If You Were Here: A Novel of Suspense Page 29

  Adam Bayne was in custody. McKenna didn’t have all the details, but Scanlin had told her this morning that he was confident they had enough to hold him for a long time. Carl Buckner—whether he’d been trying in the end to help them or hurt them—was dead. The police department was labeling Macklin’s death a murder, so his family at least would be able to collect his life insurance and pension.

  Tomorrow McKenna would go to see Bob Vance. By now, the editor knew that Dana had been the one who set her up. McKenna would sit down with the magazine’s lawyers to make sure the retraction was sufficient to clear her name. And she would make sure they knew how much she could embarrass them with the fact that they’d allowed someone to search a journalist’s office without verifying his credentials or the legitimacy of his supposed warrant. She would call the shots.

  Did she even want that job?

  As she turned off the shower, she let herself entertain the possibility that the district attorney’s office might invite her back. Maybe she didn’t want that job, either. Maybe it was time for her to write a book. Not on an agent’s terms, or an acquiring editor’s, but because she really had something to say.

  For now, she deserved to sit on her ass for a couple of weeks. Right after she made one last visit to the Federal Building.

  Tom the mailman gave her a wolf whistle when she stepped from the apartment elevator. “Take a look at the big shot. You clean up pretty good.”

  Her usual attire was business casual at best, but she’d hauled out her nice Hugo Boss dress, the one she’d bought when her dog-walker article had earned her a five-minute interview on CNN. (Ever stop to wonder how you know your dog got walked? That’s right. You don’t.)

  “Thank you, Tom. I’ve got to look like a grown-up today.”

  “You’ve got a couple days’ mail backed up here. Want me to leave it with the doorman?”

  “No, I’ll take it.” She folded the stack in half and tucked it into her briefcase.

  “I mean it, McKenna. Don’t let that tough husband know I said it, but you look fantastic.”

  She left feeling happy about the compliment. And then she realized how pathetic she was for caring about her appearance today. She cared because she wanted to look better than Susan.

  Mercado met McKenna in the reception area and led the way to her office, where Scanlin was waiting. “Susan spent last night at MDC,” Mercado explained. “We transported her this morning to continue the debriefing we began last night.”

  After four sleepless years at West Point and another five in the army, Susan had always insisted on perfect sleeping conditions: room-darkening curtains, Egyptian-cotton sheets, and absolute silence. McKenna could not imagine her at the Metropolitan Detention Center.

  It didn’t take long for Mercado to bring McKenna up to speed. “Based on what we got from Susan, we searched Bayne’s home and office. Unfortunately, as we feared, the guy is careful. No evidence yet tying him to Carl Buckner or to either Macklin’s death or the Grand Central shooting. The better news is that we’ve got a forensic accountant examining his financial records. He’s just getting started on what’s going to be a long process, but he tells me he’s found discrepancies already. Namely, a fifty-thousand-dollar withdrawal one day before James Low, Jr., showed up at the DA’s office claiming to have sold a gun to Marcus Jones. Plus, way more deposits than reported income, and right before Susan disappeared. He used a lot of it to set up his company in New York after he left the Hauptmann firm.”

  The money would corroborate Susan’s claim about the drug importing. The unreported income alone could send him away for a decade. It had worked on Al Capone.

  “What exactly did Susan tell you?” McKenna asked.

  “You’re about to hear for yourself,” Scanlin said.

  Mercado explained the process. Susan had already been talking for hours. Now they would get a straight, clean narrative on videotape.

  McKenna remembered defense attorneys’ complaints about videotaped confessions. The cops never recorded the stuff that happened earlier.

  “Obviously the tape will be admissible against her,” Mercado said. “We’ll also give it to Bayne’s lawyers to put the pressure on. If he knows for sure that she’s flipped and is a compelling witness, he might do the same. My guess is he has names of other private contractors who were involved on the Afghanistan side of the operation.”

  “How does this work? I’ll watch through a one-way glass?”

  Mercado nodded, but gave Scanlin a look.

  “There’s one catch,” Scanlin said. McKenna knew they had a reason for asking her here. “Susan’s the one who wanted you to come. She wants you to hear her statement—kind of like an explanation, I guess. But she wants a few minutes alone with you before she’ll go on tape.”

  CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX

  Susan’s orange jail scrubs were at least a size too big. They made her look like a young, waiflike girl. So did her posture—slumped in the chair, hands in her lap. Just a week ago, this same woman had outrun a high school athlete and dead-lifted his full weight.

  “They told me you wanted to see me,” McKenna said. It was the first time they’d been in the same room since their few minutes at the hospital prior to Susan’s arrest.

  Susan looked up and smiled sadly. “Of course I wanted to see you. But not to try and tell you what happened. They don’t want you knowing anything other than what we’re about to put on video. Undermines the evidentiary value or something.”

  “So why, Susan? Why am I here?” McKenna didn’t try to hide the anger in her voice. She had spent the last day wondering whether she would have preferred that Susan had been murdered, as she’d always suspected. Ultimately she couldn’t feel that way about anyone, but Susan had gotten people killed. And now she had to drag McKenna into the carnage of her own personal hurricane one last time.

  “Because I want to tell you how sorry I am. Not just for—I mean, my God, for everything, but personally. I’m sorry for the harm I caused to you personally, McKenna. You’ll hear soon enough why I did what Adam wanted, and why I ran away instead of owning up to it. You can decide for yourself how you feel about that. But I am sorry. I hope someday you’ll forgive me.”

  McKenna stared at Susan in silence. She thought about walking out but took a seat across from her at the table. “Your coming to the hospital yesterday was the beginning,” she finally said. It was hard not to feel sorry for Susan. She was looking at serious prison time, and all because she’d chosen to turn herself in. “There was no other way to make sure Adam wouldn’t come after Patrick again.”

  Susan nodded. “Don’t thank me. It’s only because I reached out to Patrick that he was in danger. I had to stop it.”

  “Patrick remembers seeing you in his hospital room. Sobbing. You still love him, don’t you?”

  Susan looked away.

  “I know about you two. And I know you told Getty you were still in love with Patrick and wanted to be with him. Why didn’t you ever tell me?”

  “I almost did. That night we left Telephone Bar together, after the two of you met? I nearly told you. But I knew you’d never go out with him if I did. You’d been alone for a while, and he and I were never right together. I stole that mug for myself at first—like a memento of the night I really lost him. I gave it to you instead.”

  McKenna shook her head. “You didn’t tell me because it would have been selfish.” Typical Susan. She could have guaranteed with one sentence that she’d never have to watch the man she loved fall in love with her best friend. She could have sabotaged McKenna’s relationship with Patrick before it started. But she wasn’t selfish. She never was.

  “My intentions weren’t always pure,” Susan said. “After I told Will I still had feelings for Patrick, I really was going to give it one more shot. I had this whole scene planned where I would pour my heart out, and he’d realize that he felt the sam
e way, and maybe you’d even understand. But when I went to his apartment, all he could talk about was you. You guys had rented a paddleboat in Central Park or something. So not Patrick. So completely the kind of thing he’d usually mock. But because it was with you—anyway, I knew we were never going to happen.”

  “Were you pregnant then?”

  She nodded.

  “They told me you lost the baby. I’m sorry, Susan.”

  She shrugged.

  “Was it Patrick’s?” She regretted asking as soon as the words came out of her mouth. She’d been so careful not to press Patrick for the details. The idea of them being together after she and Patrick met had been enough to send McKenna out of their apartment after she’d found a college photograph. But now? She honestly didn’t care.

  Or perhaps she cared a little, because she felt relieved when Susan shook her head. “Of course not. We stopped crossing that line way before he met you. Or at least he stopped crossing that line. Let’s just say there would have been a long list of paternity candidates.”

  McKenna had been idealizing her friendship with Susan, the way people do with friends who die. Now that Susan was back, McKenna realized that the personality differences she’d sensed a year into rooming together were a chasm.

  McKenna placed her hands, palms up, on the table. Susan accepted the invitation. The two of them sat there, fingers entwined, in silence. It was the reunion they didn’t have time for at the hospital. It wasn’t much, but it was all McKenna could give. She wanted to be with her husband.

  “Thank you for the apology,” McKenna said, releasing Susan’s hands. “And for your help exposing Adam. I imagine they’ll want to start the taping soon.”

  “There’s something else.” Susan’s voice dropped slightly. “So far I’ve been acting without a lawyer because, as you know, the best shot I have at leniency is to give complete cooperation. And I need people to understand how truly sorry I am. I didn’t know— Well, again, they don’t want me getting into that with you. Just the tape. I’m basically at their mercy.”

  “Turning yourself in and helping the government is a good start.”

  “I’m scared, McKenna. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life behind bars. I thought about just killing myself, but then Adam would get away with what he did. I know I have no right to ask anything of you, but will you please consider writing my side of the story?”

  “I don’t know, Susan. I don’t even have a job at this point. And Patrick nearly—”

  “I know, I get it. But I’m doing everything I can to make sure Adam never gets out. That’s why I’m here, probably for good. Just—just stay and listen to what I have to say. You can decide then whether you want to help me. Just listen and think about it.” Susan took the lack of opposition as acquiescence. She clasped her palms together in gratitude. “Thank you, McKenna. Really.”

  “Whatever does happen, you eventually need a lawyer,” McKenna said. “I’m sure you’ll have people lined up to represent you for free, just for the publicity.”

  “Actually, I’m planning to hire Hester Crimstein.”

  The name required no further explanation. If what Susan needed was a trial by public opinion, the larger-than-life Hester was the right woman for the job. Susan’s private work during her period of hiding must have been very lucrative.

  “You’ll be in good hands,” McKenna said. “I’m going to let them know we’re done here.”

  “Again, I’m so sorry, McKenna. For everything.”

  Though Susan had supposedly brought her here to apologize, she had also asked for help. McKenna felt her emotions competing again. Anger at Susan for all the harm she’d caused. The lies. The destruction. Gratitude that she’d come forward to tell the truth. Sympathy.

  She would stay long enough to hear what Susan had to say for herself.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN

  It had been a long time since McKenna had watched a confession through one-way glass. She’d never thought that the person on the other side would be someone she once considered to be a close friend.

  Susan looked less real than she had fifteen minutes earlier, when they’d been seated across a table from each other. She would seem less human still once she was reduced to a two-dimensional image on a screen with a digital counter ticking off time beneath her chin.

  “I was pregnant. I planned to have the baby. Even though I would be doing it on my own, I was required to serve. Obviously they wouldn’t force me to deliver the child during active duty, but all I could do was postpone the inevitable. I knew from a classmate that the army had activated his wife even though they had two children under the age of three, and he’d even offered to go in her place. I was desperate.”

  McKenna knew how this worked. The jurors who would eventually watch this tape would see an uninterrupted narrative, as if Susan were speaking spontaneously to a faceless, nameless, genderless, identity-less biographer on the other side of the camera. It was the talk-to-the-camera format everyone had grown used to in the age of reality TV.

  But this monologue—seemingly without a script, without notes—was the fruit of hours of preparation.

  “I called my father.” Susan provided what appeared to be an impromptu aside about her father’s prominence in the military. “Three days later, his business partner—and my former West Point classmate—Adam Bayne called to tell me that I could satisfy my active-duty obligation to the army in an alternative way.”

  Susan took her time explaining the context surrounding the deal Adam had conveyed. By then, reports were coming out that the U.S. had lost control of both wars. Former Taliban soldiers had infiltrated the new regime in Afghanistan and were attacking from within. Women and children were being used as shields. Troops handing out water and rice had been killed by land mines. The president had declared Iraq the new central front in the war on terror, as anti-American chants and calls for resistance of the “occupation” broke out at the burial of Saddam Hussein’s sons. By the time Susan disappeared, Baghdad’s Green Zone would have experienced the first of many attacks when twenty-eight rockets struck the Al-Rashid Hotel.

  Those were the kind of surroundings that forced governments to weigh ideology against reality. Since Adam’s arrest, McKenna had done some research about that reality. After invading Afghanistan, the military largely opted to look the other way when it came to the country’s thriving opium business. Opium farmers weren’t friends, but they weren’t enemies. They tempered local fears. They negotiated settlements. They garnered cooperation.

  But they were demanding more than a blind eye, at least according to Adam. With the war impairing the usual means of export, they wanted the military to provide cover for shipments directly into the United States.

  “I didn’t understand,” Susan explained. “I didn’t want to believe that anyone in the military would strike that kind of deal, but Adam told me that soldiers’ lives were at stake in the arena. It was only supposed to be a couple of shipments. They were buying a huge asset in the field, and in exchange, the influx of heroin into the United States would tick up by one undetectable notch. It came down to a cold, hard cost-benefit calculation.”

  McKenna could tell that Susan was forcing herself to slow down. She could almost hear Mercado’s coaching during the warm-up session. You’re talking to someone who doesn’t know the background. Explain every last detail.

  “I asked him why the military, of all organizations, couldn’t bring the shipment into the country on its own terms, with no inspection whatsoever. But this was quasi–off the books. Authorized and yet not. They trusted my father, and therefore they trusted me. They were funneling the job through my father’s firm in order to disclaim responsibility if something went wrong. Because I was his daughter, and because I had networks in the city, they thought I was the perfect contact person within the border. This was a concrete way to save the lives of American soldiers.
I know it sounds impossible now, but this was 2003—support the troops, us against them, remember the towers. I’ll admit it, I didn’t want to go to Iraq. This was my out. And I found a way to justify it—I felt for the soldiers who were over there, especially the ones in Afghanistan who had been left while we pursued a different agenda in another country. This was a way to increase their safety.”

  Adam had played her.

  Susan set out the contours of the plan. The truncated cargo inspection program. A cop who needed immigration help for his new family.

  “That was the hardest part to justify to myself—involving Officer Macklin. But I really did believe we were saving American lives. And just like I was getting something personally from the deal—freedom to walk away from the army—I believed, because Adam told me, that Macklin was securing citizenship for his wife and son. I realize in hindsight that Adam had no way to help Macklin. He was simply playing the odds that immigration would never come after the wife of a cop or a boy who was brought to the United States at five years old.”

  Susan’s gaze appeared to shift in the direction of the one-way glass. “Ultimately, though, Macklin was my best asset for accomplishing the mission.”

  She was looking at the glass because she knew McKenna would get the message. Macklin had been the “best” asset but not the only one. Patrick, after all, was the one to mention cargo inspection to Susan. If the appeal to save soldiers’ lives in exchange for a shipment or two of heroin had worked with Susan, it might have worked with Patrick, too. Yet Susan had left him out of it. Or at least she had until last week.

  “Then the night of the container inspection,” Susan continued, “something happened. I was at the end of the docks, watching through binoculars. There was a container filled with heroin. Some men—I don’t know who they were—were unloading it into a truck. Officer Macklin spotted two individuals nearby and approached: Marcus Jones and Pamela Morris. He told me later he thought Jones was reaching for a gun, but he was probably reaching for ID, and Macklin was nervous. Jumpy. It was my fault, because I was the one who pulled him into something that had nothing to do with him. He panicked and shot them both. I rushed to the scene, but it was too late. They were both dead.”