Empire of Lies

  The place had a strange embattled atmosphere. I couldn't quite pinpoint it at first, but after a while it occurred to me: It felt like an imperial outpost in some rebellious tribal backwater.

  Curtis crossed to one of the empty desks. He snapped a clipboard from the mess on it. Handed the clipboard to me.

  "Read that and sign it."

  I stared at the page on the clipboard.

  "It's your rights," he went on in a monotone. "You can remain silent. You can have a lawyer. It's all there."

  I looked up from the page into his pale, passionless eyes. "Do you suspect me of something?"

  "We have to inform you of your rights," he said. "It's routine." He didn't even try to sound convincing.

  There was a pen wedged in the clip. I pulled it out and signed the paper. It didn't even occur to me to demand an attorney. Why should I? I hadn't done anything wrong.

  I handed the clipboard back to him. He tossed it down onto the desktop as if it held no more interest for him. Then he grabbed a set of keys off a hook on the wall and walked out, leaving me to hurry after him again.

  There was an unmarked car parked among the squad cars out front, a dark blue Dodge. We drove downtown in that. I sat in the front seat next to Curtis. The Dodge merged with a thick current of cabs and delivery trucks, moving slowly along the edge of the university campus. The campus and the street formed a corridor running to the low, churning gray-black sky ahead: classical buildings to the left of us, amidst lawns and pathways; scarred brownstones and ragged awnings to the right. Curtis kept his hard face forward as he drove, his hard eyes on the windshield. He still wasn't saying anything. I got the feeling he wouldn't say anything unless I badgered it out of him.

  "Where are we going?" I asked. Angry as I was, worried as I was, I was still gauging my tone, gauging my words, just as I had when he was watching me through the one-way glass. I was trying to sound forceful now, but without sounding hostile. I thought I deserved some information but I still wanted to come across as one of the good guys, ready to cooperate in every way.

  It was a long time before Curtis answered me. We drove another block in the stuttering flow. When he did finally speak, it was in a slow, reluctant drawl, as if he were doing me a favor. "Downtown. There's something I think you should see."

  "Is this about Serena?"

  "That's what I'm trying to find out."

  "Look, could you tell me what's going on, please?"

  "We're investigating your daughter's disappearance."

  My daughter. That had to have come from Lauren. I was about to tell him Serena wasn't my daughter, but I didn't. What if she was? Would he think I had lied?

  Instead I said, "You sent Lauren into that room to question me, didn't you?"

  I thought I saw the faintest hint of a smile play at the corner of the detective's thin lips. "There wouldn't be any point to that. You hadn't been Mirandized. We wouldn't have been able to use any of your answers in court." He rolled his tongue around his cheek. "We just asked her if she wanted to see you—that's all."

  It took a moment but then I got the joke. I managed a short, bitter laugh. I could picture that scene, all right. I could just imagine Lauren in the detectives' office, that chaotic little outpost of the empire with the four gunmetal desks. I could see her with a tall mocha latte the cops would've brought her from Starbucks. Slouched in a chair beside Curtis's desk, laughing off my ideas about some sort of—get this!—terrorist conspiracy involving Serena. The other detectives would've tilted back in their own chairs with their hands behind their heads, listening, laughing along. I could see that, too. And I could hear Lauren describing me as if I were some sort of puritan evangelist, some sort of pinched, intolerant hypocrite, raining fire and brimstone down on her because she was a poor single mom doing the best she could. As the chuckling cops encouraged her, she would've grown more expansive, favoring them with detailed descriptions of our sex lives more than a decade and a half ago. That Night in Bedford—that never-ending night. He could get up to some shenanigans, that Jason, when he was in the mood. Then, when they thought she was really primed, the cops would've brought her into the observation room, the room on the other side of the one-way glass. They would've stood around her, snickering with her, as she watched me pace and drum my fingers and stew. Hey, y'know, you're welcome to go in and talk to him if you want—-for old times' sake or whatever. They wouldn't have had to spell it out. She'd have known what they wanted her to do. She would have jumped at the chance to get me to confess....

  But to what? Confess to what?

  "Look," I said to Curtis, "why don't you just ask me whatever you want to know? I haven't got anything to hide." That only got me more silence. So I said: "What is it exactly you suspect me of?"

  He turned those cold eyes on me again. He wasn't smiling anymore. "I don't recall saying I suspected you of anything."

  I felt my stomach curdle as if he'd caught me out at something, some revealing error. "Come on," I said. "You leave me waiting around for an hour. You send Lauren in to weasel information out of me. You read me my rights. What am I supposed to think?"

  "I'm just trying to find your daughter, Mr. Harrow. That's all."

  "You sure seem to be taking your time about it."

  "We're doing what we can."

  He had turned back to the windshield. His hard gaze seemed to stare right over the red brake lights ahead of him and the taxis' yellow rooftops, straight into the distance, at the liquid steel of the sky.

  "Do you understand that the people she's with may be terrorists?" I asked him. "They may be part of that Wall Street attack they were planning today—you know that, right?"

  He gave a slight, almost-imperceptible shake of his head.

  "What?" I said. "You don't believe me?"

  "According to our information, it seems unlikely."

  "You don't think these guys murdered Casey Diggs, then, the way Serena said?"

  "We're checking that story out."

  I couldn't tell whether he meant he was checking Serena's story or checking my story about Serena's story or what. I was afraid to ask. In fact, every time he spoke, I felt that clammy chill again on the back of my neck, that sour bubbling in my stomach. It was not that there was anything accusatory or suspicious in his tone. There was only that mild, disdainful curiosity as to exactly what kind of scumbag I was going to turn out to be.

  We turned east after a while and headed across the park. I brooded out the window on the clustered autumn trees, their red and yellow leaves. The sight made me ache for the suburban woods of home. It occurred to me that if I checked my phone right now, there'd probably be a message on it from my wife. She probably called me back while I was in the interrogation room where there was no reception. I didn't check the phone. I didn't think I could bear to hear her voice.

  We came out of the park onto Fifth Avenue. The Metropolitan Museum of Art lorded it over the boulevard with its majestic columned front, like some palace in an imaginary Rome. The cars were moving faster, and the blue Dodge sped along beneath a line of yellowing sycamores. Wherever we were going, we were getting there faster now—which made me grow even tighter with suspense. The anxiety was making me jittery—jittery and increasingly pissed off. This bastard—his silences—I couldn't tolerate them anymore.

  I turned on him. "Do you know about Diggs, about Casey Diggs?" He didn't answer. "You know about his theory about Professor Rashid?" Detective Curtis chewed the inside of his lip. "If the guys who took Serena killed Diggs, they were probably protecting Rashid, weren't they? Which means they were probably in on the Wall Street attack." Again, I caught that nearly imperceptible shake of the head. "You keep shaking your head. Why don't you believe me?" No answer. "What about the fact that one of the terrorists they arrested today was one of Rashid's students? What do you make of that?"

  Finally, I got something out of him. We had stopped at a light at Grand Army Plaza. The buildings were low here and the boiling sky was big. The massive
, mingled, steely clouds rolled and raced over the mansard roof of the hotel, over the statue of General Sherman on horseback, over the narrow side streets leading to the river. Curtis turned to look at me. What a look—I could almost feel him rifling my soul. I could see him going over the contents of my conscience with his dour cop intelligence. What must it take, I thought, to turn a man into a man like this? A whole lot of hours bearing witness to the blood toll of human malice and folly, I had no doubt. It must've taken a lot of dead bodies on a lot of floors to make Curtis Curtis.

  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.

  The Corpse Factory

  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?"