Дэвид Балдаччи - Walk the Wire

“So what did he have a guilty conscience about?” asked Jamison.

“For that, we’re going to have to talk to his wife,” answered Decker.

Later that evening Liz Southern looked pale and worn as she sat up in the bed of a guest room in a house belonging to a close friend of hers. She cradled a large cup of tea, and her bloodshot eyes spoke of the misery she was enduring. She looked at Decker with an unfriendly gaze as he sat down next to the bed. Kelly and Jamison stood immediately behind him.

“You couldn’t wait even one damn day?” she said harshly. “My husband killed himself!”

“If we could wait, we would. But we can’t. So anything you can tell us will be much appreciated.”

“I don’t know why Walt did what he did.”

Decker leaned forward in his chair. “Then let’s work through it together. Starting with what he wrote in the note.”

Southern closed her eyes and sighed.

“It’s important, Liz,” chimed in Kelly.

“I know that, Joe!” she snapped, her eyes now open and blazing at him.

Decker cleared his throat. “If Walt was forced to fudge the autopsy results for Cramer and Ames, we need to know how and by whom.”

“I have no idea why he would do that. I still don’t believe that he did intentionally mess up those reports. If it’s anyone’s fault he’s dead, it’s yours! You accused him of all those terrible things.”

Decker sat back, not looking convinced. “If the guy was innocent of what I accused him, no way he’s taking his own life. Before he walked out of the room he mentioned his lawyer. That’s not a guy looking to off himself over what I said.”

“Then why would he kill himself instead of calling his lawyer?” she shot back.

“I think he was just blustering, grasping at anything he could in the heat of the moment. I think as he walked to his office, reality set in. And that’s when he made his decision.”

“You really want me to provide dirt on my dead husband? Is that what you’re asking me to do?” she added shrilly.

“What I’m asking you to do is help us solve a series of murders. And whoever blackmailed your husband and drove him to kill himself deserves to be punished. We need your help to get to them.”

“Well, if you hadn’t accused him like you did—” she began.

“If I missed something like that, I’m in the wrong line of work,” Decker interjected. “You know something of the forensic business. Do you think he could have really missed big items like that on two separate posts?”

Southern drew a deep breath and settled a shrewd gaze on him. “I think you’re in the exact line of work you should be in, Agent Decker.”

“Okay,” he said expectantly.

Southern reached out and plunked a tissue from a box on the nightstand. She dabbed at her eyes and blew her nose before crumpling the tissue in her hand. “My husband was a good man.”

“I’m not suggesting he was a bad guy,” said Decker.

“But he had... issues.”

“What sort of issues?”

The woman’s eyes welled up with tears. “He... was into some things that others, particularly around here, might have found... troubling.”

“What sort of things are we talking about?”

“Was it something criminal?” said Kelly.

“No, but it would have done a lot of damage to his reputation.” She let out a long breath. “He was having an affair with the wife of a friend.” She clutched the edge of the sheet, and her eyes filled with tears.

“How did you find out?” asked Kelly.

“Text messages. Something I saw on his computer. Late-night phone calls. And I had him followed.”

“Did you... confront him about it?” asked Decker.

She grabbed another tissue and wiped her eyes. “Yes. At first, he denied everything. Said I was mistaken, said it was all a misunderstanding. But he finally admitted it. We talked about getting a divorce, but we hadn’t gotten around to it yet.”

“That must have put a strain on your marriage,” said Jamison.

“I finally told myself to ignore it. He did what he wanted and so did I. We have no children. So I would get glammed up and go out and have some drinks, and if I didn’t come back at night and I was in someone else’s bed, so what?”

“That night I saw you at the bar?” said Decker.

“I left you to attend to just such an appointment,” said Southern, avoiding their gazes.

Decker moved a bit closer to her. “So someone else might have found out about his affair. They might have sent him photos or other incriminating evidence and threatened him with exposure if he didn’t do what they said.”

“It’s certainly possible.”

Jamison said, “But people do have affairs. Would the threat of exposure be enough to make him alter postmortem reports? He had to know that whoever wanted him to do that might have had a hand in the murders.”

“Walt was a very proud man. A very upstanding citizen of this town. I agree that it seems crazy that he would do the bidding of what could be a murderer in order to keep his reputation intact. But I also know that’s what he did.”

“Who was he having an affair with?” asked Kelly.

Southern shook her head. “No, I’m not going to tell you. It has nothing to do with the murders.”

“You don’t know that,” said Kelly.

But Southern shook her head.

Decker took all this in and said, “Did he mention anything, even in passing, that might shed some light on who was making him do this?”

“I’ve been wracking my brain trying to think of just that,” she said. “And I can’t come up with anything.”

She sank back against the pillow and closed her eyes.

Jamison and Decker dropped Kelly off at the police station and drove back to their hotel.

Along the way Jamison said, “We’ve got three people dead, two murdered and one suicide, including the coroner who did the post on the other two and screwed them both up because he was possibly being blackmailed for sexual indiscretions. And the guy who found the first body is missing and presumed dead. What a mess.”

“And an old man in a nursing home who knows a lot but won’t tell us anything,” added Decker, gazing moodily out the window.

“I agree that Cramer came here possibly because of what Brad Daniels told her. But if he won’t reveal to us what he might have told her, what do we do? We can’t waterboard the guy.”

“We can threaten him with obstruction and put him in prison,” pointed out Decker.

“A ninety-something-year-old war veteran in a nursing home? Really? Do you see the FBI or a court doing that?”

The phone that Robie had left him started to vibrate.

He pulled it out of his pocket and hit the green button. “Yeah? Robie?”

Robie said, “Be at this address in a half hour.” He gave the destination and clicked off.

Decker looked at Jamison, who said, “What?”

“Change of plan.”

He punched the address into his phone, and they set off.

It was fifteen miles outside of town at what looked to be an abandoned apartment building.

“I guess this was a casualty of the last bust,” said Jamison as she pulled their SUV to a stop in front of the structure and they climbed out. “So where’s this Robie guy?”

Robie stepped out from the shadows of the front entrance and called out softly to them. “Follow me.”

He led them down a covered walkway that led to the rear of the building.

He opened a door there and motioned them inside.

As she passed him Jamison said, “Nice to meet you, Robie.”

He simply nodded.

Inside, Robie closed and locked the door and led them past an empty, stained pool and down an interior corridor, illuminating the way with a small tac light. He opened another interior door and motioned them in.