Joseph Kanon - Los Alamos

Oppenheimer looked out the window. “It’s a hell of an epitaph, isn’t it? That’s how Karl’s going to be remembered.”

“That’s what the papers will say anyway. We don’t get to write our own obituaries.”

“No, we don’t,” Oppenheimer said. “So. The expedient thing. What do you want me to do?”

“Agree with them. Case closed. I’ll just go about my business in my own way. Officially, you’re relieved it’s over.”

“I’ll be relieved when it’s really over.”

“Yes,” Connolly said, opening the door to get out, “but imagine how relieved the real killer is right now.”

But having cleared things with Oppenheimer, he now found himself at loose ends, tired, unsure where to begin again. At the office he talked with Mills, now sheepish after hearing about Kelly’s interview, and leafed absentmindedly through the savings files. He thought about Holliday’s reconstruction of the night of the crime. But why San Isidro in the first place? It was an unlikely rendezvous-there was always the chance of tourists or parishioners. He made a note to check the schedule of services, but more out of thoroughness than conviction-he couldn’t imagine Bruner meeting someone at mass. In fact, he couldn’t imagine Bruner meeting someone at all. And yet he must have. He must have arranged it somehow, without telephones, from a city so secret it didn’t exist, just a post office number in the high desert.

He was thinking about Los Alamos, the communications procedures, when Emma came into the office. She nodded to him but dealt with Mills, filling out a req for an overnight off-site pass.

“Do you need the whole route? I’m going to Chaco. I’ve been before, so you’ve probably got it all somewhere.”

“Purpose of visit?” Mills said, bored.

“See the bloody ruins. What do you think? There’s nothing else there.”

“Archaeology?” he said, pencil still poised to write.

Emma laughed. “No. Hiking, put ‘hiking’ down. That covers everything.”

“Tourism,” Mills said, writing.

Connolly shuffled papers, not trusting himself to look at her, but when he did he found her staring directly at him, her eyes shining.

“Number where you can be reached?”

“Not for miles and miles. That’s the point. You ought to get out once in a while,” she said to Mills. “You’ll get pasty in here. Ever see the Anasazi sites?”

“Not yet,” Mills said, completing the form.

“You really ought to. Get some proper hiking shoes and start with Bandelier. It’s closer. Chaco’s a bit remote. You have to leave here at six to have any time there at all, but it’s worth it.”

Mills handed her the pass. “Don’t talk to strangers,” he said, smiling.

“That’s what my father used to say.”

And then she smiled at both of them and was gone. Connolly stared back at the desk, afraid to watch her out the door, and realized it had all been arranged. The time. The plan. What he’d need to take. A clandestine meeting, all fixed in the security office itself. That easy. Why had he ever imagined Bruner couldn’t do it? Everything that mattered was secret, arranged under the thin cover of the visible world.

He had dinner with Mills in the commissary, then walked over to the movie. He couldn’t go home. He’d lie there on Bruner’s chaste bed, thinking about tomorrow, tempted to slink over to the Sundt apartments in the dark. Instead he sat on a folding chair in the crowded auditorium, dazzled by color. It was a musical, bright and glossy. There was a nightclub. There was a misunderstanding. There was a spot with Carmen Miranda. Afterward, he couldn’t remember anything about it. People filed out, complaining about the night chill, and drifted away in pairs, just the way they did on Main Street. He was too tired to go back with Mills for a beer, so he found himself alone, the street suddenly empty, smelling of woodsmoke and resin.

“Excuse me.” The voice startled him, coming from behind. “Could I speak to you for a minute?”

Connolly turned and tried to make out the face in the dim light, eyes blinking nervously under short blond hair.

“You’re the driver. Today.”

“That’s right. I couldn’t help overhearing. I mean, I—” He faltered.

“What?”

He took a breath. “I wasn’t going to say anything. I mean, I’m not saying anything now. It’s just you seem like an all-right guy.” It was a question.

“What is it?”

“It’s just that-Look, you’re making a mistake.”

“About Kelly?”

“No, not about Ramon.”

Connolly was surprised. “You know him?”

The soldier shrugged. “Lots of people know him. He gets around.”

“So do you, huh?”

He stiffened. “No, not like that. Ramon’s just one of those guys who’s around, you know?”

“In the bar.”

“Yeah, in the bar. But Karl wasn’t. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. You’re looking at this wrong. He wasn’t—”

Connolly waited for him to finish, but he had stopped, whatever courage had prompted him now gone. “How do you know?” Connolly said finally.

“I’d know, that’s all.”

“You were a friend of Karl’s?”

“No, just from the office.”

“That’s right, you’re a driver. So you’d be attached to the office.”

The soldier bit his lip.

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to say anything. I don’t even want to know who you are.”

“What’s the difference? You could find out in a minute.”

“Why say anything, then?”

“You’re right, maybe I’m crazy. It’s just I can see where this is all going. I’ve seen it before. They start looking at everything. I hear you’re going through our savings accounts.” He smiled at Connolly’s expression. “I have a friend over in admin,” he explained. “Things get around. Everybody gets along fine here. Nobody bothers anybody. But now you think it’s a sex crime. Wait and see. All hell will break loose. I was on a base once where they started—”

“I’m not looking for that.”

“No? And what if you find it? All the sudden they’ve got records on people, stuff they never bothered about before, and then you’ve got trouble. I’ve seen it. That’s bad enough, but this time there’s no point. It all starts because of Karl and he wasn’t like that.”

Connolly was quiet. “So you said before. How do you know?”

“I’d know,” he said again.

“You guys have a secret handshake or something? Like the Masons?”

The soldier wrinkled his nose in disgust. “Okay, forget it. I knew I was crazy to do this.”

“I think it took a lot of guts.”

“You do, huh?”

“Yes, I do. But what do you expect me to do with this? Ignore everything because it might be inconvenient for you? You didn’t even know the guy. All we can go on is what we know, and what we know here is we’ve got a guy dead in the park with his pants down.”

The soldier looked at him. “I could pull your pants down right here and what would that make you?”

The quiet hung between them. “If you killed me, I guess it would make me Karl.”

The soldier nodded, then turned to walk away.

“I’ll make you a deal,” Connolly said after him, watching him turn back with suspicion. “What if you look for me?”

“What do you mean?”

“Maybe you’re right. But what if you’re not? What if Karl was so secretive that even you couldn’t spot it?”

“And?”

“It’s important that we know for sure, know who his friends were. Know who he was seeing. We need to talk to other people who might know.”

“You’ve got the wrong guy.”

“I’ll take your word for it. That’s the deal. You’re telling me there are things going on up here I don’t know anything about and I’m going to make a mess trying to find out. Okay, I won’t. No mess. You do it for me. Talk to people-don’t tell me who, just tell me if you find out anything about Karl. I’ll look somewhere else. If you’re right, fine. I’ll take your word for it. But make sure. That’s your part of the deal.”