The prodigal spy

He glanced up, annoyed. “We’re an investigative agency. That means sensitive material. Sources, for instance. It’s more prudent not to keep everything in one place.”

“Where somebody might see it.”

“ We don’t own the files. A request comes down from the AG’s office-” He shifted, careful again. “It’s not always appropriate. You don’t want the files used for, say, political reasons.”

“No, of course not.” Almost a laugh.

Lapierre hesitated. “You say he’s dead?”

Nick nodded.

“All right, you ask, I’ll tell you. The official file wasn’t the same as the internal one. Couldn’t be. We were investigating Communists, not murder. There are some who would have preferred that, you know, for political reasons. To take people’s minds off the real issue. But we didn’t want it to be a murder case.”

“Then it might have been sent back to the police. Right out of your hands.”

Lapierre looked at him sharply, then nodded. “With predictable results. You keep forgetting, he wasn’t there. There would have been no case. They’d be spinning wheels.” He paused. “Besides, we didn’t want to get him that way. Not for murder.”

“Welles would lose his Red.”

“You don’t think much of the Bureau, do you? Think we’re just like the feet. Fact is, I didn’t run it as a murder case because I never thought it was. I always thought she killed herself.” He looked up. “While he was playing Scrabble.”

“Then how did the lighter get there?”

Lapierre looked at him with mild scorn, as if he had missed the obvious. “She put it there. There weren’t any prints, you know,” he said, watching Nick. “A little clumsy anyway, don’t you think? Leaving it like that. It was her. She wiped it on her skirt, or something-and out. She was going to take him with her one way or the other. What you said before, about going after her? It was always my understanding that she went to Welles. Her idea. Of course, I don’t know where your information comes from.” Lapierre’s eyebrows went up.

“Welles got everything from the Bureau.”

“Well, maybe you know that. I don’t.”

Nick stood for a minute looking at the ground, thinking. “But you kept it. Even though-”

“You can’t destroy evidence. That’s illegal.”

“So is hiding it.”

“It’s not hidden,” Lapierre said blandly. “I don’t know where you get this idea. To my knowledge, no one’s ever asked for it.”

“You kept it just in case you needed it,” Nick said to himself. “A little insurance.”

“Insurance?”

“If the statute of limitations ran out.”

“Don’t let your imagination run away with you. We didn’t expect it to run out. We expected to catch him.”

Nick looked up. “And tell him you had it, in case he wasn’t feeling cooperative with the committee. Loosen his tongue.”

“I don’t know about that. I was just supposed to catch him. But I didn’t.” He shrugged. “So the statute did run out.”

“But there’s no statute on murder.”

Lapierre looked at him, eyes cold again. “That’s right. Not on murder.”

“You would have hanged him with it.”

“That would have been up to the jury.”

“With your help.”

“I would not have withheld evidence, no, if that’s what you mean. The Bureau would never allow that.”

Nick felt a band of heavy air tightening around his chest, a land of noose.

“What the jury made of it-” Lapierre wiped his hands again, free of dirt.

“One way or the other,” Nick said, again to himself. “He could never come back.” Silver’s insurance.

“Come back? Why the hell would he come back? He got away with it.”

The woman came to the back door again. “Dad.” Insistent this time.

“All right,” he said, turning back to Nick. “I don’t know what you’re trying to prove. Everybody wants to get something on the Bureau these days. The Bureau didn’t do anything to your father. We never got the chance. We were the ones looking like jerks, not him. He got away with it.”

“Yes. He got away with it,” Nick said, seeing his father’s thin white legs as he put him to bed.

Lapierre began walking away.

“Tell me one more thing,” Nick said, stopping him. “You must have seen the Cochrane file.” A beat. “The internal one.”

Lapierre waited, interested.

“Was there a description of it, how she approached Welles?”

Lapierre thought for a moment. “No,” he said, “just the first interview.”

“Then how do you know she did?”

Lapierre began backing away. “Well, I guess I don’t know that either.” He gave Nick a thin smile. “Maybe you should ask Welles. He was there, not me.”

Molly, who’d been silent during the meeting, opened up in the car. “That was a mistake,” she said. “He’s going to report it. He thinks he’s still working for them. Did you see his eyes? Just like Jeff. I know something you don’t know. Even when they don’t. I’ll bet they’re all like that-they don’t know how to stop.”

“Well, so what? What if he does?”

“They’ll start watching again. How are we going to watch our friends if somebody’s watching us? God, it’s getting like Prague. Everybody watching everybody.”

“Maybe they’ll do the Navy guy for us,” Nick said lightly. “You don’t like the neighborhood anyway.”