Michael Prescott - Mortal Faults

“You’re not holding out on me, are you?”

“Holding out what?”

“I don’t know. Evidence you found at the scene, possibly.”

“Did I have time to collect evidence? You were there. Was I bagging and tagging? Did you see me auditioning for the latest CSI spin-off? Which I hear is going to be CSI: Fresno, by the way.”

“All right, I suppose you couldn’t have picked up anything.”

“I’d play vigilante if I could, but as it turns out, I have to rely on the vaunted federal boobocracy. No offense.”

“We’re not as inept as you seem to think.”

“That’s good to know. If you were, this country would be in deep shit.”

“You’re in a hell of a mood.”

“Getting my hair parted by flying ammo has a way of doing that to me. What were they shooting, anyhow?”

“Forty-five caliber ACP plus-Ps.”

“Hot load. Serious stopping power. Get nailed with one of those, and it could ruin a girl’s whole day. Luckily I found a way to even the odds.”

“Three against one isn’t evening the odds.”

“It is when the one in question is me.” Abby shrugged. “What can I say? I believe in myself.”

“There’s a fine line between self-esteem and self-delusion.”

Abby shifted in her seat, kicking her shoes together beneath the table. “Self-delusion is a greatly underrated quality. Personally I’m in favor of it. People who have no illusions are dangerous. It’s our fantasies that keep us grounded. It’s our craziness that keeps us sane.”

Tess shook her head. “Now I know I’m in L.A.”

“Seriously, think about it. You have a couple who are married ten years, fight all the time but always kiss and make up, because that’s what lovers do. And they’re in love. That’s their fantasy. That’s the story they tell themselves. And then one day the fantasy dies, and they realize they’re not in love anymore and maybe they never were. No more illusions. No more kiss and make up. So one of them bludgeons the other one to death with a broom handle.”

“They were better off lying to themselves?”

“Absolutely. Lying to ourselves is the only way most of us can get through the day.”

The waitress returned with an offer of dessert. They both passed, then remained silent until she had dropped off the check and left.

“You’re a strange person, Abby,” Tess said finally.

“I just have a penchant for conversational detours.”

“Actually, it wasn’t as much of a detour as you think. Lovers who fall out of love-that’s quite relevant to the present situation.”

“Let me guess. Andrea Lowry and Jack Reynolds.”

“She was Bethany back then.”

“But they were together? They were a couple?”

“We think so.”

“When?”

“Twenty years ago. I assume you know that Jack Reynolds used to be the Orange County D.A. At that time, Bethany was his mistress. She got pregnant and gave birth to twin boys.”

Abby shut her eyes briefly. “Reynolds’ boys.”

Tess nodded. “Not that he ever publicly admitted to being the father. He was already married and raising a family of his own. He was planning a run for political office. Obviously he hadn’t wanted Bethany to get pregnant at all. She’d told him she was on the pill. It was a lie. She wanted to get pregnant, because she was convinced that if she bore his children, he would leave his wife for her.”

“Naive.”

“Extremely. Reynolds, though, was a smooth talker. He’d met Bethany in the courthouse-she was a legal secretary. He convinced her that his marriage wasn’t working, that he meant to get a divorce. She fell for it. They were together for a year or so, and she began to suspect he wasn’t going to hold up his end of the deal. Having children was her way of forcing his hand.”

“But it didn’t work out the way she planned.”

“Reynolds understood that Bethany had been trying to trap him. He’s not the sort of man who likes feeling trapped.”

“Not many are. How old were the twins when Bethany figured out that it was over?”

“Ten months.”

“She shot them,” Abby said, “when they were ten months old.”

“Yes. The breakup is what precipitated the double murder and the attempted suicide. Admittedly, it doesn’t make a lot of sense. She’s mad at him, so she takes it out on her own kids.”

Abby waved off this objection. “She wasn’t thinking of them as her kids. To her, they were his kids-his flesh and blood. She wanted to make him suffer. She wanted to take something away from him.”

“So she punishes him by killing her own children?”

“Something like that. It’s what Medea did, right?”

“I think so. Whatever her intention, she ended up punishing herself. She survived her suicide attempt, but it might have been better for her if she hadn’t.”

“I’m missing something here. After she woke up from surgery and realized she was going to live, why didn’t she tell the world about Reynolds? She could’ve ruined his career.”

“He got to her first. As D.A., he had access to her while she was in the hospital, under police protection. He must have intimidated her into silence.”

“How do you intimidate somebody who’s killed her kids and tried to kill herself? She had nothing left to lose.”

“I don’t know. But she kept quiet, so Reynolds must have managed it. He also had her declared incompetent to stand trial.”

Abby nodded. “Convenient. No testimony, no embarrassing questions.”

“Exactly. She was shipped off to a mental hospital. And Reynolds continued his illustrious career, which led him to Capitol Hill a few years later.”

“This is all very interesting.” Abby took out her purse and removed some cash, which she counted and left on the table. “But since she’s not talking to the authorities, Andrea didn’t give you this info. I doubt Reynolds did, either. So are we dealing with hard facts, or just supposition?”

“What we’re dealing with is the story Bethany told one of her doctors while she was in the psychiatric hospital. She doesn’t even know she told him. She was heavily medicated at the time.”

“And how did the FBI find out about it?”

“A walk-in. Two weeks ago this doctor came to the Bureau and reported what he’d been told.”

“Just two weeks ago? She’s been out of the hospital for eight years. You’re saying the doc kept the secret all that time?”

“He had no idea whether or not it was true. It could have been the babbling of a delusional patient. He wasn’t going to get involved in some political mess on the basis of something a patient told him in confidence and under medication.”

“What changed his mind?”

“Someone called the hospital two weeks ago, making inquiries about Bethany Willett.”

“What kind of inquiries?”

“He was trying to find out Bethany’s current address. The doctor, who runs the hospital now, thought it might be a journalist. But when he checked the call’s origin, he found it had been made from a pay phone in the Rayburn Building in Washington, D.C.”

“I’m guessing Reynolds works out of Rayburn.”

“He has an office there. And Congress was in session at the time. The doctor decided it was pretty good confirmation of Bethany’s story. He also decided that Reynolds probably wasn’t just trying to get back in touch with an old friend.”

Abby smiled. “I’ll bet the Bureau was none too thrilled to get hold of that information.”

“We investigate everything. We’re nonpolitical.”

“Right.”

“It was dicey,” Tess admitted. “Reynolds is a powerful congressman. He’s not the sort of person you can haul in for interrogation. The situation had to be handled with care. MEDEA was reactivated, and an investigative squad was set up. They located Bethany Willett under her new identity, and learned she’s visited at least one of Reynolds’ campaign events.”