Page 73 of A Deeper Darkness
She looked him straight in his beady little eyes. “I’ll do no such thing. I told you I’m not taping you. Either you believe me, or we’re done.” She started to stand and he grabbed her arm.
“Okay, okay. Just don’t use my name.”
“Why, exactly, can’t you talk to—”
“’Cause I can’t be seen out talking to cops. It ain’t safe. I ain’t safe. I’m meetin’ you against my better judgment. But Mutant said you could be trusted, thought Chevy could, too. Remember that. No names.”
Chevy? Who the hell… Oh, Chevy Chase. Fletch. Chevy was Fletch. Clever. Mutant, she knew, was Alexander Whitfield. She wondered when she was going to get a code name. What would it be? Bones? Legs? More like Ass, hers was getting big enough for its own zip code. She hadn’t been working out a lot. She knew she was too thin, but all her muscle tone was gone. She’d gotten flabby. Things were spreading in all the wrong directions.
Sam, really.
She tried to refocus.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Taranto. Cloak and dagger isn’t exactly my strong suit. I’m a medical examiner, not a spy.”
“Jesus,I told you not to use my name. ’Scuse my language. I know you’re a doc. That’s why I’m talking to you, and not them. You have no authority here.” The waiter sidled up with their drinks. They stayed silent, waiting for him to clear out before resuming.
“Okay. You’re a part of this now. So, listen up. I ain’t got all day.”
Sam took a sip of the scotch, let the nose expand. She closed her eyes for a second, then opened them to find Taranto looking at her in scowling amusement.
“Are you ready now?”
“Yes,” she said, then smiled with her lips closed. She knew her dimples showed that way. Flirting practice. It worked. Taranto loosened up a bit, his shoulders dropping an inch.
“All right. Here’s the scoop. Last month, chick comes to me, says she thinks her hubby was KIA by a friendly over in Jal¯al¯ab¯ad. We’ll call him King.”
Sam immediately sat straighter. King was the nickname Susan Donovan had used for Perry Fisher. One of the five men in the photo, the one who died in Afghanistan.
“What made her think that?”
“Apparently, she ran into ashakyguy at a mutual friend’s funeral. They had a few drinks, told a few stories. This guy got into his cups and let this bit of news slip. When she questioned him, he clammed up. She pushed and pushed until he said to talk to another guy. We’ll call him Orange. She did. Orange denied everything. Said that was crazy talk, that the shaky guy was a worthless drunk. Now, this lady knew her hubby liked the shaky guy, so she thought maybe there’s something else going on here. She happens to read my words, regular like, comes to me and tells me the story. I go digging. One thing is consistent with the military. The brass don’t like to share when they fuck up. ’Scuse my language. Orange pushed back, and hard. So I back off him, all nice like. But I do what I do, and sure enough, what that shaky dude said rings true. You got me so far?”
He sat back in the booth and took a long sip of his beer.
Sam tried deciphering that load of information in her mind. Karen Fisher had seen William Everett—Billy Shakes—at a funeral. Billy was drunk and said some things he shouldn’t. Karen, concerned that she’d been denied the true story of her husband’s death, followed up, talked with someone named Orange. Sam made a mental note—find out who Orange is.
Then it hit her. Orange must be this missing Maggie Lyons Fletcher had mentioned. One piece of the puzzle solved.
Regardless, it didn’t seem like news worth killing over. She knew this wouldn’t have been the first time a soldier died by friendly fire, but maybe Sam was being naive.
“All right. I’m following. So according to Shaky, who killed King? And why hide it?”
“Sister, people are getting dead against their will. That’s good enough for me. I got my suspicions, but soon as I dove into it, I got some pretty nasty threats to back off. Normally I don’t listen to that kind of shit—’scuse my language—but the threats weren’t directed at me. They were directed at her.”
Sam thought this through for a minute. “So King’s wife was threatened by Orange to getyouto back off the story.”
“Exactamundo. If I didn’t back off, she’d bleed. And the kids. Story wasn’t worth getting someone dead for. This time, I backed off for real.”
“But let me guess. She didn’t.”
“No. Didn’t know what was good for her. She starts talking to anyone she can find that might know what went down. Gets a coupla different stories, little details changed here and there. Realizes someone’s gotta be lying. Next thing she knows, people start dropping like flies.”
“Why didn’t she go to the police?”
He drank some more of his beer. “Well, see, that might have been the smart thing to do. But this chick, she’s grieving. And she’s angry. Angry she got lied to, and angry she’s being pushed. You know how bees will leave you alone if you leave them alone, but you start trying to fight them off and they just dive-bomb your head? She’s a real fucking bee. ’Scuse my language.”
“Where is she now?”
