Trophies (35 page)

I was too furious even to find it funny. I
shook my head.

"Let the record show the witness is moving
his head in a negative manner."

The pale green interrogation room smelled of
stale socks and antiseptic cleanser. Bars covered the narrow
windows. The table was wooden and sturdy, but the chairs were the
unpadded sort of folding metal, grey and cold and uncomfortable.
Hash marks on one wall marked off feet and inches. Margot,
Wingate's assistant, registered five feet six in her natty uniform,
with or without her arms crossed; beside her, the street cop
wavered between six feet and six feet two, depending upon how far
down he slouched.

Both William and I refused coffee. Wingate
sipped his from a porcelain mug embossed with the logo of the
Boston Opera. I didn't have to ask to know we'd have gotten
Styrofoam. At best.

"So, Captain Ellandun." Wingate set his mug
atop the overlapping layers of graffiti hacked into the table's
once-presentable pine top. His eyes, brown and level beneath those
perfect brows, considered me as if I was a puzzle that needed
solving. "Why don't you tell us your version of what happened?"

"My version?" The implications of that
question raised my hackles, just as the implications of Wingate's
questions usually did.

Beside me, William stirred. "Just tell
him."

He'd changed yesterday's rumpled navy suit
for casual slate blue slacks and a matching two-tone sport shirt,
and I had to admit the colors suited him. But the exhaustion hadn't
changed, as if he'd slept no more than I the previous night, and
again it weighed on him and added a heaviness to the confidence I
was growing to expect.

Between the press of memories and the
confining bars of that room, having William there felt like having
an extra accuser. But this time his return stare contained more
steel than the bars and his poise reminded me of Sherlock. In a
lopsided sort of way, I found that comforting: if I didn't have one
bastard by my side, at least I had another. I took a deep breath
and faced Wingate again.

He hadn't moved. But now a horizontal line
crossed the vertical one on his forehead, as if he wasn't certain
what to make of that little scene. "Start with the last time you
saw Edith Hunter alive."

"We had dinner at the Long Wharf Marriott the
night she was killed." I hauled in a deep breath; I wanted to get
through this with as much dignity as possible. Not that I had all
that much remaining. "We met at the restaurant at seven and left
about, oh, nine or nine fifteen. We spent a lot of time talking
over coffee."

Wingate showed no sign of interruption. But
his raised eyebrows invited more details and without planning to, I
found myself elaborating.

"Aunt Edith wanted me to make peace with my
family. She spent a lot of time trying to convince me to come to
the gallery, get involved in her — in Trés' art show, and see
everyone while they're in town. I'm afraid I didn't give her much
encouragement. I could tell, when we parted at her car, that she
wasn't satisfied and that she intended to ask me again later,
probably the next day before the gallery party."

Her narrow lips had thinned even further as I
paid the bill over her objections and hadn't relaxed even when I'd
kissed her cheek and tucked her into her Beamer. I'd watched her
drive away with a heaviness in my soul, knowing the discussion
would be resumed all too soon.

The memory covered me like a second skin. I'd
give anything to be able to resume that argument with her — and to
ask a few pointed questions regarding the contents of her garret.
Here at the final end of our relationship, I'd disappointed her.
After all, she was used to managing me with a look or a few words;
even at my most recalcitrant, I'd never before given her a flat
refusal. She hadn't thought she'd need to mention her request
before that night.

But she had no one to blame for my refusal
except herself. If she'd sounded me on the topic before that night,
if she'd given me time to get used to the idea, if she'd been
willing to share me with the family sooner, before I locked myself
so far away from them all — perhaps I would have returned to the
gallery with her that night. Then, when she'd walked out to her
Beamer and found Mister Impala sitting in her passenger seat
waiting for her, I would have been there beside her. Even without a
weapon, I could have put up some sort of fight while she ran for
help, and then perhaps she would still be alive.

"She offered to drop me by my condo. But I
wanted to walk and turned her down. The last time I saw her alive,
she was driving away from the waterfront."

I'd mentioned the bare facts to Sherlock, but
this was the first time I'd told anyone the story of that miserable
night. I hadn't wanted to think about it. I still didn't and this
enforced self-revelation deepened the pool of anger within me. I
ran a finger across the wood — JERALD LOVES MARIA, some hopefully
juvenile questionee had carved into the tabletop — letting the hard
edge of that groove anchor me to the present. Anything, even
splinters, was preferable to demonstrating my strangenesses before
this crowd.

"I walked back to my condo and stayed in the
rest of the evening." I didn't have to look up to see Wingate's
inquiring eyebrows and elaborated without the invitation. "I spent
the early part of the day at the gun club. The telescopic sight on
that Mauser rifle is a new replacement; the previous one was
damaged during the war. I spent a few boxes of ammunition sighting
it in, then a few more getting some practice with my Walther P-38
and Colt .45. When I returned from dinner, I spent the remainder of
the evening cleaning weapons and watching a movie. The first I
heard of anything wrong was when Patricia rang the doorbell before
dawn the next morning."

She'd tried to call me, she said when I
opened the door in my bathrobe and little else. But I'd left the
cell phone on the charger in the kitchen and had let the land-line
go several months earlier when I realized the only people who used
it were advertising solicitors and political poll takers. She
awakened me the only way she could.

When I glanced up from the graffiti,
Wingate's forehead was uncreased once more. "What movie?"

"What?" It took me a moment. "Oh.
Men in
Black Two.
I needed a laugh."

"That's a good one for it," Wingate said.
"When were you diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder?"

I froze. Beside me, so did William. My glance
his way caught him staring again. His eyes were wider than I'd ever
seen them and even a bit wary. It seemed the cross-pond family
contact, Patricia, hadn't shared that little tidbit with him.

"Have I committed an oops?" Wingate's elegant
tenor wasn't contrite at all. "There are dangers to using a family
member as an attorney, Captain. All that dirty laundry, you
know."

Bastard; that was deliberate. But I refused
to back down and met his level stare, amused beneath his intense
assessment.

"Right after the war," I said, for William's
benefit as well as Wingate's.

Although Wingate's eyebrows went up again, I
didn't elaborate. Let him ask; unless my counselor advised
otherwise I was finished with volunteering information.

Wingate asked. "How does it manifest?"

I glanced right. William waited, too, his
surprise under control and his expression neutral. My counselor, it
seemed, wasn't going to intervene. It occurred to me he probably
wanted an answer to that question as much as Wingate.

"Is that germane to this discussion?" I asked
them both.

William broke eye contact instantly. He
seemed embarrassed, as if he hadn't realized his behavior was
reinforcing the interrogation.

Wingate didn't. "It could be." The amusement
vanished from his undertones as quickly as it had come.

This was it, then: this was what he really
wanted to know. The thought didn't calm me. Discussing my oddities
was no better than displaying them. "Is that how you plan to pin
this on me?"

"Are you going to answer the question?"

I glanced again at William. He was there
waiting for me.

"He can subpoena your medical records, you
know."

I looked away. Margot hadn't moved, her arms
still crossed, but the street cop had straightened to his full six
feet two and rested one hand on his holstered Glock. If the rising
anger I felt showed on my face, I couldn't blame him. "It's a
classic case. I have flashbacks to an event that happened during
the war." I didn't mention I was also having flashbacks to the
front of the Carr Gallery at dawn; that was too personal for this
particular discussion. "Usually I just freeze for a moment or so,
but once I acted out."

Wingate's eyes were hooded and they measured
me as if with calipers. "Were you violent?"

I shook my head. Sherlock, who'd witnessed
the event, told me I raised that Mauser rifle — the one in my
memory — and took aim, as if playing air sniper instead of air
guitar. "It wasn't that sort of event." Although, now that I
considered it, if I'd had a real rifle in my hands there might have
been a problem.

"Did you require restraint?"

He should have been an Ellandun; he wasn't
about to let this go. Again I shook my head. "It only lasted a few
moments. By the time anyone realized what was happening, it was
over."

Something flickered behind his expression.
"You said a classic case. Is that your only manifestation?"

So he wasn't going to let me get away with
the lie of omission. I traced the outline of a carved heart with my
finger. "Sometimes when I'm under severe stress I get tunnel vision
and don't see what's happening on my periphery. And I've had a few
hallucinations."

"Violent ones?"

I thought about describing the one I'd had
yesterday in the car — William's fist flying at me out of nowhere —
and decided against it. Perhaps I needed to have that conversation
with my brother; I had no intention of doing so before Wingate and
his squad.

"I've taught myself to recognize them while
they're happening," I said. "Whatever I see, I've learned not to
respond to it. I should also mention that because of this,
sometimes my behavior is inappropriate."

Wingate's expression didn't flicker again.
"For example?"

"For example, that morning outside the
gallery." It was as close to an apology as I intended to give him.
To underline that I looked away, just as Margot uncrossed her arms
and let them hang at her side, near her own holstered Glock.

But Wingate nodded, almost as if he
understood. "Any amnesia?"

I gave him the standard rebuttal. "I don't
remember."

His lip curled.

I didn't need to glance to know William
thought the same. I gave in. "All right, not that I know of. Sorry,
but that's about the only joke I can get out of this ruddy
situation."

"And what do you do in the Army,
Captain?"

That was not a subject I wished to discuss
before this crowd, either. I wasn't ashamed of my position but
airing it here could only aggravate the police further, not to
mention William.

He continued into my silence. "You're in
Special Forces; I recognize the insignia although not your shoulder
patch. And you own a sniper's rifle as well as a machine gun and a
small arsenal."

Again I caught William's startled glance. I
stifled a sigh. Patricia hadn't been there, either, and this wasn't
the way I would have chosen to broach the subject.

"I'm a member of a NATO intelligence and
rapid response team."

"Can you be more specific?" Wingate's perfect
tenor was almost gentle.

It seemed this, too, was important to him. I
didn't look aside again; if William hadn't helped me earlier, he
wouldn't now. So much for having a counselor, or a bastard, at my
side. "We're the sort of team that goes in when an embassy is in
trouble, or after an earthquake or other natural disaster. We
worked behind the lines several times during the war — calling
artillery fire, conducting sabotage operations, search and rescue
for downed aircrews. And yes, I functioned sometimes as a sniper.
And that's about as specific as I can get without permission from
my commanding officer."

"Would that be Colonel Holmes, the officer I
met yesterday?"

I nodded. "He would be the starting
point."

Wingate leaned back slightly, as if relaxing.
But his focus still didn't waver. Everything that had gone before
was merely the prelude: now he was swinging for the bleachers. I
felt cold all over and my fists clenched as I braced myself for his
question of questions.

"Did you kill anyone during the war,
Captain?"

I wasn't braced nearly enough. My breath
caught. For an ugly moment I couldn't look away from his stare, as
piercing as Sherlock's cobra stare and peering as deeply into my
soul. I knew William was beside me and Margot and the silent street
uniform held up the wall near the hash marks with their hands on
their Glocks. But for that moment, the only people in the room were
Wingate and me and the room wasn't nearly large enough.

I forced myself to look. Again William was
there ahead of me, his expression this time calculating.

"He can also subpoena your military
records."

No escape that direction, either. My
breathing quickened as if I had been running. "Yes," I said. "I
did."

But not the one I wanted. The memory of the
spotter, staring arrogantly back at me through the scope of the
Mauser rifle, was suddenly more clear than Wingate's living self.
My heartbeat accelerated, too.

Wingate leaned forward and clasped his hands
atop the table, inches from mine. His expression was concerned, the
face of a friend, and I remembered his non-threatening office,
designed and decorated to put offenders off guard.