Empire of Lies (33 page)

He turned away. And the light turned green and we started moving again. Whatever it was he was searching for in me, I got the feeling he hadn't quite found it yet. I waited for him to say something. He didn't.

"All right, well, you got me—I'm baffled," I said, throwing up my hands. "Diggs says Rashid is a terrorist and then Diggs disappears. You bust a bunch of terrorists planning to blow up Wall Street, and at least one of them is Rashid's student. Why the hell aren't you investigating Rashid himself...?" I was about to go on, but the words died in my mouth. I never finished the sentence. Instead, I guess I sat there like an idiot for a few seconds, staring at the detective's expressionless profile, mouthing thoughts I didn't speak, as an idea took shape in my mind. I wasn't sure I should say it aloud but finally, still unsure, I did. "You're not investigating Rashid," I said, "because Rashid is working for you." No reaction from him. "That's it, isn't it? He's working for you or for the FBI or for someone. That's why you ignored Diggs. And Patrick Piersall, too. That's why you shut them both down, publicly dismissed their ideas. You were protecting Rashid because he was your inside man. Diggs got it right, didn't he? There was a conspiracy centered around Rashid—a conspiracy to bomb Wall Street. Only what he didn't understand was that Rashid was an informer the whole time. Rashid turned them all in to you guys. That's how you got them. Right?"

One more time—the last time—I thought I saw that little smile play at the corner of his thin lips. I knew I had guessed the truth. I had gotten it exactly.

"But then..." I said—or started to say. I started to say:
But then where was Serena? Why did they take her? Why did they kill Diggs? I mean, if Jamal and the others weren't terrorists, who the hell were they?

There was no point in asking. Those were obviously the exact questions he was wrestling with himself. And he thought something—something "downtown" that he was taking me to see—might help him find the answers.

So we went downtown—downtown and east to the river—to Bellevue Hospital. We had to go around, up from the south, to reach it on the one-way avenue. I only caught a glimpse of it: a sullen brick fortress over a century old set amidst the greater medical center of modern towers all white stone and glass. Then Curtis turned the Dodge into the parking lot of a side building. It was a low, grimy tiled box wedged in a corner of the vast complex. What was this place? I'd never seen it before. It was set beside a long, large garage or warehouse with several loading bays. Some trucks and ambulances were parked out front.

I tried to take a look around, but Curtis was on the move again. He snapped off the car's engine and leapt out almost in a single movement. Again, I had to hurry to keep up. I didn't reach his side until he was standing at the entrance to the grimy little structure. He flashed his badge at a security camera. The door unlocked with a buzz. It was only then—just as I was about to step inside—that I spotted a small plaque on the wall next to me:
CITY MORGUE.

"Not Serena," I said softly, following Curtis down a faceless hallway of tiles and glass and metal doors.

He shook his head. We turned a corner. He pushed through another door. I went after him.

I found myself crowded with him now into a small, sterile green room. There was a folding panel stretched across the middle of the floor, dividing the space in half. There was nothing else there except, on a metal table to my right, a small closed-circuit television set. There was a picture on the set, black and white. It was a picture of a corpse on a gurney. The corpse was covered by a sheet, head to toe. I gazed at the image on the TV—gazed stupidly, confounded out of any feeling whatsoever, even a feeling of expectation. I couldn't imagine who it could be, lying there—who it could be, I mean, who might have anything to do with me.

Then Curtis stepped forward. He slid the folding panel aside. To my shock, the corpse—the corpse shown on the TV screen—was right there—lying right there in front of me. I caught my breath at the presence of it, at the fact of it, so near and real, so still and hidden and dead.

Without hesitation, before I could think, Curtis reached for the covering sheet. I had to fight down the urge to raise my arm in front of my eyes. I stood there, watching helplessly.

He pulled the sheet down quickly. I think he wanted to hit me with it fast, really rock me with the suddenness of the revelation. It worked. The breath came out of me in a slow, deflating groan.

I was staring down at the body of Anne Smith.

Horrible. Horrible, horrible. The color of her skin—a stony green—the color of inanimate matter, not of flesh ... The black bullet hole in her sweet-featured oval face—in the forehead, left of center, on the side near me ... The ragged edges of the hole—as if she were just material that could be punctured and torn—that pretty face that had smiled at me across the bar—that had leaned in close to kiss me—just material, punctured, torn ... And the ladybug tattoo ... Still there on her bare shoulder...

I like your ladybug.

Thank you. It speaks highly of you, too.

I remembered her kiss and could almost feel her lips on mine and the tickling touch of her hair and now...

...that ragged hole torn in the stuff that had been her forehead ... Horrible.

I turned away.

"You know her?" asked Curtis.

"Yes, yes. Cover her up."

"Can you identify her for me, please?"

I met his eyes. He stood there stolidly, holding the sheet up off her.

"Anne Smith," I said. "She was one of Rashid's students. And she worked as a bartender at a club called The Den."

He stood as he was another defiant second, Anne's dead face obscenely uncovered. His pale brown gaze searched mine. Then,
slowly, he set the sheet down over her again. I felt myself breathe as if for the first time in many minutes.

"All right," I said. "You've shown me. I'm shocked. You got the effect you wanted. Can we get out of here now?"

"When was the last time you saw her?"

"Can we talk about this somewhere else?"

He didn't budge. His gaze challenged me. I could see he was amused by my discomfort.

To hell with him. I walked out of the room.

I kept walking, heading down the hallway quickly. I wanted to get out of the building altogether. I felt the weight of the morgue bearing in on me, the fact of the morgue, the fact of Anne and all the dead pressing against the faceless walls. I hurried back to the entrance, pulled it open. Strode out into the parking lot. I didn't stop until I reached the blue Dodge. I stood by the side of it, my hands on my hips, my head lowered. I studied my sneakers on the asphalt. I inhaled the damp chill of the gray day.

After a moment, I became aware of the rush and rumble of the traffic on the avenue behind me. I became aware that I was sick to my stomach and that my forehead was damp with sweat. I went on standing there with my head down, my deep breaths trembling.

Now I knew. What Curtis suspected me of. What Lauren was trying to get me to confess to. Anne.

"She was shot with the gun we found in your kitchen."

I hadn't heard Curtis approaching. When I raised my head, he was there next to me, relaxed, hands in his pockets. He gazed coolly off at the street, chewing his lip, surveying the passing cars.

"of course she was," I said hoarsely. "She was killed with the same gun because she was killed by the same people who took Serena."

He shifted his gaze to me. He did another of those mind inventories of his: I could feel him pawing through my thoughts and feelings one by one. Again, I got the sense he was searching for something he couldn't quite find. "When was the last time you saw her, Mr. Harrow?"

"I don't know." I tried to think. "Wednesday. I went to Rashid's lecture. I walked her to her next class."

Curtis tilted his head slightly. I thought of a dog picking up a scent or a sound, a hound on the hunt. "We have a witness who saw you going up to her apartment yesterday, right about the time she was killed."

"A witness," I said stupidly. Then I remembered. The skinny blonde on the stairs. The girl in the apartment I'd buzzed by mistake.

Curtis waited for me to speak again, watching me with that disdainful curiosity of his. I was still so shaken—by the sight of Anne—by the realization I was a murder suspect—that my thoughts were tumbling, disordered. But there was one thought—one thought I seized hold of:
Tell the truth. People always lie in these situations and that's what trips them up. Tell the truth. You're innocent. The truth will set you free.

"Yes, that's right," I said. "I did go to visit her. But I never got to her apartment. I never saw her. I turned around and left."

"You were seen running away from the scene."

I swallowed something bitter. I tried to remember. "That's right. I
did
run," I said. "I ran. Yes."

"Why? What happened that made you run?"

"Nothing happened, exactly...."

"You get in an argument with her or something?"

"I told you: I never even saw her. I never reached the apartment."

"You just went up the stairs, turned around, and ran away?"

"Yes."

"Why would you do that?"

I licked my dry lips, hesitated.
Tell the truth,
I thought again. But I could see now why people lied in these situations. The truth was so humiliating—so small, so sleazy—that the temptation to lie was almost overwhelming. Even as I opened my mouth, I wasn't sure I would be able to force the words out. But I did. I told him: "I went there because I was attracted to her. I wanted to see her, flirt with her, maybe even sleep with her, I don't know. But at the last minute, I thought better of it and I left."

"You left."

"Yes."

"Running."

"Yes."

He paused. He seemed to change tack. "How'd you know where she lived?"

"She gave me her address and phone number," I said. "She liked me. She told me to call."

He gave a short laugh. "She liked you. She told you to call her."

"Yes."

"So you went there—but then you ran away."

"It was stupid. I just wanted to get out of there without anyone seeing me."

"Because...?"

"Because I'm married and I love my wife very much and it would hurt her very badly if I cheated on her and it would hurt my kids."

He gave me a conspiratorial grimace. Trying to form a bond with me, I guess, gain my trust. "Women, right?" he said.

I only shook my head in answer. It seemed an inopportune moment to tell him to go fuck himself.

Just then, a guttural grinding noise started up nearby. I glanced in the direction of the sound. I saw the door of one of the garage bays grinding upward, opening slowly.

"So let me get this straight," said Curtis. And as he spoke, there was another noise to go with the rumble of the rising door: a high, piercing tone repeating rhythmically. It was a truck—a small panel truck. It was backing toward the opening bay. The repeated blast of its warning signal stabbed into my brain like a baby's cry. Curtis had to raise his voice to speak over it. "You happened to show up at Anne Smith's apartment right around the time she was murdered. You went upstairs to bang her, but your conscience or whatever bothered you, and you ran away without even seeing her."

"My conscience or whatever—that's right," I nearly shouted back.

"That's what you're telling me: your story."

"That's right, that's what happened."

The truck stopped. Its signal stopped. The bay door came fully open and its throaty rumble stopped. The roar and rush of traffic on the avenue seemed like a whispering quiet after that.

"Or maybe you saw something," Curtis suggested helpfully. "Maybe you got there and you saw she was already dead. You saw her body and got scared and ran away. I could understand that."

He could understand that. The old confessor's ploy. Get it off your chest, son. I can understand. oh, and by the way: You're under arrest for murder.

"That didn't happen," I said firmly. "I never reached her apartment. I just left."

"I don't know, man," Curtis said dryly. "You must have a lot of
willpower. To come all that way for some action, then just go back down the stairs. You must have a lot of strength of character."

"Not enough, obviously, or I wouldn't have been there in the first place."

He shrugged. "Ah. Pretty girl. Guy on his own ... These things happen."

His voice was sympathetic, but his stare was relentless and mocking. I turned away from it. I saw the truck backed up to the garage bay. A pair of men in white overalls were bringing a wooden box out of the garage. They carried it between them toward the rear of the truck. The truck driver was climbing out of the cab. He came back to open the truck's rear door so the men could put the box inside. The box was a coffin. It was a cheap wooden coffin made of naked pine boards sloppily nailed together. I could see more boxes piled up in stacks of three waiting just within the bay.

I turned back to Curtis. He went on in his sympathetic man-of-the-world voice. Making a face as much as to say:
Hey, we're both guys here, it's the modern world, no one's passing judgment on anyone.
"What I understand, this girl was into some very interesting stuff, sexually speaking."

"I wouldn't know." The lie came out automatically before I could stop it. I had to force myself to go back, to say: "No. That's not true. I did know. The last time I saw her, she was wearing an O-ring. I noticed it."

"An O-ring. What's that?"

My eyes locked on his, met the mocking humor in them. "I expect you know what it is," I said.

"No, no, go ahead. Enlighten me."

"It's a piece of jewelry people wear to show they're into sexual submission."

"Really? I'll be damned. An O-ring, huh? Funny you knowing
something like that. A straight-arrow family man like you. I guess you must be into some interesting sexual stuff yourself."

"I was," I said flatly. "It was a long time ago."

His jaw worked. He studied me. I think he understood what I was doing now. I think he understood that I was forcing myself to tell the truth, no matter how unpleasant. I think he thought it was a good strategy: You know, telling one truth to hide another. Being honest about everything except the one thing, the murder. I think he admired the cleverness of it.