Noemie Williams was fighting, though. Her house had a fresh coat of white paint and what looked like a new porch, complete with a rocking horse painted red, black, and green. She had asked Wells to come at 10 p.m., saying she needed to put her sons to bed. He gave her a little extra time, knocked on her door at 10:15. She slid the dead bolt back immediately, and he realized too late that when Williams said ten, she meant ten.
The door pulled just an inch, a soft creak, chain still on the hook. Wells flipped open his wallet, showed her his identification.
“May I?” she said. Wells handed it through the crack in the door. She glanced at it, handed it back, opened up. She was tall and light-skinned, cornrows tight across her skull. She wore cropped black pants and a black T-shirt with “Forever New Orleans” stenciled in gold on the chest. The lines on her forehead said she was at least forty, though she had the legs of a woman a decade younger.
“Sorry I’m late.”
“Sit.” She nodded to the living-room couch, protected by a plastic cover. In the reports of their interviews with her, the FBI agents wrote that Noemie Williams had been “calm and composed.” Wells agreed already.
“Get you anything?” Noemie said. She had the marbles-in-mouth south Louisiana accent: half Birmingham, one-third Boston, one-sixth Bugs Bunny.
“I’m fine.”
“Chicory coffee? Local specialty. Along with po’boys and heart attacks. Got a pot brewing.” Indeed, the sweet smell of chicory filled the house.
“If you’re having some, sure.”
Noemie disappeared, leaving Wells to examine the room, which was decorated—to a fault—in the motif of proud African American. On one wall, posters of Martin Luther King Jr. and Muhammad Ali shared space with family pictures. Another wall was given over to a framed poster of Barack Obama standing in front of the White House.
Noemie carried in a tray, two steaming mugs of coffee and a jug of milk, along with a plateful of cookies. “Come to Louisiana, you will get fed,” she said. The cookies were lemon and sugar and cinnamon, and fell into buttery pieces in Wells’s mouth. He had to make a conscious effort to stop after three of them. The coffee had a bite that pulled Wells back to Pakistan, tiny cups of sweet, strong coffee brewed in battered metal pots, half sugar and half crunchy grounds, the only antidote to the chill of winter in the North-West Frontier.
“So, you knew my husband.”
The past tense jumped at Wells. Jerry Williams was missing, not dead. Officially, anyway.
“We were friends. Trained as Rangers together.”
“That was a long time back. Before he met me.”
The windows were open, and a light breeze stirred the humid air through the curtains. But the city around them was anything but romantic. Police sirens screamed down Elysian Fields Avenue, four blocks away. Somewhere overhead, a helicopter buzzed.
“Lot of action,” Wells said.
“Bangers banging. This neighborhood’s not too bad, but the city’s so small you can’t get away from it. Unless you live in one of those mansions in the Garden District. Doesn’t matter, anyway. Soon enough, another ’cane will make our acquaintance and even us Louisiana lifers will have to admit this place isn’t meant to be. And that will be a shame.” She closed the window and pulled the chain on the ceiling fan.
“You and Jerry have three boys.”
“Asleep. Or pretending to be. Maybe reading comic books under the covers. Long as they’re reading.”
“What are their names?”
“Unfortunately, Jerry was a member of the George Foreman school of naming. The boys are named Jerry Jr., Johnny, and Jeffrey.”
Wells couldn’t think of any way to spin that.
“Every so often he’d have an S-A-N moment, and that was one.”
“S-A-N?”
“S for stupid, A for ass, and N for a word I don’t use around white people, no matter how well I know them. And I don’t know you too well.”
“You seem pretty calm about what’s happened.”
“The boys are used to Jerry being gone. He shows up tomorrow, they’ll think this was just another mission. No need to upset them just yet. Though we’re two months on. They’re wondering.”
“You don’t think he’s coming back.”
“You don’t shine it up before you spit it out, do you? No. I do not. Let me tell you why. We were having some troubles, no two ways about it. But Jerry Williams, Major Jeremiah Williams, he was very conscious that he was a man with three sons. A black man with three black sons. And everything that entails. Very conscious of all those boys whose daddies never even see them enter this world. You see those posters.” She nodded around the room. “My husband insisted on them. He would not have walked out on his boys. Whatever happened to him, he’s not with us anymore.”
Her voice had stayed even through this explanation. Now tears sprung from her eyes, slid down her cheeks. Wells put his hand on her shoulder.
“Mrs. Williams—”
But she shook him off and walked out of the room.
Wells shifted on the couch, listening to the fan rustling overhead, and tried to figure what he’d done. Someone else—Exley, say—could have asked the same questions without inciting such a ferocious response. But Wells seemed to have lost his sense for the give-and-take of human interaction.
Noemie stepped back in.
“I’m sorry,” Wells said. “I can come back.”
“Just ask your questions, Mr. Wells.”
“Let me start again, then. You were married in, what, ’99?”
“Correct. You knew Jerry before that?”
“In Ranger training. You know, I was gone awhile.”
“I know who you are.”
“But before I went to Afghanistan, I remember him saying he was getting married, his wife was ten times as beautiful as he deserved.”
Noemie gave him the tiniest of smiles.
“You’re from New Orleans?”
“No. Came here for college, got my degree in social work from Tulane. After I met Jerry, we jumped around base to base. But I always wanted to come back. Last year, when Jerry retired, I told him after all that time in North Carolina and Texas and what all, he owed me. He didn’t want to, but eventually he agreed.”
“But you are from Louisiana.”
“Grew up in Lafayette. Couple hours west of here on the Ten. Mom was black and dad was white, which accounts for this cracker accent. They were both from this swamp town, Morgan City, deep in the bayou. Back when they met, it wasn’t so safe for a white boy and a black girl to be in love down there. Though better that than the other way around. So, they moved to Lafayette. The metropolis. You know how to tell the size of a town in Louisiana?”
Wells shook his head.
“Count the McDonald’s. Morgan City only has but one McDonald’s. Lafayette has a whole bunch of ’em. Are you married, Mr. Wells?”
“I was.” Wells felt the need to say something more. “The job sort of took over.”
“Uh-huh.”
There was a whole speech in those two syllables, Wells thought. “Tell me about Jerry’s last tour, in Poland.”
“A few months before, he’d gotten back from a deployment in Afghanistan. I was worried they were going to send him there again. He wouldn’t have argued. He wasn’t the type to say no. Then he got this call, a special assignment in Poland, working with detainees.”
“You know why they chose him?”
“In Afghanistan, he’d done some interrogations.”
“How did you know?”
“I was, I am, his wife. He told me enough; I got the picture. They were trying to put a new unit together, one that wouldn’t have any connection to the old squads. Or Guantánamo. One that could run more or less on its own.”
“That’s about right.”
“I know that’s right, Mr. Wells. I wasn’t asking.”
“Did you mind having him over there?”
“Matter of fact, I didn’t. Figured he was
safer in Poland than anywhere else.”
“But did you have a problem with what he was doing, the interrogations?”
“These men who want to blow us up? Kill my husband? And then they cry for lawyers soon as we catch them? Start talking about their rights? You are not seriously asking me that.”
“Jerry felt the same.”
“Of course.”
“But not everyone on the squad agreed. Somebody thought they were going too far.” Wells was guessing, chasing the defensiveness in her voice.
“That what somebody told you?”
“Yes,” Wells lied.
“I don’t know all that much about it. But I do know there were arguments. And they got worse as the tour went on. My husband, he went over there with the attitude that they didn’t have to give these guys feather pillows. I don’t got to tell you, Mr. Wells. If there’s one person who knows, it’s you. But it’s strange, ’cause he came back with a different attitude.”
“Like how?”
“It’s hard to explain.” She edged away from Wells on the couch, turned to look at him full-on. “Mr. Wells. Do you think my husband did something wrong? If you do, tell me now.”
“Look. Somebody’s killing the squad. We don’t know why. The logical assumption is that it’s because of something that happened over there. So, we need to know what that was. And there’s only three guys left from the squad, not counting Jerry, and they aren’t talking much—”
“Why—”
“Maybe they’re worried they’re gonna get prosecuted for torture. And the records of what they did, they’re buried deep. So, the best bet is talking to you and the other families. You have my word, whatever Jerry did, I’m not after him. I’m not a cop or FBI. I’m working for the agency, and only the agency, to figure this out. And I’m a friend of your husband’s. I know it may not seem that way, since we’ve never met before, but believe me, Ranger training, the guys in your unit, by the end you either can’t stand the sight of them or they’re friends for life. And Jerry was a friend. If he’d called me two months ago, said, ‘I’m in trouble,’ I would have been on the next plane down, no questions asked. That’s just how it is.”
Not a bad speech, Wells thought. Even if the reality was more complicated. After fifteen years, he probably would have asked at least a couple questions before buying his ticket. But Noemie seemed to like it. She patted his arm, leaned in.
“I’m telling you, I don’t know much.”
“Anything.”
“They were rough. And I think near the end, something went wrong.”
The FBI interview report didn’t have anything like this from her. Wells waited. “What gave you that impression?” he said finally. “Something he said?”
“He changed. The last couple months, he didn’t want to talk. Stopped e-mailing. He was hiding something, like he was having an affair. But Jerry would never have done that. Anyway, it was Poland.”
“He never said anything about what had actually happened?”
“No.”
“What about the information the squad developed? Did he ever talk about that? ”
“No.”
“Mom-mom!” From the second floor. A boy’s voice.
“Jeffrey,” she said. “He has nightmares. Since Jerry’s gone. He knows what’s up. The others don’t, but he does.”
She hurried upstairs.
I don’t got to tell you, Mr. Wells, she’d said. If there’s one person who knows, it’s you. Was he a torturer? A killer, yes. But never a torturer. Though he’d come close, that night in the Hamptons with Pierre Kowalski, the arms dealer. Another bit of unfinished business. Close to a year before, Wells had found himself outside Kowalski’s mansion in Zurich, pacing, hand on the Makarov tucked into his pants. Then he’d walked away. He’d made a deal with Kowalski, and he’d keep his word. For now.
NOEMIE RETURNED, trailed by a small boy, a miniature Malcolm Gladwell, a shock of curly hair springing from his head. His T-shirt, printed with a caped Will Smith from the movie Hancock, reached to his knees.
“This is Jeffrey,” she said.
“Hi, Jeffrey. Did you like Hancock? ”
“Mommy wouldn’t let me see it! ”
“Touchy subject,” Noemie said.
Jeffrey tugged on his mother’s pants. “I’m sleepy, Mommy.”
“If you’re sleepy, why weren’t you sleeping?”
“Want to sleep in your bed.”
“You know that’s not allowed.” She put him on the couch, settled beside him. He curled into her lap, his face just visible.
“Please.”
“Go to sleep here, and when you wake up, it’ll be morning. Deal?”
Jeffrey nodded happily.
“We’re going to go from twenty to zero. Promise to be asleep by zero.”
“Promise.”
“Close your eyes. Twenty, nineteen . . .” She rubbed his forehead as she counted, and by the time she was done, the boy’s mouth had dropped open and his breathing was as steady as the fan overhead.
“You’re a magician,” Wells said.
She glanced at her watch. “Anything else you need to know, Mr. Wells? I should get him to bed.”
“Tell me about what Jerry was like when he got back.”
“He was quiet, not talking much.”
“And you read into that what?”
“I told you. That something happened he didn’t want to talk about.” She leaned back against the couch. The boy in her lap stirred, and she ran a finger down his arm to calm him. “One time.” She broke off, and Wells waited. “One time, I got home early from work, and he was reading a book about the Nazis. When I saw him with it, it was like I’d caught him looking at I don’t know what. He tried to hide it from me double-quick. I asked him about it, and he told me to mind my business. Which was not usual for him, even at that time. But I let it go. And I never saw the book again.”
“The Nazis. Do you remember the name of the book?”
“I do not.”
Again the boy stirred in her lap, and again she soothed him. “All right, Mr. Wells. I think it’s time for this one to go to bed. Me, too.”
“Just a couple more questions.”
“A couple.”
“You said a while back, you two were having problems before he disappeared. What was that about?”
“I loved Jerry, and I know he loved me. But like I said, he was different when he came back. And after we moved here, he had a tough time finding work. I guess I figured, a major in the Special Forces, a man like that could always find a job, even in New Orleans. But the corporate stuff—there’s not a lot of companies down here for that work. He did some bodyguard work, but he wanted to be a director of security somewhere. Thought he’d earned that. He told me we should move. I wanted him to give it time. It’d hardly been six months. New Orleans can grow on you.”
“But you’re sure he wouldn’t have walked out.”
“I’m sure.”
“The night he disappeared?”
“He told me he was going down to the market, pick up a six-pack. He’d been drinking more, too, since he got back. That was around seven p.m. Ten or so, I tried to call him and he didn’t answer.”
“Were you worried? ”
“It’d happened a couple of times recently. So, no. I wasn’t happy, but I wasn’t worried. Figured he was on the corner, hanging out. Watching dice get rolled. When midnight came and he didn’t come home, I decided to see for myself. So, I put my shoes on and I slipped my little .22 in my purse—”
“You have a gun—”
“Mr. Wells, you think those bangers out there care about Mace?” She laughed, her voice losing an octave and filling the room. “Mace? This is New Orleans. Mace? Anyway, I went out there, and Harvey, who runs the market, he said he hadn’t seen Jerry in a few hours, said he had himself a quart of Budweiser and went off to the Pearl, a few blocks away.”
“The Pearl?”
“The real name is, I
believe, Minnie’s Black Pearl. But everyone just calls it the Pearl. A high-class establishment. Get shot in there for wearing the wrong hat. I was in no mood to visit the Pearl, so I went home. I figured Jerry would get home eventually and we would have it out, say some things that needed saying. Like my daddy said, sometimes a big storm clears the air. Though my daddy was full of it.”
“But Jerry never came home.”
“He did not. And the next morning, soon as the Pearl opened at eleven, I went over there, showed them the picture, asked if they knew him, and that S-A-N bartender, he started in with, ‘We don’t snitch around here.’ I said, ‘I’m not the cops, I’m the man’s wife,’ and you know what he said. He said, ‘That might be worse.’ So I said, ‘Look, my husband didn’t get home last night, and if you don’t tell me what you know, I will stand outside your bar tonight shouting about Jesus and sinners until you’re the one calling the cops to get rid of me.’ And so I found out what they knew, which was hardly worth the trouble. Jerry drank until eleven, by himself. And then he left. Said he was going home. And that was it. He left the Pearl and turned to smoke.”
“So, you called the cops?”
“They said Jerry was a grown man and that if he didn’t turn up in a couple of days I could file a missing-persons report. Which I did, soon as I was allowed. The detectives talked to the bartender down there for about five minutes and then forgot it. I begged The Times-Picayune to write something, and after a month they finally did, some little thing that didn’t even have his picture.”
“Too bad he wasn’t an eighteen-year-old girl.”
“You mean a white girl. With blond hair and a big smile. CNN would have been all over it then. But I don’t think it matters, Mr. Wells. I think he died that night.”
“Why?”
“My husband, you know how big he was. I don’t think anybody would take a chance keeping him alive. Too easy for him to mess you up.”
Wells couldn’t disagree.
“Something else, too,” she said. “I think he knew whoever did this. I don’t think it was Al Qaeda or any of them rats.”
“Why?”
“Nobody would go at him straight up, see? Look at the man. And Jerry wouldn’t just be getting in a car. Come on, even little kids know better. So, no, it had to be somebody he knew, make him drop his guard.”
The Midnight House Page 17
