Past Perfect (29 page)

Ben’s eyes widened just a bit, but for him that was a three-ring circus of amazement. “You were able to trace — ?”

“No. Found out through a friend. When he got here Hans’s name was changed to Bernard Ritter. Anyway, he was recently stabbed to death in his office in Minneapolis. The police are clueless.”

“Jesus Christ!” By the time he took a deep breath and exhaled, he thought enough to ask, “How is this linked to Lisa Golding?”

“I don’t know. That’s why I came to see you.”

“Why?” His voice was a little harsh but his posture remained easy.

I didn’t buy it. This whole business had to mean something to Ben. Otherwise he wouldn’t have agreed even to taking a phone call, much less this meeting. So how come his body seemed so loose he could have been smoking weed for three days straight? I decided what I was seeing was the result of training and practice: hiding fear, tension, anger. That’s what an operative had to do. But there was a problem here. Ben hadn’t been an operative. An analyst, a policy maker, a person paid to think about Eastern Europe. But a spy? No. He was an office guy who obviously had learned to hide his emotions to survive and thrive in the Agency and, later, in the multinational corporate world.

I knew I had to tread carefully. Even though I was pretty good at reading people, I never had that gift of sending them just where I wanted them to go: always able to make the sad glad, calm the hysterical. I decided it was best to deal straightforwardly. Ben was historically immune to my charm and underwhelmed by my intellect. I could manage a clear sentence, however.

“When it came to bringing anyone over from Eastern Europe,” I began, “there were only two people in our unit who had any say about that, you and Archie. Okay, it had to be approved higher up, but to a large extent, you could make it happen. And even more important, once it was okayed, you guys worked hand in glove with … whoever the woman was who was Lisa’s boss. I forget her name.”

“And?” he demanded. Instead of merely looking at his watch this time, he rotated it a few degrees around his wrist.

“And, I was hoping you could remember something about Lisa’s involvement with their resettlement, the extent of it.” He started shaking his head, so I quickly added, “Do you think she had any sort of continuing relationship with any of these three?”

I guess Ben had had enough of hiding his emotions, because he took his leg off the wastebasket, sat straight, and glared. “I have to ask this,” he said. “Are you nuts?” He didn’t give me a chance to consider, much less answer. “Do you think I’d disclose Agency policy or practice to someone like you?” I waited for him to follow that with Look, I don’t want to hurt your feelings. He didn’t. “Did your friend Lisa have a continuing relationship with any of the three? Let’s put it this way. If she had and anyone found out about it, she would be out on her ass faster than the speed of light. Possibly prosecuted. Furthermore, how would I know if some underling from another unit had a relationship with any of those three people? I’d stopped thinking about them fifteen minutes after their plane landed here.”

I don’t know if it was that instant, but at some point it hit me that Maria Schneider could be as much of a liar as Lisa Golding. Maybe her assertion that Lisa and Ben had been lovers for years was a fabrication. On the other hand, she hadn’t called me saying, Pssst! Want some dirt on Benton Mattingly? I’d been the one to call her, and when she learned something might be wrong with Lisa, her immediate response had been, “The best one to call would be Ben.” Ben and Lisa, an instant pairing, like bread and butter.

If that was true, wouldn’t Ben be more cautious? Why would he have agreed to see me? To find out if I knew anything, or what I knew. But maybe there was no need for caution because he knew Lisa was alive and well.

But suddenly I got scared. I didn’t get that chill that’s always written in for characters at scary moments of TV scripts —which actresses invariably take as a signal to rub their upper arms while squeezing their breasts together. Why it had taken me so long to get frightened was a mystery, but looking across the desk at this nice-looking man with loosened tie and rolled-up sleeves, the thought came to me, Maybe he killed Lisa.

Maybe she had given him an ultimatum because her biological clock had only a short time to tick before its final chime. Only God knew what his relationship with his wife was, but if Lisa had threatened the big reveal to Deedee or to make public their long-term “more a marriage than a marriage,” he could have decided to shut her up permanently.

If that were the case, though, why would Lisa have told me she had information of national importance? Anyone who’d lived in Washington as long as she had and wasn’t totally disconnected from reality would understand that for a potential secretary of commerce, having a longtime affair wouldn’t be a career killer.

So if it wasn’t their affair that she considered of national importance, what was the real deal? What had she really wanted that could have motivated her to call me? And what was her disappearance about? Not just her never calling me back, but her dropping out of sight. I couldn’t push Ben any further than I already had. I was too scared.

So I decided to ask him something else. “Why was I fired?”

“What?” But he’d heard me. “Even if I wanted to, and actually I do, I couldn’t… I can’t tell you, Katie.” This was the Ben I remembered: head cocked to the side, eyes moist with yearning. But whatever response the sideways head and the shiny eyes were supposed to evoke, he wasn’t seeing it in me. And this must have burned him because he uncocked his head and blinked the yearning right out of his eyes. “I’m going to do you a favor,” he said. I could feel the freeze coming. “I’m giving you a friendly warning. You seem to have a nice life. Husband, kid, fun job. Stick to that. You’re really not in any position to be poking around in Agency business, even if it’s old business. Face facts. You are persona non grata.”

“These days I’m pretty grata,” I said. “Where do you think I’m getting all my information?” From a couple of weird guys who might like me or feel I got a raw deal and wanted to help? Or from the same two weird guys for whom time stopped when the Cold War ended, two weird guys who maybe had some old scores to settle with Ben Mattingly on behalf of themselves or their friends? “I’m sure it’s obvious to you that I’m getting some information from individuals with connections to the intelligence community. Having a TV show called Spy Guys that’s had a five-year run with two semi-well-known leads is a big plus.” I picked up my handbag and stood. He stayed in his chair. “You probably know my show is not a monster hit. It’s definitely not realistic. But it is show business. And in today’s culture, Ben, show business trumps all business. Including the spy business.”

I walked to the door and opened it. Ms. Herpes was busy at her computer. From her sudden burst of activity, I figured she’d been doing a little online shopping or porn watching. I turned back to look at Ben. “I appreciate your time,” I said in a tone I hoped was low enough that only he could hear. “And just so you know, those friends of mine? They told me about you and Lisa. ‘More of a marriage than a marriage.”’ No predictable response, no bugged-out eyes or dropped jaw. Instead, unflappable Ben kept jerking his head, right, left, up, down, as if he’d just put something somewhere and now, for the life of him, couldn’t find it. “If you think of anything I might like to know, you have my number.” Then I added: “And my friends have yours.”

“Katie, I might not be a nice guy, but I’m not a bad guy. Don’t lose sight of the difference.”

SINCE OUR APARTMENT had been built before the first world war, it was loaded with features to please upscale Edwardians: two minuscule maid’s rooms, a butler’s pantry off the kitchen, two fireplaces, and a cube, more closet than room, with a huge porcelain slop sink. I’d seen photographs at the New York Historical Society of immigrant Irish maids in full-length aprons emptying the buckets they used for cleaning floors into such a sink. Now, Adam was bathing Flippy in it. The two of us had a mutual animal pact: I’d agree to no pets sharing our bed, while he’d put up with my decree of no pets in bathroom tubs and sinks, including Nicky’s fish when we cleaned the tank.

Lucy, our beagle, sat beside me, watching them guardedly, as if she expected Adam at any moment to grab her as well. Periodically I patted her head, but mostly I was holding a beach towel. That wasn’t necessary, but I liked to be there watching Adam. His mere presence was comforting to animals. Flippy stood in the sink, serene instead of having canine hysterics as she did the one time I tried to bathe her. Now she comported herself like a supermodel getting her hair done before a major runway show. “You are going to look sooo beautiful,” Adam murmured to her. He was wearing an ancient T-shirt, shorts, and flip-flops and was as wet as the dog. “Angelina Jolie is going to say, ‘I can’t take the competition. Flippy is too hot.”’

I hadn’t said a word to him about having spent the morning in Washington. Flying down, I’d been such a wreck about a plane crash—not fear of dying, but that Adam would ask himself for the rest of his life What was she doing on that plane after I said I wanted to help her? The only thing that had kept me from popping a Xanax was knowing it might make me dopey during my meeting with Ben. On the ride back, of course, I was so absorbed by trying to make sense of what he’d said and hadn’t said, as well as attempting to translate all his body language, that no other thought entered my mind.

What had I learned? Ben was still denying he knew Lisa well. For all I knew, it could be the truth. How could I base any conclusion on the word of Maria Schneider, a woman I hadn’t even met? What else? I’d seen, or rather sensed, Ben trying to mute any movement that would give hints at what he was thinking. But what did that signify? Maybe he was trained in such control, it was an aspect of his style I’d never noticed, or he’d learned it post-me.

Big deal, I’d finally gotten what I’d wanted. I’d seen Ben. I tried not to think that the reason I insisted on the meeting had been only that, to see him. But I couldn’t get that notion out of my head. A teenage crush, with all its arrogant self-deceit, is an exceedingly unattractive trait in someone about to stumble into middle age.

Yet the trip hadn’t been a total waste: I had learned something. Ben had tried to scare me away from digging any deeper. That had to mean something. When he told me to stay out of it, his vehemence was way past a scornful “The CIA’s business is none of your business” warning.

Adam pulled out the hose and tested the water with his wrist before starting to rinse Flippy. I willed myself to relish watching big, cute husband bathe big, cute dog, but I could feel my spirits slide. What if I had been completely wrong in believing there was a link between the three Germans and Lisa? I’d zeroed in on that case because, as they say in the entertainment business, it had legs. It harkened back to an important time, the end of the Cold War. And it was a big deal: How easy could it have been sneaking those three out from under the noses of their own compatriots —to say nothing about the noses of our own allies, the West Germans? But in the end, what if it turned out Lisa was calling me about something else entirely, like the crazy Albanian general’s crazier daughter whom the CIA had brought over and put into the plumbing supply business?

“Are you going to bathe Lucy?” I asked.

“No. I didn’t plan on this, but Flippy stank. Didn’t you smell it?”

I shook my head, then realized his back was toward me. “No. I mean, she didn’t smell like she doused herself with Marc Jacobs, but I honestly didn’t notice.” He reached out and I handed him the towel. He swaddled her, then did one of his neat vet tricks, lifting her out holding her legs together so she wouldn’t panic because she wasn’t on a firm footing. Considering she weighed about 120 not soaking wet, he did it with notable ease. He rubbed her some more, stepped back while she shook herself. Then he opened the door so she could do her after-bath mad dog dash through the house. Lucy gave us an “I’m outta here” glance and took off after her. I could hear the crazed scratching of their claws on the wood floors.

“Hey, if you didn’t get a whiff of Flippy, something’s wrong with your nose,” Adam said. “Don’t get too close yet. She was rubbing up against me and you could spontaneously recover your sense of smell. I’ll take a fast shower.”

“Take a slow one. I want to go down to the crypt and look for something.” I didn’t have to look to see his disappointment at my not leaping at the chance to get him sooner rather than later, so I added, “Don’t worry, I won’t be long.”

This time, scooting past the laundry room, I didn’t have to sing “Born in the U.S.A.” to keep up my courage. My mind was whirring much too fast to perceive fear. I decided: it had to be the Germans Lisa was calling about. Okay, that kind of thinking wouldn’t pass a logic test, but I based my conclusion on the dubious theory that where there’s smoke, there’s fire.

Maybe Lisa had no knowledge of the deaths. The point was, two of the three had checked out suspiciously in the last couple of months. Bernard Ritter’s death was just plain murder. Had anyone in Cincinnati wondered, Isn’t there something curious about Dick Schroeder’s death? He could have been the victim of a brilliantly planned, scientifically shrewd, and well-executed homicide.

That left Maria, alive and talking. If she could be believed, there was a strong Lisa/Ben link. Since I had concluded that Lisa’s matter of national importance had something to do with the Germans, her concerns might have involved Ben as well. What else would explain his show-no-emotion act as well as his “friendly warning” about my not continuing to poke around in Agency business?

I kept trying to recall Agency business, specifically Ben’s going back and forth to Berlin in 1989. Because Germany was divided then and Berlin was in the east, you couldn’t fly directly there from Washington. You had to grab a flight to someplace in West Germany, Frankfurt, I recalled, and, from there, take another plane to Berlin. A tough trip. When Ben got back to the office, he always looked like hell—jet lag coming and going, shaving on the plane with an electric razor, dressed in a suit, shirt, and tie still creased from his suitcase.