“Not directly. That would’ve been cutting my own throat. I’ve got an enviable position in the BSS but make no mistake, the bureau’s a man’s world. And you don’t go to the boss to complain about things you think your ex-husband might do. I’d probably end up on the bank squad in Salt Lake City if I tried that.”
“So what can you do?”
“Not much. Indirectly, I’ve dropped enough hints on Backus for him to know what’s going on. As you can tell by what you heard today, he’s not going to do anything about it. I have to assume that Gordon’s dropping hints in his other ear. If I were Bob, I’d just sit back like he’s doing and wait for one of us to fuck up. The first one to do it gets shipped out.”
“And what would constitute a fuck-up?”
“I don’t know. With the bureau you never know. But he’s got to be more careful with me than him. Prevailing factors, you know. He’s got to have his shit together if he’s going to try to move a woman out of the unit. So, that’s my edge.”
I nodded. We had come to a natural end to that branch of the conversation. But I didn’t want her to go back to her room. I wanted to be with her.
“You’re a pretty good interviewer, Jack. Pretty sly.”
“What?”
“We’ve spent the whole time talking about me and the bureau. What about you?”
“What about me? Never married, never divorced. I don’t even have plants at home. I sit behind a computer all day. It’s not in the same league as you and Thorson.”
She smiled and then giggled a bit girlishly.
“Yes, we are a pair. Were. Do you feel any better after the meeting today, about what they found in Denver?”
“You mean what they didn’t find? I don’t know. I guess it’s better that it looks like he didn’t have to go through that. There is still nothing to feel better about, though.”
“Did you call your sister-in-law?”
“No, not yet. I’ll do it in the morning. Seems like something that should be discussed in daylight.”
“I’ve never spent a lot of time with the families of the victims,” she said. “The bureau always gets called in later.”
“I have. . . I’m the master of interviewing the fresh widow, the now childless mother, father of the dead bride. You name it, I’ve interviewed it.”
We were quiet a long moment. The waiter came by with his coffeepot but we both passed. I asked for the check. I knew it wasn’t going to happen with her tonight. I had lost the nerve to pursue it because I didn’t want to risk her rejection. My pattern had always been the same. When I didn’t care whether a woman rejected me, I always took the chance. When I did care and knew rejection would cut me, I always held back.
“What are you thinking about?” she asked.
“Nothing,” I lied. “My brother I guess.”
“Why don’t you tell that story?”
“What story?”
“The other day. You were about to tell me something good about him. The nicest thing he ever did for you. What made him a saint.”
I looked across the table at her. I knew the story instantly but thought about it before speaking. I could’ve easily lied and told her the nicest thing he did was just love me but I trusted her. We trust the things we find beautiful, the things we want. And maybe I wanted to confess to somebody after so many years.
“The nicest thing he ever did was not blame me.”
“For what?”
“Our sister died when we were kids. It was my fault. He knew. He was the only one who really knew. And her. But he never blamed me and he never told anyone. In fact, he took on half the guilt. That was the nicest thing.”
She leaned forward across the table with a pained look on her face. I think she would have made a good, sympathetic psychologist if she had followed that path.
“What happened, Jack?”
“She fell through the ice at the lake. The same place where Sean’s body was found. She was bigger than me, older. We’d gone out there with our parents. We had a camper and my folks were making lunch or something. Me and Sean were outside and Sarah was watching us. I ran out on the frozen lake. Sarah ran out after me to stop me from going too far out, to where the ice was thin. Only she was older and bigger and heavier and she fell through. I started screaming. Sean started screaming. My father and some other people there tried but they couldn’t get to her in time. . .”
I drank from my coffee cup but it was empty. I looked at her and continued.
“Anyway, everybody was asking what happened, you know, and I couldn’t. . . I couldn’t talk. And he—Sean—said we had both been out on the ice and then when Sarah came out it cracked and she fell through. It was a lie and I don’t know if my parents ever believed it. I don’t think they did. But he did it for me. It was like he was willing to share the guilt with me, make it easier by half.”
I stared into my empty cup. Rachel said nothing.
“You might’ve made it big as a shrink. That’s a story I’ve never told anyone.”
“Well, I think telling it might’ve just been something you felt you owed your brother. Maybe a way of thanking him.”
The waiter placed a check on our table and thanked us. I opened my wallet and put a credit card down on top of it. I can think of a better way to thank him, I thought.
After we stepped off the elevator I became nearly paralyzed with fear. I couldn’t bring myself to act on my desire. We moved to her door first. She pulled the card key from her pocket and looked up at me. I hesitated, said nothing.
“Well,” she said after a long moment. “I guess we start early tomorrow. Do you eat breakfast?”
“Just coffee, usually.”
“Okay, well, I’ll call you and maybe if there’s time we can grab a cup.”
I nodded, too overrun with the embarrassment of my failure and cowardice to say anything.
“Good night, Jack.”
“ ’Night,” I managed to say before walking off down the hall.
I sat on the edge of the bed watching CNN for a half hour, hoping to see the report she had mentioned or anything to take my mind off the disastrous end of the night. Why is it, I wondered, that it is the ones who mean so much that are the hardest to reach out to? Some deep instinct told me that the moment in the hall had been the time, the right moment. And I had ignored it. I had run from it. And now I feared that my failure would haunt me forever. Because that instinct might never come back.
I don’t think I heard the first knock. Because the one that raised me from my dark reverie was very loud and surely not the first effort. It had the urgency of a third or fourth knock. Jarred by the intrusion, I quickly turned off the TV and went to the door, opening it without looking through the peephole. It was her.
“Rachel.”
“Hi.”
“Hi.”
“I, uh, thought I’d give you a chance to redeem yourself. That is, if you wanted to.”
I looked at her and a dozen responses went through my mind, all engineered to neatly put the ball back in her court and make her make the move. But the instinct came back and I knew what she wanted and what I needed to do.