they looked, messy and awkward, so long as he remained inside her. When he laid her down on the couch, still inside, she smiled at him, and this time they kept a different rhythm, moving smoothly in and out, and the sensation in him spread outward so that his whole body was making love, every piece of skin sensitive. This time his hands felt all of her, drawing along her breasts, kissing the side of her neck, until they both began racing and she wrapped her legs around him, urging him, waiting for him to come so that they could finish together, shuddering in the same jolt of pleasure.
They lay quietly for a while until, calm now, he sensed his weight on her and slipped out, his penis finally soft, and moved to the side, still holding her. He saw her face moist with tears.
“Don’t,” he said softly, brushing them lightly off her face.
“No, I’m all right,” she said, turning on her side to face him. She held the side of his head, looking at him. “What will it be like, do you think?”
“I don’t know.”
“No. Never mind.”
“Like this, maybe.”
“Maybe,” she said, tracing the shape of his ear.
“Why do we ever think anything else matters?”
She smiled. “That’s sex talking.”
“I guess.”
“I’ve never done it standing up.”
He grinned. “What do you think?”
“Not sure yet.”
They would have gone on like this, he knew, comfortable, idly touching each other, but there was a rap on the door.
“Oh God,” she whispered, sitting up, pointing him quickly toward the bedroom. “Bloody hell.”
What had seemed smooth before, no more than another stroke of lovemaking, was clumsy now, and he almost tripped as he staggered toward the door, holding his pants.
“Coming,” she said out loud, belting the robe around her and running her fingers through her hair. She waited until he had closed the bedroom door. Inside, he flopped on the bed, too exhausted to dress and afraid of making a sound.
“Emma,” he heard a woman’s voice say through the door, “thank God you’re up. Do you have any coffee? I don’t know how I ran out, but Larry’ll be a bear if he doesn’t have his coffee. I’ll pay you back.”
“I was just making some. This enough?” she said over the rattling of a tin.
“Hmm. You’re perspiring.”
“It’s this damn central heating. You’d think I’d be used to it by now, wouldn’t you?”
“Thanks,” the woman said, obviously taking the coffee. “Sorry to bother you so early. Where’s Daniel? I thought I heard somebody.”
“No, just me. He’s off-site. Awful, talking to yourself, isn’t it? If I’m not careful they’ll put me away.”
There was more as she lingered at the door, but Connolly stopped listening. He lay there instead, looking up at the ceiling, still drifting in a haze of sex. Now there was the sound of water running, the rattle of a pot being put on to boil, the scrape of a match. Everything seemed to him erotic. He imagined her measuring out the coffee, her robe half open so that her flushed breasts stood out, the nipple firm against the silk. He imagined lying here every morning, listening to her being busy in the kitchen as the stickiness of sex dried on his skin. When she opened the door, her finger to her lips in warning, she giggled at the sight of him.
“Look at you,” she whispered. “Do you think you might put your trousers on, or do you just want to stay like that all day?”
“All day,” he said. “Come to bed.”
But she shook her head. “No, I told you. I won’t do that to him. Come and have some coffee,” she said, leaving the room.
He got up, pulled his pants on, and followed her out. “Funny scruples you have,” he said teasingly.
But she came up to him and held him. “Don’t scold. I won’t, that’s all.”
“Sorry,” he said, kissing her. “Do you want me to go?”
“No. Let’s not waste the coffee, now that I’ve made it. Bloody cow next door. She’s probably put her ear to a glass at the wall.”
He sat at the little kitchen table near the window, smoking, watching her as she poured the coffee and brought it to the table. Every movement seemed interesting-the way she smoothed the back of her robe under her as she sat down, blew gently on the coffee, reached for a match.
“What?” she said self-consciously.
“Just looking,” he said. “I can’t get enough of you.”
“Well, you’ve only just started,” she said dryly, lighting a cigarette.
“No. Weeks. From the start.”
“That’s nice,” she said, taking a sip of coffee, playing. “It must have been the sight of me doubled over sick that made you decide. Was that it?”
“No. The ride back from the ranch,” he said seriously.
“Really?” she said, interested.
“Uh-huh. There was that moment.”
“What moment?”
“There’s always a moment between a man and a woman when you know something can happen. It doesn’t have to-it can just pass right on by. But it can never happen without that moment. You know, when you feel it’s possible.”
She laughed. “You’ve got cheek.”
“Didn’t you feel it too?”
“It’s different for a woman.”
“I don’t believe it. Not that part.”
She shrugged and looked toward the window, at the shaft of sunlight pouring between them on the table. “What was all that about your going away?”
“I may. I don’t know. But we can see each other. He’s not back all week.”
“How do you know that?”
“I’ve just come from the test site. I saw him there.”
“That must have been cozy. Look, if anything’s going to happen, you’ve got to leave him out of it. I mean it.”
“He’s not in it. I’m talking about us. You and me. You can make whatever rules you want.”
“All right,” she said softly, “but not here. No one’s ever come here.”
“Where did you go with the others?”
She looked at him. “Don’t pretend you’re jealous. You’ve no right. I never said there were others. I just said no one’s ever come here. You can see what it’s like.” She tilted her head toward the neighboring apartment.
He followed her gesture, taking in the room for the first time, a blur of terra-cotta pots and Navajo rugs draped over simple government-issue furniture. He reached across the table for her hand. “We can meet somewhere.”
“Yes.”
“I’ll find a place.”
“There’s the ranch. We could go there.”
“She left you a key,” he said, a statement.
Emma nodded. “She thought I might need it.”
“That day,” he said. “Before the drive. You thought about this before the drive.”
“No. A suspicion. I didn’t know.”
He smiled. “But you thought it might. You were ahead of me. Come here.”
She shook her head, but he gripped her hand, pulling it gently, and she followed the pull, getting up and moving to where he sat, her robe falling open as she straddled him. His face was level with her breasts and he began kissing them, barely touching them at first, then, as he felt the nipples harden, moving over them in a steady rhythm, pressing, so that she anticipated each stroke of his mouth. She closed her eyes. His mouth opened to lick the nipple, tasting her, still salty with sweat. He pressed his face into her, and her head, no longer flung back, now dropped down next to his. “No,” she gasped, “you’ll break the chair,” a last vestige of practicality. He carried her again to the couch, his mouth still on her, tasting all of her this time, slowly, making love to every part of her, teasing her sex until she held his head there, shuddering as she came under his tongue, so that when he entered her again she lay open, already his.
Mills was waiting in his room, lying again on the bed.
“You going to make a habit of breaking in?” Connolly said.
“That was hours ago, when I thought you’d need a ride. Then I just got fascinated wondering where you were. After being so anxious and all.”
“Well, I’m here now. Everything set?”
“Holliday will meet us there. Threatening to call the governor did the trick, just like you said. He’s not happy about it, though. Said you put his ass on the line and he doesn’t like it there. Christ, you’re a mess.”
“We drove all night.”
“Right.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
Mills grinned. “I haven’t seen a look like that since college. Larry Rosen, the pussy king. Just like Larry. Out all night and then he’d come back too shagged out to go to class. Except he’d want to tell us about it. You have fun?”
“Don’t be an asshole.”
“Hey, I didn’t say a thing. Better grab yourself a shower, though. The memory lingers on. Those cons down there get a whiff and they’ll start tearing the place apart.”
“Mills-”
“All right, all right. I’m just jealous, that’s all. I have to hand it to you-I’ve been here a year and I still can’t get laid.”
“How about just getting the car? I’ll be right with you,” Connolly said, stripping off his clothes.
“Okay. You sure you don’t want to get some sleep instead? This can wait, you know. They’ve got a signed confession and a witness.”
“Who?”
“The bartender in Albuquerque. Turns out he recognized him after all.”
“Was this before or after they took his liquor license away?”
“There were others. The guy was a regular. It’s him, Mike.”
“I just want to get a look at him.”
Mills shrugged. “Suit yourself. If it was me, after a big night, I’d get some sleep.”
“Well, that’s you. I don’t feel sleepy at all.”
But he slept all the way to Albuquerque, his eyes drooping as soon as they left the Hill and Mills’s cheerful voice faded into a background hum. By the time they reached the familiar highway he was out, not even disturbed by the sun on his face. They were in Albuquerque before he surfaced again, slightly groggy, and saw Holliday’s grim face.
The Albuquerque jail had none of the adobe pretense of Santa Fe; it was a streamlined modern government building in the post office pork-barrel style, official and utilitarian. Chief Hendron, on the other hand, was a throwback to the frontier one-room jail with a big key ring. He had the authority of height and carried himself with the swagger of one who was never far from his six-shooter. He was clearly put out about the interview, his natural belligerence hemmed in only by the threat of a higher authority, an even bigger bully.
“Holliday here says you got some special interest in this prisoner, is that right? You mind telling me what that might be?”
“It’s a government matter.”
“Shit, what isn’t?” He looked at Connolly’s ID and snorted. “Army Corps of Engineers is taking an interest in all kinds of things these days, aren’t they? I suppose we got to wait for the war to be over before you tell us what the hell you’re all doing here.”
“You’ll be the first to know.”
The chief looked at him. “Don’t go fresh on me,” he snapped. “Don’t you do it. I’m still the law around here, and I won’t have it.” He handed back the ID. “If Holliday vouches for you, I guess that’s that. But I’m not going to have you messing with my prisoner. You want to talk to him, you’ve got to have one of my boys with you. We got a self-confessed murderer back there and I still don’t know what business that is of yours.”
“The other victim was one of our men.”
“One of your men? That’s a good one. Now just what would one of you army engineers be wanting with old Ramon back there?”
“That’s what I’d like to know.”
“Helluva thing, that kind of shit going on in the army. If it was my outfit, I’d be ashamed.”
“If it was your outfit, so would I,” Connolly said and then quickly, before Hendron could reply, “Can I see him now? I’ll have Chief Holliday with me-that should satisfy your concerns about being alone. Has he got a lawyer?”
Hendron glared at him, ready to pounce, then backed down.
“He will have. You got one hour with him, that’s it. You just find out what you need to find out and don’t come back. You interfere with this case and the governor himself won’t keep me off your ass.”
“I appreciate your cooperation.”
Hendron stared at him again. “You do that. Holliday, I’m counting on you to make sure nothing goes wrong here. We’re going for a conviction on this one.”
“I understand you have witnesses?” Connolly said.
“Bartender saw them leave together. Some of the other, uh, patrons’ll verify that. Turns out old Ramon worked that parking lot before. No question he did it. We got a signed confession, you know.”
“So I heard.”
“Yeah, well, Arnold here will show you the way. You be nice and easy with him, now. Old Ramon come to a little grief the other night, so he’s probably not feeling his best.”
“What kind of grief?”
He smirked. “The kind they got in jail when you’re not too popular. Seems they don’t go for Ramon’s type back there. I guess he did better with the army engineers.”
They were left to wait in a room down the corridor from Hendron’s office.
“You’re not making any friends here,” Holliday said, handing him a copy of the statement.
“I wish I knew what the big deal was. What does Hendron care, anyway?”
“You ever step on a snake by accident? You didn’t mean to and he doesn’t want to, but he’s just got to bite. It’s the surprise of it.”
“Then what? He crawls back under a rock?”
“If you let him alone.”
Connolly read through the statement. “Kelly? I thought you said he was Mex.”
“His mother. Father probably worked on the railroad. We get a lot of that here. Mostly they don’t hang around long enough to leave a name, though.”
“Maybe it was love,” Connolly said absently, still reading through the transcript. “Christ, fifty dollars? He stuck a knife in somebody for fifty dollars?”
“That’s a lot of money to some folks. Anyway, it was just a fight. You know how accidents happen in a fight.”
Connolly looked up at him. “Manslaughter?” he said, a larger question.
“Murder second degree would be more my guess.”
“And you don’t hang for second degree.”
“Not in this state.”
“He have a fight with Bruner too?”
“No. He was defending his manhood,” he said flatly, not willing to meet Connolly’s eyes. But Connolly refused to look away. “That’s what it says.”
“You believe this?”
“No reason not to believe it. He said it, didn’t he? Machismo’s a big thing with these people.” He paused. “It’s something any jury here would understand.”
Connolly turned back to the paper, not wanting to press him. “How much did he say he got off Bruner?”
“He didn’t.”
“Well, it wouldn’t be fifty dollars. Karl would never carry that much.”
“He says it wasn’t about money.”
“That’s right, I forgot. He was protecting his honor. So he smashes Karl’s skull in. Messes up his face.”
Holliday sighed. “Just didn’t know his own strength, I guess.”
But when Kelly was led in, he seemed to have no visible strength at all. He shuffled in, careful of the guard, and stood before the table, quiet and sullen, a schoolboy brought up before the principal. He was slight but wiry, his shoulders hunched as if the handcuffs were weighing him down. His face was like a map of his mixed ancestry, the copper skin and Aztec slant of his cheekbones set off by the surprising blue of his eyes, now half lost in the swelling on one side and the deep purple bruises. A thin scraggly mustache was pushed up by the cracked puffiness of his upper lip. There was no disguising the meanness of his face, however. The discolored skin stretched across a hard mask of defiant wariness, the look of someone who’d never known a favor in his life.
“Thank you,” Connolly said to the guard. “He need these?” He pointed to the handcuffs. The guard looked at Holliday, who nodded, and reluctantly unlocked the cuffs. Kelly rubbed his thin wrists, surprised and suspicious at the same time.
“I’ll be right outside,” the guard said. “Ramon here give you any trouble, you just holler.”
“Sit down,” Connolly said, ignoring the guard and offering a cigarette. Kelly winced slightly as his cracked lip curled around it, then let it dangle from the side of his mouth, his eyes closed against the rising smoke.
“I work for the government and I need to ask you a few questions,” Connolly began.
“I don’t know anything about that.”
“About what?”
“About no government. What’s this have to do with the government? Nobody told me about that.”
“One of the men you killed worked for the government.”
For the first time Kelly looked alarmed, his bruised face furrowed in concern. “I don’t know nothing about that. I didn’t kill nobody. It was an accident.”
“And with”-he searched the paper-“Jack Duncan, that’s the man in Albuquerque-that was an accident too?”
“No. Jack was different. That was a fight.”
“What was the fight about?”
He shrugged. “You know. A fight.”
“You knew Duncan?”
“I seen him around.”
“Did you have sex with him?”
He took the cigarette out of his mouth. “Hey. I don’t do that. He had sex with me.”
Connolly looked at him, surprised at the distinction. “What did he do?”
“What, are you kidding me? He blew me, what do you think? He liked doing that.”
“Did he pay you?”
“Nah. It was for, you know, the fun of it. I let guys do me once in a while. When I can’t get it any other way. What’s the difference?”
“But you had fifty dollars.”
“He give me that. It was a loan, like.”
“So even though he gave you fifty dollars, you two had a fight.”
He shrugged again, stubbing out the cigarette.
“That where you got those bruises?”
He stared at both men as if it were a trick question.
“The fight was a while ago,” Connolly said. “Those look pretty fresh.”
“I fell.”
“Where? Here?”
“Yeah, here. I fell.” He looked away.
“What about the man in Santa Fe, did you know him?”
“No.”
“Where did you meet?”
“In a bar.”
“Which one?”
“I don’t know. Some bar near the plaza.”
“What were you doing in Santa Fe?”
He shrugged. “I was just there, that’s all.”
“Then what happened?”
“We went for a walk. Then he-look, I already told all this stuff. Why are you asking me again?” He took another cigarette, more confident now.
“I just want to be sure I got it right. So you went for a walk. Not a ride?”
“No. A walk.”
Connolly felt Holliday stir beside him, shifting in his seat, but he didn’t say anything. “Down to the river,” Connolly prompted.
“Yeah.”
“Then what happened?”
Kelly smirked. “He come on to me.”
“Did that surprise you?”
The question seemed to catch him off-guard.
“You just thought he wanted to talk.”
“I don’t know. Maybe. Okay, I thought maybe he wanted to do me. It crossed my mind.”
“Did he talk about himself? His work?”
Kelly looked puzzled. “No.”
“So what did you talk about?”
“Nothing. I don’t remember.”
“He was a pretty big guy,” Connolly said evenly. “Did that worry you?” Again he felt Holliday stir.
“I can take care of myself.”
Connolly looked at the thin, sinewy arms, the bloated face, and wondered how often he had said this before, how often the posturing had protected him. “I can see that.”
“Hey,” Kelly said, offended. “I told you. I fell.”
“So you went for a walk and you ended up hitting him. Why?”
“He got out of hand. I told you.”
“He didn’t want to have sex with you?”
“He wanted me to do him. I don’t do that.”
“You tell him this?”
“Sure, but he don’t want to listen, you know? And then he’s all over me, so-”
“So you hit him. With what, by the way?”
“With what?” Connolly could see his face working, sorting through answers.
“Yes. Did you just use your fists, or did you have something?”
“A branch,” he said quickly. “It was lying there right on the ground. Hey, what do you want to know all this for?”
“And you threw it away afterward?”
“Yeah, I guess. I don’t remember too well.”
“But you do remember hitting him.”
“Yeah, I said I did. I didn’t know he was dead, I just thought he was out, you know.”
Holliday got up then and walked over to the window.
“You must have been pretty angry,” Connolly said smoothly.
“I was surprised, you know? I just did the first thing that came into my head. I wasn’t trying to kill him.”
“What surprised you? The sex?”
“Yeah.”
“You didn’t expect it from him? Was that because he was Mexican too?”
He could feel Holliday turn to them from the window, watching Kelly’s confused face. Kelly hesitated for a minute, then said, “No. It was just the surprise, you know.”
“Ramon, have you ever been to San Isidro?”
“What’s that? A church?”
“Yes. Ever hear of it?”
“I don’t understand.”
“It’s a church in Santa Fe. You ever go there?”
“I don’t go to church much.” Then, suspicious, “What do you ask that for?”
“The man you killed-the man you hit-used to go there. I just wondered if you’d ever gone there with him.”
“I told you, I only saw him the one time. No, I didn’t go to no church with him. What do you think?”
Holliday sat down again. When he spoke, his voice was surprisingly gentle. “You know, Ramon, the police really appreciate cooperation.”
“Yeah,” he said, not looking at Holliday. Connolly came from somewhere else; this was the devil he knew.
“Makes our job a lot easier, so we appreciate that. When you make it easier for us, then we’re more inclined to-well, make it easier for you.”
“Yeah.”
“When we understand something, we got a much better idea what the charge should be. Like here, for instance. Somebody might think first off this is nothing but a murder one, you know, but when they understand it, when they know all the facts, they might think it’s not so bad. We don’t want you to hang for something you didn’t do.”
Connolly sat back, watching him work.
“That’s right,” Kelly said. “That Jack Duncan. That wasn’t no murder, that was just a fight, you know?”
“That’s what it sounds like to me. The boys down here understand that? They explain that to you?”
Ramon looked up at him. “Yeah, they explained it.”
“Good. You know, it’s a funny thing, boy in your position. Sometimes the police are the best friends you got.”
Ramon absentmindedly rubbed his cheek. “Yeah.”
“So you’d just want to go right on cooperating with them, wouldn’t you?”
“Sure.”
“I mean, we got two dead bodies here, so we got some kind of trouble, but that don’t have to be murder trouble, does it? Not the worst kind. I mean, two counts of second ain’t nowhere near as serious as even one first. You still got your life. They explain that to you?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, good. Now I got one more question. After you hit the guy, you go through his pockets some?”
Kelly hesitated for a minute, suspecting a trap, then went ahead. “Yeah, okay, I did. What the hell-I figured he owed me something.”
“Uh-huh. You find much?”
“I don’t remember. Some. Not much.”
“You throw the wallet away too?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“What about the car?”
“I don’t know nothing about a car.”
“Oh, well, maybe he didn’t have one. You didn’t find any keys, huh? Just the wallet.”
“Yeah, that’s right. Just a wallet.”
Holliday turned to Connolly. “Anything else you want to know?”
“No. I guess that’s it,” Connolly said. “Better get the guard.”
“You got another cigarette?” Ramon said.
“Sure. Anything else we can do for you?”
Kelly stood up, the cigarette tucked behind his ear. “I’d sure like to get out of solitary. Think you could do something about that? I mean, it’s not like they’re accusing me of being a murderer or something.”
Afterward they stood on the steps of the building, caught in the glare of the afternoon sun. Holliday lit a cigarette, ignoring Connolly, looking deliberately at the street. Only a few cars broke the quiet.
“Well, that explains the warm welcome,” Connolly finally said.
Holliday just continued smoking.
“How do you want to play this?” Connolly said.
“I don’t know what you mean,” Holliday said, his voice low.
“Yes you do. They can’t railroad a confession like this. Who the hell do they think they are, anyway?”
“I don’t know that one either.”
“Is this just some more Wild West stuff? What do they think’s going to happen when he talks to a lawyer?”
Holliday sighed. “Well, that’s a funny thing, isn’t it? Lawyer gets him to change his statement and he’ll hang for sure.”
“But he didn’t do it.”
“He did the first one all right.”
“Then let him take the rap for that.”
“Well, aren’t you the hanging judge. I don’t know as I’d recommend that if I was his lawyer.”
“They’re going to hang him anyway.”
“Maybe. But we don’t know that. Maybe he thinks it’s worth the chance.”
“This is what they’re doing in Germany, for Christ’s sake.”
“In New York City too, I hear.”
“We don’t beat phony confessions out of people just to make the police look good.”
“No? Well, then I stand corrected.”
“You’re not going to do anything about this, are you?”
Holliday turned to face him, his expression more weary than angry. “Just what did you have in mind?”
“It’s not right.”
“I didn’t say it was. But it’s done. Kelly’s a little punk who’s probably going to get better than he deserves. The boys here are going to take credit for solving crimes they probably couldn’t ever have solved anyway. Nothing worse than a murder hanging over you. People don’t like it, makes them feel uneasy. So now everybody can just go about his business. Until the next guy goes out in the parking lot-but at least he won’t have Kelly getting his rocks off and playing with knives. So maybe everybody’s better off all around.”
“Except us. We’ve still got a murder to solve.”
Holliday didn’t say anything.
“You’re keeping the case open, aren’t you? You know he didn’t kill Bruner.”
“I can’t, Mike,” Holliday said quietly. “He’ll have my badge. I can’t go against him like that.”
“Don’t, then. Just don’t close the case.”
“It’s closed.”
“Doc, you’ve always been straight with me. At least I think you have.”
“Then don’t ask me to do something I can’t do,” he said, his voice resigned.
Connolly stared at him. “You know I can’t let this go.”
“Maybe. But as a police matter, it’s closed. What you get to up there on the Hill is your business.”
“I still need your help.”
He looked at the street, deciding. “What, exactly? I can’t hold every drifter who passes through town.”
“And I can’t go talking to everybody who lives around San Isidro. Only the police can do that.”
“Why San Isidro?”
“Because Bruner was killed there. Somebody must have seen something. There’s always somebody.”
Holliday raised his eyebrows. “Then why move him?”
“I don’t know. Maybe they didn’t want you snooping around, just in case somebody did see something. No crime, no questions. People don’t volunteer, do they?”
“Not much.”
“And they didn’t want him found.”
“So they move him to the center of town.”
Connolly sighed. “Yes.”
“Damnedest thing, isn’t it? You roll a guy, and instead of running away you take him away. All right. You don’t want him found-put a little distance between you and the law. So you’ve got all of God’s country around here, you can just drop him off somewhere in the woods and let the coyotes have him. But you don’t. You take him right back into town, where you know he’s going to be found. And then you take his ID, everything, so he’s not exactly found. Nobody knows who he is. Sounds like you can’t make up your mind one way or the other.”
“Go on,” Connolly said quietly, watching him.
“Now you take Mr. Kelly here. That’s a whole lot of trouble for him to go to. He’s more what I’d call the careless type. Love ’em and leave ’em. Don’t think he’d bother much about covering his tracks. He’d just get the hell out.”
“We know it’s not him,” Connolly said impatiently.
“And it’s not anybody like him either.”
Connolly looked up at him. “Meaning?”
“Meaning I don’t think he was rolled. I think it was somebody he knew. Or anyway who knew him.”
“That’s what I’ve been saying all along.”
Holliday grinned. “I never said you were dumb. Just an arrogant son of a bitch.”
“So why would whoever it was want him to be found?”
“Well, he was going to be, wasn’t he? You don’t just lose a security officer in a top secret government base. They’d be all over the place. In fact, you were.”
“So we’re back to square one. Why move him?”
Holliday lit another cigarette, taking his time. “Well, I’ve been giving that a little thought. And what occurs to me is how he was found. See, we don’t know him from Adam-all we got is a victim. You find a body in the desert, you got a real mystery on your hands. San Isidro? Well, what would he be doing there? But the way we did find him, there was no mystery about that. You get the picture right away. What you got there is kind of an embarrassment. You don’t want to look into that too closely-you never know what you’re going to find when you turn that rock over. You just want to clean it up. The army wouldn’t want to go looking for pretty boys. They’d be squeamish about that. He just thought they’d sweep it away.”
“And now they will.”
Holliday shrugged. “I have to say, I’ll bet he never figured on old Ramon. That’s just another example of how the Good Lord looks after his sinners.”
“So where do we go from here?”
“Like I said, this case is closed. I can give you the benefit of my wisdom-that just comes from being in the business. But Hendron finds out I’m conducting an illegal investigation and he’ll have my ass. He can do it, too.”
“Not if you blow the whistle on him first.”
“Forget it,” Holliday said. “Not me. Not you either. He’s got a signed confession, and you don’t have much more than a theory about a parking lot and a few pieces of goddamn turquoise. That’s not just sticking your neck out, that’s handing him the ax. So right now it’s his show and there’s not a damn thing we can do about it. Hendron’s the kind of guy, if we were in combat you wouldn’t be surprised if he got shot in the back. One bullet and out and nobody’d look twice. To save themselves, you know. But we don’t do that here yet. Maybe you ought to use some of your contacts in Washington and get the bastard drafted. Let him go push the Japs around.” He ground out his cigarette, finished with the conversation. “But I guess he’s too valuable keeping the peace at home. Something for our boys to come back to.”
Connolly was silent for a minute. “What about the car?”
“The car?” Holliday said, looking up, intrigued.
“You still need to find the car.”
Holliday smiled. “Well, you know, a missing vehicle is another story. Strictly speaking, it’s not part of this case at all.”
“Unless you find it.”
“Well, we have to find it first. Plenty of time to worry about that.”
“Thanks, Doc.”
Holliday looked at him. “This isn’t anything. Just a missing car.”
“Thanks anyway. You’ll sleep better. I guarantee it.”
“Don’t go giving me too much credit. I sleep pretty good now.”
“You’d think they’d want to know,” Connolly said, shaking his head. “I mean, don’t they care that whoever killed Bruner is still out there somewhere?”
“Well, you know, they probably should, but to them it’s just some fairy fight. Don’t matter. The thing is, nobody’s ever really cared about this except you.”
“I can’t now,” Oppenheimer said, coming out of the building. “I’m already late. I’m flying to Washington. Can’t it wait?”
“No.”
“Ride with me to Albuquerque if you like,” he said, nodding to the driver, who held the door for him.
“I’ve just come from Albuquerque. Two minutes.”
“Then ride with me to the gate. I really am late. Just like the White Rabbit.” He smiled, climbing into the car as if it were the hole in the tree. Connolly followed.
“Bad news?” Oppenheimer said as they passed the Tech Area.
“That depends on how you look at it. I thought you should know. The police in Albuquerque have arrested someone.”
“Splendid. Anybody we know?”
“No. Some kid who knifed a guy down there a few weeks ago. They got him to confess to both crimes.”
“Poor Bruner,” Oppenheimer said indifferently, his mind clearly elsewhere. “Well, it’s a relief in a way, isn’t it? One less thing to worry about.” He looked up when Connolly didn’t answer. “Isn’t it?”
Connolly shook his head and nodded toward the driver, a slight fair-haired soldier, but Oppenheimer waved his hand.
“He’s the wrong man.”
“Do you know that?”
“Yes.”
“Do they?”
“Maybe. They don’t care.”
“I don’t understand.”
“He killed their man. He didn’t kill Karl. But it suits them to wrap it all up, I guess. Neat and tidy. Anyway, they’re doing it.”
“You said they had a confession?”
“He’s lying. It wouldn’t hold up for five minutes in court.”
Oppenheimer looked at him, frankly puzzled.
“But no one’s going to challenge it. The police want to believe it, and Kelly-that’s the guy-wants them to believe it. He thinks he’s making a deal.”
Oppenheimer took this in. “What are you going to do?”
“Nothing. There’s nothing we can do. But I wanted you to know. It’ll be in the papers. Are you seeing Groves? He’ll want to know. He’ll want to believe it.”
They had reached the gate, and Oppenheimer asked the driver to pull over. “What exactly do you want me to tell him?”
“That I’m continuing our investigation and you support it.”
“Do I?”
“Yes, if you want to get to the bottom of this. Of course, you can go along with the police and send me back to Washington.”
Oppenheimer smiled. “Oh, I’m in no hurry to do that. I rather like playing Dr. Watson.” He hesitated. “Do I understand that you’re seriously suggesting there’s a miscarriage of justice-”
“It wouldn’t be the first time.”
“And we’re not going to do a thing about it?”
“Not now. What do we get by that? Officially, Karl was rolled in the park having sex with a street thug. Case closed. Theirs, anyway.”
Oppenheimer looked out the window. “It’s a hell of an epitaph, isn’t it? That’s how Karl’s going to be remembered.”
“That’s what the papers will say anyway. We don’t get to write our own obituaries.”
“No, we don’t,” Oppenheimer said. “So. The expedient thing. What do you want me to do?”
“Agree with them. Case closed. I’ll just go about my business in my own way. Officially, you’re relieved it’s over.”
“I’ll be relieved when it’s really over.”
“Yes,” Connolly said, opening the door to get out, “but imagine how relieved the real killer is right now.”
But having cleared things with Oppenheimer, he now found himself at loose ends, tired, unsure where to begin again. At the office he talked with Mills, now sheepish after hearing about Kelly’s interview, and leafed absentmindedly through the savings files. He thought about Holliday’s reconstruction of the night of the crime. But why San Isidro in the first place? It was an unlikely rendezvous-there was always the chance of tourists or parishioners. He made a note to check the schedule of services, but more out of thoroughness than conviction-he couldn’t imagine Bruner meeting someone at mass. In fact, he couldn’t imagine Bruner meeting someone at all. And yet he must have. He must have arranged it somehow, without telephones, from a city so secret it didn’t exist, just a post office number in the high desert.
He was thinking about Los Alamos, the communications procedures, when Emma came into the office. She nodded to him but dealt with Mills, filling out a req for an overnight off-site pass.
“Do you need the whole route? I’m going to Chaco. I’ve been before, so you’ve probably got it all somewhere.”
“Purpose of visit?” Mills said, bored.
“See the bloody ruins. What do you think? There’s nothing else there.”
“Archaeology?” he said, pencil still poised to write.
Emma laughed. “No. Hiking, put ‘hiking’ down. That covers everything.”
“Tourism,” Mills said, writing.
Connolly shuffled papers, not trusting himself to look at her, but when he did he found her staring directly at him, her eyes shining.
“Number where you can be reached?”
“Not for miles and miles. That’s the point. You ought to get out once in a while,” she said to Mills. “You’ll get pasty in here. Ever see the Anasazi sites?”
“Not yet,” Mills said, completing the form.
“You really ought to. Get some proper hiking shoes and start with Bandelier. It’s closer. Chaco’s a bit remote. You have to leave here at six to have any time there at all, but it’s worth it.”
Mills handed her the pass. “Don’t talk to strangers,” he said, smiling.
“That’s what my father used to say.”
And then she smiled at both of them and was gone. Connolly stared back at the desk, afraid to watch her out the door, and realized it had all been arranged. The time. The plan. What he’d need to take. A clandestine meeting, all fixed in the security office itself. That easy. Why had he ever imagined Bruner couldn’t do it? Everything that mattered was secret, arranged under the thin cover of the visible world.
He had dinner with Mills in the commissary, then walked over to the movie. He couldn’t go home. He’d lie there on Bruner’s chaste bed, thinking about tomorrow, tempted to slink over to the Sundt apartments in the dark. Instead he sat on a folding chair in the crowded auditorium, dazzled by color. It was a musical, bright and glossy. There was a nightclub. There was a misunderstanding. There was a spot with Carmen Miranda. Afterward, he couldn’t remember anything about it. People filed out, complaining about the night chill, and drifted away in pairs, just the way they did on Main Street. He was too tired to go back with Mills for a beer, so he found himself alone, the street suddenly empty, smelling of woodsmoke and resin.
“Excuse me.” The voice startled him, coming from behind. “Could I speak to you for a minute?”
Connolly turned and tried to make out the face in the dim light, eyes blinking nervously under short blond hair.
“You’re the driver. Today.”
“That’s right. I couldn’t help overhearing. I mean, I-” He faltered.
“What?”
He took a breath. “I wasn’t going to say anything. I mean, I’m not saying anything now. It’s just you seem like an all-right guy.” It was a question.
“What is it?”
“It’s just that-Look, you’re making a mistake.”
“About Kelly?”
“No, not about Ramon.”
Connolly was surprised. “You know him?”
The soldier shrugged. “Lots of people know him. He gets around.”
“So do you, huh?”
He stiffened. “No, not like that. Ramon’s just one of those guys who’s around, you know?”
“In the bar.”
“Yeah, in the bar. But Karl wasn’t. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. You’re looking at this wrong. He wasn’t-”
Connolly waited for him to finish, but he had stopped, whatever courage had prompted him now gone. “How do you know?” Connolly said finally.
“I’d know, that’s all.”
“You were a friend of Karl’s?”
“No, just from the office.”
“That’s right, you’re a driver. So you’d be attached to the office.”
The soldier bit his lip.
“Don’t worry, I’m not going to say anything. I don’t even want to know who you are.”
“What’s the difference? You could find out in a minute.”
“Why say anything, then?”
“You’re right, maybe I’m crazy. It’s just I can see where this is all going. I’ve seen it before. They start looking at everything. I hear you’re going through our savings accounts.” He smiled at Connolly’s expression. “I have a friend over in admin,” he explained. “Things get around. Everybody gets along fine here. Nobody bothers anybody. But now you think it’s a sex crime. Wait and see. All hell will break loose. I was on a base once where they started-”
“I’m not looking for that.”
“No? And what if you find it? All the sudden they’ve got records on people, stuff they never bothered about before, and then you’ve got trouble. I’ve seen it. That’s bad enough, but this time there’s no point. It all starts because of Karl and he wasn’t like that.”
Connolly was quiet. “So you said before. How do you know?”
“I’d know,” he said again.
“You guys have a secret handshake or something? Like the Masons?”
The soldier wrinkled his nose in disgust. “Okay, forget it. I knew I was crazy to do this.”
“I think it took a lot of guts.”
“You do, huh?”
“Yes, I do. But what do you expect me to do with this? Ignore everything because it might be inconvenient for you? You didn’t even know the guy. All we can go on is what we know, and what we know here is we’ve got a guy dead in the park with his pants down.”
The soldier looked at him. “I could pull your pants down right here and what would that make you?”
The quiet hung between them. “If you killed me, I guess it would make me Karl.”
The soldier nodded, then turned to walk away.
“I’ll make you a deal,” Connolly said after him, watching him turn back with suspicion. “What if you look for me?”
“What do you mean?”
“Maybe you’re right. But what if you’re not? What if Karl was so secretive that even you couldn’t spot it?”
“And?”
“It’s important that we know for sure, know who his friends were. Know who he was seeing. We need to talk to other people who might know.”
“You’ve got the wrong guy.”
“I’ll take your word for it. That’s the deal. You’re telling me there are things going on up here I don’t know anything about and I’m going to make a mess trying to find out. Okay, I won’t. No mess. You do it for me. Talk to people-don’t tell me who, just tell me if you find out anything about Karl. I’ll look somewhere else. If you’re right, fine. I’ll take your word for it. But make sure. That’s your part of the deal.”
“No tricks?”
“No tricks. You’d be doing me a favor. And your friends. Nobody wants to turn the place upside down.”
The soldier stuck out his hand and took Connolly’s. “Christ, I don’t believe I’m doing this. What does this make me, an undercover cop?”
Connolly smiled. “Well, you’ve got the handshake down.”
“Nobody knows about this, promise?”
Connolly nodded. “By the way, what’s your name? So I don’t have to look it up.”
“Batchelor.” He grinned. “Yeah, I know. Some joke. Maybe it was in the stars. Okay, I’ll let you know if I come up with anything. But don’t get your hopes up. I’m right about this.”
“Just out of curiosity, do you always know?”
“Well, sometimes you hope. It would be nice to be wrong about you, for instance.”
Connolly was shocked, then laughed, caught off-guard. “Am I supposed to be flattered?”
“No, I think that about lots of people,” he said, waving his hand in a mock salute as he left.
Connolly watched him for a minute, then turned toward the dormitory. He felt cheered by the meeting, as if a road sign had been replaced, finally sending him on his way instead of around in circles. But now there was the deflation of having to begin over. Los Alamos began with a secret and now it seemed it lived on them, one layer wrapped around another. He wished for a minute to be back at the movie, where everything was before you, a shining self-contained surface that stopped at the edge of the screen, hiding nothing.