James Patterson - Truth or Die

“Sort of hard not to notice,” I said.

“You can blame my aunt Eleanor.” He rested both palms on his knees and explained. “My parents, both professors, weren’t terribly religious, but they thought it was important for me at a young age to experience church. So my aunt Eleanor was enlisted one Sunday to bring me to a service. I was five and doing complex algebra, but I also still believed in Santa Claus and the tooth fairy. So the minister is giving this sermon about temptation and sin and he’s all fired up, and I’m sitting there in the pew listening and hanging on his every word. And that’s when he quotes an old proverb, only I don’t know it’s a proverb; I take it literally. Idle hands are the devil’s workshop. ”

“You’re kidding me.”

“Nope. That’s how it started,” he said. “Problem is, I haven’t been able to stop ever since.” He laughed. “You know, I’ve never told anyone that before.”

“Trust me,” I said. “You’ve got far bigger secrets these days.”

As if on cue, a black Jaguar XK Coupe pulled into the short driveway at the base of Wittmer’s town house. It had to be him. The wait was over.

Quickly, Owen and I stepped out of our slightly less expensive Corolla and approached him as he was getting his mail. By the time he looked up and saw us, we were practically in his face. No exaggeration, he must have jumped back at least three feet. We’d scared the shit out of him. Good.

Next up, with any luck, was getting the truth out of him.

“Dr. Wittmer?” I asked.

He was still catching his breath. Who the hell wants to know? said his look. But no normal person outside the Bronx actually says that in real life, and Douglas Wittmer appeared as normal as they come. With his glasses and neatly trimmed dark hair that was gray around the temples, he was a doctor who looked like the stock photo of a doctor.

“Yes, that’s me,” he said finally.

I introduced myself and was about to introduce Owen when I saw Wittmer’s eyes beat me to it with a squint of recognition. His jaw then literally dropped.

“Jesus... you’re the kid, aren’t you?” he asked.

“Alive and in the flesh,” said Owen. “Of course, you probably thought I’d be dead by now.”

Wittmer nodded almost sheepishly.

“Rest assured, it hasn’t been for lack of trying.” Owen turned to me and my beat-up face, the bruises just beginning to settle into a nice shade of eggplant. “And that’s to put it mildly.”

“Wait, what’s going on?” I asked. “How does he know who you are?”

To say the kid was quick on the uptake didn’t do him justice. “Because he’s been shown a picture of me,” said Owen. “And if I were ever to pay him a visit, he was supposed to let them know.”

“I wouldn’t, though,” said Wittmer. “I mean, I won’t.”

“Of course you won’t,” said Owen facetiously. “What possible motivation could you have?”

Now I was all caught up. If these weren’t their exact words, they had to be damn close. Help us find the kid before he brings us all down, Dr. Wittmer... including you.

“I don’t care that I’m in the recordings,” said Wittmer. “It was a mistake, and I can live with the consequences.”

“Actually, I don’t care that you’re in the recordings, either,” said Owen. “All I care about is who put you there. That’s what we need to know.”

Wittmer’s eyes shifted between Owen and me for a few moments, the latest issue of Car and Driver and the rest of his mail pressed hard against his chest.

It was one thing for him not to rat us out. It was another for him to rat out whomever he was working for. There would need to be a reason. A damn good one.

Wittmer looked up at the sky. We all did. The sun was beginning to set behind a mass of charcoal-colored clouds that seemed to have arrived out of nowhere. Much like Owen and me.

“I think we should go inside,” said the doctor. “It looks like rain.”

It was a home for a guy who basically wasn’t home all that much. That, or he just didn’t care.

Not to say it was messy. Rather, it was sparse. In the few rooms we walked past before settling in the kitchen, the furnishings consisted of the bare minimum, or in the case of the empty dining room, even less.

I wasn’t much for metaphors, but Claire always was. For her, this would’ve been a lay-up. Dr. Douglas Wittmer clearly had money, but to see where he lived— how he lived — was to see a man defined by what he didn’t have. There were things missing in his life.

“You want coffee?” he asked, pointing to the Keurig machine on the counter near the stove.

Owen and I both declined. We were anxious enough as it was.

The three of us headed over to a small cherrywood table in the corner underneath a small clock, the kind you’d more likely see hanging in an office or waiting room. After we all sat down, Wittmer immediately stood up to remove his blue blazer, hanging it on the back of his chair. He wasn’t stalling, but he wasn’t exactly rushing, either.

Finally, after sitting down again, he took a deep breath and began.

“I was targeted,” he said, his tone straight as a ruler. To his credit, there wasn’t a hint of his trying to make an excuse for himself. He was stating the facts, or really just one fact. “They knew my wife was on Flight Ninety-Three.”

Owen and I both dropped our heads a bit. It spoke volumes about the events of 9/11 that a particular flight number could be so ingrained in the collective memory of a nation.

“I’m sorry,” said Owen.

“Yes,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

“The thing is,” Wittmer continued, “grief and anger can help you rationalize almost any behavior in the name of revenge. I know that’s what he was banking on with me.”

It was so clear what we were witnessing. This was a man who needed to explain himself. Bare his soul a little, if not a lot. I was sure that Owen, even at his relatively young age, was thinking the same thing.

Perhaps it was that same youth, though, that had Owen wishing the doctor would explain things just a tad bit faster. Fittingly, the only sound in the kitchen other than us was the measured tick... tick... tick of the wall clock above us.

“He?” Owen asked impatiently. In other words, Please, for the love of Pete, start naming names ...

“I don’t know if he’s the only ringmaster, but it’s certainly his circus,” said Wittmer. He drew another deep breath. “Frank Karcher is the one who first approached me.”

I didn’t recognize the name, nor, apparently, was I supposed to, given the way Wittmer was looking directly at Owen. And given the way Owen was nodding back at him, I guess it made sense. “The kid” absolutely recognized the name.

“Frank Karcher is the National Clandestine Service chief of the CIA,” said Owen, turning to me. “Basically, we’re talking the kind of guy who likes to kick puppies.”

“So human torture wasn’t much of a leap,” I said.

It was a quip, completely off the cuff. Still, the second the words left my mouth, I regretted them. I didn’t know Karcher, but I did know that Wittmer was sitting right in front of me. He was also on the recordings. At best, the doctor was an accomplice. At worst? That was between him and his God.

And that was the point. Owen and I were there in his kitchen to get information, not to pass judgment on him. And I just had. A bit unfairly, no less. I wasn’t the one who’d lost his wife on 9/11.

“I apologize,” I said to Wittmer. “I didn’t mean to—”

“That’s all right,” he said. He drew another deep breath. “At the beginning, I knew exactly what I was doing and why. Those recordings you have? As bad as they may look to a whole lot of people, there are just as many people these days — the Machiavellians in our so-called war on terror — who would believe the end justifies the means.”